Abstract
This volume combines a very readable English translation of a poem called the Hamsasandeśa (A Message for the Goose) with scholarly notes and analyses of key themes. The Hamsasandeśa is part of the popular South Asian genre of ‘messenger poems’, in which the poet addresses words to a messenger such as a bird or cloud for communication to a distant love. In this case the messenger is a goose that has been spotted by lovesick Rāma, who is pining for his wife Sītā. Rāma urges the goose to traverse the landscapes of South India and visit his wife where she is being held captive on the island of Laṅkā. As such the poem is also situated within a vast body of literature relating to these characters and their story, as famously recounted in the Rāmāyana.
The book’s introduction places the poem in its broader literary context, exploring key aspects of the genre of messenger poetry, including its focus on landscape. Hopkins also introduces the author of the poem, a medieval South Indian poet-philosopher in the Vaisnava tradition (in other words, the tradition that views Visnu as the supreme deity). This contextual discussion is very accessible and full of helpful explanations, such as the analogy between regional forms of Sanskrit and the terroir of a wine-grape variety. The Introduction closes with an extended reflection on the nature of literary translation, with plentiful examples from the text that reveal the evolution in the author’s approach.
The poem itself is relatively short (43 pages) and is an elegant verse rendering that is a pleasure to read. Extensive notes follow the translation, offering plenty for readers with a more scholarly interest, but out of the way of the general reader. A chapter of thematic commentary on the poem follows, once again treading a careful line between accessibility and scholarly rigour. An Epilogue offers two short poems that speak to the author’s intense experience of translation and intimacy with the poet, and a Glossary provides clear explanations of key terms.
The overall result makes for an excellent introduction to this poem and its wider genre for a non-specialist reader, but also offers some interesting reflections for a scholar or translator working on South Asian literature.