Chapter Eight: Literature of the Rasika Tradition in Hindi

Bhakta-Manarañjanī

Composed by Prema Sakhī

Sri Prema Sakhī’s Bhakta-Manarañjanī is true to both its name and its qualities: “That Which Delights the Devotee’s Mind.” This beautiful and extensive collection of songs, saturated with the sweet nectar of love and set in numerous rāgas and rāginīs, is capable of filling devotees’ minds with the flavour of love. In 1901, Seth Chhotelal Lakshmichand had it printed and published by Jain Press, Lucknow.

How charmingly she walks with a restless, sprightly gait!
The singular young maiden moves sweetly and gently;
Swaying and bending as she goes, she makes other women ashamed.
Her restless wagtail-eyes flash beneath eyebrows drawn like a bow,
And the lovely radiance of her face puts the moon to shame.
That elegant maiden of this earthly abode comes to meet
The playful connoisseur Ramachandra.
Her eyes flash again and again as she drinks
The excellent nectar of love, tasting the sweetness until she is satisfied.
Prema Sakhī says: see brave Premacandrāvalī thus,
Adorned in all sixteen embellishments to delight Rama.

Mahārāsotsava, or Sītārāma-rahasya

This is an Awadhi prose translation of the Hanumat Saṃhitā by Sri Ambika Prasad Daivajña, a resident of village Auraas in Hasan Ganj tahsil, Unnao district, within the Awadh region. It is a remarkable and extremely useful work of this tradition. A sample of its prose is given below. Here and there, however, the translation also includes one or two summarising dohās. Its language is unsteady, yet vigorous and successful in expressing devotional feeling. It was printed by Lucknow Printing Press in 1904.

One woman bows to her beloved. Another, overcome by passion, takes offence at her beloved; then, when understanding arises, she pleases him, just as a devoted wife brings a quarrel to an end.

One companion goes into the appointed bower and, not finding her beloved friend there, makes him experience her intense displeasure.

One companion enters the bower-grove, sees her beloved burning in the fire of separation, and embraces him like an eager woman, thereby extinguishing that fire.

One woman strings garlands of flowers and sings of her beloved’s deeds for his sake. Another companion prepares a flower-bed, as one might make a bed of cloth—