vidyAkara [Vidyākara]; Daniel Henry Holmes Ingalls (tr.);
An anthology of Sanskrit Court poetry Vidyakara's "Subhasitaratnakosa"
Harvard University Press (Harvard Oriental Series 44), 1965, 621 pages
ISBN 0674039505
topics: | poetry | india | ancient | sanskrit | anthology
General Introduction 1 The Anthology 1. The Buddha 57 2. The Bodhisattva Lokeshvara 62 3. The Bodhisattva ManjughoSha 66 4. Siva 68 5. Siva's Household 84 6. ViShnu 98 7. The Sun 108 8. Spring 110 9. Summer 120 10. The Rains 126 11. Autumn 136 12. Early Winter 142 13. Late Winter 145 14. Kama 149 15. Adolescence 153 16. Young Women 164 17. The Blossoming of Love 178 18. Words of the Female Messenger 192 19. Love in Enjoyment 198 20. The Evidence of Consummation 211 21. The Woman Offended 216 22. The Lady Parted from her Lover 230 23. The Lover Separated from his Mistress 242 24. The Wanton 252 25. The Lady's Expression of Anger at her Messenger 259 26. The Lamp 262 27. Sunset 263 28. Darkness 269 29. The Moon 272 30. Dawn 283 31. Midday 288 32. Fame 291 33. Allegorical Epigrams 297 34. Breezes 320 35. Characterizations 326 36. Greatness 337 37. Good Men 342 38. Villains 350 39. Poverty and Misers 358 40. Substantiations 363 41. Flattery of Kings 372 42. Discouragement 385 43. Old Age 396 44. The Cremation Ground 398 45. The Hero 402 46. Inscriptional Panegyrics 409 47. Mountains 413 48. Peace 418 49. Miscellaneous 428 50. Praise of Poets 439 Abbreviations and References 449 Corrections, Alternative Readings, and Emendations 459 Notes 466 Index of Sanskrit Meters 587 Index of Sanskrit Words 590 Index of Authors 599 Index of Names and Subjects 605
the verses mention repeatedly the cry of the cuckoo (152, 153, 156, 163, 166, 168, 170, 171, 180), said to be based, like the amorous mode of Indian music, on the fifth tone of the scale (168); the blossoming of the mango (152, 156, 158, 159, 169, 171, 175, 177, 190) with the delight that this furnishes to bees (173, 186, 187); the appearance of budding waterlilies in the tanks and ponds (152, 173, 182); the lengthening of the days at the expense of night (167, 181, 184). 5. The flame-tree (Butea frondosa; Sanskrit, kiM~shuka [palAsh]) (156, 157, 163, 165, 167, 172, 189) is perhaps the most strikingly beautiful of all Indian trees and plants. Its scarlet flowers, which sometimes appear before the leaves are fully grown, incarnadine whole hillsides so that the world for a week or two appears to be on fire (cf. 176). The ancient epic frequently uses the flame-tree in similes. Warriors with open wounds as they fall in battle are likened to flame-trees felled to earth (R. 6.45.9, 67.29, 73.56, 88.71 , 103.7). When Lanka burns, it is like a mass of flame-trees (R. 6.75.27). Classical poetry, as usual substituting love for death, likens the flowers to a lover's nailmarks left on his mistress (Kum. Sam. 3.29, Ragh. 9.31) or to burning coals, often the coals of love (163, 176, 759, Rtu. 6.19). The flower beside the green leaf is likened to the red beak of the green-winged parrot (157, Rtu,. 6.20). 6. The aSoka (Jonesia asoka, Roxb.) (165, 175, 177) is a larger tree than the flame tree. It too bears a red flower, less showy because accompanied by its leaves, but growing along the whole spray or branch so that the aSoka branch is likened to a placard inscribed with red letters (160, also cf. 186, note). The aSoka too is well known to ancient poetry where it is regularly associated with fertility and love. It was in an aSoka grove that RavaNa imprisoned fair sitA. The appearance of the aSoka flower was a signal for a festival as long ago as the time of the KAmasUtra (1.4.42). 7. There is a superstition that the aSoka tree will blossom only at the touch of a young woman's' foot. (770...) Doubtless the kick was intended originally as sympathetic magic to insure a woman's fertility. But the classical poets took up the superstition for its prettiness and added that other flowers had similar whims of pregnancy. The bakula must be sprinkled with wine from a maiden's mouth, the tilaka must be embraced and the red amaranth (kurabaka) must meet a maiden's gaze before it will bear its blossoms. 8. Usually the classical poet was content to take his images from the poets who preceded him. Only occasionally was a poet, like BhavabhUti, willing to go beyond tradition. verse 188: The author of the Dhvanyaloka gives it as an illustration of suggestive charm. Its message is as simple as the verse: that every motion of the world of nature meets an exact response in the human heart. To the average poet sentiment was more important than accurate description. ... 10. Women are moved to forgiveness in spring as automatically as the cuckoo's throat is loosened (156, 159). The sweat appears upon their full breasts as naturally and pleasingly as the scent flows from the jasmine (189). And if humans are subject to the laws of nature, at the same time nature is viewed in wholly human terms. The trees don the costumes of actresses (175). They reward the south 'wind who comes telling them of their lover's return (162). They deck themselves with flower ornaments and pollen as a coquette might deck herself 'with flowers and saffron powder (168). In this atmosphere everything is symbolic. The difficulty is not to know what represents what, but in judging just how much or how little of suggestion to read into a single verse. The traveler journeying unwillingly to foreign lands (186) and his lovelorn sweetheart left behind (152, 160, 176, 190) are the favorite subjects for revealing the mood of love mixed with the mood of pathos
155. The mango bud her lover sent
is envied by her friends,
and in her heart the doe-eyed damsel offers it to Love.
But now she cannot let it from her hand;
she strokes it, casts her eye upon it,
smells it, turns it, holds it to her cheek.
vakkuta
162. Says the south wind, " Spring is come again,
recalled from his long journey by the cuckoo's dulcet song."
Then donning bracelets of quick jingling bees,
he snatches off his present for good news:
a cloakful of laughing jasmine
from the tree nymphs of the wood.
manovinoda
169. Already the mango branch was an arrow of victory
for the bowman Love.
What need to smear its tip
with the dark poison of clustered bees?
subhanga
170. ... the spring wind, friend of Love, from mAlAbar
sends greetings
181. The days that used to lie curled up,
numbed by the penetrating frost,
bit by bit stretch out their limbs
now that winter's past.
SrI dharaNIdhara
182. ...
red of tip and green of body,
the lily buds have sprung up like young parrots.
188. As the mango puts forth shoot and leaf,
puts forth bud and flower,
so in our hearts does Kama shoot
and leaf and bud and flower.
189. The full-blown jasmine delights our sense of smell,
the flame-tree buds have turned from black to gray,
the bees are storing up pale hives of honey,
and drops of sweat now visit
the full and close-set breasts of women.
bhavabhUti
190. To save those who are separated from their lovers
their friends now secretly pluck off the buds
from the crown of mango sprays.
rAjAsekhara
1. Over most of India the monsoon rains beain in the month of
June. Their advent is a dramatic occurrence. For a month or more
the land has been parched, the earth actuall) cracking open 'with heat.
Then comes the cool east wind (218, 228), driving the clouds which
build up along the horizon unt il, after a week's time or so, they grow
to huge cumulous thunderheads (kAdambini). Then the rain begins.
2. In a few of our verses we are shovm the monsoon from a distinctly
rustic point of view (221, 224, 226, 230, 254, 264, and perhaps others).
These verses are probably by Bengalis, taking Bengal in a broad sense
to include all the lands of the PAla empire, and belong to a class of poetry
found only in this and a few other anthologies. I have tried to characterize
the type more closely in JAOS. 74 (1954), 119 if.
3. Far more common are verses in the courtly tradition. The monsoon
... This was a season for lovemaking unequaled by any other except
early spring. In flowers the monsoon rivals the earlier season. A
catalogue of the flowers mentioned in the following Section would prove
tedious. The commonest are the sweet-smelling ketaki with its sickleshaped
white spikes (217, 247, 248, 249), the kadamba (217, 220, 225,
263), a tree flower consisting of an oval pincushion of orange (or in one
variety, white) blossoms, the showy banana flower (258,260), and the
yUthikA jasmine (215, 260).
images that are attractive: the fireflies of 228, 234, 252, the sweet
smell of earth, 218. Traditional but nonetheless poetic are the pictures
of dancing peacocks (215, 222, 236, 243, 253). An especially beautiful
verse is number 245. Nowhere has the yearning for rain and fertility
been more succinctly expressed.
227. The cloud is like an umbrella of black silk
for the rain-god born on earth,
inlaid within which here and there
are shining sapphires.
228. A cloth of darkness inlaid with fireflies;
flashes of lightning;
the mighty cloud-mass guessed at from the roll of thunder;
a trumpeting of elephants;
an east wind scented by opening buds of ketakI,
and falling rain:
I know not how a man can bear the nights that hold all these,
when separated from his love.
230. Happy is he who in the monsoon nights,
with pumpkin vines growing over the firm roof
of his thatched pavilion,
lies breast to breast with a lovely woman,
listening in her em brace
to the constant downpour of the rumbling clouds.
234. The fireflies spangle the after-downpour blackness of the night:
that one might think them a train of sparks from the
burning love of lonely wives;
they fly about a lightly as a powder
ground out of lightning by the wild collisions of the clouds.
245. Happy is he who sees the raindrops fall
on women yearning for fresh clouds:
like powder on their hair,
like sweat upon their cheeks.
251. After starving night and stealing the water of the streams,
afflicting all the earth and stripping the deep woods,
Where has the sun now run?
Thus seem the clouds to say
as they go hunting him with lamps of lightning. [pANini?]
253. The woodlands with their serpent-hungry peacocks
flaunting in joy their beautiful-eyed great tails '
seem covered with young bushes; while the hills,
their snakes half crawling from their holes to drink
the cloud-borne breeze,
seem sprouting fresh bamboo shoots. satAnanda
1. From the time of their earliest theories of literature the Indians have divided the literary flavor of love (_sriMgArarasa_) into two main varieties, love-in-enjoyment (sambhoga) and love-in-separation (vipralambha). This section is devoted to sambhoga, with descriptions of love-making to suit the taste of Indian courtiers and men of letters of a thousand or more years past. Their taste was different from ours, so that the verses will appear to the modern European at one time over-artificial and at another offensively precise. A few words may be useful to help the reader overcome an initial prejudice. 2. In dealing with love, both physical and emotional, the Sanskrit poet sought always to avoid vulgarity. ... affects the poet's choice of individual words, in the speech and gestures of the lovers he portrays, and in the selection[s] from actual sexual experience. Words that refer to the bodily functions are avoided (cf. Mammata's kAvyaprakAsha, "light of poetry", 177, on Sutra 47) unless they are to be used metaphorically. Clouds may spit lightning but when humans spit the poet must turn away. This is not different from the practice of poets in most languages. The refinement of speech and gesture, on the other hand, is foreign to the poetry of the modern age, although it is found in other literatures that developed under an aristocracy or at a court. p.198 3. The critic daNDin (6th-7th c.) furnishes two ways of saying the same thing (kAvyadarsha "mirror of poetry", 1.63-64). Vulgar: "Why don't you love me, lass, when you see how I love you?" Refined: "The outcaste god of love treats me with utmost cruelty, lady of charming eyes; how fortunate that he bears no enmity to you." And so it follows that matters are seldom said simply in Sanskrit love poetry. The lover never bursts forth with a "Da mi basia mille, deinde centum," though certainly he desires a thousand kisses and a hundred, and may receive them, too, by an indirect request. [from Catullus 5, 1st c. AD: "Give me one thousand kisses, then one hundred"] 4. Just as the object of one's desire is only hinted at in speech, so is it hinted at without being fully revealed in gesture. The wife, eager to join her husband on the marriage bed, indicates her meaning with a glance (602). The mistress, asked for a final favor, says no but indicates acceptance by a symbolic gesture (587). The heroine, though she lets herself be undressed, attempts to hide the charms which her lover reveals (570, 579). When describing her adventures later to a friend, she insists she knows nothing of what happened after she was in her lover's arms (572, 574) 5. The Sanskrit poet was chiefly interested in the sentimental or emotional development of sex. But he recognized that the basis of all sexual emotion lies in sight and touch (sAhityadarpaNa, "mirror of composition", by VishwanAtha, 15thc. 3.210) and he regularly describes sufficient physical details to form a base for the non-physical development. Now, it is in the selection of detail that the Sanskrit poets differ widely from the court poets of the European tradition. Kisses (594) and embraces (580) are described, but so is intercourse itself (560, 576, 577, 582, etc.). It is the physical descriptions of the ultimate aim of sex that troubled the scholars of the Victorian age and prompted the irascible Fitzedward Hall to his censure of Subandhu as "no better, at the very best, than a specious savage." But onen should note that the Indian poet, in his descriptions of what he calls love's battle (ratikalaha 586, rativimarda 590, nidhuvanayudh 608) remains strictly within the bounds of what he regards as propriety and refinement. p.197 6. Certain words may not be used, e.g., kati for 'hip' (Mammata 156), certain parts of the body may be mentioned only by euphemisms (e.g., nAbhImUla, lit. base of the navel - "pubic hair", UrumUla, root of the thigh, groin), while the sexual organs themselves may not be mentioned even indirectly. More to the point, the actions and occurrences that are mentioned are chosen because they reveal an abiding sentiment. The poet is not interested in the simple copulation of humans any more than of animals (cf. 1654), but in an event which affects the personality of those engaged in it. Hence the constant mention of the sweating and horripilation of the lovers, symptoms which seem to a European far from poetic. To the Indian they were significant. Sweating and bristling of the skin are involuntary actions arising from the very nature of the body when it desires union. They cannot be simulated; they are criteria of the true state of the affections (Cf. sAhityadarpaNa 3.134-135). 7. Also foreign to European taste, because the practice is foreign, are the references to the lover's wounding his mistress with his nails (586, 589, 590, etc. and frequently in other Sections of the anthology also). The kAmasUtra devotes a chapter to nail wounds (2.4), listing eight varieties of wound that may be inflicted and ending with the statement, "There is no sharper sexual stimulant than the effects of nails and teeth." Men and women sharpened their nails in various ways for this purpose (Kam.Sut. 2.4.7) and the effects for the most part were more than simple scratching. Blood was drawn, as may be seen from verses 612, 613, and 758. 8. But nail wounds, too, were chosen by the poets for description because of their sentimental value. Kam.Sut. 2.4.27 speaks of the pleasure with which a woman views these traces of past enjoyments. In our anthology verses 604 and 615 are in the same vein. Again, these marks served to rouse the desires of those who saw them (Ktim. S'11t. 2.4.29-80 and cf. 407 of our anthology). Accordingly, they were borne with pride. Nail ,,,ounds even became a criterion of social distinction, for, as Yasodhara says, "refinement and variety (vaicitrya) are the chief goal; otherwise there would be no distinction between a gentleman and a bumpkin" (on Kam. Sut 2.4.25). It is not so surprising, then, that this art became a stock subject for elegant poetry. References to it may be found even in the rAmAyana (5.9.52; 5.14.18). 9. Always the connection of the sentiments with the physical act should be borne in mind. The scenes of undressing the heroine (561, 570, 571, 579, 601) are used to exemplify her modesty as well as to reveal her charms; or, where her clothes " fall of their own accord," to suggest her artlessness or sincerity (572, 607, etc.). A favorite device for revealing the character of the heroine is the verse in which she relates her adventure to a female friend. These recitals show usually a charming combination of modesty and pride (568,572, 574, 596; 573 and 597 are less modest). 10. One may note that the verses on viparItarata, which depart the farthest from Western standards of propriety , were read as much for their sentimental as for their erotic value. viparItaraia or 'contrary intercourse' (581, 583, etc.) is where the woman takes the man's position, above, while the man lies below. These scenes are used to furnish an impression of intimacy between lovers, born of long affection, and of the heroine's desire to please her lover rather than herself (585, 589). The Westerner should be cautioned against taking such verses as evidence of the effeminacy of Indian lovers. Much of the charm of viparItarata verses to the Indian reader was the masculine one of finding the woman all the more feminine by her attempt to imitate a man. 11. Other scenes from the verses which follow require no special comment: the young bride (563); the first engagement in love (564, 577, 600,601); the aftermath of love's battle (561,562, 575, 589, 591).
559. When in the height of passion the clothes had fallen from her hips, the glowing gems upon her girdle seemed to clothe her in an inner silk; whereby in vain her lover cast his eager glance, in vain the fair one showed embarrassment, in vain he sought to draw away the veil and she in vain prevented him. 560. It is when lust has reached its peak and all a lover's effort is bent upon its consummation that a woman, weakened, yet imploring with every syllable, slow-spoken from access of love, in everything she says or does is charming. 561. The world has nought so precious as a fawn-eyed woman resting from a bout of love. As her amorous partner casts aside her garment, feasting his eyes upon her nakedness, her hands go first to her loins, then to her breasts, then to her lover's eyes. [kavisekhara ?] 563. By her lotus face bowed down with shame, showing the lovely lashes of her eyes; by her body's holding all the riches conceived of in Love's kingdom; by her growing still more used to passion while her pride is not yet easily stirred: by these the recent bride excels the bolder woman in winning of a heart. 565. That at her lover's first embrace she draws her body back, but then to hide it from his gaze next clips him close: what should the blessed desire by their past austerities if not this charming frowardness of a girl in love? 567. Beautiful one, who is that friend of Love; who, you of moon-fair face, that ocean of good fortune; oh you whose breasts swell like the frontal lobes of elephants, whose is that pure and happy heart and whose in former life the wondrous penance: that now the glory of your amorous sports, unbridled, feverquenching, should find its goal in him? [pradyumna] 568. When he had taken off my clothes, unable to guard my bosom with my slender arms, I clung to his very chest for garment. But when his hand crept down below my hips, "hat was to save me, sinking in a sea of shame, if not the god of love, who teaches us to swoon? [vallana?] 569. What comes upon the lucky lover's chest embracing a young woman people call horripilation; but my idea is this, that Cupid's arrows are being extracted from his flesh by the magnets of her round and swelling breasts. [saMkarShaNa] 570. When I drew off her upper silk she hid her breasts beneath her arms, and when I drew the lower she pressed her thighs together. Then, as my eyes fell to the root of bliss, she shrank together with embarrassment and tossing at the lamp the lotus from her ear, puffed out its shaken flame. [karnotpala?] (this author-name is actually derived from the poem itself) 571. I am embarrassed. Beside the house my friend keeps vigil, curious of lovers. Stop, hasty-handed, pulling off my dress! The jeweled girdle makes a noise. [mahodadhi] 572. As he came to bed the knot fell open of itself, the dress held only somehow to my hips by the strands of the loosened girdle. So much I know, my dear; but when within his arms, I can't remember who he was or who I was, or what we did or how. vikaTanitamba [amaru collection] p.203 573. The night was deep, the lamp shone forth with heavy flame, and that darling is an expert in the rite which passion prompts; but, my dear, he made love slowly, slowly and with limbs constrained, for the bed kept up a creaking like an enemy with gnashing teeth. 574. You are fortunate, dear friends, that you can tell what happened with your lovers: the jests and laughter, all the words and joys. After my sweetheart put his hand to the knot of my dress, I swear that I remember nothing. [vidyA] 575. From the swaying of their equal commerce a flood of perspiration has taken its abode upon the pale cheek of each; until victorious comes the long-drawn sigh, given full rein by the loosening of their slender arms and sweetened by the perfume of their mouths. 576. The bashful lover, almost fainting from his exercise in the full give and take of love, has suddenly completed all his duty. His bolder partner, overcome by passion, writhes and cries out and turns aside her face, her sidelong glance flashing with disappointment. 578. A sidelong glance, a lovely rise of half an eyebrow, a flow of speech brightened by smiles and indistinct with modesty : happy is he who welcomes to himself such love and gesture of a fawn-eyed maid with hospitality of thrilling limbs. [manovinoda] 579. By force I managed to draw off her dress; then, as I gazed upon her thighs as white as ripened cane, the damsel cast a glance toward the jeweled lamp and quickly-clever put her hands across my eyes. 580. It allays the hot fever born of love and dispels the sharp cold of a snowy night: hail to this wondrous warmth that comes from a woman's close-set jar-like breasts meeting together at the festival of her dear love's embrace. 581. Blessed is he whose amorous mistress pleases him by changing places in the act of love: her throat murmuring accompaniment to her girdle bells that shake with the swaying of her buttocks, her hair loosening from its knot, pearl necklace falling, and her breasts surging with each rapid breath. [sonnoka] 582. Hissing breath and half-closed eyes, bristling skin and clustering beads of sweat: I praise these charming transformations, assumed by fawn-eyed damsels during intercourse, the insignia of the god of love. 583. Once more she is embarrassed, then she laughs again; she's tired, then again takes up what's been begun. With ornament on forehead wet with perspiration and locks of hair that fall across the brow, how charming is her face when ch.anging parts in love. [surabhi] 584. Speak not of parting! When I embrace my love is not my bristling skin a mountain; is not my sweat the sea? 585. Urged on by love, familiarity, and laughter, the slender beauty undertook what's not a woman's part; but her limbs were delicate as vines, and with the task half done, she cast on me her glance unsteady with embarrassment. [konka?] 586. Struck on all sides in the amorous battle, her body scarred from stroke of nail and tooth, she would perish surely in an instant did she not quaff ambrosia from her lover's lip. [ksemendra?] 588. May there fall ever on your breast heaps of jasmine from the hairknot of our sweetheart, falling from locks that have been pulled awry in the lusty grasping of your passion. [bANa] 589. She covered her loins quickly with my silken skirt and her hands busied themselves with her hairknot shaken loose in the swaying sport. Her breasts were ornamented with my nailmarks clearly revealed by her rapid breath. Thus I saw her, with face lowered in remembrance of her boldness, after the sweet act was done. [abhinanda?] 590. Of the fawn-eyed beauty, laughing sweetly, the cheek grows still more charming from its loss of make-up in love's battle. Smooth it is, as fair as ripened cane stalks, now stamped with nailmarks and sealed with a blush. [vIryamitra] 591. With fluttering hand she searches for her clothes, she casts the flowers of her garland at the lampflame and, laughing with embarrassment, covers her husband s eyes. Thus ever and again the slender bride presents a charming sight when the act of love is done. [amaruka] 592. When the anklet has grown still the girdle's sound is heard. It's ever when the lover tires, the mistress plays the man. 593. With intense passion she embraces, her limbs thrilling and on fire; eagerly she brings her face for kisses and drinks ambrosia from his lips. All she says is "No," again and "No"; and yet with virtue to the winds she carries out the ritual of love in all except for saying "Yes." 594. To kiss with fervor the fervently given lip of a slender damsel, eager and richly dressed, with blushing cheeks and firm, full breasts: that is the thing worth praising, the real bliss; that's immortality, reality, and brahma; that carries off one's heart, is special, is something absolutely of its own. 595. She held not her hand to her girdle when the dress fell open; ever and again she glanced at the thick and steady-flaming lamp; when close to me an agitation seized her breast: such evidence bespoke her love although her words denied it. [abhinanda] 596. How could I discern his every limb, my friend, when my eyes were swimming in tears of joy? How could I recognize the bliss of his embrace when my body was parted from him by an armor of horripilation? [acala] 597. Why should I say, dear friend, that he is my lover, and how, that I am his beloved? Why, he needs no more than touch me and his hand is bathed in sweat; as if he saw by touch alone, he closes fast his eyes; and when he takes me in his arms his whole body bristles with the rising flesh. 598. And as we talked together softly, secretly, cheek closely pressed to cheek while our arms were busied in their tight embrace, the night was gone without our knowing the hours as they passed. [bhavabhUti] 599. Part from courtesy and part from pride, from passion too and for that I was tired the damsel boldly undertook more than a young girl can. Before the whole was finished, though, she showered me with glances from her eyes, wide-pupiled, weary and embarrassed. [mahAkavi] 600. Their hearts are twined together but their love holds back; first passion gains the upper hand, then fear. Of these young lovers suffering in the flames Of shyness and of longing who knows what fruit 'will be? [lakShmIdhara] 601. Eager to view the brightness of her thighs fair as the inner petals of the ketaki, while feigning to massage her feet he slowly raised her petticoat. This to preven t, the artless lass, eyes sweet with shyness, lips bright with smile, enfolded him in an embrace loose from the trembling of her arms. [ 602. The lady breaks her talk and casts a sleep-filled eye in long and wavering side-glance at the couch. The lover gapes, dropping the subject he's begun. The tactful confidante stretches and pretends to yawn. 603. Seeing his two loves seated on one seat, he comes behind and covers tenderly the eyes of one. Then, as if in jest, the rogue kisses the other as she turns her head, blushing, trembling, hot with joy, and with laughter dancing on her cheek. [amaru] 604. The lover with his nails had marked her breast without the fawn-eyed damsel's noticing. When some time later she bent her head, how charming was her glance: in outer show most sharp with feigned annoyance, but innerly delighted as she said, "What is this, oh you rogue!" [jIvacandra] 605. An embrace at first and then a loving kiss had been her losses in the gambling match. Now when her lover asks again for stakes she is silent, though the flesh upon her cheek rises with suppressed excitement, and her hand is sweating as she moves the piece. [rAjasekhara] 606. The excitement of embraces, kisses, intercourse: these are the stakes, with Love as warranty; so there is pleasure both in victory and defeat. But being young, their hearts are set on winning. [murAri] 607. The bodice which the fair-browed lass, face bowed in shame, would not put off, for she had quarreled with her lover and would hide the rising flesh which it concealed, directly afterward and from within burst all its fastenings, and so revealed its mistress full of longing for her lover. [bhaTTa srI sivasvamIn of kashmir] 608 .. The ear was then enchanted by a sound: - the twanging of Love's bowstring; the trumpeting of an elephant of passion; the thundering clouds for the monsoon of true love where sweat pours down from the bristling flesh; a military march for copulation's battle; the song of those fair swans, the buttocks; - in fine, the sound of jeweled girdles worn by women of curved brows. [bhaTTa srI sivasvamIn] 609. Desire increasing, her garments fell undone and through the open petticoat her lover's gaze rose from the lily thighs to that which lies above; whereat she took the lotus from her ear and cast it at the lamp; in vain, for still the lamplight of her girdle blazed. [bhaTTa srI sivasvamIn] 610. Their lips, though delicate as leaves, wilt not when bitten many a time; their limbs as soft as flo'wers still bear the wounds of nails. the tender creepers of their arms tire not in tight embraces: inexplicable is Love's way with women. [bhaTTa srI sivasvamIn] 611. Brought to oneness with her husband as iron to heated iron, or sewn body to his body with a hundred of Love's arrows; then brought to melting by the heat of passion's fire, how is it the beloved is not washed away by the flood within her master's arms? [bhaTTa srI sivasvamIn]
478. Knowing that 'heart' is neuter, I sent her mine; but there it fell in love; so pANini undid me. [dharmakIrti]