Self-sacrifice

In this snippet, the anonymous poet recounts their conversation with a man who was so dedicated to a cause that he was not just willing to give up his life for it but also actively trying to do so, and that too in one of the most gruesome ways imaginable. 

Devanagari script:

कस्त्वं वृद्ध खलेश्वरोऽहमिह किं घोरे वने वर्तसे
सिंहव्याघ्रवृकादिभिः प्रकृतिभिः खाद्योऽहमित्याशयः|
कस्मात् कष्टमिदं त्वयाध्यवसितं मद्देहमांसाशनाः
प्रागुत्पन्ननृमांसभक्षणधियस्तेऽश्नन्तु सर्वानिति||

Harvard-Kyoto transliteration:

kastvaM vRddha khalezvaro(a)hamiha kiM ghore vane vartase
siMhavyAghravRkAdibhiH prakRtibhiH khAdyo(a)hamityAzayaH| 

kasmAt kaSTamidaM tvayAdhyavasitaM maddehamAMsAzanAH
prAgutpannanRmAMsabhakSaNadhiyaste(a)znantu sarvaniti||

Loose translation: 
"Who are you, old man?"
"I am the lord of villains?"
"Why are you here in this frightful forest?"
"My intention is to be eaten by animals such as lions, tigers, and wolves."
"Why are you resolved to undergo such suffering?" 
"So that these (beasts), after eating the flesh of my body, first develop a taste for human flesh, and (then) end up devouring all (other) people."

Source: Udbhata Chandrika (1880) Volume 2 Part 1 Verse 24.

Notes: The editor of the above anthology, Chandramohan Tarkaratna Bhattacharya, expounds on the construct प्रागुत्पन्ननृमांसभक्षणधियः as follows: प्राक् प्रथमम् उत्पन्ना नृमांसभक्षणे मानुषमांसभोजने धीः बुद्धिः प्रवृत्तिरिति यावत् येषां, i.e. प्रागुत्पन्ना is an adjective of धीः inside this bahuvrihi compound. 

Auditory pareidolia 2: Caw!

This is the second installment in my series on non-speech sounds that have been humorously interpreted by poets as messages in a human language (Sanskrit, more often than not). My first offering in this vein was about the crow of a rooster, and today I have for you a couple of snippets on another birdcall that signals the break of dawn – the caw of a corvine bird. 

Human beings have been sharing their living space with crows and ravens for a long time, and attributing supernatural powers to these black-feathered carrion-feeding opportunists who are somehow both familiar and enigmatic at the same time. Their croaking call is often seen as an omen, and is presumably the source of their names in several languages. The call is usually rendered kA kA (का का) in Indic languages, and the Sanskrit verbal root √kai (√कै), whose meaning is generally given simply as "to sound", is applied to these birds' vocalizations in particular. The most commonly used word for crow in Sanskrit is kAka (काक), which has spawned its own (somewhat poetic) synonym dvika (द्विक), "two k's"! A few other onomatopoeic verbal roots that refer to a crow's caw are √drAGkS (√द्राङ्क्ष्), √dhrAGkS (√ध्राङ्क्ष्), √dhvAGkS (√ध्वाङ्क्ष्), and √dhmAGkS (√ध्माङ्क्ष्), each of which has "to crave" as a secondary meaning!

My guess is that each of the following anonymous epigrams was composed extemporaneously by a poet on being requested by a patron to provide a (fanciful) explanation for the ruckus raised by crows at dawn. 

(1)  Devanagari script:

तिमिरारिस्तमो हन्ति तेन शङ्कितमानसाः|
वयं काका वयं काका रटन्तीति प्रगे द्विकाः||

Harvard-Kyoto transliteration:

timirAristamo hanti tena zaGkitamAnasAH| 

vayaM kAkA vayaM kAkA raTantIti prage dvikAH||

Loose translation: As the Sun embarks on the destruction of darkness at daybreak, crows have their minds gripped by fear, and start yelling, "vayaM kAkA! vayaM kAkAH!" ("We are crows! We are crows!").

Notes: The word used for the Sun here is timirAri (तिमिरारि), "the foe of darkness". In the unnamed poet's imagination, the corvids with their dark feather coats are worried that the rampaging monarch of the day might mistake them for remnants of his enemy camp, and are hence declaring their identity in a frantic bid to save their lives.

Source: Udbhata Sagara Part II Verse 82; Udbhata Chandrika (उद्भटचन्द्रिका), "moonlight of epigrams", compiled by Chandramohan Tarkaratna Bhattacharya (चन्द्रमोहन-तर्करत्न-भट्टाचार्य), Professor of Sanskrit at Bethune College, Calcutta, and first published in 1880, contains the slight variant: तिमिरारिस्तमो हन्ति शङ्कातङ्कितमानसाः| वयं काका वयं काका इति जल्पन्ति वायसाः|| (Volume 1 Part (परिच्छेद) 1 Verse 43); Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar gives the first half as तिमिरारिस्तमो हन्तीत्यातङ्कव्याकुलान्तराः|  in his 1890 anthology Shlokamanjari (Verse 159).

(2)  Devanagari script:

का काबला निधुवनश्रमपीडिताङ्गी निद्रां गतोपपतिबाहुलतानिबद्धा|
सा सैव यातु भवनं मिहिरोद्गमोऽयं सङ्केतवाचमिति काकचया वदन्ति||

Harvard-Kyoto transliteration:

kA kAbalA nidhuvanazramapIDitAGgI nidrAM gatopapatibAhulatAnibaddhA| 

sA saiva yAtu bhavanaM mihirodgamo(a)yaM saMketavAcaM||

Loose translation:  "Who are those women that are fast asleep, with limbs fatigued by lovemaking, in the arms of their paramours? Let them all return home, for the sun is rising!" – this is the cryptic message that flocks of crows send out (in the morning).

Notes: In Sanskrit, kA (का) is "who?" or "what?" in the feminine gender, and saying it twice is the correct way to generate the plural form in certain contexts. The poet (presumably) imagines an unholy nexus between these wily birds and human adulteresses, the formers' seemingly inarticulate call being an agreed-upon code word for signaling the hour for these nocturnal adventurers (who would otherwise likely sleep through sunrise) to resume their public lives. And our astute poet has taken it upon themselves to expand on the abbreviation kA kA. 

Source: Udbhata Chandrika Volume 1 Part 1 Verse 44.

The two-timer, owned bigtime!

The full moon day of the month of Kartika is observed as raasayaatraa (रासयात्रा) or raasapoorniman (रासपूर्णिमन्) in parts of Eastern India. This festival commemorates one of the most well-known "pastimes" of Krishna who is regarded as the Supreme Being in many Indic belief systems such as Gaudiya Vaishnavism, and as an incarnation of divinity in others: In order to appease the milkmaids of the Braj area who all wanted him as their lover, he produced several clones of himself, and thus danced with each of them in the moonlight at the same time. The particular rustic dance form that they performed on this occasion is called raasa (रास) which, along with hallishaka (हल्लीशक), appears to have been popular in the cowherd community of Northern India at some point in history; a precursor to dandiya raas, it can be regarded as one of the oldest surviving "mainstream" social dances of the Subcontinent. 

Whatever the spiritual significance of Krishna's amorous dalliances with numerous (mostly married and much older) women might be, they have earned him notoriety in popular culture as everyone's favorite playboy. Literary works abound that humanize this deity, and do not shy away from making him commit a faux pas in one or two of his numerous escapades. The following is a classic example: a benediction styled as a short conversation between Krishna and Chandravali (चन्द्रावली), one of his most favored sweethearts. The paternal first cousin of Radha (राधा) who is Krishna's primary (and eternal) consort, Chandravali is portrayed as her arch-rival for the fickle cowherd's affections in some tellings of the timeless romance, and is conspicuous by her absence in others!

Devanagari text:

राधामोहनमन्दिरं जिगमिषोश्चन्द्रावलीमन्दिराद्
राधे क्षेममिति प्रियस्य वचनं श्रुत्वाह चन्द्रावली|
कंस क्षेममये विमुग्धहृदये कंसः क्व दृष्टस्त्वया
राधा क्वेति विलज्जितो नतमुखः स्मेरो हरिः पातु वः||

– लीलाशुकबिल्वमङ्गलठक्कुर

Harvard-Kyoto transliteration:

rAdhAmohanamandiraM jigamiSozcandrAvalImadirAd
rAdhe kSemamiti priyasya vacanaM zrutvAha candrAvalI| 

kaMsa kSemamaye vimugdhahRdaye kaMsaH kva dRSTastvayA
rAdhA kveti vilajjito natamukhaH smero hariH pAtu vaH||

– Lilashuka Bilvamangala Thakura

Loose translation: As he was about to leave Chandravali's pleasure-house for that of Radha, (Krishna) blurted out "Farewell, Radha!" 
On hearing her lover say these words, Chandravali retorted, "Farewell, Kamsa!" 
"O lady with a deluded mind!", said Krishna, "Where do you see Kamsa?" 
"Where's Radha?", quipped Chandravali. 
At this, Krishna lowered his head and smiled in embarrassment –  May that Hari protect you.

Notes: In case you did not know, Kamsa, the infamous usurper and tyrant of Mathura, was Krishna's maternal uncle and nemesis whom he was born to kill. And the wily Chandravali, eager to get back at Krishna for bringing up Radha in her presence, knew that nothing would anger him more than someone addressing him as Kamsa and wishing welfare upon the latter. Presumably, Krishna's exhaustion (from you-know-what) was responsible for his Freudian slip as well as for his slowness in picking up on Chandravali's passive-aggressive response.

The piece is attributed to the enigmatic Lilashuka (लीलाशुक), "pleasure-parrot", known mainly for his devotional masterpiece Shri Krishna Karnamrita (श्रीकृष्णकर्णामृत) and generally regarded as one of the greatest Vaishnava poets of all time. And the last time I checked, several states in Southern and Eastern India were still butting heads over where he was from.

Source: Udbhatasagara (1993 edition) Part III Verse 62.  

Baladeva Vidyabhushana's 18th century treatise on literary theory entitled Sahitya Kaumudi (साहित्यकौमुदी), "the moonlight of literature",  gives a slight variant of the above verse (Chapter 4 Verse 6) as a specimen of ईर्ष्यामान, "indignation caused by jealousy"; here, the first half is recorded as

राधामोहनमन्दिरादुपगतश्चन्द्रावलीमूचिवान् राधे क्षेममिहेति तस्य वचनं श्रुत्वाह चन्द्रावली|

(Thus the only difference between this version and the above quote is that the conversation took place when Krishna was entering Chandravali's love shack after spending time with Radha.)

Subhashita Ratna Bhandagara records the second half as follows (with no change in meaning):

क्षेमं कंस ततः प्रियः प्रकुपितः कंस क्व दृष्टस्त्वया राधा क्वेति तयोः प्रसन्नमनसोर्हास्योद्गमः पातु वः||

– Verse 186 of the chapter on Krishna.

The lion and the elephant

On the ninth (lunar) day of the fortnight of the waxing moon in the month of Kartika (कार्तिक), Bengali Shakta Hindus observe Jagaddhatri Puja, a condensed version of Durga Puja. The deity at the center of the festivities is Jagaddhatri (जगद्धात्री), a four-armed form of Durga, mounted on a lion that is crushing an elephant (or just the severed head of an elephant) under its feet. In fact, the motif of a lion (or leogryph) subduing an elephant is centuries old and ubiquitous in Indic statuary. In literature, the lion is portrayed as an arch-enemy of the elephant and the only beast capable of taking down the otherwise invincible giant – and poets have used the lion-and-elephant trope again and again to describe valor and victory. The following is a somewhat fresh take on this banalized literary device.

Devanagari text:

बालाया नवसङ्गमे निपुणतां प्रेक्ष्यान्यथाशङ्किनो
भर्तुश्चित्तमवेक्ष्य पङ्कजमुखी तत्पार्श्वकुड्येऽलिखत्|
एकं भद्रमतङ्गजं तदुपरि क्रोधात् पतन्तं शिशुं
सिंहीगर्भविनिःसृतार्धवपुषं दृष्ट्वा स हृष्टोऽभवत्||

Harvard-Kyoto transliteration:

bAlAyA navasaGgame nipuNatAM prekSyAnyathAzaGkino
bhartuzcittamavekSya paGkajamukhI tatpArzvakuDye(a)likhat| 

ekaM bhadramataGgajaMtadupari krodhAt patantaM zizuM
siMhIgarbhaviniHsRtArdhavapuSaM dRSTvA sa hRSTo(a)bhavat||

– Anonymous

Loose translation: On their first night of lovemaking, the husband saw how skilled his young bride was, and started suspecting (that she might not be a virgin); realizing what was on his mind, the lotus-faced girl sketched on the wall beside (the bed) an imposing elephant and then, pouncing furiously upon the animal, a cub that had only half emerged from the womb of a lioness. He was gladdened by what he saw.

Source: 17th century Anyokti Muktaavali Section (परिच्छेद) 2 Verse 21.

I also found a slight variant of this snippet here along with its Telugu version. According to the editor, it is Verse 71 of cATu-dhArA-camatkAra-sAra (चाटुधाराचमत्कारसार), compiled by Allamaraju Subrahmanyakavi (Rajamundry: Sri-sujana-ranjani-mudraksara-sala (श्रीसुजनरञ्जनीमुद्राक्षरशाला), 1931).

Notes: The elephant is presumably a metaphor for the "eros" that the girl has mastered or the husband who is in the process of being "conquered", and the lion-cub is the girl herself. The whole scene is meant to assure the distressed husband that his wife's prowess in bed is not the outcome of training or experience but is just as natural to her as hostility towards pachyderms is to a maned feline, even when the latter is in its infancy. 

Here is one of several examples from Anyokti Muktaavali Section 2 of an infant (or fetal) lion, eager to take on a full-grown elephant, being used to metaphorize the innate heroism of a youth of royal descent:

सिंहः शिशुरपि निपतति मदमलिनकपोलभित्तिषु गजेषु|

प्रकृतिरियं सत्त्ववतां न खलु वयस्तेजसो हेतुः|| 8 || 

"A lion, even when he is a cub, leaps upon elephants that have cheeks wet with temporin – such is the nature of the high-spirited, prowess has nothing to do with age."

The word bhadramataGgaja (भद्रमतङ्गज) used here may or may not refer to the foremost of the three primary categories of elephants recognized in Indic elephant lore: bhadra (भद्र), mandra (मन्द्र) or manda (मन्द), and mRga (मृग); bhadra simply means "good". The reading mattagaja (मत्तगज) is found in the second variant mentioned above – this word describes a bull elephant in musth.