To kick off the Lunchtime Lyrics series, we read two short poems in early Hindi (also known as Brajbhasha): although both poems were written by contemporaneous poets in eastern Rajasthan, they represent very different genres, styles, and sensibilities.

The first poem is a dohā or couplet by Bihari Lāl (1599-1663), a poet at the court of Jai Singh I in Amber (Jaipur). His many dohās (collected together in the Satsāi or Seven Hundred Verses) deal primarily with themes of love and pleasure, as well as heroism and statecraft/comportment (nīti).

तंत्री नाद कबित्त रस सरस राग रति रंग ।
अनबूड़े बूड़े तरे जे बूड़े सब अंग ।।

tantrī nāda kabitta rasa sarasa rāga rati raṅga
anabūṛe būṛe tare je būṛe saba aṅga

Instrumental music, the flavor of poetry,
a sweet raga, and the pleasure of making love:
Those who are half-immersed in them will drown,
but those who are immersed in every detail [or fully immersed with all their limbs] will float.

The pleasure of the verse stems partly from the double meaning of aṅga as both ‘limb of the body’ and ‘field of knowledge.’ The overall import is clear: one should cultivate a taste for music (both its rhythmic and melodic intricacies), poetry, and the art of love. And not only that; one should immerse themselves fully in all aspects of these areas of knowledge, so that they can truly ‘drown’ in a sea of pleasure.

The second poem is a pad (or lyric) by Sundardas (1599-1689) of the Dadu Panth, a bhakti religious community that coalesced in eastern Rajasthan around the turn of the seventeenth century. Sundardas was born into a Jain Khandelwal family, joined the community’s monastic order as a child, was educated in Banaras, and returned to Fatehpur (near Jaipur) to establish a monastery.

देखहु साह रमइया ऐसा सो रहै अपरछन बैसा ।टेक।
यहु हाट कियौ संसारा ता मैं बिबिधि भांति ब्यौपारा ।
सब जीव सौदागर आया जिनि बनज्या तैसा पाया ।
किनहूं बनिजी खलि खारी किनहूं लइ लौंग सुपारी ।
किनहूं लिये मूंगा मोती किनहूं लइ काचा की पोती ।
किनहूं लइ औषढ मूरी किनहूं केसर कस्तुरी ।
किनहूं लियौ बहुत अनाजा किनहूं लियौ ल्हसण प्याजा ।
संतनि लीयौ हरि हीरा तिन स्यौं कीयौ हम सीरा ।
दुख दलिद्र निकट न आवै यौं सुंदर बनिया गावै ।

dekhahu sāha ramaïyā aisā so rahai aparachana baisā
yahu hāṭa kiyau saṁsārā tā maiṁ bibidhi bhāṁti byaupārā
saba jīva saudāgara āyā jini banajyā taisā pāyā
kinahūṁ banijī khali khārī kinahuṁ laï lauṁga supārī
kinahūṁ liye mūṁgā motī kinahūṁ laï kāca kī potī
kinahūṁ laï auṣadha mūrī kinahūṁ kesara kastūrī
kinahūṁ liyau bahuta anājā kinahūṁ liyau lhasaṇa pyājā
saṁtani līyau hari hīrā tina syauṁ kīyau hama sīrā
dukha dalidra nikaṭa na āvai yauṁ sundara baniyā gāvai

Look! King Ram is such
That He remains hidden like this. (Refrain)
He has made this market of saṁsārā
In which there are all types of businesses (byaupārā).
All beings have come as merchants (saudāgar)–
They earn according to their trade (banajyā).
Someone has traded in oil cake and salts,
Someone else has brought cloves and supārī.
Someone has brought coral and pearl,
Someone else has brought beads of glass.
Someone has brought medicinal roots,
Someone else saffron and musk.
Someone took a lot of grain,
Someone else took garlic and onions.
The sants took the diamond of Hari,
Which I [took] from them and placed on my head.
[Now] pain and destitution do not come near,
So sings Sundardas the baniyā.

The beauty of this poem is in the movement back and forth between the individual verses, which describe everyday commodities and activities in a market, and the refrain, which reminds us that God (in this case nirguṇ or formless) pervades everything we see, even if He is hidden. Thus the Absolute is hidden in the quotidian. Dadu Panthi saints like Sundardas often suggested that, although one must live in the world of saṁsāra with its material concerns, simply keeping in mind the presence of a higher Truth could lead to liberation. This poem reflects that theology. The chāp or poet’s ‘signature’ in the final verse also adds charm to the poem: although Sundardas began life in this world as a baniyā (merchant) in the worldly sense, being born into a Khandelwal baniyā family, he has now become a merchant in a different sense, a merchant of God’s word.

— T. Williams