Page 133 - Eye of the beholder

This ornamental text on the literary rhetoric of love poetry and on the classification of love, love situations and lovers was written by the court poet of Orcha Keshav Das in 1591 C.E. It is a poem that emerged out of court literature rather than the devotional environment and that Rasikapriya was not intended for the general public. Keshav Das has stated that he composed this poem for the royal patron Maharaja Indrajeet and for the benefit for aspiring poets and connoisseurs and hence for a literate and knowledgeable audience. The literary nature of the text represented unprecedented challenges to the Rajput artists. Rasikapriya was from a special branch of literary rhetoric tradition, written in the Muktaka-Kavya or the single verse tradition. The self contained poems of Rasikapriya did not lend itself as readily to visualization. Of its two distinct types of verses, a two line ‘preliminary’ verse, which identified as a particular concept or context of love, or type of lovers; and a long ‘archetypal verse’ exemplifying the definitions with appropriate Radha-Krishna episodes, and only the latter could be illustrated. These archetypal verses with Krishna and Radha as the prototypical lovers formed the basis for the illustrations in the Rajput tradition.
Idealized sexuality is a prominent theme in the poetry and paintings of Rasikapriya. Keshav Das uses this subject as means for illuminating his theory on the concept of love underlined with the religious philosophy of Vaisnavism. He emphasizes on Sringara rasa, the erotic sentiment based on the emotion of love, as the prime rasa of Rasikapriya. Through the theory of Sringara rasa he brings to forefront discussions on sexuality. He identifies Krishna as the romantic hero, the nayaka – the god who is also a lover. And he builds an index of three hundred and sixty nayikas, representing female sexuality in almost all its aspects. The concept of love in Rasikapriya can be understood in three categories – first as the poetic theory of Sringara rasa, which is an aesthetic experience; secondly as Kamasutra i.e. the knowledge of the arts of lovemaking; and thirdly as devotional Bhakti philosophy, which is a spiritual experience. Keshav Das blends these three aspects of love into a beautiful rendition in his poetry.
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