“Let me cast every pleasure into the ashes and spend my life eating ashes from house to house, but do not ever let me be parted from my own cherished beloved. Let caste, lineage, and family honor be lost; let me abandon everything and become a wandering beggar, but never let the way of love disappear from these eyes.”
Dohā
“Listen, prince: all the pleasures that exist in the world become sorrow when one is separated from one’s gallant beloved.”
“Raghunandana, although we women are low in every way, once we give our love to someone, we are sold into that person’s hands. We are exceedingly merciless, selfish, and accustomed to improper conduct, yet toward the one we love we keep no deceit within the heart. We women are base, images of death, and always appear untruthful; nevertheless, when we love someone, we place body and mind entirely in that person’s keeping. We become separate from husband, son, relatives, and household; we keep nothing between ourselves and the one with whom we have bound our love. No one in the world is lower than we are, Raghubara, and no one is higher than you; but if the heart’s love were weighed, our scale would prove the heavier.”
Hearing the women’s anguished words, youthful and steeped in rasa, tender-hearted Raghunandana understands the secret way of love. The destroyer of his devotees’ fear replies: “Listen, all you women. I shall now reveal my own nature; I will conceal nothing from you. Shiva, Sanaka and the other sages, Brahma, and the gods are not dearer to me than you; you princesses are dearer to me even than they are.