“He removed his priest from office but didn’t punish him further, at the request of Agamas One through Four. However, everyone who had been part of the priest’s clique was given appropriate, corrective punishment. The king appointed Agamas One through Four as his family priests and advisors. They were reunited with their mothers, and all were married to proper brides.
“Honored by the king, they lived happily, busy performing royal rituals. They sent men off to search for their father in Snake Town, the Pandya, Kerala, Chola, and Dravida lands, but there was no sign of him anywhere. Very worried, they continually reassured their mothers with some vague hopes.
Meanwhile, Alaghuvrata, ashamed that he had tried, in vain, to sell his wives and thereby lost them, could no longer show his face in public in his town. He went off to faraway lands, where he lived by begging. He still fed Brahmins with whatever paltry means he earned; and when he had nothing to feed them, he gave up rice himself, surviving on roots, berries, fruit, and milk. But he was not satisfied with this limited form of feeding Brahmins, which was so often interrupted; he kept looking for a way to make more money. At some point he heard about the power of the Lion-Riding Goddess. From a certain person he learned a mantra to be used for invoking this goddess. He went to her shrine, where he learned that by hearing your story”—Madhuralalasa looked again at Kalapurna—“he could attain all kinds of prosperity, long life, children, and grandchildren. He said to himself, ‘Forget about the children and grandchildren. Let me at least get the other benefits.’ With this in mind, he continued chanting his mantra and, as a result, finally got to hear your story—today. As you can see, this necessarily produced the full range of benefits, including finding his children. Oh son of Manistambha! You can see the power of your story.” Madhuralalasa paused.
Kalapurna asked Alaghuvrata, “Are all your questions answered?” To Agamas One through Four he said, “Go meet your father. It’s wrong to hesitate now.” So they got up and approached him with a mixture of fear, love, and joy. They bowed at his feet. He was overcome as he embraced them and kissed them, his eyes welling up with tears of joy.
Kalapurna was still thinking about the boys’ remarkable skill in punning between Telugu and Sanskrit. “Can you still do that?” he asked, looking at them with an encouraging smile mixed with curiosity. Agama One at once replied,
tā vinuvāriki saraviga
bhāvanaton ānun ativibhāvisutejā
devaragauravamahimana
māvalasinakavita marigi mākun adhīśā
“Your gift, wise king,
is to imagine with feeling.
The kind of poetry we like
comes to us of its own
just because you
are our listener.
The king said, “What a great poet! The answer you gave to my question immediately became a poem.” The poet smiled in response. “Now,” said the king, “read it over.” The Brahmin was pleased at this wording and complied.
These two men were engrossed in their own conversation, while meanwhile the whole court watched, listened, and understood nothing. They were confused. So the king helped them out. “When I asked him to read it over, I didn’t mean for him to read it again. Just listen. There’s a deep meaning to the Telugu poem if you read it backwards in Sanskrit, starting at the end.
śādhīna kum ā-giri mata vikanasi lavamāna mahima-vara-gaurava-de/jāte suvibhāv iti nānu nato nava-bhā gavi rasakiri vā-nuvitā//
“Rule the earth as long as the mountains last.
You are loved by all.
You have the dignity of Lava, Rama’s son.
So long as a king like you, who loves poets,
is in power, can a man whose power
is renewed by the honor you give him
fail to praise you in poetry
filled with feeling?”18
The courtiers, reading the poem backward, were delighted to discover the new meaning. They marvelled at the poet’s ability to improvise something so complex so quickly and at the king’s ability to understand it on the spot. Kalapurna lavished upon Agama One gifts of jewels and clothes.
[ Satvadatma’s Question ]
The king’s minister, Satvadatma, now came forward and bowed to Madhuralalasa. “Great Yogini,” he said, “I have forgotten my real name and family. While I was wandering alone, the people of Kasarapuram brought me there and gave me this name I bear, Satvadatma. Tell me who I am. I can’t find anyone old enough who knows.”
In the middle of his question, the child, rubbing her eyes and twisting her lips and arching her back, started to cry. Satvadatma said to her, “Why are you playing these games? Why don’t you answer my question? This is more than strange.” He bowed to her again and again.
The courtiers around her also began to speak. “You know things that even the wisest do not know, but still you get hungry and cry like a child.” “You can toy with us, but we won’t leave you alone. You have inborn, superhuman powers. Help us.” “We’ve been hoping to learn more and more from you; hoping you would answer all our questions. So why are you pretending to be an ordinary child?”
But no matter what anyone said or how much they begged her, the child showed no sign of knowing anything; she was really crying, and she was hungry. The king said, “Such expert articulation—such wisdom—can’t last forever. Some superhuman power must have possessed her for a while. And we, alas, were not intelligent enough to ask her then about the source of her extraordinary understanding.”
He turned to Rupanubhuti and Madasaya. “You heard all the stories your daughter told. You are very lucky. From now on, you are my mother-in-law and father-in-law. You are freed from my service. Take this girl home and take care of her.”
Satvadatma said, “Great king, from the moment you put this necklace around the child’s neck, she became your bride, and these people became your in-laws.19 That is what I thought, and the stories she told have confirmed this. If you study her features, you can see that she will wear anklets made from the gems of all the world’s queens.”
Pleased with these words, Kalapurna sent them off with even more stunning gifts. But he took care to prevent word of the stories from reaching the inner chambers of his palace and, in particular, the ears of his queen, Abhinavakaumudi. He also gave Alaghuvrata as much money as he needed to go on feeding Brahmins for the rest of his life and sent him off with his sons to meet their mothers.
[ Madhuralalasa Comes of Age ]
Delighted with the honor the king had shown them, Madasaya and his wife took their daughter home. The mother raised the girl with constant care, shampooing her hair, rubbing her skin with a cleansing dough,20 pouring water over her head with cupped hands, nursing her, swinging her in her cradle. Because of the power of Brahma’s words, Madhuralalasa, even as a baby, was devoted to her future husband. When her mother would rock her to sleep in a golden cradle, she would sing to her songs about Kalapurna. The baby would always brighten and laugh. But if they sang about anyone else, she would become grumpy and start to cry. “She’s already in love with her husband,” people would say with a smile.
A little older, she would happily jump into the lap of any visiting relative when they stretched our their hands to her. Giggling and squirming, she would dance with her hands on her waist when they asked her. She was a constant fountain of joy.
As she grew from young childhood into girlhood, she began to avoid the company of men—even of her own father. She began to notice the beauty of her body and to care for it. She never let her sari slip from her shoulder. She learned the art of playful glances and dancing eyebrows. When older women would start to talk about their love life in her presence, she would run away in embarrassment.
She was maturing into a young woman. Her youthful breasts and thighs began to encroach upon her childhood, which, like her waist, grew increasingly thin. Her breasts were little hills; her navel was a deep well, with the hair below flowing like a beckoning stream; her fingers were leaf-buds, her arms
were vines, her thighs smooth as the banana tree, her tender lips—red bimba fruits. When she smiled, you could see flowers unfolding. When she spoke, parrots and mynas began chirping. Her hair was a dark swarm of bees. All in all, she was a complete, lush garden, made for love.
She studied music and literature and other arts, and she became expert at composing poetry because of residual memories that she carried from her past lives.
Meanwhile, Kalapurna completely forgot about Madhuralalasa, busy as he was in affairs of state and in the pleasures of love with Abhinavakaumudi. Madhuralalasa, for her part, was already feeling the budding sensations of desire; she was eager to marry the king. She was lovesick and distracted: intending to call one of her girlfriends, she would turn to another by mistake; or reaching for one ornament, she would put on another; or heading in one direction, she would end up elsewhere. There was only one thing on her mind.
Whatever she saw
she didn’t see
without seeing him.
Whatever she heard
she couldn’t hear
without hearing him.
Whatever she touched
she couldn’t feel
without feeling him.
Whatever she tasted
she couldn’t taste
before tasting him.
Day and night she was lost
in thoughts of love-games
with him, her body tingling,
her words all jumbled,
like talking in a dream.
During daytime her eyes were white lotus blossoms, wide open, as the poets would say. By night they were dark water lilies, still wide open, as the poets would say. In short, she was in love. She rarely touched her vina. Even more rarely did she pay any attention to her pet parrots. She hardly ever gossiped with her girlfriends any more. Games became strangers. She was somewhere else.
Her girlfriends said to one another, “For some days now she’s been acting strange. Let us see why. She’s getting thinner, and her face is turning pale. Her mind is always distracted. This must be love. In recent days we haven’t mentioned Kalapurna very often; we haven’t been praising the fullness of his virtues and his great looks. That’s probably why she’s depressed. The merciless Love-God never wastes an opportunity to torture girls of her age. We had better provide some diversion, so she doesn’t get any sicker. Let’s take her for a walk in the woods.”
They managed to get her to come with them. The forest was alive with bees sipping honey, mating in the midst of the sweetness. The girls came upon a pool with steps leading down to the water. Tightly gripping the folds of their saris between their thighs, they went down, their delicate feet turning the water red as brilliant lotus flowers. A light breeze played with the upper ends of their saris, so they drew them closely around their bodies, still gripping the lower folds with their thighs. Holding their hands in front of their faces because the first ones to enter were splashing, they were startled by the fish darting through the waves and by the honking of the waterbirds flying up from the reeds. Bees disturbed when the girls entered the pond flew wildly in circles and then settled back on to the lotus blossoms, like dark seeds cast in the air and caught in the games that water-goddesses play.
When they emerged from the water, they dressed themselves in clean saris and put on their jewels; but Madhuralalasa was still lost in thought, though under the pressure of her girlfriends she had somehow or other played along in the water. At that moment Kalapurna, handsome beyond description, happened upon that place. He was out falconing and had just called back his hawk from pursuing some other bird. Half hiding her face on the shoulder of her girlfriend, she saw him—her husband. He saw her. Their eyes met in the middle space for a split second before shyness took over.
When she looked at him, he averted his eyes. When he looked, she averted hers. Still they kept stealing glances, back and forth, tying a swing for desire to play on. She wanted to rush to him. Though she had fallen in love with him just from hearing about him, this was the first time she really saw him.
For his part, he was so taken by her that it hurt to tear himself away. He kept turning back, on one pretext or another, to get another look. She was burning; she couldn’t bear it. She wanted to bring her hands to his tender feet, her breasts to his broad chest, her cheeks to his cheeks. Her friends saw this. “We were so busy with our games that we didn’t pay attention to her,” they said. “These pleasures are not for her. Our plan didn’t work. Her pain, far from diminishing, is intensifying. Just a moment ago Kalapurna was here, stunningly dressed for the hunt. Something happened to her when she saw him. That’s when things started to get worse. Everything here—the cries of the cuckoos and myna birds, mad with the joy of spring; the humming of the bees; the fragrant breezes; the opening buds and flower-beds—all joined the enemy camp; all are sapping her strength. We didn’t foresee this. We wanted to take her mind off the pangs of love, and we ended up bringing her to Love’s own kingdom. It’s like the man who took the long way out of town to avoid paying the toll, walked all night, and found himself at dawn at the very same tollbooth.”21
While they were reviewing their mistake, Madhuralalasa’s body became so hot with passion that she nearly fainted. Flustered and alarmed, they rushed to cool her: they built a shaded pavilion out of banana stalks at the edge of the pond where the breeze blew off the lotus flowers; they made a hedge out of cooling roots bound together with a mortar of sandal paste; inside it, they laid out a bed of water lilies on a pedestal covered with camphor, with a pillow of delicate gojjenga flowers, heavy with honey. They put her to bed and fanned her with flowers; they covered her breasts and feet and hands with a thick layer of cooling sandalpaste. Very quickly, the flowers dried up and the sandalpaste, burnt by her body, fell away in brittle flakes.
One of her most skillful friends adjusted Madhuralalasa’s sari and dabbed her eyes with cool rose water as she spoke to her: “Your body is so hot that if we touch you, we might get scorched. None of our attempts to cool you down has helped. My dear friend, I’m telling you: Desire never dies if you suppress it. Don’t be shy. How long can you suffer within yourself? I’m not a stranger to you. You don’t have to hide anything from me. I’m as close to you as your breath. There’s nothing you can’t tell me.”
She was speaking very boldly, asking her to reveal her true wish, and Madhuralalasa, still a little shy, was disturbed. But as her friend pressed further, she finally spoke. “How can I keep it back from you? My lover came to me one night in my dream and gave me the ecstasy of love. That happiness is beyond words. How can I describe it?” Remembering, she broke out in a sweat, her eyes half closed. “Before he left, he also promised he would never leave me. Today when he came falconing and I saw his beauty, I lost control. Nothing you do to cool me off is going to help. All I need is him. Why are you wasting your time? When this moonlight burns me from the sky, does my body have any chance? The Moon is as hot as the summer sun; why do people say he’s cool? He’s like a tiger with the face of a cow. And these parrots are driving me crazy with their chatter; it’s no wonder they say that an idiot can only parrot someone smart. These stupid parrots—could they be taught compassion? And those miserable cuckoos who grow up in the crows’ nests—I can’t stand them either. Even if you beg them, they won’t stop cooing. They’re all my enemies—moon, parrots, cuckoos—don’t ask them to help. I’ll hang on to life if you’ll just go and bring my husband. Otherwise, you can give up hope.”
The girlfriend said, “Take my word for it. I’ll bring your husband to you as quickly as possible. I can say this because I know, for a fact, how loving he really is. Trust me.”
These words revived her. Madhuralalasa, somewhat relieved, went home with her friends,
O King of Nandyala, grandson of Narayya, great-grandson of Narasimha, son of Narasimha: you’re a warrior in love. You conquer the hearts of women with their darting eyes. You delight in music, horses, elephants. You are famous throughout the world, praised in
the royal courts of the Kuru, Karusa, Videha, Kosala, Kuntala, Anga, Kalinga, Barbara, Pulindaka, Matsya, Malava, Pandya, Kerala, Chola, Ghurjara, Saka, and all other countries.
This is the sixth chapter in the long poem called Kalapurnodayamu made by soft-spoken Suraya, son of Pingali Amaranarya, whose poetry all connoisseurs enjoy throughout the world.
1. Gajasura, whom Siva killed and flayed.
2. Ravana’s son, slain in the Rāmāyaṇa battle.
3. The enemy of Indra, king of the gods.
4. Hiranyaksha stole the earth and was killed by Vishnu.
5. Mahishasura, the buffalo demon, was killed by the goddess Durga.
6. The Minister and adviser (guru) of the demons.
7. The internal narrator, Madhuralalasa, doesn’t want her listeners, especially Kalapurna, to go on nodding their heads or to take the harsh words as meant for them. This aside gives us a glimpse into the nature of oral storytelling, where the audience tends to nod and say “hum” in response to the narrator, who assumes the personae of all the characters in turn. Suranna’s sensitivity to the performative context of the narrative is evident here.
8. Note that Kalapurna has thus apparently heard from Abhinavakaumudi about his former life as Manikandhara, at least in its final moments, even before Madhuralalasa enlightens him in the court about the circumstances of his birth.
9. aṇṭi kuciy āḍunaṭṭi prāyamu—an opaque phrase, perhaps relating to a children’s game.
10. Note that the king is now the primary listener to Madhuralalasa’s story.
11. Uraga—perhaps Alavay/Madurai. However, later in the story there is a link to the Tamraparni River further south.
12. i.e., the dice [pakṣulu < Sanskrit pakṣin = sārikā].
13. This verse includes jokes apparently used by couples in a situation of play. Some of the terms are obscure, though the erotic suggestion is clear.
The Sound of the Kiss Page 17
