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PICHAR MALA.
Like snake poison affecting by contact, The poison of woman affects by thinking of her, And destroys knowledge, meditation, life With their root,-all disappear.
Spake poison can only kill a person when coming in contact with the body through affecting the blood; thinking of women inflames lascivious desires, which end in gratification ; their very contact is injurious, because they destroy knowledge of the sacred scriptures; “When a learned man is entranced headlong in the love of woman he forgets the sacred writings, their utterances and reasonings," or it removes that concentration of mind which was modified into, or had assumed the shape of the object of meditation, together with the discrimination which had brought it forth. Sexual intercourse tells against vitality, bence women are said to be injurious or detrimental to health and life.
To think of a woman is another form of sexual intercourse etc. But it may be asked, where is the proof of such an assertion? Therefore it is said,
There are eight varieties of intercourse Said in Sruti, from that I say, And what is opposed to them, Call it to be continence.
Taking Sruti for my authority I have mentioned eight varieties of sexual intercourse, and what is opposed to them viz :-abandoning the thought and recollection etc., of women, is called chastity or continence-the usual profession of a professor of Brahmaic knowledge.
They are :
To hear her speak, To hear the beauty of women talked about,
