A quick note

Before the next real post, I thought I should draw your attention to a variant of the excerpt in "A paradoxical doxology 1" that I came across in a couple of Vijayanagara inscriptions (of the reign of Tirumala I and Ranga Raya II). It differs from said verse only in the last quarter: instead of harinaapi cha poojyate (हरिणापि च पूज्यते), it reads panchaasyenaapi laalitam (पञ्चास्येनापि लालितम्) which means "caressed by a lion/caressed by Shiva", [panchaasya = panchaanana = "five-faced", literally]. The exegesis of this version is  quite understandably similar to that of the second quote in the same vein (A paradoxical doxology 2).

Another point to be noted is that all adjectives used to describe Ganesha in both versions of the stanza under consideration are in the neuter gender. This is because Ganesha is referred to as gajaratna ("a gem of an elephant"/"an excellent elephant"); the grammatical gender of ratna ("gem") in Sanskrit is neuter, and in Sanskrit grammar, an adjective has the same gender, number, and case-ending as the noun it qualifies. This rule is quite convenient, especially in poetry, since an adjective can be placed practically anywhere in a sentence and yet it is possible to figure out precisely, more often than not, which noun it is associated with! Thus the sentence

सुशीलः बालकः उष्णं दुग्धं पिबति|

 (The well-behaved boy drinks warm milk.)

can be rewritten as  

उष्णं पिबति सुशीलः दुग्धं बालकः|

without changing its meaning. (Of course, it is possible to construct pathological examples where this idea breaks down. )

A paradoxical doxology 2

I apologize in advance for the elephantine (see what I did there?) size of this post :) 

As you might have guessed from the title, today's snippet is yet another fine specimen of the virodhaabhaasa (विरोधाभास) trope that, loosely translated, refers to a paradox. And, just as in the previous quote, the paradox is in the second half-verse and alludes to the celebrated enmity between the lion and the elephant! It was penned by a poet called Chakra (चक्र) who hailed from Southern India and is placed in the 17th century by the renowned Sanskrit scholar T. Ganapati Sastri. Chakra's magnum opus "Jaanakeeparinaya" (जानकीपरिणय) or "The Wedding of Jaanaki (Sita)", an epic poem based on the Ramayana, begins with cleverly worded invocations to several deities – the third couplet of the work, which is excerpted below, glorifies Ganesha. My source is the scanned version of Trivandrum Sanskrit Series publication No. XXIV (1913), available here.

गजरत्नं चिरत्नं तदद्भुतं श्रेयसेऽस्तु यत्|
पञ्चाननो लालयति क्षोणीभृद्भूगुहाश्रयः||

Harvard-Kyoto transliteration:

gajaratnaM ciratnaM tadadbhutaM zreyase'stu yat|

paJcAnano lAlayati kSoNIbhRdbhUguhAzrayaH||

Reading 1 (self-contradictory and inadmissible): May that ancient and extraordinary gem of an elephant produce welfare – which is caressed by a lion that frequents mountainous terrain and dwells in caves. 

Reading 2 (admissible): May that ancient and extraordinary gem of an elephant produce welfare – which is caressed by the Five-faced Man (i.e. Shiva) in whom the Mountain-born (i.e. Parvati) and Guha (i.e. Skanda) find refuge. 

Notes:

1. The magic, as already stated, lies in the second hemistich "पञ्चाननो लालयति क्षोणीभृद्भूगुहाश्रयः". The second word laalayati (लालयति) is unambiguous and means "he/she/it caresses". Let us take up the remaining two words one by one.

Panchaanana (पञ्चानन): The word pancha (पञ्च), which means "five", suffixed with any word which means "face", such as aanana (आनन), vaktra (वक्त्र), mukha (मुख), aasya (आस्य) etc., is a popular appellation of Shiva since he is often represented as five-faced, especially in the Tantric tradition. The faces even have names: Ishaana (ईशान), Tatpurusha (तत्पुरुष), Aghora (अघोर), Vaamadeva (वामदेव), and Sadyojaata (सद्योजात). Each face is said to point in a particular direction, and is identified with one of the five syllables of the most important mantra (मन्त्र = sacred formula) associated with Shiva: Namah Shivaaya (नमः शिवाय). The five-headed ten-armed form of the deity is sometimes called Sadaashiva (सदाशिव). 

Five-headed Shiva, Nurpur, Himachal Pradesh, 1696

source: Wikimedia Commons

Panchaanana, as well as its above synonyms, is also another Sanskrit word for "lion"! According to lexicographers, panchaanana is figuratively used to mean "very fierce or passionate."¹ It is presumably for this reason that this surprising epithet was given to the formidable, albeit one-faced, predator! But again, the 13th century Jain scholar Hamsadeva in his Mrigapakshishaastra, "The science of animals and birds", restricts the meaning of the word panchaasya (पञ्चास्य), which is semantically identical to panchaanana, to the third of the six varieties of lion he recognizes; according to him, the distinguishing characteristics of this type include whitish color, a short tail, dense body hair, a short mane, a long body, perpetual sleepiness, and a walk accompanied by frequent jumps and turning of the head. Here is the scanned version of said text for your reference. 

The last word of the verse kshoneebhRdbhooguhaashraya (क्षोणीभृद्भूगुहाश्रय) is even more interesting. Kshonee (क्षोणी) denotes the earth (and hence "soil" or "land"), and in Sanskrit any word for the earth, followed by a suffix which means "supporter" such as -dhara (-धर) or -bhRt (-भृत्), refers to a king or a mountain. It is understandable why a king would be called kshoneebhRt or "earth-supporter" – his foremost duty is to sustain a piece of land and the life forms that thrive on it. But what entitles a mountain to be honored with the same epithet? Isn't it rather the other way around? One of the most important Shakta scriptures, the Devee-Bhaagavata Puraana (देवीभागवतपुराण), solves the mystery. 

"... [the earth] is called Mahî because it is great, ... . O King! the Ananta serpent is holding it on [his] thousand-hoods. To make the earth remain solid and compact, Brahmâ built at places mountains. As iron nails in a log of wood, so these hills and mountains within this earth made it fixed. Therefore the Pundits call these mountains “Mahîdhara,” holder of the earth."

– Devi-Bhagavata Purana, Book 3, Chapter 13, Verses 9-10 (link)

There is no way to know what the person/people who coined these terms actually had in mind. But it can be guessed that the "earth" here refers to the "flat" hard crust on which we live and some ancients believed that it was held in place by mountains driven, as it were, right through it so as to have their "roots" embedded in a perhaps softer substratum.

Now, bhoo (भू) is another word for "the earth", "soil", or "land" and hence the compound kshoneebhRdbhoo (क्षोणीभृद्भू) may be translated as "mountain-soil" or "hilly land." Guhaa (गुहा) means "cave" and is connected with the verb guh (गुह्), "to conceal". Finally, aashraya (आश्रय) is "shelter". Putting the pieces together, we have the first interpretation of the word: "one who uses mountainous regions and caves for shelter" – an apt description of the Asiatic lion. Here is a (by no means exhaustive) list of Sanskrit appellations of the lion that literally mean "moutain-dweller" or "mountain-wanderer": agaukas (अगौकस्), nagaukas (नगौकस्), shailaata (शैलाट), shaileya (शैलेय).

But how does the adjective under consideration relate to Shiva? The verb bhoo (भू) means "to be", "to become" or "to be born" and hence, when used as a suffix, can be interpreted as "born from" or "offspring of". So kshoneebhRdbhoo can refer to Shiva's consort Parvati who is the daughter of the mountain-king Himalaya (both the meanings "king" and "mountain" of kshoneebhRt apply here). Guha (गुह) is a popular name of Shiva and Parvati's other son Skanda (स्कन्द) or Kaartikeya (कार्तिकेय), and Shiva is, of course, "one who offers shelter to the mountain-born Parvati and Guha"! 

Somaskanda, representation of Shiva with Uma and a dancing infant Skanda (Guha),  Nayak Palace Art Museum, Tanjore

source: Wikipedia

And just in case someone fails to see why the above stanza is an illustration of virodhaabhaasa or "apparent contradiction", here is a reminder: the lion is notorious in Sanskrit literature for (supposedly) being innately hostile towards the elephant. So a lion showering love on an elephant would come across as a shocker to most readers targeted by our poet. Let me take this opportunity to present you with another list of Sanskrit names (given by lexicographers and/or used by littérateurs) of the lion: 

• ibhaari (इभारि), kunjaraarati (कुञ्जराराति), gajaari (गजारि), dvipaari (द्विपारि), sindhuradveshin (सिन्धुरद्वेषिन्), "the enemy/hater of elephants";
• ibhamaacala (इभमाचल), karidaaraka(करिदारक),  karimaacala(करिमाचल),  dviradaantaka (द्विरदान्तक), "elephant-destroyer";
• garjitaasaha (गर्जितासह), "one who does not tolerate (an elephant's) trumpets"!

2. Another noteworthy feature of the couplet is the duplication of the segment ratnaM (रत्नं) in the first half-verse. Since consonants are repeated, you might be tempted to call this an instance of anupraasa. But here the embellishment consists of more than just recurring sounds; we have multiple copies of a sequence of syllables, differing in meaning. The ratna part of gajaratna means "gem" and, as a suffix to the name of a demographic or species, signifies a member enjoying a position of superiority; gajaratna means "the best among elephants" (gaja = elephant). The second ratna is part of chiratna (चिरत्न) which means "ancient" – a rather obscure derivative of chira (चिर), "lasting a long time". Rhetoricians have not subsumed this special type of shabdaalankaara (शब्दालङ्कार) under anupraasa and have given it the name yamaka (यमक; literally, "twin"). In all the examples of yamaka I have seen, the repeated chunk of text spans multiples syllables and at least of the occurrences includes a complete word that may or may not be part of a compound. For instance, here the first ratna, although embedded in the longer word gajaratna, is capable of making sense on its own while the second is non-isolable since chiratna, at least in this context, cannot be broken down into chi and ratna.

We just saw that, in order to label a trope as a yamaka, the meaning or sense must be taken into account. Why then is it not considered an arthaalankaara (अर्थालङ्कार) or "embellishment of the sense"? My knowledge of the subject is limited but here goes my understanding: in a shabdaalankara, the beauty or appeal derives primarily from the sounds themselves and not from the objects or ideas they denote. More simply, a literary device qualifies as a shabdaalankaara if it is possible to make the alankaara vanish by replacing the words involved by some synonymous words or expressions. In our specimen, this can be confirmed by replacing, say, chiratna with its synonym puraana (पुराण). 

That's all for today. And in case your thirst for wordplay is still unquenched, I leave you with the assurance that the next post will be mainly about yamakas!

¹ In this context, it is worthwhile to mention the related Bengali idiom proshongsay ponchomukh howa (Bengali: প্রশংসায় পঞ্চমুখ হওয়া) which literally means "to become five-faced (or five-mouthed) in praise" and is used to describe a person showing excessive enthusiasm in extolling someone or something.↩

A paradoxical doxology 1

Today I am going to present yet another gem from the literary treasure trove of Vijayanagara. But first I must mention my sources – something I forgot to do in my previous post. All the Sanskrit quotes in my collection that come from the Vijayanagara Empire were gleaned either from the book Prachina-Lekha-Mala, mentioned in this post, or from some the earliest volumes of Epigraphia Indica, the official publication of the Archeological Survey of India, available here. 

Now that we have got the issue of attribution out of the way, let us get to the point. The following couplet has been used as the introductory benediction of the inscriptions of several Vijayanagara emperors. 

कल्याणायास्तु तद्धाम प्रत्यूहतिमिरापहम्|

यद्गजोऽप्यगजोद्भूतं हरिणापि च पूज्यते|| 

Harvard-Kyoto transliteration:

kalyANAyAstu taddhAma pratyUhatimirApaham|

yadgajo'pyagajodbhUtaM hariNApi ca pUjyate||

As the title of this post suggests, there is a paradox in the above verse, specifically in the second half. To be more precise, the author has employed an interesting type of shabdaalankaara – a literary trope that relies on wordplay – called virodhaabhaasa (विरोधाभास) or "the appearance of a contradiction": this alankaara is characterized by a piece of text that has multiple readings, only one of which is admissible in the given context, the other readings being self-contradictory (hence nonsensical or shocking). Here are the two most relevant readings of the stanza above (of course, the language being Sanskrit, other readings might also be possible).

Reading 1 (self-contradictory and inadmissible): May that luster produce welfare – which dispels the darkness of obstacles, and which, though an elephant, was born from a non-elephant, and is revered even by a lion. 

Reading 2 (admissible): May that luster produce welfare – which dispels the darkness of obstacles, and which, though an elephant, was born from the daughter of a mountain, and is worshiped even by Hari (i.e. Vishnu).

N.B. The above loose translations are heavily influenced by the translation of Indologist E. Hultzsch in Epigraphia Indica. 

Notes:

1. The apparent contradiction here is effected by the use of two ambiguous words, agajodbhoota (अगजोद्भूत) and hari (हरि). The first can be split either as अगज (=non-elephant) + उद्भूत (=born) or as अगजा + उद्भूत, where Agajaa (अगजा; literally, "mountain-born", feminine gender) is one of the names of Ganesha's mother Parvati. Hari is a word with a ridiculously large number of meanings: as most of us know, it is a popular name of Vishnu or Krishna (or sometimes "God" in general; find out more on the Wikipedia page) but it also denotes several animals including the lion. The word occurs in the Rigveda where it refers to certain shades of green, yellow or brown (Sanskrit color terminology is quite interesting!) and is especially applied to bay horses, as noted by Monier-Williams. Presumably, the lion got this name from the color of its hair coat which, as Wikipedia notes, 'varies from light buff to yellowish, reddish, or dark ochraceous brown'. 

In most lexicons and literary references, hari is just a synonym for "lion" but the 13th century Jain author Hamsadeva, in his Mrigapakshishaastra (मृगपक्षिशास्त्र) or "The science of animals and birds", identifies six varieties of lion and gives the name hari to only one of them! A lion of this kind, according to said author, is 'very short', 'whitish-red' and 'very fond of moon-light'; for a more detailed description of the physical and behavioral characteristics of this and other purported types of lion, please refer to an English translation of said treatise, available here (pages 3 - 7 of main text). Of course, there is no way to tell how much of this work was based on actual observation and how much on hearsay or imagination.

2. What is so surprising  about a lion revering an elephant? In Indic literature, the lion is portrayed as an arch-enemy of the elephant and the only beast capable of taking down the otherwise invincible giant; the technique that the ferocious feline is said to employ to this end is to pounce upon the pachyderm's head and rip apart one or both of the fleshy protuberances on the latter's forehead, called kumbhas (कुम्भ; literally, "pitcher") in Sanskrit. This belief appears to have some basis in reality – a Google image search with the keywords "lion hunting elephant" throws up quite a few photos of lionesses taking on elephants, although mostly from behind. This is also the source of a Sanskrit cliché: if Tom defeats or destroys Harry, then Tom may be described as "a lion unto the elephant that is Harry", or, in classic Sanskrit agglutinative style, "Harry-elephant-lion"! Even beyond the realm of literature, the motif of a stylized lion subduing an elephant is ubiquitous in Indian temple architecture, and is given various symbolic meanings by scholars. Hence, in Sanskrit literature, an elephant-revering lion is nothing but an oxymoron!  

Statue of a lion rearing over an elephant, Sun Temple at Konark (photo taken: 1890)
source: Old Indian Photos

3. By this time, the reader must have got thoroughly acquainted with the literary device of indirect reference: Ganesha is referred to here as the light (dhaama (धाम)) that is  the remover of the "darkness'' of impediments: 

प्रत्यूहतिमिरापह = प्रत्यूह (obstacle)+तिमिर(darkness)+अपह(repelling/keeping back). 

The word pratyooha (प्रत्यूह) or "obstacle" used in this context deserves special mention; it shows up repeatedly in the Ganesha-centric literature since the elephant-headed god's primary role in the Hindu religion is to remove obstacles.

4. The fact that Vishnu here is presented as a worshiper of Ganesha might raise some eyebrows. It goes on to show that our poet and presumably his patron as well were anything but devout Vaishnavas. Moreover, the Sanskrit verb pooj (पूज्) that is used here, whence we obtain the word poojaa (पूजा), is usually translated as "to worship" but does not carry the same connotations as said English verb. Although the term poojaa has now taken on an entirely religious color (a one-way symbolic service performed by a devotee in honor of a divinity), it originally simply denoted a show of respect or a greeting. There are frequent casual mentions in Sanskrit literature of two parties exchanging poojaas regardless of their age and social standing, and there is even a term pratipoojaa (प्रतिपूजा) for a poojaa that you offer a person in return for the poojaa they have accorded to you!