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

  springs spectacular from the hill top, gleaming

  as if blended of the lustres of brilliant gems.

  Shot through by its sheen, your dark-blue body

  shines resplendent like Vishnu’s in his cowherd guise,

  lit up by irridescent peacock-plumes.

  16

  While rustic women unversed in eyebrow play

  drink you in with eyes moist with happiness

  knowing the harvest to depend on you,

  ascend the upland plains fragrant from fresh furrowing;

  then veering slightly to the west, speed on

  keeping ever to the north.

  17

  As you approach the noble mountain Citrakuta,

  he will greet you, O travel-weary Rain-Giver,

  and bear you on his head held high: you too

  with sharp showers will quench summer’s cruel fires.

  The tenderness of true feeling in the great

  bears fruit in no time, returning kindness for kindness.

  18

  With his forest fires fully quenched by your sharp

  showers,

  Amrakuta will bear you gratefully

  on his crown, travel-weary as you are;

  even the meanest remembering former favours

  will not turn his face away from a friend

  who seeks shelter; what then of one so lofty!

  19

  Its slopes all aglow with the ripened fruit

  of wild mangoes, and you on its peak set

  like a coil of dark glossy hair, the mountain

  —seeming Earth’s breast—dark-blue centre

  encircled by pale-gold expansive curves—

  will appear entrancing to celestial lovers.

  20

  Resting awhile on that mountain

  in whose bowers the brides of foresters sport,

  and lightened by your waters’ outpouring

  you’ll speedily cross the road beyond

  and see Reva’s streams spreading dishevelled

  at Vindhya’s uneven rocky foothills,

  inlaying them like ashen streaks

  decorating an elephant’s body.

  21

  Your rain disgorged, draw up that river’s water

  whose flow impeded by rose-apple brakes

  is pungent with the scent of wild elephants in rut,

  and journey on; gaining inner strength

  the wind cannot make light of you, O Rain-Cloud;

  for hollowness makes things light; fullness bestows

  weight.

  22

  Seeing the green-gold Nipa flowers

  with their stamens half-emerging

  and the Kandal is showing their early buds

  along the edge of every pool,

  savouring the rich fragrance of the earth

  in the forests burnt by fire,

  antelopes will chart your path as you pass

  shedding fresh rain drops.

  23

  Siddhas watching catakas

  skilled catching falling rain drops,

  and pointing out to egrets in flight,

  counting them on their fingers,

  will pay you their grateful respect,

  suddenly obtaining a flurry of unexpected embraces

  from their beloved wives clinging to them in alarm

  trembling at the sound of your thunder.

  24

  Even though you would wish to proceed with speed

  for the sake of my happiness, my friend,

  I foresee delay while you loiter

  on peak after peak fragrant with wild jasmine;

  though peacocks, their eyes moist with joy may greet you

  with welcoming cries, I pray you, try to hasten onward.

  25

  The Dasarnas will put on a new beauty

  at your approach:

  woodland ringed round by ketakas

  with needle-pointed buds newly-opened

  will glow a pale gold:

  birds starting to nest will throng

  the sacred peepuls in the village squares:

  rose-apple groves will darken

  with the sheen of ripening blue-black fruit

  and wild geese settle for a few days.

  26

  When you reach that royal city, Vidisa by name

  widely renowned, you shall at once obtain

  the unalloyed fulfilment of a lover’s desire,

  tasting Vetravati’s sweet waters as a lover his beloved’s

  lips,

  with sonorous thunder passing along her banks

  as she flows with knitted brows of tremulous wavelets.

  27

  There you shall alight seeking rest on Nicai hill

  thrilling with delight at your touch

  as Kadambas burst into sudden bloom;

  the hill loudly proclaims through grottoes

  exhaling fragrances of pleasure,

  passions unrestrained of the city’s youth

  dallying there in love-sports with courtesans.

  28

  Having rested, go on, sprinkling with fresh rain drops

  clusters of jasmine-buds in gardens by woodland streams,

  enjoying a fleeting together-ness

  as your gift of shade touches

  the faces of flower-gathering maidens, who

  each time they wipe the sweat off their cheeks, bruise

  the wilting lotuses hung at their ears.

  29

  As your course points due north to Alaka,

  the way to Ujjayini is a detour no doubt,

  but do not therefore turn away from a visit to her

  palace-terraces.

  Indeed you would have lived in vain if you do not dally

  there

  with the tremulous eyes of the city’s beautiful women

  that dart in alarm at the branched lightning’s flashes.

  30

  On your path, when you meet Nirvindhya

  wearing a girdle strung of chiming bells

  —a row of water-birds plashing on her undulating

  waves—

  weaving her sinuous course with charming unsteady gait

  to reveal eddies forming her navel

  —such coy gestures are women’s first statements of

  love—

  be sure to be filled with love’s fine flavour.

  31

  Crossing that river, O fortunate lover,

  yours will be the happy task to induce Sindhu

  visibly grieving at your absence,

  her waters shrunk to a thin braid and pale

  with the paleness of dry leaves

  fallen from trees rooted on her banks,

  to cast off the sorrow withering her.

  32

  Reaching Avanti whose village-elders

  are well-versed in the Udayana-tales,

  go towards that city already spoken of;

  to Ujjayini glowing in splendour

  like a brilliant piece of Paradise

  come down to earth with traces of merits

  of dwellers in Paradise returning,

  the fruit of their good deeds almost spent.

  33

  At day-break in Ujjayini, Sipra’s cool breeze

  scented with the fragrance of lotuses comes

  prolonging the piercing cries of love-maddened

  saras-cranes.

  Refreshing to the tired limbs of women

  after passion’s ecstatic play, it removes

  their languor like an artful lover

  plying his love with amorous entreaties.

  34 & 35

  Smoke drifting through lattice-screens

  from aromatic gums that perfume women’s hair

  enhances your beautiful form;

  Palace-peacocks out of fellow-feeling

  present you their gift-offering of dance;

  worn out with travel, having passed the ni
ght

  in her flower-fragrant mansions marked with red lac

  from the feet of lovely ladies, approach

  the holy shrine of Candesvara, Preceptor of the

  Triple-World,

  watched with awe by the Lord’s attendants,

  because your hue is the blue of His throat.

  Its gardens are stirred by Gandhavati’s breezes

  scented with the pollen of blue-lotuses

  and fragrances wafted from unguents

  used by young women sporting in her waters.

  36

  If by chance you reach Mahakala at a time other than

  sunset,

  stay on till the sun disappears from sight;

  by performing the exalted office of the temple-drum

  in the evening-rituals offered to the spear-armed Lord

  you will enjoy the full fruit, O Rain-Bearer,

  of the deep-throated rumblings of your thunder.

  37

  With jewelled belts tinkling as they move with measured

  steps,

  temple-dancers whose hands tire, gracefully waving

  chowries with glittering gem-studded handles.

  will taste from the first rain-drops you shed,

  pleasure as from a lover’s nail-marks and shower on you

  sidelong glances streaming like a line of honey-bees.

  38

  Then bathed in evening’s glow red as fresh china rose

  flowers

  when the Lord of Beings commences His Cosmic Dance,

  encircling, merging into the forest of His uplifted arms,

  dispel His desire to wear the blood-moist elephant-hide,

  your devotion observed by Bhavani

  with steady eyes, her terror now calmed.

  39

  Young women going to their lovers’ dwellings at night

  set out on the royal highway mantled

  in sight-obscuring darkness you could pierce with a pin;

  light their path with streaked lightning

  glittering like gold-rays on a touchstone,

  but do not startle them with thunder and pelting rain

  for they are easily alarmed.

  40

  On the top most terrace of some turreted mansion

  where ring-doves sleep,

  pass the night with your lightning-wife

  much-fatigued by continual play. But pray

  resume your journey the moment the sun rises;

  surely, those who undertake to help a friend

  do not linger over providing that help.

  41

  Philandering husbands come home at sunrise

  called on to comfort their anguished wives

  by drying the welling tears of betrayal;

  therefore move quickly out of the sun’s path;

  he too returns at dawn to the lotus-pool

  to dry the dew-tears on her lotus-face;

  he would be not a little incensed

  that you obstruct his bright ray-fingers.

  42

  Your self intrinsically beautiful

  even in its shadow-form will enter Gambhira’s clear

  waters

  as into a tranquil pool of consciousness;

  do not therefore cavalierly dismiss

  her welcoming glances—those dazzling upward leaps

  of glittering white fishes bright as water-lilies.

  43

  Her dark-blue waters like a garment

  slipping off the sloping bank of her hips,

  still cling to the reed-branches

  as if lightly held up by one hand;

  drawing it away as you bend over her, my friend,

  will it not be hard for you to depart?

  For who can bear to leave a woman, her loins bared,

  once having tasted her body’s sweetness?

  44

  Fragrant with the scent of the earth freshened by your

  showers,

  a cool wind that ripens the fruit on wild fig-trees

  is inhaled with delight by elephants

  through their water-spout-trunks;

  it will waft you gently to the Lord’s hill

  that you seek to approach.

  45

  Skanda has made that hill his fixed abode;

  transform yourself into a flower-cloud

  and shower him with blossoms moist with Ganga’s

  celestial waters;

  for he is the blazing energy, sun-surpassing,

  that the wearer of the crescent-moon placed

  in the Divine Fire’s mouth to protect Indra’s hosts.

  46

  Then, let your thunder magnified by the echoing

  mountain

  spur the peacock the fire-born god rides, to dance,

  its eyes brightened by the radiance of Shiva’s moon;

  Bhavani out of affection for her son

  places its fallen plume

  gleaming with irridescent circlets on her ear

  in place of the lotus-petal she wears.

  47

  Having thus worshipped

  the god born in a thicket of reeds

  and travelling some distance

  as Siddha-couples bearing lutes

  leave your path free, from fear of water-drops,

  bend low to honour Rantideva’s glory sprung

  from the sacrifice of Surabhi’s daughters

  and flowing on earth changed into a river.

  48

  Stealing the colour of the god who draws the horn-bow

  as you bend down to drink its waters,

  sky-rangers looking down will indeed see with wonder

  that river from the far distance

  as a thin line, broad though she is,

  as if Earth wore a single strand of pearls

  set with a large sapphire at the centre.

  49

  Crossing that river go onwards making

  yourself the target for the eager eyes

  of Dasapura’s women accomplished

  in the graceful play of curving eye-brows,

  their eyes with upturned lashes flashing

  with the beauty of gazelles leaping up

  and far surpassing the grace of honey-bees

  on white jasmines swaying.

  50

  Ranging with your shadow through the land

  of Brahmavarta stretching below Kuru’s field,

  do not fail to visit the battleground

  that marks the great war of the barons,

  where the wielder of the Gandiva-bow

  showered hundreds of sharp arrows on princely faces

  as you shoot driving downpours on lotuses.

  51

  The Plough-Bearer, turning away from that war

  out of affection for his kinsmen, renounced

  the cherished wine reflecting Revati’s eyes

  and worshipped Sarasvati’s waters; you too,

  enjoying those waters, O gentle Sir,

  will become pure within, dark only in form.

  52

  From there you should visit Jahnu’s daughter

  near Kanakhala’s hill where she comes down

  the slopes of the Lord of Mountains, making

  a stairway for Sagara’s sons going up to Heaven.

  She grasped Shiva’s matted hair

  clinging with wave-hands to His crest-jewel, the moon,

  foam-laughter mocking the frown on Gauri’s face.

  53

  If you aim to drink her clear crystal waters slantwise,

  hanging down by your hind-quarters in the sky

  like some elephant out of Paradise,

  as your shadow glides along her stream

  she would appear beautiful at once as though

  she and Yamuna flowed together at that spot.

  54

  Reaching that river’s true birth-pace, the mountain

  white with snows, its rocks scen
ted by musk deer lying

  there;

  and reclining on its peak to remove

  the long journey’s weariness, you will wear

  a beauty comparable to the stain on the horn

  of the triple-eyed lord’s white bull rooting in the mud.

  55

  If a forest-fire born of cedar branches

  clashing in the blowing wind

  should assail the mountain, and its fiery sparks

  scorch the bushy tails of yaks,

  pray quench it fully with a thousand sharp showers.

  The riches of the great are best employed

  to ease the miseries of the distressed.

  56

  Unable to bear the thunder hurled down,

  Sarabhas on the mountain puffed up with pride

  will suddenly spring up in fury towards you

  who are beyond reach, only to shatter their own limbs;

  scatter them with your tumultuous laughter of hail.

  Who indeed that undertakes vain-glorious acts

  would not become the butt of ridicule!

  57

  Bending low in adoration, go round

  the rock bearing the foot-print of the moon-crested Lord,

  perpetually worshipped with offerings by Siddhas;

  looking upon it, the body abandoned

  and sins shaken off, the faithful gain

  the Eternal Station of the Lord’s attendants.

  58

  The wind breathing through hollow bamboos makes

  sweet music;

  woodland nymphs sing with passion-filled voices

  of the victory over the triple-city;

  if your thunder rumbles in the glens like a drum

  would not the ensemble then be complete

  for the Dance-Drama of the Lord of Beings?

  59

  Passing over many marvels on Himalaya’s slopes,

  you should go north through the narrow Kraunca-pass

  —gateway for wild geese and path to glory

  for the Bhrigu Chief—lengthened out cross-wise,

  beautiful like Vishnu’s dark-blue foot

  stretched out to curb Bali’s pride.

  60

  Still climbing higher, be Kailasa’s guest

  —mirror for goddesses—the joints of its ridges

  cracked by ten-faced Ravana’s straining arms.

  Towering up into the sky with lofty peaks

  radiant like white water-lilies, it stands

  as if it were the wild laughter

  of the Parent of the Triple-World

  piled up through the ages.

  61

  When, glistening like smooth-ground collyrium, you lean

  dark on its slopes white as ivory freshly cut,

  that mountain, I imagine would, like the Plough-Bearer

  with a dark-blue mantle slung o’er his shoulder

  attain to a grace so arresting

  as to hold the gaze entranced.

  62

  And if Gauri should stroll on that mountain

  created for play, holding Shiva’s hand

  divested of its snake-bracelet,