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Bee-Culture at Present: Harsa-Carita

This secretion does not appear to have been offensive to the people, far otherwise, and there are frequent references to it. The following quotations from Bāna's Harsa-Carita graphically, and possibly with exaggeration, describe this phenomenon. The elephant stable is observed, - "indistinct, owing to the distance, but regaling the nostrils with an odor as of groves of Vakula trees in full bloom which diffused itself far and wide, while the stable was filled with streams of ichor covered with bees." "Sweet inebriating fragrance" The inebriating effect of the nectar of flowers upon the bees is a favorite fancy with the Hindu poets, as is also the song of the bee, but of all the wild flights of fancy indulged in on the subject, nothing is known to the present writer to com- 239 242 243 Appendix pare with this, culled from the Harsa-Carita. The description is of a portion of the bank of a beautiful river, - "Here are honeyed voices of peacocks, trees having stocks besanded with heaps of pollen, the entrancing hum of lutelike clusters of scent-intoxicated bees." "A fragrance of flowers" The bridegroom also was not without his charms, which, however, will not be so fully appreciated by modern readers, for we are informed that, "A throng of bees crowding towards his fragrance arrayed his willowy form as with a dark garment." In another part of the romance we have this oriental description of the future bride: "her blooming moon-like face flooding the world with an outpouring of beauty like a stream of passion, buoyed up by swarms of dusky bees attracted by the fragrance of her flowery couch."

It is worth while to know that the youth of whom she was enamoured and whom she finally married presented many very remarkable characteristics and among them, "His mouth, breathing a fragrance of mangoes, camphor, kakkala-fruits, cloves, and coral trees, and resounding with a hubbub of intoxicated bee-swarms, seemed to emit a very spring together with a pandana forest."

The king of this period had a voice "flowing like a river of honey."

One cannot help wondering if this attraction of the bees to a fragrant breath or body was not sometimes fraught with unpleasant consequences, for the sting of a tropical bee is severe, and in fact such a mishap was dreaded, as we learn from the king's jester in the Nágánanda, a Buddhist drama: - "Halloa! why now do these odious bees attack me?" (smelling himself.) "Ah! I see how it is. I have been respectfully decked with perfumes by the relations of Malayavatí, as the bridegroom's friend, and a garland of Saritâria flowers has been placed upon my head, and now that very respect has become a cause of an annoyance."

As a rule, however, those who fell victims to the bees were pious hermits practising their devotions and standing motionless with helpless, outspread arms. One very sad case is related of a hermit whose sacred though powerful odors dis- PAGE 243 Appendix turbed a beautiful lady walking with her husband the king. She prevailed upon her lord to assist her in cleansing the devotee and rubbing him down with aromatic oils.

It is related that he patiently submitted, not only to the cleansing process, but also to the swarms of bees that straightway fell upon him and that the too sensitive lady received a terrible and fitting punishment from the gods for objecting to the odor of sanctity.

In the Nágánanda we find the following polite form of asking for a kiss:- "O lovely one! if this face of thine, with its pink flush as it is lighted up by the sun's rays, and with its soft down revealed by the spreading gleam of its teeth, is really a lotus, why is not a bee seen drinking the honey from it?"