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 Hâla, 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 bayadères 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?"
While these poems may have been sung mostly by bayadères, 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
Hâla's anthology illustrating the serious side of love among the
bayadères 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 Hâla'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 Hâla. 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.)