Naishadha-charita of Shriharsha
by Krishna Kanta Handiqui | 1956 | 159,632 words
This page relates Description of Damayanti which is canto 7 of the English translation of the Naishadha-charita of Shriharsha, dealing with the famous story of Nala (king of Nishadha) and Damayanti (daughter of Bhima, king of Vidarbha), which also occurs in the Mahabharata. The Naishadhacharita is considered as one of the five major epic poems (mahakavya) in Sanskrit literature.
Canto 7 - Description of Damayantī
1. Then the king considered his desire fulfilled by the mere sight of the princess, the desire that had previously grown rank in respect of attaining his beloved, enjoying her company and the like.
2. The king’s eyes sank first in every limb of his beloved, then in an ocean of the nectar of inward bliss, and then in the current of his tears of joy.
3. He felt the joy of realisation of unity with the One Brahma, even when he first saw the tip of a hair on her body; then, as was proper, he likewise felt, at the sight of the entire body, the joy of being merged in the One Cupid.
4. It was on her high bosom that Nala’s eyes took refuge, when the ocean of his passion swelled up, overflowing its extensive shore, in contact with the nectar-flow of the vision of the moon of her face.[1]
5. Was his eye immersed in the nectar of her moon-like face? Did it remain fixed between her breasts? Did it leave her all too slender waist slowly for fear of tumbling down?
6. Nala’s furtive eye, a wayfarer on the limbs of his beloved, wandering, and turning back again and again, rested with a gleam on her breasts, as if it lost its way in the gloom of the musk smearing on her bosom.
7. The messenger’s[2] eye, which was losing its footing, after moving about on the circle of her beautiful hips, long rested firm, by closely clasping with its ray[3] the banana stems that were her thighs.
8. His eye rested on her feet, as if saying, “Is only a silken robe Netra; am I not also Netra (eye)? So, be pleased, make me also embrace thy bosom, hips and thighs.”[4]
9. Then, after having presented his beloved and her friends to his eyes to his heart’s content, the king said thus in his mind, full of joy and wonder.
10. “It is doubtful if the creation of this amazing beauty pervading each limb would be possible, even if Cupid himself or my own fancy were to be installed in the Creator’s place.
11. “I know her to be a river of the sentiment of love coming from ‘a mainstay of the earth,’[5] in whom youth, plump with swelling bosom,[6] has caused a flood of graceful charm.
12. “Since she is attended by the climax of beauty, visibly heightened in contact with her limbs, does Cupid display in her a new art of assuming a succession of shapes?[7]
13. “Possessing a lustre resembling that of an object coloured with turmeric, was she not extracted from the clay of the River of Gold?[8] Because, on her body not even the unevenness marking the joint of two limbs can be guessed.
14. “As her limbs are superior, in spite of some resemblance, to all similar objects through some particular excellence, is any comparison of them possible? The fact is, any comparison of those limbs (with other objects) would be for them a humiliation.[9]
15. “Verily the women created in former times served only as sketching practice for the Creator’s hand in order to create her, while the creation of present and future women is meant to procure her the fame of surpassing them in beauty.
16. “Beautiful objects of nature danced in proportion to their inferiority to her limbs; for (in spite of that), the poet was sure to bring them prestige by comparing them to those superior limbs.[10]
17. “She was not touched, I ween, by any defect, fearing she would, when seen, charm it into unconsciousness (by her beauty); so in others merits are marred by defects, but in her they abide happy without any rivals.
18. “The limbs of my beloved shunned the rough beauty of the seed-pod of the lotus, not because of its watery fort,[11] but out of sheer contempt; they shunned the dusty beauty of the golden Ketaka flower also out of contempt, not because it is covered with thorns.
19. “It seems as if Indra, in love with her, has, in order to protect her, employed his own weapons on every limb of hers—his Vajra (“thunder”, also “diamond”) in the shape of her ornamental gems and his bow[12] in the shape of their gleam.
20. “The lock of her hair that surpasses the peacock’s train, though it has so many ‘moons’[13] on its feathers, has very properly found a place above her face which has but one moon as its friend.[14]
21. “It is the darkness in the front and on either side, dispelled by the moon of her face, that is tied behind her in the guise of her clearly undulating hair.
22. “Did the lock of her hair and the peacock’s train betake themselves to the Creator in consequence of a dispute?[15] Did he adore the former with these flowers, and rebuke the latter ‘by giving it a half moon’?[16]
23. “She is clearly the Aṣṭamī night with the gloom of her hair and then the half-moon of her forehead coming into view; it is therefore well that Cupid, having acquired her, should attain a supernatural power to conquer the world.[17]
24. “Did the flowery bow of Cupid, turned black during the latter’s burning (by Śiva), have only the filaments as its residue? Did Śiva in his wrath split even that into two, wherewith the Creator made Damayantī’s eyebrows?
25. “And the (flowery) bow of Cupid, becoming the eyebrows of my beloved, turned solid and strong; for it has now acquired a greater force than it had in its unburnt state.
26. “Cupid’s bow and the streak of black given up by the moon, when it became her face,[18] these two, (becoming) her eyebrows, obtained a birth, in which was a childlike nature befitting an agile grace.[19]
27. “Owing to his conquest of the three worlds with just three arrows, the flower-arrowed Cupid utilised the remaining two by crowning them as my beloved’s lotus-eyes.
28. “Here she is, the tender arch of Cupid’s flowery bow, with a waist capable of being held in the grasp of the hand, who, in order to stupefy us, casts a shower of arrowlike glances let loose from the beautiful corners of her eyes.
29. “Her lotus-eyes are like her lotus-eyes,[20] rolling and possessing rich lashes, surpassing the moon by the whiteness of the lustre of their comers, and having pupils, pure, blue and radiant,[21] like two rolling balls of sapphire.
30. “The gazelle would be fortunate, if she had her face furnished even with the lotus bud decorating her ear, (the lotus bud) that is put into the shade by the lustre of her eyes; but what would she then do with her eyes?[22]
31. “Methodically removing the (outer) sheaths from the (inner) sheaths of the banana stem and the petals from the blue lotus, in strippings of as many as five or six layers, the Creator made, with the essence extracted therefrom, the beauty of her eyes.
32. “Have the Creator’s efforts to make her eyes extracted this essence composed of effusions of nectar from the eyes of the Cakora bird and the eyes of the gazelle as well as blue lotus blossoms, ‘by employing the winking of the eyes and the closing of the petals as an instrument (of pressing)’?[23]
33. “Did the gazelles ever borrow from her the beauty of her eyes that she has by force realised it from the timid animals manifold and entire?
34. “Would not her unsteady eyes, stepping far, meet with each other, if the fear of falling into the earholes did not create an obstacle to their going?[24]
35. “At the advent of the winter, I ween, the lily of the field died to gain a happier existence; for its flowers became Damayantī’s eyes, and its buds the Cakora bird’s eyes.
36. “Her nose is a quiver made of sesamum flowers holding two of Cupid’s (flowery) arrows, inferable from the richness of the fragrance of her breath, Cupid having shot the (other) three arrows at the three worlds each.[25]
37. “The outline of her lower lip emerging along with the moon of her face calls itself the twilight of childhood and youth, resembling as it does the Bandhūka flower by the beauty of its crimson hue.[26]
38. “This lower lip on her moon-like face is the fit image of a Bimba fruit of some nectar-fed soil;[27] but the beauty of the fruit is found in any treebearing place, that of the lower lip is possible only in a place without trees.[28]
39. “I know, it is her lower lip that is the Bimba fruit owing to its deep red hue, while the inferiority[29] of the Bimba fruit to it is evident; people were mistaken regarding their names, being unable to understand the difference between the two.
40. “The two sides of her lower lip close to the centre look somewhat swollen: am I not perhaps myself guilty of having bitten it with my teeth in my dalliance with her in dreams?
41. “‘How many branches of learning with their sub-varieties dance on Damayantī’s lower lip?’—thus being curious, the Creator, free from his toils, seems to have reckoned them (by marking the lip) with lines.[30]
42. “Playing with her to-day in a dream in the early hours of the morning, I felt her as possessing lips full of sweetness; otherwise how could I believe her to have such infinitely charming lips?
43. “If she were pleased to give the moon even a thousandth part of her smile,[31] that deity would make the existence of the lunar rays fruitful, by worshipping it (with the rays) as with a circular waving of lights.[32]
44. “The slightly elongated drops of lustre, thicker than the rays of the moon, emitted by her face excelling the moon, are acting as the two rows of her teeth, the drops oozing first having become second[33] (in the process).
45. “Here she shines—the morning twilight of the night of swoon caused by my sorrows of separation—she who is the cause of Indra’s passion reaching its climax, and attenḍed by those teeth, (as the morning twilight which causes the crimson hue of the east is worshipped by Brāhmaṇas).
46. “These four frontal teeth of hers I know to be pearls in the line of her teeth; for bright with the polish of the colour of betel and the like, they possess the lustre of learned Brāhmaṇas, (free from worldly bondage, possessing luminous minds, and pure owing to the effacement of worldly cares, passion and the like).
47. “The Creator, having made all the limbs of Damayantī who is softer even than the cup of the Śirīṣa flower, and attained perfection in the creation of tender objects, put the final seal of softness on her voice.
48. “Or, perhaps, does not the cuckoo bird living on alms from trees learn from her moon-like face[34] a certain mystic doctrine propounding the oneness of Cupid,[35] (just as a Brāhmaṇa living on alms leams from a noble Brāhmaṇa the monistic doctrine of the Upaniṣads)?
49. “Has Sarasvatī, the goddess of learning, seeing that Lakṣmī has her home in the lap of a lotus, betaken herself to Damayantī’s moonlike mouth that surpasses the lotus in beauty, with the object of excelling Lakṣmī who is her cowife owing to both being attached to Viṣṇu?
50. “As the clever Sarasvatī, residing in Damayantī’s throat, plays on her lyre, its sound, becoming the voice of the gazelle-eyed girl in the latter’s mouth, acquires the sweetness of nectar in the hearer’s ears.
51. “Did the Creator, on finishing her beauty, look at her, raising up her face? For there appears on her chin, slightly depressed (in the middle), something like an impression of a finger caused by a grasp.
52. “The moon, by becoming my beloved’s face, thrives contented owing to the fear of Rāhu[36] being at an end, and the newborn circle of its rays has assumed yonder grace of her Bimba-like lips.[37]
53. “Should not her mature face have a glory, having surpassed the moon that is the face of the full-moon night,[38] (the face) whose third part—the brow—is verily the half moon, bearing the eyebrows as the lunar spot?
54. “The Creator made her lotus face an emperor amid the entire race of lotus blooms; hence it is that two lotus kings named ‘eyes’ wait upon it.
55. “When the moon afraid of the sun during the day and the day lotus afraid of the moon at night deposit their beauty in her face, they are then without their beauty; but by virtue of the beauty of the one or the other, when is her face not lovely?[39]
56. “It is the reflection of the beauty of her face that the lotus and the moon seem to put on from time to time, by asking it of the paternal water and the friendly mirror, as an ornament obtained by begging.
57. “Verily during water sports, the lilies, manifesting their emotion to their lord, the sun, and stretching forth their lotus-hands, beg the beauty of Damayantī’s face, perceived with their eyes, the bees.[40]
58. “Verily her face, red with saffron as with anger, having vanquished the moon, its constant rival, must have forcibly tied it up, the rope being (still) attached to it in the shape of its halo.[41]
59. “Did the Creator, destroying hundreds of lunar discs on the Amāvāsyā nights, month after month, install this moon—the face of Damayantī, unique and endowed with an imperishable beauty?[42]
60. “Cupid abides on her face with Rati (‘his wife’ as well as ‘pleasure’), accompanied by an affectionate friend—the spring in the shape of her lips, and fumished with his emblem—the dolphin in the shape of the ornamental designs painted on her cheeks, and desirous of conquering the worlds with her eyebrows serving as his bow.[43]
61. “Are her ears two ceremonial cakes—such is Brahmā’s skill—to be offered to Cupid and his consort, the water and flowers accompanying a gift being offered in the guise of her lotus eyes adorned with her tears of separation?[44]
62. “The channel-like line carved on her ear-rings that runs in the direction of the ear-holes is the path, by which the eddying[45] nectar flow of the essence of the scriptures entered her ears.
63. “Is it a new kind of numeral denoting the number nine with its deep-set outline carved within her ears, (indicating) that her ears, dividing the eighteen branches of learning, held one half each?[46]
64. “Methinks, with those two inflexible nooses in the shape of her creeperlike ears, Cupid conquered the single-noosed Varuṇa, without putting forth any great effort.[47]
65. “Being the image of a four-armed father,[48] Cupid, too, has rightly become four-armed; are her broad creeperlike ears, strips of bamboo-skin as it were, the strings of his two bows in the shape of her eyebrows?[49]
66. “Wonderful is her neck: it is beautiful with the nape and adorned with a necklace of pearls; it assumes a shape worth embracing, and by it the entire upper portion of the body looks beautiful.[50]
67. “In her throat the Creator fashioned poetry, song, courteous speech and truth, and under the pretext of putting three lines on it, he apportioned boundaries for them to live.[51]
68. “Let my beloved’s arms conquer the stalk of the lotus—nothing surprising in it; in a duel[52] victory there must be; but it is highly amazing that the heart of the lotus-stalk broken (in defeat) is seen to be ‘without any pain’.[53]
69. “Did she, whose navel is beautiful with its whirl, conquer the lotus-stalk with her tender arms? Is it not for that reason lying helpless,[54] immersed in dense clay, its humiliation in a tangible form?
70. “In the guise of the five fingers with their rosy nails, Cupid’s five arrows with unique tips of gold and polished joints are to be seen in the dear one’s hand, a lotus-made quiver dyed with cinnabar.[55]
71. “Verily the leaf that was eager to vie with her hands did play the fool;[56] again, boasting of a likeness to her lower lip, why should it not prove an arrant fool?[57]
72. “‘The making of lotus blossoms is my sketching practice for the making of thy hand’—did the Creator announce this to the deer-eyed damsel by sketching lotus blossoms on her hands?[58]
73. “Are these creeperlike arms lotus-stalks visible on both sides of this my ‘joy-giving’ Narmada?[59] Are these breasts the islets that emerged when in her the waters of childhood dried up with Cupid’s heat?[60]
74. “The palm fruit would be able to imitate her breasts, happy in their ascent, if it did not (at times) fall to the ground; not, however, by simply clinging on to the high tree; for the breasts of the slender girl are high by themselves.[61]
75. “The pot is cited as an illustration in philosophical works, being celebrated for its rivalry with her breasts; and, it is on account of this art (of pot-making) that the potter became famous,[62] though he makes jars and other things as well.
76. “The rosy splendour of a ruby necklace is emerging on Damayantī’s bosom, the middle of which is foamy white with exceedingly pellucid pearls, looking like drops of water, being located in her pearlstring.[63]
77. “Here rises in her the orb of the moon as her face, unhesitatingly making the lotus shrink[64]; but, strange, still that couple of red geese in the shape of her breasts is not undergoing separation in the least.[65]
78. “These breasts have taken away the beauty of the temples of the elephant, but the latter have not been able to take away that of the former; for the temples of the elephant have concealed their pearls in fear, while the breasts have their pearl ornaments exposed to view.[66]
79. “No insane Bilva fruit would be deemed worth even a ‘cowry’, if it compared itself to her breasts, longed for by that Indra who holds the thunderbolt at the tip of his hand.[67]
80. “The traces left by the minds of the entire race of young men, as they slipped into the hollow of her bosom, slippery with sandal-paste, are flashing in the shape of the beams emitted by the gems in her pearlstring.[68]
81. “It is a curious phenomenon of the kingdom of Cupid on Damayantī’s frame, perfect in every limb, that the slender belly is not attacked by its folds, though it stays amidst them.[69]
82. “If the Creator, by making her waist slender, did not lay by some beautiful portion, how could he now in her youth make her breasts, her frame being without any resemblance to anything else?
83. “Round her waist, the Creator put a blue string in the shape of a row of hair, as if thinking, lucky like Pārvatī, she, too, would one day realise through her husband the completion of her half-complete self.[70]
84. “Alack, on reaching her deep well-like navel, her pitcherlike breasts and the string-like line of hair on the body, my thirst for seeing would cease, if they were not thus covered with her clothing (just as the thirst of a man, on reaching a well with a rope and pitchers, would be satisfied, if it were not guarded with a number of swords).[71]
85. “She is perhaps the abode of Cupid, gone mad like an elephant; she has a navel resembling the hole of an uprooted stake to which an elephant is tied; she has rows of downy hair on her body resembling torn chains slipping off the body, and a high bosom similar to a mound on which the animal sleeps.
86. “It is strange that Cupid the hero has become a conqueror with the line of downy hair on her waist, the eyebrows on the forehead, and the flowers on her head serving as his bowstring, bow and arrows respectively, even though they are stationary and detached, one from the other.
87. “Verily on this plate of gold, namely, her back, this is a panegyric in honour of Cupid in letters of silver in the shape of the halos of the jasmine blossoms that are on her hair bound in knots.[72]
88. “Does Cupid, seeing that his father Viṣṇu’s ‘clearly visible’ circular blade Sudarśana had conquered the world in battle, wish to conquer the world with an invisible circular weapon in the shape of her hips?
89. “I suspect, this damsel carries about her all the accessory materials required by that maker of pitcherlike breasts, who is in the form of Youth, the line of hairs on the body being the potter’s rod, the buttocks being the wheel, the virtues the ropes, and the charm of her beauty the necessary water.
90. [73]
91. “Her eyebrows ‘that have a marvellous outline’ (citralekhā) stand for the nymph Citralekhā; her nose ‘more beautiful than the Tila flower’ (tilottamā) is the nymph Tilottamā; and, the form of her thighs (like) the stem of the banana-plant (rambhā) is the nymph Rambhā: that is why, when seen, she alone gives the pleasure of seeing many a nymph.
92. “Does not the banana plant, of its own accord, mark with a special sign its own stem as well as her thighs? For owing to the confusion between the two, it remains cautious by putting leaves on its own stem.[74]
93. “The banana plant would be equal in beauty to her thighs, if by means of austerities, head downward[75], it could give up its flabby nature, and if it did not possess its excessive chill.
94. “The two stems of the slender damsel’s thighs surpassed the elephant’s trunk ; so it is proper that the elephant should hide its face— the tip of its trunk, in shame, under the pretext of coiling it round.
95. “I surmise, even the sages are attached to her: for the great sage Bhṛgu[76] resorts to the mountain of her breasts; the face is pleasant to the sage Nārada[77]; and, the sage Vyāsa, efficient in the composition of the Mahābbārata, has recourse to her thighs.[78]
96. “Does the upward gradation of stoutness on her legs know the manner of the growth of trees, and is the scarf draping her limbs with the undulations of its windings expert in the manner in which creepers clasp round trees?
97. “She is the fourteenth among (virtuous dames)—Arundhatī, Cupid’s wife (Rati), Lakṣmī, Indra’s wife (Śacī) and the deities known as the nine Ambikās[79]; so the supernatural power of becoming invisible attained by her ankles is but proper in her.[80]
98. “We know, the tree’s young leaf got its name ‘pallava’, because it has the character of a mere fraction (lava), owing to its smallness in comparison with her feet (pad), great in their beauty.[81]
99. “As in her pride of beauty she ( once ) put her lotus-feet on the heads of the women of the world, her feet, owing to the colour of the dense vermilion dust on their heads, became ruddier than the young sprouts of leaves
100. “The goddess of beauty, red with anger, asked the creator to put her in the position of Damayantī who surpasses her in all possible virtues; but the creator certainly deceived her; for she ( now ) shines forth, (merely) attached to her deep red feet[82].
101. “I know not who that king is, with whose bent head the slender maid’s feet, kings of lotus blossoms as it were, possessing refined heels and surpassing in gait the king of elephants[83], are going to have themselves served, (as if they were two kings who have defeated in an expedition owners of elephants[84], and are secure in their rear).[85]
102. “The Creator,[86] angry at the pride of being unique on the part of her single ear, eye, lip, arm, hand, foot and the like, which surpassed all objects similar to them, made on the self-same body a companion limb to each.[87]
103. “The Creator’s begging of the beauty of these five limbs of hers—the face, the feet and the hands, being desirous of creating again the lotus-beds destroyed by frost, is now like the begging of those mendicants who restrict themselves to five households for their daily alms.[88]
104. “The Creator drew on her, ṃ the shape of her toes, as many lines as there were directions,[89] from which kings oppressed by Cupid would come to take shelter under those lotus feet.
105. “It is well that the Creator joyfully made ten moons which have become the nails of my beloved’s feet; otherwise how could the moon have the luck of enjoying the beauty of those crimson lotus blossoms disguised as her feet?[90]
106. “Why should not the sixty-four arts find an abode in this fair-browed girl, who carries about her four full moons in the shape of her fame, face and the two nails of the great toes of her feet?[91]
107. “The Creator had already created her as above the world; youth took her even beyond that; and then, Cupid, by training her in all accomplishments, put her beyond the range of words.”
108. Thus describing the gazelle-eyed maiden, beginning with her hair and ending with the nails of her feet, the king whose heart was swimming in an ocean of amazement, and whose joy was overflowing his heart, made up his mind to make himself visible to Damayantī surrounded by her friends.
109. Epilogue. [Śrīharṣa describes his poem as “brother to the composition of the Panegyric of the royal dynasty of Gauḍa].
Footnotes and references:
[1]:
Nala’s eyes are likened to a man taking shelter on some high place to avoid a rising flood.
[2]:
Ref. to Nala.
[3]:
“kara” which means also ‘hand’, making the imagery of grasping the thighs vivid. On the ray of the eye see Appendix I, I (c).
[4]:
Nala’s netra (eye) wants to be that other netra (a silken garment) to explore Damayantī’s limbs.
[5]:
In the case of the river, “mountain”; in the case of Damayantī, “king” (i.e. her father Bhīma).
[6]:
Or, “...youth which is, as it were, a loudly rumbling cloud...”.
[7]:
i.e., Cupid was to be seen in all her limbs indicating youth, passion and beauty.
[9]:
Or, “all simile is to them a humiliation.”
[10]:
i.e., by saying, for instance, "The lotus is like Damayantī’s face” instead of “Her face is like the lotus.”
[11]:
i.e., not because it is inaccessible in its watery recess.
[12]:
i.e., the rainbow. The lustre of the multicoloured gems is fancied as a rainbow.
[13]:
i.e, moon-like patches.
[14]:
i.e., its like in beauty.
[15]:
i.e., to have a decision in a dispute regarding each other’s beauty.
[16]:
“To give a half moon” means “to turn somebody out by seizing him by the neck with the hand bent into a semi-circle.” The phrase means also that the Creator gave the peacock its half moons, viz., the brilliant spots on its feathers. The idea is that the tresses of Damayantī’s hair studied with many-hued flowers were more beautiful than the peacock’s train.
[17]:
i.e., by using her as a weapon. Aṣṭamī is the night when mystic rites are performed for attaining magic powers. Damayantī’s dark hair and her crescent-shaped forehead are fancied as the darkness followed by moonrise on the night of Aṣṭamī.
[18]:
The moon, when it became the spotless face of Damayantī, had of course to give up its black mark.
[19]:
The eyebrows are likened to two playful children. “...... in which was a childlike nature” etc., may be rendered also as “...... in which was a hairy growth suitable for” etc.
[20]:
i.e., not admitting of comparison with other objects.
[22]:
The idea is, the eyes of the gazelle are inferior even to Damayantī’s lotus ear-rings which are, besides, obscured by the lustre of her eyes. But the animal would be glad even to have these lotus buds as its eyes, making thereby its own eyes useless.
[23]:
Lit. ‘with the instrument of closing’. See Notes.
[24]:
i.e., she had long eyes reaching as far as the ears.
[25]:
It will be remembered that Cupid has five arrows.
[26]:
The red lip with the fair face is compared to the evening twilight, bright with the glow of sunset, with the moon rising above. As the twilight indicates the junction of day and night, so the red lips indicate that she is on the border line of childhood and youth.
[27]:
Also, “This lower lip on the moon of her face is a fit image of the orb of the moon.” See Vocab. under “sudhābhūbimba”.
[28]:
i.e., in a city. The idea is, the beauty of the Bimba fruit is wild and coarse, that of her lip urban and refined, “vidruma”: “treeless” means also “coral”.
[29]:
“adharatva”: “inferiority” as well as “the character of being an “adhara” (lower lip)”. The “adhara”, ruddier than the Bimba fruit, is to be called Bimba, and the Bimba fruit itself is to be called “adhara” which means in this case “inferior”, i.e., to the lip.
[30]:
The lines on her lower lip are fancied as indicating the number of sciences with which she was acquainted.
[31]:
i.e., her smile was purer than moonlight.
[32]:
In the case of the reading “nimitya”: ‘by casting it’ (i.e. the smile) among the lunar rays.
[33]:
i.e., the smaller drops oozing first have formed the second row, i.e., the lower teeth. The white teeth are fancied as drops distilled from the lustre of the face.
[35]:
i.e., the amorous song of the cuckoo is an imitation of her voice.
[36]:
Because it is no longer in the sky, having become Damayantī’s face.
[37]:
i.e., its newborn rays have become her Bimba-fruit-like lower lip.
[38]:
i.e., the full moon.
[39]:
i.e., in the daytime when the moon is absent, her face has the beauty of the moon, and at night when the day-lotus is no longer in bloom, It has the beauty of the lotus.
[40]:
The bees flying about are fancied as the eyes of the lotus plants, while the flowers floating on the surface of the water are fancied as their hands.
[41]:
The halo of the moon is fancied as a rope with which Damayantī’s face tied the moon round, after it had beaten it in a contest of beauty.
[42]:
The Creator is represented as an artist who destroys many preliminary sketches before producing the final specimen.
[43]:
Damayantī’s face is fancied as the seat of Cupid; the designs painted on the cheeks form, as it were, the dolphin which serves as his emblem; the sweet lip is the spring, and the eyebrows his bow.
[44]:
The ears are the ceremonial cakes, the lotus-like eyes are the flowers, and her tears the water—thus combining all the characteristics of a religious gift. Here the gift is made by the Creator to Cupid to serve as one more weapon in his armoury.
[45]:
Lit. extremely crooked.
[46]:
The reference is to the curve of the outer ear resembling the Nāgari nine. The idea of “hearing” different sciences from the guru is continued.
[47]:
Varuṇa who was one of Damayantī’s lovers had but one noose in his hand.
[48]:
Cupid’s father, Viṣṇu, has four arms.
[49]:
Cupid is represented here as having four arms and consequently two bows. Damayantī’s eyebrows are the two bows, and the creeperlike ears the two bowstrings.
[50]:
By a clever choice of words the poet makes this verse sound strange in the ears of the hearer: “Her neck is something strange, being adorned with a “māṇavaka” (boy), though it is beautiful with an “avaṭu” (one who is not a boy); it looks beautiful (surūpatābhāk), possessing a whole “ūrdhvaka” drum, though it is assuming the form of an “āliṅga?a” drum”. The apparent contradiction is to be removed by taking these words in a more appropriate sense.
[51]:
The presence of three lines on the neck is regarded as a sign of luck. Cf. 6. 59.
[52]:
i.e., in a coatest of beauty victory must come to one of the two.
[53]:
“nirvyathana” which means also a hole. The plain meaning is: when broken, it is seen to have holes inside.
[54]:
“niḥsūtra” meaning also “without any fibres” i.e. extremely young and fragile. The lotus-stalk surpassed by Damayantī’s arms in beauty is fancied as lying despondent on a mass of clay.
[55]:
The fingers are compared to Cupid’s arrows, the hand to his quiver, and the nails to the tips of the arrows; both the fingers and arrows have smooth joints.
[56]:
“bāla” which means also “young”, so that it is implied that “the leaf became young” in order to be like her hands.
[57]:
“extremely foolish” means also “a new leaf” and “very young”. The leaf putting forth young and yet younger shoots to vie with her hands and lips manifests its foolishness in proportion.
[58]:
The presence of lotus marks on the palm is regarded as a sign of luck. The idea is that the Creator was putting these marks by way of acquiring practice, in order to make the hands as beautiful as lotus blossoms.
[60]:
i.e., at the advent of youth.
[61]:
i.e., wihout any outside help.
[62]:
i.e., known as potter. Lit. and, the potter, the maker of jars and the like, became famous on account of this art.
[63]:
[64]:
i.e., her face eclipses the lotus, just as the moon causes its petals to shrink.
[65]:
The Cakravāka couple, to which the breasts are compared, is said to separate from each other when the moon rises in the evening. Here, the face being the moon, the Cakravāka breasts ought to separate; but there being no intervening space between the breasts, they remain joined together.
[66]:
The breasts are represented as the victors, and the temples as the vanquished in a contest of beauty. The victors are showing off their riches; the vanquished are timidly guarding what they have. The reference is to the pearls supposed to be inside an elephant’s head.
[67]:
Or, “who holds hundred crores (of valuable things)....”.
[68]:
It is fancied that the minds of young men slipped into the intervening space between her breasts, as they were brooding over her beauty; while the jets of lustre emitted by the gems in the pearlstring across her bosom, wet with sandal paste, are fancied as the traces of slipping left by these minds.
[69]:
The fatty rolls of skin on the upper belly, called Bali or Vali, meaning (by sound) also ‘powerful’, might be expected to attack their weak neighbour, the slender belly; but it remained free from all such attack, hence the wonder. The idea is, her waist was slender in spite of the fatty rolls projecting over it. See 10. 127. The imagery is that of a weak ruler living free from attack in the midst of powerful neighbours. It is also implied by means of word play that it is surprising that a weakling (“anaṅga”: “limbless”) should be able to reign in the territory of a terrible (“bhīma”) sovereign which is well provided with all the “limbs” i.e. components of a kingdom.
[70]:
The row of downy hair on the waist is fancied as a string with which she would be joined to her husband.
[71]:
The portion within brackets is implied by means of word play.
[72]:
Verse 87 in N.S. edition is a variant of verse 86, and not counted in here.
[73]:
Verse 90 is too obscene to be translated.
[74]:
The idea is, as people make a confusion between the stem of the banana plant and Damayantī’s thighs, owing to their close resemblance to each other, the plant, in order to preserve its identity, covers its stem with leaves as a distinctive feature, For another meaning see Notes.
[75]:
The banana stem is stouter in the lower part and leaner in the upper, while a thigh is just the opposite ; so, if the plant wants to be like Damayantī’s thighs, it mast reverse the position of its upper and lower portions, by standing head downward by way of austerities, as do certain fanatics engaged in religions penance.
[76]:
“bhṛgu” means also a cliff or a precipice; here, the precipice of the mountain of her breasts.
[77]:
Means also: “The mouth is pleasing with its various teeth”.
[78]:
“vyāsa” means width or breadth; the sentence really means: “a wideness suitable for the performance of a brilliant dalliance attends her thighs.” See Notes.
[80]:
Damayantī, being the fourteenth among virtuous women, is fancied as the fourteenth night of the dark fortnight preferred by persons engaged in magical rites for the attainment of supernatural powers. Here, the ankles have acquired the power of invisibility i.e. they are smooth, not protuberant.
[81]:
“pallava” is here derived as “pad+lava”.
[82]:
The goddess of beauty asked for “pada” meaning “position”—one supplanting that of her rival Damayantī; but the creator gave her ‘pada’ meaning “foot”, so that she is to be seen now on Damayantī’s rosy feet.
[84]:
i.e. warriors on elephants.
[85]:
The idea is that of an offending lover falling at the feet of his mistress. Damayantī’s feet are compared to two victorious kings, while her future husband, naturally a king, seeking reconciliation after an amorous quarrel and falling at her feet, is compared to a defeated prince with his head bent before his victors. The portion within brackets is derived by means of puns.
[86]:
i.e., while he was making Damayantī.
[87]:
i.e., made a second ear, eye, etc. to wound the vanity of the first ones.
[88]:
At the advent of the spring, the Creator is fancied as recreating the lotus-beds destroyed by the winter, by borrowing the beauty of Damayantī’s limbs.
[89]:
The ten toes are fancied as lines indicating the ten directions.
[90]:
The moon cannot enjoy the beauty of the day lotus which closes up in the evening; but, by assuming ten forms in the shape of Damayantī’s toe-nails, it can enjoy the contact of lotus blossoms in the shape of her feet. A nail-mark is in Sanskrit called “ardhacandra”: “half-moon” which facilitates the description of the nails as so many moons.