Nee Mayayolago

English Translation of Nee Mayeyolago

Are you a creature of illusion? or illusion your creation?
Are you a part of the body? Or is the body a part of you?

Is space within the house? Or the house within space?
Or are both space and the house within the seeing eye?
Is the eye within the mind? Or the mind within the eye?
Or are both the eye and the mind within you?

Does sweetness lie in sugar, or sugar in sweetness?
Or do both sweetness and sugar lie in the tongue?

Is the tongue within the mind? Or the mind within the tongue?
Or are both the tongue and the mind within you?

Does fragrance lie in the flower? Or the flower in fragrance?
Or do both the flower and fragrance lie in the nostrils?
I cannot say, O Lord Adikeshava of Kaginele,
O! peerless one, are all things within you alone?

– Kanakadasa

Translated by K. Narasimha Murthy
for Karnataka Sahitya Academy
Bangalore – 1988
(Taken from ‘Aniketana’, A quarterly journal of Kannada literature for English readers)