Chapter Eight: Literature of the Rasika Tradition in Hindi

The companions remove and set aside garments and ornaments, leaving only a few adornments suited to sleep.
Sita and Rama proceed to the bedchamber, and the companions overflow with happiness.
Beside the jewelled footstool they fasten pearl garlands and draw the bed-curtains closed.
Ramcharan’s companions lay them upon the bed, their heads resting on fragrant vetiver pillows.

Lover and beloved lie down happily upon the bed.
The many-coloured jewelled chamber glitters with light.
At Madanmanjari’s command, the companions first prepared the bed,
arranging divine fragrant flowers all around in gardens of many colours.
Sita and Rama take their rest while a companion stands holding a pitcher filled with water.
Clever companions massage the lotus feet and exchange intimate words.
A companion holds betel quids and the spittoon, and a tray filled with the enjoyments appropriate to sleep.
Five companions play the five instruments, producing nectar through the seven notes.
Sleep comes, and Raghunandana and Janaka’s darling rest happily.
Many of Ramcharan’s companions remain at their watch-posts; many return to beds in their own palaces.

Sri Jivaram “Yugala-priya”

1. Yugalapriyā Padāvalī

This collection of Sri Jivaram Yugala-priya’s love-filled songs was printed by the Lakshminarayan Press in Moradabad on the thirteenth day of the dark fortnight of Savan, Vikram Samvat 1959. It contains especially songs of the Savan and Phagun swings and of Holi, depicting Sita and Rama’s loving recreation, rāsa, and swing-play. Songs occur in many rāgas and rāginīs. The language has an eastern colouring and contains some Urdu and Persian words, though comparatively few. There are approximately 107 songs across fifty-six pages.

Subject

The work describes the Couple’s divine play and rāsa-vilāsa in the Golden Palace, in the bowers beside the Sarayu, and with the companions amid the many forms of Holi’s joyous exhilaration and Savan’s swing-play. Sri Yugala-priya also composed two other works, Śṛṅgāra-rahasya-dīpikā and Aṣṭayāma. Several examples from the Padāvalī follow.

Shyama awakens beside Sita, filled with colour in the colourful palace, in a bower of the Golden Palace.
Languid and lovely, their eyes blink drowsily; every limb bears the beautiful marks of Love’s battle.
From their own bowers come Chandrakala and the other lovely companions, cluster after cluster of splendour.
Vīṇā, mṛdaṅga, upaṅga, kaṭatāra, and caṅga join together as those excellent women sing the Couple’s deeds.
Beholding this royal assembly of rasa, every desire of the mind is forgotten.
Yugala-priya begs the treasure possessed by rasikas and repeats the Couple’s Name in order to attain their meeting.