[[Mohan K.V 2016-08-23, 05:07:47 Source]]
सदास्वादः
87
धन्वी कथं भवसि राघव माम् अविध्वा ?
(dhanvī kathaṃ bhavasi rāghava mām avidhvā ?)
Meaning
“How can you be an archer without having killed me?”
Context
This phrase is from Bhoja’s Campū-rāmāyaṇa. We had introduced the author and the work 72 chapters ago, with a solitary verse as an example. We can’t believe it has been three-and-a-half years since then: it feels like yesterday when we accidentally tuned in to a Kannada AIR program when an expositor was describing that event with great feeling! Perhaps this is a feature of a certain kind of poetry, which instantly sears itself into a portion of memory that is unaffected by time or circumstance.
The main event in this chapter, the Tārā-pralāpa, occurs near the beginning of the Kiṣkindhā kāṇda of the work. Rāma has allied with Sugrīva on the Ṛṣyamūka mountain, and agreed to help him depose his brother Vāli. The plan is for Sugrīva to provoke Vāli into a wrestling match, and when the passionate, short-tempered Vāli inevitably engages, for Rāma to shoot him from a hidden spot. The plan fails on the first try because Rāma cannot distinguish between Vāli and Sugrīva. Sugrīva is badly defeated and runs away. Back at Ṛṣyamūka, a solution is proposed: Sugrīva will wear a garland to distinguish himself and Rāma will try again. All agree and Sugrīva goes to provoke Vāli a second time. Vāli’s devoted wife, Tārā, suspects foul play: someone defeated so soundly would not make a second challenge unless there was an ulterior motive. The wise queen that she is, she has also heard rumours of Sugrīva allying with Prince Rāma. She implores Vāli to not engage, but Vālī refuses, saying his honour is at stake. Shortly after the fight begins, Rāma fires the fatal arrow into Vāli. It is a Rāma-bāṇa – need we say more?
अथ विदित-वृत्तान्ता
सन्तताश्रु-निष्यन्द-कलुषित-तर-तारा तारा
नगरान् निर्गत्य
वारि-वारितं वारण-यूथपतिम् इव सुग्रीवं निर्भय-निरीक्ष्यमाणम्
उद्गतग्रीवम् उत्थातुम् अक्षमतया क्ष्मा-तलार्पित-कूर्पर-युगलं
गलद्-असृक्-प्रसर-शार-शरीरं
शरासन-शिखर-न्यस्त-हस्तेन सन्निकर्ष-स्थितेन काकुत्स्थेन कृत-संलापम् अपेताडम्बरम् इवाम्बुधिम्
अस्तोन्मुखम् इव मयूख-मालिनं
वालिनम् आलिङ्ग्य
स्वाङ्कोत्तंसित-तद्-उत्तमाङ्गा रघु-नाथम् इत्थम् अकथयत् ।
atha vidita-vṛttāntā
santatāśru-niṣyanda-kaluṣita-tara-tārā tārā
nagarān nirgatya
vāri-vāritaṃ vāraṇa-yūthapatim iva sugrīvaṃ nirbhaya-nirīkṣyamāṇam
udgatagrīvam utthātum akṣamatayā kṣmā-talārpita-kūrpara-yugalaṃ
galad-asṛk-prasara-śāra-śarīraṃ
śarāsana-śikhara-nyasta-hastena sannikarṣa-sthitena kākutsthena kṛta-saṃlāpam apetāḍambaram ivāmbudhim
astonmukham iva mayūkha-mālinaṃ
vālinam āliṅgya
svāṅkottaṃsita-tad-uttamāṅgā raghu-nātham ittham akathayat |
“After having heard the news,
Tāṛa, whose eyes were stained by a continuous stream of flowing tears,
left the city [and went to the field where Vālī was dying].
She embraced Vāli,
Who like an elephant held by a trap was looking at Sugrīva without fear,
Who was struggling to keep his neck up, but because he had no strength to stand, had to rest his elbows on the ground,
Whose body was stained in many hues by the streams of blood flowing forth,
Who had already spoken to Rāma standing beside him,
Who was like an ocean that had lost its roar,
Who was declining like the setting sun,
Cradled his head on her lap, and spoke thus to Rāma”
The exhilaration of fine Sanskrit prose is unmatchable! The sound is very distinct to a Campū-kāvya, and is reminiscent of the Harikathā tradition. Note the many internal consonances: kaluṣita-tara-tārā tāra, vāri-vāritaṃ vāraṇa-, akṣamatayā kṣmā-talārpita, and so on. When recited with the right cadences and stresses, the musicality is remarkable.
There are many finer details we have neglected in the translation. What is stained are Tārā’s pupils (‘tāra’), which dilate when crying and tears appear to cloud them. Such automatic physical reactions are more often a better representation of one’s mental state than any conscious actions or words can be. Rāma is described as śarāsana-śikhara-nyasta-hasta, ‘he with his hand [still] placed at the head of his bow’, suggesting that the event had just occurred. This detail is important for some of the verses below. In the last line, Tārā is described as svāṅkottamsita-tad-uttamāṅgā, ‘She had adorned her lap to his head as a crest’. An uttaṃsa (crest) is an important royal ornament, and it speaks volumes that Tārā’s lap was all that Vālī had to show for his kinghood.
(A small grammatical note: the usual dictum of ‘follow the vibhakti’ runs into turbulence at the line, ‘vāri-vāritaṃ vāraṇa-yūthapatim iva sugrīvaṃ nirbhaya-nirīkṣyamāṇam’. Even though all the colored words are in the dvitīyā vibhakti, ‘sugrīvaṃ’ is not the same as the others: it is not the subject of the larger sentence, while the blue words are (which all refer to Vālī). This is one of the rare instances in which word order in a Sanskrit sentence cannot be rearranged at will: ‘tārā sugrīvam īkṣyamāṇaṃ vālinam uvāca’ is not the same as ‘tārā vālinam īkṣyamāṇaṃ sugrīvam uvāca’. But such conundrums are rare, almost never appearing in verse and only rarely in ornate prose.)
कारुण्यं निरवधि यत् तव प्रसिद्धं
शीतंशोः सहजम् इवार्ति-हारि-शैत्यम् ।
तत् सर्वं मनु-कुल-नाथ ! रम्य-कीर्ते
मत्-पापात् कथय कथं त्वया निरस्तम् ॥
kāruṇyaṃ niravadhi yat tava prasiddhaṃ
śītaṃśoḥ sahajam ivārti-hāri-śaityam |
tat sarvaṃ manu-kula-nātha ! ramya-kīrte
mat-pāpāt kathaya kathaṃ tvayā nirastam || 14 ||
“Your mercy is famed to be beyond bound!
Like the moon they say, in how it takes away suffering by its gentle coolness!
All that, O Lord of Men! O Prince of Lovely Fame!
Tell me how it was all driven away by my sins!”
The verse can be read as biting sarcasm – O Lord of Men (when we are but monkeys); mercy beyond bound, and yet he thought nothing of shooting someone from behind their back; and much more, for all of which Tārā blames her own sins!
But the verse is even darker if read as a sincere lament with no sarcasm. At least with sarcasm, there is an indirect accusation, an opportunity for defense, justifications, arguments, amends and compromises. But if Tārā’s words are sincere, it suggests that this is simply the way of this wretched world, with fairness and justice not to be expected even from Rāma himself. And this is not a knee-jerk reaction for a slight, it is the heartfelt lament of someone who has suffered a great loss.
The meaning is profound, but in this verse specifically, the sound of the 13-syllabled Praharṣiṇī metre sounds stilted and choppy to our ears, like the poet is speaking a language he’s not comfortable with. Or perhaps it is deliberate, for how can Tārā’s first words in this event be anything but stilted and choppy? But soon, the poet reverts to the one thing that makes him remarkable in the pantheon of Sanskrit poetry: his effulgent talent in the Vasanta-tilakā metre.
एवं-विधे प्रियतमे ऽप्यनपेतजीवां
मां राक्षसीति रघुपुङ्गव! साधु बुद्ध्वा ।
बाणं विमुञ्च मयि संप्रति ताटकारे!
श्रेयो भवेद् दयित-सङ्गम-कारिणस् ते ॥
evaṃ-vidhe priyatame api anapetajīvāṃ
māṃ rākṣasī iti raghupuṅgava! sādhu buddhvā |
bāṇaṃ vimuñca mayi saṃprati tāṭakā-are!
śreyaḥ bhavet dayita-saṅgama-kāriṇaḥ te || 15 ||
“Even when my dearest lies in this state, my life has still not left me –
From this, O Bull of the Raghus, deduce that I must be a Rākṣasī.
Shoot me immediately, O Killer of Tāṭakā,
You will gain puṇya by uniting me with my husband.”
Tāṭakā was one of the rākṣasīs Rāma killed under the orders of Viśvāmitra: Tārā knows that Rāma has killed women before if they were rākṣasīs, and suggests this logic. Again, a sincere reading is more piercing than a sarcastic one.
साधारणी क्षिति-भुजां मृगयेति पूर्वम्
उक्ता त्वयैव जन-संसदि सत्य-वादिन् ।
शाखा-मृगीं तद् इह मारय मां शरेण
को नाम राम! मृगयुर् दयते मृगीणाम् ॥
sādhāraṇī kṣiti-bhujāṃ mṛgayeti pūrvam
uktā tvayā eva jana-saṃsadi satya-vādin |
śākhā-mṛgīṃ tad iha māraya māṃ śareṇa
ko nāma rāma! mṛgayuḥ dayate mṛgīṇām || 16 ||
“‘Hunting is simply in the nature of Kings’ –
You have yourself said this openly, O Speaker of Truth!
What am I but a monkey? Kill me now,
What sort of hunter feels pity for an animal?”
There are many discussions of hunting in the Rāmāyaṇa, such as the one about the hunt for the golden deer. Rāma’s views are clear, so Tārā suggests this alternate route as well. The dissonance between a supposed animal speaking these profoundly poetic verses is not lost on anyone.
संत्रस्य पूर्वम् अमुतस् तव बन्धुर् एष
भेजे यथाद्रिम् अकुतोभयम् ऋष्यमूकम् ।
भर्ता ममायम् अपि राम! शरैर् अभेद्यं
प्राप्तं मदीय-हृदय-च्छलं अद्रिदुर्गम् ॥
saṃtrasya pūrvam amutas tava bandhuḥ eṣa
bheje yathā adrim akutobhayam ṛṣyamūkam |
bhartā mam ayam api rāma! śaraiḥ abhedyaṃ
prāptaṃ madīya-hṛdaya-cchalaṃ adri-durgam || 17 ||
“After becoming terrified of Vāli, this dear friend of yours [Sugrīva],
Ran away to the Ṛṣyamūka mountain, a fortress of no fear.
My husband too, O Rāma, has reached a mountain-fort just like that:
My heart, which no arrow can touch.”
Tārā’s anger now turns to Sugrīva. Calling that treacherous schemer Rāma’s ‘bandhu’ is enough to singe Rāma for a lifetime. ‘a-kuto-bhayam’ ‘no fear from anywhere’ is a beautiful compound!
नाहं सुकेतु-तनया न च सप्त-साली
वाली न च त्रिभुवन-प्रथित-प्रभावः ।
तारा ऽस्मि वज्र-हृदया विशिखैर् अभेद्या
धन्वी कथं भवसि राघव माम् अविध्वा ॥
nāhaṃ suketu-tanayā na ca sapta-sālī
vālī na ca tribhuvana-prathita-prabhāvaḥ |
tārā ‘smi vajra-hṛdayā viśikhair abhedyā
dhanvī kathaṃ bhavasi rāghava mām avidhvā || 18 ||
“I am not the daughter of Suketu (Tāṭakā), nor am I the seven Sāl trees,
Nor even Vāli, whose powers were known to the three worlds.
I am Tārā, of the diamond-hard heart, immune to mere arrows.
How can you be an archer without having killed me?”
Tārā lists Rāma’s past achievements, which look quite pitiful when seen in this light: a female demon, a bunch of trees, and now, her own husband, killed unfairly. Rāma was still śarāsana-śikhara-nyasta-hasta, ‘had his hands on the head of his bow’, and Tārā taunts him to show his prowess one more time by killing her.
क्षिति-पति-तनयानां हन्त गर्भेश्वराणाम्
किमु निरवधि मौग्ध्यं शौर्यवज् जन्म-सिद्धं ।
मम हृदि निरपाये वर्तमाने कपीन्द्रे
रघुवर यद् अमुष्मै तिष्ठसे चाप-पाणिः ॥
kṣiti-pati-tanayānāṃ hanta garbheśvarāṇām
kimu niravadhi maugdhyaṃ śauryavaj janma-siddhaṃ |
mama hṛdi nirapāye vartamāne kapīndre
raghuvara yad amuṣmai tiṣṭhase cāpa-pāṇiḥ || 19 ||
“For the sons of Kings, lords of the earth right from the womb,
Does infinite foolishness come with birth, like their valor supposedly does?
When Vāli is safe in my heart,
O Best of the Raghus! You still stand here with your hand on your bow!”
एवं विलपन्त्या हारायिताश्रु-धारायाः तारायाः
परिदेवन-रवैर् बाष्पाम्बु-कणाभ्युक्षणैर् अक्षीणैर् निःश्वासानिलैश् च
कृताश्वास इव लब्ध-सज्ञो वाली
निज-नन्दनं रघुनन्दने समर्प्याङ्गदम्
अङ्ग-सङ्गिनीं काञ्चन काञ्चन-मालां शोकावनत-ग्रीवाय सुग्रीवाय दत्त्वा निज-भुज-बल-प्रशान्तासुरो ऽयं
प्रशान्तासुर् अभूत् ।
evaṃ vilapantyā hārāyitāśru-dhārāyāḥ tārāyāḥ
paridevana-ravair bāṣpāmbu-kaṇābhyukṣaṇair akṣīṇair niḥśvāsānilaiś ca
kṛtāśvāsa iva labdha-sajño vālī
nija-nandanaṃ raghunandane samarpyāṅgadam
aṅga-saṅginīṃ kāñcana kāñcana-mālāṃ śokāvanata-grīvāya sugrīvāya dattvā nija-bhuja-bala-praśāntāsuro ‘yaṃ
praśāntāsur abhūt |
“Vālī lay listening to Tārā, who appeared to have made a garland of her stream of tears.
In her lamentations, the sprinkling of her tears and her continuous sighs,
He felt reassured (lit. breathed freely) and saw the signs.
He placed his dear son Aṅgada with Rāma,
Took out a golden necklace that was round his neck and offered it to Sugrīva, who had hung his head down in sorrow,
– and this warrior who had quietened many a demon by the power of his arms alone,
Lay quiet”
Again, there are so many filigrees: ‘kṛta āśvāsa’ is commonly understood to mean ‘reassured’, but it literally means ‘breathe freely’. It was after seeing Tārā’s reaction that Vāli breathed free – that alone speaks volumes about the moment. He offers his only son to Rāma, and makes peace with Sugrīva, who is after all his brother. For all his faults, Sugrīva at least had the shame to see what he had wrought (but not for long). We have used ‘quiet’ in the last line, but the Sanskrit offers more latching points: praśānta-asuraḥ praśānta-asuḥ abhūt, with ‘asura’ meaning ‘demon’ and ‘asu’ meaning breath.
तत्र हा सकल-भुवन-बहुमत-बाहु-बल!
बलानल-शलभायिताहित-बल!
गन्धर्व-गन्ध-सिन्धुर-पञ्चता-करण-पञ्चानन!
दश-मुख-भुज-भुजङ्ग-भोग-निरोधाहि-तुण्डिकायित-वाल-वलय!
वालिन् !
कथं गतोऽसीति बाष्पाऽविल-मुखा वली-मुखास् तस्य रामाज्ञया यथाभिप्रेतं प्रेत-कार्यं सर्वं निर्वर्तयाम् आसुः ॥
tatra hā sakala-bhuvana-bahumata-bāhu-bala!
balānala-śalabhāyitāhita-bala!
gandharva-gandha-sindhura-pañcatā-karaṇa-pañcānana!
daśa-mukha-bhuja-bhujaṅga-bhoga-nirodhāhi-tuṇḍikāyita-vāla-valaya!
vālin !
kathaṃ gato’sīti bāṣpā āvila-mukhā valī-mukhās tasya rāmājñayā yathābhipretaṃ preta-kāryaṃ sarvaṃ nirvartayām āsuḥ ||
“‘Woe! All the worlds had bowed to the strength of your arms!
You had turned your enemies into mere moths by the flame of his power!
You were the lion who showed the path of the five elements to your Gandharva enemy-elephants!
Your tail alone could trap the serpent-like arms of Rāvaṇa!
Vāli!
How have you left us!’ Thus, with tears in their eyes, the wrinkle-faced monkeys completed his funeral rites on the orders of Rāma and returned”
Moths fly into flames compulsively, and Vāli’s power seemed to turn his enemies into moths. ‘Pañca-mukha’ means ‘lion’ by a delightful etymology. ‘Pañca’ means ‘spread out’ – a lion’s face looks spread out because of his mane. This is how ‘prapañca’ ‘world’ comes about as well, ‘widely spread out’. When a hand is spread out, there are 5 fingers, and so ‘pañca’ has come to mean ‘five’. ‘Pañcatā-karaṇa’ ‘make into the five elements’ means ‘to kill’. Even celestial beings like Gandharvas fell to Vāli like mad elephants to a lion. Once again, we see Rāma’s attention to funerary rites.
There is a belief that death at the hands of Rāma leads to mokṣa, liberation. Let us take stock of Vāli: he died knowing very clearly that he was loved, and loved with an intensity that has come to be celebrated as an ideal of all time; his only son is in safe hands, and he has made peace with his brother; his followers all grieve for him, leaving as he is when he is still very much wanted; his death was quick and unexpected: the worst he had to suffer was some physical pain, with not even a shred of mental anguish or fear. When the moment came, it came clearly and decisively. On the latter couple counts alone, Vāli is more fortunate than the majority of us fated to be dispatched by highly qualified doctors in super-speciality hospitals.
On reviewing the available evidence, we can be quite confident that the belief is well-grounded.
Barely had the ink dried on the galley proof of the Rāmāyaṇa before the litigation about the Vāli episode began (given our oral tradition, perhaps a more accurate comparison is, ‘barely had the reverberation of the sargānta-maṅgala subsided before …’). Every imaginable prosecution motion, defense rebuttal, compromise offer, out-of-court settlement and appeal to higher power has been made: ‘What Rāma does is Dharma, we start from that axiom’; ‘Kabandha had told Rāma to ally with Sugrīva, not Vāli, and that is enough to suggest that was Divine Will’; ‘Vāli would have been difficult to control, unlike Sugrīva, so it was a strategic choice of a weaker ally’, … all these paths have been trod backwards, forwards and sideways. Stories of Tārā cursing Rāma to die just like Vāli in his next birth (which he promptly does, when some random hunter shoots Krishna), or of cursing him to be separated again from Sītā, are another class of beyond-verbal pacification that have given peace to some. Finally, if all else fails, there’s the old faithful it-was-all-Vidhi, all-planned-all-along argument.
We will simply note that if Rāma was a man of feeling, just listening to this lament of Tārā’s would have been enough to make this event count as one of the greatest tragedies of his life, superseding most others because it was perpetrated willingly all by himself.
We had mentioned we barely noticed the passing of time since our first foray into the Campū-rāmāyaṇa years ago. It turns out that sentiment applies in another way as well. We first heard the verses of the Tārā-pralāpa sung by an uncle many years ago. He had these verses as part of his Pre University ‘non-detailed’ text in Sanskrit in the mid 1960’s. He happened to remember these because they were taught by one Pandit Chakravarthi of MES College at Malleshwaram. The Pandit used to sing these verses in a very mellifluous melody, with every gamaka bursting forth with emotion. It bore such a deep impression on the young students that 50 years on, every gamaka is reminisced with nostalgic thrill.
In these verses, then, is not just the magic of a Bhoja writing them a thousand years ago, or of commentators of the intervening centuries being deeply moved by them, but also that of a Pandit Chakravarthi holding a massive class of a hundred students in thrall by his utkaṇtha recitation, of the minds to whom that experience stuck on for a lifetime, and of our minds in turn which were fascinated by the mechanics of that memory. These trains of 14 syllables hold in them a tradition entire, a culture entire, perhaps even a world entire.
Parting Thought
We’ll end on a lighter note. We’re all familiar with the myths surrounding the poet-king Bhoja, and had written at length about the Bhoja-prabandha, a work extolling such myths. In one circumstance, Bhoja had announced a prize of a lakh gold coins per syllable for verses. People started palming off old verses as their own, so a committee of scholars was set up to confirm that a verse was new. But jealous and bereft of talent as such committees often are, it turned to be an overcompensation: the committee was overly critical, and for every verse submitted, they would find some tenuous link to some past verse and dismiss the verse as ‘not new’ or ‘just restating known ideas’. This in turn had a chilling effect on poetry production in the whole kingdom. That is, until Kālidāsa came to the rescue with this verse:
स्वस्ति श्रीभोजराज! त्रिभुवन-विजयी धार्मिकस् ते पिता ऽभूत्
पित्रा ते मे गृहीता नव-नवति-युता रत्न-कोटिर् मदीया ।
तां त्वं मे देहि शीघ्रं सकल बुध-जनैर् ज्ञायते सत्यम् एतत्
नो वा जानन्ति केचिन् नव-कृतम् इति चेद् देहि लक्षं ततो मे ॥
svasti śrī-bhojarāja! tribhuvana-vijayī dhārmikas te pitā ‘bhūt
pitrā te me gṛhītā nava-navati-yutā ratna-koṭir madīyā |
tāṃ tvaṃ me dehi śīghraṃ sakala budha-janair jñāyate satyam etat
no vā jānanti kecin nava-kṛtam iti ced dehi lakṣaṃ tato me ||
“Greetings, O Great King Bhoja! Victor of the three worlds! Your father was a righteous man.
He took a loan of 99 crore precious jewels from me.
Please repay it soon. Surely, all the wise men [in the committee] here know this to be true.
If not, this must be an original idea, so pay me the prize of a lakh [gold coins per syllable]”
Bhoja realized the error of his ways, and disbanded the committee. Someone should go round up their intellectual descendants and put them in charge of modern patents!
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