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A History of Sanskrit Literature c16.s2: 2. Religious Poetry

A History of Sanskrit Literature c16.s2

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English

2. Religious Poetry

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The production of hymns of praise to the gods naturally did not cease with the Vedic poets, though the gradual change of religion evoked an alteration in the gods who received adoration; beside old gods such as Çiva, Viṣṇu, and Sūrya, whose worship was perhaps from time to time strengthened by the influx of sun-worshippers from Iran, especially after the Mahomedan conquest of Persia, there appear newer figures in the pantheon such as Kṛṣṇa, Rāma, and Durgā, who in fact is often a local deity covered by the decent robe of Çiva’s dread spouse. The epic shows the existence of such hymns, the Purāṇas and Tantras afford many specimens of them, while collections of a hundred or a thousand names of a god or goddess became numerous. But naturally the higher poetry invaded this field also, and the fact that philosophers were not unwilling to take part in the composition of Stotras, songs of praise, to the gods whose reality they recognized as emphatically for empirical purposes as they denied it transcendentally, lent dignity to the art. The number of Stotras preserved is vast, but many are of no poetic worth, many of very late date, and a still larger number cannot be assigned to any definite period in the absence of external evidence, and the rarity of finding any individual note in their rather stereotyped form and style.

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Of early efforts to elaborate this kind of poetry we have the *Caṇḍīçataka*¹ of Bāṇa, a collection of 102 stanzas, chiefly in Sragdharā metre, in honour of Çiva’s consort and in special of her feat in slaying the demon Mahiṣa; the poem serves also as a prayer, as she is invoked to protect her worshippers. Bāṇa does not impress us with any sincerity of devotion, and the poem, though laboured and sometimes clever, has little of the attraction of his romances; his demerits appear clearly enough in a couple of stanzas which the anthologies cite as possessing merit:

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¹ See G. P. Quackenbos, *The Sanskrit Poems of Mayūra* (1917), who edited and translated Bāṇa’s and Mayūra’s works.

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*vidrāṇe rudravṛnde savitari tarale vajriṇi dhvastavajre*
*jātāçaṅke çaçāṅke viramati maruti tyaktavaire kuvere*
*vaikuṇṭhe kuṇṭhitāstre mahiṣam akiruṣaṁ pauruṣopaghnanighnaṁ*
*nirvighnaṁ nighnatī vaḥ çamayatu duritaṁ bhūribhāvā bhavānī.*

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‘When the Marut horde fled, Savitṛ trembled, Indra dropped his thunderbolt, the moon was smitten by fear, the wind ceased to blow, Kuvera fled the field, and Viṣṇu flung aside his blunted dart, easily she smote down that Mahiṣa who had the fierceness of a snake and prided himself on his manhood; may she, the wondrous Bhavānī, remove your misfortunes.’

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*namas tuṅgaçiraçcumbicandracāmaracārave*
*trailokyanagarārambhamūlastambhāya Çambhave.*

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‘Homage to the god that bringeth healing, who is made lovely by the moon kissing his lofty head and the yak’s tail, the foundation pillar of the structure of the city of the three worlds.’ Indian taste preferred to Bāṇa’s *Caṇḍīçataka* the work of his alleged father-in-law or brother-in-law Mayūra, of whom we have already learned as an erotic poet. The *Çataka*, which was doubtless composed as a compliment to the devotion of the grandfather and father of Harṣavardhana to the worship of the sun, whose deity was also revered by Harṣa despite his Buddhist leanings, celebrates in turn the rays of the sun, the horses, the charioteer, the chariot, and the great disk itself. There is distinct cleverness in many of the thoughts and Mayūra’s style is elegant. Aruṇa the charioteer is compared with the actor who speaks the prologue to the drama, the rays are the ships that carry men over the dread ocean of rebirth, the cause of human sorrow, the disk is the door to the final release, the sun himself nourishes gods and men, upholds cosmic order, and is one with Brahman, Viṣṇu, and Çiva.

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Mayūra was evidently fond of religious poetry, for we have in the *Subhāṣitāvali* some verses of *double entendre* in a speech between Çiva and Pārvatī:

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*candragrahaṇena vinā nāsmi rame kiṁ pravartayasy evaṁ*
*devyai yadi rucitam idaṁ nandinn āhūyatāṁ Rāhuḥ.*

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‘“Without the stake of the moon (without Rāhu) I won’t play.” “Why make so much trouble? If ’tis Devī’s will, why, Nandin shall summon Rāhu.”’

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*āropayasi mudhā kiṁ nāham-abhijña tvadaṅgasya*

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*divyaṁ varṣasahasraṁ sthitvaiva yuktam abhidhātum.*

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‘“Why misconstrue what I say? I am not speaking of your ornaments.” “That is a pretty thing for a lady to say who has been sitting on my lap for a thousand of the years of heaven.”’

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The term *aṅga* permits the equivoke, and in the first stanza the use of *asmi* as a quasi-particle exhibits the grammatical knowledge of the poet. Much more attractive from the poetical point of view is a genre picture:

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*āhatyāhatya mūrdhnā drutam anupibataḥ prasnutam mātur ūdhaḥ*

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*kiṁcit kuñcaikajānor anavaratacalaccārupucchasya dhenuḥ* *uttīrṇaṁ tarṇakasya priyatanayatayā dattahuṁkāramudrā* *visraṁsikṣīradhārālavaçabalamukhasyāṅgam ātṛpti leḍhi.*

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‘While the calf, ever butting with its head, one knee slightly bent, and its tail ever moving prettily, sucks its mother’s udder whence the milk drips, the cow, lowing softly in delight at her child, licks the upturned face of the young one whose mouth is flecked by spots from her milk.’ Here we have a complete picture presented to our eyes and in a form which English does not permit us to approach in beauty.

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Mayūra in many ways may rank as a typical exponent of the Gauḍa style as pictured by Daṇḍin. He affects epithets more or less recondite but etymologically explicable, as in *açiciramahas* of the warm-rayed sun or *hemādri* of Meru. He is rich in alliterations and Yamakas, and in addition to metaphors and similes in abundance is fond of paronomasias of an elaborate kind, of bombast and exaggeration, and of the production of effects by the use of a series of harsh sounds matching the sense, and the variation of sounds within a stanza in order to mark changes of feeling. Characteristic cases are:

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*çīrṇaghrāṇāṅghripāṇīn vraṇibhir apaghanair ghargharāvyaktaghoṣān*

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*dīrghāghrātān aghaughaiḥ punar api ghaṭayaty eka ullāghayan yaḥ*

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*gharmāṅçoṣ tasya vo 'ntardviguṇaghanaghṛṇānighnanirvighna-*
*vṛtter*
*dattārghāḥ siddhasaṅghair vidadhatu ghṛṇayaḥ çīghram*
*aṅghovighātam.*

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‘The sun alone doth make new and heal those whose multitude of sins hath made them noseless, handless, footless, with ulcerated limbs, gurgling and indistinct speech, and noxious to the scent from afar. May his rays, to which hosts of Siddhas offer homage, swiftly cause the destruction of your sins, for his action knows no obstacles and obeyeth only that compassion which multiplieth within his heart.’

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*bibhrāṇaḥ çaktim āçu praçamitabalavattārakaurjityagurvīṁ*
*kurvāṇo līlayādhaḥ çikhinam api lasaccandrakāntāvabhāsam*
*ādadhyād andhakāre ratim atiçayinīm āvahan vīkṣaṇānām*
*bālo lakṣmīm apārām apara iva guho 'harpater ātapo vaḥ.*

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‘May the early light of the lord of day bring you prosperity without bounds, like another Guha, bearing with it a power that hath soon quenched the pride of many a mighty star (as he a spear that quickly overcame the power of the mighty Tāraka); scornfully eclipsing even the fire and the splendour of the lovely moon (as he rideth a peacock resplendent with the flashing tips of the eyes in its tail); and may it bring joy untold to the eyes of those in the darkness (as he to the eyes of the foe of Andhaka).’ We find also good instances of the figure Vyatireka, the stating of a distinction between things seemingly alike, and Virodha, apparent contradiction, the Dīpaka, and the Tulyayogitā, combination of things with the same attributes, as in *sādridyūrvīnadīçā daça diçaḥ*, ‘the ten quarters with mountains, sky, earth, and oceans’. Grammatical rarities include use of *caturaṛcam*, *vibhu* in the active, the Vedic *çam*, while imperatives in *tāt*, benedictives, and forms like *adhijaladhi* and *vitaratitarām* are characteristic of the Kāvya. Bāṇa in the *Caṇḍīçataka* shows many of the same features, though he does not indulge in the long similes of Mayūra, but he adds life to his composition by placing about half the stanzas in the mouths of his characters, though without dialogues; thus Caṇḍī is in ten stanzas the speaker, either taunting the gods, rebuking Mahiṣa, or addressing Çiva; Mahiṣa in nineteen stanzas derides the gods or reviles Caṇḍī; Jayā, her maid, jests, or encourages the gods; while other speakers include Çiva, Kārttikeya, the gods, sages, Caṇḍī's foot, and even her toenails!

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Contemporary of Bāṇa and Mayūra at Harṣa's court was, according to tradition preserved by Rājaçekhara, Mātaṅga Divākara,¹ also styled a Caṇḍāla, though we can hardly suppose that this epithet really means that a man of the lowest caste was a peer at court of the greater poets. Our remains of him suggest that he was a clever courtier, for one verse seems very like a panegyric of Harṣa, though it has been censured by Abhinavagupta for inelegance; the point, however, of the stanza is probably the suggestion that Harṣa is sure to have a son who will succeed him, as was doubtless, though fruitlessly, his dearest wish:

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¹ Cf. Quackenbos, *Mayūra*, pp. 10 f.

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*āsīn nātha pitāmahī tava mahī mātā tato 'nantaraṁ*
*sampraty eva hi sāmburāçiracanā jāyā jayodbhūtaye*
*pūrṇe varṣaçate bhaviṣyati punaḥ saivānavadyā snuṣā*
*yuktaṁ nāma samastaçāstraviduṣāṁ lokeçvarāṇām idam.*

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‘O king, the earth, sea-girdled, was aforetime thy grandmother, then became she thy mother, and now thy spouse to bring thy glory to fullness. But when a full hundred years of thy life have flown, will she be thy daughter-in-law, for this is the just fate of those to whom every science is known.’

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It has been suggested that this poet is to be identified with the Jain writer Mānatuṅga, whose *Bhaḳtāmarastotra*² in honour of the Jain saint Ṛṣabha is brought into connexion with Bāṇa and Mayūra by another tale. Mānatuṅga, it is said, wrote so fine a panegyric of the sun that he was saved from leprosy; then Bāṇa in jealousy produced the *Caṇḍīçataka*, after cutting off his hands and feet, in order that he might exhibit the power of the goddess in healing her devotee in gratitude for his eulogy. Mānatuṅga, then, to prove the might of the Jinas, had himself fastened with forty-two chains and cast into a house; he uttered his poem of praise and was released forthwith. Perhaps the origin of the legend is simply the reference in his poem to the power of the Jina to save those in fetters, doubtless metaphorically applied to the bonds holding men to carnal life. Mānatun̄ga may have been a contemporary of Bāṇa, but his date may well fall from 150 to 200 years later. He is no mean poet and certainly a master of the intricacies of the Kāvya style. Ṛṣabha is extolled as Buddha, Çan̄kara, the creator, Puruṣottama; hundreds of mothers bear hundreds of sons, but none a son like him; stars there are in every region of the sky, but only the east brings forth the sun. The merits of his style are obvious when contrasted with the elaboration of the forty-four stanzas of the *Kalyāṇamandirastotra*¹ of Siddhasena Divākara, written in deliberate imitation. Other Jain Stotras are of even less poetical value.

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² Ed. and trans. H. Jacobi, IS. xiv. 359 ff. Quackenbos (p. 18) dates him far too early.

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¹ Ed. and trans. IS. xiv. 376 ff.; cf. IA. xlii. 42 ff.

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To Harṣavardhana are ascribed certain Buddhist hymns, composed, we may presume, in the last years of his reign, including the *Aṣṭamahāçrīcaityastotra*² and the *Suprabhātastotra*,³ which has also been ascribed to Çrīharṣa, of the *Naiṣadhīya*. A later writer, Sarvajñamitra, is the author of the *Sragdharāstotra*⁴ to Tārā, who became a very favourite deity among the theistic school of Buddhism as the mother-goddess and saviour. The legend runs that having been rich he took to religion and thus became poor. Meeting a Brahmin who begged him for money to secure his daughter a wedding, he offered himself to a king who desired a hundred men for a human sacrifice, but moved by the sorrows of his fellow sufferers composed the poem and won through Tārā's intervention the lives of all. Other Stotras of doubtful age are numerous, but it can hardly be said that they reach any high level of poetry, though some of them certainly bear every sign of true religious feeling.

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² Lévi, OC. X, ii. 189 ff.; Ettinghausen, *Harṣa-Vardhana*, pp. 176 ff.

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³ Thomas, JRAS. 1903, pp. 703–22. For anthology and inscriptional verses see Jackson, *Priyadarçikā*, pp. xliii ff., and references.

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⁴ See G. de Blonay, *La déesse bouddhique Tārā* (1895); Hīrānanda, *Mem. Arch. Survey India*, no. 20.

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It is difficult to realize that a religious motive is also present in the *Vakroktipañcāçikā*⁵ of the Kashmirian poet Ratnākara, who in fifty stanzas shows a remarkable power of illustrating the ambiguities of which the Sanskrit language is capable. The following example is moderately simple. Pārvatī addresses Çiva:

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⁵ KM. i. 101–14; Bernheimer, ZDMG. lxiii. 816 ff.

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*tvaṁ me nābhimato bhavāmi sutanu çvaçrvā avaçyam mataḥ*
*sādhūktaṁ bhavatā na me rucita ity atra bruve 'haṁ punaḥ*
*mugdhe nāsmi nameruṇā nanu citaḥ prekṣasva māṁ pātu vo*
*vakroktyeti haro himācalabhuvaṁ smerānanām mūkayan.*

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‘“I love thee no more.” “‘Tis true, slender one, (your connexions approve me), for my mother-in-law adores me.” “Neatly said, but I repeat a second time: Thou art not pleasant in my eyes.” “But, dear one, just look; I am not adorned with the Nameru flowers.” So Çiva silenced the smiling mouth of the daughter of the Himālaya with his equivoke; may he be gracious to you.’ The first pun here depends on the ambiguity of *nābhimato*, the second simply on the fact that Çiva interprets *na me rucitas* as *nameruṇā citas*. We must suppose that Ratnākara felt that, as men delight in these refinements, so the offering of his poem to the gods would evoke their pleasure. His epic gives no ground to doubt the sincerity of his devotion to Çiva.

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A lyric poet of much fervour and no mean accomplishment must be recognized in the philosopher Çaṅkara,¹ if we can trust the tradition which ascribes to him many hymns, especially to Devī, the mother-goddess, whom the Çāktas adored as the expression of the highest power in the universe. Çaṅkara's doctrine of the two aspects of truth, the higher and the lower, permitted him to adopt to the full popular beliefs and to express his feelings in a way acceptable to other than metaphysicians, and there is no reason whatever to doubt that he composed such poems. It is, of course, a different thing to say which of those allotted to him by tradition were really his. A solemn warning of the passing of time is given in the *Çivāparādhakṣamāpaṇastotra*:

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¹ S. Venkataramanan, *Select Works of Srisankaracharya*, and the *Bṛhatstotraratnākara*.

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*āyur naçyati paçyatāṁ pratidinaṁ yāti kṣayaṁ yauvanam*
*pratyāyānti gatāḥ punar na divasāḥ kālo jagadbhakṣakaḥ*
*lakṣmīs toyataraṅgabhaṅgacapalā vidyuccalaṁ jīvitaṁ*
*yasmān māṁ çaraṇāgataṁ çaraṇada tvaṁ rakṣa rakṣādhunā.*

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‘Life perisheth daily before our eyes, youth departeth; the days departed never return again, time consumeth the world; fortune is as transient as a ripple on the waves of the ocean; life

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as unstable as the lightning; guard, guard me to-day who am come to thee for safety, o giver of peace.’ More prosaic is the address to Kṛṣṇa:

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*vinā yasya dhyānaṁ vrajati paçutāṁ sūkaramukhāṁ*
*vinā yasya jñānaṁ janimṛtibhayāṁ yāti janatā*
*vinā yasya smṛtyā kṛmiçatajaniṁ yāti sa vibhuḥ*
*çaranyo lokeço mama bhavatu Kṛṣṇo ’kṣiviṣayaḥ.*

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‘If man meditates not on him, he becomes a beast, boar or another; if he knows him not, birth, death, fear are his portion; if he think not of him, a hundred lives as a worm await him; let him, lord of the world, my salvation, Kṛṣṇa, show himself to his worshipper.’ The utter emptiness of existence is brilliantly insisted upon in the rimed *Dvādaçapañjarikāstotra*:

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*mā kuru jana dhanayauvanagarvaṁ harati nimeṣāt kālaḥ sarvam*
*māyāmayam idam akhilaṁ hitvā brahmapadaṁ tvaṁ praviça viditvā.*

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‘Place no pride, o man, in youth, or wealth; in the twinkling of an eye time taketh all away; deem all this world to be but an illusion, and with true knowledge attain the abode of the absolute.’ Devotion and confidence reach their height of expression in the *Devyaparādhakṣamāpaṇastotra*:

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*vidher ajñānena draviṇaviraheṇālasatayā*
*vidheyāçakyatvāt tava caraṇayor yā cyutir abhūt*
*tad etat kṣāntavyaṁ janani sakaloddhāriṇi çive*
*kuputro jāyeta kvacid api kumātā na bhavati.*

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‘If I have failed to pay due honour to thy feet through ignorance of thy commands, through lack of wealth, laziness or incapacity, forgive my transgression, o mother, o gracious one, o trust of all the world; a son may be bad, but never a mother.’

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*pṛthivyāṁ putrās te janani bahavaḥ santi saralāḥ*
*paraṁ teṣāṁ madhye viralataralo ’haṁ tava sutaḥ*
*madīyo ’yaṁ tyāgaḥ samucitam idaṁ no tava çive: kuputro*

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‘Many good sons are thine on earth, o mother, few indeed fickle as I; yet to abandon me, o gracious one, were not meet for thee; a son may be bad, but never a mother.’

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Among many others a *Bhavānyaṣṭaka* and the *Ānandalaharī* in twenty Çikhariṇī verses are ascribed to Çaṅkara, while other famous hymns to Devī include the *Ambāṣṭaka* and the *Pañcastavī*, five hymns to Durgā of unknown authorship. To Kālidāsa are ascribed, without any plausibility, various Stotras, including the *Çyāmalādaṇḍaka* mainly in prose, the *Sarasvatīstotra* and the *Maṅgalāṣṭaka*, which can be reconstructed from the Tibetan of the Tanjur. A hymn in 500 stanzas, the *Pañcaçatī*, is ascribed to a mysterious Mūka, alleged to be contemporaneous with Çaṅkara, but this is very dubious. We are on much firmer ground regarding the *Devīçataka* of Ānandavardhana the writer on poetics (*c.* 850), whose hundred very elaborate stanzas hardly conform to his own theory that the poet who pays too much attention to ornament falls into the error of neglecting the suggestion which should underlie poetry, but the deviation is excused by his own admission that in panegyrics of the gods the sentiment is of secondary importance. But it must be added that Ānandavardhana is not a great or perhaps even a good poet, confirming the adage that critics seldom are. Utpaladeva's *Stotrāvalī* was written about 925; it consists of a series of twenty short hymns in honour of Çiva, some mere innovations, some more elaborate, but none of outstanding merit. In the same century probably the Vaiṣṇava Kulaçekhara wrote in honour of Viṣṇu his *Mukundamālā*; it is interesting to find a verse cited in an inscription of a place so distant as Pagan in the thirteenth century.

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In the eleventh century Līlāçuka or Bilvamaṅgala¹ produced his *Kṛṣṇakarṇāmṛta* or *Kṛṣṇalīlāmṛta*, 110 stanzas in honour of Kṛṣṇa, a poem which has been very popular in India, while the anthologies cite verses from him. One exhibits fairly the merits of his simple and not unattractive style:

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¹ For legends of him, see Śeshagiri, *Report*, 1893-4, pp. 57 f.

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*Kṛṣṇa tvaṁ navayauvano 'si capalāḥ prāyeṇa gopāṅganāḥ*
*Kaṅso bhūpatir abjanālabhiduragrīvā vayaṁ goduhaḥ*
*tad yāce 'ñjalinā bhavantam adhunā vṛndāvanam mad vinā*
*mā yāsīr iti gopanandavacasā namro Hariḥ pātu vaḥ.*

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‘May Hari guard you, Hari who bowed low in obedience when the cowherd Nanda thus entreated him: “O Kṛṣṇa, thou art in the freshness of youth, our maidens are mostly fickle, Kaṅsa is king, and we herders have necks as frail as the lotus stalk; with folded hands I entreat thee not to go without me to the Vṛndāvana wood ".'

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In the twelfth century we have eulogies of Kṛṣṇa from the poets who were contemporary jewels with Jayadeva at the court of Lakṣmaṇasena. They are preserved in the *Padyāvalī* of Rūpagosvāmin, well known as an ardent devotee and follower of Caitanya. To Lakṣmaṇasena himself is ascribed an amusing verse:

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*āhūtādya mayotsave niçi gṛhaṁ çūnyaṁ vimucyāgatā*
*kṣībaḥ preṣyajanaḥ kathaṁ kulavadhūr ekākinī yāsyati*
*vatsa tvaṁ tad imāṁ nayālayam iti çrutvā Yaçodāgiro*
*Rādhāmādhavayor jayanti madhurasmerālasā dṛṣṭayaḥ.*

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'"She was told by me to come to the festival to-day; now she has come at night, leaving the house empty; the servants are drunk; how can a lady of family go alone? Dear child, take her safely home", so said Yaçodā, and, hearing her bidding, there passed smiling looks of joyful weariness between Rādhā and Mādhava.' Umāpatidhara,¹ whom Jayadeva records as skilled in the use of recondite language, an assertion abundantly established by the array of rare words or meanings found in a Praçasti of his which has come down to us, is credited with a quite amusing picture of a bedroom scene between Kṛṣṇa and his wife, who had a good deal to complain of in his amourettes:

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¹ See Pischel, *Die Hofdichter des Lakṣmaṇasena* (1893). Dhoī's *Pavanadūta*, in which a Gandharva maiden sends a message to Lakṣmaṇasena, is based on the *Meghadūta*; see M. Chakravarti, JPASB. 1905, pp. 41-71.

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*nirmagnena mayāmbhasi praṇayataḥ pālī samāliṅgitā*
*kenālīkam idaṁ tavādya kathitaṁ Rādhe mudā tāmyasi*
*ity utsvapnaparamparāsu çayane çrutvā vacaḥ çārṅgiṇo*
*Rukmiṇyā çithilīkṛtaḥ sakapaṭaṁ kaṇṭhagrahaḥ pātu vaḥ.*

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'"Who has told thee this falsehood, that the moment I plunged into the water I clipped close a maiden in love? Thou troublest thyself needlessly, o Rādhā"; so Rukmiṇī heard her lord Kṛṣṇa murmur in his dream as they lay side by side, and feigned to loosen his hold on her neck; be that your protection.'

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Of Çaraṇa, Jayadeva tells us that he was worthy of praise for his skill in producing extempore poetry which was hard to understand (*durūhadruta*),¹ a term which will appear as the compliment it was meant to be, if we remember that Sanskrit poets were equally proud of their ability to compose on a given theme, taking as given a verse or part of it, and of the fact that their works were highly finished products which required for due comprehension and appreciation full knowledge of metre, poetics, lexicography, and grammar. The epithet is borne out by the verses we have, for they are frequently undeniable imitations of others, as in the following elaboration of a simple stanza ascribed to Amaru:

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¹ Srish Chandra Chakravarti (*Bhāṣāvṛtti*, p. 7) refers the term to Çaraṇadeva, author of the *Durghaṭavṛtti*; *durūhakāvya* occurs in an epithet of Vāmana in the *Rukmiṇīkalyāṇa* (*Madras Catal.*, xx. 7850).

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*Murāriṁ paçyantyāḥ sakhi sakalam aṅgaṁ na nayanaṁ*
*kṛtaṁ yac chṛṇvatyā Hariguṇagaṇaṁ çrotranicitam*
*samaṁ tenālāpaṁ sapadi racayantyā mukhamayaṁ*
*vidhātur naivāyaṁ ghaṭanaparipāṭīmadhurimā.*

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‘O friend, when I saw Murāri, that my whole body did not become one eye; when I heard him, that I became not a multitude of ears; when I spoke with him, that I became not one mouth; that indeed is but a sorry work of the creator’s devising.’

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Dhoyī or Dhoī seems to have had the epithets Çrutadhara or Çrutidhara, perhaps ‘strong in memory’, and Kavirāja, and the stanzas cited under these three names appear to belong to one and the same poet. There is an amusing touch in one cited by Rūpagosvāmin from Kavirāja:

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*kvānanaṁ kva nayanaṁ kva nāsikā: kva çrutiḥ kva ca çikheti deçitaḥ*
*tatra tatra vihitāṅgulidalo: ballavīkulam anandayat prabhuḥ.*

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‘“Where is my face? Where my eye? Where my nose? Where my ear? Where my braid?” Thus bidden the lord touched each with his flower finger, and thus he delighted the cowherdesses.’

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Of many other poems mention may be made of the *Mahimnaḥstava*² which is a eulogy of Çiva but which has been treated also as intended to glorify Viṣṇu, ascribed to Puṣpadanta—which may, of course, not be a true name—because the work seems to be known to the *Nyāyamañjarī* of Jayanta Bhaṭṭa, and therefore must not be later than the ninth century. As curious developments—probably late—of religious fervour may be noted the *Caṇḍīkucapañcāçikā*,¹ fifty stanzas on the breasts of Caṇḍī, by a certain Lakṣmaṇa Ācārya, and the *Bhikṣāṭanakāvya*² by Çivadāsa or Utprekṣāvallabha, which describes the feelings of Apsarases when Çiva in the garb of an ascetic comes to seek alms in Indra's heaven. The author with amazing taste takes this means of displaying his intimate acquaintance with the rules of the *Kāmasūtra* as to the deportment of women in love.

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² Often printed in India. It is cited by Rājaçekhara.

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¹ Ed. KM. ix. 80 ff. (eighty-three stanzas in all).

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² See IOC. i. 1448 f.

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Some fine religious stanzas are preserved in the anthologies:

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*yadi nāsmi mahāpāpī yadi nāsmi bhayākulaḥ*
*yadi nendriyasaṁsaktas tat ko 'rthaḥ çaraṇe mama.*

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‘If I were not a great sinner, if I were not sore afraid, if I were not devoted to things of sense, then what need would I have of salvation?’ This is ascribed to Bhaṭṭa Sunandana, else unknown to fame. Equally unknown is Gaṅgādatta who writes:

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*abhidhāvati māṁ mṛtyur ayam udgūrṇamudgaraḥ*
*kṛpaṇaṁ puṇḍarīkākṣa rakṣa māṁ çaraṇāgatam.*

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‘Death draweth on, with weapon upraised to smite; o lotus-eyed one, protect thy pitiful suppliant.’ Anonymous is a pretty picture of the child god:

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*karāravindena padāravindaṁ: mukhāravinde niveçayantam*
*açvatthapattrasya puṭe çayānaṁ: bālaṁ Mukundaṁ satataṁ smarāmi.*

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‘With his lotus hand placing the lotus of his foot in his lotus mouth as he lies in a cradle of Açvattha leaves, our baby Mukunda is my thought for ever.’ A Vikramāditya is among these poets of religion, but it is impossible to determine his identity; the various verses ascribed to him are hardly by one hand.³

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³ For an eloquent appreciation of the Stotras see Sivaprasad Bhattacharyya, IHQ. 340 ff.

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