Insatiability 2

Here's another batch of lowly lechers' ludicrous lamentations. 

(1) Devanagari text:

सुरतं तदेव सुरतं यत्नाल्लब्धं यदन्यनारीषु|
सन्तत्यै दाररतिः कण्डूशमनाय चेटिकागमनम्||

Harvard-Kyoto transliteration:

surataM tadeva surataM yatnAllabdhaM yadanyanArISu| 

santatyai dAraratiH kaNDUzamanAya ceTikAgamanam||

– Anonymous

Loose translation:  That which is obtained from "another woman" after much effort is real lovemaking; intercourse with the wife is just for procreation, and with maidservants (or slave-girls), it is (like) scratching an itch!

Source: Samayocitapadyamalika (समयोचितपद्यमालिका) "a wreath of verses appropriate for (various) occasions", i.e. "a collection of quotable verses", 5th ed. (published 1914), verse 20 of the chapter focusing on words that start with the consonant k (क्).

(2) Devanagari text:

इन्दुर्यत्र न निन्द्यते न मधुरं दूतीवचः श्रूयते नोच्छ्वासा हृदयं दहन्त्यशिशिरा नोपैति कार्श्यं वपुः|
स्वाधीनामनुकूलिकां स्वगृहिणीमालिङ्ग्य यत्सुप्यते तत्किं प्रेम गृहाश्रमव्रतमिदं कष्टं समाचर्यते||

Harvard-Kyoto transliteration:

induryatra na nindyate na madhuraM dUtIvacaH zrUyate nocchvAsA hRdayaM dahantyazizirA nopaiti kArzyaM vapuH| 

svAdhinAmanukUlikAM svagRhiNImAliGgya yatsupyate tatkiM prema gRhAzramavratamidAm kaSTaM samAcaryate||

– Anonymous

Loose translation: Neither is the moon cursed (see notes) nor are the sweet words of a go-between ever heard (see notes); his heart is never scalded by his own warm sighs, and his body does not waste away. He just sleeps with his arms wrapped around his docile and faithful wife. Is this love? (No!) He is just, religiously and painfully, performing the duties of a householder. 

Source: 14th century Shaarngadharapaddhati Verse 3782 – the final verse of the asatIcaritram (असतीचरित्रम्), "the exploits of the adulteress". 

Notes:  The moon is often portrayed as a tormentor of separated lovers in spite of being a delight to the rest of the world. So, when the poet talks about the revilement of the moon, they are alluding to pining for the beloved – an idea elaborated on by references to sighing and withering away later in the first half-verse. 

The dUtI (दूती), a female negotiator dispatched by a lover to convey their longing and pain to their love interest and hopefully set up a tryst, is a stock character in romantic compositions; the entire sub-genre of dUtakAvyas is a highly imaginative take on this messenger trope. For star-crossed lovers forced to stay apart, the dUtI is sometimes the only confidante and so her words are the only relief for their aching hearts.

It can be argued that this snippet is not necessarily expressive of a craving for extra-marital affairs; it could just be read as the wistful musings of a person tired of their humdrum married life and wishing that they were instead involved in a youthful romance with all its pains and pleasures. But since the most celebrated love stories in Sanskrit belles-lettres are of the scandalous kind (at least from a modern reader's point of view), I would say that the anthologist Shaarngadhara is justified in including this stanza in his chapter on adultery.

In the Subhashita Ratna Bhandagara, the words nopaiti (नोपैति) towards the end of the first half are replaced with the synonymous expression no yAti (नो याति).

Insatiability

Please excuse some of the words I have used in my translations; I was just trying to be true to the spirit of the original compositions. Presumably, the following stanzas were authored by satirists in order to shame some of their peers for their ravenous libido.

(1) Devanagari text:

चेट्यः कदाचन कदाचन पण्यनार्यः कन्याः कदाचन कदाचन चण्डरण्डाः|
इत्थं चिरं विहरतोऽपि सखे परस्त्रीवाञ्छारसे न परितृप्यति चान्तरात्मा||

Harvard-Kyoto transliteration:

ceTyaH kadAcana kadAcana paNyanAryaH kanyAH kadAcana kadAcana caNDaraNDAH| 

itthaM ciraM viharato(a)pi sakhe parastrIvAJchArase na paritRpyati cAntarAtmA||

– Anonymous

Loose translation: For a long time, I have been enjoying maidservants, using harlots, deflowering virgins, and cavorting with aggressive nymphomaniacs. In spite of that, dear friend, my heart cannot stop thirsting for married women. 

Source: 13th century Suktimuktaavali Chapter 89 Verse 12.

Notes: In at least one documented variant, paritRpyati (परितृप्यति) has been replaced with the synonymous parituSyati (परितुष्यति), "is satisfied". For my notes on the misogynistic pejorative randA (रण्डा), see this post (footnote 2).

(2) Devanagari text:

क्रयादौषधवत्कामः प्रभुत्वात्केवलश्रमः|
कारुवन्निजदारेषु योऽन्यः कामः स मन्मथः||

Harvard-Kyoto transliteration:

krayAdauSadhavatkAmaH prabhutvAtkevalazramaH| 

kAruvannijadAreSu yo(a)nyaH kAmaH sa manmathaH||

– Anonymous

Loose translation: When purchased, eros is like medication; when obtained by virtue of being a master (i.e. when done with maidservants / slaves), it is just labor; with one's lawfully wedded wives, it is no different from the day job of an artisan; the "other kind" of eros is truly Eros!

Source: 15th century Subhaashitaavaali Verse 2381.

Notes: The poet uses a peculiar (but fairly common) Sanskrit word for "wife" – dAra (दार) – which has the masculine gender (!!!!!) and is always used in the plural number regardless of the actual number of wives being described. Hence, although the word occurs in its plural form in the above verse, we cannot be sure if that is a reference to polygyny. 

Another point to be noted is that the "other kind" of eros, almost surely, refers to an affair with a married woman. See this post for a detailed exposition; manmatha (मन्मथ), which can be interpreted as "the agitator (of the mind)", is a fancy synonym of Kama, erotic desire or the deity presiding over it – this word is used to suggest that the first three kinds of eros enumerated above are 'eros' in name only.

A. N. D. Haksar's scholarly translation of the above verse: 

Love purchased is like a medicine,

a labour, when to power due,

with one's spouse it's just mechanics:

it's something else which is love true.

The Lord of Death

Yama, "the restrainer", (or one of his cognates) is a much feared deity in many belief systems: His responsibilities include fetching the souls of the dead (either by himself or more commonly through the agency of his equally dreaded underlings, the yamadutas), and then holding trials to decide in what forms they deserve to be reborn and how they will be punished or rewarded in the interim. However, in the eyes of the authors of the following two-liners (or one-liners, depending on how you define a 'line'), there are some mortals who surpass Yama in ruthlessness.

(1) Devanagari text:

वैद्यः क्रूरो यमः क्रूरो वैद्यः क्रूरो यमादपि|
यमो हरत्यसूनेव वैद्यस्तु सवसूनसून्||

Harvard-Kyoto transliteration:

vaidyaH krUro yamaH krUro vaidyaH krUro yamAdapi| 

yamo haratyasUneva vaidyastu savasUnasUn||

Loose translation: While it is true that both the physician and Yama are cruel, the physician is crueler than Yama: Yama just takes away one's life whereas a physician steals one's wealth in addition to one's life.

Source: Thus spake Jantuketu (जन्तुकेतु), the boastful quack, in one of the extant manuscripts of the 12th century farce Latakamelaka (लटकमेलक), as noted by the editors (Mahamahopadhyaya Pandit Durgaprasad and Wasudev Laxman Sastri Pansikar) of the critical edition of the play published in 1923. So, assuming it is not a later interpolation, this snippet can be attributed to the playwright Shankhadhara (शङ्खधर).

(2) Devanagari text:

वैद्यराज नमस्तुभ्यं यमराजसहोदर|
यमस्तु हरति प्राणान् वैद्यः प्राणान् धनानि च||

Harvard-Kyoto transliteration:

vaidyarAja namastubhyaM yamarAjasahodara|

yamastu harati prANAn vaidyaH prANAn dhanAni ca||

Loose translation: O Great Physician! Brother of King Yama! I salute you! Yama just takes away one's life, a physician life as well as wealth.

Source: 15th century Subhaashitaavali Verse 2319.

(3) Devanagari text:

वैद्यराज नमस्तुभ्यं क्षपिताशेषामानव|
त्वयि विन्यस्तभारोऽयं कृतान्तः सुखमेधते||

Harvard-Kyoto transliteration:

vaidyarAja namastubhyaM kSapitAzeSamAnava|

tvayi vinyastabhAro(a)yaM kRtAntaH sukhamedhate||

Loose translation:  O Great Physician! I salute you, for you have decimated the human population – Yama can live in happiness and prosperity only because he has devolved his responsibilities to you.

Source: 14th century Shaarngadharapaddhati Verse 4038.

Notes: It is possible that all three of the above quotes started life as a single couplet that was orally transmitted and was hence remembered differently by different collectors; plagiarism (or a pastiche) cannot be ruled out either. Version (1) is my personal favorite for its clever use of repetitions.

Double entendre 4 contd.: The pestle strikes one last time

Today, I am just going to quote the remaining verses of the chapter on the "pestle" (मुसल) of Vajjalaggam (Chapter 56), my first two posts in this vein being this and this. Below are verses 539, 540, and 542 of this Prakrit anthology: The authors of all of these are unknown, and the Sanskrit renderings that I have provided in parentheses below the respective couplets are by Ratnadeva (रत्नदेव) unless otherwise noted. For a more detailed exposition of the wordplay, see this post. All my notes are inspired by Vishwanath Pathak's critical edition with translations and explanations, published in 1984. 

(1) Devanagari text:

 थोरगरुयाइ सुन्दरकञ्चीजुत्ताइ हुन्ति नियगेहे|
धन्नाणं महिलियाणं उक्खलसरिसाइ मुसलाइं||
(स्थूलदीर्घाणि सुन्दरकाञ्चीयुक्तानि भवन्ति निजगेहे| धन्यानां महिलानामुदूखलसदृशानि मुषलानि||)

Harvard-Kyoto transliteration:

thoragaruAi sundarakaJcIjuttAi hunti niyagehe|

dhannANaM mahiliyANaM ukkhalasarisAi musalAi||

(sthUladIrghANi sundarakAJcIyuktAni bhavanti nijagehe| dhanyAnAM mahilAnAmudUkhalasadRzAni muSalAni||)

Loose translation: Fortunate is the woman who has in her own house a long stout pestle, furnished with a beautiful girdle, and proportionate to (her) mortar.

[There is some confusion about how to interpret the first adjective थोरगरुयाइ; although Ratnadeva translated it as स्थूलदीर्घाणि which means "stout and long", some scholars contend that it should be read as something like अल्पगुरुत्वानि, "not very heavy"; they view थोर as a word cognate with Modern Standard Hindi थोड़ा, Awadhi थोर, etc. which have an Apabhramsa antecedent थोड़, meaning "a little". According to Pathak, either reading might be admissible here, depending on the age, physical endurance, and experience of the person handling the "pestle".]

(2) Devanagari text:

 मुहभारियाइ सुट्ठु वि सुट्ठु वि कञ्चीइ दिढनिबद्धाइं|
अन्नाहि पि हु जुण्णुक्खलम्मि भज्जन्ति मुसलाइं||
(मुखभृतानि* सुष्ठ्वपि सुष्ठ्वपि काञ्च्या दृढनिबद्धानि| अन्याभिरपि खलु जीर्णोदूखले भज्यन्ति मुषलानि||)
*मुखभारिकाणि (mukhabhArikANi) – Pathak

Harvard-Kyoto transliteration:

muhabhAriyAi suTThu vi suTThu vi kaJcIi diDhanibaddhAiM|
annAhi pi hu juNNukkhalammi bhajjanti musalAiM||
(mukhabhRtAni suSThvapi suSThvapi kAJcyA dRDhanibaddhAni| anyAbhirapi khalu jIrNodUkhale bhajyanti muSalAni||)

Loose translation: In spite of being quite front-heavy and tightly ringed with girdles, (some) pestles end up breaking in others' old mortars.

['Old' connotes experience, and 'others' unfamiliarity; and 'breaking' might just refer to failing (perhaps by getting 'exhausted' too early) rather than sustaining an actual fracture :)]

(3) Devanagari text:

 भद्दमुहमण्डणं चिय दरपिहुलं तह य कञ्चिसोहिल्लं|
अन्नेसि पिय मुसलं पडिछन्दं तेण वच्चामो||
(भद्रमुखमण्डनमेवेषत्पृथुलं तथा च काञ्चिशोभितं| अन्येषामेव मुषलं प्रतिच्छन्दं तेन व्रजामः||)

Harvard-Kyoto transliteration:

bhaddamuhamaNDaNaM ciya darapihulaM taha ya kaJcisohillaM|
annesi piya musalaM paDichhandaM teNa vaccAmo||
(bhadramukhamaNDanameveSatpRthulaM tathA ca kAJcizobhitam| anyeSAmeva muSalaM praticchandaM tena vrajAmaH||)

Loose translation: Pestles that have beautiful front-ends, and are slightly plump and adorned with girdles – even if they belong to others – are good substitutes (for the one I own); hence I am setting off (to try them).

Morning rituals 3

Today's quote is near identical to the one in my first post on the theme of sanctimony – as they say, great minds ... often copy other great minds.

Devanagari text:

पीठीप्रक्षालनेन क्षितिपतिकथया सज्जनानां प्रवादैः
प्रातर्नीत्वार्धयामं कुशकुसुमसमारम्भणव्यग्रहस्ताः|
पश्चादेते निमज्जत्पुरयुवतिकुचाभोगदत्तेक्षणार्धाः
प्राणायामापदेशादिह सरिति सदा वासराणि क्षिपन्ति||

Harvard-Kyoto transliteration:

pIThIprakSAlanena kSitipatikathayA sajjanAnAM pravAdaiH
prAtarnItvArdhyAmaM kuzakusumasamArambhaNavyagrahastAH|

pazcAdete nimajjatpurayuvatikucAbhogadattekSaNArdhAH
prANAyAmApadezAdiha sariti sadA vAsarANi kSipanti||

– Anonymous

Loose translation: They always spend the first hour and a half of the morning washing their seats, telling stories about kings, gossiping about good people, and busily gathering sacred grass and flowers (for offerings), and the rest of the day catching glimpses of the full breasts of city lasses taking ritual dips, while pretending to perform breathing exercises (pranayama) on this river bank. 

Source: 14th century Shaarngadharapaddhati Verse 4028.

Notes: I have translated पीठी (pIThI) as 'seat' for want of a better word, assuming it to be identical to the more common पीठिका (pIThikA) which can denote a seat (stool, bench, etc.) or the plinth of an idol – it is the known origin of words in many Northern Indic languages for a low rectangular (usually wooden) seat with short or no legs on which a deity may be placed, a preacher may station themselves while delivering sermons, or any person may sit while dining (Hindustani: पीड़ी, पिड़िया; Maithili: पीढ़ी; Bengali: পিঁড়ি).

kathA (कथा) often refers to a long and highly embellished narrative, and might have been used by the poet to suggest that the individuals targeted by the above couplet were inventing tall tales to convince their listeners of their connections to the powers that be.

Beauty

Hasyarnava (हास्यार्णव), "the ocean of laughter / comedy", a prahasana (प्रहसन) or farce authored by the Bengali playwright Jagadishwara Bhattacharya, is a "severe but grossly indelicate satire"¹ of uncertain date (it is placed in the mid-18th century by the scholar Kali Kumar Dutta Shastri). At one point in the play, Kumativarman (कुमतिवर्मन्), the minister of the king Anayasindhu (अनयसिन्धु), is asked by Bandhura (बन्धुरा), an aged madam, in the presence of the king, to describe the queen consort; the minister satisfies her curiosity with the following stanza.

Devanagari text:

दर्शेन्दुतुल्यवदनाञ्जनपुञ्जगौरी
मार्जारचारुनयना घटपीनमध्या|
प्रोत्तुङ्गपीनकुचचुम्बितनाभिदेशा
त्रैलोक्यमोहवसतिः खलु कामिनी सा||

– जगदीश्वरभट्टाचार्य

Harvard-Kyoto transliteration:

darzendutulyavadanAJjanapuJjagaurI
mArjAracArunayanA ghaTapInamadhyA|

prottuGgapInakucacumbitanAbhidezA
trailokyamohavasatiH khalu kAminI sA||

– jagadIzvarabhaTTAcArya

Loose translation: That lady, whose face resembles the new moon, who is as 'fair' as a heap of kohl, whose eyes are as 'beautiful' as those of a cat, whose midriff is as bloated as that of a pitcher, and whose 'prominent and plump' breasts (appear to) kiss her navel, is verily a source of 'amazement' for (the inhabitants) of all three worlds.

Notes: Of course, the parts गौरी, चारु, प्रोत्तुङ्गपीन (corresponding to the words in quotes in the above translation) are used ironically. Moreover, मोह can be interpreted as "amazement" or "enchantment" (as I have done above), assuming that the speaker is being sarcastic, or as "fainting / loss of consciousness", if you want to take him literally. 

1 Friedrich von Adelung, An Historical Sketch Of Sanscrit Literature: With Copious Bibliographical Notices Of Sanscrit Works And Translations, 1832.^↩

Double entendre 5: Brutal bedfellows

Here's a third chhekaapahnuti (छेकापह्नुति) or "say-and-deny" verse (the first two are here and here):

Devanagari text:

 रागी भिनत्ति निद्रां तल्पं न जहाति निष्ठुरं दशति|
चतुरे किं प्राणेशो न हि न हि सखि मत्कुणव्रातः||

Harvard-Kyoto transliteration:

rAgI bhinatti nidrAM talpaM na jahAti niSThuraM dazati|
cature kiM prANezo na hi na hi sakhi matkuNavrAtaH||

– Anonymous

Loose translation: 
Woman 1: Passionate (see notes), disrupts (my) sleep, does not leave (my) bed, and bites (me) mercilessly.
Woman 2: Clever woman, would that be the lord of your life?
Woman 1: Not at all, dear friend. But a swarm of bedbugs!

Source: This couplet is preserved in multiple modern anthologies:
(1) Verse 2 of the chapter on chhekaapahnutis of Subhashita Ratnakara; 
(2) Verse 3 of the chapter on apahnutis of Udbhata Shloka Maalaa (उद्भटश्लोकमाला), "a wreath of extraordinary verses", compiled by the eminent Calcuttan scholar Purnachandra De Kabyaratna "Udbhatasagara" B.A. (काव्यरत्नोद्भटसागरोपाधिकश्रीपूर्णचन्द्रदेव), second edition published c. 1937;
(3) Verse 7 of the chapter on apahnutis of Subhashita Ratna Bhandagara.

Notes: For an erotic reading, rAgI (रागी) must be interpreted as 'passionate' – from rAga (राग), "passion / romantic love". But rAga can also refer to any color (or dye), especially red. Hence, as an adjective of "a swarm of bedbugs", rAgI assumes the meaning "red-colored".

The wordplay here relies on the use of the masculine noun vrAta (व्रात) to denote a swarm or multitude. 

Purnachandra Udbhatasagara provides the following Bengali verse translation of this distich:

নায়িকা – সাতিশয় রাগী, দেয় ঘুম ভাঙ্গাইয়া;

কিছুতেই নাহি যায় বিছানা ছাড়িয়া;

এরূপ নিষ্ঠুর হায় না দেখি কখন;

দংশন করিয়া মোরে করে জ্বালাতন!

সখী – কহ লো চতুরে! ইনি তব প্রাণেশ্বর?

নায়িকা – না না সখি! তাহা নয়,– মৎকুণ-নিকর!

There are several risqué songs in Hindi and related languages where the bedbug (khatmal, खटमल) has been used as a metaphor for a stealthy male lover.