[[Mohan K.V 2012-11-15, 19:26:58 Source]]
सदास्वादरोमन्थः
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Dear reader,
It is already time for our second reminiscence! Many thanks once again for your continued encouragement and interest.
First, an administrative matter: it was brought to our attention that because of a default setting of the new Google Groups, many of you may have inadvertently signed up with a ‘No Email’ option and haven’t been aware of any activity at all! To rectify this, we have set all ‘No Email’ memberships to ‘Email’ memberships. If you had deliberately selected and wish to continue with the ‘No email’ option,our sincere apologies –please let us know and we’ll switch you back. You can of course change your preferences any time on the Google Groups site:https://groups.google.com/group/sadaswada
Ms Sudha Raghuraman,Dr. P. Narayanan and Śatāvadhāni Dr. R. Ganesh correctly identified the phrase “X Y Z” in edition #5. The verse in question was,
sā ramyā nagarī mahān sa nṛpatiḥ sāmantacakraṃ ca tat
pārśve tasya ca sā vidagdhapariṣat tāḥ candrabimbānanāḥ |
udvṛttaḥ sa ca rājaputranivahaḥ te vandinaḥ tāḥ kathāḥ
sarvaṃ yasya vaśāt agāt smṛtipathaṃ *X Y Z* ||
X Y Z is that famous phrase graced by Bhartṛhari’s signature, “kālāya tasmai namaḥ” – “salutations to Time”. The true beauty of such a phrase extends beyond its contextual boundaries, and into the realm of inspiring entirely new trains of thought. Dr. Ganesh, for example, recounted several instances of using it as a “Samasyāpūrti” – a form of a riddle where 1 line (usually the last) is given, and a poet must fill in the other 3 lines so that the verse as a whole is coherent. Here is an example of his, using it to give the same feel as the original poem, but with a much more personal flavor:
tad-bālyaṃ tad-atīva-mugdha-madhura-praśnāvalī-kautukaṃ
tat-sāyaṃtana-saikatāṅgaṇa-raṇat-krīḍā-samullāsanaṃ |
tan-muṣṭāmra-śalāṭu-khaṇḍa-rasanaṃ tad-gāṇita-kṣobhitaṃ
sarvaṃ yasya vaśād-agāt-smṛti-pathaṃ kālāya tasmai namaḥ || >
“That childhood, that sweet innocence of endlessly questioning > curiosity, >
That loud, noisy happiness of playing in a sandbox in the evening,
Biting into an stolenunripemango, being stressed by a math > problem,
By whose power all this was relegated to mere memory – salutations > to Time!” >
“tan-muṣṭāmra-śalāṭu-khaṇḍa-rasanaṃ” – why, each samāsa above deserves an entry of its own! As always, our sincere thanks to Dr. Ganesh for this gem of a contribution.
Mrs. Lakshmi Narayan and Dr. Praveen Kumar sent their warm appreciation;bhavad-vidha-sahṛdaya-suhṛdāṃ sadabhiprāya-sampādanam eva asmat-sarvārambha-sāphalyam :-)
The content of #8, a verse about separation from the Amaruśatakaṃ, still rings in our ears and there’s a gnawing sense even such unbridled verbosity as deluged that edition did not do enough justice to those 9 syllables. The great Russian short story writer Anton Chekhov once said, “Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass”. This principle of poetic suggestion is taken to its pinnacle in the Amaru verse. Not once is the actual content of the thought of the traveler revealed. What might he be thinking at the moment? We don’t know – but we felt like re-listening to Carl Sagan’sPale Blue Dot, re-reading a Harlan Ellison short story (“Like a wind crying endlessly through the universe, time carries away the names and deeds of conquerors and commoners alike. And all that we were, all that remains is in the memories of those who cared we came this way for a brief moment.”) and re-watching some Charlie Kaufman movies :-)
As always, we welcome any thoughts, feedback and suggestion from you all. Please email us atkvm….@gmail.comandshree…@gmail.com
Thought for today
उच्चैरपि वक्तव्यं यत्किंचिदजानताऽपि पुरुषेण ।
मूर्खा बहु मन्यन्ते विदुषामपि संशयो भवति ॥
uccairapi vaktavyaṃ yatkiṃcidajānatā’pi puruṣeṇa |
mūrkhā bahu manyante viduṣāmapi saṃśayo bhavati ||
A not inconsiderable portion of humanity was (temporarily) relieved sometime ago of the burden of witnessing “debates” whose net effect appeared to be to reduction of the knowledge of anyone in earshot. It turns out, the praxis of this fine tool of influencing public perception was quite well known to our poets:
“Speak loudly even if you don’t know anything. Fools will think highly of you, and even wise men will start doubting themselves (after seeing your confidence)” :-)