________________________________________________
_ This portrayal of the girl as the chief lover is quite the custom in Hindoo literature, and doubtless mirrors life as it was and is. Like a dog that fawns on an indifferent or cruel master, these women of India were sometimes attached to their selfish lovers and husbands. They had been trained from their childhood to be sympathetic, altruistic, devoted, self-sacrificing, and were thus much better prepared than the men for the germs of amorous sentiment, which can grow only in such a soil of self-denial. Hence it is that Hindoo love-poems are usually of the feminine gender. This is notably the case with the _Saptacatakam_ of Hala, an anthology of seven hundred Prakrit verses made from a countless number of love-poems that are intended to be sung--"songs," says Albrecht Weber, "such as the girls of India, especially perhaps the bayaderes or temple girls may have been in the habit of singing."[274] Some of these indicate a strong individual preference and monopoly of attachment:
No. 40: "Her heart is dear to her as being your abode,
her eyes because she saw you with them, her body
because it has become thin owing to your absence."
No. 43: "The burning (grief) of separation is (said to
be) made more endurable by hope. But, mother, if my
beloved is away from me even in the same village, it is
worse than death to me."
No. 57: "Heedless of the other youths, she roams about,
transgressing the rules of propriety, casting her
glances in (all) directions of the world for your sake,
O child."
No. 92: "That momentary glimpse of him whom, oh, my
aunt, I constantly long to see, has (touched) quenched
my thirst (as little) as a drink taken in a dream."
No. 185: "She has not sent me. You have no relations
with her. What concern of ours is it therefore? Well,
she dies in her separation from you."
No. 202: "No matter how often I repeat to my mistress
the message you confided to me, she replies 'I did not
hear' (what you said), and thus makes me repeat it a
hundred times."
No. 203: "As she looked at you, filled with the might
of her self-betraying love, so she then, in order to
conceal it, looked also at the other persons."
No. 234: "Although all (my) possessions were consumed
in the village fire, yet is (my) heart rejoiced, (when
it was put out) he took the bucket as it passed from
hand to hand (from my hand)."
No. 299: "She stares, without having an object, gives
vent to long sighs, laughs into vacant space, mutters
unintelligible words--surely she must bear something in
her heart."
No. 302: "'Do give her to the one she carries in her
heart. Do you not see, aunt, that she is pining away?'
'No one rests in my heart' [literally; whence could
come in my heart resting?]--thus speaking, the girl
fell into a swoon."
No. 345: "If it is not your beloved, my friend, how
is it that at the mention of his name your face
glows like a lotos bud opened by the sun's rays?"
No. 368: "Like illness without a doctor--like living
with relatives if one is poor, like the sight of an
enemy's prosperity--so difficult is it to endure
separation from you."
No. 378: "Whatever you do, whatever you say, and
wherever you turn your eyes, the day is not long
enough for her efforts to imitate you."
No. 440: "...She, whose every limb was bathed in
perspiration, at the mere mention of his name."
No. 453: "My friend! tell me honestly, I ask you: do
the bracelets of all women become larger when the lover
is far away?"
No. 531: "In whichever direction I look I see you
before me, as if painted there. The whole firmament
brings before me as it were a series of pictures of
you."
No. 650: "From him proceed all discourses, all are
about him, end with him. Is there then, my aunt, but
one young man in all this village?"
[FOOTNOTE 274: Hala's date is somewhat uncertain, but he flourished between the third and fourth centuries A.D. Professor Weber's translation of his seven hundred poems, with the professor's comments, takes up no fewer than 1,023 pages of the _Abhandlungen fuer die Kunde des Morgenlandes_, Vols. V. and VII. I have selected all those which throw light on the Hindoo conception of love, and translated them carefully from Weber's version. Hala's anthology served as prototype, about the twelfth century, to a similar collection of arya verses, the erotic Saptacati of Govardhana, also seven hundred in number, but written in Sanskrit. Of these I have not been able to find a version in a language that I can read, but the other collection is copious and varied enough to cover all the phases of Hindoo love. The verses were intended, as already indicated, to be sung, for the Hindoos, too, knew the power of music as a pastime and a feeder of the emotions. "If music be the food of love, play on," says the English Shakespere, and the "Hindoo Shakespere" wrote more than a thousand years before him:
"Oh, how beautifully our master Rebhila has sung! Yes,
indeed, the zither is a pearl, only it does not come
from the depths of the sea. How its tones accord with
the heart that longs for love, how it helps to while
away time at a rendezvous, how it assuages the grief of
separation, and augments the delights of the lovers!"
(_Vasantasena_, Act III., 2.)]
While these poems may have been sung mostly by bayaderes, there are others which obviously give expression to the legitimate feelings of married women. This is especially true of the large number which voice the sorrows of women at the absence of their husbands after the rains have set in. The rainy season is in India looked on as the season of love, and separation from the lover at this time is particularly bewailed, all the more as the rains soon make the roads impassable.
No. 29: "To-day, when, alone, I recalled the joys we
had formerly shared, the thunder of the new clouds
sounded to me like the death-drum (that accompanies
culprits to the place of execution)."
No. 47: "The young wife of the man who has got ready
for his journey roams, after his departure, from house
to house, trying to get the secret for preserving life
from wives who have learned how to endure separation
from their beloved."
No. 227: "In putting down the lamp the wife of the
wanderer turns her face aside, fearing that the stream
of tears that falls at the thought of the beloved might
drop on it."
No. 501: "When the voyager, on taking leave, saw his
wife turn pale, he was overcome by grief and unable to
go."
No. 623: "The wanderer's wife does indeed protect her
little son by interposing her head to catch the rain
water dripping from the eaves, but fails to notice (in
her grief over her absent one) that he is wetted by her
tears."
These twenty-one poems are the best samples of everything contained in Hala's anthology illustrating the serious side of love among the bayaderes and married women of India. Careful perusal of them must convince the reader that there is nothing in them revealing the altruistic phases of love. There is much ardent longing for the selfish gratification which the presence of a lover would give; deep grief at his absence; indications that a certain man could afford her much more pleasure by his presence than others--and that is all. When a girl wails that she is dying because her lover is absent she is really thinking of her own pleasure rather than his. None of these poems expresses the sentiment, "Oh, that I could do something to make _him_ happy!" These women are indeed taught and _forced_ to sacrifice themselves for their husbands, but when it comes to _spontaneous_ utterances, like these songs, we look in vain for evidence of pure, devoted, high-minded, romantic love. The more frivolous side of Oriental love is, on the other hand, abundantly illustrated in Hala's poems, as the following samples show:
No. 40: "O you pitiless man! You who are afraid of your
wife and difficult to catch sight of! You who resemble
(in bitterness) a nimba worm--and yet who are the
delight of the village women! For does not the (whole)
village grow thin (longing) for you?"
No. 44: "The sweetheart will not fail to come back into
his heart even though he caress another girl, whether
he see in her the same charms or not."
No. 83: "This young farmer, O beautiful girl, though he
already has a beautiful wife, has nevertheless become
so reduced that his own jealous wife has consented to
deliver this message to you."
The last two poems hint at the ease with which feminine jealousy is suppressed in India, of which we have had some instances before and shall have others presently. Coyness seems to be not much more developed, at least among those who need it most:
No. 465: "By being kind to him again at first sight you
deprived yourself, you foolish girl, of many
pleasures--his prostration at your feet and his eager
robbing of a kiss."
No. 45: "Since youth (rolls on) like the rapids of a
river, the days speed away and the nights cannot be
checked--my daughter! what means this accursed, proud
reserve?"
No. 139: "On the pretext that the descent to the Goda
(river) is difficult, she threw herself in his arms.
And he clasped her tightly without thereby incurring
any reproach." (See also No. 108.)
No. 121: "Though disconsolate at the death of her
relatives, the captive girl looked lovingly upon the
young kidnapper, because he appeared to her to be a
perfect (hero). Who can remain sulky in the face of
virtues?"
Such love as these women felt is fickle and transient:
No. 240: "Through being out of sight, my child, in
course of time the love dwindles away even of those who
were firmly joined in tender union, as water runs from
the hollow of the hand."
No. 106: "O heart that, like a long piece of wood which
is being carried down the rapids of a small stream is
caught at every place, your fate is nevertheless to be
burnt by some one!"
No. 80: "By being out of sight love goes away; by
seeing too often it goes away; also by the gossip of
malicious persons it goes away; yes, it also goes away
by itself."
"If the bee, eager to sip, always seeks the juices of new growths, this is the fault of the sapless flowers, not of the bee."
Where love is merely sensual and shallow lovers' quarrels do not fan the flame, but put it out:
"Love which, once dissolved, is united again, after
unpleasant things have been revealed, tastes flat,
like water that has been boiled."
The commercial element is conspicuous in this kind of love; it cannot persist without a succession of presents:
No. 67: "When the festival is over nothing gives
pleasure. So also with the full moon late in the
morning--and of love, which at last becomes
insipid--and with gratification, that does not
manifest itself in the form of presents."
The illicit, impure aspect of Oriental love is hinted at in many of the poems collected by Hala. There are frequent allusions to rendezvous in temples, which are so quiet that the pigeons are scared by the footsteps of the lovers; or in the high grain of the harvest fields; or on the river banks, so deserted that the monkeys there fill their paunches with mustard leaves undisturbed.
No. 19: "When he comes what shall I do? What shall I
say and what will come of this? Her heart beats as,
with these thoughts, the girl goes out on her first
rendezvous." (_Cf._ also Nos. 223 and 491.)
No. 628: "O summer time! you who give good
opportunities for rendezvous by drying the small
ditches and covering the trees with a dense abundance
of leaves! you test-plate of the gold of
love-happiness, you must not fade away yet for a long
time."
No. 553: "Aunt, why don't you remove the parrot from
this bed-chamber? He betrays all the caressing words
to others."
Hindoo poets have the faculty, which they share with the Japanese, of bringing a whole scene or episode vividly before the eyes with a sentence or two, as all the foregoing selections show. Sometimes a whole story is thus condensed, as in the following:
"'Master! He came to implore our protection. Save him!'
thus speaking, she very slyly hastened to turn over her
paramour to her suddenly entering husband." (See also
No. 305 and _Hitopadesa_, p. 88.) _
Read next: Symptoms Of Masculine Love
Read previous: An Indian Aspasia
Table of content of India--Wild Tribes And Temple Girls
GO TO TOP OF SCREEN
Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book
