Woman's best friend

Today's offering, an interesting take on the familiar theme of wifely infidelity, is not in Sanskrit but in the (stylized) Maharashtri Prakrit language. It is also much older than most other snippets of poetry quoted on this blog. 

Prakrit text in Devanagari:

खाणेण अ पाणेण अ तह गहिओ मण्डलो अडअणाए|
जह जारं अहिणन्दइ भुक्कइ घरसामिए एन्ते||

Harvard-Kyoto transliteration:

khANeNa a pANeNa a taha gahio maNDalo aDaaNAe|
jaha jAraM ahiNandai bhukkai gharasAmie ente||

– Anonymous

Loose translation: The (family) dog was so won over by the adulterous housewife with food and drinks that he would happily greet her secret lover when he snuck in, and bark whenever the lord of the household (i.e. the dog's owner and the woman's husband) returned home. 

Source: Verse 62 of the 7th chapter (each containing 100 verses) of the anthology Gaha Sattasai (गाहासत्तसई), "a collection of seven hundred songs", sometimes referred to by its Sanskritized name Gatha Saptashati (गाथासप्तसती), compiled by Haala (हाल), a king of the famous Satavahana dynasty of the Deccan. Haala is usually placed in the early part of the 1st century CE, so this verse is at least two millennia old. We do know that quite a few of the poets mentioned by name in this anthology were female, and some verses are ascribed to Haala himself, but the author of the quoted verse is unknown. 

Notes: According to the commentator Bhatta Mathura Nath Shastri of Jaipur, the purport of the verse under consideration is that the clever wife had trained the dog to welcome her paramour silently (perhaps just by wagging his tail) so that no one else would know there was an outsider in the house, and to make a loud noise to signal the return of her husband so that the lover could quickly hide himself or make good his escape.

Here are two scholarly Sanskrit translations of the original Prakrit couplet:
(1)

खादनेन च पानेन च तथा गृहीतो मण्डलोऽसत्या|

यथा जारमभिनन्दति भुक्कति गृहस्वामिन्येति||

(khAdanena ca pAnena ca tathA gRhIto maNDalo(a)satyA| 

yathA jAramabhinandati bhukkati gRhasvAminyeti||) 

– Gangaadhara Bhatta (गङ्गाधरभट्ट) in his commentary Bhaavaleshaprakaashikaa (भावलेशप्रकाशिका). 

(2)

पानेन भोजनेन च तथा गृहीतो हि मण्डलोऽसत्या|

जारं यथाभिनन्दति बुक्कति गृहभर्तरि त्वयति||

(pAnena bhojanena ca tathA gRhIto hi maNDalo(a)satyA|

jAraM yathAbhinandati bukkati gRhabhartari tvayati||)

– Bhatta Mathuraanaatha Sharman (भट्टश्रीमथुरानाथशर्मन्) in his commentary Vyangyasarvankashaa (व्यङ्ग्यसर्वङ्कषा).