Chapter Eight: Literature of the Rasika Tradition in Hindi

—I regard respect from others as poison and the Beloved’s rebuke as nectar.
Though other houses and doors are found, I stand crying at the Beloved’s gate.
“Alas, alas!” I cry, then “Yes, yes!”—defeated, my heart surrendered.
Kripanivas worships Rama and Sita, having lost body, mind, and wealth.

Attachment burned an incense of love; smelling it, I became mad.
A wave rose and revealed something like a dream; the heart embraced it fully.
The embrace proved deceptive and utterly painful, water trembling upon a hot griddle.
Amid poison and fury, the heart-knower whispered and bestowed mercy.
Knowing that my mind had drunk and entered the Beloved’s hands, I was enticed by the subtle taste.
I earned attachment in the beloved boy’s house and became entangled in offering myself.
Once it seizes the heart, who can act, and how can life continue?
Kripanivas asks: in attachment’s marketplace, what wise woman can avoid being sold?

Meeting the Beloved through love, the mind’s rose-garden of ishq opened.
I told my companion what happened in the night and spoke of the dark Lord.
I met him in a dream, wholly intoxicated, and pressed his hand delightedly to my breast.
I awoke with a start, my mind bewildered, and saw only the balm of the bed.
My state became miserable after meeting the cruel one with curling locks.
Attached to the merciless beloved, I cried under pain’s power.
Kripanivas says that day and night only the words of Rama now cling to me.

When attachment to the Beloved becomes powerful, what gain is there in meeting others?
When the heart has met the heart’s Lord, what place remains for another meeting?
Abandon a hundred thousand ashes of the body and become pure—what else can the mind desire?
Kripanivas is Rama’s lover; why remain any longer in this world?

Ananya-cintāmaṇi

Composed by Sri Kripanivas

A manuscript of the Ananya-cintāmaṇi is held at Pramoda Rahasya Van, Ayodhya. Its opening evaluates the fruits of every kind of spiritual discipline. It discusses restraint, observance, posture, the piercing of the five lotuses, and drinking nectar; then knowledge and detachment; and then adjudicates dualist, nondualist, qualified, and other doctrines. Yoga and knowledge—