Chapter Eight: Literature of the Rasika Tradition in Hindi

Grant me a lovely and wondrous special dwelling within your beautiful private palace,
the highest abode of bliss, purer than the pure.
Make my mind accomplished in detachment and worship at every moment.
Yugalananya asks: grant me forever the beautiful dwelling of stainless love.

Grind the mind fine like flour and prepare the practice beneath the tree of taste.
Let attachment be the cauldron, pure passion the fire, and the Sarayu’s nectar the joyous drink.
Although a curtain stands between us and I am only a maidservant,
Sri Yugalananya says: through supreme love, Lord, you are mine and I am yours.
Sustain my own ever-new and stainless affection, dark fresh cloud.
Immerse the excellent swan of my soul within the sweet lake of my mind.

Our Name itself is both āshiq and māshuq, lover and beloved.
Superficial lovers do not understand the union occurring upon the left side.
All have become one kind through the fair Lord’s action.
Hari! Yugalananya drinks the Name’s rasa with his tongue.

Once the immortal nectar of the Name has been found, why return to illness?
Having entered Rama’s palace, why go back to the marketplace?
Once the true grain’s flavour has been tasted, what use are common mangoes and pomegranates?
Hari! When such wealth has been obtained, tell me: why carry a burden upon the head?

Sri Rama’s Name is stainless, incomparable, and real.
Listen: innumerable other names are servants beside it.
I made an excellent test in Shambhu’s shop.
Hari! I chose the excellent jewel of the true Name within Rama’s treasury of rasa.

Having embraced true faqīrī, what fear remains and of whom?
I made the Name my primary task—what concern have I with the secondary?
I offered my forehead in sacrifice for the sake of the Beloved.
Hari! Yugalananya walks the lover’s path without an obstacle.