Sanskrit Tidbits-14: Deeper Nuances of Sanskrit Poetry

We ended last week’s tidbits with Pingala, L (light) and G (heavy) syllables and ganas, which are clustering of syllables into groups of three syllables each.  There are names for each of the 8 ganas.  Ma-gana is GGG, ya-gana is LGG, ra-gana is GLG, sa-gana is LLG, ta-gana is GGL, ja-gana is LGL, bha-gana is GLL and na-gana is LLL.  Suppose we assign 0 to G and 1 to L.  Then these 8 ganas are 000, 100, 010, 110, 001, 101, 011 and 111.  This is a rather neat way of writing them in binary notation.  It becomes even better if you read them right to left.  Because the numbers then become 000, 001, 010, 011, 100, 101, 110 and 111 and this is the exact order in which you will write the numbers 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 in binary.  Interesting?

How will I remember what gana has what name?  Later commentators, not Pingala, devised a mnemonic for remembering this and it is यमाताराजभानसलगाः To figure out the name of any gana, use this mnemonic by taking that akshara and the two askharas that immediately follow.  Let’s suppose I am interested in ya-gana.  Then the relevant part is यमाता.  If you remember the rules about L and G syllables, this is LGG, which is ya-gana.  Move on to ma-gana and the relevant part is मातारा, that is, GGG.  Ta-gana is ताराज or GGL.  Ra-gana is राजभा or GLG. Ja-gana is जभान or LGL. Bha-gana is भानस or GLL.  Na-gana is नसल or LLL.  Finally, sa-gana is सलगाः or LLG.  Once I know the rules of the mnemonic, it isn’t that difficult to remember the names of the ganas.  I can also do something else.  I can take the mnemonic as यमाताराजभानस rather than यमाताराजभानसलगाः.  That is, I drop the last two asksharas.  For sa-gana, I then cycle back as सयमा, which is still LLG.

A little more explanation and practice is needed to explain how this works.  As I have said earlier, there are several metres in Sanskrit literature and poetry.  The intention of tidbits is not to give you a lecture course on Sanskrit prosody.  If you are interested in reading epic poetry and not in classical Sanskrit literature, there are two metres you will commonly encounter.  One of these is अनुष्टुभ् metre.  As I have said in the last tidbit, this must have 2 padas of 16 syllables each.

धर्मक्षेत्रे कुरुक्षेत्रे समवेता युयुत्सव:

मामकाः पाण्डवाश्चैव किम् अकुर्वत सञ्जय

Dhar ma kshet re ku ru kshet re sa ma ve ta yu yut sa vah

Ma ma kah pan da vash chai va kim ak ur va ta san ja ya

               That’s how we broke up the first shloka of BG in the last tidbit.  And yes, we know that each pada has 16 aksharas.  We tested for this last time. If we now do the L, G and cluster into ganas of 3 aksharas each, the first pada is LLG-LLL-GLL-LLG-LLL-G and the second pada is GLG-GLL-GLL-LLL-LLL-L.  Whenever you break up a pada into such cycles of 3 aksharas or ganas, there will be some left-over aksharas at the end of the pada that do not neatly fit into such a 3-term cycle.  Forget those.  They don’t matter.  Now do you see that not only does each pada fit that structure of 16 syllables, there is a similarity in the pattern between the two padas?  That’s poetry. Had this shloka been great poetry, the L-G pattern would have been identical for both padas.  In fact, अनुष्टुभ् has tougher conditions too, though some relaxation is permitted.  For example, the 2nd and 3rd aksharas cannot both be L, in either pada.  In the second pada, the 2nd-4th aksharas cannot be ra-gana, that is, GLG.  In the second pada, the 5th-7th syllables must be ja-gana, that is, LGL.  In the first pada, the 5th-7th syllables must be ya-gana, that is, LGG.  Don’t treat these as extremely hard and fast rules, since some variations were permitted. However, that first shloka of BG doesn’t fit the requirement.  It is in the अनुष्टुभ् metre, but it isn’t wonderful poetry.  You will find that elsewhere in BG.

Good Sanskrit poetry was extremely difficult to write.  Often, unless we are extremely proficient in Sanskrit, we read something like BG for its religious or spiritual value.  We may even have some sense of the poetry.  However, because we don’t know the deeper nuances of Sanskrit poetry, we miss the subtlety of the poetry.  That’s a great pity.  Actually, that knowledge helps in a different way too.  Sometimes, when things were committed to memory and later written down, mistakes were made.  Assuming the poet was good, knowledge of prosody helps detect what the original shloka might have been.  Let’s take an artificial example.

यदा यदा हि धर्मस्य ग्लानिर्भवति परन्तप

अभ्युत्थानमधर्मस्य तदात्मानं सृजाम्यहम्

This is 4.7 of BG, slightly modified.  Break it up the way I have indicated.  The distorted shloka makes complete sense.  However, it cannot be.  The first pada has 17 aksharas, the second has 16.  Even if one forgets those additional requirements of the अनुष्टुभ् metre, no poet could have made such an elementary mistake.  Of course, without all this analysis, if you have a really sharp ear, you might be able to detect that this distorted shloka doesn’t quite sound right, as poetry.  But that’s because I gave you a relatively simple example.  Sometimes, even if you have a really keen ear, ears can deceive.

Ya da ya da hi dhar mas ya gla nir bha va ti pa ran ta pa 

Abh yu ttha na ma dhar mas ya ta dat ma nam sri ja mya ham

वासांसि जीर्णानि यथा विहाय नवानि गृह्णाति नरोऽपराणि

तथा शरीराणि विहाय जीर्णान्यन्यानि संयाति नवानि देही

नैनं च्छिन्दन्ति शस्त्राणि नैनं दहति पावकः

न चैनं क्लेदयन्त्यापो न शोषयति मारुतः

Let’s take two other familiar shlokas from BG, 2.22 and 2.23.  Your ear will tell you the metrical structure of 2.22 is not the same as 2.23 and indeed, you are right.  I have just introduced you to the second common metre in epic poetry, tristubh.  Simple quiz question till next week.  Which is अनुष्टुभ् and which is त्रिष्टुभ?  Since you know the syllable count for अनुष्टुभ्, that shouldn’t be difficult to figure out.