Chapter Eight: Literature of the Rasika Tradition in Hindi

I have received the wound of attachment to Rama.
No awareness of breath, sleep, body, or face remains; the fire of love has revealed itself.
My startled eyes leap again and again onto the path,
seeking that excellent, sky-dark form.
The crooked, thieving arrow has utterly plundered me,
emptied the once secure dwelling and left it desolate.
Shame is burned and every boundary swept away; passionate colour covers both eyes.
Kripanivas cries “Alas!”—where are the feet whose arrows have wounded these feet?

Someone is a beloved mad fakir,
drinking two cups of the pure wine of love, intoxicated through all eight watches.
He wanders, stands, and walks drunkenly; when he speaks, his mind is crazed.
In wrath or mercy he remains joyful, captivated by the heart-filling Beloved.
His eyes full of the dark beauty, he has sold himself into the friend’s hands.
Laughter is gone; he weeps, yet appears excellent, silent as one beyond himself.
People of the house and neighbourhood laugh and taunt him.
Kripanivas asks: who in this world recognizes a wounded soul?

Mother, why has this wretched attachment fallen upon me?
It cuts my liver like shears and makes my chest tremble night and day;
hooked through the nose, I am drawn upon a taut gallows.
It mixes poison, skilfully inventing ever-new devices;
it pulls harshly, shakes me, and makes me an exile.
Sense, shame, and fortune flee; pain awakens and fills me with grief.
Blackness clings to me, charged with great venom.
Kripanivas says: I belong neither to home nor forest;
there is no crossing or escape—I am joined to the beloved by love.

Mother, may no companion receive attachment’s wound.
Cool fire surrounds me and slowly burns my feet;
then it awakens and becomes the heavy flame of destruction.
Salt is rubbed into the burn—who can prescribe a remedy?
Mohan sits within and knows nothing of the mind.
To whom can I reveal it? Those who understand the heart praise it,
but its sweet colour makes every other flavour of mind seem pale.
This hostile attachment refuses counsel and possesses the blacksmith’s hardness;
it sends me again beneath the hammer, striking joy and pain from the cloud—