Chapter Eight: Literature of the Rasika Tradition in Hindi

With tender lotus hands and feet they exchange graceful, nectar-filled blows.
The lovely lover performs delightful play with the ladies and their refined tastes.
A supremely sweet and strange sound spreads on every side.
Sita and Shyama, together with the companions, enact an ever-new battle of rasa.
One companion, saturated with affection, clings to his lovely chest
and, overwhelmed by playful rasa, strikes him with her exceedingly tender lotus feet.
Another lovely woman wraps him in a close garland of arms,
then grows afraid at the thought of being submerged in the vast water.
A singular, clever companion devises an ingenious stratagem,
seizes the beloved’s dear body, and draws him alone into the forest.
Another lotus-faced companion, caught in the powerful current,
falls and is greatly distressed, bewildered and without the slightest awareness.
The quick waves separate her garments, but she does not realise it.
Regaining consciousness, she feels immense modesty within her heart.
Adorned with graceful reserve, she will not approach the Beloved.
Another companion takes her arm and laughingly turns her face toward him.
Then, overcome by modesty, the lady submerges beneath the water.
Her Lord beholds her freshly with his own eyes and gives her an excellent garment.
Dark Rama, crest-jewel of rasikas and beautiful treasury of affection,
holds her chin between his paired lotus hands and kisses her many times.
Joining her priceless cheeks to his beloved’s own,
he tastes the gathered nectar of her lips, filled with supreme exhilaration.
Like a clever bee abandoning all fickleness to drink the lotus’s rasa,
he attains supreme delight and reels under affection’s control.
In this way he performs abundant recreation with the companions and creates colour,
becoming absorbed in affectionate rasa, a pure mind-stealing flavour in which they move like fish.
The excellent company completes the lovely water-play; bodices, heads, and faces are freshly drenched.
Wet garments cling to their beautiful golden bodies.
The poet beholds the Couple’s ever-new affection as supreme inspired radiance.