Anyone can be a poet – for it is the Lord who sings through one.

- #AKRamanujan

Sleep, great goddess sleep,
heroine of the three worlds,
spins and sucks up
all, draws breath
and throws them down
sapless.

I know of no hero
who can stand before her.
Struck by her arrows,
people rise and fall.

- #Allamaprabhu, vacana 699, in #AKRamanujan, ‘Speaking of #Siva’, p. 165

This stresses the view that love of God is not only an #unconditional giving up of all, but it is necessarily #antistructure, an #antisocial 'unruly' relationship–  unmaking, undoing, the #manmade." (9/9)

- #AKRamanujan, ‘Speaking of #Siva’, p.48-49; on 'The '#Language of #Secrecy'

#AKRAMANUJAN ON #SANDYĀBHĀSA, OR SECRET OR INTENTIONAL LANGUAGE

"The #esoteric #vacanas are called #beḍaginavacana (fancy #poems), more riddle than poem and, oftentimes, with a whole #occult glossary for key. (1/9)

‘Soma’: When AK Ramanujan wrote poems about his psychedelic experiments and their effects on him Sifting through Ramanujan’s archives, the editors discovered a series of unpublished ‘Soma poems’ whose style and theme set them apart from his earlier work.

A review of a book about the great modern Indian poet #AKRamanujan’ s encounters with mescaline in August 1971 & his attempt to transcribe his experience in verse–also incl. his & other essays on the subject of #psychedelics in India from the times, with contextual notes scroll.in/article/1061...

Only a poem can translate a poem.

- #AKRamanujan

Anyone can be a poet–for it is the Lord who sings through one.

- #AKRamanujan

A. K. RAMANUJAN Self-Portrait I resemble everyone but myself, and sometimes see in shop-windows, despite the well-known laws of optics, the portrait of a stranger, date unknown, often signed in a corner by my father.

A.K. Ramanujan (1929–1993) was a poet, translator, and scholar who bridged languages and cultures. Writing in English and Kannada, he explored identity, folklore, and the way we think. #Poetry #AKRamanujan

'Battle with Raktavija.' Devi, the goddess, assumes the terrifying black form of Kali, whose extended pink tongue laps up blood, as related in the sacred text known as the "Devimahatmya." The demon-king Shumbha's general, Raktavija, is shown twice. Above, supported by the goddess's extended tongue, he holds sword and shield, and his drops of blood produce clones of himself. Below, he has at last been conquered. Date: between 1775 and 1800

Sleep, great goddess sleep,
heroine of the three worlds,
spins and sucks up
all, draws breath
and throws them down
sapless.

I know of no hero
who can stand before her.
Struck by her arrows,
people rise and fall.

- #Allamaprabhu, vacana 699
[ #AKRamanujan, ‘Speaking of #Siva’, p. 165]