Ujjvala-nīlamaṇi

Autor: Rūpa Gosvāmī

Rūpa Gosvāmī's treatise on the sweet rasa — love for Kṛṣṇa in the mood of the beloved. In the Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu this rasa was told only in brief, "out of its secrecy" (1.2); here it is set out in full. The book moves from persons to feelings: first the kinds of the hero and his companions, the beloveds of Hari, Śrī Rādhā, the kinds of the heroine, the group-leaders, the friends and messengers, and the four camps of allies and rivals; then the whole apparatus of rasa — uddīpana, anubhāva, sāttvika, vyabhicāri and the sthāyi-bhāva with its ladder from prema to mahābhāva; and in conclusion the two divisions of śṛṅgāra: separation, with its four kinds and ten states, and union, with its particulars from seeing and talking to the rāsa and the water-sports in the Yamunā. The examples are drawn from the Bhāgavatam, the Padyāvalī, Rūpa's own plays and the messenger poems. The reading unit is the verse, numbered by prakaraṇa. The seventh prakaraṇa, on the messengers, is absent from this edition: it is missing from the source.