अतनुज्वरपीडितासि बाले तव सौख्याय मतो ममोपवासः|
रसमर्पय वैद्यनाथ नाहं भवदावेदितलङ्घने समर्था||
रसमर्पय वैद्यनाथ नाहं भवदावेदितलङ्घने समर्था||
Harvard-Kyoto transliteration:
atanujvarapIDitAsi bAle tava saukhyAya mato mamopavAsaH|
rasamarpaya vaidynAtha nAhaM bhavadAveditalaGghane samarthA||
rasamarpaya vaidynAtha nAhaM bhavadAveditalaGghane samarthA||
– Anonymous
Loose translation:
Reading 1
Male physician: You are running a high fever, young lady. For your relief, I recommend starvation therapy.
Female patient: O great doctor! Could you just give me a medicinal potion (instead)? I am incapable of observing the fast that you just prescribed.
Reading 2
Man: You are in heat, young lady. It is recommended that you come close to me so that you can be gratified.
Woman: (Yes!) Give me pleasure, O great doctor! For (I am so aroused that) it is impossible for me to disobey what you just said.
Source: Couplet 6 of the chapter on kuta (कूट) verses, i.e. cryptic or puzzling compositions, of Subhashita Ratnakara; the editor Krishnasastri Bhatwadekar attributes the quote to Jagannatha Mishra's Sabhaataranga (सभातरङ्ग).
Notes: The pun in the above snippet relies on the following polysemic constructs:
(i) अतनुज्वर: The word jvara (ज्वर) has the primary meaning "fever" and atanu (अतनु) can be interpreted as "intense" (literally, "not insignificant"); however Atanu is also one of the appellations of Kama – the Indic counterpart of Cupid – deified sexual desire (in this sense, atanu should be translated as "bodiless", an allusion to the incineration of Kama's body by the fire emerging from Shiva's third eye), and whenever the word jvara sits after kama or any of its synonyms, the resulting compound describes sexual arousal. Personally, I have only found it being applied to women.
(ii) उपवास: If we go by its morphological derivation, upavAsa (उपवास) should mean "staying nearby", which is the meaning one must consider to get an erotic reading of the quoted verse. However, upavAsa usually refers to ritual abstinence from food and other means of sensual gratification in order to make oneself pure and fit for receiving ("staying near" or "waiting on") a deity being invoked in a religious ceremony. In practice, the denotation is now just restricted to a religious fast.
(iii) रस: This can refer to any liquid, such as water, juice, sap, liquor, a bodily fluid, mercury, or a chemical concoction; it also describes "taste" and, by extension, any form of sensual pleasure.
(iv) लङ्घन: Derived from the verbal root laGgh (लङ्घ्) which is cognate with the adjective laghu (लघु) meaning "light", this noun usually denotes "leaping over" (requiring lightness of feet), hence "overstepping" or "transgression"; however, it is also a technical term used in proto-medical (ayurvedic) literature for controlled fasting (which causes "lightness" i.e. weight loss).
Finally, note that rasa (रस) also counts semen among its multiple meanings, and bAlA (बाला), which is the word used by the male speaker to address his female 'patient' above, denotes a human female no more than sixteen years of age according to most traditional authorities. I avoided mentioning these in my main translation for it might cause some readers a certain amount of mental distress.
Reading 1
Male physician: You are running a high fever, young lady. For your relief, I recommend starvation therapy.
Female patient: O great doctor! Could you just give me a medicinal potion (instead)? I am incapable of observing the fast that you just prescribed.
Reading 2
Man: You are in heat, young lady. It is recommended that you come close to me so that you can be gratified.
Woman: (Yes!) Give me pleasure, O great doctor! For (I am so aroused that) it is impossible for me to disobey what you just said.
Source: Couplet 6 of the chapter on kuta (कूट) verses, i.e. cryptic or puzzling compositions, of Subhashita Ratnakara; the editor Krishnasastri Bhatwadekar attributes the quote to Jagannatha Mishra's Sabhaataranga (सभातरङ्ग).
Notes: The pun in the above snippet relies on the following polysemic constructs:
(i) अतनुज्वर: The word jvara (ज्वर) has the primary meaning "fever" and atanu (अतनु) can be interpreted as "intense" (literally, "not insignificant"); however Atanu is also one of the appellations of Kama – the Indic counterpart of Cupid – deified sexual desire (in this sense, atanu should be translated as "bodiless", an allusion to the incineration of Kama's body by the fire emerging from Shiva's third eye), and whenever the word jvara sits after kama or any of its synonyms, the resulting compound describes sexual arousal. Personally, I have only found it being applied to women.
(ii) उपवास: If we go by its morphological derivation, upavAsa (उपवास) should mean "staying nearby", which is the meaning one must consider to get an erotic reading of the quoted verse. However, upavAsa usually refers to ritual abstinence from food and other means of sensual gratification in order to make oneself pure and fit for receiving ("staying near" or "waiting on") a deity being invoked in a religious ceremony. In practice, the denotation is now just restricted to a religious fast.
(iii) रस: This can refer to any liquid, such as water, juice, sap, liquor, a bodily fluid, mercury, or a chemical concoction; it also describes "taste" and, by extension, any form of sensual pleasure.
(iv) लङ्घन: Derived from the verbal root laGgh (लङ्घ्) which is cognate with the adjective laghu (लघु) meaning "light", this noun usually denotes "leaping over" (requiring lightness of feet), hence "overstepping" or "transgression"; however, it is also a technical term used in proto-medical (ayurvedic) literature for controlled fasting (which causes "lightness" i.e. weight loss).
Finally, note that rasa (रस) also counts semen among its multiple meanings, and bAlA (बाला), which is the word used by the male speaker to address his female 'patient' above, denotes a human female no more than sixteen years of age according to most traditional authorities. I avoided mentioning these in my main translation for it might cause some readers a certain amount of mental distress.
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