[[Mohan K.V 2013-01-30, 07:27:54 Source]]
सदास्वाद
श्री-निर्मिति-प्राप्त-घुण-क्षतैक- / -वर्णोपमा-वाच्यम् अलं ममार्ज
(śrī-nirmiti-prāpta-ghuṇa-kṣataika- / -varṇopamā-vācyam alaṃ mamārja)
Meaning
“[Brahma] washed himself clean of the allegation that his creation ofŚrī (Lakṣmī) was a fluke.” The original carries very many more reverberations: first, what we’ve glossed as ‘fluke’ is actually ‘ghuṇa-kṣataika-varṇa’, a famousnyāya (aphorism) that talks of a particular form of coincidence. ‘ghuṇa’ means termite, ‘kṣata’ cut, and ‘varṇa’ letter. When termites eat into wood, sometimes their cuts appear to be forming a letter of the alphabet. The termites have no clue of this, of course. ‘Ghuṇa-kṣataika-varṇa nyāya’ or ‘ghuṇākṣara nyāya’ warns us against attributing intent to just random chance. By using just 1 samāsa, the poet makes us imagine that when Lakṣmī was born, people were so amazed by her beauty that they couldn’t believe that Brahma could actually create something somarvelous, and so agreed to call it a lucky fluke. At last, he’s cleansed himself of this ignominy. How? Read on!
Context
Today’s phrase is taken from theŚiśupālavadhamof Māgha.Māgha was born in Bhinmal of modern-day Rajasthan, a city of great learning which was also the birthplace of Brahmagupta, the famous mathematician. He lived sometime around 1300 years ago, and his only surviving work is theŚiśupālavadham, which is one of the five canonicalmahākāvyas and is based on the incident in the Mahabharata of Krishna killing the villainousŚiśupāla. It is clear that theŚiśupālavadham was written with an intention to surpass Bhāravi’s Kirātārjunīya almost at a microscopic level of comparison.
Māgha is a perfect example of the fickle nature of even literary fame: he appears to have been an absolute favorite of the old-school vidvat-kavis, and was even considered by some to carry the best elements of his predecessors Kālidasa, Bhāravi and Dandi ("upamā kālidāsasya bhāraverartha gauravam / daṇḍinaḥ padalālityaṃ māghe santi trayoguṇāḥ"). However, in recent times, with a high value placed on emotive content, appreciation ofMāgha’s art has waned, and he is variously accused of being ‘artificial’, ‘overly ornate’, ‘sacrificing narrative for the sake of needless description’, and appearing more prominent than his own characters in his work.
All these accusations carry a grain of the truth, some even a bushel; but as with most disappointments, at their root is a mismatch of expectations.Māgha is a poet who appeals to the intellect far more than he does to the heart. Further, his work is best read as small, independent parts, not an overarching whole with a masterful design. Both these features are exemplified in canto 19, with itscitrakāvya (constrained writing).If you’ve ever solved a crossword, rebus or other word puzzle and enjoyed a little in-joke, or better still,createda word puzzle, palindrome or acrostic, you’ve touched upon a path on which Sanskrit poets likeMāgha have trodden very far.
Agreat war is raging between Krishna’s andŚiśupāla’sarmies. The troops were arranging themselves into many intricate formations to fight, and as if to reflect this the poet begins to use verses which have amazing patterns and formations themselves (of course, he loves his own poetry more, so he says the reverse with a cute self-reference: “The armies arranged themselves like an epic poem’s verse patterns”: “viṣamaṃ sarvatobhadra-cakra-gomūtrikādibhiḥ / ślokair iva mahā-kāvyaṃ vyūhais tad abhavad balaṃ”). The poet says this in verse 27:
sakāra-nānāra-kāsa-kāya-sādada-sāyakā
rasāhavā vāhasāra-nāda-vādada-vādanā.
“The army, whose arrows (sāyakā) were the destroyers (sādada) of the movements and troops (kāsa-kāya) of their various striving enemies (sakāra-nānā-ara), and which carried triumphal war music (vāhasāra-nāda) instruments (vādanā), relished the battle (rasa-āhavā)”. This seems like an average verse – a few rare words (kāsa, sādada) that need a dictionary lookup perhaps, but nothing very untoward. But this verse has an incredible property called sarvatobhadra, “good from all sides”. It’s a super-palindrome that reads the same in any direction – left, right, top or bottom!
| | | | | | | | | |—–|—–|—–|—–|—–|—–|—–|—–| | sa | kā | ra | nā | nā | ra | kā | sa | | kā | ya | sā | da | da | sā | ya | kā | | ra | sā | ha | vā | vā | ha | sā | ra | | nā | da | vā | da | da | vā | da | nā |
(mirrored)
| | | | | | | | | |—–|—–|—–|—–|—–|—–|—–|—–| | nā | da | vā | da | da | vā | da | nā | | ra | sā | ha | vā | vā | ha | sā | ra | | kā | ya | sā | da | da | sā | ya | kā | | sa | kā | ra | nā | nā | ra | kā | sa |
This verse has been referred to in the famous puzzlemaster Martin Gardner’s Mathematical Circus and several other recreational mathematics texts. Of course this is not the only sarvatobhadra verse –Bhāravi’s Kirātārjunīya’s itself has one, and there are countless more written by later poets. But the glory ofMāgha was that he openly took the challenge of excellingBhāravi, and, in the opinion of the old school, succeeded. Hiscitrakāvya canto, for example, is bigger and has more varieties thanBhāravi’s does.
Now let’s step back for a bit. There is no doubt whatsoever that this is a feat of incredible linguistic genius. In the same vein, we also see that it does little to actually describe the war. Its highlight is not the war, it’s the verse’s own innate property – as long as we keep this in mind, it affords great enjoyment.
Let’s take an example of a different genre of verse to close out this point. Further in the same canto, in verse 117 the poet says,
*
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dvidhā tridhā caturdhā vā tam ekam api śatravaḥ |
paśyantaḥ spardhayā sadyaḥ svayaṃ pañcatvam āyayuḥ ||
“[By his magic], Krishna’s enemies began seeing his one form as twos, threes and fours. As if to compete with him, they attainedpañcatva (literally, ‘five-ness’, meaning the state of being the five elements, meaning they died)”. This is a hilarious verse, inventing a well-fitting pun ontopañcatva. We can be sure it’s brought chuckles to its readers for the last 1200 years. As long as we don’t expect it to generate in us the terror of war, we’re fine :-)
Coming back to our present topic, today’s phrase comes from canto 3, which is mostly a description of the city of Dvārakā. Krishna has decided that the best course of action is to take his army with him to Yudhiṣṭhira’s capital of Indraprastha, all prepared to fight the villainŚiśupāla who is also expected to come there. As he sets out, the poet describes the glories of the city. At one place, he writes,
cikraṃsayā kṛtrima-patri-paṅkteḥ kapota-pālīṣu niketanānām |
mārjāram apyāyata-niścalāṅgaṃ yasyāṃ janaḥ kṛtrimam eva mene || 3.51
“On top of the buildings, there were aviaries with toy models of birds. The models were so lifelike, that on one of the roofs, a cat was bent down silently, waiting to attack. But the people who walked past [so used to fine sculpture] assumed even the cat was a model!”
Going further, we find today’s phrase in a description of the city’s women’s beauty in verse 58:
परस्परस्स्पर्धि-परार्ध्य-रूपाः
पौरस्त्रियो यत्र विधाय वेधाः ।
श्री-निर्मिति-प्राप्त-घुण-क्षतैक-
-वर्णोपमा-वाच्यम् अलं ममार्ज ॥
paras paras spardhi-parārdhya-rūpāḥ
paura-striyo yatra vidhāya vedhāḥ |
śrī-nirmiti-prāpta-ghuṇa-kṣataika-
-varṇopamā-vācyam alaṃ mamārja ||
(upajāti metre, 11 syllables per line)
“In which city, [i.e InDvārakā] the creator made so many beautiful women competing among themselves with their good looks, thathe washed himself clean of the allegation that his creation ofŚrī (Lakṣmī) was a fluke.”
‘Ghuṇa-kṣataika-varṇa’ or ‘Ghuṇākṣara’ refers to a famousnyāya (aphorism) that talks of a particular form of coincidence where a chance, unintentional action causes the creation of something very profound. The poet here is saying that when Lakṣmī was born, people were so amazed by her beauty that they couldn’t believe that Brahma could actually create something somarvelous, and so agreed to call it a lucky fluke. Not just any fluke – it’s a fluke where Brahma, the creator of all worlds himself, is likened to a dumb termite somehow producing profoundly beautiful things without even knowing it! Poor Brahma! Now, by creating Dvārakā’s ladies, he’s finally managed to prove to his detractors that he knows a thing or two about beauty. Note that there is no well-known story of Brahma being accused thus. It’s all in the poet’s imagination, and with the remarkable brevity of Sanskrit,in this one phrase!
(We have to add here though, for some reason Brahma seems to be considered as not very smart in popular depictions anywhere. As Douglas Adams begins his Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: “In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.” :-) )
We will end today’s edition with the next verse:
kṣuṇṇam yadantaḥkaraṇena vṛkṣāḥ phalanti kalpopapadāstadeva |
adhyūṣuṣo yām abhavan janasya yāḥ sampadastāḥ manaso’pyagamyāḥ || 3.59
“There are supposedly these wish-giving trees somewhere, called ‘Kalpa’ trees, which grant whatever one imagines under them [With utter disdain, as if he’s saying, ‘Well, I don’t know why such complicated contraptions need to exist’]. The people who lived in this city had glories which couldn’t even be imagined!”.
What use is a wish-giving tree, if one doesn’t know what one wants?
Thought for today
Like for most of us today, classical Sanskrit poets’ most hated task appears to have been to serve under a bad boss. Here a poet rues:
चित्तभू-वित्तभू-मत्त-भूपालकोपासनावासनायास-नानाभ्रमैः ।
साधिता साधिता साधुता सा धुता किं तया चिन्तया चिन्तयामः शिवं ॥
cittabhū-vittabhū-matta-bhūpālakopāsanāvāsanāyāsa-nānābhramaiḥ |
sādhitā sādhitā sādhutā sā dhutā kiṃ tayā cintayā cintayāmaḥ śivaṃ ||
“I spent all my time being tired of serving the whims of this local ruler who was reeling under lust and pride*.*
The goodness that was cultivated with much pain is now all shaken off. Sigh, of what use is worry now? Let’s seek refuge inŚiva.”
Remember, we’re running a contest! The ’thought for the day’ for editions 18, 19 (this one) and 20 are all linked. Your task will be to figure out what the link is!