The Rasikapriya (Connoisseur’s Delights) was composed in 1591 in Braj-Bhasa by the poet Keshavdas (1555–1617).
This folio illustrates The Small Arrogance and The Manifest Small Arrogance of the Nayika (Rasikapriya 9:308 and 310):
The Small Arrogance
When the nayika herself sees at last
The nayaka’s glance on another cast,
Or hears of it through her bosom friend,
‘Small arrogance’ know it is then.
The Manifest Small Arrogance of the Nayika
The bosom friend to the Nayika spoke:
‘Be not enraged without a cause,
For he is the one by you adored;’
The nayika said, “who was ever
Beloved by going away?’ ‘I know,’
The bosom friend said, ’tis Nandalal [Krishna]!’
‘Oh! cowherd girl, if thought you so,”
The nayika said, ‘Why didn’t you call
Yesterday? Dear friend, to create
Discord you come today, like the bud
Of the kanail flower which is different made
Inside and out!’ Her friend said, ‘Love,
How should I know ’tis the truth you say,
So that your words I may believe?’
The nayika said, ‘what need is, pray,
Of belief, when I myself did see?”
(Translation by K. P. Bahadur.)
See its series mate M.71.110.1. Folios from the comparable dispersed “Boston” Rasikapriya, attributed to Amber, circa 1610-1615, are in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (29 folios) and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (18.85.5a-b, 1990.323, 1991.404.2).
For an alternate translation by V. P. Mishra, see Harsha V. Dehejia, Rasikapriya: Ritikavya of Keshavdas in Ateleirs of Love (New Delhi: D.K. Printworld, 2013), pp. 93, 262, verse and fig. 9.10.
