haikaiTALKS: a saturday gathering! 13th September 2025

haikaiTALKS: Five Senses & Tanmatras|a saturday gathering under the banyan tree

A Disclaimer

Responsibility for the originality of the haikai rests solely with the submitting poet. 

If anyone feels that it is similar to another haikai, they are encouraged to contact the relevant poet directly.

Triveni Haikai India will take any action as recommended by the submitting poet.

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Special Guest Poet: Lakshmi Iyer

host: Srinivasa Sambangi 13th September 2025

haikaiTALKS: a saturday gathering under the banyan tree

Your Guest Poet for SEPTEMBER for haikaiTALKS: Lakshmi Iyer

haikaiTALKS 

Five Senses & Tanmatras

The Upanishads, along with broader Vedic and Hindu philosophical texts, describe the five Jnanendriyas, or cognitive senses: hearing (ear), touch (skin), sight (eye), taste (tongue), and smell (nose).

These senses are considered the primary means by which an individual perceives the external world and gains knowledge about it. 

These five senses are often linked to the elements and their corresponding tanmatras:

Sound is associated with the ear and the element of space.

Touch is linked to the skin and the element of air.

Form/Sight is attributed to the eye and the element of fire.

Taste is associated with the tongue and the element of water.

Smell is linked to the nose and the element of earth. 

We have come across many poems connected to the five senses. We shall take each one of them and weave our senses! The given poems are my earthly experiences, published and presented here. Thank you so much, Kala Ramesh and the entire editorial board, for giving me this opportunity to present the feature in haikaiTALKS.

I'm looking forward to reading your poems, as I have come to understand how each one of you thinks differently. 

Touch: Skin: Air

Air/wind, it can be anything.  Just focus on one element and zoom in or out your experience. The touch of fragrant parijath, the smell of salted sea sticking on your lips and many more, but don't mention the taste or the smell ... it's a different topic.

Just the wind ... the loosening of hair as the spring sways ... the split-second prick of the thorn as if all the pain comes down on us ... the touch of mother's wrinkled palm, and so on.

moss-covered rock 

I touch the warmth left

by a cormorant 

  Sanjukta Asopa, Belgaum, India 

  The Herons Nest, June 2018

muddy village road ...

I take off my shoes to feel

those childhood days

     Milan Rajkumar, Imphal, India 

Creatrix 56, March 2022

acid attack ...

the blossoming stops

midway

           Lakshmi Iyer, India 

          haikuKATHA, Issue 25, Nov 2023

The sense of touch is writhing with pain in the tanmatra of skin, whereas equally significant is the balance of touch after the cormorant leaves, summing up with the skin becoming a memory of childhood days.

“A Dictionary of Haiku Classified by Season Words with Traditional and Modern Methods,” by Jane Reichhold:

https://thehaikufoundation.org/omeka/files/original/7fb6654a1dfd1afef97369da920530f8.pdf

Indian subcontinent SAIJIKI:

https://www.trivenihaikai.in/indian-saijiki

The Five Hundred Essential Japanese Season Words:

http://www.2hweb.net/haikai/renku/500ESWd.html

The World Kigo Database:

https://wkdkigodatabase03.blogspot.com/

The Yuki Teikei Haiku Season Word List:

https://yths.org/season-word-list/

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Thanks, Lakshmi. We are eagerly looking forward to how the next two months are going to unfold.

Dear Members,

Waiting for your responses.

Please give your feedback on others' commentary and poems, too. _()_

We are continuing haikaiTALKS in a grand manner!

Keep writing and commenting! _kala