Sanskrit Tidbits-13:An introduction to Vedangas

Vedanga means limb of the Vedas and there are six of these – phonetics, rituals, grammar, etymology, meter and astronomy.  छन्दः is the study of metres.  We can call it prosody.  Sanskrit prosody is very rich.  We don’t know much about Pingala.  He was the author of one of the earliest texts on prosody, known as “Chhandashastra”.  On the Net, I have found the original here. However, this is very heavy reading.  It is in the form of sutras and I hope you remember what I said earlier about sutras.  It is extremely difficult to understand them without help.  We haven’t been able to date either Pingala or “Chhandashastra” very satisfactorily.  Some say he was Panini’s younger brother.  Others say he was Patanjali himself.  All that we really know is that “Chhandashastra” was composed between 4^th century BCE and 2^nd century CE.  Subsequently, in the 10^th century, Halayudha wrote a commentary on “Chhandashastra”.

Some basic principles first.  पद is a foot.  I don’t mean foot in the sense of a part of the leg, though पद also means that.  This पद is a metrical food, that is, it is the line of a stanza.  Each पद will have a certain number of अक्षर-s or syllables.  Depending on the number of पद-s in the stanza and depending on the number of अक्षर-s in each पद, I will have different kinds of metres or छन्द. Obviously, all metres were not equally common.  But there are people who have counted more than 600 different types of metres being used in Sanskrit.  However, the notion of a अक्षर is slightly different from the English notion of a syllable.  There are लघु syllables that are light or short.  Let’s call them L.  And there are गुरू syllables that are long or heavy.  Let us call them G.  The breaking up of a पद into अक्षर-s needs a little bit of practice.  Each अक्षर should be as long as is possible, but should not have more than one vowel.  If that vowel is ह्रस्व and does not have more than one consonant at the end, the syllable is L.  Everything else is G, including syllables that have दीर्घ vowels or diphthongs, have an anusvara or a visarga and end in a cluster of consonants.  I should not begin a syllable with a vowel.   Sounds complicated, but reasonably easy with some practice.

धर्मक्षेत्रे कुरुक्षेत्रे समवेता युयुत्सव:

मामकाः पाण्डवाश्चैव किम् अकुर्वत सञ्जय

I don’t have to tell you what this is.  It is the first shloka of Bhagavad Gita, being spoken by Dhritarashtra to Sanjaya.  In fact, it is the only shloka in the BG that is spoken by Dhritarashtra.  Nor do I have to translate it.  Let’s break it up into syllables in accordance with the rules that I have given.  Perhaps it is easier if I do it in Roman, rather than Devanagari.

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

Each pada has 16 syllables.  This is characteristic of अनुष्टुभ् metre.  Many shlokas of the Mahabharata and the BG are in this metre.  Of course, the mere existence of 16 syllables does not qualify a shloka as belonging to the अनुष्टुभ् metre.  There are other conditions to be satisfied too.  Sanskrit prosody is very tight.  There is nothing like that in English.  Even Latin and Greek are not that tight.  We will ignore those further requirements of this kind of metre for the moment.  I will plug that gap later.  However, I have been a little inaccurate.  Let me rectify it.  The nature of the अनुष्टुभ् metre varies between Vedic Sanskrit and classical Sanskrit.  What I have just told you, about two padas of 16 syllables each, is true of classical Sanskrit.  In Vedic Sanskrit, this metre has four padas, with 8 syllables each.  Had this been a Vedic shloka, it would have been written as follows.  But you have got the general idea.

धर्मक्षेत्रे कुरुक्षेत्रे

समवेता युयुत्सव:

मामकाः पाण्डवाश्चैव

किम् अकुर्वत सञ्जय

These days, everyone recites the gayatri mantra indiscriminately and I hear it everywhere.  If I ask you to tell me what the gayatri mantra is, you will probably tell me the following.  This isn’t incorrect.  But you may, or may not, know that ॐ भूर्भुवः स्वः is not really part of the gayatri mantra, as given in Rig Veda, 3.62.10.  It is a separate matter that ॐ भूर्भुवः स्वः is often prefixed to the gayatri mantra.  Bhu is the earth, bhuvah is the firmament and svah is heaven. Do I really have to give you a translation?  I have told you earlier that I like Ralph Griffith’s translation of the Rig Veda.  Here is the Griffiths translation.  “May we attain that excellent glory of Savitar the god: So may he stimulate our prayers.”

ॐ भूर्भुवः स्वः

तत्सवितुर्वरेण्यं।

भर्गो देवस्य धीमहि

धियो यो नः प्रचोदयात्

Gayatri is not just a mantra.  It is a metre too.  Let’s break up our gayatri mantra in accordance with syllables.  We have 3 padas, with aksharas 7, 8 and 8 respectively.  This doesn’t fit at all.  The classical gayatri metre is supposed to consist of 3 padas with 8 aksharas in each pada.  In other words, our gayatri mantra deviates from the pattern.  That’s quite possible, because in those days, things were heard and memorized, not written down.  Therefore, there is a rectified version of the gayatri mantra with varenyam replaced by vareniyam.  The first pada now has 8 syllables, not 7, and fits the metre.  However, everyone still follows the so-called deviant mantra, not the rectified one.

Tat sa vi tur va ren yam

Bhar ga de va sya dhi ma hi

Dhi yo yo nah pra cho da yat

Let me now introduce the concept of ganas, enunciated by Pingala.  A gana is nothing but a cluster of syllables, taken 3 at a time.  Thus, GGG can be a gana, as can GGL or LLL.  How many combinations can we have?  This is the binomial theorem, 2³ = 8.  The combinations are GGG, LLL, GGL, GLG, LGG, LLG, LGL and GLL.  Pingala knew this much about the binomial theorem.  We will continue with this next week