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Love and The Turning Seasons: India's Poetry of Spiritual & Erotic Longing
For thousands of years, India has excelled at erotic love poetry, and the genius of its devotional poetry often harnesses great energy and mystical insight. It is in fact often hard to tell whether the poets are offering poems of spiritual longing using the garment of love poetry, or writing erotic poems in the guise of devotion. Perhaps, in a country where erotic sculpture routinely ornaments its many temples and the gods are known for their explosive sexuality, this question has little meaning to these remarkable writers. In their devotional traditions, eroticism and mysticism seem inseparable.
This wonderful selection spans 2,500 years, and includes work originally sung or recited by their well-known Kabir, Mirabai, Lal Ded, Vidyapati and Tagore. There are also poems from the Upanishad, from ancient Sanskrit poetry and Punjab folk lyrics. The poets have largely emerged from the ranks of the leather workers, refuse collectors, maidservants, women, & orphans. Their vision is of a democratic society in which all voices count, much like American gospel and blues, Shaker songs, or the grand vision of Walt Whitman. Often they faced persecution for speaking candidly, or daring to speak of spiritual matters at all. The notes include profiles of these legendary lives. Several of these poets simply vanished, absorbed into a deity, or disappeared in a flash of purple lightening. A few produced miracles--most of them have clouds of mystery around them.
Andrew Schelling has drawn on the work of 24 other translators, including Ezra Pound, Robert Bly, W. S. Merwin, Jane Hirschfield and Denise Levertov, to build what will be the finest anthology of India's erotic and spiritual poetry for the general read ever assembled.
This wonderful selection spans 2,500 years, and includes work originally sung or recited by their well-known Kabir, Mirabai, Lal Ded, Vidyapati and Tagore. There are also poems from the Upanishad, from ancient Sanskrit poetry and Punjab folk lyrics. The poets have largely emerged from the ranks of the leather workers, refuse collectors, maidservants, women, & orphans. Their vision is of a democratic society in which all voices count, much like American gospel and blues, Shaker songs, or the grand vision of Walt Whitman. Often they faced persecution for speaking candidly, or daring to speak of spiritual matters at all. The notes include profiles of these legendary lives. Several of these poets simply vanished, absorbed into a deity, or disappeared in a flash of purple lightening. A few produced miracles--most of them have clouds of mystery around them.
Andrew Schelling has drawn on the work of 24 other translators, including Ezra Pound, Robert Bly, W. S. Merwin, Jane Hirschfield and Denise Levertov, to build what will be the finest anthology of India's erotic and spiritual poetry for the general read ever assembled.
- GenresPoetry
276 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 11, 2014
13 people are currently reading
89 people want to read
About the author
Andrew Schelling
51 books28 followersAndrew Schelling is a poet, essayist, and translator of the poetry of India. He has taught at Naropa University for twenty years and from 1993–96 served as chair of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics founded by Alan Ginsburg and Anne Waldman. His publications include Tea Shack Interior and The Wisdom Anthology of North American Buddhist Poetry. He lives in Boulder, Colorado.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
April 11, 2018
I left shame behind,
took as an ornament
the mockery of local folk.
Unswerving, I lost my cleverness
in the bewilderment of ecstasy.
— Manikkavacakar (9thcentury), Tr. A.K. Ramanujan
In a lover’s enraptured world, love is the breeze that strips one, quite simply, of the garment of shame. In reading Love and the Turning Seasons, the newest offering from Aleph Classics, a series that aims to bring new translations of India’s literary heritage, the reader is swept in that denuding breeze. Edited by Andrew Schelling, the collection of poems bears the slightly beguiling subtitle, India’s Poetry of Spiritual & Erotic Longing. I say beguiling because it would seem like the poems could fall in either category – spiritual or erotic. In reality, as Manikkavacakar, the ninth-century Shiva devotee tells us, the line between the two states is as diaphanous as air itself. For, in the “bewilderment of ecstasy”, who is left to distinguish between the flesh and the spirit? This seamless merging of the body and the soul is at the heart of this anthology of bhakti poetry, translated by various poets and literary translators.
Love and the Turning Seasons alights upon the reader as a songbird to take her across time and space – from the sixth century (barring the Isa Upanishad) right up to the twentieth, on an anticlockwise path beginning in the south of India and ending in the east. Despite the multiplicity of expressions of the bhaktas or poet-minstrels, informed as they were by specific cultural and regional parlance, what unifies them is their rejection of societal norms in their unwavering quest for the divine. These were among the first true radicals in the Indian context, repudiating, with delightful contempt, tradition and convention. Gender-bending, caste-subverting, these individuals lived and (even) died on their own terms and sang of the divine with ariose abandonment.
Most of the featured singer-poets wrote or rather sang in the vernacular language of the region they came from. The translations, despite the obvious limitations of the exercise, are sensitive, lyrical and playful – same as, one surmises – their creators intended them to be.
Read this book to be swept off your feet by the extraordinary wind of mystical love.
took as an ornament
the mockery of local folk.
Unswerving, I lost my cleverness
in the bewilderment of ecstasy.
— Manikkavacakar (9thcentury), Tr. A.K. Ramanujan
In a lover’s enraptured world, love is the breeze that strips one, quite simply, of the garment of shame. In reading Love and the Turning Seasons, the newest offering from Aleph Classics, a series that aims to bring new translations of India’s literary heritage, the reader is swept in that denuding breeze. Edited by Andrew Schelling, the collection of poems bears the slightly beguiling subtitle, India’s Poetry of Spiritual & Erotic Longing. I say beguiling because it would seem like the poems could fall in either category – spiritual or erotic. In reality, as Manikkavacakar, the ninth-century Shiva devotee tells us, the line between the two states is as diaphanous as air itself. For, in the “bewilderment of ecstasy”, who is left to distinguish between the flesh and the spirit? This seamless merging of the body and the soul is at the heart of this anthology of bhakti poetry, translated by various poets and literary translators.
Love and the Turning Seasons alights upon the reader as a songbird to take her across time and space – from the sixth century (barring the Isa Upanishad) right up to the twentieth, on an anticlockwise path beginning in the south of India and ending in the east. Despite the multiplicity of expressions of the bhaktas or poet-minstrels, informed as they were by specific cultural and regional parlance, what unifies them is their rejection of societal norms in their unwavering quest for the divine. These were among the first true radicals in the Indian context, repudiating, with delightful contempt, tradition and convention. Gender-bending, caste-subverting, these individuals lived and (even) died on their own terms and sang of the divine with ariose abandonment.
Most of the featured singer-poets wrote or rather sang in the vernacular language of the region they came from. The translations, despite the obvious limitations of the exercise, are sensitive, lyrical and playful – same as, one surmises – their creators intended them to be.
Read this book to be swept off your feet by the extraordinary wind of mystical love.
March 26, 2023
"Love pierced me like a nail driven into a green tree."
"My conflicted heart treasures even his infidelities."
"You will know how love can burn!"
Eliot Weinberger introduces oriental Indian love poetry's beautiful compelling history and why it has been overlooked in the Western literary community.
The book focuses on spiritual-erotic love poetry, meaning the Lord and the lady love who's an incarnation of a Goddess in human form. We need to keep in mind that these two themes go hand in hand in Indian culture and literature. Every poetry falls under one of the four designated seasons -
• Spring - Youth, mirth, hope
• Summer - Desire, sensuality
• Autumn - Loss, longing
• Winter - Spiritual transcendence
It's really surprising that Andrew Schelling meticulously created a structure that would hold these poetries in four seasons, and the readers get to explore different moods and themes, simultaneously, enjoying the verse! Brilliance at its best!
I loved this book! Schelling covers Upanishads, Manikkavasagar, Andal, Nammalvaar, Lal Ded, Dhurjathi, Varkaris, Muktabai, Janabai, Tukaram, Kabir, Mirabai, Dadu Dayal, even Tagore and more poets! This blows my mind! I got to read amazing poems dedicated to various God's that I didn't know existed!
Oh and we definitely need to talk about the efforts of the translators! Deben Bhattacharya, Robert Bly, Dilip Chitre, Simock Jr., KM Ghose, Arun Kolatkar, AK Mehrotra, AK Ramanujan, Velcheru Narayana Rao, Ezra Pound, Andrew Schelling himself! Aside these known personas there are a few more from American poets.
If you're someone who cannot seem to put erotic theme in spirituality, you should not pick up this book. But, if you're anything like me, a literature person, pick this up! This does not come close to "The Appeasement of Radhika" but still, a good read. Definitely recommended!
"My conflicted heart treasures even his infidelities."
"You will know how love can burn!"
Eliot Weinberger introduces oriental Indian love poetry's beautiful compelling history and why it has been overlooked in the Western literary community.
The book focuses on spiritual-erotic love poetry, meaning the Lord and the lady love who's an incarnation of a Goddess in human form. We need to keep in mind that these two themes go hand in hand in Indian culture and literature. Every poetry falls under one of the four designated seasons -
• Spring - Youth, mirth, hope
• Summer - Desire, sensuality
• Autumn - Loss, longing
• Winter - Spiritual transcendence
It's really surprising that Andrew Schelling meticulously created a structure that would hold these poetries in four seasons, and the readers get to explore different moods and themes, simultaneously, enjoying the verse! Brilliance at its best!
I loved this book! Schelling covers Upanishads, Manikkavasagar, Andal, Nammalvaar, Lal Ded, Dhurjathi, Varkaris, Muktabai, Janabai, Tukaram, Kabir, Mirabai, Dadu Dayal, even Tagore and more poets! This blows my mind! I got to read amazing poems dedicated to various God's that I didn't know existed!
Oh and we definitely need to talk about the efforts of the translators! Deben Bhattacharya, Robert Bly, Dilip Chitre, Simock Jr., KM Ghose, Arun Kolatkar, AK Mehrotra, AK Ramanujan, Velcheru Narayana Rao, Ezra Pound, Andrew Schelling himself! Aside these known personas there are a few more from American poets.
If you're someone who cannot seem to put erotic theme in spirituality, you should not pick up this book. But, if you're anything like me, a literature person, pick this up! This does not come close to "The Appeasement of Radhika" but still, a good read. Definitely recommended!
December 10, 2024
Andrew Schelling has drawn on the work of twenty-four other translators, including ezra pound, Robert Bly, W.s. Merwin, Jane Hirschfield, and denise Levertov, to build the finest anthology of India’s erotic and spiritual poetry ever assembled for the general reader.
This wonderful collection spans 2,500 years, and includes work originally sung or recited by India’s well-known bards: Kabir, Mirabai, Lal ded, Vidyapati, and Tagore. There are also poems , verses and ballad from the upanishads, ancient sanskrit poetry, and punjabi folk lyrics.
The poets have largely emerged from the ranks of the dispossessed: leather workers, refuse collectors, maidservants, women, and orphans. The Indian subcontinent has given the world’s most captivating erotic love poetry, and the genius of its devotional writing harnesses great energy and mystical insight.. In our devotional traditions, eroticism and mysticism seem inseparable.
Their vision is of a democratic society in which all voices count, much like American gospel and blues, shaker songs, or the grand vision of Walt Whitman. often they faced persecution for speaking candidly, or daring to speak of spiritual matters at all. The notes include profiles of these legendary lives. several of these poets simply vanished, absorbed into a deity, or disappeared because of no talks about them in contemporary society
This wonderful collection spans 2,500 years, and includes work originally sung or recited by India’s well-known bards: Kabir, Mirabai, Lal ded, Vidyapati, and Tagore. There are also poems , verses and ballad from the upanishads, ancient sanskrit poetry, and punjabi folk lyrics.
The poets have largely emerged from the ranks of the dispossessed: leather workers, refuse collectors, maidservants, women, and orphans. The Indian subcontinent has given the world’s most captivating erotic love poetry, and the genius of its devotional writing harnesses great energy and mystical insight.. In our devotional traditions, eroticism and mysticism seem inseparable.
Their vision is of a democratic society in which all voices count, much like American gospel and blues, shaker songs, or the grand vision of Walt Whitman. often they faced persecution for speaking candidly, or daring to speak of spiritual matters at all. The notes include profiles of these legendary lives. several of these poets simply vanished, absorbed into a deity, or disappeared because of no talks about them in contemporary society
April 16, 2018
Bhakti poetry is probably the closest you could come to religion in its purest form - pure faith shorn of any 'system'. It is subversive and confrontational - love taking on hierarchy and power. The poems in this anthology cover the length and breadth of India - taking in the Tiruppavai and the Veerashaivites from deep South, Lal Ded from Kashmir, Tukaram and others from Maharashtra, Mira, Kabir, Surdas, Jaidev and the other poets in the North, the Bauls from the East. All of them sing of longing for a lover, of throwing away convention in the search of union with a personal god, sometimes Siva, sometimes Krishna, sometimes Kali, sometimes a god so local, he combines characteristics of all of them. Beautiful and powerful beyond measure. Though it must be said, a few are marred by translations that are less than ideal.
October 10, 2022
An interesting read. Do wish the original text had been been included, in addition to the translation. A good level of detail and context provided, including the poet's history. The introduction reads a bit like it fetishes India, in my opinion, and I wasn't too fond of it.
Quite a bit of acknowledgement of caste, which I appreciate.
At one point, the author notes how Bhakti poets from persecuted castes were often "dressed up for church" and their origins magicked away by scholars and religious leaders, to hide the fact that these poets were from marginalised communities. The author goes on to say that since the poets origins stories were manipulated, it is entirely possible that some of the poems and stories themselves may have been adapted under duress.
All in all, a good read, with a wonderful selection of poems.
Quite a bit of acknowledgement of caste, which I appreciate.
At one point, the author notes how Bhakti poets from persecuted castes were often "dressed up for church" and their origins magicked away by scholars and religious leaders, to hide the fact that these poets were from marginalised communities. The author goes on to say that since the poets origins stories were manipulated, it is entirely possible that some of the poems and stories themselves may have been adapted under duress.
All in all, a good read, with a wonderful selection of poems.
January 14, 2021
I don't know too much about Indian devotional poetry. I don't have too much of a foundation in Indian history, religion, or Bhakti poetry. I wish I had more context to help me frame and interpret these poems. The editors' notes provided helpful information. Overall I enjoyed reading these sensual, rebellious poems. I was happy to see some women poets thrown in. I especially liked the poetry of the Bengali Bauls and Kabir.
"What can you say about speech?
Inconceivable to live without
And impossible to live with,
Speech diminishes you.
Speak with a wise man, there'll be
Much to learn; speak with a fool,
All you get is prattle.
Strike a half-empty pot, and it'll make
A loud sound; strike one that if full,
Says Kabir, and hear the silence."
"What can you say about speech?
Inconceivable to live without
And impossible to live with,
Speech diminishes you.
Speak with a wise man, there'll be
Much to learn; speak with a fool,
All you get is prattle.
Strike a half-empty pot, and it'll make
A loud sound; strike one that if full,
Says Kabir, and hear the silence."
August 9, 2023
The book works well as an introduction to this genre of poetry. However i would have liked to see the author expand on the symbolism and interpretations of the poems instead of just covering the story of the poets… Of course one must reflect on the verses to find one’s way to the heart of the writings, but, for someone new to this, it’s not so simple….
March 10, 2024
बहुत ही लाजवाब किताब। 600 इसापूर्व (बी॰सी) से ले कर रबिंद्रनाथ टैगोर जी के भक्ति कविताओं का अनुवाद। कबीर साहब से ले कर, तुकाराम साहब, लाल देद देवी, मीराबाई, महादेवी अक्का और अन्य भक्ति कवियों की कविताएँ, और साथ ही में उनकी छोटी छोटी जीवनी।
भारत के भक्ति इतिहास को बहुत ही अच्छे तरीक़े से ब्रीफ में समझाते हुए। प्रेम के हर रूप की अलग अलग कविताओं को पढ़ने में मज़ा ही आ गया।
भारत के भक्ति इतिहास को बहुत ही अच्छे तरीक़े से ब्रीफ में समझाते हुए। प्रेम के हर रूप की अलग अलग कविताओं को पढ़ने में मज़ा ही आ गया।
Read
May 31, 2021The book has been well researched. the text made good reading but the poems did not. perhaps the vernacular poems would have made a better impact. don't know. I wouldn't recommend the book to anyone to buy.
January 19, 2021
India’s poetry was totally unknown to me. This was a perfect first book to start with. Now I know I absolutely need more.
March 31, 2023
The essence of an Indian language, lost in translation, yet beautiful
September 4, 2020
Super beautiful poems
Loved reading this book. Showed love at its very depth, especially between radha and Krishna also between god and his devotees. You could enjoy the poems mainly from 9th to 18th century bhakti poems of india it covers many states like andhra,tamil nadu,gujarat,Maharashtra, bengal.
We ought to read this multiple times
Loved reading this book. Showed love at its very depth, especially between radha and Krishna also between god and his devotees. You could enjoy the poems mainly from 9th to 18th century bhakti poems of india it covers many states like andhra,tamil nadu,gujarat,Maharashtra, bengal.
We ought to read this multiple times
December 3, 2020
the book has been well researched. the text made good reading but the poems did not. perhaps the vernacular poems would have made a better impact. don't know. I wouldn't recommend the book to anyone to buy.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews