An elephant in its natural habitat

Here is another alliterative snippet from the Vijayanagara empire – the introductory blessing of the Satyamangalam 'copperplate' inscription of Emperor Deva Raya II. In ancient India, mainly in the South, such inscribed copperplates usually recorded land grants, royal genealogies, and suchlike, and today serve as reliable aids for the reconstruction of history (you can find more information here). Although these were official documents, their language was often no less flowery than that of court poetry! 

भूयस्यै भवतां भूत्यै भूयादाश्चर्यकुञ्जरः|

विहारविपिनं यस्य विदुर्वेदान् पुराविदः||

 Harvard-Kyoto transliteration:

bhUyasyai bhavatAM bhUtyai bhUyAdAzcaryakuJjaraH|

vihAravipinaM yasya vidurvedAn purAvidaH||

Loose translation: May the extraordinary elephant bring about a prosperous existence for you all – knowers of the events of yore are aware that the Vedas themselves serve as the grove where this elephant wanders about playfully. 

Notes:

1. The word Aashcharyakunjara (आश्चर्यकुञ्जर), which denotes Ganesha here, is a combination of aashcharya (आश्चर्य) which means 'astonishing/marvelous/extraordinary' and kunjara (कुञ्जर), another word for elephant. The grammarian Panini explains that kunja refers to an elephant's tusk or jaw, and the suffix ra denotes 'laden with' or 'characterized by', hence the name. Instead of taking the usual route of describing Ganesha as an elephant-faced humanoid, our poet insinuates that the god is a sort of super-elephant with a human torso. And, as we shall see later, they are not the only person to have done so.

2. The second half-verse is a roundabout way of asserting that Ganesha is a deity sanctioned by the Vedas – it is as natural for Ganesha to be spoken of in the Vedas as it is for an elephant to roam around in a grove of trees. The word used here in this connection, vihaaravipina (विहारविपिन), is a compound of विहार, which will be explained shortly, and विपिन which means 'grove' or 'forest'.

Vihaara (विहार) originally referred only to walking for amusement but over time came to denote engagement in any recreational activity (usually outdoors). It has been used repeatedly in the literature as a euphemism for amorous dalliance! It also means "a place for walking or making merry", and was adopted by Buddhists and Jains as the name of their sanctuaries where monks could move around freely, meeting each other and carrying out delightful intellectual discourse. And the current Indian state of Bihar derives its name from the large number of Buddhist viharas it used to house.  

A male Indian elephant (Elephas maximus indicus), Bandipur National Park

source: Wikipedia

3. Is Ganesha as we know him today really mentioned in Vedic texts? Well, that is a hard question to answer. Throughout the centuries, several ideological communities have emerged in the Indian Subcontinent that have claimed to be aastika (आस्तिक) or believers in the supremacy of the Vedas, as opposed to naastika (नास्तिक) or repudiators of the Vedas (there is more information here and here), and it is these aastika schools of thought that are the major components of the huge collage of beliefs and practices that we call Hinduism today. And each of these aastika philosophies, no matter how different from each other they appear prima facie, asserts that it is the most accurate interpretation of the Vedas. The samhitaa (संहिता) texts, that constitute the core of the Vedic corpus, are essentially anthologies of 'mystical' poetry, and hence open to interpretation. Even the philosophical treatises – the aaranyakas (आरण्यक) and upanishads (उपनिषद्) – that are said to form the 'concluding' part of the Vedas have been painstakingly interpreted and reinterpreted in unique ways by different scholars over the ages. The scope of Vedic literature is also defined variously: the number of 'canonical' Upanishads varies across traditions, and sometimes even the itihaasas and puraanas are subsumed under "Vedic scriptures"! But what is common to all aastika traditions that believe in a God or a group of divinities is the conviction that the object of their devotion is the entity actually eulogized in the Vedic hymns – a conviction often based on subjective definitions and interesting interpretations. Hence, devotional poetry is replete with such allusions to the Vedas as we have seen in today's quote.