topics: |  poetry | india | ancient | sanskrit | anthology

this anthology was compiled around 1100 a.d. in colonial times, it was realized that the manuscript was lost, though references survived in other anthologies and texts. in the mid-20th century, two versions were located after strenuous efforts by V. V. Gokhale and D. D. Kosambi, who also edited the sanskrit text producing an authoritative version providing the numbering used in these translations.

the first version, a palm leaf manuscript with about a thousand verses, was discovered in Ngor monastery in Central tibet.

some of the leaves bear what may be "shelf-notations" - (original suggestion by kosambi, and ingalls seems to agree. these marks may be references to texts in the jagaddala vihAra library from which some of the poems were selected. this version is thought to have been vidyAkara's personal draft - it may have been transported to safe locations after the monstery was razed during bakhtiyar khilji's incursions into bengal.

the Ngor Evam Chokden monastery (founded 1429, about 30km S of Shigatse), was the most important seat of the ngor branch of the shAkya sect. unfortunately, it too was destroyed during the cultural revolution in the 1960s, and the fate of this manuscript is not clear.

subsequently a later paper version with 1,738 verses was found in the
library of the royal priest (rAjguru) of nepal, Pandit Hemaraja.  this
second version is a more standard edition, and agrees with other versions
such as the anthology published by FW Thomas in 1912 under the conjectured
title Kavindravachanasamuchchaya.  It includes more than 700 additional
verses compared to the first collection.

the uncovering of the long lost manuscripts, and the compilation of the
critical edition in the 1950s was one of the landmark moments for classical
sanskrit poetry.  the poems are of a high standard, and in this translation
by ingalls has done a superb poetry himself, while remaining true to the
originals.

Classical sanskrit poetry

sanskrit verse must follow strict conventions of form.  each verse may be
only four lines long (though sometimes pairs of lines may be combined in
text).  the structure must follow a metrical pattern involving a regulation
of short (light, laghu) and long (heavy, guru) syllables; each line is
a pAda, and the structure is usually a vr.tti or akSharachhanda such as
mandAkrAnta (17 syllables, w caesuras (yati) after 4, 10 and at the end).
though several hundred such meters are listed in the older texts,
about fifty metrical patterns are found in the poetic corpus, and even then,
most poets restricted themselves to just a few of these.  thus, the epics
are largely composed in anuShTup, whereas poets such as kAlidAsa or
ashvaghoSha may vary their selections, though often showing a preference
for a few - e.g. upajAti. 

vidyAkara organizes the poems in his selection into 50 themes, which starting with the sacred (buddha, shiva, etc. 6 sections), gradually move onto the mundane and the physical (seasons (7 sections), love (12), nature, death, human foibles, poets and poetry, etc.).

vidyAkara was clearly an aesthete, and this is the earliest existing anthology, and many of these poems appear in a number of other collections.

incidentally this is far from the oldest poetry anthology in the world. older anthologies exist in chinese (shijing, from c 600 BCE, with 305 compositions, mostly songs), or in japanese (manyoshu c. 780AD, 4,200 short poems and 265 long poems). but the subhAshitaratnakoSha is special in its thematic organization, the uniformly short structure of the compositions, and the eclectic taste revealed in the selections. the translations lose much of the word play and the effect of the sounds in the language, but we still relate to the emotions, and the poetic taste survives these many centuries well.

which is why ingall's enormous and comprehensive effort in translating
every poem from this collection is to be lauded.

Many of these poems have often been translated into English; in particular,
you will find much overlap in the rhyming versions by John Brough,
Poems from the Sanskrit (1977), or the versions by A.N.D. Haksar
Subhasitavali (2007).  But I feel Ingalls' sparse prose
is most effective in communicating the sense in English.

Excerpts

[the opening essay is eminently readable, despite its deep scholarship.  It
is based on an essay with the same title, "Sanskrit Poetry and Sanskrit
Poetics", originally published 1955.]

Introduction: Sanskrit Poetry and Sanskrit Poetics

... our translations of classical Sanskrit poetry into English for the most
part have been made by English speakers who were strangers to poetry or by
indians who were strangers to english. from them one may see that sanskrit
poets were interested in sex, mythology, and puzzles, but one will scarcely
guess that they possessed a true sense of poetry. the classical literature of
india has remained to the english reader like sleeping beauty of the fairy
tale, hidden behind a hedge of thorns.

in speaking here of "poetry" i shall refer to what the Indians call
kAvya. there is much verse that is not poetry in this sense. much
sanskrit verse is didactic, dealing with ritual and philosophy and even
with such subjects as astronomy and medicine. much is narrative and
only a small portion of this narrative verse is kAvya.

[when dealing with kAvya], it is the mood or suggestion induced by poetic
means and must furnish our delight, rather than the narrative plot etc. p.2

variable word order and compound constructions

sanskrit is an inflected language, more elaborately inflected than latin or
greek. for example, it has eight cases of noun inflection, and both
substantives and verbs are inflected differently not only for singular and
plural but for dual.  one effect which this inflection has on poetry is that
it makes possible infinite variations of word order.

	the king with arm throbbing approached shakuntala.

in english we cannot put the heroine first in the sentence.  in sanskrit any
word of this sentence may stand first.

the tightness of construction which proceeds from the inflected nature
of sanskrit may be increased rather than lessened by the compounding
of words. [...] take, for example, the following sentence:

	although she was embarrassed by the earnest glance of the king, still
	out of curiosity it was slowly that she walked away from him, looking
	backward as she walked.

sanskrit, if it finds it useful to do so, may put this sentence into three
words. the first word will be in the genitive feminine: "of the earnest-king
-glance-embarrassed one." the second word may run as follows:
"curiosity-born-backward-glance-accompanied-away-walking."  the last word will
be simply "slow." the copula may be omitted.

examples from kumArasambhava

i shall give a literal translation of three verses of kalidAsa in order to
show the construction of the originals. all three verses are from the
eighth canto of the birth of the prince, the canto which describes the
pleasures of the god Shiva with his bride umA, the beautiful mother-goddess,
daughter of the Himalaya mountains.

the divine husband is describing the sunset to his new bride :

	The sun, his horses with bent necks,
	with plumes striking on their eyes,
	goes home, yoke riding high upon their manes,
	setting the day to rest in ocean.

here the sun is imagined driving his car down into the ocean. the
verse is built up by miniature brush strokes: the horses bending their
necks as they go downhill, the plumes falling forward, and the yoke
riding high from the steep descent. the miniature strokes are fitted
like gems into a neat grammatical frame: "the sun ... goes home ...
setting the day to rest in ocean." the neatness is increased by the
formality of the metrical scheme and by the vowel harmony. this
last is an optional ornament, but it is here used so effectively that i
might quote the original. each line ends with a high diphthong until
the last, where the sun sinks in the ocean with a deep "au" :

		so 'yam Anata-shirodharair hayaiH
		karNa-cAmara-vighaTTitekSaNaiH
		astam eti yuga-bhugna-kesaraiH
		saMmidhAya divasaM. mahodadhAu.
				(kumArasambhava a 8.42)

in the second verse which i have chosen, the divine couple are looking at a
lily pond surrounded by trees when the moon breaks through the clouds and
shiva says:

	you could pick up the drops of moonlight shaken off by the leaves and
	scattered like flowers on the ground beneath the branches, and deck
	your hair with them . .		(kumArasambhava a 8.42)

here again is a miniature in motion. as the leaves shake, the drops
of moonlight fall through them onto the ground where they shine like
small flowers. the syllables of the poetry imitate the gentle fall of
the moon drops: "patita-pushpa-peshalaiH." here again the whole verse is
syntactically bound together. i can show this only by a second translation,
so literal that it is almost unintelligible:

	it is possible, if by your fingers plucked, with these soft
	under-the-branches-fallen-flowers, these leaf-shaken moonbeams drops,
	to deck your hair.

the impersonal verb with which the verse begins demands completion
by the infinitive and object which come only at the end. the form is
like a well-cut diamond. not a single word can be omitted from the
verse without rendering the whole unintelligible.

differences from latin and greek

several of the effects which i have here illustrated are common to
highly inflected languages. one could illustrate them from classical
latin or greek as well as from sanskrit.

sanskrit and latin, for example, are specially fond of inflectional binders
in verse. thus, the third line of the last verse quoted above runs in one
version of the original
		sA vyagAhata taraMgiNim umA,
where sA and umA, being inflectionally identical and belonging together in
sense ('that umA,' Latin, illa uma) serve to bind the line in a sort of
vise.  for the same technique almost any ode of horace will furnish
examples. the poet bharavi uses interlocking binders just as horace does, for
example, in nullus argento color est avaris abdito terris where words 1 and
3, 2 and 6, 5 and 7 go together.
sanskrit departs from latin and greek, however, in its tightening of a
verse by recourse to compound construction.

Not the language of childhood or home

the comparison with classical latin or greek, must not be carried
too far. sanskrit differs from those languages, and from most other languages
also, in one very important respect - its artificiality.  [clarifies that by
"artificiality", he does not imply that sanskrit was a dead language.  it was
the regular language of conversation between educated men of different
provinces.] for a long period it was the chief written language of north
india. but it was artificial, as medieval latin was artificial, in that it
was learned according to rule after some other language had been learned by
simple conditioning.

every indian, one may suppose, grew up learning in a natural way the language
of his mother and his playmates. only after this and if he belonged to the
priesthood or the nobility or to such a professional caste as that of the
clerks, the physician, or the astrologers would he learn sanskrit.
[FN.  those few peasants who learned to write probably also used the spoken
tongue.  this seems to be indicated by the sahajiya literature in
proto-bengali and by the peasant religious poetry of the early modern
period. but there must always have been some exceptions.  the name kAlidAsa
implies that at least one of the great masters of sanskrit was born a
peasant, for the suffix -dAsa in ancient india was used only in shUdra
names.]

as a general rule sanskrit was not a language of the family. it furnished
no subconscious symbols for the impressions which we receive in
childhood nor for the emotions which from our character in early adolescence.
sanskrit was therefore divorced from an area of life whence the
poetry of what i would call the natural languages derives much of its
strength.

enormous vocabluary with range of synonyms

one effect of this artificiality on sanskrit literature is that [sanskrit
has an enormous vocabulary, [with] a larger choice of synonyms than any
other language i know.

in a natural language there are probably no synonyms.  of course, one can go
to a thesaurus and find what are called synonyms. for the english word
'house' one may find 'dwelling,' 'residence,' 'tenement,' 'abode,' and so
on. But one cannot say of the Vanderbilts that they lived in a large tenement
in newport. each word in english has connotations ... there is even a genre of
english humor, perhaps best exemplified by s. j. perelman, which gains its
effect by dropping words into [such inappropriate settings]. p.6-7

thus in kAvya one seldom finds the simple words strI and nArI, 'woman.'
women are there transformed into charmers, damsels, and gazelle-eyed beauties
(vilAsinI, yoShit, mr.gAkSha, and so on). so also the everyday words for
beauty and beautiful fail to appear; see ingalls, Words for Beauty,
p. 90.  sanskrit critics  were aware of the humorous effect of juggling words
of the two categories. in their textbooks they furnish examples of the effect
under the heading grAmyatA (vulgarity).

the poetic words for house in sanskrit - and sanskrit has far more words for this object than english - differ chiefly in sound and etymology. they are not bound to a particular social or emotional situation. thus, veshman is literally the place where one enters, sadman the place where one sits down, vastya the place where one dwells, nilaya and Alaya the place where one alights or comes to rest. these words are far more interchangeable than the english ones. nilaya will do for the dwelling of a king or a farmer or a crow. the learnedness of the language has divorced its words from the emotional responses of everyday life. as a result, sanskrit is lacking in what is perhaps the chief force of english poetry: its kinesthetic effect. what i mean can be shown by an old ballad:

	Martinmas wind, when wilt thou blow
	and shake the green leaves off the tree ...

one can feel the leaves shaking, and one shivers in the next line to
the "frost that freezes fell / and blowing snow's inclemency."  one
can find verses that produce this muscular effect in bengali, and although
i cannot speak at first hand of other modern indian literatures, i
imagine that one can find the effect in them as well. but it is only
rarely that one finds it in sanskrit. the powers of sanskrit are of a
different order.

[FN. sanskrit is so vast a literature that one can make few statements
concerning it that are without exception. it should be clear from what
precedes that I do not mean my remarks to apply to the epic, which is older
than sanskrit proper. but even within sanskrit proper there is a school of
what i have called the poetry of village and field (see Section 35) which is
comparable in several respects to the poetry of the natural languages. and
there are verses by the southern poetesses vidyA and shilAbhaTTarikA, like
the latter's famous yaH kaumAraharaH (translation 815), which form
exceptions to the general rule.]

Handbooks of synonyms

There exist handbooks of a fairly late date listing Sanskrit synonyms
in metrical patterns.  Presumably there were older books of this sort
which are now lost. thus for the word' king':

		Two short syllables	nr.pa
		Three shorts		nr.pati
		Trochee			bhUbhr.t
		Iamb			kShitIsh
		Spondee			rAjA
		Dactyl			pArthiva


and so on. for common words like 'king' or 'rain-cloud' or 'mistress' two or
three hundred synonyms will be listed, and these are all interchangeable.

what I say is by no means exaggerated, for the synonyms can be increased by
permutation. for example, 'earth-ruler' and 'world-protector' may be used for
the word 'king.'  there may be seven or eight basic words for 'earth' and ten
or fifteen for 'protector,' 'ruler,' 'master,' and so on.  this already gives
seventy to one hundred twenty synonyms.  but one can go on, 'foe-queller,'
'white-parasol-possessor,' and so on, beyond one's ability to count.

just as there exists a vast number of synonyms for almost any word the
poet may wish to use, so also there exist synonymous constructions. on
examinations for elementary sanskrit i used to ask students to express
in sanskrit the sentence "you must fetch the horse" in ten different
ways. actually, one can do it in fifteen ways or so by using active or
passive constructions, imperative or optative, an auxiliary verb, or any
of the three gerundive forms, each of which, by the way, gives a different
metrical pattern.  what i would emphasize is that, while these constructions
differ formally, emotionally they are identical and completely
interchangeable. in a natural language that would be quite impossible.

accordingly, sanskrit verse from the earliest times was able to accept
a set of very rigid and complicated forms.  each verse must be only four
lines long and must fall into one or another of about fifty recognized
metrical patterns.

[FN. the textbooks on metrics list many more meters than this, but fifty is as
many as are generally met with. a single poet remains usually within a
repertoire of half that number except in passages intended to establish his
reputation as a virtuoso.]

these patterns are of great complexity. in most of them each syllable is
regulated in length and some patterns require as many as twenty-three
syllables in a line.  many verses also employ elaborate schemes of
alliteration and syllabic repetition. such forms are practicable only by
means of the enormous vocabulary of synonyms and choice of constructions
which sanskrit affords. in view of these aids i have never been dazzled by
sanskrit metrical ingenuity although i admit that i find it delightful. i
am happy to find that the best indian critics are of the same view.  skill
in meter and alliteration they regard as a virtue (guNa_) in poetry, as
the skillful use of figures of speech is considered an ornament
(alaMkAra). but neither of these is the soul of poetry.

Poetic devices - alaMkAra

in the analysis of poetic figures of speech (alaMkAra) the Sanskrit
critics surpass the greeks and romans. they surpass them not only in
subtlety but also, as it seems to me, in understanding, for the sanskrit
analysis is based directly on poetry whereas the greco-roman analysis
was based in the first instance on oratory. our western rhetoric centers
its attention on the manner of presentation: on word order, connection
of parts, emphasis, and emotional effect. the science of alaMkAra is
concerned rather with image-building, with shades of similarity, and
with the techniques of overtone or suggestion. rather than attempt
a catalogue of the hundred or so tropes of sanskrit, i shall better serve
my purpose if i furnish two or three examples to show the manner in
which the Sanskrit critic goes about his work.


like our classical critics the indians distinguish simile from metaphor.
"her face was like the moon " is upamA, or simile. " she turned toward
me her bright moon face" is metaphor. but how about this:

	as i came, she presented me from afar with a smile. in the gambling
	match we then played, the stake was a close embrace. [anon.]

this, we are told, is neither simile nor metaphor. it is pariNAma, which
one might translate "evolution."  in metaphor the poetic comparison (the moon
in the phrase "her bright moon face") is static; it undergoes no development
or evolution. in pariNAma the case is different. in the verse above, the
girl's smile is identified with a welcoming present; it then evolves by being
actually presented.  the embrace of the lovers is then identified with the
stake of a gambling match; it evolves by their gambling for it and by the
lover's winning it.

or consider another distinction which is made (following the analysis by
VisvanAtha).  on the one hand we may have a figure of speech which
give rise to a suggestion, as in the following verse from mAgha:

	vala, his prowess roused, glared like a lion at veNudAri who set
	upon him like an elephant.
		[shishupAla vadha by mAgha, 19.2, cited in visvanAtha's
		sAhityadarpaNa, on 4.9]

the figure of speech is the double simile: vala courageous as a lion and
veNudAri mad as an elephant. the suggestion is something else, something
which derives from these similes. the suggestion is that Vala will shortly
kill VeNudAri, for when lions fight elephants, it is the elephants who get
killed.

Elaborate analogy

[Consider] verse number 257 of vidyAkara's anthology. it is by yogesvara, an
excellent poet who is capable of better things. in this he uses a strikingly
elaborate metaphor:

		Now the great cloud-cat,
		darting out his lightning tongue,
		licks the creamy moon
		from the saucepan of the sky..

		 
		constructs like "megha-mahA-mArjAra" (big-cloud-cat)
		are intelligible even today in several indian languages

the effect here is gained by intellectual, entirely rational means. the
metaphor is complete in every detail: cat, tongue, cream, and saucepan --
cloud, moon, lightning, and sky. it is almost like an exercise from a manual
of logic under the chapter "analogy."

compare the verse with a well-known passage of t. s. eliot which uses several
similar ideas, but uses them very differently :

	The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes
	The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,
	Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
	Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains, '" *

this from one who is often called an intellectual poet. and yet eliot
gets his effect in every line from the irrational, the strong but imprecise
memory we have of fog and cats, the childhood associations of certain
words and idioms. consider the line: "licked its tongue into the
corners of the evening." it brings to sudden flower certain homely and
completely natural phrases: "licks his tongue around the bowl," or
"licks his tongue into the corner of the dish." the idiom is suddenly
transfigured by bringing it into juxtaposition with the last three words,
"of the evening." this transfiguration of language becomes impossible
without a natural-language basis. p.10

i think one will find the verse of yogesvara cold and stiff when placed
beside eliot's.  and if so, i have completed what an indian critic would call
my purvapakSha, the preliminary argument against my own view. It now remains
for me to show that Sanskrit verse despite this limitation, or perhaps
because of it contains great beauty of its own.

[this "uttara-pakSha" comprises the bulk of this essay... skipped here].

The Poems

(Excerpts from some of the themes, along with excerpts from the extensive
notes by Ingalls )

8. Spring: Conventional poetic associations

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. ...

The poems: Spring p. 112-119

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




saMkuchitA iva pUrvaM durvAratuShArajanitajaDimAnaH |
sampratyuparamati hime kramasho divasAH prasArajuShaH ||

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

9. Summer

1. The section on summer contains a famous verse of Kalidasa (205),
   several charming verses of Rajasekhara (perhaps 211 is the best), and
   a number of strikingly original descriptive verses (for the type cf.
   Section 35) by bANa and the Bengali poets Yogesvara and Vagura.

2. Among the stock subject matter of summer poems are the discomforts
   of the season (194 gives a formidable list): the desiccation of
   the trees (194, 19S), the drying up of ponds and wells (206, 208),
   and the blasts of hot, dry wind (198, 200) which stir up the scorching
   dust (200, 204).

3. Worst of summer's misfortunes are the forest fires, the record of
   which is an ancient one in Sanskrit literature. In early times the woods
   were burned intentionally, either for slash-culture, bewar, as it is called
   by the present-day tribes of central India, or for making permanent
   clearings in the forest (cf. M.Bh. 5.72.10; 6.45.56; 6.69.29 'after winter';
   M.Bh. 6.46.4, Ram,. 6.67.39 'in summer'; M.Bh. 4.49.16, Ram.
   6.62.22 'in autumn'; for references in Rigveda (cf. Negelein
   17.99-101). What was once practised intentionally continued to take
   place by accident, regularly in the parching heat that precedes
   the rains. It is to this that verses 196, 200,207, and 1174 of our
   anthology refer.

4. In summer a lassitude comes over all creatures (200, 202, 203).
   Even lovemaking, so omnipresent in Sanskrit poetry, is interrupted for
   men (191) and gods (214) alike. But it may be resumed.  The sight of
   beautiful women in clinging garments fresh from their cooling bath
   revives the languishing god of the bow (192, 212). Verses 192,211, and
   212 refer to the sandalwood paste which the ladies of the rich applied
   to their breasts as a refrigerant.

5. Several of the descriptive verses are very fine: 198 and 199 on birds,
   202 on the wallowing buffalo, 210 with its charming picture of coolness
   curled up under flower petals, and 206 on the wayside pond. Verse
   197 gives a pleasing picture of a girl attendant at a well. These girls
   offered the traveler cool water, and sometimes more than that (cf. 514,
   811, 1152, Hala 2.61, and the verses of later anthologies
   SuktimuktAvali (Bhagadatta Jalhana) 60.30-38, Paddhati of shArngadhara
   3858-3861).


192. The embrace of fawn-eyed damsels
     just bathed and moist with sandal paste,
     their hair decked out with new-born flowers,
     slowly makes love rise again,
     whose strength had withered in the summer beams.
	     				mangalArjuna


194. In this summer month which blasts all hope,
     burns the vines, is angry at the deer,
     is tree-wilting, bee-distressing, jasmine-hating,
     dries up lakes, heats dust and fries the sky;
     in this month that glows with cruel rays,
     how can you, traveler, walk and live?
					bANa


198. The birds loosen their shoulder feathers with darting beaks,
     dispel their body heat by lowering ruffled wings;
     with crouching legs seize hold upon the nest,
     barely avoiding a sudden toss
     from the buffet of the summer gale.


202. To drive away the busy gnats from the reddened corners
     of his eyes
     the water buffalo shakes his horns
     and tosses up a rope of moss from which the drops of water
     slowly trickle between his lids;
     then, sinking in the lake,
     with all annoyance gone, he sleeps.


205. The days are here when diving is a grateful sport,
     whose winds are sweet with trumpet flowers,
     when sleep comes easily in the shade,
     and of whose hours the last is loveliest.
						kAlidAsa


211. That flutes should charm us, cooling to the ear,
     that wine when chilled with water be so precious
     and that women's breasts should feel as cool as snow:
     such is the guerdon which the god of love
     grants us in summer.
					rAjashekhara


212. A bodice soaked in cooling water,
     play-bracelets made of lotus stems,
     ear ornament of acacia flowers,
     pearl necklaces of jasmine:
     these and their bodies wet with sandalpaste
     are the magic used by fawn-eyed damsels,
     which needs nor spell nor magic circle
     to resurrect the god of love.


213. Now are the days of summer's glory,
     which appoints for lust the hour before dawn,
     which congeals somewhat the milk of coconuts,
     ripens the royal plantain,
     and is loveliest at sunset.
				rAjashekhara

10. The rains

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

19. Love in Enjoyment (sambhoga)

Introduction

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 wounds 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.  viparItarata 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).

The Poems

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]

Other sections

	478. Knowing that 'heart' is neuter,
	     I sent her mine;
	     but there it fell in love;
	     so pANini undid me.
				[dharmakIrti]

35. Characterizations (jAtivrajyA)

1. jAti (or svabhAvokti), 'speaking of the thing as it is', refers to a verse
   which portrays an object or scene by means of a few characteristic traits
   and with a minimum use of figures of speech. The traits must be carefully
   drawn from the poet's observation of nature, but are strictly limited in
   number. The method, then, is the method of impressionism; the result, in
   the hands of a good poet, can be vividly realistic.
 (1150), the heron on

3. [In general, the poetry of characterizations] choose their subject matter
   from scenes dear to the court and the nobility - horse, elephant and deer;
   hawk and fighting cock; peacock, pigeon, caged parrot.  When nature is
   described we are shown the trees and flowers of orchard, garden, or
   hermitage. A young girl will be obviously well-born and wearing a silk
   dress (1160). Departures: Kalidasa has fine descriptions of the wild
   scenery of the Himalayas and BhavabhUti deals by preference with untamed
   nature. But of villages, farmhouses, peasants, or the lower st rata of
   humanity in general we hear nothing.

4. It is therefore a matter of great interest for the history of Sanskrit
   literature that in the present section of our anthology and in a few other
   anthologies deriving from Bengal we find descriptions of those very parts
   of ancient Indian life and society about which the well-known authors are
   so silent. Here we have pictures of village life: the Pamari girl turning
   the rice mill (1173), pounding out the winter rice (1l78, 1182) or drawing
   water from the well (1152), the dairy boy squatting down to milk t he
   sweet-sounding milk into his earthen pot (1157). The villages are
   described as a villager would see them, the mustard fields turning brown
   in winter (1184), the bull pushing his way against the driving rain
   straight into the peasant's house (1176).  We meet with less aristocratic
   animals, calves nuzzling t heir mothers (1168), a dog chasing a cat
   (1163), the sparrows hopping along a newly turned furrow (1162).  Our
   poets have a refreshing respect for truth.  Neither the comic nor the
   tragic side of village life is overlooked.  We are introduced to the
   glutton (1148) and the lecher (1159).  We see what happens to a village
   under the hand of a cruel magistrate (1175) and we are shown the
   desolating poverty of the brahmin boy who cuts wood for his teacher
   (1170).

6. The most prominent poet of the Sanskrit poetry of village and field is
   certainly Yogesvara. The SRK. ascribes twenty-four verses to him and
   contains thirteen more which are assigned to him by other anthologies
   deriving from the same geographic area. Yogesvara is praised in a verse
   of Abhinanda (verse 1699 of the present anthology), who was a court
   poet of the Pala dynasty.  Both Yogesvara and Abhinanda lived in the period
   A.D. 850-900 and both poets were Bengalis, at least in that larger sense
   of Bengal that includes the Pala domains in Bihar. Other poets writing in
   the same genre are Abhinanda's father, Satananda; Vagura, whom also
   Abhinanda praised and one of whose verses {1182} seems to be either
   imitated from Yogesvara or by Yogesvara (cf.l178); Vakpatiraja, who uses a
   pronounced Bengalism (buDDati, 1155).  All these poets are shown by
   sound evidence to have been Bengalis in the sense I have
   indicated. Others, of whose lives we know nothing, dharaNInanda, varAha,
   acala, cakrapaNi, etc., seem by the content of their verses to belong to
   the same literary schoo1. We may therefore identify the Sanskrit poetry of
   village and field largely with the Pala empire of the ninth and tenth
   centuries.

8. ... it is no little glory of Bengal that its ancient poets were not
   only masters of the Sanskrit tradition, but such accomplished masters that
   they could extend the tradition's boundaries. The breadth of vision lived
   on, if not in Sanskrit at least in medieval and modern Bengali, where one
   can find even today, in a land that has little to rejoice in, a poetry
   with the same deep and loving respect for all forms of life that one finds
   in Yogesvara.


1148. I rolled them in a cumin swamp
      and in a heap of pepper dust
      till they were spiced and hot enough
      to twist your tongue and mouth.
      When they were basted well with oil,
      I didn't wait to wash or sit;
      I gobbled that mess of koji fish
      as soon as they were fried.


1149. The deer fiees, casting ever and again his glance
      with graceful curving of his neck at the pursuing chariot,
      his terror of the arrow's flight so great
      his hindpart seems to penetrate his breast.
      He drops upon the way the half-chewed grass
      from his mouth that pants with weariness.
      See, as he leaps he seems to fly
      more in the air than on the ground!
				kAlidAsa


1150. The hawk on high circles slowly many times
      until he holds himself exactly poised.
      Then, sighting with his downcast eye
      a joint of meat cooking in the Chandala's yard,
      he cages the extended breadth of his moving wings
      closely for the sharp descent,
      and seizes the meat half cooked
      right from the household pot.


1151. At dawn the fledglings of the reed-thrush raise their necks,
      their red mouths open, palates vibrating with thirst;
      they flutter from the ground,
      their bodies trembling with their ungrown wings.
      Pushing each other by the river bank,
      from the blade-troughs of the prickly cane
      they drink the falling dew.


1152. Her graceful arm, raised to pull strongly on the rope,
      reveals from that side her breast;
      her shell bracelets jingle,
      the shells so dancing as to break the string.
      With her plump thighs spread apart
      and buttocks swelling as she stoops her back,
      the pAmarI draws water from the well
			      	- SharaNa

--

1154 (original sanskrit):


rajjukSheparayonnamadbhujalatAvyaktaikapArshvastanI
	sUtrachChedavilolasha~NkhavalayashreNIjhaNatkAriNI |
tiryagvistRRitapIvaroruyugalA pRRiShThAnativyAkRRitAbhogashroNirudasyati
	pratimuhuH kUpAdapaH pAmarI || 35.5||(1152)

    [pAmarI - low caste of field workers]

1154. The cock pigeon wakes to the sound of jingling anklets
      as the prostitutes walk home at dawn.
      He shakes his curving wing tips and kisses with his beak
      his companion's half-closed eyes.
      Lovingly he coos with throat that is muted
      by the gentle swaying of his neck.
				vikramAditya and an ascetic?


1155 sanskrit:


utplutya dUraM paridhUya pakShAvadho nirIkShya kShaNabaddhalakShyaH |
madhyejalaM buDDati dattajhampaH samatsyamutsarpati matsyara~NkaH || 35.8
		[Ingalls: buDDati is a pronounced "Bengalism"]


1155. The kingfisher darts up high and shakes his wing.
	Peering below, he takes quick aim.
	Then, in a flash, straight into the water,
	he dives and rises with a fish.
	   	     	   vAkpatirAja
--


1156. The cock struts from his nest, shakes his wing
      and works his way by stages to the treetop.
      There he lifts his neck, his foot, his tail,
      raises his comb and crows.
				[Madhu ?]


1157. The dairy boy milks the cow
      with fingers bent beneath his overlapping thumb.
      He holds the ground with the ball of his feet
      and strikes with his two elbows
      at the gnats that sting his sides.
      Sweet is the sound of the milk, my dear,
      as its stream squirts into the jar
      held in the vice of his lowered knees.
				upAdhyAyadAmara


1160. The girl shakes off the glittering drops
      that play upon the ends of her disheveled curls
      and crosses her interlocking arms
      to check the new luxuriance of her breasts.
      With silken skirt clinging to her well-formed thighs,
      bending slightly and casting a hasty glance
      toward the bank, she steps out from the water.
      	     	       	   	 bhojya-deva


1161. At night in the toddypalm groves the elephants,
      their ear fronds motionless, listen to the downpour
      of the raining clouds with half-closed eyes
      and trunks that rest upon their tusk-tips.
				hastipaka


1163. The cat has humped her back;
      mouth raised and tail curling,
      she keeps one eye in fear upon the inside of the house;
      her ears are motionless.
      The dog, his mouthful of great teeth wide open
      to the back of his spittle-covered jaws,
      swells at the neck with held-in breath
      until he jumps her.
      				yogesvara


1164. The heron, hunting fish, sets his foot cautiously
      in the clear water of the stream,
      his eyes turning this way and that.
      Holding one foot up, from time to time
      he cocks his neck and glances hopefully
      at the trembling of a leaf.
      				yogesvara

1165 (sanskrit)

mukteShu rashmiShu nirAyatapUrvakAyA niShkampachAmarashikhA nibhRRitordhvakarNAH |
Atmoddhatairapirajobhirala~NghanIyA dhAvanyamI mRRigajavAkShamayeva rathyAH ||

1165. The reins are loosened and our chariot-steeds
      stretch forth their shoulders, ears pricked high
      and earplumes stiff in the wind.
      As though they were jealous of the speeding deer
      they race on swifter than their hoof-raised dust.
					kAlidasa



1166. The horse on rising stretches backward his hind legs,
      lengthening his body by the lowering of his spine;
      then curves his neck, head bending to his chest,
      and shakes his dust-filled mane.
      In his muzzle the nostrils quiver
      in search of grass. He whinnies softly
      as with his hoof he paws the earth.
					bANa


1167 [...]
     To drive from his flanks the itch
     he twice or thrice rolls over on his back,
     then, rising, stands a moment motionless
     until he shakes himself from head to rump.
					[vikramAditya]


1170. The religious student carries a small and torn umbrella;
      his various possessions are tied about his waist;
      he has tucked bilva leaves in his topknot;
      his neck is drawn, his belly frightening from its sunkenness.
      Weary with much walking, he somehow stills
      the pain of aching feet and goes at evening
      to the brahmin's house to chop his wood.

1174

sanskrit-text : 1174


asmin IShadvalitavitatastokavichChinnabhugnaH
	kiMchillIlopachitavibhavaH pu~njitashchotthitashcha |
dhUmodgArastaruNamahiShaskandhanIlo davAgneH
	svairaM sarpan sRRijati gagane gatvarAn patrabha~NgAn ||


1174. The puff of smoke from the forest fire,
      black as the shoulder of a young buffalo,
      curls slightly, spreads, is broken for a moment, falls;
      then gathers its power gracefully, and rising thick,
      it slowly lays upon the sky
      its transient ornaments.
					[bANa]


1182. Her bracelets jingle each time her graceful arm is raised
      and as her robe falls back, there peeps forth
      the line of nail-marks along her breast.
      Time and again with swinging necklace
      she raises the shining pounder held in her soft hands.
      How beautiful is the girl who husks the winter rice.
				 	[vAgura]

45. The hero (rAvaNa)

To our poets rAvaNa has really ceased to be a demon in character although he
preserves his ten heads and twenty arms (1543, 1553, etc.) as of
old. rAvaNa's power has enabled him to invade the garden of Indra (1562), to
defeat Indra in battle (1549, 1562) and imprison him (1548). Everywhere he
causes havoc with his sword Candrahasa ('Laughter of the Moon' 1546, 1549).
He has won the sky-going palace, puShpaka (1548) from his brother, the god of
wealth, and has lifted up Mount Kailasa, the home of Siva, with his twenty
arms (1548). In the old mythology rAvaNa is punished for this act of
impudence. But to our poets rAvaNa has become a disciple and favorite of
Siva. He has won the god's favor by cutting off his heads and offering them
to the god (1543, 1546, 1548), a story in which Brahma originally played the
part of Siva (Ram. 7.10.10). RAvaNa's heads grow back as soon as cut off
(1543).

In the accounts of our poets, which differ in this from the epic, the demon
rAvaNa, Pulastya's son (1547), also tries for Sita's hand, either in person
(1541, 1548, both verses by Rajasekhara) or through an ambassador (1562 by
Bhavabhuti).  The winner of Sita's hand must bend the ancient bow of Siva
kept at Janaka's court. rAvaNa is about to bend the bow (1551), but then
refuses to try (1548).  Young Rama takes up the challenge and, proving
successful (1550), wins the bride.

10. The transformation of rAvaNa in ciassical Sanskrit from a demon to a hero
deserves more research than it has had. One can trace the process at work
steadily from Bhavabhuti through MurAri to RAjasekhara.  One factor making
for the change was doubtless the growing popularity of the god Siva, with
whom rAvaNa as the great opponent of Vishnu-Rama came to be associated. The
fact that RavaNa was considered to be a brahmin may also have led to his
favor with some of the literati. Finally, one should not exclude as a factor
the sympathy which humans often develop for the underdog.

11. The other heroes referred to by our poets are dwarfed by Rama and
RavaNa. One verse certainly (1556) and perhaps two (1555) are put in the
mouth of the epic hero Bhima, who swore that he would drink the blood fresh
from duHshasana's breast in revenge for that villain's treatment of Draupadi
(the daughter of the king of the PaNcalas, 1556).  In verse 1561 the
irascible Parasu Rama challenges the god of war (Skanda or KumAra). Verse
1559 praises an historical king's naval expedition on the Ganges.


1543. How-can one describe that RavaNa,
      who - when Siva, the foe of demons, was appeased,
      for the hero, seeking a boon, had cut with willing hands
      as though in play his very heads, which grew again --
      was then ashamed to ask
      and turned away his mouths, which argued,
      each urging on the others with " You choose," "You choose."
						[murAri]


1544. You are but one, while here are ten together
      to draw my bow whose twanging fills the heavens.
      Enlist the eight protectors of the sky and LaksmaNa;
      then take your bow, that our fighting may be equal.
						sanghashrI



1551. Oh earth, be firm; and serpent, hold the earth.
      You, tortoise, support both earth and snake.
      Elephants of the quarters, uphold all three,
      for RavaNa draws taut the string of Siva's bow.
						rAjAshekhara


1554. "The soldiers of our army are all broken;
      the officers destroyed. What use now bravery?
      See where ten-headed RavaNa stands near."
      So speaks Sugriva with his face all terror;
      but Rama only squints his eyes
      and slowly straightens out ten arrows.

1556. He who dragged the daughter of PaNcala,
      weeping, by the hair;
      who tore away her robe
      before the kings and elders;
      he from whose breast I swore
      to drink the blood like wine
      has fallen in my hands, oh Kauravas.
      Come save him if you can.
					[bhaTTa nArAyaNa]

Others

[Punning verse]
556. Hearing that her breasts were deep [or, impregnable], that they had
     put below them the three folds of her waist [vali; or, bali: three
     powerful enemies], that they were close together [or, well allied] and
     high [or, noble], her plaintiff heart, for sure, took refuge under
     them. Despite this, they did not ward off Love's entering arrows. But
     of course; for where is one (of them) that turns away from that which
     enters [or, where is one without a nipple]?
						vallaNa




 gARhAvadha : deep [or, impregnable],
 valitritayau : three folds [or enemies]
 susangau : close together
 tungau : high
 stana : breast

---


1642. When after many days my love returned,
      he talked of foreign lands for half the night;
      then while still I feigned coy anger
      the East, as if a rival wife,
      turned angry red in earnest.


1645. Even respected judgment fails,
      the mind stumbles, wisdom is destroyed
      and a man's firmness crumbles, when the heart
      is poisoned by the pleasures of the senses.


1647. Oh flame-tree, even when you come in fruit,
      what use is that to the hungry parrot?
      What benefit can dependents gain
      from a miser even though he may be rich?


1648. Though dwelling here, I still am yours
      and you, though there, are mine;
      for they, dear husband, whose hearts are joined,
      not they whose bodies only join,
      are truly joined.


1649. The astrologers with looking at the sky,
      with counting up the digits of the moon
      and adding up the shadow on the gnomon,
      get nothing but the pain of broken fingers.
      That night will be the lucky one, that day propitious,
      that will be the moment of good fortune,
      when my love, who wanders now I know not where,
      shall rise on the horizon of my eyes.
      			[vidyananda? vasudhara?]


1653. "Makes me catch my breath; hurts my lower lip
      and raises a blush upon my skin."
      "You've met a gentleman from town? "
      "No, no, my dear, I meant the winter wind."
      	       	  	 [dharmadAsa]


1654. The shy half glance, the sending of the go-between,
      the joy and love that rises at the words
      "We'll meet today; if not today, tomorrow."
      Then when they meet, the sudden kisses and embracing:such
      is the fruit of love, the real bliss;
      the rest we have in common with the beasts.


1656. These currents of the Narmada,
      breaking through the Vindhyas and so deep
      they reach to the lower world, bring terror.
      They easily uproot, then cause to dance,
      strike together, dash apart, set onward, leave and take,
      swallow within their waves, then shiver and shake
      the trees that stood upon their bank.


1660. The young bee, who once
      drank from the calyx of the lotus,
      now yearns for the bakula bud.
      Ah, black honey-gatherer, where is truth?


1661. Oh traveler, we give no shelter now
      to travelers in this town.
      One night, a young man came and laid him down to sleep
      upon our marriage stage,
      who began in a low voice a song, but at the sound of clouds
      remembered her that he had left behind.
      He then did that, for which the people here
      expect a bolt to fall upon their heads.


1664. Your breasts, oh daughter of a jungle chief,
      with their brown slopes and nipples black
      as unripe nuts of ebony,
      are worthy to detain the fondling hand
      of the young Pulinda hunter. The tribe of elephants,
      humbly seeking that their lives be spared,
      implores you therefore not to cover them
      with breastcloth made of leaves.
					 [vallaNa]


1665. In shame she turns away her face,
      thinking that everybody knows,
      and when she sees two people talking,
      thinks they talk of her.
      When her companions smile at her,
      the embarrassment increases.
      My love is ever in alarm
      from the fears within her heart.
      			[sri harSha-deva]


1671. Poor Sukra is half blind. The sun has a crippled child.
      Rahu has lost his limbs and the moon is ever waning.
      But here are men, not knowing that these too
      but suffer the results of their own deeds,
      who blame their own misfortunes on the planets.


1674. If you quarrel with a common man
      you destroy your reputation.
      If you make of him your friend,
      you undermine your virtue.
      A man of judgment, looking to both sides,
      annihilates the fellow simply by neglect.
      				[bhAravi]


1676. Some have left
      and others are about to leave;
      so why should we be sorry
      that we too must go?
      And yet our hearts are sad
      that on this mighty road
      the friends we meet can set
      no place to meet again.




1680 (sanskrit)

1680. You may always use two medicines
      to soothe the fire of love:
      a sip of honey from a young girl's lip
      and a pinch or two of her breast.



1691. That it is written on soft palmleaf,
      that it is sealed in thick sandal paste
      with the impression of her breast,
      and that the whole is bound by strings of lotus stem,
      show this to be an amorous missive
      fallen from some lady's hand.
			rAjAshekhara

smashAna verse; bibhatsa rasa

1530. A wretched ghost tears and tears the skin,
      then eats first the flesh, strong and putrid,
      that being thick or swollen is easiest to get:
      the shoulders, buttocks, and the backflesh;
      then drawing out the tendons, guts, and eyes,
      he bares his teeth and from the corpse upon his lap
      calmly eats the remnant down to the marrow in its bones.
					bhavabhUti


1534. Here flows the river at the border of the burning-ground;
      its banks are fearful places, for their slopes are filled with cries
      of barking jackals mixed with hooting of the owl
      in coverts where the wind soughs;
      obstructed in its flowing through the bones of cast-out skeletons,
      its current swells against the banks,
      through which it seeps with loathsome sounds of gurgling.
					bhavabhuti

Contents

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




among acknowledgements, son Dan Ingalls (smalltalk inventor) and daugher
Rachel (novelist)