Circumsised Sentiment
“The famous love story of King Dushyanta and Shakuntala in the Mahabharata…became the theme of Kalidasa’s (c. fourth-fifth centuries CE) play Abhijanashakuntala, which brings love to life in the way that the best drama does. Unluckily, this variety of interest cannot be discerned in the Buddhist literary sources. Their purposes being religious rather than literary, description of the dynamics of a future Buddhist king’s romantic relationship is fairly peripheral to the templates of their narratives. Ashoka’s whirlwind courtship of Devi are fleeting and passionless despite, it seems, this relationship being life-changing.”
…..~ Nayanjot Lahiri, Ashoka in Ancient India, 87
That’s what religion does. At least that’s what
Religionists will do at every turn
If we’re not wary. They won’t leave uncut
The hormone’s truth about how humans burn.
Excise the truth. That’s what such zealots want.
And that is not enough. They have to tell
Plain lies: that Holy God will come to haunt
A virgin womb, for instance, make it swell
With fairytale-like koan, or set fire
To some poor desert bush but keep it whole.
A conflagration, if it’s not desire
For sexy love, is fine inside a scroll.
..Erase the truth at every turn about
….True human lust…or go into a pout.