Comparison to Telugu and Tamil Padams

While reading Holsinger's article, I first noticed that every passage used to show the sexuality present in Hildegard's works personified female sexuality. The Antichrist appears from the vagina of a woman, while the male genitalia is hidden by a harp. The next few pages talk about Hildegard's vivid imagery of the female giving birth, the Virgin Mary's conception, etc.

This juxtaposition of sexuality and spiritual devotion reminded me of Telugu and Tamil padams: devotional poetry-songs. These songs often contained images of God as a customer of courtesans. Ksetrayya (one of the most celebrated authors of padams) and other writers generally composed these from the point of view of the courtesan. That is, it would be written in the voice of a courtesan searching for her lover, as the lord, to join her. While there are many cases of directly explicit sexual tones, in many cases, the expression was not directly sexual. The main theme in all of these was spiritual devotion. I was interested to see how spiritual devotion can have many sexual overtones in both forms; it seems as though the body is described sexually as a means of reconciling the mind with the "higher" pleasure of religious ecstasy. For instance, take this passage from When God is a Customer: Telugu Courtesan Songs by Ksetrayya and Others:

The whole town fast asleep,
the whole world pitch dark,
and the seas utterly still,
when it's one long extended night,
if He who sleeps on the snake,
who once devoured the earth, and kept it in his belly,
will not come to the rescue,
who will save my life? (5.2.1)

Deep ocean, earth and sky
hidden away,
it's one long monstrous night:
if my Kannan too,
dark as the blue lily,
will not come,
now who will save my life,
sinner that I am?
O heart, you too are not on my side. (5.2.2)

O heart, you too are not on my side.
The long night with no end
has lengthened into an eon.
My Lord Rama will not come,
with his protecting bow.
I do not know how it will end—
I with all my potent sins,
born as a woman. (5.2.3)

"Those born as women, see much grief,
but I'll not look at it," says the Sun
and he hides himself;
our Dark Lord, with red lips and great eyes,
who once measured this earth,
he too will not come.
Who will quell the unthinkable ills
of my heart? (5.2.4)

This lovesickness stands behind me
and torments my heart.
This eon of a night
faces me and buries my sight.
My lord, the wheel forever firm in his hands,
will not come.
So who will save this long life of mine
that finds no end at all? (5.2.6)

Ramanujan, A.K. When God is a Customer: Telugu Courtesan Songs by Ksetrayya and Others. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. Pages 9–10.

In this song, the speaker is a young woman, obviously separated from her lover. This lover is identified as the various forms of Vishnu—Kannan, or Krishna; Rama; he who sleeps on the snake; and the Dark Lord are all various forms of Vishnu. The lover refuses to come, and the woman is alone at night. She is tortured with longing, and spends time wrestling with gender issues. She blames herself, her "sins," her womanhood, and possibly the lover as well.

I thought this compares interestingly with Hildegard's use of sexual language to reconcile the body with spiritual devotion.