“Bouquet of Rasa” & “River of Rasa” (Clay Sanskrit Library, 19)

Bhanu is probably the most famous Sanskrit poet that no one today has ever heard of. His €œBouquet of Rasa€ and €œRiver of Rasa,€ both composed in the early sixteenth century, probably under the patronage of the Nizam of Ahmadnagar in western India, attracted the attention of the most celebrated commentators in early modern India. Some of the greatest painters of Mewar and Basohli vied to turn his subtle poems into pictures. And his verses were prized by poets everywhere: Abu al-Fazl, the preeminent scholar at Akbar€s court, translated them into Persian, and, Kshetr¡yya, the great Andhra poet of the next century, adapted them into Telugu. Many writers have described the types of heroines and heroes of Sanskrit literature (the subject of the €œBouquet of Rasa€) or explained the nature of aesthetic emotion (that of the €œRiver of Rasa€), but none did so in verse of such exquisite and subtle artistry.