Chapter Eight: Literature of the Rasika Tradition in Hindi

Shaded cheeks joined in beauty give the mind supreme delight.
They steal every awareness from the heart of Yugalananyasharan, the one who has surrendered to the Couple.

Taking refuge at the feet of the clever youthful Couple, I shall follow their movement, love, and doubled delight.
Beholding them in joy, I shall laugh at every comparison and give my eyes their peace.

Seeing lover and beloved steeped in mutual love,
I shall count myself blessed and regard the three worlds as straw.

Sacrifice the pride of innumerable Kamadevas upon every limb.
At every moment their beauty becomes a hundredfold new, and I shall obtain a treasury of happiness.

Sri Sita’s happiness-giving virtues are a thousandfold nectar, O Lord of sweetness.
Relishing rasa again and again, I shall rejoice and scorn the worldly costumes of attachment.

Beauty, sweetness, tenderness, and exquisite attire—
within these qualities, treasuries of supreme delight, I shall remain immersed every instant.

Dark Shyama is an ocean of happiness beside his sovereign lady, Sri Sita.
I shall sing their divine, magnificent, ever-new qualities, abandoning wealth and home.

When shall I dwell happily in Sri Dham with mind, speech, and body,
while my eyes behold its divine radiance and its joy-filled colours?

Seeing the trees, grasses, shrubs, and vines of Sri Sitavar’s abode as rasikas filled with rasa,
I shall dance with love, abandoning every worldly conception of honour.

Understanding worldly shame and practical calculation to be poison,
I shall dwell as Vimala, wrapped in stainless understanding and gazing upon the Couple’s form.

When desire for the Golden Residence makes my very flesh yearn,
I shall adorn myself completely among companions of my own disposition and acquaint the heart with it.

At the sight of the abode, streams will flow from my eyes.
Forgetting self and other, awareness unmoving, my eyes will desire only it.

Ah, the fortune of my love: having obtained this human body so dear,
I shall dwell immovably on the beautiful bank of the Sarayu, abandoning difficult distortions.

Honour and prestige will be dust, and the sages’ spiritual powers no more than dust.
Seeing all other praise as poison, I shall dwell in the principal abode.

Eight lovely bowers stand on every side, four in each direction, stealing the heart.
Beholding them, I shall sacrifice myself, body and mind immersed in the colour and nectar of rasa.