Chapter Eight: Literature of the Rasika Tradition in Hindi

Her dark, starry eyes rest within lotus-white expanses, their red corners sending out pangs of love.
Collyrium-dark, oceans of modesty and nectar, they are exceedingly broad and extend from end to end.
Both pour affection; they are dearer than life to the beloved, beyond comparison even after Brahma exhausted his art.
Brahma fashioned fish, deer, and wagtail birds, but Premsakhi says they now live ashamed in forest and sky.

Brahma is too foolish to sing the beauty of those dark, sidelong glances.
At the corners of Mithilesh’s daughter’s eyes, all three qualities of beauty have multiplied.
Her teeth are pearls and her divine voice equals the flute in sweetness.
A river of beauty flows there day and night, and Hari’s mind is the fish that dwells within it.

Who could see the delicate ornaments moving upon her lovely cheeks and still return with ordinary awareness?
The edge of her veil covers them, its gold-worked border curved by curling locks and lending still greater beauty.
The daughter of the sun, the moon, and the serpent’s jewel all failed to provide an adequate comparison; Premsakhi says that is why none is offered.
Blessed is the one to whom Sita’s beauty is dear; supremely unfortunate the one who directs consciousness elsewhere.

Softer than dark musk and finer than aquatic moss, Sita Ji’s immense hair shines upon her head.
Peacock feathers, tamala darkness, emerald threads, and tender leaves—millions of creators fashioned millions of such things in search of a comparison.
For that purpose, says wise Premsakhi, the Lord continually devises ever-new experiments.
He spread peacock plumes and fresh serpent skins, but when none entered the heart as equal, Brahma made them again and again.

Finer than the finest fabric, ever new, her beloved blue sari has been refined with nectar.
It brings every happiness; around it lies a garland of clouds, while its gold-worked border flashes like lightning on every side.
Such is the fortune of fortune and the splendour of married blessedness granted to whoever Sita Ji mercifully clothes with it.
No comparison arises—how then can it be described? Premsakhi repeatedly sacrifices herself upon seeing it.

Only lotus eyes that have beheld her eyes can know their beauty; such eyes have become blessed.
Their long, lovely eyelashes complete the eyes’ beauty, friend.
Premsakhi says that even in millions of ages no one could reach the path of their loveliness.
Fish, deer, and wagtail birds—do not defame them by forcing them into such a comparison.

Who could sing the exquisite beauty of her renowned navel, from which Brahma arose to spread the world?
It is a profound and motionless pool within the reservoir of beauty, adorned by a royal row of fine body-hair.
The deeper it appears, the more immeasurable virtues it reveals; around it shines a tender line upon the waist.
Premsakhi says: know that the Creator firmly planted here the tree of adornment.

Beholding Raghubir Ji’s thighs, beauty itself causes Brahma to regret every earlier creation.
Seeing the paired thighs and knees of Raghubar, even the plantain pillars he had made begin trembling leaf by leaf—