Hello World!

I am a typical Bengali from Kolkata, born to Goddess-fearing Hindu parents, currently working toward a doctoral degree in the United States of America. I have been fascinated by ancient and medieval Indic literature for as long as I can remember. My favorite pastime is to collect and meditate on snippets of Sanskrit poetry that I consider particularly appealing because of their content or structure or both. The body of Sanskrit literature that is available to us today is overwhelming in size, richness, and diversity, and although I have managed to cover only a tiny fraction of it, my collection has already grown to staggering proportions! So I have decided to carve out a little niche in the blogosphere that will serve the dual purpose of preserving and displaying -- like a museum of sorts -- the priceless literary gems I have gleaned in the course of my laborious readings. I intend to create a series of blogs with different themes where I will share hand-picked quotes from Sanskrit literature in the Devanagari script along with their Roman-script transliterations (according to the Harvard-Kyoto convention) and English translations accompanied by my own notes on said writings. Ganeshabharati (गणेशभारती) is the first in the series.

Sasivekalu Ganesha, Hampi

source: http://ganeshdarshan.wordpress.com/2009/10/03/sasivekalu-ganesha-hampi/

As the name suggests, this blog is about Ganesha (गणेश), one of the most popular mythological figures of South Asian origin. The second part of the name of the blog probably demands an explanation. Bharati (भारती) in Classical Sanskrit is a synonym of Sarasvati (सरस्वती) --  the goddess of speech, learning, and the arts. But Sarasvati has seldom been thought of as a denizen of some distant heavenly abode remotely controlling the intellectual and artistic affairs of the human race; she is the very personification of the things she is said to preside over -- a sacred spirit that pervades all human cerebral activity and products thereof. Hence, her names are often used in Indic languages to refer to the power of speech, a language, an academic pursuit, or a literary creation. For instance, the poet Chakra (चक्रकवि) who probably lived in the 17th century refers to the corpus of the 7th century poet-novelist Banabhatta (बाणभट्ट) as "बाणस्य भारती" in the 13th verse of his epic poem Janakiparinaya (जानकीपरिणय). Thus, the word गणेशभारती may be interpreted as "literature dedicated to Ganesha". But there is another dimension to this name.

It is common practice among traditional writers to begin their composition with an invocation -- called a mangalacharana (मङ्गलाचरण) for any work in prose or verse except for drama in which case it is called a nandi (नान्दी) -- to one or more divinities in order to seek their blessings for the successful completion of the work. Ganesha and Sarasvati seem to have been two particular favorites, for obvious reasons: Ganesha is the remover of obstacles, and so in many communities that currently identify as "Hindu" it is customary to propitiate him at the beginning of any endeavor; Sarasvati is the patron of arts and letters in most Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain traditions. In fact, these two deities are often invoked together (as in the Sanskrit invocation preceding the Ramcharitmanas by Tulsidas -- the relevant couplet will be presented in one of my future posts) and they are even considered spouses in some circles (source: Wikipedia article)! So I thought that including both Ganesha and Bharati in the blog name would be the perfect way to embark on my first attempt at blogging :). The choice of Ganesha as the subject of my first blog was motivated by similar considerations.

And now a few words about the verses I will be quoting and commenting on. They are excerpted from a wide variety of sources -- flowery court poetry or kavya (काव्य) composed primarily for the entertainment of the erudite, drama, liturgical and mythological writings, inscriptions and other official documents, treatises on subjects ranging from music to astrology, scholarly commentaries on the works of other authors, well-known Sanskrit anthologies like the Subhashitavali (सुभाषितावलि) of Vallabhadeva (वल्लभदेव), and suchlike -- spanning a period of roughly two millennia (some of these were composed as late as the 21st century!). A careful study of these little nuggets provides invaluable insights not only into the Sanskrit language and the literary practices of its users but also into the socio-cultural milieu in which they were produced as well as contemporary local knowledge of the natural world and beliefs about the unknown. Each of my posts will typically focus on a single short piece of poetry and I will try to touch upon as many aspects of it as I can, providing links to sources of more detailed information on topics that I do not wish to dwell on.

So come and join me on an entertaining and enlightening journey through a surreal world, skilfully crafted by Sanskrit litterateurs, where the much-loved part-human part-elephant celestial reveals himself in myriad forms!

Disclaimers: 

1. This blogger has no agenda to promote any religious or linguo-political views; the blog focuses on the academic appreciation of literary compositions in a classical language of India that share a well-known mythological entity as their subject.

2. The material (including text, images, and videos) that is presented on this blog but is not created by the blogger himself was acquired from reputable sources on the internet (including the Internet Archive, the Digital Library of India, and Wikimedia Commons) and is assumed to be in the public domain. Attributions will be provided wherever possible. The blogger is indebted to sanskritdocuments.org for pointing out to him multiple online venues for the easy procurement of valuable Sanskrit documents.