Vasanta-utsava & Mango blossoms

Opining the edible virtues of the mango blossom, I neglected completely to celebrate it as part of Vasanta-utsava or a heralding-celebration of spring. Sacrilege! Therefore, an attempt to make amends before the spring is truly over and the summer upon us.

The great Sanskrit poets once celebrated the arrival of aamramanjiri [mango flower bunches] as the sign of an exuberant “vasanta” [spring] far more than grīṣma [summer] as the season of the mango. The season of vasanta is itself a source of much poetic inspiration for it is the time of Kama and of शृङ्गार [śṛṅgāra or love], when the koels sing the sweetest and the black bees come in pretty bead-like strings; when scented sinduvara [Vitex negundo, “nocchi”] extends its blue-purple-white candelabra-like blossoms, aśoka puts out red bunches and palasha turns forests its fiery, twisted orange-yellow; when kuruvaka “bends down as if it [feels] reproached by the colour of women’s nails” [4.47, Buddhacarita] and when tilaka [Wendlandia exerta] trees blooming white are embraced by slender mango branches, “like a man in a white garment by a woman decked with yellow unguents”:

cūtayaṣṭyā samāśliṣṭo dṛśyatāṁ tilakadrumaḥ |
śuklavāsā iva naraḥ striyā pītāṁgarāgayā ||
4.46, Buddhacarita of Aśvaghoṣa, trans. Edward B. Cowell

Whatever the other flowers of the season, the most achingly evocative is the mango spray, covered as it is “with its honey-scented flowers, where the kokila sings, as if imprisoned in a golden cage”:

Paśya bhartaś citaṃ cūtaṃ kusumair madhu-gandhibhiḥ |
Hema-pancara-ruddho vā kokilo yatra kūjati ||
4.44, Buddhacarita of Aśvaghoṣa, trans. Edward B. Cowell

Cūta [चूत] is the mango that is full of juice, sometimes distinguished from the sahakara which is “atisaurabha” or full of fragrance, and sometimes [as in Kālidāsa’s Ṛtusaṃhāra] not distinguished at all in their effects on travelers passing by. The Amarakośa of Amarasiṃha [4th c. botanical thesaurus] breaks the Cūta down into Āmra and Rasāla, while the fragrant variety (Sahakāra) has the following synonyms: Kāmaṅga, Madhudūta, Kamavallabha.

But it is the mango spray, not the fruit soon to come that is the season’s favorite: poets, like rows of bees, are indeed “more fondly attached to the mango tree (blossoms), though the vernal season blooms with countless flowers” just like Himavan, the Mountain-Lord, was attached to his daughter Parvati—to reverse the metaphor Kālidāsa uses in Kumārasambhava, Canto I v. 27. So the Cūta is the vernal season’s favorite, and capable of driving men and ascetics alike to distraction. Buddha could resist and his experiences could become instructive as we see in the verses from the Buddhacarita cited above, but Siva did not—in the poignantly described episodes of Kumārasambhava where Manmatha acts as mediator to distract the great ascetic and draw his attention to Parvati, daughter of the Mountain-lord. Mango blossoms are one among the five flower-arrows of Smara’s [Kama, Manmatha] sweet sugarcane bow—the others being aravinda [the white lotus], aśoka [Saraca asoca], navamallikā [9-petaled Jasminum arborescens] and nīlotpala [the blue lotus]. Of these, mango flower embodies śṛṅgāra [love] like no other and only it bears fruit:

अङ्कुरिते पल्लविते कोरकिते विकसिते च सहकारे।
अङ्कुरितः पल्लवितः कोरकितो विकसितश्च मदनो ऽसौ॥

aṅkurite pallavite korakite vikasite ca sahakāre |
aṅkuritaḥ pallavitaḥ korakito vikasitaś ca madano ‘sau ||

“As the mango flowers swell, put forth sprouts, bud and blossom, love, too, swelled, sprouted, budded and blossomed” [Sadūktikarṇāmṛtam, 13th c.; cited here].

Kalīdāsa’s 5th c. Kumārasambhava [Canto 3, “Kāmadahana”] remarks on Kamadeva’s pride in accomplishing, with just his five floral arrows, what Indra’s vajra cannot, blunted as it is against those in penance, and what Siva’s celestial pínāka bow cannot counter. Kāma alone is confident of obstructing the resolve of even those instructed by Ushasanas [commonly known as Śukracharya] in pursuit of Dharma and Artha, “as the flooded current of a river obstructs its two banks”:

कस्यार्थधर्मौवदपीडयामिसिन्धोस्तटावोघइवप्रवृद्धः॥
Kasyaarthadharmauvadapeedayaami
Sindhohtadauoghaivapravrddah [Canto III, v. 6 & cited here]

Indra adds: “Spring (Madhu) is your helper, though unasked, through your comradeship. [For] who asks the wind to be the fanner of fire?”

समीरणोनोदयिताभवेतिव्यादिश्यतेकेनहुताशनस्य॥
Sameeranonodayitaabhaveti Vyaadisyatekenahutaasanasya [Canto III, v. 21 cited here].

Then does the “vernal season having fitted up the arrow (of Kāma) in the shape of the young mango blossom with fresh leaves as its feathers, inscrib[e] on it … the name of the Mind-born (Kāma) in the shape of the bees” [Kumārasambhava, Canto III v. 27]. And when Kāmadeva is burned to ash from the force of Śiva’s fury, a bereaved and mourning Rati piteously entreats her husband’s comrade Madhu to offer a spray of mango blossoms for Smara, “the leaves of which are tremulous; for the mango blossom was dear to thy friend” [Canto IV v. 38]. In the pride of Kāma, in the connivance of Madhu, in the grief of Rati—the mango blossom appears as embodiment and symbol of Kāma himself.

Associated with the mango are bees and the kokila [koel, commonly referred to in translations as just the cuckoo]. The woman who communicates to her lover through a friend and remains to him steadfast is “like a young mango tree speaking through the cuckoos and steadily awaiting the spring” [Canto VI v.2]. The voice of the koel becomes clear when it feasts on tender mango blossoms; his melodious voice signals their arrival [Canto I v. 14]. Kālidāsa in Ṛtusaṃhāra [4th/5th c.] pictures Kama’s mango blossom bow and a bowstring of black bees as “Spring’s warrior”:

आम्रीमञ्जुलमञ्जरीवरशरः सत्किंशुकम् यद्धनुर्
ज्या यस्यालिकुलम् कलङ्करहितम् चत्रम् सितांशुः सितम्।
मत्तेभो मलयानिलः परभृतो यद् वन्दिनो लोकजित्
सोऽयम् वो वितरीतरीतु वितनुर् भद्रम् वसन्तान्वितः॥ ६-२८

āmrīmañjulamañjarīvaraśaraḥ satkiṁśukam yaddhanur
jyā yasyālikulam kalaṅkarahitam catram sitāṁśuḥ sitam |
mattebho malayānilaḥ parabhṛto yad vandino lokajit
so’yam vo vitarītarītu vitanur bhadram vasantānvitaḥ || 6-28

“Whose best arrow is the delightful cluster of mango flowers, whose bow is the kimshuka flower, whose bowstring is the beeline, whose silvery parasol is the immaculate silvern moon, whose ruttish elephant for ride is the rutted breeze from Mt. Malaya that wafts a rutting scent of sandalwood, whose panegyrists are the singing birds … such as he is, let that vanquisher of worlds, that formless Love god, pairing up with his friend, namely Vasanta , the vernal season, lavish serendipities on you all, generously…” [6-28, Sanskrit Documents]

But then the bees drone and the cuckoo pitches a perfect panchamam (5th note) and the mango tree becomes a concert hall where Vasanta listens to His own music [Vasantavilāsa, 14th c.].

A hundred years after, Bhāravi’s Kirātārjunīya imagines a woman at a forest edge with a mango bough and anklets strung of buzzing bees. Nala in the Naiṣadhacarita of Śrīharṣa [12th c.] finds in bee-loud blossom bunches wagging fingers that remind him of his lost love; Kālidāsa speaks conversely of copper-toned tapering mango leaves and hearts filled with longing. So when a girl sees a mango blossom [as in Śakuntalā], she propitiates it thusly: ātammahariapaṃḍura jīvidasavvaṁ vasaṁdamāsassa diṭṭo si cūakoraa udumaṁgala tumaṁ pasāemi/ I see you, mango sprout, reddish, green and white, life’s essence in the vernal month, season’s lucky sign, my greetings to thee!

But soon the beloved fruit will arrive and then, Kālidāsa says—you can perhaps imagine his slight smile—who would think then of the King’s father?

Sources Consulted

Sarma, Sreeramula Rajeswara. 2003. “The Mango Motif in Sanskrit Poetry.” Journal of Sukrtinda Oriental Research Institute. 5(1): 72-88

Buddhacarita of Aśvaghoṣa, trans. Edward B. Cowell, 1984 [?]

Kirātārjunīya of Bhāravi, trans. M.R. Kale. Delhi: Motilal Banarasidass: 1966.

Kumārasambhava of Kalīdāsa, trans. M. R. Kale. Bombay: Standard Publishing House: 1917

Ṛtusaṃhāra of Kalīdāsa, Bombay: National Information and publications Ltd.: n.d. & THIS Sanskrit Documents Translation

Sadūktikarṇāmṛtam of Śrīdharadāsa, trans. Sures Chandra Banerjee. Calcutta: Firma K.L. Mukhopadhyay: 1965

Handiqui, K.K., trans.1956. Naiṣadhacarita of Śrīharṣa. Deccan Monograph Series. Poona: Deccan College/Munshi Ram Manoharlal.

Vasantavilāsa, A Poem of the Spring Festival in Old Gujarātī Accompanied by Sanskrit and Prakrit Stanzas and Illustrated with Miniature Paintings