Why I Like Saṃskṛtam- Part Four

Read Part One, Two, Three

The Fascinating World of Metres

There is one more dimension of Saṃskṛtam that has been a deep source of fascination for me: the world of metres, or vṛttas. 

Since the language maintains a singular, unwavering correspondence between the written symbol and its phonetic utterance, the poet can engineer an intricate auditory texture that remains perfectly preserved for any reader initiated into the correct patterns of pronunciation.

There is a whole universe of them, far beyond the few familiar metres one encounters in popular stotras. But to get a sense of some of the more well-known ones, you can listen to this video and notice how the rhythm shifts between them: Dakshinamurthy Stotram Guided Chant with Lyrics and Meaning. You can track the shifting metres as follows: Mandākrāntā, Mālinī, followed by Anuṣṭup and finally Śārdūlavikrīḍita.

Since it is difficult to capture the essence of metres in written form, we are not exploring them here.

Into the Mind of a Poet

In the last part, we briefly looked at how, if we wanted to write a poem mimicking the strokes of a mṛdaṅga, and chose the sound e, we could arrive at something like:

वन्देऽहन्तेऽनन्ते सुपदरविन्दे विन्दे शान्तेऽतुलसुखकन्देऽmन्दे स्पन्दे शुभकरि बहुदयहृदययुते । (vande'hante'nante supadaravinde vinde śānte'tulasukhakande'mande spande śubhakari bahudayahṛdayayute |)

Here, the sound itself was already imposing a constraint on us. We had an idea of the kind of sound we wanted, and then had to find words that would carry the meaning while also satisfying that sound-pattern.

Now let us look at something slightly different.

Let us imagine that we are writing a verse in the middle of a philosophical discussion. The idea we want to convey is that we are trapped by sensory pleasures. What comes to mind?

There is a very familiar example, found in many traditional texts: five animals, each destroyed by its attachment to one particular sense-object. Some of these represent historical hunting methods, while others are observations of nature interpreted through the lens of attachment.

Historically hunted by luring it with music, the deer is considered as captivated by sound (śabda).
Traditionally captured by using a female elephant to lure it into a concealed pit, the elephant is viewed as drawn to touch (sparśa).
Observed to be irresistibly drawn to a flame until it perishes, the moth is interpreted as fixed on sight (rūpa).
Caught on a hook by seizing the bait, the fish is thought of as snared by taste (rasa).
Observed to be so fixated on the fragrance of the lotus that it lingers within, becoming trapped as the petals close, the bee is considered as ensnared by smell (gandha).

The point is obvious enough. Each of these creatures is destroyed by its attachment to just one sense-object.

It is worth noting, of course, that viewing these animals as strictly fixated on a single sense is more of a poetic and symbolic framing than a literal biological fact.

So if we were the poet, we now have an idea we want to express:

If a creature that is attached to just one of the five sense-objects can meet such a fate, what is the fate of a human being who is simultaneously exposed to all five?

Now comes the fun part.

We have five sense-objects and five animals. We want to say that the five animals meet death because of their attachment to these five objects.

Is there a word for death that can somehow add to the beauty of the verse?

There is.

Pañcatvam.

Literally, pañcatva is the state of becoming five. In the traditional conception, the body dissolves back into the five elements, and so pañcatvam āpuh becomes an elegant way of saying that they met their death.

So we can now write:

शब्दादिभिः पञ्चभिरेव पञ्च पञ्चत्वमापुः स्वगुणेन बद्धाः। 

(śabdādibhiḥ pañcabhireva pañca pañcatvam āpuḥ svaguṇena baddhāḥ|)

The five—through the five sense-objects beginning with sound—attained pañcatvam, being bound by their own particular attachment.

And notice what has happened.

We have managed to put pañca, pañcabhih, and pañcatvam into the same stretch of the verse. The philosophical idea itself has generated the possibility of a beautiful verbal pattern, akin to saying: "Through five, the five reached the state of five."

Now we need to name the five animals.

The obvious words come to mind:

• mṛga or hariṇa for deer,

• gaja for elephant,

• śalabha for moth,

• mīna or matsya for fish,

• bhramara or bhṛṅga for bee.

But now we have another problem.

We are writing poetry.

The words have to fit the metre. And if we can make them sound good together, why wouldn't we?

So instead of simply choosing the most obvious names, we choose:

kuraṅga — mātaṅga — pataṅga — mīna — bhṛṅga

Look at what that does.

Kuraṅga
Mātaṅga
Pataṅga
Mīna
Bhṛṅga

Four of the five names end in -ṅga. The one that does not, mīna, is actually useful as a break in the pattern and fits the metre beautifully.

And suddenly the list of animals itself has become poetry.

So we arrive at:

कुरङ्गमातङ्गपतङ्गमीनभृङ्गाः 

(kuraṅgamātaṅgapataṅgamīnabhṛṅgāḥ)

And now there is one final line.

We have described the five animals. But we want to ask: what about the human being?

We already have the number five everywhere. We need a word that can fit the metre and express the idea of being drawn or attached to all five.

The straightforward word baddha—“bound”—doesn't fit where we need it.

So, once again, we look for another word.

Añcita evokes a sense of being drawn toward or bound by something. Crucially for our verse, it fills the metrical slot while echoing the sonic pattern set in motion by pañca.

So we get:

नरः पञ्चभिरञ्चितः किम् 

(Naraḥ pañcabhir añcitaḥ kim?)

“What, then, of the human being who is drawn towards all five?”

And suddenly the whole verse falls into place:

शब्दादिभिः पञ्चभिरेव पञ्च पञ्चत्वमापुः स्वगुणेन बद्धाः ।
कुरङ्गमातङ्गपतङ्गमीनभृङ्गा नरः पञ्चभिरञ्चितः किम् ॥ 

(śabdādibhiḥ pañcabhireva pañca pañcatvam āpuḥ svaguṇena baddhāḥ | kuraṅgamātaṅgapataṅgamīnabhṛṅgā naraḥ pañcabhir añcitaḥ kim ||)

The sound-pattern is not something added afterwards as decoration. It grows naturally out of the process of constructing the verse.

This is a verse from Shankaracharya's Vivekacūḍāmaṇi.

The same thing becomes even more striking when the poet is describing something more elaborate. 

To illustrate this, here is a verse I composed to capture Hanumān's deeds in the Sundarakāṇḍa:

सर्वैः किन्नृप्रमुख्यैर्विनुत कपिपते तूर्णतीर्णार्णवस्त्वं
भीतां सीतां विभीताम् अकुरुथ विदधद्राक्षसानीकनाशम् ।
अक्षप्रक्षेपदक्षातुलबल भगवन् द्रष्टुकामो दशास्यम्
बद्धः पुच्छे प्रदीप्ते हुतभुजि दितिभूराज्यमाज्यं चकर्थ ॥ 

(sarvaiḥ kinnṛpramukhyairvinuta kapipate tūrṇatīrṇārṇavastvaṃ

bhītāṃ sītāṃ vibhītām akurutha vidadhadrākṣasānīkanāśam.

akṣaprakṣepadakṣātulabala bhagavan draṣṭukāmo daśāsyam

baddhaḥ pucche pradīpte hutabhuji ditibhūrājyamājyaṃ cakartha.)

Here is a breakdown of a few interesting elements in the verse: tūrṇam means swiftly or fast, tīrṇam means crossed, and arṇavam refers to the ocean. Hutabhuk is a yaugika epithet for fire, literally meaning "the one who consumes what is offered in sacrifice." Hanumān treated the Rākṣasa rājyam – realm (ditibhūrājyam) as sacrificial ājyam – ghee, offering it directly to the fire burning on his tail. Here, ditibhū serves as a yaugika name for the Rākṣasas through their descent from Diti. The forceful phonetic architecture of these verses, marked by the recurring presence of heavy clusters such as kṣa and rṇa, engineers a sonic texture that mirrors the very vigor of Hanumān’s exploits. Here, the śabda—the linguistic surface—does not merely describe his deeds; it embodies their heroic momentum, allowing the auditory experience to resonate perfectly with the underlying artha.

If this much beautification of sound is possible while the poet is still trying to convey a fairly substantial idea, do we even need to talk about what happens when sound and rhythm themselves become the primary goal of the song?

Listen to some examples.

Amba Stavam by 9 Ambas | Vande Guru Paramparaam

Rama Rama Jaya Raghukula Tilaka | Vande Guru Paramparaam | Sriranjani Balaji |

Matru Stava Mala | 100th Video | Vande Guru Paramparaam | Navarathri 2024 Special Release

Extremely Unique Composition by Sage Patanjali - Charana-Shrnga Rahita Nataraja Stotram - Chant Only

And Now, Turn the Problem Around — Pushing the Language to Its Limits

So far, we have been imagining ourselves as poets who have something to say and then ask:

How beautifully, cleverly or musically can I say it?

But what happens if we reverse the process?

What if we start not with an idea, but with a pattern?

We decide that the verse must look like a particular object. Or that certain letters must occur in certain positions. Or that the same verse must be readable in multiple directions. Or that a particular arrangement of syllables must be preserved.

And then we ask:

Fine. Given all these restrictions, can I still say something meaningful?

This is where citrakāvya becomes particularly fascinating.

Some of the examples that follow are not generally regarded as the highest forms of Saṃskṛta poetry. They can demonstrate astonishing verbal skill without necessarily producing the kind of profound rasa or dhvani that we might expect from great poetry. But that is not really the point here.

They are interesting for a different reason. They show us just how far the language can be pushed. The poet is essentially saying:

Fine. Let's make this much harder.

Sarvatobhadra

Take the sarvatobhadra, for instance.

One form of it can be arranged as a kind of verbal magic square. The letters of the verse are systematically placed into a grid, so that the composition can be read horizontally, vertically, and in reverse while still producing the same verse.

For example:

In this sarvatobhadra grid, the text can be read in eight different ways, but it always spells out the exact same poem:

• Line 1 (First Quarter): Read the 1st row from left to right (दे वा का नि नि का वा दे). Now read that same row in reverse, from right to left—it is identical! Next, read the 1st column vertically from top to bottom, or bottom to top. It gives the exact same line every time.

• Line 2 (Second Quarter): Move to the 2nd row and read left-to-right, right-to-left, or go down/up the 2nd column. All four paths give the exact same second line of the poem.

• Lines 3 & 4: The exact same pattern holds for the remaining rows and matching columns.

Whether you read horizontally or vertically, forwards or backwards, the entire grid unfolds as a completely coherent verse in every direction.

There are many more

The Caturaṅga-turaṅga-bandha, or 'knight’s-tour configuration,' is perhaps one of the most intellectually demanding forms of citra-bandha. Here,the poet fills an 8x8 chessboard grid with 64 syllables. If you read the squares row-by-row like a normal grid, they form Verse A. To find Verse B, you must trace a "knight's tour." 

A knight moves in an L-shape. A knight's tour means jumping from square to square until you visit all 64 squares exactly once. When you jump from square to square following the knight's path, the syllables spell out Verse B.

It is a masterful mix of math and language: the poet must write two completely different verses that perfectly lock together using only the movement rules of a chess piece.

The basic idea is wonderfully literal: the arrangement of the syllables is made to resemble something visually.

Consider the various forms of citra-bandha in the following article Chitra bandha

And these are not something someone used to do a long time ago. We can do it right now if you want.

Take the gomūtrikā-bandha. The verse should be readable normally, from left to right, but it should also be possible to read it in a zig-zag pattern: the first syllable of the first line, then the second syllable of the second line, then the third syllable of the first line, and so on. The name comes from the zig-zag path traced by a cow while urinating as it walks.

So let us actually write one.

We begin with the pattern and ask: what words can we put here that will both fit the pattern and say something meaningful?

Let the subject be the goddess Pārvatī, and let the metre be something simple: Anuṣṭup. We now have four pādas, or quarters, to fill. If the syllables in the even positions are repeated across the two stanzas, the zig-zag reading will work.

So now we start composing.

The first pāda: carācarāśrayā mātā — “the mother who is the support of the moving and unmoving world.” That gives us rā, rā, yā, tā in the even positions. Good. Those should be manageable to reproduce.

For the second pāda, almost without planning, namatām ahitāsahā comes to mind — “she who cannot tolerate harm coming to those who bow to her.”

Now the real puzzle begins.

We have to keep writing, but every word we choose has to do two jobs at once: it has to make sense and put the right syllable in the right position.

For the third pāda, parā and varā give us two pieces. For the yā and tā, bhayātītā — “she who is beyond fear” — fits beautifully.

Now we need ma, ma, tā, hā.

Samatā is an obvious possibility. But we need to end with hā. Finding a word that begins with samatā and ends with hā is not so easy. So instead, if we can think of something we want Pārvatī to remove, apahā — “she who takes away” — gives us the ending we need.

And now mamatā falls into place.

We still need something beginning with ma. Mada works. Then we need tā followed by hā. Tāpahā gives us exactly that: “she who destroys suffering.”

And there we have it.

We have just written a verse in the gomūtrikā-bandha.

How to read the gomūtrikā-bandha pattern:

• Step 1 (First line / Pāda 1): Read straight across Row 1 from left to right: च रा च रा श्र या मा ता (carācarāśrayā mātā).

• Step 2 (Second line / Pāda 2): Read straight across Row 1 (cont.) / right half: न म ता म हि ता स हा (namatām ahitāsahā).

• Step 3 (Third line / Pāda 3): Read straight across Row 2 left half: प रा व रा भ या ती ता (parāvarābhayātītā).

• Step 4 (Fourth line / Pāda 4): Read straight across Row 2 right half: म म ता म द ता प हा (mamatāmadatāpahā).

• Step 5 (Zig-Zag Alternate Reading): Start at Row 1, Col 1 (च ca), jump down to Row 2, Col 2 (रा rā), up to Row 1, Col 3 (च ca), down to Row 2, Col 4 (रा rā), and so on. Alternate back and forth between the two rows for each syllable. Because the even-positioned syllables are shared, tracing this zig-zag path yields the exact same verse!

We didn't start with a verse and discover the pattern afterwards. We started with the pattern, and composed the verse under that constraint, right now.

I want to write a couple more, but if I take you through the process each time, this section will become unnecessarily long. So, for now, I’ll just write a couple more and paste them here—I don’t particularly feel like stopping yet.

 गोमूत्रिकाबन्धः

पद्मबन्धः

या मता जगता माया या माता सन्नुता श्रिया याश्रिताभयदानन्या यानन्दा सेडिता मया

Citrakāvya is considered an inferior form of poetry since it does not evoke rasa and probably rightly so. But it is precisely where the language is pushed to its extreme limits.

And that brings me back to the rather simple reason I like Saṃskṛtam.

Not because it is ancient.
Not because it is classical.
Not because it has an enormous literature.

But because, every now and then, I encounter something in it and find myself thinking:

I did not know language could do that.

And every once in a while, the language seems to look back at you and ask:

“What else do you think I can do?”

Read Part One, Two, Three