Seven Hundred Elegant Verses

By Govardhana
Translated by Friedhelm Hardy

When Go·várdhana composed his “Seven Hundred Elegant Verses” in Sanskrit in the twelfth century CE, the very title suggested to an educated Indian audience that this was a response to the 700 verses in the more demotic Prakrit language traditionally attributed to King Hala, composed almost a thousand years earlier. Both sets of poems were composed in the āryā metre. Besides being the name of a metre, in Sanskrit āryā means a noble or elegant lady, and Go·várdhana wished to reflect and appeal to a sophisticated culture.

These poems each consist of a single stanza, almost as condensed and allusive as a Japanese haiku. They cover the gamut of human life and emotion, though the favourite topic is love in all its aspects. Problems are stated, rarely solved; the usual comment on them takes the form of a poetic conceit. Often the condensation of meaning is achieved by punning, so that the translation has to represent more than one meaning and be far longer than the original.

You young mango bud!
You got plucked by my friend
so that you could see her chest
as she raised her arm.
Never mind –
it is your bright future
to obtain the highest place.

No paint was disturbed on her forehead,
her body shows no fatigue,
no bite marks can be seen on her lip.
That clever fellow plucked the lotus
without touching the water.

c. 346 pp. | ISBN-13: 978-0-8147-3687-6 | ISBN-10: 0-8147-3687-4 | Co-published by New York University Press and JJC Foundation

Excerpts

Download Excerpt (pdf)
Download CSL Front Matter (pdf)
Order Now

Download the title page and table of contents and one chapter of the book (in English and Sanskrit on facing pages), bundled together as a .pdf file. You can also download the CSL Front Matter (6pp, 1.3mb). It describes how we transliterate the Sanskrit text in the Roman alphabet and includes a guide to pronunciation. It also explains our system of representing phonetic fusion (sandhi).

You can set Adobe Acrobat Reader to display the Sanskrit text and translation in facing page view. Simply go to “View” in the toolbar, select “Page Layout” and click on “Facing.”

About the Translator

Friedhelm Hardy (1943–2004) was Professor of Indian Religions at King’s College London. He is the author of The Religious Culture of India: Power, Love and Wisdom and Viraha-Bhakti: The Early History of Kṛṣṇa Devotion in South India.

Top 50 Verbs

Rank	Unique Words	Number of Occurrences
1	Made	119
2	Become	29
3	Come	23
4	Filled	23
5	Turned	22
6	Look	21
7	Go	21
8	Give	19
9	Get	19
10	Know	18

11	Cause	18
12	Having	17
13	Covered	17
14	Pulled	17
15	Placed	16
16	Put	15
17	Remains	14
18	Leave	14
19	Touch	14
20	See	13

21	Turn	13
22	Looking	13
23	Becomes	13
24	Caused	13
25	Move	13
26	Glance	13
27	Comes	12
28	Enjoyed	11
29	Enters	11
30	Looks	11

31	Found	11
32	Locks	11
33	Given	11
34	Seen	10
35	Stay	10
36	Causes	10
37	Shaking	10
38	Take	10
39	Carried	10
40	Pierced	10

41	Returned	10
42	Going	9
43	Conduct	9
44	Touching	9
45	Became	9
46	Broken	9
47	Lying	9
48	Caught	9
49	Cast	9
50	Falling	9

Top 50 Nouns

Rank	Unique Words	Number of Occurrences
1	Friend(s)	103
2	One	100
3	Girl	99
4	Man (men)	98
5	Woman (women)	99
6	Love	85
7	Body	70
8	Eyes	65
9	Kama	55
10	Heart	54

11	Lover	54
12	People	50
13	Hands	48
14	Night	45
15	Wife	43
16	Face	39
17	Time	38
18	Female	36
19	Moon	35
20	Water	35

21	Anger	34
22	Husband	32
23	Hair	32
24	Day	31
25	Breasts	30
26	Mind	29
27	Arrow	29
28	Tree	28
29	Sun	24
30	Head	23

31	Way	23
32	Two	22
33	Tears	22
34	Pride	22
35	Life	22
36	Fire	22
37	Bee	21
38	Separation	20
39	Feet	20
40	Mountain	20

41	Ocean	19
42	Words	19
43	Beauty	19
44	Elephant	18
45	String	18
46	Flowers	18
47	Bed	18
48	Passion	18
49	Half	17
50	Shiva	17