And What of Those Arbors
teṣām gopavadhūvilāsasuhṛdāṃ rādhārahaḥsākśiṇāṃkṣemaṃ bhadra kalindaśailatanayātīre latāveśmanāmvicchinne smaratalpakalpanamṛducchedopayoge 'dhunāte jāne jaraṭhī bhavanti vigalannīlatviṣaḥ pallavāḥ
teṣāṃ. those
gopa-vadhū-vilāsa-suhṛdāṃ. (bv. cmpd. with vine-groves)
gopa-vadhū. cowherd’s wife
vilāsa. passion, seduction, erotic desire
suhṛdāṃ. love, love-play
rādhā-rahaḥ-sākṣiṇāṃ. (bv. cmpd. for bowers: witnesses to secret affairs of Radha)
rahaḥ. secret
sākṣiṇāṃ. viewers, witnesses (literally, with eyes)
kṣemaṃ. prosperous, safe
bhadra. blessed, auspicious
kalinda-śaila. Kalinda Mountain
tanayā-tīre. daughter riverbank
tanayā. child, offspring (I think it means the bank is the descendant of Kalinda Mountain)
tīre. riverbank
latā-veśmanām. vine-groves, bowers or dwellings
vicchinne. (loc.) cut, torn, split
smara. love
talpa. bed
kalpana. arranged, made, fashioned
mṛdu. tender, pliant, soft
ccheda. cut
upayoge. enjoyment, love
adhunā. now, today
te. those (pallavāḥ, flowers)
jāne. I know (wonder)
jaraṭhī. bent, drooping, yellowed
bhavanti. (have they) become
vigala. dried up
nīla. dark blue
tviṣaḥ. splendor, beauty
pallavāḥ. buds, blossoms, shoots [End Page 34]
And what of thosearbors of vinesthat grow where the riverdrops away from Kalinda Mountain?They conspired in the lovegames of herding girlsand watched over the veiledaffairs of Radha.Now that the daysare gone when I cut theirtendrils, and laid themdown for couches of love,I wonder if they’vegrown brittle and iftheir splendid blue flowershave dried up.
If early dates for Vidyā are correct—around the seventh century—then this would be one of the first moments Radha steps from shadowy origins into poetry. Vidyā brings her onstage, confident that readers will know the story: that Radha is the cowherd girl beloved by Krishna, that their love goes through painful dark nights of separation, that their erotic union mirrors the human spirit’s approach to divine wholeness. In Sanskrit poetry, the full account would appear in Jayadeva’s Gīta-Govinda (twelfth century).
Vidyā’s poem shows that the changing phases of Krishna and Radha’s love were known to poets long before Jayadeva wrote. The late Barbara Miller, a fine scholar of Sanskrit, has traced Radha’s name from its use for a two-star constellation in the sky (a force of nature) to its transference on Earth to this particular woman. Miller also suggests Vidyā’s poem here may be in Radha’s voice.
Yet the speaker sounds far removed from her youth, wistful for days long past or nights of love. The river is the Yāmunā (now Jumna), identified with Krishna’s biogeography. Kalinda Mountain forms the backdrop—the watershed—for Krishna’s rasa-līlā, or circle dance.
Vidyā calls the riverbank tanayā, daughter, of the mountain; another name for the river in India’s sacred geography is Kalindī. An arbor or bower in the woods is where [End Page 35] Krishna and Radha first consummated their love, on a bed of flowered cuttings. The flowers are nīla, dark blue, a color sometimes associated with Krishna. It is also the color to which Vidyā likens her own complexion in her poem “Not Knowing Me.”
The story of Radha may have been common property, circulated through villages by storytellers, dancers, puppeteers, theologians. But the emotion here is all Vidyā’s. [End Page 36]
Andrew Schelling, born in 1953 at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, Washington, D.C., has written, edited, or translated twenty books. Early opposition to American involvement in Vietnam, plus an encounter with India’s texts, set him on a lifelong engagement with Asian literature. He studied Sanskrit at the University of California at Berkeley, and began to translate from its classical poetry tradition around 1978. His first book, Dropping the Bow: Poems of Ancient India, received the Academy of American Poets translation award in 1992, the first time the Academy had honored work done from an Asian language. Schelling’s own poetry and essays emerge from the Southern Rocky Mountain bioregion in which he lives. Recent books of poetry wrangle with the Arapaho language as a way of reading landscape and the natural cycles; they include From the Arapaho Songbook and A Possible Bag. He has edited The Oxford Anthology of Bhakti Literature and Love and the Turning Seasons: India’s Poetry of Spiritual and Erotic Longing (forthcoming from Counterpoint Press). Living on the Front Range of Colorado, he is active on land-use issues and teaches at Naropa University. He also teaches regularly at Deer Park Institute, in India’s Himalayan foothills.
