Barahmasa: Songs Of Twelve Months by Prof P. C. Jain and Dr. Daljeet
Aravinda Lochanan
Barahmasa: Songs Of Twelve Months
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Barahmasa, an ordinary term composed of two parts, ‘barah’ –
twelve, and ‘masa’ – month, meaning that which covers or
continues over twelve months and hence used sometimes also for
perennially flowering plants and similar other things, has since
long conventionalized in Indian tradition as a genre of poetry –
folk or classical, secular or sectarian, but essentially romantic
and intensely emotional. Not a wall-calendar, the leaves of which
one tears off or turns after a month has passed, in the poetic
convention of Barahmasa the soul, separated from the loved one,
spans the time with every breath that it takes. Its calendar –
days, weeks and months, is wide-writ on the nature’s face,
changing minute to minute, from ejecting a bud’s petals or
melting of a winter night into dew-drops and a friezing body
sinking into another, to torrential rains with dark awful clouds
rending with their roar the sky and the earth and shaking the
body and soul. Intensity of emotions, especially the pangs of
separation, in tune with or in contrast to what occurs in nature
beyond, is a Barahmasa poem’s pith, and it is in this passionate
yearning, fervency and cosmic magnification of an emotion’s
intensity that Sufis and others in the line have discovered in
the Barahmasa theme mystic connotations.
Barahmasa, the ‘songs of twelve months’, as the Barahmasa is
sometimes defined, is primarily the poetry of viraha –
separation, the pangs of which change its face with nature’s
every change but the degree of their severity does not change or
rather only further aggravates with every change occurring
around. Whoever the poet, male or female, it is usually a song
presented as being sung in first person by a young woman
tormented by the absence of her beloved and pining all twelve
months for his return. It reveals on one hand her pain of
separation, and on the other, nature’s face further aggravating
it. The intimately and lyrically presented nature is linked with
the singer’s pain either through similitude or by painful
contrasts. Essentially full of pathos the Barahmasa is the song
of a woman deeply engrossed in love so much so that even a Sufi
saint, singing of his intense desire to unite with the Supreme,
imagined himself to be his Lord’s consort – a woman in love,
every minute pining to unite with Him.
Barahmasa : The Conflict Of ‘Within’ With ‘Beyond’
The Barahmasa poetry seeks thus its distinction on one hand in
the intensity of an emotion – love in separation in particular,
which attains sheerly by such intensity cosmic width and mystic
dimensions, and on the other, in the portrayal of nature, which
reveals to some its songs and symphony, and to others, its cruel
tormenting face. Awe-striking or alluring, nature melts into
lyrics, dances to its own tunes and rhythm and reels with an
incessant series of pictures, delighting the eye but tormenting
the lovelorn heart by its insensitive contrasts and cruel
indifference or animosity. Barahmasa poetry is broadly a record
of psycho-analytical reactions of the mind in love responding to
cyclic changes of nature as they occur when its surroundings pass
from one set of them to another, broadly, month-wise. Thus, a
Barahmasa poem perceives its theme on two levels, one, whatever
occurs in nature beyond, from this corner to that on the earth or
in the sky, and secondly, the turmoil with which reels the heart
in love that has its loved one sojourning in foreign lands.
Nature affords to Barahmasa poetry its canvas, all pictures and
colors, love, its spirit and essence, and endless continuity of
its pangs month-after-month, its narrative technique and epical
stretch and binds into one thread the two confronting worlds, the
worlds of man and nature.
A Genre Of Literature And Art Characteristic To Indian Soil
Pictorially very rich and emotionally most fervent, the Barahmasa
poetry, which subsequently had its transforms in Indian art, is a
genre confining to Indian land, her literature and art. It has
given to Indian literature some of its best lyrics, to medieval
miniature painting, a rare theme and some of its most brilliant
painting series, and to the folk tradition, some of its
heart-touching lore and the most popular instrument to dispel the
monotony of a low-spirited shivering winter evening. Not that
they do not have a song or a landscape painting of brilliant
Spring, sad Autumn or monotonous Winter, other traditions of the
world literature and art are not known to have woven their woes,
or any other kind of emotions, around each cyclic change of
nature in such continuity as would have epical stretch and
constituted a genre different from any other.
Such inter-action-reaction of nature’s phenomena and human
emotions as a Baramasa poem or painting series portrays is a rare
feature of India’s literature and art; and perhaps, with her
unique geography which subtle, constant and continuous cycle of
seasons characterize, people’s emotional temperament of which
love and sacrifice are the core, and conventions like those
seeking to classify young lovers, male and female, as Nayakas and
Nayikas, the soil of India alone could breed a genre like
Barahmasa, in literature or art. Neither the Western nor any
other hemisphere has such subtly transforming nature with each
season having a phenomenal distinction of its own, such emotional
bent of mind and so minutely analyzed understanding of those in
love as has the Indian soil. Unlike many other theologies which
do not attribute to love any kind of spiritual or heroic status,
in Indian way love is both, personal timidity as also heroic, and
mundane as well as transcendental, and this has helped a genre
like Barahmasa to become the vehicle of both the mundane emotions
and spiritual elevation.
Brimming with the finest of imagery and the tender-most emotions
Barahmasa, ever the tool of masters and the most distinctive
genre of Indian poetry and art, especially the miniature
painting, comprises the rarest of the rare collection of any art
lover. It is a live tradition in both literature and art – songs
still composed and sung, and miniatures yet painted, both
breathing the same medievalism as breathed a
seventeenth-eighteenth century leaf. One might yet find artists
trained in modern art institutions resorting to medieval
miniature painting technique trying their hands on Barahmasa
theme and seek their distinction.
Ritu-Varnan, The Initial Form Of Barahmasa
Ritu-varnan, usually the shad-ritu-varnan – the portrayal of six
seasons, or ritu-samhara – celebrating a season, Basant or other,
was the initial form of Baramasa. However, while festivity, a
mood to enjoy the budding of a new season, its colors and magic,
was the nucleus of ritu-samhara, Barahmasa, the subsequent
convention of vernacular literature seeking to wreathe human
emotions, particularly pangs of separation, around the cycle of
seasons, was more often the tool of a lovelorn heart. As suggest
Ritu-Samhara, one of the Sanskrit classics by Kalidasa, and the
rules ordained in a number of Sanskrit texts including Bharata’s
Natya-shashtra, the emergence of a ritu was a public event when
entire town or village gathered to welcome and enjoy it with
light, colors, and dance sometimes accompanied also by a stage
performance. Basantotsava, the festival of Basant dedicated to
love god Kamadeva and his consort Rati, was the most widely
celebrated ritu festival.
The Term Ritu In Vedic Literature
The earliest allusion to the word ‘ritu’ is found in the
Rig-Veda, though not exactly in the sense the term is now used.
Yajna being the kernel of Vedic cult, the term ‘ritu’ has been
used in the Rig-Veda in relation to yajna-rites. Though in the
Rig-Veda the term ‘ritu’ also denoted a certain facet of nature,
almost the same as it subsequently implied, in true Vedic context
the term ‘ritu’ identified a period, or a division of time,
specified for the performance of a certain yajna. The whole year
was divided into – chaturamasa, three parts of the four months
each and each part was associated with a specific yajna and was
known as the ritu of such yajna. Sometimes the Vedas identify a
certain season with a deity or god such as rains with Parjanya,
another name for rain-god Indra and it is in invoking him that a
certain ritu has been alluded to. Thus despite that terms like
Basant, Grishma, Sharada etc., the names of various ritus, were
also used in the Vedic literature, the term ‘ritu’ defined, not
so much an aspect of nature’s cycle as the period of a specific
yajna in the annual schedule of yajnas.
Characteristic of Vedic mysticism, sometimes the Vedic literature
perceives yajna as the manifestation of the Unmanifest Supreme,
and ‘ritus’, as various aspects of yajna and thus of the
Unmanifest. Through a metaphor, the Purush-sukta in the Rig-Veda
perceives the cosmos as a great yajna dedicated to the Supreme
Being, in which gods, the performers of yajna, used Basant, the
spring, as the ‘ghee’ – melted butter, for oblation, Grishma, the
summer, as fuel, Sharada, the autumn, as the food offered in the
course of yajna, and Varsha, the rains, as the sacred water of
sacrifice and for sprinkling it around the Supreme being, that
is, ritus, the components of cosmic existence, were also the
components of yajna, and thus His aspects. While talking of
various species of frogs in yet another Sukta, the Rig-Veda not
only alludes to Varsha as the originator of them all but in one
of the verses also enumerates in perfect order all twelve months
and the month-wise period of each ritu.
Shad-Ritus In Vedic And Later Vedic Literature
As regards the number of ritus, the Vedic literature has two
perceptions. The Rig Vedic Samhitas classify the annual cycle
into five seasons; namely, Pravard – rains, Gharma –summer,
Sharada – autumn, Vasanta – spring, and Hemanta – winter. The
Yajur-Veda and the Brahmans add Shishira – the season of cool
days, to them and thus the cycle or the concept of Shad-ritus –
six seasons, accepted as such ever since, becomes complete. Thus,
by the time of Yajur-Veda and Brahmans the number of seasons as
six had been finally determined. Sharada, the season of bright
sun, lustrous moon and glowing blue sky, is the transitional
phase between rains and winter, which corresponds to the days of
autumn in the western hemisphere and is hence alike translated,
though in Indian subcontinent autumn, the season when trees shed
their leaves, comes after Spring and thus Sharada and Autumn are
not the same.
In this cycle both Hemanta and Shishira relate to winter but
while Hemanta represents its coldest part, Shishira defines its
diminishing phase. Texts, even those passages of the Vedas, under
which the number of ritus is five, consider Hemanta and Shishira as one.
It is the same with Basant, which unlike Grishma, the season of
parching heat, is a pleasant phase of warmth which relieves from
winter’s stings and prepares for facing the oncoming summer.
Besides that many texts talk of the rains’ four months, the
convention of peregrinating Buddhist, Jain and ascetics of other
sects staying at one place for the four months of the rains
suggests that monsoon season was considered to stretch over four
months. This convention identifies Sharada just as a part of
rains. Alike many texts do not consider Shishira and Basant as
ritus. They talk of them as mere months – Shishira-masa and
Vasanta masa, perhaps as both were just transitory. Thus under
broad frame and in line with the Rig-Vedic yajna-based
classification there are three seasons – summer, rains and
winter, but with each of them divided into two parts their number
rises to six.
Obviously, the classification of the annual cycle into six ritus,
made during later Vedic days, was more sensitive and minute. It
was around then that a kind of inter-relationship between the
changes of nature and man’s emotional world was first recorded.
The names that the Taittiriya Samhita has used for each of the
months are strangely connotative. Not mere names, they denoted
also the peculiarities of the season to which they belonged.
Basant comprised two months, Madhu (February/March) and Madhava
(March/April); one suggestive of honey – sweetness, and the
other, of one brimming with honey, the essence of Basant. Grishma
comprised Shukra (April/May) and Shuchi (May/June), which
variously means grief of separation, as also the blazing light of
summer. In old days summer was the period when traders, warriors,
craftsmen, masons among others went away to earn money for the
rainy days, Nabha (June/July) and Nabhasya (July/August),
associated with rains, denoted sky and the clouds rising there;
Isha (August/September), the seed laid, and Urja
(September/October), or energy, the seed’s sprouting, that is,
fertility and vigor, denoted the post-rain season of sowing which
is Sharada; Saha (October/November) and Sahasya
(November/December), the months of winter, denoted one’s
obligation to bear, and the season’s toughness; and Tapa
(December/January) and Tapasya (January/February), associated
with Shishira, were denotative of the earth’s rough face which it
acquired after the dry winter.
The Birth Of The New Genre
No doubt, the term ‘ritu’, the number of ritus, some of their
broad features and their period in the annual calendar begin
appearing in the Rig-Veda itself. It was, however, in the Great
Epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, that the cult of
describing a ritu as in Ritu-varnan – a secular poetic genre,
first appears. Illustrating examples from early traditions, such
as the Buddhist Thera-gathas, the songs of peregrinating Buddhist
monks and nuns, some scholars opine that season-description might
have been initially the subject matter of ‘muktaka-kavya – free
verse poetry, and only from such poetry the epical poetry might
have borrowed it. Though nothing of such muktaka-kavya tradition
now exists, except perhaps some religious songs of Thera-gathas
estimated to have been composed in between 500 B. C. to 100 B.
C., stylistic maturity and assimilation of numerous lyrical
passages not directly linked with their principal themes into the
Great Epics suggest that there must have been a long tradition of
poetry before it reached its apex in the form of the Ramayana and
the Mahabharata. Intrusion of expressions like blue-necked
peacock, cool breeze, blue clouds, Indragopa-insects among
others, all essentially the components of monsoon descriptions
and obviously of muktaka-kavya poetry, into the religious
Thera-gatha songs indicate that season descriptions might have
been those days the dominating feature of poetry, whatever its
type, the religious free-verse or an epic.
Ritu-Varnan In The Epics : The Ramayana And The Mahabharata
Whatever their source, the Great Epics are the earliest reported
poetry to comprise season descriptions. However, none of the
Epics has anywhere a full cycle of seasons. The seasons described
in them are usually isolated and often unrelated to the main
theme. The Ramayana has descriptions of four major seasons –
winter, spring, the rains and autumn with a sarga – sub-canto,
devoted to each. Though described in natural sequence, each of
them occurs in different parts of the Epic and isolated from each
other. It is, however, greatly significant that the cult of
wreathing one’s own world around a season begins to have its
roots in the Ramayana. One winter morning during their sojourn in
Panchavati when going towards river Godavari with Rama and Sita
for ablutions, the harsh and cold winter reminds Lakshmana of the
pathetic fate of his brother Bharata who has been used to
luxuries and comforts and despite that he is ruling Ayodhya is
passing his days like a hermit. He then criticizes Kekeyi,
Bharata’s mother, for whatever has happened but Rama forbids him
from doing so. Not merely that winter serves as a mere stimulus
for his retrospection but he also describes it formally as cold
and harsh and endowed with snow and frost. It is alike
significant that this entire sub-canto of Aranyaka-kanda has been
composed as Lakshmana’s direct speech, another essential feature
of Barahmasa genre. The entire narration in first person but
impersonally made and hardly anything in it relates to the three
characters of the story or their situation.
The description of Basant in the Kishkindha kanda is far closer
to the Barahmasa convention for after Sita’s abduction by Ravana
it truly transforms into a viraha song. Rama and Lakshmana have
come to river Pampa in order to meet Sugriva. The passage begins
with the description of the river’s beauty to which is added the
description of Basant and Rama’s love-longings, something which
seems to be merely contextual. However, this season-description
is not context-born. In this well-conceived passage the poet
attempts at exploring the turmoil in Rama’s lovelorn heart after
his separation from Sita in contrast to season’s beautiful
glowing face. It more intimately explores nature and how it acts
on a lovelorn mind. Rama is made to himself speak to his brother
of the beauty of Basant, and all personally and intimately, not
impersonally as in Lakshmana’s winter description. He often asks
Lakshmana to look at the beauty of nature around and at the same
time gives vent to his grief of separation which such beauty
further aggravates. The descriptions of monsoon and autumn are
also in identical veins. While roaming alone on mount Malyavat
Rama witnesses clouds gathering in the sky. It reminds him how
Bharata and Sugriva are with their wives and crowns and he is
without both. Rama’s encounter with autumn is scattered over
several parts. If at one place he swoons when reminded of Sita,
at other, he breaks with grief thinking how Sita enjoyed autumn
in his company. Thus, despite that it describes just four seasons
and those too isolated from each other, the Ramayana is the
earliest known text to evolve the Barahmasa or at least the
Ritu-varnan in Barahmasa vein, which sought to universalize a
personal emotion using season or nature as its courier. The
Mahabharata has hardly any kind of season descriptions except
casually alluding to various months of the year or hours of the
day like sun-set.
Shad-Ritus In Other Sanskrit Texts And Canonical Literature
As regards the full length Shad-ritu-varnan in proper natural
sequence, its earliest examples are found in the poetry of
Kalidasa, though there are opinions that the genre had attained
its fully evolved form during the period in between him and
Ashwaghosa. Nature description is the core of many of Kalidasa’s
works – Kumarasambhava, Meghdoot, Raghuvansa among others;
however it evolves in its fullest accomplished form in the
Ritu-samhara. Running into six cantos the Ritu-samhara describes
in detail the six seasons of the year as per Indian calendar and
how with each change in the season the mood and behavior of a
young lover alters. In the Meghdoot the intensity of love-longing
is far deeper. However, the Yaksha in exile weaves his passion
only around the clouds and thus season description confines only
to the rains. Most of the subsequent Sanskrit texts – Bhattikavya
by Bhatti, Kiratarjuniya by Bharavi, Shishupala-vadha by Magha,
Naishadhacharita by Shriharsha among others, have come out with
season-descriptions occupying sizeable space in each.
Subject-matter in regard to season-description has its presence
in canonical literature at least since 3rd-2nd century B. C. with
its first appearance in the Natya-shashtra by sage Bharata.
Basically a work of dramaturgy the Natya-shashtra directs how
seasons should be represented in a drama, especially on the stage
through an actor’s performance – acts, gestures, facial demeanors
and the like. In his Kavyadarsha, Dandin mandates that an epic
should essentially include the descriptions of ocean, mountains,
seasons, the moon and the sun rise, parks, gardens, water-sports
and pleasures of love. The observations of Bharata and Dandin are
quite brief aimed at giving some broad guidelines. It is however
Rajashekhara who in his Kavyamimansha comes with all aspects of
season description including each season’s basic characteristic
features, each season’s months-wise division, temperament of each
month, imagery that a poet should use in representing a season,
besides how the human mind reacts to a particular season. Thus,
while on one hand Rajashekhara summarized how the seasons were
portrayed in prior literature, on the other, he laid the
canonical standards for those aspiring to portray seasons in
their writings. As in most other things, Puranas also showed
interest in season-description. The Matsya Purana has a whole
chapter dedicated only to the month of spring and the Samba
Purana alludes to different colors of the sun in the six ritus.
The Chitra-sutra in the Vishnudharmottarpurana prescribes certain
general rules for the depiction of each of the four seasons.
Shad-Ritu Varnan vs. Barahmasa
Broadly, the genre known in the Sanskrit literature as ritu or
shad-ritu-varnan is known in the literature of masses or in
vernacular literature as Barahmasa, though while in the
shad-ritu-varnan the annual calendar is classified into six
parts, in Barahmasa, it is in twelve. In ritu-varnan the
description of nature’s changes is season-wise formalized and is
often impersonal, in Barahmasa, it is more subtle, puritan,
personal and intimate. The ritu-varnan aims at describing the
aura and magic of nature as it emerges with the change of a
season, or as conventionalized, though at times conjoining with
it also the singer’s emotions, the kernel of Barahmasa is the
turmoil of a loving mind that each of nature’s changes
stimulates. The nature is dragged into the world of human
emotions and represents the singer’s own vision of it. Being
formal and impersonal, shad-ritu-varnan is the genre of gentry
and its literature, but intimately felt in the blood the songs of
the twelve months, that is, everyday life, of lovelorn heart
belong to unsophisticated, uncultivated folk. Actually, it is
immaterial whether the poet perceives the cycle of time in the
frame of six seasons or the twelve months, what matters is how he
perceives it – formally and impersonally, or intimately and
subjectively.
The Kumarasambhava and the Ramayana both are epics, but, while
the Ramayana represents an amalgam of various folk traditions,
the Kumarasambhava is a classic observing all set norms of
poetics and other conventions. This variously characterizes the
nature description in the two great texts. Rama, whose divinity
often reveals in the Ramayana and who is represented as Ayodhya’s
prince, on monsoon’s onset gives vent to his feelings as would an
ordinary village lad. Clouds gathering in the sky remind him of
how Bharata and Sugriva are with their wives and in their
kingdoms while he is without both. Such subjectivity does not
reveal in the nature description of the Kumarasambhava, though it
is also in context to Parvati doing penance for winning Shiva’s
love. Thus the ritu-varnan in the Ramayana is in Barahmasa vein,
while that in the Kumarasambhava, in shad-ritu-varnan. Most
Barahmasas are based on the lunar calendar having months as
Chaitra, Vaishakha, Jyestha, Asadha, Sravana, Bhadaon, Ashvin,
Karttika, Agrahayana, Pausha, Magha and Phalguna. Each two of
them are respectively the months of Basant, Grishma, Varsha,
Sharada, Hemanta and Shishira.
Types Of Barahmasas
The Barahmasa has two basic forms, one, literary, and the other,
oral. Literary Barahmasas are a part of the written literature
and are endowed with poetic merit and compositional uniformity.
In its other form Barahmasa is found in many oral traditions from
Gujarat to Bengal and in entire north and central India. Several
texts have just a part of Barahmasa, sometimes formalized as
chaumasa – four months, chhayamasa – six months, or athamasa –
eight months. In literary tradition there are two types of
Barahmasa, one, viraha, and the other, religious. The religious
Barahmasas are further divided into two categories, one
spiritual, and other, personal or mundane. Kabir often talks of
self as Rama’s consort every moment longing to meet Him. Sikhs’
first Guru Baba Nanak and fifth, Guru Arjan Deva, wove around
twelve months the yearnings of his self to unite with the ‘Karta
Purukh’ – the Creator, in the Barahmasa vein.
The twenty-second Jain Tirthankara Neminatha renounced the world
when his marriage procession reached the house of Rajimati or
Rajala, his bride. This unique situation of Rajimati’s separation
from Neminatha and its pangs have been the theme of a number of
Barahmasa both in Jain texts and oral tradition. Kabir’s metaphor
and Guru Nanak’s songs of twelve months comprise the spiritual
type, while those of Rajimati, the mundane. Rajimati’s does not
class as the viraha Barahmasa, not only because it is the theme
of Jains’ religious texts but also because, even when personal,
Rajimati’s yearnings are for a Tirthankara, the highest divinity
in Jain sect. The intensity of Rajimati’s love for Neminatha had
such sublimity that it transformed her into the Siddhi, an
ascetic divine status to which none of the wives of other
Tirthankaras could rise.
However, Barahmasa, oral or written, as a genre, has broad five
types, namely, religious, farming-related, narrative, viraha, and
the Barahmasa of chaste woman’s trial. As suggest Thera-gatha
songs, the religious type must have been the earliest, though its
mystic dimensions might have been its later development after the
emergence of devotionalism of which love was considered as the
best ritual. In its initial form religious Barahmasa might have
been a popular means for spreading the religious massage of
Buddha and Mahavira in their respective religions. In some parts,
especially Bengal, a farmer’s activities round the year,
described month-wise, and his pathetic condition in contrast to
his enormous labor, comprised the theme of Barahmasa poetry.
Almost all Barahmasas are composed in narrative form; however,
some of them have epical stretch and its narrative aspect is more
accentuated. Most popular form of the genre is viraha Barahmasa.
The genre has yet another type sometimes known also as kutani or
duti-kavya – poetry of go-between. It portrays efforts of a hero
trying to seduce a woman separated from her husband through a
messenger. A part of the poem comprises dialogues between the
lovelorn and duti in which the duti persuades her by various
temptations, and the other, the dialogue between the lovelorn and
her sakhi – friend, who advises her to forget her faithless
husband and enjoy the boon of her youth.
Enormity Of Barahmasa Model In Literature, Art And Music
Not only literature, miniature painting and even music have
resorted to the Barahmasa model for seeking in it narrative
continuity, vivid imagery, intense emotions, lyrical fervency,
rhythmic vibrancy and dramatic conflict of the worlds of man and
nature, besides its mystic connotations. The mystics like the
early 16th century poet Malik Mohammad Jayasi, Hindi poets like
Keshavadasa, Senapati, Datta, and Deva and poets of regional
languages like Mulla Daud, Bulle Shah
among others have resorted to Barahmasa motifs and technique.
Most of the Ragas in the classical music are set in accordance to
various seasons – Hindol to Basant,
Illustrative from its initiation Indian miniature painting has
borrowed a lot from literature in general but Barahmasa in
particular, which is one of its most important themes. It usually
comprises twelve leafs serializing various seasons, sometimes the
festivals occurring during such seasons, such as Holi in the
month of Phalguna. In some series Radha replaces the lonely
heroine. However, in most other cases it is a nayika separated
from her loved one, usually a warrior, in whose context the cycle
of the changing seasons is depicted. Paintings from hill states,
Rajasthan and even smaller schools from Central India have
resorted to Baramasa genre. Datia, one of the schools of painting
in Central India, has painted a timeless series of Ashtayama,
another form of Barahmasa series, now in the collection of State
Museum, Lucknow.
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This article by Prof P. C. Jain and Dr. Daljeet
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For further study
----------------------------------------
Prabandha Kosha (Rajashekhara) : edited by Muni Jinavijaya,
Shantiniketan, 1935.
Rig-Veda Samhita : edited by F. Maxmuller; English translation by
H. Wilson, Poona.
Valmiki Ramayana : Gita Press, Gorakhpur, 1976.
Vishnudharmottarapurana : Bombay, 1912; English translation by
Priyabala Shah, Baroda, 1961.
V. P. Dwivedi : Barahmasa, New Delhi, 1980
Charlotte Vaudeville : Barahmasa in Indian Literature, Delhi,
1986
Danielle Feller : The Seasons in Mahakavya Literature, Delhi,
1995
W. G. Archer : Seasonal Songs of Patna District, Man in India, v.
XXII, 1952
O. D. Dalal (ed) : Neminatha Phagu in Prachina Kavya Sangraha,
Baroda, 1956
Agar Chand Nahta : Barahmasa ki Prachina Parampara, in Hindi
Anushilana, V.S. 2010
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