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Urvashi:
The Poetry of Love's Victory
by Suniti Chandra Mishra

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.     

March 12, 2006