Chapter Eight: Literature of the Rasika Tradition in Hindi

The great drum of love sounds continually through all eight watches.
Hearing it, the ears receive blissful rasa from the glory-giving, fear-dispelling, beautiful abode.
The voices of peacock and cuckoo are filled with nectar, yet this primal melody is sweeter still.
Those who have not heard its flavour-filled music find no rest anywhere.
Those who fail to remember the Name are inert cheats, deceived by the world.
Yugalananya says: free of doubt, my mind has now found repose.

Raghubir, attachment between you and me has arisen.
As far as life and world extend, mind, movement, and speech remain bound to you.
Even in dreams there is no second passion or attraction; at every moment I bear the pain of your path.
The one whose life, wealth, desire, and lovely mind are devoted to you is happy, virtuous, and profound.
Yugalananyasharan says: my wounded heart gazes upon the waters of the Sarayu.

How did you forget those excellent words?
Joined to refuge, you entrusted me with letters of happiness at every place.
Knowing every living being as your own, your compassionate eyes looked beyond distinctions of virtue and condition.
“I am yours, and you alone are my husband”—the breast thrills with firm conviction.
Yugalananyasharan says: within the inner heart, no reputation, caste, or social identity now pleases me.

Nectar-filled Beloved, love for you has seized me.
My heart knows and recognises the tastes and ways of a separated lover’s passion.
Bottomless desire forever grows within the mind and never moves toward anything contrary.
No colour emerges with anyone else; I have abandoned calculations of right and wrong.
Yugalananyasharan says: when the beloved is met, powerful certainty only grows.

Beloved, I shall drink the cup and recognise you.
Moment by moment I shall increase love, sing your virtues, and worship the beauty of the treasury of rasa.
Mind, judgement, the guru’s knowledge, meditation, and every discipline—I shall spend them all for love.
Without the Lord’s affection, body and home are nothing; understanding them as dust, I shall not become attached.
Yugalananyasharan says: I shall discuss the beautiful Sri Rama as the True Guru.

Now I have become a true blessed bride.
The Beloved Lord of Kosala showed grace and shattered the vessel of sweet delusion.
Sense objects, power, and latent desire were forgotten, and the world’s fragile mentality was destroyed.
Binding anklets of fresh affection, I fell at his feet and danced with love.
Setting aside every discipline, I adopted the one rule of remaining absorbed in the Couple’s Name.
Yugalananyasharan says: I ask Sitavar for the intimate contemplative mystery.