Chapter Eight: Literature of the Rasika Tradition in Hindi

Victory to the Pair, Sri Janaki and Rama!
Her fair body glitters; sacrifice millions of moons to that spotless, star-surpassing face.
Sri Rama is dark as the autumn sky, his radiance captivating yet inaccessible to sages’ minds; Sita is its fair celestial light.
Joined together, they embody Rama’s own delight, in a realm where no gust from the Age of Kali can reach.
A great crowd has gathered; women repeatedly peep at the beauty of Raghubir and Lakshmana and break straws to ward away the evil eye.
Overwhelmed by love, they fall upon that majestic sight like winged creatures descending upon a flame, all awareness of the body lost.
How can I describe Mother Sita’s condition there, or tell how fair Gauri appeared among the gods?
Who then remembered convention or proper conduct? Seeing their spellbound motion, even the moon seemed to become a cakora bird.

Sita glitters in the wedding pavilion, where auspicious celebration prevails.
It is as though the Auspicious Person himself were dancing there.
The sixteen forms of adornment described in the doctrine of Love
Have arranged themselves effortlessly upon Sita’s limbs.
The radiance of her limbs is itself her adornment;
Each day it devises some ever-new embellishment.
That alone deserves the name “adornment,” whose pride grows forever;
Whatever dresses her limbs takes on twice its former colour.

Sita Ji’s limbs naturally diffuse fragrance upon fragrance;
The woman appointed to apply perfume stands inwardly astonished and defeated.
Sita’s eyes, blue lotuses, are naturally anointed;
The woman preparing collyrium can only admit defeat within her heart.
Sita’s ever-smooth hair is filled with her beloved’s affection;
When the companions come to apply oil, the mind wonders whether anything remains for them to do.

The red stain upon Sita’s lips appears to be betel,
But a companion says, “No—it is beautiful because she continually says, ‘Beloved, beloved.’”
Let whatever remains beneath those lips stay dejected;
Only that is truly exalted in which the beloved makes his dwelling.

The redness of Sita’s feet shines and ripples;
The woman bringing crimson mahāvar sighs each time she looks at them.
Sita’s sacred, radiant body is like the waves of the Ganga;
Her devotees bathe in it solely through the swelling ardour of devotion to Janaki.
There is no other beauty equal to it—hence the face is called ānana, “that before which no other remains.”
The word attains its most delightful meaning only in Sita’s face.