Chapter Eight: Literature of the Rasika Tradition in Hindi

—why has a dark bodice been fashioned over your body, Sita?
It seems you have hidden there the dark Lord of your life, pressed to your heart.
The shining jeweled necklace upon your fair neck
appears to be the colourful beloved boy’s arm wrapped around you.
Your vine-like arms, fragrant and adorned with floral ornaments and gems,
have taken up residence upon the shoulders of the beloved tamāla amid the bower.
Startled earrings, paired eyebrows like rows of bees, deer-like eyes;
nectar-dropping teeth within your moon-chariot face, for which the Beloved is the chakora bird.
Your collyrium-darkened eyes are wagtails upon a lotus,
skilful in delighting Raghubara’s mind and destroying the pride of passion’s rasa.
The pearl of your nose ring flashes, steeped in the fragrance of your breath;
it touches the Beloved’s breast as though it were love’s noose around his mind.
Your glistening curls flow like a current of the erotic rasa;
soaked in its colour, they become dark—the very support of your Beloved’s life.
Your body’s incomparable radiance turns every direction to gold,
as though beauty drips down and delights itself upon each limb.
Your beauty is boundless; the Beloved drinks through his eyes and is never satisfied.
Restless, he wishes to become Indra himself for the sake of a thousand eyes.
Laden with beauty, fortune, virtues, fresh youth, and Love,
how can your two eyes bear the weight without fear as they gaze?
Afraid for those eyes, the companion offers herself and says nothing;
within his heart the Beloved too continually circles mustard seed and salt to ward off harm.
Helpless, he arranges everything while gazing at your beauty,
drinking it again and again and offering himself at every moment.
You, Sita, are coloured in your Beloved’s colour, and he in yours;
the two remain one form, like wave mingled with water.
Sometimes a maidservant tells the women of the city the secrets of her own heart,
singing without restraint as she remembers virtue after virtue of her sovereign Lady.