[[Mohan K.V 2015-01-24, 01:57:38 Source]]
सदास्वादरोमन्थः
Dear readers,
We wish you a wonderful, healthy, happy new year; may the recent transition into Uttarārayaṇa make everyone’s life brighter. It has been more than a month since our last post, again because of personal exigencies. For the new year, we fervently wish we don’t have to repeat this line!
The group has grown to over 280 members, nearly double of what it was at this time last year, and we’re very grateful for your interest. Our plan is to continue with the bi-weekly posts, revisiting some works we’ve covered as well as exploring new ground.
In Chapter 69 on the Padma-prābhṛtaka, we came across the word ‘dudrūṣuḥ’, ‘one desirous of running’. Prof. Pramod Viswanath was curious about the root ‘dru’, meaning ‘run’, and about other words that derive from it. It turns out it’s a very old root, at least as old as the Ṛg veda. We recognize it in ‘druta’, ‘swift’, which appears in the names of some meters and tālas. The root appears to have taken on a meaning of ‘flow’ in later use – ‘drava’, for example. Another very ancient word is ‘draviṇa’, meaning ‘wealth’: it could either mean ’that which runs’ (which would delight Bāṇabhaṭṭa :-) ) or as Yāska mentions, ’that to which everyone runs’. :-)
The poor grammarian Dattakalaśi’s plight seems to us to be an interesting perspective in expanding vocabulary. The choice one faces is to either put the effort into enriching one’s vocabulary by reading a lot (as we do in English), or put the effort to learn a system to generate legitimate words. Accordingly, when one encounters a word like ‘ajījanat’, one either thinks, “Ah, it means ‘was born’. 3rd person singular.” and moves on, and can notice it when it appears next (very rarely). Or, one encounters it and then tries to decipher the construction, so that one can generate other forms of it. But in the second method, one runs the risk of producing legitimate words that no one has seen before, like our poor Dattakalaśi – the eternal tussle between Yoga and Rūḍhi :-)
We’d mentioned there were great fights between the followers of Kātantra and those of Pāṇini, but we can rest assured that we’re not alone in such narcissism of small differences:
[About the pronunciation of the letter ‘h’,] In Northern Ireland it is a shibboleth as Protestant schools teach aitch and Catholics haitch.
:-)
Thank you for your warm compliments on the ‘inverted’ Chapter 70! In it, there is a bit where Dickens makes fun of the sense of inflated self-importance of the citizens of the nondescript town of Eatanswill. We were reminded of an anecdote once shared by Śatāvadhāni Dr. R. Ganesh. The great Kannada writer D. V. Gundappa writes in his memoir, Jñāpaka-citra-śāle (‘The gallery of memories’) about a great Telugu scholar of his father’s generation, Sri Tiruvengadayya. He was a great poet, with style, diction and dignity of writing conforming to the very highest of Classical standards; but alas, he could find no more profound a subject to write on than the transfer of a junior bureaucrat out of his nondescript town. :-) He read aloud his magnum opus during the bureaucrat’s farewell function. The first chapter, about how the bureaucrat had helped construct a tower to the local Hanuman temple, might have been said to have been tolerable: our poet extolled the virtues of Hanuman, how he flew right away from Arjuna’s victorious flag to that particular temple, how the bureaucrat uplifted that temple, his magnanimity, the conduct of great men and all that. Somewhat of a stretch, but passable.
But the second chapter took the cake. The bureaucrat had started some small program to clear overgrown weeds on the town’s petty roads. But one would never guess that it was anything short of the zenith of humanity’s march of progress from the poet’s magnificent description: how the weeds were verily forces of evil, impeding good people’s travels and offering a refuge for thieves and serpents; how it was the Will of the Universe that they be destroyed; how the daily-wage labourers hired for the task sharpened their knives and machetes; the fearsome power of those weapons and the valour and bravery of their wielders; very long descriptions of how when they got down to business, it reminded onlookers of Rāma’s army vanquishing Rāvaṇa’s forces, Arjuna tearing through the Kaurava defences, how Indra cut off the arrogant Mahendra mountain’s wings and how Śiva destroyed Tripurāsura; all this delivered in the most ornate poetic metres with the most sophisticated alaṅkāras and terrifying yamakas and anuprasas. The audience was completely stunned – whether by the poet’s scholarship, or by his earnestness, we don’t know!
We were always amazed at Dickens’ felicity with English, and wondered what it would sound like in Sanskrit. We quickly realized, though, that Dickens’ density can be a challenge even to Sanskrit. Our initial desire was to translate this one sentence as the mantelpiece, but we quickly gave up and settled for something simpler. Our adventurous readers are most welcome to take a shot!
“A carriage was hired from the Town Arms, for the accommodation of the Pickwickians, and a chariot was ordered from the same repository, for the purpose of conveying Mr. and Mrs. Pott to Mrs. Leo Hunter’s grounds, which Mr. Pott, as a delicate acknowledgment of having received an invitation, had already confidently predicted in the Eatanswill GAZETTE ‘would present a scene of varied and delicious enchantment—a bewildering coruscation of beauty and talent—a lavish and prodigal display of hospitality—above all, a degree of splendour softened by the most exquisite taste; and adornment refined with perfect harmony and the chastest good keeping—compared with which, the fabled gorgeousness of Eastern fairyland itself would appear to be clothed in as many dark and murky colours, as must be the mind of the splenetic and unmanly being who could presume to taint with the venom of his envy, the preparations made by the virtuous and highly distinguished lady at whose shrine this humble tribute of admiration was offered.’ (This last was a piece of biting sarcasm against the INDEPENDENT, who, in consequence of not having been invited at all, had been, through four numbers, affecting to sneer at the whole affair, in his very largest type, with all the adjectives in capital letters.)”
In Chapter 71 on Ānanda-vardhana’s Dhvanyāloka, we had translated the title of the work as ‘Seeing echoes’. Hari Narayan and Naresh Keerthi wrote in to ask about this, and the latter suggested a better alternative, ‘Seeing resonances’. We think that the stress in the title was on the nice incongruity of āloka ‘seeing’ something that is typically associated only with sound. Indeed, later commentaries and derivative works have continued the eye-related metaphors – as we wrote in the book last year,
Ānanda-vardhana wrote his famed “Dhvanyāloka” (“Seeing Dhvani”, with a pun on Dhvani, which can mean ‘sound’ or Ānanda-vardhana’s new theory); his student Abhinava-gupta wrote a commentary, titled “Locana” (“Eye”, because presumably one needs eyes to see!); there was in turn a commentary to that, “Dhvanyāloka Locanāñjana” (“The Salve to the Eye with which to see Dhvani”, to help see better, of course!); in turn, there was another commentary, “Dhvanyāloka Locanāñjana-tūlikā” (“The cotton brush to apply the salve to the eye with which to see Dhvani”); there was then a “Dhvanyāloka Locanāñjana-tūlikā-sampuṭikā” (“A jewel box to hold the cotton brush to apply the salve to the eye with which to see Dhvani”)! Finally, a modern paṇḍit on poetics, Kuppuswamy Sāstri, wrote yet another commentary, but took mercy on us and titled it “Upalocana” (“Eyeglasses”!).
In that chapter, we had mentioned that the crutches of punctuation marks allowed for a modern English writer to encode a lot of Dhvani (tone, mood, intent) with relatively little verbal effort. Śatāvadhāni Dr. R. Ganesh chimed in with a different take – Punctuation, being visual cues adorning the words, can be seen as similar to the citra-bandhas in which a poem is arranged into a certain shape. What’s more, it’s more meaningful than simply arranging a poem in certain patterns, with no interaction with the content.
We wholeheartedly agree! We probably overstated the case for punctuation sacrificing creativity: as with any invention, it is not so much ‘sacrificing’ as a form of ‘creative destruction’. Profoundly creative effects can be achieved by just playing with punctuation. Here is an example of one such brilliant use, and some commentary about it. An enterprising writer, Pico Iyer, wrote a long praise of the humble comma! Why, even a tiny hyphen can inspire deep thoughts on one’s identity!
In Chapter 72 on the Kañṭakāṅjali, we’d mentioned that the invocation verse is a Swiss Army knife of sorts, containing the work’s very best elements. There is no better example of this than Kālidāsa’s Raghuvaṃśa, which starts with the famous ‘vāgarthāviva saṃpṛktau…’. That verse is possibly one of the best upamās in the work!
As always, we welcome any thoughts, feedback and suggestions from you all. Please email us at kvm….@gmail.com and shree…@gmail.com
Parting Thought
मनस्येकं वचस्येकं कर्मण्येकं दुरात्मनाम् ।
मनस्येकं वचस्येकं कर्मण्येकं महत्मनाम् ॥
manasyekaṃ vacasyekaṃ karmaṇyekaṃ durātmanām |
manasyekaṃ vacasyekaṃ karmaṇyekaṃ mahatmanām ||
“The wicked have one thing in their mind, one in their word, and one in their deed.
[But] The good have one thing in their mind, one in their word, and one in their deed.”
The meaning of this cute verse comes out only by the difference in tone and stress between the first half and second half!
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