1. Ramanujan, A.J., Speaking of Siva, London, Penguin Classics, 1973.

2. Keegan, P. (ed.), Ted Hughes: Collected Poems, London, Faber, 2003. p.24.

3. Heinz, D., The Paris Review, Vol.37, No.134, Spring 1995. p.11.

4. Manuscript notebook, Ted Hughes Papers, Box 57 / 16, Rare Book Library, Emory University, Atlanta, USA.

5. For identification purposes, I have capitalised this phrase and will refer to poems from this notebook by the initials VN and a page number (my numbering).

6. Basavanna 494, in Ramanujan, Speaking of Siva, p.82.

7. Hughes, ‘Revelations: the genius of Isaac Bashevis Singer’, Winter Pollen, London, Faber, 1994. p.67.

8. Faas, E. The Unaccommodated Universe, Black Sparrow Press, Santa Barbara, 1980. p.212.

9. Faas, E. The Unaccommodated Universe. pp.203-4.

10. Faas, The Unaccommodated Universe. p.204.

11. Mahadeviyakka 93, in Ramanujan, Speaking of Siva. p125. Mahadeviyakka was a younger, female contemporary of Basavanna.

12. Hughes, VN 62.

13. The spiritual journey reflected in the Gaudete Epilogue was charted very perceptively by Keith Sagar in The Art of Ted Hughes, Cambridge UP, 1978; and again, from a different perspective, by Leonard Scigaj in The Poetry of Ted Hughes, Iowa UP, 1986.

14. Faas, The Unaccommodated Universe, p.138.

15. Hughes to Anne-Lorraine Bujon in Christopher Reid (ed.), Letters of Ted Hughes, London, Faber, 2007. p.632.

16. Andreae, The Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz, Minerva Books, London (undated).

17, Hughes, Foreword to Difficulties of a Bridegroom, London, Faber, 1995. p.ix.

18. Basavanna 8, in Ramanujan, Speaking of Siva. p.67.

19. Hughes, VN 2.

20. The poems on pages 14 and 15 of the Vacana Notebook are clearly not vacanas but first drafts of the longer poem, ‘He gets up in dark dawn’, which was published in The Listener, 16 June 1977. Keegan (ed.), Ted Hughes: Collected Poems, p.379.

21. Mahadeviyakka 283, in Ramanujan, Speaking of Siva, p.134.

22. Mahadeviyakka 93 in Ramanujan, Speaking of Siva, p.125.

23. Basavanna 111, in Ramanujan, Speaking of Siva. p.75.

24. Hughes, VN 17.

25. Hughes, VN 7.

26. Basavanna 59, in Ramanujan, Speaking of Siva, p.70.

27. Hughes, VN 8.

28. ‘Top Withens’, in Hughes, Remains of Elmet, London, Faber, 1979. p. 103; Keegan (ed.), Ted Hughes: Collected Poems, p.486.

29. Basavanna 125, in Ramanujan, Speaking of Siva, p.76.

30. Hughes, VN 18.

31. Hughes, VN 37.

32. Hughes, VN 59.

33. Hughes, VN 21.

34. Basavanna 494, in Ramanujan, Speaking of Siva, p.82.

35. Hughes, VN 51.

36. Basavanna 500, in Ramanujan, Speaking of Siva, p.83.

37. Basavanna 212, in Ramanujan, Speaking of Siva, p.79.

38. Hughes, VN 25. This vacana was published in Ted Hughes’ Orts, Rainbow Press, 1978. p.38.

39. Basavanna 350, in Ramanujan, Speaking of Siva, p.80.

40. Hughes, VN 26.

41. Hughes, VN 27.

42. Hughes, VN 29.

43. Hughes, VN 38.

44. Ramanujan, Speaking of Siva, ‘Introduction’, p.54.

45 Hughes, VN 40.

46. Hughes, VN 46. Hughes, T. Gaudete, London, Faber, 1979, p.190. Keegan (ed.), Ted Hughes: Collected Poems, p.368.

47. Hughes, VN 59.

48. Ramanujan, Speaking of Siva, p.174.

49. Hughes, VN 53.

50. Hughes, VN 55.

51. Hughes, VN 54.

52. Hughes, VN 44.

53. Hughes, VN 85.

54. Hughes, VN 52.

55. Hughes, VN 48.

56. Hughes, VN 31.

57. Hughes, VN 30.

58. Hughes, VN 67.

59. Hughes, VN 79.

60. Hughes, VN 86.

61 Faas, The Unaccommodated Universe, p.139.

62. Allama 675, in Ramanujan, Speaking of Siva, p.164.

63. cf. Ted Hughes to Craige Raine, 23 February 1984, in Reid (ed.), Letters of Ted Hughes, p.479.

64. Notes to Gifford and Roberts included with a partly unpublished letter to Keith Sagar: 4. October 1979. British Library. Add. Mss. 78756.

65. Hughes, Gaudete, p.190; Keegan (ed.), Ted Hughes: Collected Poems, p.368.

66. Hughes, Gaudete. p.181; Keegan (ed.), Ted Hughes: Collected Poems, p. 361.

67. Hughes, Gaudete, p.185; Keegan (ed.), Ted Hughes: Collected Poems, p. 364.

68. Roberts, N. Ted Hughes: A Literary Life, Hampshire, Palgrave, 2006, Note. 52, p.228.

69. ‘Burst Open Under Blue–Black Pressure’, The Poetry Review, Vo. 88. No.1. Spring 1998, pp.82-87.

70. Hughes to Keith Sagar, 30 May 1977 in Reid (ed.), Letters of Ted Hughes, p.383.

71. Hughes to Keith Sagar, 18 July 1998 in Reid (ed.), Letters of Ted Hughes, p.720.