Template:Transliteration (Sanskrit: Template:Lang) is the name of a metre commonly used in classical Sanskrit poetry. The name in Sanskrit means "slow-stepping" or "slowly advancing".[1] It is said to have been invented by India's most famous poet Kālidāsa,[2] (5th century CE), who used it in his well-known poem Template:Transliteration ("the Cloud-Messenger"). The metre characterises the longing of lovers who are separated from each other, expressed in the Sanskrit word Template:Transliteration Template:Lang "separation (of lovers), parting".[3]
Metrical pattern
Modern analysis
A line in Template:Transliteration has 17 syllables, divided into three sections, each separated by a pause. The first section consists of four long syllables, the second of 5 short syllables and one long, and the third a mixture of long and short alternating, in this pattern:
- | – – – – | u u u u u – | – u – – u – x |
As with other Sanskrit metres, the length of the final syllable is indifferent.
Deo (2007) argues that the Template:Transliteration metre is basically trochaic (i.e. consisting of a "strong-weak, strong-weak" rhythm). She notes that where the third strong beat should come (after the fourth syllable), some performers traditionally leave a pause equivalent to one short syllable; the third strong beat is then silent, and the fourth strong beat then falls on the fourth short syllable. Deo argues that this rhythm is also (a variation of) trochaic, with a strong beat on the 1st, 4th, and 7th syllables.
Relationship to other metres
The final section of 7 syllables is also found at the end of other metres such as Template:Transliteration, Template:Transliteration, Template:Transliteration, Template:Transliteration, and Template:Transliteration. The Template:Transliteration metre, a variety of Template:Transliteration, goes as follows:
- | – – – – | – u – – u – x |
It thus consists of the beginning and end of the Template:Transliteration without the central section.
The 21-syllable Template:Transliteration metre goes as follows:
- | – – – – u – – | u u u u u u – | – u – – u – x |
This is the same as the Template:Transliteration except for an additional four syllables. It has been argued that both Template:Transliteration and Template:Transliteration are later expansions of the earlier Template:Transliteration, which occurs occasionally even in the Vedas mixed with other varieties of Template:Transliteration.[4]
If compared with the traditional ślōka metre, the Template:Transliteration can be seen to be similar. For example, the first line of the Bhagavad Gita scans as follows:
- | – – – – | u – – – || u u – – | u – u – |
whereas the Template:Transliteration metre is as follows:
- | – – – – | u uu uu – || – u – – | u – – |
The differences are as follows:
- The ślōka can have many variations but in the Template:Transliteration every verse is the same.
- The break after the first quarter is obligatory in Template:Transliteration, but optional in a Template:Transliteration.
- The second quarter has resolutions, i.e. u uu uu – instead of u – – –.
- The fourth quarter of the line is catalectic, i.e. u – – instead of u – u –.
- In a Template:Transliteration two lines make a stanza, but in Template:Transliteration there are four lines in a stanza.
Traditional scansion
The traditional Indian method of analysing metre is to use three-syllable patterns known as Template:Transliteration, which are algebraically represented by letters of the alphabet. (See Sanskrit prosody.) So, the 11th/12th century[5] metrician Kedārabhaṭṭa in his work Template:Transliteration characterised the Template:Transliteration metre by the following mnemonic line, which is itself in the Template:Transliteration metre:[6]
The meaning of this line is that the metre has a pause after four syllables (Template:Transliteration = ocean, traditionally four in number), then after six (Template:Transliteration = six), and can be described using the Template:Transliterations[7] (trisyllabic metrical patterns) ma bha na ta ta followed by two long (or heavy) syllables, known as Template:Transliteration, that is:
- (– – –) ( – | u u ) ( u u u ) (– | – u) (– – u) (–) (–)
Kālidāsa's Template:Transliteration
The first poem to use the Template:Transliteration metre appears to have been Kālidāsa's Template:Transliteration or Template:Transliteration "the Cloud-Messenger". This consists of approximately 120[8] four-line stanzas, each line identical in metre. The opening stanza of the poem is as follows:
- "Separated painfully from his beloved, after being negligent of his duty,
- having lost his power by a curse, lasting for a year, of his master,
- a certain yakṣa (nature deity) took up, where the water was made pure by the bathing of Janaka's daughter (Sita)
- and shady trees were densely clustered, his residence in Rama's mountain hermitages."
Later use
Kālidāsa's poem was admired and imitated by many later poets, giving rise to a genre known as Template:Transliteration "message poems" or Template:Transliteration "messenger poems", mostly in the same metre, although other metres are sometimes used.[9] The Template:Transliteration metre was also used in the play Template:Transliteration by Bhavabhūti (8th century), for a scene in which the abandoned lover Mādhava searches for a cloud to take a message to his beloved Mālatī.[10]
References
- ↑ Morgan et al. (2011), p. 142.
- ↑ Deo (2007), p. 105.
- ↑ Reddy (2017), preface.
- ↑ Dr R. Ganesh, SanskritMetres 10 Shalini.
- ↑ Michael Hahn, A Brief Introduction p. 1
- ↑ Template:Transliteration 3.97; cf. Morgan (2011), p. 142.
- ↑ Described by Michael Hahn, A Brief Introduction, p. 1.
- ↑ According to the synoptic table in Pathak (1916).
- ↑ Lienhard (1984), p. 126.
- ↑ Lienhard (1984), p. 118.
Bibliography
- Deo, Ashwini S. (2007). "The Metrical Organization of Classical Sanskrit Verse". Journal of Linguistics, Vol. 43, No. 1 (Mar., 2007), pp. 63–114.
- Michael Hahn: "A brief introduction into the Indian metrical system for the use of students" (pdf)
- Lienhard, Siegfried (1984). A History of Classical Poetry: Sanskrit, Pali, Prakrit.
- Morgan, Les; Sharma, Ram Karan; Biduck, Anthony (2011). Croaking Frogs: A Guide to Sanskrit Metrics and Figures of Speech.
- Pathak, K. B. (1916) Kālidāsa's Meghadūta Sanskrit and English text with notes.
- Reddy, Srinavas (trans.) (2017). Kalidasa: Meghadutam: The Cloud Messenger. (Penguin).
- Sadhale, D. V. (1895). The Meghaduta of Kalidas. Sanskrit and English text with notes.
- Wikisource Sanskrit text of the Meghadūta
External links
- Recitation of the first two stanzas of Meghaduta by Dr R. Ganesh (starts at minute 0:18).
- Recitation of first stanza of Meghadūta by Sangeeta Gundecha.
- Two recitations of Meghadūta (minutes 7:25 and 32.35).
- Meghadūta: transliterated text
- Meghadūta sung to music composed by Vishwa Mohan Bhatt. (Also here)
- Lecture (in Hindi) on Mandākrāntā metre by Prof. Ravendra Mishra. (The stanza above is recited at minute 3:45.)
- Lecture (in Hindi) on Mandākrāntā metre by Dr Vasudev Prasad.
- Grammatical analysis of the quoted verse of Meghadūta.