Vidyākara’s Subhāṣitaratnakoṣa ranks amongst the earliest anthologies of Sanskrit poetry, literally ‘well turned verses’ (subhāṣitas), with sections dedicated to the praise of Buddhist and Brahmanical deities, eulogies on kings and poets, the seasons and not least of all the manifold dispositions of the lover, a favoured albeit hackneyed genre in Sanskrit poetry. The text avails little by way of biographical information but it is clear that the author was Buddhist in affiliation and was writing in the Pala country in the 11th century, perhaps associated with the Jagaddala monastery as suggested by codicological evidence. The work is of outstanding literary value not least for its discriminating taste but also for citing authors whose works are otherwise lost to the present. The majority of the latter, amongst whose innovations include poetry with rural themes, also appear to emanate from the Pala country and were either contemporaries or temporally close to Vidyākara. The text has been preserved in all but a few manuscripts of Nepali and Tibetan provenance, largely of difficult access but has been fortuitously rescued from obscurity by the elegant translations of D.H.H. Ingalls:
218:
Now come the days of changing beauty,
of summer’s parting as the monsoon comes,
when the eastern gales come driving in,
perfumed with blossoming arjuna and sal trees,
tossing the clouds as smooth and dark as sapphires:
days that are sweet with the smell of rain-soaked earth.
Bhavabhūti
568:
When he had taken off my clothes,
unable to guard my bosom with my slender arms,
I clung to his very chest for garment.
But when his hand crept down below my hips,
what was to save me, sinking in a sea of shame,
if not the god of love, who teaches us to swoon?
Vallana
573:
The night was deep,
the lamp shone forth with heavy flame,
and that darling is an expert
in the rite which passion prompts;
but, my dear, he made love slowly,
slowly and with limbs constrained,
for the bed kept up a creaking
like an enemy with gnashing teeth
Anonymous
868: Sunset
Moths begin their fatal flight
into the slender flame;
Bees, made blind by perfume,
wait in the closing bud;
The dancing-girls are putting on their paint
as one may guess from here
by the jingling of their bracelets
as they bend their graceful arms
Malayarāja
1286:
The talkative and frivolous prevail,
never the good in the world’s opinion.
Waves ride on the ocean’s top;
pearls lie deep.
Anonymous
1731:
Those who scorn me in this world
have doubtless special wisdom,
so my writings are not made for them;
But are rather with the thought that some day will be born,
since time is endless and the world is wide,
one whose nature is the same as mine.
Bhavabhūti
Selected from Vidyākara’s Subhāṣitaratnakosa, trans. Ingalls, D.H.H., An Anthology of Sanskrit Court Poetry, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1965
Jambudvīpa 