Apr 19, 2024
Apr 19, 2024
Martya Maanav ki vijay ka turya hun main
Urvashi! apne samay ka surya hun main
(I am the trumpet of the victory of the mortal man
O Urvashi! I am the Sun of my epoch)
This is what Pururuva, the hero of the Gyanpeeth awarded 'Urvashi', a milestone poetry of Ramdhankari Singh 'Dinkar', the poet laureate of India, proclaims to Urvashi, his fiancée. However, in the same verse, Dinkar's own personality finds its vent. Dinkar, born in 1908 in a village of Bihar (India), is among those great poets of the world whose poems reflect a rare blend of romance and valor. These two seemingly contradictory attributes assimilated in Dinkar. 'Urvashi' culminates this double nature of the poet.
This poetry for which Dinkar received the Gyanpeeth Award, one of the highest literary awards in India, is the love-story of Pururuva, a valiant king who ruled a part of the earth, and Urvashi, a fairy of the heaven. In his entire work, Dinkar glorifies the station of man. In his opinion, a man's rank is even superior to gods. 'Urvashi' is a reflection of the same glory of mankind. While Urvashi represents the kingdom of gods, Pururuva stands for the valor of mankind. The most beautiful immortal maiden of the universe, Urvashi, falls in love with a mortal king and an enamored Pururuva accepts her. The power of love makes a mighty king so docile that though he can fight with a hundred lions but a smile of Urvashi makes him to surrender before her. Thus the earth and the sky meet in the embrace of a powerful love.
However, "Urvashi" goes much beyond this simple love-story. This wonderful poetry is an expression of the same dual nature of romance and valor, beauty and soul, love and reality, knowledge and aesthetic sense. But what the conclusion is? What do we need : truth or beauty? Which of the two leads us to the Supreme Reality? Dinkar combines these two aspects of life in one single philosophy: both lead to the same destination. Those who follow the path of rigorous practice, refrain from the shadow of mortal beauty so that their soul is not sullied, those who meditate and strive to see the Supreme Truth in their inner beings while the entire world is asleep, are endeavoring to find the same 'Object' as the lover finds in the sweet embrace of his beloved. Through a different road, the tides of knowledge transport us to the world of Supreme Reality. Through yet another different road, the waves of beauty take us to that realm where the Most Beloved Beauty is seated.
'Urvashi' declares the victory of love. And victory of love is the victory of this mortal plane, the Earth. We are here in a world where flowers bloom, rivers warble, birds sing, bees hum. Love is the intrinsic force here. How can we remain untouched? Where will we escape? So why not to welcome it? But how? What is love? Is love there in the flesh? Does love reside in hugs and kisses, touches of warmth and desires of physical union? Dinkar says that this physical body is the emerging point of love because a form is needed for love’s birth. However, once born on the physical plane, love denies the limits of bodies. Once the fledgling of love is born out of the shell of the physical being, it strives to soar high in the realm of soul. And there it finds the Supreme Reality and there it meets the Most Great Beloved.
12-Mar-2006
More by : Suniti Chandra Mishra
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Here is Tagore's poem on Urvashi in translation - URVASHI Neither a mother nor a daughter Nor even a wife in an earthly home O fair Urvashi You are a denizen of heaven! Drawing a golden veil When evening descends on the meadows You do not light up a lamp In the corner of a home In the middle of a silent night With a tremulous heart and bashful eyes In shy halting steps you do not go To the chamber of a groom For your first union. Like the light of dawn You wear no veil You are never coy And hesitation you have none. Like a flower in full bloom Growing without any stem When did you blossom on your own! With a cup of honey in your right hand And a cup of poison in your left In the primeval spring you sprang Out of the churning oceans Whose waves like charmed snakes Laid at your feet their thousand hoods And the king of gods Paid homage to your naked form Blemishlessly white as a white flower. Like a bud yet to break Were you never a small child O you Urvashi forever young! Where did you spend your childhood days Under the seas unseen Playing with pearls and gems And sleeping on a coral bed The moment you rose above You appeared fully grown And in full bloom. From the time without a beginning To the whole world You have been an object of desire O fair Urvashi without compare! Sages have offered at your feet All the fruits of their meditation By your insinuating glance The world stirs up in youthful vigor The winds like messengers blind Carry your intoxicating scent All around Like greedy bees Intoxicated by honey The poets hum rhapsodic songs Restless like lightning Jingling your anklets You glide past them all. In the heavenly hall When you dance in wild ecstasy O you fleet-footed Urvashi! In waves the oceans dance In her waving cornfields The earth expresses her thrills In the skies Like gems of your necklace Pendant on your breast The stars fall The horizons are exposed bare When you are careless with your dress And from your waist It suddenly slips. Like the dawn That dawns on heaven's eastern mounts You have kept the world ever spellbound! Your slim beautiful body Is washed by world's tears And your feet its blood beautifies O you naked one with hair flowing free! The lust of this world is a lotus On it your feet you have lightly placed In the universal mind You are the playful partner of its dreams. For you all the world wails Do you hear O you Urvashi deaf and cruel! Will the time when you first appeared Ever return And you will rise again >From the depths of shoreless seas On a fresh morning We will see your fresh form And all your limbs will cry >From wounds Made by lustful glances of our eyes And in breaking waves The oceans will sing a song in your praise? No, no, such a time will never return O Urvashi Like the setting sun You are forever gone Even the happiest moments of spring Are now mixed with sighs Of someone's eternal separation In the full moon When everything smiles A sad tune like a long forgotten memory Saddens our mind. Yet a forlorn hope remains In our cries and cravings for one Who defies all bonds. One of Tagore's masterpieces one should read it if possible in the original. |