Chapter Eight: Literature of the Rasika Tradition in Hindi

Dance recreation

The cultivated master dancer dances, and the ocean of happiness swells.
The Beloved’s spotless face is a moon, with a dark beauty-spot upon the chin.
The companions’ bright faces are lotuses that abandon stillness and bloom.
Curving bee-like eyebrows quiver along the rasika line.
During the song, bee-companions leave their hidden places and emerge nearby.
Hand holding hand, darling and Beloved sway like a line of intoxicated elephants.
Waists, necks, and feet bend and turn in repeated movement.
Curls yearn toward the cheeks, and earrings sway in playful waves;
it seems that Rahu and the sun swing upon the breast of the moon.

In this way they reach the bank of the Sarayu, where deep groves stand along the shore.
Masses of flowers fill them, and swarms of bees hum like living beings.
Both banks are pure and made of jewels, patterned with strange and wonderful rows.
The water before the Lord’s eyes fills his mind with compassionate rasa.
Blue jewels and rubies seem to fashion a bed with jewelled serpent-hoods,
while the forest, the Lord, the sun, the companions, and the nectar all repeat one another’s rasa.
Sumati says: “O embodiment of love, reveal your unwavering form—I sacrifice myself upon it.”
Ramcharan says: abandon the world and behold it; why return now to the palace?

Water-play

Entering the Lord’s mind, darling and Beloved devise the wonder of playful delight.
In the water’s sport every reserve disappears, while many graceful games of affection arise.
With lotus hands they fling up water, and the supple companions cast jets from lotus flowers.
Bees fly up humming with the spray; seeing it, even the poetess Sharada begins to dance.
It is as though moons above a city broke apart and serpent-children gathered to plunder their nectar.
Or as though golden cups enclosed the rasa and quick companions crowded together to seize it.
The Lord splashes them again; when the water strikes, it seems that jars filled with nectar burst.
Ramcharan says: so the bond of Kama and Rati is released within the city of Sita’s heart.

In this way lover and beloved play affectionately in the water.
Garlands of joy surge; darling and Beloved laugh and splash.
Lip touches lip, and each beholds the beauty of the other’s face.
Wet, curling locks mingle; nose-ring and great earrings become entangled.
The companions’ curls, earrings, and bulāq pendants tangle together in incomparable beauty—