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śramaņa/April-June/1999
We can find this Vasanta delicately handled by Prakrit poets with three facets viz. Nature, Festival and Love. This conception of Vasanta is ensnared in poems, gāhās and prose passages. Scarcely we find the literary works in Prakrit bereft of the descriptions of Vasanta.
Nature
Many a stanza and passage in Prakrit decorously present this Vasanta through the rich description of the Nature. Vasanta (the Spring) as he enjoys the entire confidence of Manmatha is considered to be the pet friend of Cupid. The gardens, as if emulous of fame in setting their grandure at the prospering spring are like the luxurious pleasure gardens of the king Vasanta. Enthusing over the spring, the cuckoos, are as if singing the fabulous glory of Vasanta and serving the purpose of the bards, and as such they acis as if conducting the facile musical functions in the flourishing gardens. The cuckoos, bees, Malayānila, and the trees like Asoka, Sahakāra, Kurabaka, Palāśa, Kesara etc. are deemed to be the paraphernalia of this king Vasanta. Some poets find these bees and cuckoos to be designated as the bards of Lord Vasanta to eulogise his green glory. Entranced with the advent of Vasanta the green gardens and forests, through the cuckoos with their rising sweet notes, are as if welcoming with open arms this Vasanta.2 Rājasekhara, with his deep heart filled with poetic feelings to its brim entirely forgets himself in expatiating upon the soft Nature, at the very outset of his Karpūramañjari when the spring sets in with its kith and kin. In the Mālavikāgnimitrar, Vidūşaka, beaming with joy at the advent of the Spring describes it that the vernal beauty as if to court the king, had put on the colourful garments of vernal flowers. 4
Häla's Sattasas suggests the delectable decent of spring by enunciating the blooms of Malati, Palāśa, Cūta and others which
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