Vidyāpati Thākura

“ Krishna: Beholding that my love was at her bath,
She pierced my heart with arrows five,—
The stream of water pouring from her tresses.
Was her moon-face weeping, frighted by their gloom.
The wet cloth clung upon her corse,—
So might Kāma shake a hermit's heart!
Twin breasts were cakravākas sweet.
United by the gods upon the self-same shore,—
Caged in the prison of her arms.
Lest they should fly away in fear.
Vidyāpati, the poet, sings:
The precious maid her lover meets!
X.
Krishna: A joyous day this day for me! ”

“ Fly the myriads of Madan's arrows!
Even an instant to behold such loveliness
Suffices to eclipse the Triple Worlds:
But and I see her once again,
My mourning may depart!
Says Vidyāpati: In sooth,
For your dear sake, I'll bring her.
RĀDHĀ BAYASANDHI XV.
Dūtikā: Childhood and youth are mingled both,
Her eyes have taken the road to her ears:
Wily are her words, and her low laugh
As if the moon appeared on earth.
She takes a mirror to array herself,
And asks: 'What is the game of love, my dear?'
How many times she secretly regards her bosom,
Smiling to see her breasts! ”

“ Krishna: The night is late, the fair one timorous and fearful:
When will she of the olifant gait be here?
The path is filled with dreadful snakes,
How many dangers do her path beset, and she with feet so tender!
To the feet of Providence I trust her,
Success attend the Beauty's tryst!
The sky is black, the earth is sodden,—
My heart is anxious for her danger.
Heavy the darkness in every airt,—
Her feet may slip, she cannot find the path:
Her glance beguiles each living thing
Lakshmī comes in human form!
Says Vidyāpati the poet:
The maid enamoured yields to none but Love. ”

“ Each on the other gazing, spread abroad the taste of bliss,—
That Vidyāpati knoweth well.
XII.
Krishna: She smiled a little when she saw me lurking there—
As if the rising moon lit up the night:
And when she rained on me her sidelong glances,
The heavens became a swarm of bees.
Who knoweth whose the maid may be,
Setting my heart a-shake, and vanishing?
The humble-bee is prisoned in the lotus-flower of love,—
I was amazed to see the timid fair one passing by.
Then was made manifest the beauty of her breasts,—
(Whose heart does not the golden lily snare?) ”

“ When Kānu lifts her to his lap, she bends her body back,
Like the young snake, untamed by spells.
'But shut your eyes this once, my fair one,
As a sick man drinks his draught:
A little moment's pain, and then the birth of bliss,—
Why do you turn your face away from this, my girl?'
Hearken, Murāri, saith Vidyāpati:
You are the ocean of desire, and she is artless.
XXXVII.
Rādhā: How can I tell of what was done that night?
Unhappily the hours were spent with Mādhava:
He clasped my breasts and drank the nectar of my lips,
Laying his face on mine, he killed my life. ”

“ Ah damsel fair! with what and what devoted care,
Has Nature given to you the utmost beauty of the moon.
A grass green bodice binds your breasts, a glimpse is only seen;
So jealously you cover them,—but never snow may hide the hills!
Dark sūrm decks your curving restless eyes.
As if the bees would rest their weight upon some wind-bent lotus.
Hearken, young thing, says Vidyāpati; these charms, you know them all,—
Witness be Rājā Shivasimha Rūpanārāyana and Lakshmī Devī.
VI.
Krishna: She left the shrine at cowdust-time, passing gliding
Like a flash of lightning mated with a fresh cloud. ”

“ The frenzied bee can find no place of rest,
But haunts continually the nectar-laden jasmine,
Reckless of life in eager thirst.
He honey-life, you honey-heap.
Already hiding hoarded sweets,—
The maddened bee has neither home
Nor rest without your jasmine-self.
Deep in your heart consider this:
Why should you be the murderer of a bee?
For Vidyāpati avows: He will return to life.
If He may drink the nectar of your lips.
XIV.
Krishna: Wheresoever her twin feet fall,
A lotus-flower uplifts them:
Wheresoever her body passes swaying,
There is the lightning's undulation! ”

“ To abandon the loving is ever unmeet.
CXXXVIII.
Kavi: Frenzied tresses encircling her radiant face—
It is Rāhu desiring the orb of the moon:
Flowers of her hair with her necklace entwined,
As the Jamunā joins with the waters of Gangā.
The twain beyond speech are out of all reason,
The loveling disports with most ardent passion:
Eagerly fair-face kisses love-face,
The bending moon drinks up the lotus.
Her face is adorned with a bead of sweat—
Madan has offered a pearl to the moon:
Long is the necklace that hangs on her breasts—
It is pouring its milk into golden jars. ”

“ Looks on her moon-face with brimming eyes.
All of her maidens were filled with joy,
Madan entered the hearts of both.
Twain were enraptured, each in the other's lap:
A sight that fills Vidyāpati with bliss.
LXXVIII.
Sakhī: 'Tell me, O Beauty, what were the night's delights.
How did your Lord fulfil your hopes?
(How curiously, methinks, has Providence
Created man and maid!)
You are the fairest woman of the world
And have attained Murāri, worthiest of men.'
Rādhā: 'I am not able to recite my lover's love,
The fates have not bestowed on me a myriad mouths! ”

“ As though a shaggy yak concealed a gold Mahesh:
Hearken Murāri, Vidyāpati saith:
So fair a may may dally with a man of worth.
XVII.
Krishna: Now and again her eyes to their corners fly,
Now and again her filmy robe receives them;
Now and again her serried teeth laugh out,
Now and again the smile delays upon her lips.
Sometimes she hurries nervously, sometimes she walks but slowly,
Now for the first time learning Madan's lessons:
She steals a glance at her breasts' buds,—
Sometimes she draws the wimple close, sometimes she stands astonished.
Childhood and youth are met in her. ”

“ Bright was her body, shining under wimple with the shene of gold:
Long locks, small middle, sidelong-glancing eyes.
And softly smiling, pierced me with the arrows of her eyes,—
Lord of the Five Gaurs, live for ever, says Vidyāpati!
VII.
Krishna: Laughing, talking, milk-white girl.
Nectar-showering as autumn moon at full:
Jewel of beauty surpassing, passing before me,
Gainly of gait as olifant-king.
Small was her middle as any lion's, her frail frame breaking
With the burden of the honey-apples of her breasts. ”

“ When he shall roughly clasp my breasts,
My hands shall restrain his hands, half-glances belying.
For my lover, the proper man is a bee,
Holding my cheeks will drink the honey of my lips,—
Then shall he ravish my every sense!
Vidyāpati says: Your life is blest!
CXXIX.
Rādhā: When Kāna shall come to my house,
I shall gaze on his moon-face with swimming eyes:
When as a woman I say 'Nay, nay,'
Then shall Murāri woo me more wildly! ”

“ If now you do not mix with Mādhava,
The poet Vidyāpati will never speak with you again.
LXV.
Kavi: With hanging head, she writes upon the ground,
Whoever utters Shyāma's name, she utterly ignores
Over her glowing robe her hair falls free,
She casts away her jewels and all her fine array.
Her face is like a lord of rosy lilies, void of sap:
The earth is flooded with her streaming tears.
Just then the Lady of the Forest came
And said: 'Fair maid, go we to serve the Sun.'
But she of the hanging head made no reply. ”

“ Of her mountain breasts—
Kāma pouring celestial streams from a brimming conch
On a golden Shambhu!
The sacrificer of a hundred offerings on a sacred shore
Were blest by such reward!
Vidyāpati says: It is Gokula's lord.
The herd-girls' darling.
II.
Krishna: Your hair dismays the yak, the mountain sinks into the vale,
Fearing your face, the moon is fading in the sky,
The antelope is fearful of your eyes, your voice dismays the koil.
Your gait alarms the olifant, he hides him in the wood:
Why came you not for speech with me, fair may? ”

“ Vidyāpati prays for your consent.
XLVIII.
Rādhā: O Hari, if you will insist on touching me,
The sin of murdering a wife will fall on you:
You are a guileful lover full of passion
I know not whether it be sweet or bitter.
When passion is outpoured, I shiver
Like an arrow-smitten bounding antelope:
O do not realise your hopes before the time,—
Savour is never lacking to the wise man's end.
Vidyāpati says: I see it clear,
That honeyed fruit is never green. ”

“ And day by day she wastes away.
He stays abroad, he sends no news,—
How shall the Braj girls live?
The best and fairest of the world endures
The poison and the pain of parting!
She who might have no bed except his bosom,
Now grovels on the ground,—
As if the full round moon lay fallen asunder
In a withered campak garland.
From then till now I have consoled her,
Nought else has saved her life!
Vidyāpati says: O pitiless Mādhava,
She swooned away to hear your name!
CX.
Sakhī: Making a promise to return 'To-morrow,' her lover went away,—
Writing the word 'To-morrow,' the wall is full! ”

“ And tell my friend, my dear, with folded hands,
'It is but fruitless to destroy the flower of love.'
If he should answer, 'You are senseless,'
Say that I gave my heart with a free good will.
Vidyāpati declares: I am amazed;
He whom you love, it seems, is blind!
CXIV.
Rādhā: Explain this all to Kānu, dearest friend:
'If you who sowed the seeds of love, destroy the flower,
In what way shall I live? ”

“ Loosing the bodice, my dear one lost his wits!
Then Madan woke, and I bound the thief my arms:
Says Vidyāpati: A learned wanton he—
You may be lovesome, but your lover is a master of the art of love!
In you there is love, but he is a lover all-wise in loving! ”

“ If the objection is still made that our poet sings rather of human than divine love,—and we do not deny that he worships physical beauty, albeit the critics have told us that Rabīndranath Tagore is the first Indian poet to do so,—we answer with him that Love is One, and we would also quote the very splendid passage of the Prema Sāgara where the doubt is resolved, "How could the love of a certain milk-maid have brought her salvation, notwithstanding that her love for Krishna was paramours, and she knew him not as God, but as man?" ”

“ In ecstasy, man is beside himself: that this momentary escape from 'himself' is the greatest gift life offers, is a promise, as it were a foretaste, of Release, warranting us that Nirvāna is something more than annihilation. At the same time, be it well understood that such ecstasies are not rewarded to those who are followers of Pleasure, nor to those that cling to self-will. In Vaishnava literature this is again and again emphasized. It is not till the ear ceases to hear the outside world, that it is open to the music in the heart, the flute of Krishna. ”

“ Vidyāpati's Vaishnava padas are at once folk and cultivated art—just like the finest of the Pahārī paintings, where every episode of which he sings finds exquisite illustration. The poems are not, like many ballads, of unknown authorship and perhaps the work of many hands, but they are due to the folk in the sense that folk-life is glorified and popular thought is reflected. The songs as we have them are entirely the work of one supreme genius ”

“ The word rasa can never be adequately translated into English, and perhaps it should be adopted there as a loan-word, together with such others as karma, yoga, dharma, samsāra, nirvāna. Rasa, like the word 'essence,' has both a concrete and an abstract significance; it has, amongst others, such meanings as juice, nectar, essence, taste, flavour, savour, lust, and in an abstract sense, taste, appreciation, passion, ecstasy, love and so forth. Rasa is equally the essential element in love and in art. ”

“ To put the same conclusion in other words, the Indian culture is nowhere corrupted by sentimentality. The reason of this is to be found, I think, in a wide-spread and deep-rooted consciousness of the principle of Impermanence. It is just this consciousness of evanescence which gives to the voluptuous and passionate art of Ajantā the spiritual significance that is all the more impressive because of its sensuous setting. Non-attachment is a greater quality than non-participation. Where life is transparent, the enjoyment of life is never a spiritual bondage. ”

“ The king to whom the story has been thus far related, remarks that the milk-maid did not worship Krishna knowing him to be God, but regarded him as an object of sensuous desire, and asks, 'How then was she saved by her love?' The answer is given that even they who worship Krishna unawares obtain emancipation; just as the water of life makes the drinker immortal, without question whether he knows or does not know its virtue. [5] Should anyone with any purpose worship, he will be emancipated. Shri Krishna was reverenced in many ways, and in each was salvation obtained. ”