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Vasanta In Prakrit Literature : १६७
in Vasanta. They are greatly successful in depicting more the inveterate emotions of love embedded in the heart of heroines than the Nature in spring. They take every piece of descriptions like Aśoka, Cūta, Kurabaka, Candrikā etc. and frame them with the love-lorn hearts of heroines. Among such poets Hāla is second to none in the whole of the Sanskrit and Prakrit literature.
In the gahās of Hala we find some heroines keeping their heart of unestimable love unwrapped. Some heroines take this Vasanta welneigh the synonym of Viraha. They are very much afraid of their husbands' journey when the spring is fast approaching. They feel the anxiety of excruciating love in separation only when Vasanta sets in; till then they were not at all simply aware of the gravity of that situation. A lady in separation, when she finds her mind anxious and enormously perturbed confirms the advent of Vasanta though its salient features like sprouts of mango Caitränila and others have not yet appeared in the Nature. Another girl realizing the enormity of this spring, with a touch of disappointment bewails of her agony thus: "All these features have appeared in the Nature, yet the husband has not turned up; and "33 perhaps to him work is dearer than me.'
It was a custom to place a pot full of water with some mango leaves in it at the doors whenever the husband sets out for or arrives at from his journey. Technically it is called a Mangalakalaśa. A clever woman suggests a heroine, a good trick to prevent her husband from going abroad, that is to keep the new sprouts of mango along with its bunches on the top of the Mangalakalasa so that the husband knowing by that the advent of Vasanta would cancel his journey.34
For these love-lorn heroines the sight of the sprouts of mango are like Halahala. Naturally, the sight of a blossomed mango exorts the deep rooted feelings of a lady to come out. A heroine with a deep regret for her helpless condition says thus "There is no
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