Bilhana

Bilhana was a Kashmiri Sanskrit poet of the 11th century. His exact dates are unknown; the birth year used to place him in the archive is only a sort key. He is best known as the poet to whom the Chaurapanchasika, "Fifty Stanzas of the Thief", is attributed.

In the tradition that grew up around the poem, the stanzas are the thoughts of a lover awaiting execution who recalls, one after another, his nights with a princess. The poem is read here in E. Powys Mathers's free English version, Black Marigolds (1919).