Bold references are to the English text; bold italic references are to the Sanskrit text. An asterisk (*) in the body of the text marks the word or passage being annotated.
Prelude
i As the central rite in the marriage of Shiva and Uma begins, he
clasps her hand to lead her round the fire. The ashes smeared on his body mark him out as an ascetic; poetic conceit identifies these ashes with those of Kama, the god of love and passion, whom Shiva had previously destroyed in the fire from his third eye. The hair standing on end indicates sexual arousal, but the poet sees in this new shoots growing out of a dead tree trunk. What is literally: “touching the hand,” means also: “when getting married”; “
Shiva’s body” can be read as a pun for “majestic, wonderful
body.” Thus the stanza fuses two ways of looking at Shiva. On the one hand, he appears rather ludicrous: there he is, the mighty ascetic who burnt the god of love himself to ashes, aroused—and thus in his own body offering Kama, passion, a new rebirth—by the mere touch of a girl. Yet the union of Shiva and Uma is also hinted at as a grandiose event when lifeless matter and death are transformed into life and joy. Compare v. 443 for the same situation, in which Shiva displays similar signs of arousal. For the classical account of Shiva’s destruction of Kama and marriage to Uma see “The Birth of Kumara” (Kumarasambhava) of Kali·dasa, translated for the CSL by David Smith, New York: New York University Press & JJC Foundation, 2005.
ii In direct continuation of the previous verse, the focus is now on the “morning after.” Drowsy from his passionate love-making during the night, Shiva does not realize that he is revealing some embarrassing signs of it. But Brahma is made to look even sillier. For he mistakes the lampblack stains from kissing the bride’s eyes for the deadly poison that was an unwelcome byproduct of
________