



Produced by James Simmons




VIDYĀPATI


VIDYĀPATI: BANGĪYA PADĀBALI

SONGS OF THE LOVE OF RĀDHĀ AND KRISHNA TRANSLATED
INTO ENGLISH BY ANANDA COOMARASWAMY AND
ARUN SEN WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES AND
ILLUSTRATIONS FROM INDIAN PAINTINGS


LONDON: THE OLD BOURNE PRESS,

15 HOLBORN, E.C.

1915.


The whole creation will be consumed and appear infinite and holy,
whereas it now appears finite and corrupt. This will come to pass by an
improvement of sensual enjoyment.

                               --_William Blake._

Be drunken with love, for love is all that exists.

                                             --_Shamsi Tabrīz._





TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

KRISHNA PŪRBBARĀGA: The First Passion of Krishna

RĀDHĀ BAYAHSANDI: The Growing-up of Rādhā

RĀDHĀ PŪRBBARĀGA: The First Passion of Rādhā

SAKHĪ-SHIKSHĀ-BACANĀDI: The Counsel of Girl-friends (Sakhīs)

PRATHAMA MILNA: First Meetings

ABHISĀRA: (Rādhā's) Going-forth (to visit Krishna)

VASANTA LĪLA: Dalliance in Spring

MĀNA: Wilfulness

MĀNĀNTE MILNA: Reunion after Wilfulness

ĀKSHEPA ANUYOGA O VIRAHA: Reproaches, Lack and Longing

PUNARMILNA O RASODGĀRA: Reunion and the Flow of Nectar

NOTES

    ELUCIDATIONS

    BIRDS, FLOWERS AND TREES

    ILLUSTRATIONS

    TEXTS

    CORRIGENDA



INTRODUCTION.

VIDYĀPATI THĀKUR is one of the most renowned of the Vaishnava poets of
Hindustān. Before him there had been the great Jāyadeva, with his Gītā
Govinda made in Sanskrit; and it is to this tradition Vidyāpati
belongs, rather than to that of Rāmānanda, Kabīr, and Tul'si Dās, who
sang of Rāma and Sītā. Vidyāpati's fame, though he also wrote in
Sanskrit, depends upon the wreath of songs (_pada_) in which he describes
the courtship of God and the Soul, under the names of Krishna and Rādhā.
These were written in Maithilī, his mother-tongue, a dialect
intermediate between Bengālī and Hindī, but nearer to the former. His
position as a poet and maker of language is analogous to that of Dante
in Italy and Chaucer in England. He did not disdain to use the
folk-speech and folk-thought for the expression of the highest matters.
Just as Dante was blamed by the classical scholars of Italy, so
Vidyāpati was blamed by the pandits: he knew better, however, than
they, and has well earned the title of Father of Bengali literature.

Little is known of Vidyāpati's life[1]. Two other great Vaishnava poets,
Chandī Dās and Umāpati, were his contempories. His patron Rājā
Shivasimha Rūpanārāyana, when heir-apparent, gave the village of Bisapī
as a rent-free gift to the poet in the year 1400 A.D. (the original deed
is extant). This shows that in 1400 the poet was already a man of
distinction. His patron appears to have died in 1449, before which date
the songs here translated must have been written. Further, there still
exists a manuscript of the Bhāgavata Purāna in the poet's handwriting,
dated 1456. It is thus evident that he lived to a good age, for it is
hardly likely that he was under twenty in the year 1400. The following
is the legend of his death: Feeling his end approaching, he set out to
die on the banks of Gangā. But remembering that she was the child of the
faithful, he summoned her to himself: and the great river divided
herself in three streams, spreading her waters as far as the very place
where Vidyāpati sat. There and