6. Poetic Beauty (a): Metre (Vritta)

Both Vrittas and Alankaras has a prominent role to enhance the charm of a literary work. If Vrittas and Alankaras are includes with a perfect preposition in a literary work, obviously the work should become appreciable. Annadatricarita also contains several verses which adorns the poetic beauty. K Balarama Panicker tagged them in the almost all acts which are able to make the spectator’s mindwith amusement. Some of them are discussing here.

The poetic beauty of a work consists of different components like Vrittas, Alankaras and Guna. The beginning of the Vritta Shastra (Chanda Shastra) is from the Vedic period. It was considered as foot of the (pada) Vedas.^[1] According to Yaska’s Nirukta, the meaning of the term ‘Chandas’ is given as:

chandāṃsi chādanād |

Pingala^[2], the author of Chandashastra^[3] is considering as the most authentic master of prosody (Chanda Shastra). The Vrittas are related to the vowel letters. It divided into two groups Laghu (Hrisva) and Guru (Dirgha) respectively. The sounds like a,i,u and ri are consider as the ‘Laghu’ sounds as well as the sounds a,i,u,ri,e,o and ai are the Gurus. The Vrittas are divided into two groups, Matra Vrittas and Gana Vrittas (Varna Vritta). Among these two divisions Varna Vrittas has comparatively more importance in Sanskrit.^[4]

In Annadatricarita the author used several GanaVrittas to improve the poetic charm of the drama. Upajati, Malini, Mandakranta, Vasantatilaka, Shardulavikridita and Sragdhara are the main metres used by the playwright. They are discussed below with some examples from the drama.

1. Upajati (upajātiḥ)

If the four lines of a verse is blended with different Vrittas, it is called ‘Upajati’^[5].

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Here the following verse is a combination of Indravajra and Upendravajra. Consequently, here is the presence of Upajati Vritta.

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Another example of Upendravajra from the drama is as follows:

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2. Malini ([mālinī])

If the lines of a verse is compose with the combination of two Nagana, Magana and two yagana respectively it is called Malini Vritta.

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They figured in the drama as follows:

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3. Mandakranta ([mandākrāntā])

The author used the Mandakranta²³ metre while he depicts the hero of the drama.

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It includes Magana. Bhagana, Nagana, Tagana, Tagana and two gurus. [...]

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4. Vasantatilaka ([vasantatilakam])

The metre with a Tagana, Bhagana, two jaganas and two gurus is known as Vasantatilaka.

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The given verse is composed in this metre.

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5. Shardulavikritita ([śārdūlavikrīḍitam])

The playwright used the Shardulavikriditavritta in several verses to improve the poetic beauty in the drama. The Nandishloka itself is composed in the Shardulavikridita metre. In addition, the drama contains more than three verses created in the same meter. It includes the Magana, sagana, jagana, sagana, two taganas and a guru in each lines.

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The following verses are some examples of this metre in this drama.

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6. Sragdhara ([sragdharā])

The dramatist praised Krishna with the verses composed using the Sragdhara²⁴ metre.

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It consists of magana, ragana, bhagana, nagana and threeyaganas correspondingly. The following verses are composed using this metre.

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Moreover, the author used some other Vrittas also to increase the poetic amazement in the drama the above mentioned are the important meters among them.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Chanda padau vedasya….

[2]:

Pingala (3^rd -2^nd century BCE) was an ancient Indian mathematician. He was assumed as the author of the text ChandaShastra (Pingala-sutras), which considers as the earliest known work about Sanskrit prosody.

[3]:

The ChandaShastra (Pingala-sutras) is a work consists of eight chapters. It has been dated to the last few centuries BCE. In the 10^th century, a mathematician namely Halayudha was wrote a commentary on this work and expanded it.

[4]:

Rajeev P.P, Vrittam-Alankaram, (Kalady: Nalanda Publishers, November 2004), 7.

[5]:

Ibid.,11.