Several centuries have passed since the time of Bhartrihari, the author of   Today he is almost a legendary figure. Tradition speaks of the poets Kalidasa and Bhartrihari as being contemporaries while critics even say Bhartrihari was an elder brother of king Vikramaditya to whom he transferred his crown.

Classical Sanskrit poetry of Bhartrihari’s time, and literature in general, was characterised, as Sri Aurobindo writes, by “a sort of lucid density of literary structure; in style a careful blending of curious richness with concentrated force and directness of expression, in thought and matter a crowded vividness and pregnant lucidity”. The “infinite harmonic variations of four–lined stanza” as provided by classical prosody, gave the poet of the age ample scope and opportunity to express some vivid and beautiful picture, “some great or apposite thought, some fine–edged sentiment. If a picture, it might be crowded with felicitous detail; if a thought, with pregnant suggestion; if a sentiment, with happy shades of feeling…”. And Bhartrihari with his talent made the whole poetical expression, “perfectly lucid and firm in its unity.” A poetry that successfully achieves the above manner of expression was called by the ancients a In the words of Sri Aurobindo, a may be defined as “a thing well said and therefore memorable. A successful throws an arc-light on a passing object; there is the “instantaneous concentration of vision, the… carefully-created luminousness and crowded lucidity of separate detail in the clear-cut unity of the picture.” Bhartrihari’s belongs to this category of poetry.

Sri Aurobindo has given his translation the title, “The Century of Life”. The nature of the rendition may best be stated in his own words: “The principle of translation followed has been to preserve faithfully the thought, some tenuity”, as Donne poetically expressed ‘gold beaten to airy thinness’. This is the reason why Sri Aurobindo did not attempt to preserve the peculiar qualities of the , “Otherwise the finer associations and suggestions of the original would have been lost or blurred”. In his own words: “I hold it more pardonable in poetical translation to unstring the language than to dwarf the spirit and mutilate the thought. For in poetry it is not the verbal substance that we seek from the report or rendering of foreign masterpieces; we desire rather the spiritual substance, the soul of the poet and the soul of his poetry.”

For the next few months we will be presenting Sri Aurobindo’s English translation of the of Bhartrihari, along with the original Sanskrit text.

A serpent in a basket crushed despaired,
            High organs all with hunger weak and worn,
While patiently at night the mouse prepared
            A hole in that self basket. Ere the morn
By his own industry, such Nature’s law,
The patient labourer fills the serpent’s maw.
He with that food replenished, by the way
            The mighty master of thy sad decay
            And fortunate rising, Fate, the godhead old.

FATE AND FREEWILL

“The actions of our former life control
            This life’s sweet fruit or bitter; even the high
            Intellect follows where these point its eye.”
All this is true, µ O yet, be wise of soul,
Think ere thou act, thou who wouldst reach the goal.

ILL LUCK

A bald man, goes the story, when the noon
Beat his plagued brows into a fiery swoon,
Desiring dimness and cool place was led
By subtle fate into a high palm’s shade.
There where he shelter hoped, a giant fruit
Crashed on his pate and broke with hurried bruit.
Wherever the unfortunate hides his head,
Grief and disaster in his footprints tread. 

THE FOLLIES OF FATE

Sometimes the gods build up a very man
            Whom genius, virtue, glory crowd to bless,
            And Earth with him adorned grows measureless.
Then if death early spoil that noble plan,
Ah, blind stupidity of Fate that throws
From her brow the jewel, from her breast the rose!

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