Chapter Eight: Literature of the Rasika Tradition in Hindi

No comparison in the world equals those crimson, nectar-bearing lips.
Why call them tender shoots, whose scent is absent, or hard coral?
Her round, lovely cheeks hold her Lord’s mind and eyes;
they shine like excellent seats prepared for the sovereign of beauty.

Lagana-pacīsī

Composed by Sri Kripanivas

General introduction

At the prompting of Ramkishore Sharan, disciple of Jnana Ali, Seth Lakshmichand Chhote Lal of Bombay had the Lagana-pacīsī printed by Lucknow Printing Press in 1901. Its colophon indicates that it was composed in Vikrama year 1957. It consists of forty songs on twenty-nine pages, in rāgas including Bihag, Soratha, Kafi, Jaijaiwanti, Todi, Khamaj, and Jhinjhoti, and describes the mutual love of Sita and Rama. Its language bears Punjabi features.

Subject

The pain and wound of consuming attachment form the work’s principal subject. Love purifies love alone. The mind’s natural attachment to worldly desires can be cleansed only through profound possessive affection, love, and attachment to Bhagavan’s feet. No other means exists or can exist.

The songs abundantly use such words as ishq, āshiq, māshūq, mahbūb, zulf, dard, lagan, dīvānā, dil, dildār, and khvāb, perhaps because of Sufi influence or the poet’s knowledge of Urdu and Persian. The entire method is that of lover and beloved, which deserves attention. It repeatedly suggests that metaphorical human love is transformed into true divine love. Several examples follow.

1

Listen, companion, to the story of that love.
The heart wounded by pain becomes mad when it cannot fill its gaze with the beloved’s vision.
Day and night pass in speaking of the Beloved; I have sold myself into his hands.
Kripanivas has lost himself, astonished, searching for the memory of Sri Rama, the beloved friend.

2

Let someone hear the mad lover’s pain.
I have become attached to the pitiless one, struck down by pain.
Pain when rising, pain when sitting, pain throughout day and night;
speech and glances filled with pain, the wounded beloved smiles—