Keśavadāsa’s Rāmacandrika
The proof of Keśavadāsa’s permanent and undisputed place in Hindi literature is Rāmacandrika. According to Keśava’s own account, the sage Valmiki appeared to him in a dream and asked him to write this book. The sage gave him the mantra of Rāma, saying, Rāma is the only truth, there is no other’. When Keśava asked the saint, ‘How can sorrow be removed?’ he replied ‘It is Hari (Rāma) who will remove it.’ So the poet chose Rāma as his deity, and undertook the sacred task of singing the praises of Rāma, ‘whose splendour ever shines in the whole universe’.
The text is text based on the Rāmāyaṇa but is disjointed, and contains largely descriptions of rivers, lakes, mountains, gardens, seasons, and the like, and the poet’s views about various matters like the art of good government, the virtues of a good king, the sorrows of youth and age, and the vices of priesthood. In portraying the characters of the story, Kesava takes a novel and unorthodox angle and does not idolise them. The book is full of excellent and picturesque descriptions — of nature, of cities, of human behaviour and psychology, which in themselves are a mine of scholarship and entertainment.
Keśava’s descriptions of distress and sorrow are poignant, as when in Rāmacandrika he describes Rāma’s distress in not finding Sīta in his hermitage? Later on when he learns of her abduction, from the bird Jaṭāyu, it maddens him and he wanders about asking the birds and trees where she is. In the same manner Keśava vividly expresses the feeling of elation, as for example Sīta’s elation when Hanumān brings her, in Lanka, Rāma’s ring. In the exuberance of her joy she addresses the ring itself: ‘Tell me, O, Ring, is Rāma in good health? And Lakṣmaṇa, my eternal well wisher — the self-respecting, dear Lakṣmaṇa, is he well? Oh, wise and gentle Hanumān, tell me yourself, for this Ring speaks not — O, why does it not speak?’ Hanumān replies with wit: ‘O, mother, the ring answers not, for you address it by the wrong name. Due to separation from you, Rāma has become so thin with grief that he wears this ring now as a bracelet, and calls it by that name. So not being addressed by its correct name it does not respond.’
The book provides an excellent study of the life of the kings of that time — the games they played, their daily routine, durbars, sports, and frolics. The most unique feature of Rāmacandrika, however, is its superb descriptions of natural beauty-rivers, lakes, forests, gardens, of the rising sun, and of the seasons. There are also brilliant descriptions of places and things — the city of Ayodhya, Daśaratha’s elephants, the game of polo, the ceremony of Palkachar, and the water-sport of lovely women. In such descriptions Keśava is incomparable.
His wild flights of fancy, his expressive, sometimes quaint metaphors, make them uncommonly interesting. Describing the rising sun Keśava says that it looks like ‘an auspicious jar painted all over with vermilion’, or ‘as the dust of red rubies powdered by the sharp hooves of the sun’s horses. Describing the full moon he calls it a ball of flowers which the wife of heaven’s god had smelt and then thrown away. And again, as though it were the looking glass of Rati, wife of the god of love! Describing the gray hair on he body of an old man he says, ‘Are these gray hair, or sprouts of Death, which is very close? Or is it the senseless soul which has been pricked all over with dry thorns? Or are they the roots of some disease, or countless letters of mental anguish written on the forehead? Or has old age put the soul in a cage of arrows, or imprisoned it in an embroidered shawl?
Describing the whiteness of the bed on which Rāma prepares to sleep, the poet says, ‘it is of a whiteness which was never heard of, and it seems as if the skin of the moon itself had been taken off and spread’. The flags which wave in Ayodhya are compared to a devotee standing all the time on one leg: ‘The flags are very beautiful and perfectly straight, but do not remain still even for half a moment; and they are devotedly austere because they bear staves and stand on one leg all the time.’
For instance, he recounts what Saint Viśvāmitra said to the River Sarayu when he arrives at Ayodhya.
“Although you flow
twisting and turning,
you make others straight
by the mere touch of your water.
You flow downward,
but raise to heaven fallen sinners.
Though intoxicated elephants
wash themselves in you,
your waves purify evil men.”
The River Sarayu is a tributary of the Gaṅga on which the sacred city of Ayodhya lies. Tulasīdāsa says in the Rāmāyaṇa : “The Vedās and Purāṇas say that the very sight, touch, and taste of the Sarayu river, washes away sins. This river is very holy. Its grandeur is eternal. of which even Sarasvati of stainless wisdom can’t relate’. Ramayana, Balakanda 341).
A similar poetic description of the Godāvari is found in the Rāmacandrika. Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa have built a hut of leaves by the Godāvari river and have made it their temporary home. The river Godāvari which enters into the Bay of Bengal on the eastern coast of India is a large perennial river. In his description Keśavadāsa follows his usual pattern of deifying the river and praising its purifying qualities. The description closely follows the one of the river Sarayu.
“Near my hut flows
the sin-destroying Godāvari, with waves
high, tempestuous, and majestic;
the perfumed lotuses in it
round which blackbees hover
are like the numerous eyes of god Indra,
and captivate the soul.
Even if a sinner
bathes in the Godāvari
he goes to heaven.
As Brahmā’s mind
is forever fixed on paradise,
so the Godāvari keeps flowing towards the sea.
The sea is like
Godāvari’s husband;
she is always faithful to him,
yet she pleases all those men who come to her.
She carries sinners
swiftly heaven’s way,
yet keeps the sea stagnant.
This brimming river
gives immortality to all who bathe in it:
says Keśavadāsa, it destroys
the grief of those who drink its water.”
When Rāma and his army reached the mighty ocean between the South coast of Bhārata and Laṅka, and started building a bridge for the army to go over. The poet gives an imaginative description of the ocean, as Rāma and his army saw it.
“The sea
is like god Mahādeva’s body,
containing poisonous plants, germs,
and the nectar-filled moon reflected in its waters.
It is like the house of Kaṣyapa,
and captivates the minds
of gods and demons
by its immensity.
The sea
is like the heart of a saint
in which Hari dwells for ever:
no poet can describe its eternal splendour.
The logs of sandalwood bobbing on its billows
seem like the wavy lines of sandal-wood paste
upon the limbs of men.
The huge carnivorous fishes
living in the sea
are like evil thoughts
of lust, greed, anger, delusion, and excitement,
in the mind of a wicked man.
Though full of wealth
this ocean
is a great sinner, ostracised:
no mendicant begs alms of it
no visitor drinks its water.”
The above are excerpts from Selections From Rāmacandrika of Keśavadāsa. K. P. Bahadur. India: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers Pvt. Limited, 1976.
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