Chapter Eight: Literature of the Rasika Tradition in Hindi

The dust of Sita’s feet is the life of her Beloved, the wish-fulfilling cow of rasikas,
and the divine tree upon which the creeper of exclusive devotees grows.

Again and again I make my excellent plea and beg: “Sri Sita, grant me
love for your Beloved’s Name, free from hope in either this world or the next.”

May not the slightest desire for enjoyment or liberation remain within the heart.
Satisfied each day by eating their remnants, may I repeat the Name of Sita’s Beloved.

Sant-sukha-prakāśikā Padāvalī

By Swami Yugalananyasharan

This collection of Swami Yugalananyasharan Maharaj’s sweet, rasa-filled songs was printed by the Lucknow Steam Printing Press in 1917. It contains the rasika devotee-heart’s loving petition to Ramachandra, God as the embodiment of love and subject to devotional feeling. Through its grace and naturally affecting power, it takes hold of the reader’s mind.

Sri Yugalananyasharan’s Padāvalī is filled with Sufi vocabulary. He is especially fond of words such as ishq (passionate love), āshiq (lover), mahbub (beloved), zulf (curl), zulm (cruelty), sitam (oppression), juram (offence), dard (pain), āh (sigh), fariyād (lament), wafā (fidelity), jafā (cruelty), and yār (friend or beloved), and uses them freely.

Do not become separated from me even for a moment, my dear.
Sleep happily with the beautiful Sita upon the lovely bed.
Yugalananya’s companion, intoxicated by love, will gaze upon the beauty of both beloveds.

Cruelty does not befit love.
Without you, beautiful deceiver, the desire for union awakens every instant.
The eyes ache merely to see you; pain has made them mad, while the heart’s enemy brands each day.
Yugalananya’s companion, recognising her own destiny, abandons the body for your sake.

Rama is perfectly full within all things; not even a sesame-seed of space is empty.
Wherever remembrance is firmly established, there stands the Forest-Garlanded Lord.
Put the spectacles of longing upon your eyes and remain at home, my dear.
The whole universe shines as his play, an illuminated form.
Not the slightest inequality exists anywhere in any land.
Dwell in the pure city of equality, adorned with every happiness.
A single redness spreads through body and mind, forest and mountain—