Shatakatraya 2

English (machine translation) 2

Language: English

2.102 — 1 part

2.1

Homage to that blessed Makaraketana, / of marvelously wondrous deeds beyond the reach of words, / by whom Śambhu, Svayambhū, and Hari were made / constant household water-pot slaves of fawn-eyed women.

2.2

With smiles and gestures, with modesty and fear, / with averted glances and half-glances, / with words, jealous quarrels, and playful grace— / indeed, with all their moods, women are a bond of captivity.

2.3

Glances with contracted eyes from the clever movement of the brow, / affectionate words and laughter ending in bashfulness, / walking with playful slowness, and standing still— / this is both an ornament and a weapon for women.

2.4

Here with a knit of the brow, and there enveloped in modesty; / here full of fright, and there gracefully languid; / by these movements of young maidens' eyes, charming with love, / the directions seem strewn with a shower of blooming blue lotuses.

2.5

A face radiant as the moon, eyes able to mock the lotus, / a complexion that casts gold aside, a mass of hair conquering the female black bee, / breasts dispelling the charm of an elephant's temples, heavy hips, / and a captivating softness of speech—this is the natural adornment of young women.

2.6

Her glance's power, enchanting with a gentle smile, straightforward yet trembling; / the movement of her speech, charming with ever-new playful words; / the beginning of her gait, its playful graces bursting into sprout— / what is not delightful about the fawn-eyed maiden as she touches youth?

2.7

Among things to be seen, what is the best? The fawn-eyed woman's face, bright with love. / Among things to be smelled, what? The breath of her mouth. Among things to be heard, what? Her voice. / Among things to be tasted, what? The nectar of her sprout-like lip. Among things to be touched, what? Her body. / What is to be meditated on by connoisseurs in fresh youth? Her playful charms everywhere.

2.8

Whose mind do these young women not make helpless / with their side-glances like those of a frightened, bewildered doe, / surpassing royal female swans with the jingling of their anklets / rising from moving bracelets and girdles?

2.9

Her body stained with the paste of saffron, / the necklace trembling on her fair breasts, / her lotus-feet resounding with the swans of anklets— / what man on earth does a lovely woman not captivate?

2.10

Surely those best of poets spoke contrarily / who constantly called those amorous women 'the powerless' (abalāḥ); / for how can they be powerless by whom, with casting of eyes with rolling pupils, / even Śakra and the other gods are conquered?

2.11

Surely Makaraketana is the servant of that fair-browed woman's command, / since he acts upon whatever is indicated by the roving of her eyes.

2.12

Your hair is restrained; your eyes have gone even beyond the limit of the ears; / the inside of your mouth is filled with rows of teeth, pure and bright by nature; / and these jar-like breasts are charming with the constant presence of pearls: / slender girl, though your form is thus ascetic, it only produces passion in us!

2.13

Charming girl, what is this unprecedented archery seen in you, / by which you pierce hearts with mere virtues/bowstrings, not with arrows?

2.14

Though the lamp is there, though the fire is there, though the stars, the sun, and the moon are there, / without my fawn-eyed beloved this whole world has turned to darkness.

2.15

Let this prominent weight of breasts, these trembling eyes, these arching brow-creepers, / and this sprout-like lip filled with redness cause distress—so be it; / but why does that line of hair, lying in the middle, create even greater torment, / like a garland of syllables of fortune written by Love himself?

2.16

With a face like moonstone, with hair like sapphires, / and with two hands like rubies, she shone as if made of gems.

2.17

With the heavy weight of breasts (Guru), with a face like the shining moon and sun (Candra, Bhāsvat), / and with slowly moving feet (Śanaiścara), she shone as if made of planets.

2.18

If her breasts are plump, her hips captivating, / and her face lovely, why, O mind, is your agitation? / Perform meritorious deeds if you desire them; / for without merit, desired goals are never attained.

2.19

These fresh fragrances of the beauty of youth, / the beginnings of the majesty of mature lovemaking, sureties that grant victory to Smara, / constant thieves of the heart, sole preceptors of new agitation— / the playful movements of fawn-eyed women reign supreme beyond words.

2.20

Sweet with affection, bursting with love, turned to vessels of aesthetic relish, / sweet in expression, mostly naive, displaying joy, / naturally charming, moist with trust, giving rise to Smara— / in secret, the spontaneous conversations of fawn-eyed women captivate beyond measure.

2.21

Resting again and again in the shade of the forest trees,
a certain slender maiden wandered about,
warding off the rays of the moon
with the upper garment of her breasts lifted by her hand.

2.22

When she is not seen, desiring only sight; / having seen her, eager only for the joy of an embrace; / and when the large-eyed maiden is embraced, / we long for the non-difference of our two bodies.

2.23

Mālatī flowers on the head, a yawn upon the face, / sandalwood on the body mixed with saffron, / the beloved woman upon the chest languid with passion— / this is heaven; the rest is mere tradition.

2.24

First coming to me slightly, desire awakened though pleasure is not yet reached, / bashfully next, then with slackened resistance, then with fortitude shattered; / moistened with love thereafter, bold in the desirable, intense play of intimacy, / delightful with the heightened bliss of dragging off her clinging garments—such is making love with a highborn wife.

2.25

Fallen onto the chest, their braids undone, / their eyes half-closed, slightly opened, / their cheeks damp with perspiration from the fatigue of lovemaking— / fortunate men drink the nectar of their wives' lower lips.

2.26

The relish of love which shines upon consciousness / for those whose eyes are half-closed, / perceived mutually by the pair— / this alone is the true fulfillment of desire.

2.27

This is improper and disorderly for men, / that even in old age the disturbances of love exist here; / nor was it arranged that the life or the love of round-hipped women / should terminate only with the falling of their breasts.

2.28

No one in this world has ever reached the end of the ocean of desire for kingly wealth; / what is the use of abundant riches when youth, accompanied by passion, has departed from one's own body? / Let us go home before the beauty of our beloveds, / who gaze with blossom-like blue-lotus eyes, is suddenly destroyed by the relentless assault of old age.

2.29

The sole abode of passion, the cause of attaining the great suffering of hundreds of hells, / the seed from which delusion springs, the mass of clouds that obscures the moon of knowledge, / the sole friend of Kandarpa, a continuous display of various evident faults— / in this world, there is nothing other than wealth, family lineage, high dwelling, and youth.

2.30

When fresh youth arrives—a raincloud for the tree of erotic love, a streaming river of the relish of amorous play, / the dear kinsman of Pradyumna, an ocean holding pearls of clever speech, / a purifying moon for the cakora birds of slender women's eyes, a storehouse of the fortune of beauty— / rare is that fortunate man who suffers no perturbation.

2.31

In this worthless cycle of worldly existence, how could men of pure intellect / fix their minds, whose fortitude is broken by attachment to the disgrace of attending at the doors of petty kings, / if there were not these young maidens, bearing the gathered radiance of the rising moon, / with lotus eyes, trembling girdles, and waists bending under the weight of their breasts?

2.32

While the auspicious abode of the Himalayas stands, its caves inhabited by Siddhas, / its trees broken by the shoulders of Śiva's bull, its rock surfaces washed by the Gaṅgā, / what high-minded man would bow his head, making it dirty and dejected, / if women, with eyes like frightened fawns, were not the weapons of Smara?

2.33

O cycle of worldly existence, the road to your end would not be distant, / if those intoxicating-eyed women did not stand in between, hard to cross.

2.34

Offer to the forest does a mouthful of kuśa grass, / green as a bamboo shoot, its roots cut with the sharp edge of a stone; / or to young women the leaf of the betel vine, pale as the cheek of a Śaka maiden, / torn with the tips of red fingernails.

2.35

All sense objects are insubstantial, distasteful in their end, and sinful; / or let them be abhorred, knowing they are indeed the seat of all faults; / yet upon this earth there is no merit greater than the welfare of others, / and in this cycle of worldly existence there is nothing more delightful than a blue-lotus-eyed woman. / The fruit of desire in this world is that the two become of one mind; / when love is made with divided minds, it is like the union of two corpses.

2.36

Casting away envy and considering what must be done, / let noble men speak with propriety: / should one resort to the slopes of mountains, / or to the hips of playful women smiling with desire?

2.37

In this cycle of worldly existence, whose essence is like a dream and whose outcome is fleeting, two paths lie before wise men: / either let their time pass somehow with intellects delighted by plunging into the nectar-waters of knowledge of reality; / or else in the company of lovely women relishing the full swell of breasts and hips, / playfully eager to touch with trembling palms the expansive slopes of their loins.

2.38

Let a dwelling be made in the waters of the Gaṅgā that remove sin, / or upon the twin breasts of a young woman, charming and adorned with a necklace.

2.39

What is the use of many words, idle chatter devoid of reason? / Only two things in this world should always be resorted to by men: / either the youth of beautiful women, eager for the fresh sports of passion / and weary from the weight of their breasts, or the forest.

2.40

Truly, O people, I speak not out of partiality; / in all seven worlds this is the simple truth: / there is nothing more captivating than round-hipped women, / and there is no other single cause of sorrow.

2.41

"My beloved," "lotus-eyed," "she of wide hips," "with rising, / plump, high breasts," "with a face like a lotus," "fair-browed"— / seeing her thus, even a learned man is intoxicated, rejoices, revels, and praises / a woman who is palpably a bellows full of filth; oh, the wicked work of delusion!

2.42

Remembered, she causes torment; seen, she produces madness; / touched, she brings delusion. How, then, is she called a beloved?

2.43

She is full of nectar only as long as she remains within range of the eyes; / but once she has passed beyond the path of sight, she surpasses even poison.

2.44

There is neither nectar nor poison apart from this round-hipped woman; / she alone, when passionate, is a vine of nectar; when indifferent, a creeping vine of poison.

2.45

A whirlpool of doubts, an abode of insolence, a city of rash deeds, / a receptacle of faults, a field filled with a hundred deceptions and mistrust, / an obstacle at the door of heaven, the entrance to the city of hell, a casket of all illusions— / by whom was this contraption of woman created, poison made of nectar, a snare for the living world?

2.46

In truth, this face has not become the deer-marked moon, nor has a pair of blue lotuses / turned into eyes, nor is the slender body fashioned of gold; / yet, his mind deceived by poets in this way, even while knowing the reality, / the foolish man attends upon the fawn-eyed women's body of skin, flesh, and bones.

2.47

The playful gestures of lovely women are natural; / they alone shine in the heart of a fool; / for redness is natural to the lotus, / yet the bee hovers there in vain. / They delude, they intoxicate, they mock, / they scold, they delight, they deject; / having entered tenderly into the hearts of men, / what indeed do fair-eyed women not do?

2.48

This lotus-face of the slender-limbed woman, surpassing all else, robbing the full moon of its luster, / where indeed the nectar of her lower lip resides— / is this the fruit of a tree of retribution, which now, after its excessive sweetness has passed, / will become painful like poison, giving no happiness?

2.49

With the unfolding ripples of three waist-folds as its abode, with a pair of ruddy geese emerging in the pair of high, plump breasts, / shining with a lotus-face, / this cruel river wearing the form of a lovely woman spares no one here: / if you do not desire drowning in the ocean of the cycle of worldly existence, then abandon it from afar!

2.50

They chat with one man, but look with coquetry at another; / they ponder in their heart another still: who indeed is truly dear to women?

2.51

Honey stays on the speech of women; in their heart is nothing but deadly poison. / Therefore, their lower lip is drunk, while their chest is beaten with fists alone.

2.52

Keep away, friend, far from this woman-serpent, whose fiery poison is her sidelong glance, / cruel by nature, bearing a hood of playful charm! / A man bitten by another serpent can be cured with medicines by clever exorcists; / but for one seized by the woman-serpent, [there are none].

2.53

The fisherman Makaraketana has cast into this ocean of worldly existence / a fishhook called woman, / with which, having swiftly hooked mortal fish who are greedy for the bait of her lower lip, / he roasts them in the fire of passion.

2.54

In the wilderness of an amorous woman's body, impassable due to the mountains of her breasts, / do not wander, traveler mind! For Smara, the robber, lurks there.

2.55

By a very long, trembling, curving, radiant, hooded serpent / possessing the luster of a blue lotus, I was bitten, not merely looked upon by her eye! / When bitten [by a snake], there are physicians everywhere, generally seeking money and duty; / but for me, struck by the glance of a lovely-eyed woman, there is neither doctor nor medicine.

2.56

"Here is sweet song; this is dance; here is aesthetic relish; / here shines fragrance; this is the touch of breasts": / thus led astray by the senses that have destroyed the highest truth, / rogue-like when procuring their own interests, I have been deceived by the five [senses].

2.57

It cannot be reached by mantras, nor does it fall within the domain of medicine, / nor is it destroyed by hundreds of various pacification rites; / repeatedly producing a certain convulsion in the limbs through the onset of delusion, / this epilepsy of Smara confuses the vision and makes the head spin.

2.58

Who would take pleasure in courtesans—axes to the wish-granting vine of discernment— / who offer their enchanting bodies for a mere fraction of wealth / to the blind from birth, to the foul-mouthed, to the decrepit whose whole body is worn out with age, / to the rustic, to the low-born, and to the one overcome with dripping leprosy?

2.59

This courtesan is the flame of Madana, / fueled by the firewood of beauty, / into which lovers offer as oblations / their youth and their wealth.

2.60

What man of noble family would kiss the petal-like lower lip of a courtesan, however charming— / a spitting-bowl for spies, soldiers, thieves, servants, actors, and paramours?

2.61

Fortunate indeed are those whose minds undergo no agitation / upon seeing the form of women with wide white eyes, / whose breasts are firm and plump with the pride of youth, / and above whose slender waists shine the creepers of three skin-folds!

2.62

O maiden, why are these sluggish glances, playfully half-closed, / cast at me? Desist, desist! This labor of yours is useless. / Now we are different: childhood has ceased; our longing is in the forest's edge; / delusion has faded; and we look upon the whole web of the world like a blade of grass.

2.63

This maiden continually casts her long glance, possessing the luster of a blue-lotus petal, / toward me: what does she intend? / Our delusion has vanished; the fever-flame born from the impact of Smara the hunter's arrows / has been extinguished; yet the wretched girl does not desist.

2.64

Why do you trouble your hand, Kandarpa, making the bowstring twang? / Why, O cuckoo, do you uselessly warble your soft, sweet notes? / O charming girl, enough with your affectionate, clever, pleasing, sweet, restless sidelong glances! / My mind is absorbed in the nectar of meditation on Candracūḍa's feet.

2.65

Even in separation there is union / for those whose minds are joined to each other; / but if the heart is estranged, / union only intensifies separation.

2.66

"What is the use of going, if she does not live? / And if my beloved is alive, what is the use even then?" / Pondering thus upon seeing the fresh garland of clouds, / the traveler does not set out for his home.

2.67

Desist, wise men, from the company of women, a pleasure fragile as a moment! / Form a union with the maidens of compassion, friendliness, and wisdom. / Truly, in hell, neither the circle of firm breasts covered with pearl necklaces / nor the curve of the hips with a chiming jeweled girdle is a refuge.

2.68

When unbroken friendship shines between the self and the mind, thinned by devotion to the practice of yoga, / what need has that fortunate man for these: / conversations with beloved women, the nectar of their lower lips, their moon-faces, / the fragrance of their sighs, and lovemaking with the embrace of jug-like breasts?

2.69

When there was ignorance produced by the wandering darkness of Smara, / then this entire world was perceived as consisting of women. / Now that our vision has become impartial, enjoying the sharp collyrium of discernment, / it regards even the three worlds as Brahman.

2.70

Only so long does this spotless lamp of discernment / shine even for fortunate men, / as long as it is not struck / by the restless corners of the eyes of deer-eyed women.

2.71

Talk concerning the abandonment of attachment exists only in words / for learned men whose mouths are loud with Vedic learning: / who is capable of abandoning the hips of blue-lotus-eyed women, / adorned with a girdle tied with ruby jewels?

2.72

He deceives himself and others— / that false wise man who reviles young women! / For even the fruit of ascetic austerity / is heaven, and in heaven too there are apsarases.

2.73

There are brave men on earth skilled in shattering the frontal globes of rutting elephants; / some are adept even at slaying the fierce lion, king of beasts; / but I say openly in the presence of the strong: / rare are the men who can shatter the pride of Kandarpa.

2.74

A man remains on the good path, he has mastery over his senses, / he displays shame, and he maintains humility— / only until these glance-arrows of playful women, released from the bow of the eyebrows, / reaching as far as the ear and tipped with black lashes, do not fall upon his heart, stealing his steadfastness.

2.75

Whatever women undertake
from the impulse of reckless passion,
even Brahmā himself, in truth,
is afraid to oppose.

2.76

Greatness, scholarship, noble birth,
and discernment endure only so long
as the accursed fire of the five-arrowed god
does not blaze within one's limbs.

2.77

Though versed in the authoritative treatises, though an excellent son, though sorely afflicted indeed,
rare in this cycle of worldly existence is a man who becomes a vessel for good destinations,
by whom the curved creeper-brow of fair-eyed women,
unlocking the gates of the city of hell, is treated like a mere key.

2.78

Emaciated, one-eyed, lame, earless, tailless,
covered with sores, dripping with pus, his body swarming with hundreds of worms,
gaunt with hunger, worn out, an earthenware pot-shard fastened to his neck—
a dog still follows a bitch: Madana strikes even him who is already struck down.

2.79

The seal of women, triumphant, bestowing every worldly success, belonging to the flower-weaponed god—
those fools who abandon it, wicked-minded men seeking false rewards,
he ruthlessly strikes down and makes naked, shaven-headed,
some with five tufts of hair, matted-haired, and others skull-bearing ascetics.

2.80

Even Viśvāmitra, Parāśara, and others, who fed on wind, water, and dry leaves,
fell into delusion the moment they saw the lovely lotus face of a woman;
if men who feed on rice with clarified butter, milk, and curd
could restrain their senses, then the Vindhya range would float upon the sea.

2.81

The winds carry perfumes, branches bear points of fresh shoots,
the mates of cuckoo birds are possessed by sweet, aching longing,
and the moon-faces of young brides break into a sparse, bitter perspiration;
when spring advances over the earth, whose qualities do not rise to bloom?

2.82

This spring, with the sweet
and gentle calls of the cuckoo and breezes from Mount Malaya,
slays living beings separated from their lovers;
alas, in misfortune even nectar turns to poison.

2.83

The home of playful coquetry, amorous languor beside the beloved,
in the ear the sweet murmur of a female cuckoo, a blooming vine-arbor,
conversation with a few true poets, the charming rays of the moon—
such wondrous nights in Caitra bring delight to the hearts of some men.

2.84

O traveler, providing fuel for the fire of separation in women, the mango blossom
is now gazed upon with longing by female cuckoos;
and here blow the breezes of the sandalwood mountain,
thieves carrying off an abundance of fresh trumpet-flower perfume, dispelling the languor of travel.

2.85

Let the famed indignation in the hearts of loving women
maintain its place only so long
as the wind from Mount Malaya
does not become fragrant with the sandalwood tree.

2.86

When the ends of the directions are swooning
with the heavy fragrance of mango blossom pollen,
and bees are faint with excess of sweetness,
in spring whose heart would not be filled with longing?

2.87

Deer-eyed maidens anointed with the clearest sandalwood paste,
fountain chambers, flowers, and moonlight,
a gentle breeze, fragrant blossoms, and a pure mansion terrace—
in summer these increase both passion and Madana.

2.88

Garlands of delightful fragrance, the breeze of a fan, rays of the moon,
lotus pollen, a pool, sandalwood powder, clear liquor,
a pure open rooftop terrace, delicate garments, lotus-eyed women—
all these flourish in the summer season, and men of merit enjoy them.

2.89

A dwelling white as nectar, the moon flashing its spotless beams,
the beloved's lotus face, and highly fragrant sandalwood powder,
garlands of delightful fragrance—all this, in an impassioned man,
causes inward agitation, but not in one who has turned away from contact with sense objects.

2.90

Kindling passion through the appearance of a youthful maiden,
sweet with the scent of blooming jasmine flowers,
bearing the burden of high, swelling rainclouds,
to whom does the rainy season not bring delight?

2.91

The sky filled with clouds, the ground covered with sprouting shoots,
the breezes scented with fresh kuṭaja and kadamba blossoms,
the forest edges enchanting with the soft calls of peacocks—
these bring longing to all, whether happy or sorrowful.

2.92

Above, a dense mass of rainclouds;
on the slopes, mountains where peacocks are made to dance;
the ground, too, white with fresh shoots—
where can the traveler cast his gaze?

2.93

On this side the flashing of the lightning-creeper, on that the blossoming
fragrance of the screw-pine, here the crashing roar of rising clouds,
and there the sweet, soft cries of playing peacocks—
how will these days of separation, laden with longing, pass for the fair-lashed women?

2.94

When darkness too thick for a needle to pass covers the sky, and clouds thunder loudly
as if claiming mastery, and showers of raindrops fall,
this flashing of the lightning, lovely as gold,
brings both joy and dismay upon the road to bold, beautiful-eyed women.

2.95

Because of the torrential rain, lovers cannot leave the mansion for outside;
on account of the trembling from the cold, one is clasped tightly by the wide-eyed maiden;
and breezes cooled by spray have arisen, removing all exhaustion—
for the fortunate, alas, a stormy day turns into a blessed day in union with the beloved!

2.96

Having slept half the night, his limbs slack and exhausted from the exertion of eager lovemaking,
unbearable thirst arising, revelling in the intoxication of wine on a secluded rooftop terrace,
from a goglet he drinks autumn water, its clear stream illuminated by the moonlight,
untouched by the loosened creeper-arm of his mistress worn out by lovemaking—he is indeed of small merit who does not!

2.97

In winter, eating curd, milk, and clarified butter, wearing garments dyed with madder,
their bodies richly anointed with saffron ointment, exhausted by diverse acts of lovemaking,
embraced within their homes by amorous women with rounded thighs and breasts,
their mouths filled with betel leaves and areca nuts, fortunate men sleep in ease.

2.98

At the season when the glowing golden priyaṅgu shines, when bees revel in the blooming kunda flowers,
and the vast dwelling of coral trees is set in motion by frosty winds,
for those youths to whose necks no deer-eyed maiden clings even for a moment, capable of crushing the cold,
the night, with its prolonged watches, passes like the abode of Yama.

2.99

Kissing the surface of their cheeks, making them hiss with chills on their curl-framed faces,
causing goosebumps to bristle over the weight of their breasts within their tight bodices,
making their thighs tremble, slipping the garments from the slopes of their broad hips,
the winter winds clearly blow, acting like the lovers of charming women.

2.100

Disheveling their hair, closing their eyes, violently tearing away their garments,
spreading a tremor of goosebumps, slowly revealing the trembling born of excitement,
and repeatedly biting their lips as they utter loud hissing cries—
now this winter wind mostly plays the lover among lovely women.

Linked texts (1)

Śatakatraya — Bhartṛhari (poet), Sanskrit

Shatakatraya 2

Contents

Linked texts (1)