Chapter Seven: Literature of the Rasika Tradition

Hymns and songs

1. Śrī Rāma-stava-rāja

One available edition, compiled from the Sanatkumāra Saṃhitā and adorned with Haridasa’s commentary, was printed by Sitaram Printing House, Ayodhya, in Vikrama year 1986. Another, with a commentary by Rasaramanī Sitaramsharan, was published in Bombay in Vikrama 1958.

The first commentary is highly learned and richly supported by foundational sources of Vaishnava practice. The hymn contains approximately ninety-nine verses and treats Rama’s supremacy, the glory of Rama’s name, and meditation upon Sita-Rama as the Divine Couple.

Sanatkumara is its seer, anuṣṭubh its metre, Rama its deity, Sita its seed, and Hanuman its power. Two opening verses, 11–12, give the meditation; two further meditation verses occur at the end.¹

At many points Haridasa uses scriptural testimony to establish that Rama’s form is such that anyone who sees it becomes enchanted. He adduces the sages of Dandakaranya: if ascetic men responded this way upon seeing Rama, what then need be said of women? So captivating is Rama’s form.

In his commentary on verse 52, Haridasa argues elegantly that just as a daughter becomes her husband’s wife after her father gives her in marriage and—