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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.

Two Kinds of Loss

These things are deaths, ill-counsel ruining kings,
            The son by fondling spoiled, by him the race,
Attachment, to the sage’s heart that clings,
            And natural goodness marred by company base,
The Brahmin by scant study unbrahminised,
            Sweet shame by wine o’erthrown, by wandering long
            Tillage uncared, good fortune follies wrong;
But wealth in double way men may reject,
Nobly by giving by neglect.

The Triple Way of Wealth

Three final roads wealth takes and only three,
To give, enjoy or lose it utterly:
And his whose miser hand to give is slow
Nor yet enjoys, the worst third way shall go.

Circumstance

There is no absoluteness in objects. See
            This indigent man aspire as to a prize
To handfuls of mere barely-bread! yet he
            A few days past, fed full with luxuries,
Held for a trifle earth and all her skies.
            Not in themselves are objects great or small,
But circumstance works on the elastic mind,
            to widen or contract. The view is all,
And by our inner state the world’s defined.

 Advice to a King

He fosters, King, the calf who milks the cow,
            And thou who takest of the wide earth tax,
Foster the people; with laborious brow
            And sleepless vigil strive till nought it lacks.
Then shall the earth become thy faery tree
Of plenty, pleasure, fame, felicity.

Policy

Often she lies, wears sometimes brow of truth,
            Kind sometimes, sometimes ravening-merciless;
Now open-handed, full of bounty and grace,
And now a harpy; now sweet honey and ruth
Flows from her tongue, now menace harsh or stern;
            This moment with a bottomless desire
            She gathers millions in, the next will tire,-
Endless expense takes prodigally its turn.
Thus like a harlot changes momently
In princes the chameleon Policy.

To the Rainlark

O rainlark, rainlark, flitting near the cloud,
            Attentive hear, winged friend, a friendly word.
All vapours are not like, the heavens that shround
Darkening; some drench the earth for noble fruit,
Some are vain thunderers wandering by with bruit:
            Sue not to each thou seest then, O bird;
If humbly entreat thou must, let few have heard.

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