Preface
LOVE between man and woman has always been a theme of
Hindu poetry. With Kalidasa, the Shakespeare or Goethe
of classical Sanskrit literature, (who flourished in the first
half of the fifth century in the reign of Chandragupta ,
one of the Indian Charlemagnes), .love between the sexes
was a principal motif of his epic, lyric and dramatic works.
But when a Hindu speaks of his love-literature, he thinks
first and foremost of the mediaeval pastoral lyrics, the Fadabali, which
may be conveniently described as the " Idylls of Radha," of which
Radha is the heroine and Krishna or Kanu her lover. The present
essay seeks mainly to interpret a few of these lyrics as englished by
Dr. A. K. Cooraaraswamy.
In mediaeval Bengal writers on love were legion. They are com- monly known as the trouveres or minstrels of Vaishnavism, a ciilt of bhakti or devotion, which corresponds to the Jodo Buddhism of Japan and the Sufi mysticism of Persia. In Vaishnava parlance the name, Krishna, is divine, and Radha semi-divine. Radha-Krishna literature is thus liable to be regarded as an allegory of the mystical union be- tween God and the Soul. The present writer pleads for a thoroughly human and secular interpretation, unless, of course, the relation between the sexes be considered as something spiritual or divine. The treat- ment of love by Vaishnava poets, by Vidyapati in particular, is so .plainly and emphatically in the language- of the senses, that it is impossible to .read any super-sensual meaning into it. If sexual love is mysticism, Vidyapati is a mystic.
It has been a tendency among scholars, both Indian and foreign, writing on Hindu history, philosophy, science, literature, arts and crafts, and even industry, to label :the successive stages in .the evolution
