ically
pleasant to each other."

There is a reference to this work in Burton's Vikram and the Vampire,
where we read: [405] "As regards the neutral state, that poet was not
happy in his ideas who sang,

'Whene'er indifference appears, or scorn,
Then, man, despair! then, hapless lover, mourn!'

for a man versed in the Lila Shastra can soon turn a woman's
indifference into hate, which I have shown is as easily permuted to
love."

This curious book concludes: "May this treatise, Ananga Ranga, be
beloved of man and woman, as long as the Holy River Ganges, springeth
from Shiva with his wife Gauri on his left side; as long as Lakshmi
loveth Vishnu; as long as Brahma is engaged in the study of the Vedas,
and as long as the earth, the moon and the sun endure."

The Kama Shastra Society also issued a translation of the first twenty
chapters of The Scented Garden. [406] In reality it was a translation
of the French version of Liseux, but it was imperfect and had only a few
notes. It has been repeatedly denied that Burton had anything to do with
it. All we can say is that in a letter to Mr. A. G. Ellis of 8th May
1887, he distinctly calls it "my old version," [407] and he must mean
that well-known edition of 1886, because all the other impressions are
like it, except in respect to the title page.

117. The Beharistan, 1887.

The Society now determined to issue unexpurgated editions of the three
following great Persian classics:

The Gulistan or Rose Garden, by Sadi (A.D. 1258). The Nigaristan or
Picture Gallery, by Jawini (A.D. 1334). The Beharistan or Abode of
Spring, by Jami (A.D. 1487).

The first to appear was The Beharistan in 1887. Jami, the author, is
best known in England on account of his melodious poems Salaman and
Absal, so exquisitely rendered by Edward FitzGerald, and Ysuf and
Zuleika (Joseph and Potiphar's Wife), familiar to Englishmen mainly
through Miss Costello's fragrant adaptation. [408] To quote from the
Introduction of the translation of The Beharistan, which is written
in Arbuthnot's bald and hesitating style, "there is in this work very
little indeed to be objected to. A few remarks or stories scattered here
and there would have to be omitted in an edition printed for public use
or for public sale. But on the whole the author breathes the noblest and
purest sentiments, and illustrates his meanings by the most pleasing,
respectable, and apposite tales, along with numerous extracts