Page:Love in Hindu Literature.djvu/15

 LOVE IN HINDU LITERATURE

India has been opened up fronl an interesting angle in Coomaraswamy's Songs of Vidyapati. After the ap- petite of the reading public, so far as things Indian may be said to have any reading public, has been jaded with too much of Tagore's "offerings," ecstasies, Kablrisms, and "dark chambers," the veteran student of Hindu art and art-history has come forward with a bit of India in its joy-form. He reveals to us a world in which the sweets of life turn even pangs into joys :

" Drunken are the honey-bees in honey-season With the honey of the honey-flowers : In Honey- Brindaban resides The Honey-Lord of honey-love. Amid the companies of honey-maids Is honey-honey-dalliance : Honeyed are the blissful instruments of music. Honeyed hands are beating honey-measures. Honeyed is the dance's sway, Honeyed are the movements of the dancers, Honeyed are their happy songs. And honeyed are the words of Vidyapati."

Vidyapati is " roses, roses all the way," and is a veritable Spenserian " Bower of Bliss." His Padabali, or "The Idylls of Radha," are songs of Love and of lovers' ways, of Madana, the Lord of love, and of Va- santa or Spring, his friend, of chatakas and chakoras,* I) partridge.