Review of Śatakatraya (ca. 530)
Bhartṛhari (writer).
Read in 2025.
Read in Rolf Jonsson’s selection and translation to Swedish, from 2022.
Jonsson’s version is 183 poems, well framed by a critical review of how little is known about the poet, and by end notes on mythological and other subjects of the poems. The most amazing of these end notes explains that the poet’s particular ideal of feminine beauty was common in his time and place:
Här kan det vara på sin plats att beskriva det gammalindiska kvinnoidealet – getingmidja, bröst så tunga att kvinnan tvangs gå något framåtböjd, kraftiga lår och breda höfter.
At the time of my reading, the same ideal was common in terminally online communities, except for the detail that the woman is “forced to slump forward” (tvangs gå något framåtböjd) by the weight of her own chest. This idealization of a medical risk factor is conspicuously sexist and seems at odds with the detail of powerful thighs. It puts a crimp in the erotic poems, but so does the more innocent cliché of lotus blossoms for eyes. The results are not all bad. The poem that Jonsson numbers 88, and D. D. Kosambī numbered 92, is a good example:
Dansande ögonbryn kröker ögonen till bågar,
sidoblickar, tjusande röster, skratt som dör ut i generad tystnad,
närmande sig med lekfullt dröjande steg
för att sedan bli stående stilla;
det är kvinnans smycken — och vapen.
Bhartṛhari is most interesting when he lets sensuality collide into the Hindu concepts of asceticism and renouncing the world. There’s an obvious moral tension there, but the poet is not judgemental about it. The worldliness that he most wants to renounce is not sexuality, but servility to wealth and power, including his own civil service. I happened to read this collection in parallel with On the Consolation of Philosophy (524). Its author, Boethius, also had some dark thoughts on servility, but was more uptight. See for example Jonsson’s 24, which is also Kosambī’s 24, where the poet tabulates discreditation:
Den blygsamme ses som oföretagsam,
den som hängivet bedriver askes kallas hycklare,
den renhjärtade tros vara falsk,
den hjältemodige kallas grym,
den ärlige anses vettlös,
den som talar vänligt får heta ynkrygg,
den briljante kallas arrogant,
vältalaren sägs vara pratsjuk,
den lugne och sansade anses sakna framåtanda —
vilken av de godas förtjänster svartmålas inte av de usla?
Bhartṛhari sees the irony, he sees the systematic nature of these lies, and he understands that they serve a purpose, which is the defence of the wicked. This is an emotional intelligence that Boethius, who was himself executed for his honesty and strong sense of justice, did not have. Jonsson’s 50, Kosambī’s 51, is a similarly clever observation, and pithier:
Den rike är av god familj, han är klok, lärd, en finsmakare,
dessutom en god talare och en stilig karl —
alla goda egenskaper hänger på guldet.
Bhartṛhari sees his own hypocrisy serving the rich and powerful, but unlike Boethius, he does not get lost trying to justify injustice. He stops at Jonsson’s 165, Kosambī’s 186:
Vunnet kungaväldet tillfredsställande varje begär — än sen då?
Foten satt på fiendernas huvuden — än sen då?
Vänner funna tack vare rikedom — än sen då?
Om människornas kroppar ägde bestånd en helg kalpa — än sen då?
Bhartṛhari and Boethius, brothers on opposite sides of Eurasia and in different religions, shared a false sense that temporal life is a veil thrown over deeper truths, and that bad people just can’t see through it. The Indian poet’s tension between sense and sensibility is resolved in Jonsson’s 179, Kosambī’s 253:
Munnen uttorkad av törst –
du dricker uppfriskande välsmakande vatten;
plågad av hunger –
glupskt slukar du ris med kött och annat tillbehör;
lustans eld bränner –
hårt och kraftfullt famnar du en kvinna;
människor missuppfattar njutningen, den bara avhjälper plåga.