During my childhood, the nine days festival of SharannavarAtri used to be celebrated with much grandeur in the village where I grew up. Our guru Brahmsree Tatapudi Ramakrishnavadhanlu gAru would unite the entire village and mobilize the people under his lion like leadership to make sure it is done with utmost care for tradition and the requisite rigor. As kids we would linger around the pandal whole day, sometimes playing, sometimes participating in the rituals. Everyday, by the evening rituals would end with evening puja of which a grand climax would be the soul stirring recitation of mantrapushpam. Hordes of men would stand in two groups facing each other, reciting one line each, one after the other, and it would captivate even kids like us and take us into a state of utmost bliss. I would sneak into one of the groups, stand next to an uncle or grandfather and revel in its recital from close quarters. After a few days, parts of this vedic hymn would keep lingering in my mind and sometimes I would involuntarily chime in during the recitation. When Guruji recited the line “kAtyAyanAya vidmahE kanyakumAri dhImahI…”, I would merrily join the other group with ” tannO durgi prachOdayAth”. Now, for a six year kid who was not yet initiated into vedic studies and hasn’t got his upanayana samskara done, it was not right to recite vedic hymns – and a strict traditionalist like Guruji wouldn’t allow that. But yet, he would observe my occasional utterances and smile at me affectionately during the recital. For he knew, I was just being taken over by the grand beauty of the divine verse – “rasOvai saha” none knows better than him.
So when there is this discussion about blasphemous nature of a verse in the recently released anthology of love poems in Sanskrit translated to English, my immediate thought was – “rasOvai saha”. After all, the elders said “nAnrRshihi kurutE kAvyam” – unless one does penance and reaches the level of a maharshi, a kAvya can’t be produced. So just like the Vedic hymns revealed by the penancing Maharshis, a kAvyam should also have the divine sanctity and no one should question the righteousness there?
But what qualifies as a kAvyam? Again there is this guidance of “vAkyam rasAtmakam kAvyam” – If it is full of rasa (loosely translated to aesthetics in English), even a single sentence qualifies to be a kAvyam (a grand poem or a collection of poems). So it should all boil down to rasa, or aesthetics as we may want to call them in English. Isn’t it? But rasa is difficult to be judged, qualified and quantified. It is not a tangible thing that can be measured or weighed. However, we are fortunate to be a nation which has produced great body of work on rasa or aesthetics, much before much of the world saw civilization. There should be a way to figure that out as far as Indian classical literature is concerned.
I want to start looking at some of the popular poetry that has ventured into this area, involving gods and some amount of jest. In Telugu literature, there are many such examples.
Take this popular chATu padyam:
శివుడద్రిని శయనించుట
రవి చంద్రులు మింట నుంట, రాజీవాక్షుం
డవిరళముగ శేషునిపై
పవళించుట నల్లి బాధ పడలేక సుమీ!
शिवुडद्रिनि शयनिम्चुट
रविचंद्रुलु मिम्टनुम्ट राजीवाक्षुं
डविरळमुग शेषुनिपै
पवळिम्चुट नल्लिबाध पडलेकसुमी
“Lord Shiva sleeps on a mountain, Sun and Moon dwell in the sky, Lord Vishnu sleeps on a serpent – all to avoid the pain of bedbugs!”
No one knew who was the author of the poem, But this kind of referring gods in jest but in relatively much harmless way was well tolerated and the poem was well celebrated in the Telugu land because of the rasa in the poem.
But if one wants to take this to a little next level venturing on borderline blasphemy, one would need to have the stature and wherewithal required to get tolerated by the sahridayas. It would take someone like kavisArvabhauma SreenAdha, poet and a devotee of Lord Shiva par excellence to be able to get this poem not only accepted by the people but to be made perhaps the most popular chATu padyam of Telugu literature:
సిరిగల వానికి జెల్లును
దరుణుల పదియారు వేల దగ బెండ్లాడన్
దిరిపెమున కిద్ద రాండ్రా
పరమేశా గంగ విడుము పార్వతి చాలున్
शिरिगलवानिकी जेल्लुनु
तरुणुलु पदियारुवेल दग पेम्ड्लाडन्
दिरिपेमुनकिद्दराम्ड्रा
परमेशा गंगा विडुमु पार्वति चालून
“One who has got fortune for his consort (Lord Vishnu having Lakshmi Devi as wife) can afford to marry Sixteen thousand women in the form of Lord Krishna. Oh Lord Shiva! You seek alms for yourselves, how will you support two wives? Please let go off Ganga.”
Folklore is that SrInAdha has come up with this verse when he once faced water scarcity during his tour of palnADu area and was blessed with supply of water by Lord Shiva himself. SrInAdha was known as a highly ardent Sivabhakta who wrote a magnum opus like kAsI khanDam in Telugu and one can only imagine his state of mind when he came up with this verse. Afterall, rasa is created by bhAva, which is nothing but the state of mind. And it can only happen when one reaches a certain level of upAsana and will also be accepted by people when the person establishes the wherewithal.
But the most important question is how is the rasa achieved in the above verse. And shAstrAs say, while dhvani is the construct for rasa, auchitya or appropriatenes is the essential ingredient to achieve it. When dhvani and auchitya come together, the saundarya or beauty will be achieved. Rasa cannot be looked outside the framework of four purushArthas as established in Indic philosophy. It is the path to mOksha, supported by artha and fullfilled through kAma but always following the path delineated by dharma. It is the auchitya that makes sure dharma is followed to be able to differentiate Rasa from mere joy fulfilled through basic instincts.
In the above two examples, the rasa is achieved only because there is no auchitya bhanga or inappropriateness. Even if the outer construct of the SrinAdha’s verse is portraying a certain level of inappropriateness, the underlying dhvani establishes the auchitya and hence the saundarya and rasa.
Now, I am not sure if the verse from the anthology book which started this discussion can claim to bring this level of rasa siddhi. It is for the learned individuals to ponder upon and question themselves if it is something that could bring the right state of mind to be able to experience rasa siddhi!