Shri Harigya

A man should woo and marry
a recommended virgin who is
four to eight years younger,
or else she is too old.

"That is awfully specific and awfully generalized at the same time...no? What if the girl is ten years younger and also happens to be a virgin? What if I want to woo a young girl as an old man, because there won't be any virgin old women left. What if, what if --"

"Okay okay, I understood your point, what change do you want me to make?"

"A virgin seven years younger is the perfect...something... Also, remove the virgin there, what if I want to marry a courtesan?"

"...you realize you don't have to follow these rules right? These are all words, to go out to the Princes, not rules of the religion we must live by," he said

"Still, what if the goddamn Princes get too carried away and start enforcing those rules on us, it's going to be bad for me. I might want to marry the courtesans, I don't see why not?"

"Fine, fine, fine, I'll remove the virgin part too. I'm telling you, this is not going to make for a very good book. What will the princes read if we set no rules and just tell them to keep doing what they are doing anyway."

"Perhaps we should had more points on spycraft. Arthashastra have added several chapters on spycraft and sex -- they even lifted the pages off of us. We can take a revenge by adding details about spycraft..."

"You know anything about spycraft?"

"I doubt if the Arthashastris did,"

"What do I write then?"

"Write... A good spy is a courtesan... Or a beggar. Or a monk woman who has converted to Buddhism and taken a vow for celibacy, for no one will suspect them for harboring deep secrets underneath."

"No one trusts the followers of the Buddha though..."

"No one trusts beggars either, but here we are. We haven't done any spycraft, or much of the several deep topics we have written about. Why stop at this point. If we do, we just come off as a bunch of cowardly liars..."

"...and instead we should be confident liars...is...that what you---"

"Exactly! Be more confident. We need to communicate what we're saying is the truth, and the absolute truth! Do you not read the purans my friend!"

"The purans are a historical evidence of a a long time ago in a place many thousands of years walk away..."

"--whereas they are exactly what people like us wrote and disseminated amongst their acquaintances and got picked up by powerful princes. I know four different people who are helping modify and create puranas, I can put you in touch if you want to contribte."

"What is truth if the the word of vedas and the puranas then?"

This! He patted on the back heavily.

"I see."

"Lets look at the next stanza"

A man should engage in group games such as
completing verses and in marriages and alliances,
only with his equals,
not with people above or below him.When the man marries a girl
and lives with her like a servant,
they call this an 'upward alliance'
and wise men avoid it.

"So I cannot marry a princess?"

"So it would seem, yes."

"Lets chance it to say, and lives with him like a hmm, not a servant, but something who helps around. A...helper. and lives with her like a helper, and the part about wise men avoiding it, lets change it to them... dance around it. You know, considering doing, but never really doing."

"Dance?" he rolled his eyes.

"Play around it..." he began, "that sounds right. So our benefactors think it's like a game of big hunt."

"Okay done, what's next?"

 "Hmm let me see..."

The man should not mount any woman,
if she is very ready to be taken,
in a place where the husband
has been seen to stray toward another woman

"Is everything well with this?"

"Heh heh heh, you are a wise, wise man my friend. Husbands are as wives are, and their mistresses are as you are. Which is why the safest place is to be in your own home grounds, or so say the books."

"Which ones?"

Skanda Purana.

"Ahh. I haven't gone into great depth, that one"

"You will find, when you do, my friend, when you do!"