Chapter Eight: Literature of the Rasika Tradition in Hindi

Twin moons, quick deer, the teachers of serpents, the sun, and Love’s enemy all seem gathered there;
serpents and cords are drawn together, abandoning their ancient enmity in overwhelming happiness.
Many companions clap their hands and laugh as they play.
Many sing teasing rāgas, each pleasing the mind and none alien to it.
Joining hand to hand, all dance nimbly upon the water.
Their moving feet touch and scatter the surface while anklets ring.
Strange ornaments glitter within the pure water,
like masses of lightning flashing throughout a cloud-filled sky.
Chum-chum, theī-theī—the waves sing as lover and companions move together.
The world’s Love grows shy and withdraws while hand-clappers sound.
A few companions of the proper inner form behold this wondrous, incomparable rāsa.
Ramcharan asks: how could four blind worldly eyes ever see it?

The swing

The darling and her Beloved swing upon the swing.
Dense blue foliage beautifies the trees like a canopy of massed clouds.
Clouds thunder sweetly, stealing the lover’s mind, while the cuckoo’s melodious call resounds.
Rain falls and fills the ground with nectar; peacocks call in delight.
The bright waters of the sacred Sarayu swell and rise in waves like a net.
A fragrant breeze that puts the three winds to shame makes beautiful garments flutter.
Ornaments upon hands and feet are lightning; nails are moons that shame the stars, and the rainbow of the gods is humbled.
Many companions swing beside them and then take turns pushing darling and Beloved.
They sing sweetly, enchant the Beloved’s mind, and devise many playful compositions of rasa.
It seems that every arrangement has been made for the wedding of Kama and Rati.
Seeing the Beloved sporting in the forest, all awareness of the world is forgotten.
Only a rasika companion can behold this treasury of rasa and remain blessed by it day and night.
Ramcharan asks: abandoning this, what else is there but soot to blacken one’s face?

In the form of a male servant there is no union: one remains nearby and desires nothing.
The fruits of the liberations remain confined within their own limited stations.
Even so, without abandoning the three guṇas, the station of the servant can never be perfected.
If a woman attains her husband, by what means could she still remain in her father’s family?
Every conventional duty fell away when the maiden of Vraja became a female attendant.
Repetition, austerity, vows, rules, and the rest disappear when this form of service arises.