काव्ये विश्वासटिप्पन्यः

[[Mohan K.V 2013-01-03, 17:49:07 Source]]

सदास्वाद

तदिह सुकरतायामावयोस्तर्कितायां – मयि पतति गरीयान् अम्ब ते पक्षपातः

(tadiha sukaratāyām āvayos tarkitāyāṃ – mayi patati garīyān amba te pakṣapātaḥ)

Meaning

This is a setup-punchline combination in the sati-saptami construction, meaning “When the relative ease [of my brother’s task and mine] is considered – surely mother, you favor me more”. This construction is one of the most succinct ways of setting up a punch line, and the punch line itself has several idiomatic elements. It literally means, “Your partiality falls heavier on me”, where ‘partiality’ is just the gloss of ‘pakṣapāta’, literally ‘side-fall’ to which the verb patati (‘falls’) fits perfectly.

Context

Today’s phrase is taken from the work Campū Rāmāyaṇa of King Bhoja. This work is widely regarded as among the finest specimens of theCampū genre, which combines prose and poetry. The prose is used for the background narration, while the more critical plot events are set in metre. This ensures that the several advantages of versification – its beauty, succinctness, self-completeness, easy memorization, quotability, reusability in different contexts, etc – are not diluted by using it for unimportant narration.
Happily, we know a fair bit about King Bhoja. In what is representative of the Indian classical intellectual tradition where expertise in a wide range of subjects was demanded, Bhoja was a skilled military commander, politician, king, poet, literary critic, historian, philosopher, polymath, engineer, and much more. He wrote a total of 84 works, and insisted that his heralds hail him only as the author of those works, not with the empty, generic titles that were the norm. He lived in the first half 11th century, ruling over central India.
TheCampū Rāmāyaṇais a highly stylized version of the originalRāmāyaṇastory by Vālmiki. The characters’ dialogues are ideal almost to an extreme level, but when one reframes them as explorations of the ruling emotion, they gain a distinct beauty of their own. The verses contain the most memorable of these dialogues, and the narration is in prose which maintains a balance of being ornate and yet readable.
Today’s verse is the 25th one in the Ayodhya kāṇḍa, in one of the most crucial scenes of the entire story. Daśaratha has very reluctantly yielded to Kaikeyi’s harsh demand to banish the young Rama to the forest, and crown Bharata instead of Rama as King. He calls Rama, and is barely able to tell him the terrible news. EvenKaikeyi knows the injustice of the situation, and is very uncomfortable. To everyone’s surprise, Rama takes it in his stride with the utmost grace, and says this to console Kaikeyi!
वनभुवि तनुमात्रत्राणमाज्ञापितं मे
सकलभुवनभारः स्थापितो वत्समूर्ध्नी ।
तदिह सुकरतायामावयोस्तर्कितायां
मयि पतति गरीयान् अम्ब ते पक्षपातः ॥
vana-bhuvi tanu-mātra-trāṇam ājñāpitaṃ me
sakala-bhuvana-bhāraḥ sthāpito vatsa-mūrdhnī |
tad iha sukaratāyām āvayos tarkitāyāṃ
mayi patati garīyān amba te pakṣa-pātaḥ ||
(mālinī metre, 15 syllables per line)
“My task is just to take care of myself in the forest,
while my dear brother’s is to bear the weight of this entire world!
When the relative ease [of our tasks] is considered –
Surely mother, you favor me more!
The simultaneous tenderness, goodness and steadfastness of Rama is brought out brilliantly here. To give a sample of Bhoja’s prose, what follows a little later is a description of Daśaratha after it sunk into him what a grave injustice he was committing:
तत्क्षणमशनिहत इव पर्वतः, सर्वतः परीतदहन इव वनस्पतिः, दिवस्पतिपदभ्रंशविधुर इव नहुषः पपात निःसंज्ञः पङ्किरथः ।
(tat-kṣaṇam aśani-hata iva parvataḥ, sarvataḥ parīta-dahana iva vanas-patiḥ, divaspati-pada-bhraṃśa-vidhura iva nahuṣaḥ papāta niḥsaṃjñaḥ paṅki-rathaḥ)
“That moment, as if like a mountaintop struck by lightning, as if like a tree surrounded on all sides by a forest fire, as if like Nahuṣa suddenly made destitute of his supreme power,Daśaratha collapsed unconscious”. All three examples show the suddenness and unbearability of the blow.

Thought for today

Valmiki’s Ramayana is known for incredible poetic brilliance combined with thepoignancyof its characters. Sometimes, this is brought out in the simplest of ways, like a simple inversion of subject and object. Hanuman has just landed near Sita after jumping across the ocean, and has told her that Rama has sent him as a messenger. Sita is overjoyed at so many things – that Rama is alive; that he’s looking for her; that they’ve finally made contact, and that her misery will end soon. Her first thought is this:
कल्याणी बत गाथेयं लौकिकी प्रतिभाति माम् ।
एति जीवन्तमानन्दो नरं वर्षशतादपि ॥
kalyāṇī bata gātheyaṃ laukikī pratibhāti mām |
eti jīvantamānando naraṃ varṣaśatādapi ||
“This wonderful proverb suddenly seems so true: ‘Happiness will eventually find the living, even if it takes a hundred years!’ "
It’s the happiness which will finally find the man, not the other way round. Reminds us of something Ogden Nash once said, “The most exciting happiness is the happiness generated by forces beyond your control.” :-)