Friday, October 07, 2005

Vidyapati

Also known as Maithil Kokil Vidyapati (Vidyapati, the cuckoo of Maithili). Vidyapati's position as a poet and maker of language has been described as "analogous to that of Dante in Italy and Chaucer in England."
Vidyapati is primarily known for his love-lyrics, composed in Maithili, a language spoken around Mithila (regions on the northern Bihar region on the Ganga), closely related to the abahattha form of early Bengali.
The love songs of Vidyapati, which describe the sensuous love story of Radha and Krishna, follow a long line of Vaishnav love poetry, popular in Eastern India. This tradition which uses the language of physical love to describe spiritual love, was a reflection of a key turn in Hinduism, initiated by Ramanuja in the 11th century which advocated an individual self realization through direct love. Similar to the reformation in Christianity, this movement empowered the common man to realize God directly, without the intervention of learned priests.
And finally the poem. What imagery I tell you!

All My Inhibition
All my inhibition left me in a flash,
When he robbed me of my clothes,
But his body became my new dress.
Like a bee hovering on a lotus leaf
He was there in my night, on me!

More here

No comments: