Poetry
An Anthology of Buddhist Tantric Songs
চর্যাপদ
Anonymous · 1000
Synopsis
Some fifty short songs of realisation composed by twenty-three Tantric Buddhist masters, the siddhas, among them Luipa, Saraha, Kanha and Bhusuku. They paint the daily life of the people among whom their authors lived, and their familiar images veil, in a deliberately obscure “twilight” language, a teaching on spiritual liberation and the techniques of yoga, which only the Sanskrit commentary accompanying the text makes it possible to approach.
Context
The songs were composed between the eighth and the twelfth century, in a language from which Bengali, Assamese, Odia and Maithili would emerge, all of which claim them. Haraprasad Shastri found the palm-leaf manuscript in the library of the royal court of Nepal in 1907 and published it in 1916. It contains forty-seven songs, with the Sanskrit commentary of Munidatta; a Tibetan translation preserves fifty. Per Kvaerne gave the first complete translation outside India.
Who it is for
Very short poems, hermetic by design, read in an annotated edition. French translations exist.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as the oldest surviving poems in Bengali, and claimed by several neighbouring literatures of eastern India.
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