The Penguin Book of Classical Indian Love Stories and Lyrics Read online

  Ruskin Bond

  THE PENGUIN BOOK OF

  CLASSICAL INDIAN LOVE STORIES AND LYRICS

  Contents

  About the Author

  Introduction

  Kashmiri Song

  The Penguin Book of Classical Indian Love Stories and Lyrics

  Meghadutam

  The Approach of Spring

  Love Poems

  The Loves of Haralata and Sundarasena

  The Queen and the Mahout

  Kathamukha

  Dushmanta and Shakuntala

  Love Poems

  Pururava and Urvashi (Epic version—Mahabharata)

  The Hero and the Nymph (Classical version—Kalidasa)

  Soma and Tara

  Samvarana and Tapati

  The Ashvins and Surya

  Damayanti and Her Divine Suitors

  Love Conquers All

  Gwashbrari and Westarwan

  The Story of Khamba and Thoibi

  The Artist’s Stratagem, or The Princess Who Was Resolved Never to Marry

  Princess Pepperina

  Baludada and Bayobai

  Suhni and Mehar

  Hir and Ranjho

  Umar and Marai

  Momul and Rano

  Footnotes

  Gwashbrari and Westarwan

  The Story of Khamba and Thoibi

  Princess Pepperina

  Baludada and Bayobai

  Hir and Ranjho

  Follow Penguin

  Copyright

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  THE PENGUIN BOOK OF CLASSICAL INDIAN LOVE STORIES AND LYRICS

  Ruskin Bond was born in Kasauli, Himachal Pradesh, in 1934, and grew up in Jamnagar (Gujarat), Dehradun and Shimla. In the course of a writing career spanning forty years, he has written over a hundred short stories, essays, novels and more than thirty books for children. Three collections of short stories, The Night Train at Deoli, Time Stops at Shamli and Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra have been published by Penguin India. He has also edited two anthologies, The Penguin Book of Indian Ghost Stories and The Penguin Book of Indian Railway Stories.

  The Room on the Roof was his first novel, written when he was seventeen, and it received the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize in 1957. Vagrants in the Valley was also written in his teens and picks up from where The Room on the Roof leaves off. These two novellas were published in one volume by Penguin India in 1993 as was a much-acclaimed collection of his non-fiction writing, Rain in the Mountains. Delhi is not Far: The Best of Ruskin Bond was published by Penguin India the following year.

  Ruskin Bond received the Sahitya Akademi Award for English writing in India for 1992, for Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra.

  Introduction

  Kamadeva’s arrows of love were made of flowers. His divine commander was vasanta (spring), who brought the trees and flowers into blossom and softened all creation for the sweet, irresistible attack of the god of love.

  This nature-god is most in tune with India’s Classical Age (roughly, the first thousand years ad), a time when the land was dominated by forests teeming with bird and animal life, and the human population was comparatively small and scattered. Countless kingdoms, large and small, made up the rich bejewelled pattern of India. Around the king’s palace or fort grew small towns and bazaars and caravanserais for travellers, but just outside the city gates there was considerable verdure, with areas of cultivation fringing the great forests. This was a fit setting for the great legends and romances of gods and heroes and heroines. The Ramayana and the Mahabharata belonged to the earlier, Epic Age, but they provided stories that continued to be told and retold, culminating in Kalidasa’s great verse-drama, Shakuntala, written in the early years of the new millennium. The great achievement of Shakuntala is in part due to its creator’s love of nature. He is at his best in the lyrical passages describing the flora and fauna of the land. Shakuntala herself is half bird, her name being derived from the shakuntas or birds with which she held such easy converse.

  Shakuntala is romantic and escapist, but this is not always the case with other writings of the period. The Classical Age saw the flourishing of the Sanskrit language, with an outpouring of poetry and drama. And Kamadeva was no chubby, infant Cupid. He was a mischievous, dexterous, youthful deity. His presence, visible or invisible, is felt in almost every story, love poem or prose work.

  The literature of love and the literature of love-making are different. In the stories, poems and extracts presented here we find passion, desire, tenderness,jealousy, sensuality, even platonic love. But the art of love-making, described so inexhaustibly (exhaustingly?) in Vatsayana’s Kamasutra (fourth century AD) does not really fall in the purview of this collection. It is not so much a story as a manual of sexual prowess. And it is easily available everywhere in many handsome editions.

  In making this selection, I was looking for love literature that was not too well-known but which, nevertheless, was of high quality. Naturally I drew upon legend and folklore, of which there is a fair sampling; upon recent translations of classical Sanskrit, Tamil and Kannada literature; upon retellings from the epics; and upon some of the formative literature of the last century. Even then, I felt that something was missing—some tantalizing fragment, forgotten, neglected, unknown to me (and probably to the general reader) and which in some way sought to draw attention to itself.

  Can a book draw attention to itself ? Can an author reach out across the centuries, tap you on the shoulder, and say, ‘Don’t forget me. I, too, had something to say on the subject.’ The idea is fanciful. Scholars search and discover, but I’m no scholar, I wait for the lucky find.

  And as luck would have it—or perhaps the mischievous Kamadeva, who has often numbered me among his victims, came to my rescue—I chanced upon a copy of E. Powys Mathers’ English version (1927) of the Kuttanimayam of Damodaragupta, and the love poems of two Sanskrit poets, Amaru and Mayura, also translated by Mathers.

  The story ‘The Loves of Haralata and Sundarasena’ is taken from Damodaragupta’s little-known work, written in the eighth century AD. Nothing seems to be known of the author; and this appears to be but a fragment of his output. It is based on Louis de Langle’s French translation.

  When this story was written, we are told, the condition of the wife was negligible. She passed, at a far too early age, from the authority of the mother to that of her mother-in-law. She was despised if she remained childless; and, if she became a widow, she was not expected to survive her widowing.

  The courtesan could only benefit from the wife’s lack of independence. Her liberty was apparently protected by law; she could give or refuse herself. She was often able to obtain an education denied to the wife, and this education was both an attraction and a protection. She became more and more the ideal—’the one for whom to commit immortal follies’.

  And yet, wrote Louis de Langle, ‘Being at once both sensual and a mystic, the Hindu always asked too much of every luxurious circumstance, an agitation of passion . . . . he also expected sincerity and love. His too intense desire overleapt its object, and then reason proclaimed that object to be illusion.’

  I think this helps us to know a little more about Damodaragupta’s thinking, and to reconcile his savage bitterness with the tenderness running through his story.

  Amaru was held in great esteem as a poet of the phases of love: desire and attainment, estrangement and reconciliation, joy and sorrow. He was one of the
supreme early lyric poets of India. He lived around AD 800. There is a legend that Amaru was the hundred and first reincarnation of a soul which had previously occupied a hundred women. From a reading of his poems we can see how this legend might have arisen!

  Mayura, who flourished in the first half of the seventh century, was a favourite of King Harsha (AD 606-647), but only a few erotic fragments of his work remain. The poems of Amaru and Mayura come from the Powys Mathers volume on ‘Eastern Love’.

  To turn to other works that add lustre to this collection, the recent translation by T.R.S. Sharma of Janna’s

  Kannada classic, Tale of the Glory-Bearer, is represented

  by an extract which tells the story of the unfaithful queen who had an affair with a mahout, reputed to be the ugliest man in the kingdom. Physical deformities pale into insignificance when the chemistry between two people is just right!

  Janna was a Jain poet of the twelfth and thirteenth century AD. He was the chief court poet of the Hoysala King, Veeraballala. Versions of this story are also found in Sanskrit, Hindi, Gujarati and Tamil.

  The Tamil classic, Shilappadikaram (The Ankle Bracelet) by Prince Ilango Adigal, in the translation by Alain Danielou, is evocative in its descriptions of life in ancient India. The author was a Jain prince of the third century. Included in this selection is an extract from his verse epic in which he tells the story of young Kovalan who leaves his loyal wife Kannaki for the courtesan Madhavi. But the law of karma governs our lives, and Kovalam dies as a result of his infidelity.

  Somadeva’s Kathasaritsagar is a treasure-trove of stories, as its title ‘Ocean of Stories’ suggests. Worldly pleasure and power are the principal themes of this work. Arshia Sattar’s recent translation from the Sanskrit provides the story ‘The Courtesan Who Fell in Love’.

  In going through some nineteenth century retellings of legend and folklore, I have made selections from The Indian Antiquary which was edited in the 1880s and 1890s by Lt. Col. Sir Richard Temple. This learned journal brought together some wonderful tales from Punjab, Kashmir, Bengal, Gujarat, and other parts of western, central and southern India. Contributors to these now rare volumes included Flora Annie Steel, Putlibai Wadia, and G.H. Damant. Damant was a Deputy Commissioner of the Naga Hills who fell victim to the rebel Mozema Nagas during an uprising of that tribe in October 1879. Flora Annie Steel married a member of the Indian Civil Service and came to India in 1868. Her best known novel was On the Face of the Waters (1896), a balanced study of the 1857 uprising. Her Tales from the Punjab (1894) was a unique collection of retellings of oral legends.

  Another civil servant who interested himself in Indian history and folklore was C.A. Kincaid. His many books included Deccan Nursery Tales and A History of the Maratha People. In his Tales of Old Ind he retold many of the romantic love stories of Sindh, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Punjab. Of the stories presented here, ‘Momul and Rano’ and ‘Umar and Marai’ are Sindhi in origin. ‘Hir and Ranjho’ and ‘Suhni and Mehar’ come from the Punjab.

  In 1920, Shovana Devi (all I have is her name) brought out a little volume called Tales of the Gods, which gives us brief but charming renderings of some of the well-known tales from the epics, including the Shakuntala legend. (Kalidasa’s verse drama is too long for inclusion here, and an extract would not have done justice to this seven-act play. But included is this great Sanskrit poet’s other famous work, Meghadutam (The Cloud-Messenger) in the translation by Chandra Rajan. A lover-beloved relationship is implied between the earth and her cloud-lover, and the world-sustaining cloud also acts as a foil to the poem’s hero, the passionate, love-sick yaksha.

  Ruskin Bond

  Kashmiri Song

  Pale hands I loved beside the Shalimar,

  Where are you now? Who lies beneath your spell?

  Whom do you lead on Rapture’s roadway, far,

  Before you agonize them in farewell?

  Oh, pale dispensers of my Joys and Pains.

  Holding the doors of Heaven and of Hell,

  How the hot blood rushed wildly through the veins

  Beneath your touch, until you waved farewell.

  Pale hands, pink-tipped, like lotus buds that float

  On these cool waters where we used to dwell,

  I would rather have felt you round my throat

  Crushing out life, than waving me farewell!

  —Lawrence Hope, Songs from the Garden of Kama

  THE PENGUIN BOOK OF

  CLASSICAL INDIAN LOVE STORIES AND LYRICS

  Meghadutam

  Kalidasa

  1

  A certain yaksha unmindful of his appointed duties

  and cursed by his lord to endure

  a year’s grievous separation from his beloved

  dwelt exiled, his lustre dimmed, on Rama’s hill

  in hermitages thick with shade-trees and waters

  hallowed by the touch of Janaka’s daughter.

  2

  The impassioned lover having passed some months

  on that hill, parted from her unsupported

  —the golden armlet slipping down

  to lay bare his wasted fore-arm—

  saw on Asadha’s most auspicious day

  a cloud embracing the crest of the hill,

  strikingly-shaped like a sportive elephant

  bent down to butt a river bank.

  3

  Gazing on that which stirs the ketaka to bloom

  the vassal lord of the King of Kings

  brooded long,

  with effort restraining his tears.

  The sight of rain clouds makes even happy hearts

  stir with restlessness;

  what then of one far from her who longs

  to hold him in close embrace.

  4

  With the month of rains approaching,

  desiring to sustain his beloved’s life,

  hoping to send glad tidings of his well-being

  through the life-giving cloud, he made with reverence

  an offering of fresh blossoms of wild jasmine,

  prefacing it with words of affection

  and joyously welcomed the cloud.

  5

  Blended of mists and light, winds and water

  can a mere cloud bear messages

  that only the living with keen senses

  and intelligence can convey?

  Unmindful of this the yaksa entreated it,

  overwhelmed by unreasoning eagerness;

  indeed, the love-sick, their minds clouded,

  confuse the sentient with the insentient.

  6

  Born in the lofty lineage of swirling diluvial clouds.

  I know you are the god of thunder’s minister

  assuming what shape you will; so banished

  from wife and kinsmen by divine decree, I entreat you;

  for it is nobler to address barren pleas

  to the virtuous than fruitful to the vile.

  7

  You are the refuge. O Rain-Giver

  for all who burn with anguish; so bear

  a message from me parted from my love

  by the wrath of the Lord of Treasures;

  go then to Alaka, abode of the Yaksha Lord,

  her palaces washed by moonlight

  streaming from Shiva’s brow

  where He is seated in her outer groves.

  8

  Women whose husbands travel to far lands,

  pushing back their straggling hair

  will eagerly look up to see you

  riding high on the path of the wind,

  and draw comfort; for when you arrive

  all clad and girt for action,

  who can ignore his lonely wife distraught

  unless subject like me to an alien will?

  9

  While a friendly breeze impels you gently

  as you loiter along, and here on your left

  the cataka in its pride sings sweetly,

  hen-cranes
will know the time ripe for mating

  and rejoice when they note in the sky

  your eye-delighting presence; rest assured

  they will attend on you in patterned flight.

  10

  Arriving there unimpeded you are certain

  to see that constant lady,

  your brother’s wife still living

  engrossed only in counting the days;

  Hope’s slender thread serves to hold

  the flower-hearts of women

  tender and prone to droop too soon

  under the burden of separation.

  11

  And, hearing your thunder—a sound sweet to their

  ears—

  that can make Earth unfurl her mushroom parasols,

  regal swans longing for Manasa-lake,

  gathering tender lotus-shoots for the way

  will be your companions in the sky

  even up to Mount Kailasa’s peak.

  12

  Embrace and bid farewell to your loving friend,

  this lofty mountain girdled by slopes marked

  by the holy feet of the Lord of Raghus

  adored by the world,

  Time and again, reuniting with you,

  it displays its affection, breathing out

  burning sighs born of long separation.

  13

  Listen first, while I describe the way

  fitting for your journey which you will follow

  resting your foot on mountains when weary,

  refreshed when wasted by the clear water of streams:

  then you shall hear my message, O Rain-Giver,

  drinking it in eagerly with your ears.

  14

  While simple Siddha maidens with upturned faces,

  watching your impetuous power tremble in alarm

  and cry: ‘Is the wind carrying off the mountain’s peak?’

  soar high up into the sky facing north,

  far above this thicket of sap-filled nicula,

  shunning on your path the proud sweep of the heavy

  trunks

  of the elephants that guard the sky’s quarters.

  15

  Here to the east, a fragment of Indra’s bow