Page:The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana.djvu/192

156 Thus end the remarks on gains and losses, and attendant gains and losses.

In the next place we come to doubts, which are again of three kinds, viz.: doubts about wealth, doubts about religious merit, and doubts about pleasures.

The following are examples.

(a) When a courtezan is not certain how much a man may give her, or spend upon her, this is called a doubt about wealth.

(b) When a courtezan feels doubtful whether she is right in entirely abandoning a lover from whom she is unable to get money, she having taken all his wealth from him in the first instance, this doubt is called a doubt about religious merit.

(c) When a courtezan is unable to get hold of a lover to her liking, and is uncertain whether she will derive any pleasure from a person surrounded by his family, or from a low person, this is called a doubt about pleasure.

(d) When a courtezan is uncertain whether some powerful but low principled fellow would cause loss to her on account of her not being civil to him, this is called a doubt about the loss of wealth.

(e) When a courtezan feels doubtful whether she would lose religious merit by abandoning a man who is attached to her without giving him the slightest favor, and thereby causing him unhappiness in this world and the next, this doubt is called a doubt about the loss of religious merit.

(f) When a courtezan is uncertain as to whether she might create disaffection by speaking out, and revealing her love, and thus not get her desire satisfied, this is called a doubt about the loss of pleasure.

Thus end the remarks on doubts.

Mixed Doubts

(a) The intercourse or connection with a stranger, whose disposition is unknown, and who may have been introduced by a lover, or by one who possessed authority, may be productive either of gain or loss, and therefore this is called a mixed doubt about the gain and loss of wealth.

(b) When a courtezan is requested by a friend, or is impelled by pity to have intercourse with a learned