Madhumalati
Page 15
The sun, the moon, and the stars, Vāsuki,* Indra, and Kubera,*
earth, heaven, and Mount Sumeru—all wept with Pemā’s sorrow.
219. The red blood which Pemā wept in her grief
was the colour in which the parrot had washed his beak.
The crow and the cuckoo were burnt black
through her sorrow’s flames,
and the trees went through a fall of leaf.
Lotuses and the colour of spring festivals
gained their redness from her tears.
All the flowers burst forth from their clothes.
The heart of the pomegranate cracked
into pieces when it saw her. On the branch
the lemon and the citron turned pale yellow.
The orange drank a sip of her blood
and turned blood-red. The date
broke its heart, stricken at her sorrow.
The mango blossomed, maddened by sorrow, and the mahuā* lost all its leaves.
On hearing of Pema’s pain, the sugar cane split into sections with grief.
220. The bee and the serpent were scorched
in this forest fire, and the caper bush*
abandoned all its leaves for sorrow.
From a sip of that blood, the henna*
was steeped in the colour of redness.
From grief, the jasmine flower* grew small.
The flame-of-the-forest* covered its head
with that fire, and the buds closed,
as if embracing the sorrow of Pemā.
Boughs laden with fruit bent with sadness.
Lilies and lotuses sank into the water.
The rose apple* turned black on the branch
from grief, and the green jack-fruit
wrapped itself in a thorny sari.*
The ghunghuci berry,* red with a black dot, reddened itself by crying tears of blood.
The whole world knows it went to the forest ashamed, face blackened by this sin.
221. The baḍahal fruit turned yellow*
in the flames of Pemā’s sorrow,
and everyone knows this is why
the tamarind grew twisted.*
Out of grief the trees bit the earth,
gripping it firmly with their teeth.
The wishing-tree left this world altogether.*
The green pigeon,* weighed down with sadness,
came down to the earth, and the black bat
hung itself upside-down out of sorrow.
The kite, terrified by Pemā’s grieving,
became sometimes male, sometimes female.
The vine was terrified, and clung
fearfully, timidly to the tree.
The drongo lost its own voice and began to warble in many tongues.*
Then it burnt itself black as coal, out of grief for Pemā’s affliction.
222. Then Pemā sighed deeply and spoke
sweet words: ‘Listen, O Prince!
Don’t fear the demon in your mind.
Be not afraid, and stay here confident.
The demon has gone away somewhere,
and he left not a moment ago.
He wanders about the whole day,
and comes here at night to guard me.
O lord of men, tell me what you suffer,
the grief which made you assume this guise.
Until you tell me everything that has happened to you, O Prince!
You may be sure that I shall not allow you to go from here.’
Manohar Explains
223. The Prince replied, ‘Hear me, O Princess,
O royal darling! I became a beggar
suffering in separation from Madhumālatī.
How can I describe the indescribable?
If I were to speak and to write
for aeons, still it would not be finished.
Were I to speak of it, my mouth
would not be able to tell the tale,
for the story of separation can never end.
Listen now to the origin of my agony,
for there is no end to it in the four aeons.
Let me tell you how love and grief
and separation came about, although
no one has found its end in this world.
If the seven seas became ink, and the seven heavens were paper, O Pemā!
Even if I were to write through the ages, the sadness of separation would not lessen.
224. ‘Since you have asked me, Pemā,
listen and I will tell you my grief.
Kanaigiri, the city of gold, is a pleasant place,
paradise itself come down to earth.
The whole world knows my father’s name.
He is the illustrious Sūrajbhānu.
Ten thousand kosas* his kingdom stretches—
horses, elephants, limitless wealth and armies.
Only one child was born to him,
who fell into the grip of separation’s sorrow.
Grief for Madhumālatī has entered my soul, how can I describe this pain?
It feels like suffering has no place in the world, except for my afflicted soul.
225. ‘Listen now to the beginning,
the origin of my sorrowful story,
how grief became my soul’s companion.
It is a tale which cannot be told.
I’ll tell a little, explaining its true meanings.*
One day sleep had come to my eyes.
When I awoke, sorrow awoke.
I saw a dream that was real.
What I saw, I cannot describe.
If I call it a dream, it seems real.
If I call it real, it was not so.
I do not know what it was I saw—was it real, or was it a dream?
It was too real for a dream, but it was not reality that I saw before me.
226. ‘I saw a maiden’s curling black tresses
like poisonous serpents writhing about her head.
When my glance fell on her mole,
it captured my soul with every passing moment.
For one drop of nectar from her lips,
a thousand drops of my heart’s blood thirsted.
How can I describe her lively eyes,
like a pair of wagtails on the wing?*
A sidelong glance took my life in an instant.
Wherever my gaze fell on her body,
it was transfixed and could not move.
The pointed breasts of that maiden pierced my eyes so painfully,
I cannot now dislodge them, they stick in my eyes again and again.’
227. The Prince then recounted all that had passed:
how he was enamoured of Madhumālatī,
of their first meeting on that night,
and how their beds were interchanged.
And he described their mutual vows,
and how they had exchanged their rings
as testimony to their true oaths.
He told her how he had left
his father’s palace in the guise of a yogi,
how all his wealth had sunk in the ocean,
and the mounting wave had washed him shorewards.
The Prince wept as he described to Pemā all the sorrows he had gone through:
‘No one can know what fate writes for the future, and what will happen next.
228. ‘Pemā, my soul is no longer in my body.
I am speaking these words without a soul.
I can understand neither love nor separation,
for I have eaten a thief’s drugged sweets.*
Capital and profit, loss and gain—
I had all these when my soul was with me.
Suddenly the spark of separation fell on my heart,
and all was consumed in the blaze—
capital and profit, loss and gain.
When my eyes have drunk sweet nectar,
how can my heart be content with just her name?
Night and day these eyes have drunk the nectar of the bel
oved’s beauty.
What solace can it offer my heart to recall her name again and again?
229. ‘When Madhumālatī’s beauty entered my eyes,
I knew for certain within my heart
that the beauty which let me drink of love’s delight
would set me wandering from land to land.
The blood which I drank in separation from her
flows out of my eyes as tears of blood.
Tears rain in sorrow from my eyes.
I place great hope in this rain.
Perhaps that first lightning flash of my fate
will flash again when it sees this downpour.
Hope does not desert my heart when I see this rainy season of my eyes.
Love’s lightning, my destiny, may flash again, since it shone here before.
230. ‘I have lived in this hope for many days,
and God has brought me to you today.
I shall cool my heart with your words of nectar.
In you, I catch the scent of Madhumālatī’s love.
When a man falls into the fathomless ocean,
his foot may suddenly chance on a shallow.
O excellent maiden, when I saw your face,
it saved me from drowning in an ocean of grief.
I have set my soul on the path of love,
and cannot find it on searching my body.
I abandoned the pleasures of kingship, and lost my precious youth and my soul.
Pemā, I have set out on the path of love, and who knows what may happen next?
231. ‘O Pemā, I have told you, one by one,
all the sorrows of my heart.
I am alone here in this terrible place,
and separation’s pain overwhelms my heart.
No one even mentions the name of Mahāras.
Pemā, I am blind, I don’t know where to go!
Now there is no one left with me,
and grief is my only companion.
In you I sense the fragrance of love.
I feel that God will send me good news.
O Pemā, the scent of Madhumālatī’s love comes to me from you.
With tears in my eyes, I have told you all the tale of my sorrows!’
Pemā Consoles the Prince
232. When the Prince had finished the story
of his suffering, Pemā’s heart
was filled with sympathy. She said,
‘O Prince, you are tired of grief,
so you make separation’s long sorrow short.
Blessed is the life of the man
who sacrifices his all for separation’s agony.
Not every drop in the ocean makes a pearl,
nor is every heart radiant with separation’s light.
One among millions in this world
knows the pain of separation in his body.
Are jewels found in every ocean? Or elephant-gems in every elephant?*
Does sandal grow in every forest? Can separation be known by every heart?
233. ‘The man in whose heart God puts pain
is the king of all the three worlds.
He who climbs on the path of love
loses his soul. Love is a road
to travel with one’s soul or one’s beloved—
not both. The flames of separation
flare up in all the directions
and the one who is not touched by them
is the most unfortunate wretch.
No one should call separation pain.
In this world, separation is a joy.
The man to whom God shows separation
can see in all sorrows only happiness.
Manjhan says that love-in-separation is the herb of immortality in this life.
Whoever finds it becomes immortal in all ages; death cannot come near him.
234. ‘Whoever longs for love’s nectar-sweet fruit
loses his selfhood spontaneously, naturally.
The man who chooses this path,
and does not welcome death,*
can never taste love’s immortal fruit.
First, take your head in your hands,
then set foot on the road of love!
Whoever takes separation to his heart
can illuminate his spiritual eye—
to him, all three worlds are clear.*
May the Creator never give life to a man
who is never drunk with the wine of love.
The agony of separation is a fathomless ocean, as the world knows.
The man who can dive in and bring up a pearl is the true diver.*
235. ‘The man whose heart is not consumed
by the flames of separation’s fire,
might just as well have not been born.
He who has not devoted his heart
to the practice of love, has not attained
the reward of being born in the mortal world.
Only the man whose soul burns in separation
can truly benefit from life in this world.
How can one call that grief a sorrow
from which one gets the treasure of the beloved?
The man whose heart and soul are on fire
spontaneously gives up his own selfhood.
In the ocean of love, when waves rise and crash in the waters of sorrow,
poor wretched lovers fall in, abandoning all hope of continuing life.
236. ‘Only the man who loses life and youth
knows the essence of love-in-separation.
Love is a gamble in which only he wins
who stakes his life on a throw of the dice.
The ocean of love is deep and fathomless.
Only one in a million can swim in it.
Does separation come into the world in vain?
Separation’s form is creation itself.
The man who applies the kohl of separation
to his eyes, can see that the world
is just a manifestation of separation.
Manjhan says that the mortal creature who did not delight in separation’s agony
is like a guest in an empty house, coming into this world and leaving it as he came.
237. ‘Whoever does not turn head over heels
cannot traverse this path correctly.*
Whoever opens his eyes to all forms of beauty
dies and gains life beyond comparison.
Whoever gives one soul on this path
gets in return a hundred souls.
Through silence, he speaks of everything.
His ears hear all of the story
which cannot be told in this world.
His vision embraces all existence
and his form becomes immortal.
The man in whose body desire is born, from the manifold feelings of separation,
is the bridegroom of the triple world, for the Lord has given him this pain.
238. ‘Only he gains the fruit of worldly life
who sacrifices his soul on this path.
If you lose yourself in love for someone,
they become the guide and show the way.
When knowledge is born spontaneously in the heart,
how can anyone lose their way in love?
The five elements* become as one,
and the body is transmuted into the soul.
Spontaneously all things reveal the state of sahaja
and the soul appears manifest in bodily form.
Separation’s pain is a treasure of happiness, do not fret under this suffering!
The Lord creates some to keep faith in love, and they rule both now and hereafter.
239. ‘No one should be distressed by grief
for the end of grief is happiness.
Joy is the clear rainwater in the black clouds,
that streams down between sorrows in the world.
When trees lose their leaves in Phāgun,*
they soon sprout new leaves and buds.
Henna is crushed betwee
n two stones
before it can come into its true red colour!
Only the pearl pierced in many ways
can be placed at the breast of a lotus-like lady.
Know that happiness in this world comes between two periods of sorrow.
Though the night is at its darkest, there is the brilliance of the dawn to come.
240. ‘O Prince, since you have suffered great sorrow,
now God has granted you a lucky meeting.
If the line of fate is on your forehead,
then your night of grief will end in daybreak.
If the compassionate Lord has mercy on you,
in a few days you will meet that girl.
You have fallen into the deep ocean of sadness,
but I can ferry you across with happy news.
Hear then from me news of the one
for whose sake you are fettered by sorrow.
You embarked on the ocean and plunged into it, and put on the garments of grief.
But now good days are drawing near—listen and I will give you good counsel!
Pemā and Madhumālatī
241. ‘Listen as I tell you about the one,
for whom your soul is consumed with passion.
She is the princess of the city of Mahāras.
Out of love for her, you became a beggar.
She and I played together as children.
Madhumālatī was my childhood friend.
She and I were always together,
and enjoyed the delights of girlhood as one.
Now, O Prince, I do not know how she is,
since the Creator put me in this dark wood.
Always together as girls, we two would play and dance the dhamār.*
But now it is a year since we parted, when God cast me into this forest.’
242. When the Prince heard her sweet words,
he was overjoyed and fainted with delight.
Love returned and went to his head,
like borax making gold shine in the flame.
Love made his soul revive afresh,
flaring up like ghee cast into burning fire.
His soul went out to Madhumālatī.
He fell without breath to the ground.
In a little while, consciousness returned.
Opening his eyes, he was aware, percipient.
His body trembled with separation’s pain, and his legs were weak and unsteady.
Tears filled his eyes as he began to utter what he had to say to Pemā.
243. ‘Listen, O Pemā,’ said the Prince.
‘From the time my heart was overwhelmed
with passion for Madhumālatī,
I have neither seen nor heard of anyone
who knows where her country lies.
Since the time she appeared in my dream,
I have heard no news of her.
Now she has banished sleep from my eyes,
and I cannot see her even in a dream.