# Chaurisurata Panchashika

The Chaurisurata Panchashika (Sanskrit: चौरीसुरतपञ्चाशिका, romanized: Caurīsuratapañcāśikā, lit. 'Fifty verses by a thief'), also rendered the Chaura Panchashika, is a Sanskrit work of poetry by Bilhana, composed in the 11th century.

## Background

According to legend, the Brahmin Bilhana fell in love with the daughter of King Madanabhirama, Princess Yaminipurnatilaka, and had a secretive love affair. They were discovered, and Bilhana was thrown into prison. While awaiting judgement, he wrote the Chaurisurata Panchashika, a fifty-stanza love poem, not knowing whether he would be sent into exile or die on the gallows. It is unknown what fate Bilhana encountered. Nevertheless, his poem was transmitted orally around India. There are several versions, including ones from South India which had a happy ending; the Kashmiri version does not specify what the outcome was. In one version, the poet recites these verses on the way to the scaffold, and the king, moved by the beauty of the work, pardons him and allows the couple to get married.

## Description

Each verse of the poem is of four lines (quatrain), beginning with the word "adyapi", which means even now written in the first person, "in which the parted lover evokes his mistress's presence by recollecting her beauty and the pleasures of their love."
The first verse of the poem is as follows:
   Even now, I think of her of a bright colour like a garland of golden champaka, her face beaming like a full-blown lotus, with a thin line of hair (at the navel) just got up from sleep, her whole body showing the keen desire affected by passion of her like learning affected by intoxication.

## Editions and versions

In the nineteenth century the Caurapañcāśikā was 'discovered' by Europeans. The first French edition, published in the Journal Asiatique of 1848, was based on one of the South Indian versions with a happy ending. Sir Edwin Arnold did very loose translation with Tennyson-like cadences (London 1896); A. B. Keith provided a literal translation; Gertrude Cloris Schwebell, working from translations by S. N. Tadpatrikar, M. Ariel and Gerhard Gollwitzer, created a free verse rendering. However, the version best known to English readers is probably that by Barbara Stoler Miller; or the 'free interpretation' by Edward Powys Mathers (also known as E. Powys Mathers) entitled Black Marigolds. There is a 2000 translation, possibly privately printed, by John T. Roberts. Also there is the Love Lyrics Archived 2008-05-10 at the Wayback Machine / by Amaru [and] Bhartṛhari ; translated by Greg Bailey ; & by Bilhaṇa ; edited and translated by Richard Gombrich published by The Clay Sanskrit Library in 2005. Dawn Corrigan has done an adaptation/rendition of the Caurapañcāśikā "Swan Song of the Thief" a free interpretation in 2013. There is also a 2013 translation The Caurapâñcâśikâ (The Love-Thief) Poetic rendering into English 2013.

## Appearances in modern literature

Several stanzas of E. Powys Mathers' "Black Marigolds" translation of Caurapâñcâśikâ appear in the novel Cannery Row by John Steinbeck. Author Victor Robert Lee credits E. Powys Mathers' "Black Marigolds" as the source of the phrase "savoring of the hot taste of life" in his novel Performance Anomalies, and uses Mathers' repetition of the phrase "Even now" from "Black Marigolds" as an element in lyrics spoken by Cono 7Q, the protagonist of Performance Anomalies.