A18 – W2 Brajabuli Songs from the “Wishing Stone of Nightly Songs”

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To open our Lunchtime Lyrics series 2018-19, we will read Brajabuli songs. These poems are part of an ongoing project of translation of the earliest anthology of Brajabuli, Bengali, and Sanskrit Vaishnava lyric poems titled Kshanadagitachintamani and compiled by Vishvanath Chakravarti in the late 17th century. Vishnavath Chakravarti was a major Gaudiya scholar who is mostly known form his Sanskrit commentaries on the canonical works of the sect. He also composed vernacular poetry under the pen name “Harivallabha.”

The text and translation of the songs (handouts will be distributed on Monday): https://uchicago.box.com/v/a18w2a

(For other translations of Vaishnava poems from eastern India that I presented in previous Lunchtime Lyrics sessions, see  S18-W8, W18-W1, A17-W7, A17-W5.)

S18 – W9 Performance of Jayadeva’s Gitagovinda

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For the grand finale of the first year of our Lunchtime Lyrics series, Pranathi Diwakar (singing), Nikhil Mandalaparthy (on violin), and Akash Dixit (on tabla) will perform the 14th song of Jayadeva’s Gitagovinda.

The text and Barabar Stoler Miller’s translation are available here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1289US_Ljn-fwRwBVavQx8kaSRhnwP91Dv5JowAsr9aM/edit?usp=sharing

Please, note that we will meet in Foster 103.


Krishna with Radha in a Forest Glade: Folio from the Second Guler Gita Govinda Series. Collection Barbara and Eberhard Fischer

S18 W6 Spring celebration

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Vasant poetry session! In this special gathering we will read our favorite spring poems. The texts will be made available on the blog over the weekend and distributed when we meet on Monday.

Vasanta ragini. Deccani muraqqaʿ (18th AD). Walters Ms. W.669, Album of Indian miniatures and Persian calligraphy

A poem by Hafiz translated by Ayelet: https://uchicago.box.com/s/quj8a1kiuxrrt4bwnnislcykstx3cqvc

A few verses from Munir Lahuri‘s Mazhar-i gul (a mathnawi in which the poet describes the natural beauty of Bengal) translated by Thibaut: https://uchicago.box.com/s/980c8w5a57oyg6pcezq7t6nprqye4cao 

S18-W4 Iconoclastic verses of Kabir and Sundardas

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This week begins with a sākhi (essentially a didactic dohā or couplet) by the poet-saint Sundardas (1596-1689) of the Dadu Panth religious tradition of Rajasthan. Sundardas is known for bringing a highly literary and scholastic style to the so-called nirguṇ (‘without-qualities’) tradition of bhakti in north India. This nirguṇ tradition of thought (developed among several religious communities of the period) espouses a belief in an ineffable Divine that lies beyond everyday sensory experience; the tradition correspondingly criticizes saguṇ (‘with-qualities’) conceptions of God, including those that imagine God in anthropomorphic forms. This often includes critiques of image-worship and temple-based ritual, and the social structures that are implicated within them. Continue reading →

S18 – W2 and 3 The glorious body of the light of Muhammad

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This week we will read a description of the glorious body of the “light of Muhammad” from Muhmmad Shafi’s Bengali Nurnama (Chittagong, 17th AD).

Here are the text (Middle Bengali in Arabic script) and the translation (the final version will be distributed on Monday): https://uchicago.box.com/s/s5rkpbzrudxbx3cbg8hfzs2o2ah4bmej

This text is part of a book project that I (Th. d’Hubert) am currently working on (see the synopsis and TOC here).