EROTIC POEMS FROM THE SANSKRIT
Translations from the Asian Classics
TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ASIAN CLASSICS
Editorial Board
Wm. Theodore de Bary, Chair
Paul Anderer
Donald Keene
George A. Saliba
Haruo Shirane
Burton Watson
Wei Shang
Erotic Poems from the Sanskrit
An Anthology
Edited and translated by
R. PARTHASARATHY
Columbia University Press | New York
Columbia University Press wishes to express its appreciation for assistance given by the Pushkin Fund in the publication of this book.
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E-ISBN 978-0-231-54546-4
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Parthasarathy, R., 1934- editor, translator.
Title: Erotic poems from the Sanskrit : an anthology / [edited and translated by] R. Parthasarathy.
Description: New York : Columbia University Press, 2017. | Series: Translations from the Asian classics | Includes bibliographical references nd index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016059358 (print) | LCCN 2017019170 (ebook) | ISBN 9780231184380 (cloth : acid-free paper) | ISBN 9780231184397 (pbk. : acid-free paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Erotic poetry, Sanskrit—Translations into English. | Sanskrit poetry—Translations into English.
Classification: LCC PK4474.A3 (ebook) | LCC PK4474.A3 E76 2017 (print) | DDC 891/.2100803538—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016059358
A Columbia University Press E-book.
CUP would be pleased to hear about your reading experience with this e-book at cup-ebook@columbia.edu.
Cover design: Jordan Wannemacher
Cover illustration: Rādhā, Rajasthani, Kishangarh, ca. 1740–1748; courtesy of the National Museum, New Delhi; © photo alamy.com
For
Mohan
Arjun
Gautam and Masako
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction
ABHINANDA
That’s How I Saw Her
AMARU
Who Needs the Gods?
In a Hundred Places
A Taste of Ambrosia
Pincers
The Bride
ANON
Lovers’ Quarrel
The Pledge
A Lover’s Welcome
Regret
Stonehearted
Feigning Sleep
Remorse
Walking the Street by Her House
The Sheets
A Woman Wronged
Aubade
Like the Wheels of a Chariot
The Word
An Invitation
The Traveler
The Devoted Wife
The Kingdom’s Happiness
Hair
Wild Nights
Thank Offering
At the Cremation Ground
On a Rainy Day
When Winter Comes
Jewels
The Creaking Bed
She Protests Too Much
She Doesn’t Let Go of Her Pride
The Ways of Love
A Lover’s Word
The Hawk
A Needle
Time Wasted
The Scholar’s Life
Foolish Heart
Supreme Bliss
BĀṆA
In a Corner of the Village Shrine
BHARTṚHARI
Wise Men
Poets’ Excesses
The Love Game
Hips
Fear of Death
Desire Alone
Adoration of Woman
The Poet Speaks to the King
Contentment
Man’s Life
Old Age
White Flag
BHĀSKARA II
Elementary Arithmetic
BHAVABHŪTI
The Critic Scorned
BHĀVAKADEVĪ
Bitter Harvest
BHOJA
Scrambling Out of the Water
BILHAṆA
Bite Marks
In Life After Life
All for Love
DEVAGUPTA
Drumbeats
DHARMAKĪRTI
The Way
JAGANNĀTHA PAṆḌITARĀJA
Indra’s Heaven
JAGHANACAPALĀ
Wife
KĀLIDĀSA
Flight of the Deer
Such Innocent Moves
Blessed Sleep
KARṆOTPALA
The Lamp
KEŚAṬA
The Camel
KṢEMENDRA
All Eyes on the Door
KṢITĪŚA
The Red Seal
KUMĀRADĀSA
Alba
KUṬALĀ
Furtive Lovemaking
MĀGHA
The Art of Poetry
Scent
MAHODADHI
Stop Being Willful
MORIKĀ
Don’t Go
MURĀRI
Hidden Fingernail Marks
An Actor in a Farce
RĀJAPUTRA PARPAṬI
Blow Out the Lamp
RĀJAŚEKHARA
Her Face
RUDRAṬA
What the Young Wife Said to the Traveler
ŚARAṆA
Girl Drawing Water from a Well
SIDDHOKA
The Empty Road
ŚĪLĀBHAṬṬĀRIKĀ
Then and Now
SONNOKA
Driven by Passion
ŚRĪHARṢA
The Smart Girl
In Her Direction
VALLAṆA
Sea of Shame
On the Grass
The Essence of Poetry
VARĀHA
Poring Over a Book
VIDYĀ
Hollow Pleasures
Complaint
The Riverbank
VIKAṬANITAMBĀ
The Bed
A Word of Advice
YOGEŚVARA
Far from Home
When the Rains Come
Notes
Sources of Poems
Bibliography
Credits
Index of Titles and First Lines
Index
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I thank Terence Diggory, Barry Goldensohn, Robert Goodwin, and Christopher McVey for their comments on early drafts of the manuscript. I am indebted to David Shulman for his insightful remarks on eight of the poems. I have benefited from the suggestions of the two anonymous reviewers, which helped to improve the manuscript immeasurably. My thanks are due to Amy Syrell and Marilyn Sheffer of the Interlibrary Loan Service of the Lucy Scribner Library at Skidmore College for getting me the Sanskrit books I needed. My greatest debt is to my wife, Shobhan, who read and reread the manuscript carefully several times. If the poems speak to us, it is in large measure because of her keen ear and good sense.
Jennifer Crewe, associate provost and director, Columbia University Press, was from the beginning enthusiastic about the work. Her encouragement and patience were exemplary during my final revisions of the manuscript. My editor, Jonathan Fiedler, and Leslie Kriesel, assistant managing editor, were unfailing in their support. To Mike Ashby, my copyeditor, I am indebte
d for his meticulous editing of the manuscript. He saw to every detail, and nothing seemed to escape his watchful eye.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the editors of the following magazines in which some of these poems first appeared, either in earlier or current versions:
Indian Literature: “The Bed,” “The Lamp,” “The Pledge,” “Wild Nights”
Manushi: “Bitter Harvest,” “The Riverbank”
Modern Poetry in Translation: “Aubade,” “The Red Seal,” “The Traveler,” “A Word of Advice”
Poetry (Chicago): “The Sheets”
Verse: “Jewels,” “Then and Now,” “Who Needs the Gods?”
Weber Studies: “The Art of Poetry,” “Complaint”
INTRODUCTION
This selection of poems is personal; it does not attempt to be representative of Sanskrit poetry in general. It comprises poems that I have enjoyed reading and that have excited me. I have also selected them because I found these poems manageable within the resources of modern English verse. The selection is intended for the general reader and lovers of poetry who might want to know what Sanskrit poetry is like. It offers a salutary corrective to the notion, still prevalent in the West, that Indians in the past were predominantly otherworldly and spiritually minded. Nothing could be further from the truth. These poems reflect a culture that celebrates the pleasures of the flesh without any inhibition in a language that never gives offense, that never crosses the line but always observes the canons of good taste. In this the Sanskrit poets are our contemporaries despite the centuries that separate us. The poems speak simply and passionately to a wide range of human experience—love fulfilled and love unfulfilled, old age, poverty, asceticism, and nature—in a voice that moves us even today.
The introduction makes no pretense to scholarship; it attempts to provide some basic information to the reader who comes to Sanskrit poetry for the first time and who needs guidance on how to read a Sanskrit poem in translation. The notes at the back of the book throw light on specific elements of the poems such as language, imagery, and tone as well as on culture-specific references. My goal is a modest one: to awaken the interest of the reader in the poem by providing him or her with such tools as are necessary for the enterprise. Wherever possible, the poems are read in a comparative context, with examples from Greek, Latin, English, Chinese, Tamil, and Prākrit poetry.
Erotic Poems from the Sanskrit comprises poems by seventy-two poets, including seven women poets and thirty-five anonymous poets, from sixteen works composed, with two exceptions, between the fourth and seventeenth centuries. The poets are presented alphabetically for the convenience of the reader.
For a long time, three anthologies of Sanskrit poetry in English translation have held the field: Ingalls (1965),1 Brough (1968),2 and Merwin and Masson (1977).3 These anthologies have contributed significantly to our understanding and enjoyment of Sanskrit poetry. Since then, other translations of Sanskrit poetry have appeared and enriched the field: Miller (1978),4 Selby (2000),5 and Bailey and Gombrich (2005).6 Erotic Poems from the Sanskrit builds upon the work of these distinguished translators. It offers a new verse translation that introduces the richness and variety of Sanskrit poetry to a new generation of readers in a robust, contemporary English idiom that captures, insofar as possible, the tone and register of the Sanskrit originals. The translations are, above all, English poems that can be read with pleasure by readers of poetry.
Love in all its aspects is a favorite theme of the Sanskrit poets. Poems on the topic of erotic love (kāma) form the centerpiece of the anthologies, and the translations reflect this preference. The poems are often sexually explicit but they never offend our taste. In their openness to the sexual experience, they have a contemporary flavor to them. Readers who wish to have a greater understanding of Sanskrit erotic poetry might want to familiarize themselves with the conventions of the erotic mood spelled out in such texts as Vātsyāyana’s Kāmasūtra (The book of love, 4th cent.) or Kalyāṇamalla’s Anaṅgaraṅga (The stage of the Bodiless One, 16th cent.). Sanskrit erotic poetry has few equals, with the possible exception of the erotic poems in the so-called Greek Anthology, compiled by the Byzantine scholar Constantinus Cephalas in the tenth century in Constantinople.
Translation from one language into another involves some loss, as the Buddhist monk and prolific translator Kumārajīva (344–413) famously reminded us: “In the process of translating a Sanskrit text into Chinese it loses all its nuances.… It’s something like chewing cooked rice and then feeding it to another person. Not only has it lost its flavor; it will also make him want to throw up.”7 Despite the eminent monk’s opinion, it is possible to carry across the flavor of a poem from one language to another. And that is precisely what this selection has attempted to do.
Among the problems I wrestled with in making these translations, the hardest one perhaps was how to make the Sanskrit poems heard in English. Here tone and register are crucial factors. English does not have a tradition of erotic poetry comparable to that of Sanskrit. The sexual explicitness of some of the poems may not be to the taste of some readers. As a result, I had to modify the tone and register without compromising the integrity of the poems. In translating from Sanskrit into English, one translates not just the text but also an entire culture and worldview that remain hidden like so many roots beneath the text.
THE ROLE OF THE POET
What precisely was the role of the poet in the Indian tradition? In the Rig Veda (ca. 1200–900 B.C.E.) we are told,
Varuṇa confided in me, the wise one:
Thrice seven names has the cow. Who knows the trail
should whisper them like secrets, if he is to speak
to future generations as an inspired poet.8
According to the commentator Sāyaṇa (14th cent.), speech (vāc) in the form of a cow (aghnya) has twenty-one meters corresponding to her breast, throat, and head. Only after the intervention of Varuṇa (Vedic god of natural and moral law) does the poet who is the wise one (medhira) become the inspired one (vipra). His exceptional knowledge imposes a responsibility on him. He is both the keeper and the transmitter of the tradition that regarded poetry as a way of knowledge. It was believed that the spoken word, properly formulated, could produce a physical effect on the world. The word was invested with sacred power. This image of the poet as a seer (ṛṣi) in the Vedic period gives way in later times to that of the poet as a learned man of refined sensibility and taste (kavi) who made his living as a court poet. Not all poets were, however, fortunate enough to make their living as court poets. The case of the Kashmiri poet Bilhaṇa (11th cent.) comes to mind. After many unsuccessful attempts to find a patron, he eventually found one in the Cāḷukya king Vikramāditya VI Tribhuvanamalla (r. 1076–1126) of Kalyāṇa (present-day Basavakalyan in Bidar District, Karnataka). He repaid his patron a hundredfold by composing a fulsome panegyric in his honor, The Deeds of His Majesty Vikramāṅka (Vikramāṅkadevacarita).
The twelfth-century poet and critic Kṣemendra, also from Kashmir, takes an exalted view of the poet’s vocation.
A poet should learn with his eyes
the forms of leaves
he should know how to make
people laugh when they are together
he should get to see
what they are really like
he should know about oceans and mountains
in themselves
and the sun and the moon and the stars
his mind should enter into the seasons
he should go
among many people
in many places
and learn their languages.9
Works on poetics, such as Rājaśekhara’s (10th cent.) An Inquiry into Poetry (Kāvyamīmāṃsa), offer elaborate accounts of a poet’s education and of the faculties he must possess in order to be a poet.10 His readers and listeners would, like him, be connoisseurs (sahṛdayas) and would be educated and endowed with similar faculties. Poetry was a highly cultiv
ated art. It was patronized by kings and flourished in their courts. A. Berriedale Keith has described the situation well: “The great poets of India wrote for audiences of experts; they were masters of the learning of their day, long trained in the use of language, and they aimed to please by subtlety, not simplicity of effect. They had at their disposal a singularly beautiful speech, and they commanded elaborate and most effective metres.”11
Sanskrit literary culture has been the subject of research and study in recent years.12 I have provided, wherever necessary, historical contexts for the poets: the circumstances and constraints under which they wrote, the sort of reception their work received, and the frustrations they experienced in their search for a patron. Sanskrit was an “artificial” language learned after a “natural” language (Prākrit) had been learned. It was restricted to the educated classes and was used in the courts and in religious institutions. As a pan-Indian language, it was not tied to any specific region. As a result, Sanskrit poetry came to have a pan-Indian audience. The court was the epicenter of Sanskrit literary culture. It included poets, scholars, professional reciters of poetry, and storytellers. At poets’ gatherings organized by the court, poems were recited or sung; poetry was not meant to be read. Poets flocked to the court in search of patronage; in return, they sang the praises of the king.
The Sanskrit poet rarely expresses his own thoughts and feelings. The notion of individual self-expression was foreign to the culture at that time. What the poet expresses are the thoughts and feelings of the personae in a given situation: the unfaithful husband returning home at dawn after a night with a courtesan, the wife overjoyed on seeing her husband return from his travels abroad, the hermit expressing his disaffection with the world, and so on. The poet’s originality lies in the way he exploits words, images, and meter, in fact all the resources of the language, to make an expertly crafted poem that would redound to his glory.
READING A SANSKRIT POEM
The introduction offers close readings of a number poems in the light of Sanskrit poetics. Let us look at an anonymous poem, “The Sheets” (p. 15), from Amaru’s One Hundred Poems (Amaruśataka, 7th cent.), an influential anthology of erotic verse, transcribed in roman type, followed by a word-for-word translation and a verse translation. The original poems do not have titles. I have provided the titles for the translations.