What virtue accrued in
another life has brought me
such bliss? I who
fear my elders and dare not go out to him?
I who torment him? I see
his sorrow and deep love
and I am tormented.
I would set fire to my house
for him, I would bear
the scorn of the world.
He thinks his sorrow is joy,
when I weep he weeps.
When it comes to know such depth of love
the heart of the world will rejoice,
says Chandidāsa.
:DL & ECD
I brought honey and drank it mixed with milk—
but where was its sweetness? I tasted gall.
I am steeped in bitterness, as the seed
of a bitter fruit in its juice.
My heart smolders.
A fire without is plain to be seen
but this fire flames within,
it sears my breast.
Desire burns the body—how can it be relieved?
By the touch of Kānu, says Chandidāsa.
:DL & ECD
Love, what can I say to you?
I was too young to love,
but you did not let me stay at home.
I shall drown myself in the sea
with this last wish:
That I be born again as Nanda’s son
and you as Rādhā.
Then, after loving you, I shall abandon you.
I shall stand beneath the kadamba tree;
I shall stand in the tribhanga pose and play my flute
as you go to draw water.
And when you hear the flute you will be enchanted,
simple girl.
Chandidāsa says, Then you will know
how love can burn.
:DL & ECD
Suddenly I am afraid.
At any moment, Kānu’s love for me may cease.
A building can collapse because of a single flaw—
who knows in what ways I, who desire to be
a palace for his pleasure, may be faulty?
And few are those who can restore
what once is broken . . .
Distracted, I wander
from place to place, everywhere finding
only anxiety. Oh, to see
his smile!
My love,
whoever brings down the house of our love
will have murdered a woman!
Chandidāsa says, O Rādhā, you reflect too much;
without your love he could not live a moment.
:DL & ECD
My faults, my jealousy, are
woman’s nature—
O my heart, Kānāi,
do not be angry.
Did not you, yourself,
use the same words—
‘Do not be angry’?—
and now all my anger is gone.
See, awakening at your feet,
my heart, Kānāi. Ah,
do not think of others as you do of me,
the god of love has woven in a garland
your heart and mine,
and I will do as you desire, in Vrindāvana.
Has not God made one body and one soul
of your love and mine? Then it is not my doing
if you must not take your love to another,
but the will of God . . .
One by one I turn your virtues over in my mind—
come, sit beside me,
sings Badu Chandidāsa.
:DL & ECD
Beloved, what more shall I say to you?
In life and in death, in birth after birth
you are the lord of my life.
A noose of love binds
my heart to your feet.
My mind fixed on you alone, I have offered you
everything;
in truth, I have become your slave.
In this family, in that house, who is really mine?
Whom can I call my own?
It was bitter cold, and I took refuge
at your lotus feet.
While my eyes blink, and I do not see you,
I feel the heart within me die.
A touchstone
I have threaded and wear upon my throat,
says Chandidāsa.
:DL & ECD
Chandidāsa
FOR SIX CENTURIES songs have circulated in Bengal with the name Chandidāsa attached. When scholars winnow through and isolate poems they can trace authentically to a historical figure of the fifteenth century, they still find four figures using variants of the name: Chandidāsa, Dwija Chandidās, Badu Chandidāsa, and Dina Chandidāsa. Nobody can say whether these were four separate poets or only one. Scholars—using theological principles in the songs—propose two Chandidāsas, a later one belonging to a deviant sect called the sahajiyā. The Chandidāsa story that circulates with the songs portrays a single poet, known as the chief rasika bhakta, or devotee of love—pure, untarnished love. Unlike other bhakti poets of the period—Vidyāpati a ready example—Chandidāsa seems little touched by the influence of Sanskrit poetry. Almost all of it speaks in the voice of Radha or Krishna, spurred by a passion that stems from his own life.
Chandidāsa—the original one—likely came from Nanur, a village in the Birbhum region of Bengal. A Brahman dedicated to the temple of the local goddess Bashuli, Chandidāsa fell in love with a young woman named Rāmī who had appeared at the temple looking for work. Rāmī was a low-caste washerwoman who took to scrubbing the temple courtyard. She was supposed to remain invisible to the priests and high-caste worshippers. Her affair with Chandidāsa scandalized the village. The lovers were reviled and may have been expelled from the community.
To complicate Chandidāsa’s story—who he was or who wrote the poems attributed to him—many of his poems are in Radha’s voice. This was a convention that poets in India had practiced for centuries. About two hundred years ago, though, a manuscript surfaced, a “sheaf of poems,” containing verse composed after Chandidāsa’s death. Based on their contents, scholars attribute the poems to Rāmī, or Rāmonī, the beloved for whose sake Chandidāsa wrote:
I throw ashes at all laws
Made by man or god.
What is the worth
Of your vile laws
That failed me
In love?
(DB translation)
Rāmī figures intimately into Chandidāsa’s death. The nawab of Gaur had invited Chandidāsa to sing at his court, and his queen, the begum, went into rapture at the poet’s performance. An electric passion passed from the begum to Chandidāsa, the intensity of her sexual desire visible to all who were present. The nawab flew into a fury. He had Chandidāsa roped across the spine of an elephant and ordered the palace guards to flog him to death.
The nawab forced his wife to watch the public torture and execution. Rāmī too watched on in horror, Chandidāsa all the time fixing his gaze on her—the person for whom he’d lived—until he lost consciousness. The begum was devastated, and shortly afterwards killed herself. What became of Rāmī, nobody knows, but her manuscript of poems that came to light centuries later are full of rage at hierarchy and political oppression.
One poem of Chandidāsa’s begins, in Deben Bhattacharya’s translation,
The essence of beauty
springs from the eternal play
of man as Krishna
and woman as Radha.
Devoted lovers
in the act of loving, seek to reach
the goal . . .
It closes with an assertion that sounds acutely modern—a phrase that became a touchstone for poets of the Bengali Renaissance and through the twentieth century. Whether by “man” Chandidāsa means Humanity or the mystical inward Self, who can tell?
Listen, O brother man,
; Man is the greatest Truth
Of all,
Nothing beyond.
(DB translation)
: GOVINDA-DĀSA
(1535—1613)
When they had made love
she lay in his arms in the kunja grove.
Suddenly she called his name
and wept—as if she burned in the fire of
separation.
The gold was in her anchal
but she looked afar for it!
—Where has he gone? Where has my love gone?
O why has he left me alone?
And she writhed on the ground in despair,
only her pain kept her from fainting.
Krishna was astonished
and could not speak.
Taking her beloved friend by the hand,
Govinda-dāsa led her softly away.
:DL & ECD
When you listened to the sound
of Krishna’s flute,
I stopped your ears.
When you gazed at the beauty
of his body,
I covered your eyes.
You were angry.
O lovely one, I told you then
that if you let love grow in you
your life would pass in tears.
You offered him your body,
you wanted his touch—
you did not ask if he would be kind.
And now each day your beauty
fades a little more;
how much longer can you live?
You planted in your heart
the tree of love,
in hope of nourishment
from that dark cloud.
Now water it
with your tears,
says Govinda-dāsa.
:DL & ECD
Govinda-dāsa
BORN IN BENGAL a century after Vidyāpati’s final years, Govinda-dāsa is said to have begun life as a Śakta, or goddess-worshipper, before dedicating himself to the enormous spiritual revival of the sixteenth century that focused on Krishna and Radha. He loved Vidyāpati’s poetry, and traveled to the earlier poet’s home village, Bishpi, in order to collect all he could.
Rabindranath Tagore set one of Govinda-dāsa’s poems to music, and Krishna-Radha devotees still sing them today.
The poem “When they had made love” plays on the notion that humans long for the divine and will search faraway places, when in fact the spirit is with us all the time. An anchal is the corner of the sari that Indian women wear over the shoulder; in Bengal they use it as a purse, tying into it money, personal items, or jewelry.
: RĀMPRASĀD SEN
(CIRCA 1718—1775)
I spent my days in fun,
Now, Time’s up and I’m out of a job.
I used to go here and there making money,
Had brothers, friends, wife, and children
Who listened when I spoke. Now they scream at me
Just because I’m poor. Death’s
Field man is going to sit by my pillow
Waiting to grab my hair, and my friends
And relations will stack up the bier,
Fill the pitcher, ready my shroud and say
So long to the old boy
In his holy man’s get-up.
They’ll shout Hari a few times,
Dump me on the pile and walk off.
That’s it for old Rāmprasād.
They’ll wipe off the tears
And dig in for their supper.
:LN & CS
Listen to this story, Mother Tara,
My house is a battlefield, nothing but a quarrel
Of cross purposes, Five Senses,
Mother, each with a different desire,
All wanting pleasure all the time.
I have been born in eight million forms
And now I’m born a man,
A funny figure in a world
Whose gift to us is a load of misery.
Mother, look at Rāmprasād
Trying to live in this house
Whose master is driven crazy,
Beaten by the Six Tenants.
:LN & CS
How many times, Mother, are you going
To trundle me on this wheel like a blind-
Folded ox grinding out oil? You’ve got me
Tied to this old trunk of a world, flogging me
On and on. What have I done to be forced to serve
These Six Oily Dealers, the Passions?
All these births—eighty times 100,000—
As beast and bird and still the door
Of the womb is not shut on me
And I come out hurting once more!
When a child cries out, calling the precious name
Of mother, then a mother takes it in her arms.
Everywhere I look I see that’s the rule,
Except for me. All some sinners need to do
Is shout “Durgā” and—pouf!—they’re saved.
Take this blindfold off so I can see
The feet that give comfort. There are many
Bad children, but who ever heard
Of a bad mother?
There’s only one hope
For Rāmprasād, Mother—that in the end
He will be safe at Your feet.
:LN & CS
Does suffering scare me? O Mother,
Let me suffer in this world. Do I require more?
Suffering runs ahead of me and runs after me.
I carry it on my head and set up a stand
In a bazaar to peddle it.
I’m a poison worm, I thrive on poison.
I carry it wherever I go.
Prasād says: Mother, lift off my load.
I need a little rest. It’s amazing!
Others brag about their happiness,
I brag about my suffering.
:LN & CS
You’ll find Mother
In any house.
Do I dare say it in public?
She is Bhairavī with Shiva,
Durgā with Her children,
Sītā with Lakshmaṇa.
She’s mother, daughter, wife, sister—
Every woman close to you.
What more can Rāmprasād say?
You work the rest out from these hints.
:LN & CS
That’s it, Mother!
The play is done.
It’s over, my Happy One.
I came into this world
To play, took the dust
Of this world and played,
And now, Daughter of High Places,
Suddenly I’m scared. Death is so near,
So serious. I think of those games
I played as a boy, and all that breath
Wasted in the pleasure of marriage
When it should have gone for prayer.
Rāmprasād begs: Mother,
Old age has broken me—what do I do now?
Mother, teach this worshipper
Worship, plunge me
Into the saving waves.
:LN & CS
[After Rāmprasād Sen]
Arms shielding my face
Knees drawn up
Falling through flicker
Of womb after womb,
through worlds,
Only begging, Mother,
must I be born again?
Snyder says: you bear me, nurse me
I meet you, always love you,
you dance
on my chest and thigh
Forever born again.
:GS
Rāmprasād Sen
The known facts of Rāmprasād’s life would fit into a matchbox. He was born in the Bengali village of Halisahar somewhere between 1718 and 1723. He may have served for a time as a clerk in a Calcutta merchant house, where he is said to have filled up his account ledg
ers with hymns to Kali. After leaving the regular workforce, he returned to Halisahar; his early biographer, Iśvarcandra Gupta, records him receiving a land grant in 1758 from the maharaja who would become his patron, Krsnacandra Ray.
Rāmprasād’s death dates vary between 1762 and 1803, a confounding range of forty-one years. An oil portrait exists, reportedly of the poet, by English painter Arthur William Devis, painted in the early 1790s. Though Rāmprasād would have been in his early seventies, the portrait shows a youngish man clad in a twisted loincloth, dreadlocks longer than his body; he leans relaxedly against a banyan tree; a rubbed votive stone depicting Vishnu and his two wives tilts among the tree’s massive roots.
Two stories about Rāmprasād stand out. The first recounts how his Calcutta employer, discovering Rāmprasād scrawling hymns to Kali in the margins of the account books, found either the poems so good or the poet’s devotion so convincing that he sent the poet home with a stipend to continue composing. The other tells how Rāmprasād vanished—as many bhakti poets did—in a self-willed act of devotion. At Kali Puja, on the day of the goddess’s immersion in the river near Halisahar, Rāmprasād carried the mūrti or image of Kali on his head into the waters. He submerged himself along with the goddess, and as he sank below the surface his brahmarandra—the aperture at the top of the skull where the spirit escapes—split open. He died singing the lines of his final poem.
Gary Snyder’s poem “[After Rāmprasād Sen]” cannot exactly be called a translation. However, it draws directly from extant songs. Its stripped-down wording and distribution of phrases on the page edge closer to Rāmprasād’s syntax than versions which may follow a Bengali verse with literal correctness, but lack the use of breath and spacing that make you feel like you’re falling through “flicker / Of womb after womb.”
In our day it is impossible to tell which poems a historical Rāmprasād wrote, and which were composed by other poets or singers and passed on with Rāmprasād’s name in their signature lines. If you think of “Rāmprasād Sen” as a vision-through-song-lineage of the past two and a half centuries, then Snyder’s poem stands right in that bloodline. It is as close to its model as Robert Bly’s Kabir versions are to any flesh-and-blood Kabir. The one difference: Snyder inserts his own name in the signature line, not Rāmprasād’s as Bengali street singers have done for two and a half centuries.
Love and The Turning Seasons Page 11
