On Sūryadāsa and the invention of bidirectional poetry (vilomakāvya)

Journal of the American Oriental Society

Volumn 124, Issue 2, 2004, Pages 325-333

  Minkowski, Christopher ^a  

^a Cornell University ^*

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EID: 67650132950     PISSN: 00030279     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/4132220     Document Type: Article

References (72)

1. Another designation is anulomapratilomakāvya. See Siegfried Lienhardt, A History of Classical Poetry: Sanskrit-Pali-Prakrit (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1984), 148-50, 224-25;
2. M. Winternitz, Geschichte der indischen Litteratur, vol. 3 (Leipzig: Amelangs, 1920), 125.
3. At the level of reading the poem, however, one still reads only from first verse to last verse.
4. An example of a viscombining dot belowamākscombining dot belowara verse (Rāmakrcombining dot belowscombining dot belowncombining dot belowavilomakāvya 1): tamcombining dot below bhūsūtā- muktim udāra-hāsamcombining dot below vande yato bhavya-bhavamcombining dot below dayā-śrihcombining dot below śriyādavamcombining dot below bhavya-bha-toya-devam samcombining dot belowhāra-dā-muktim utāsubhūtām || An example of a samākscombining dot belowara verse (Rāmakrcombining dot belowscombining dot belowncombining dot belowavilomakāvya 31): śaṅkāvajn̄ā-nut tv anujñāvakā śamcombining dot below yāne nadyām ugram udyāna- neyā | yāne nadyām ugram udyānaneyã śaṅkāvajñā-nut tv anujñāā vakāśamcombining dot below.
5. Rāmāyana 1.2 in the critical edition. The verse that Vālmiki discovered, incidentally, (1.2.14) cannot be read in two directions.
6. Bronner, "Poetry at Its Extreme: The Theory and Practice of Bitextual Poetry (ślescombining dot belowa) in South Asia," Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1999. In ordinary ślescombining dot belowakāvya works, both registers of the poem are read in the same direction.
7. This list was developed using Bronner's study as a basis, and searching also through the standard reference works on the history of kāvya and the introductions to the published viloma texts.
8. Neither M. Krishnamachariar, History of Classical Sanskrit Literature, 2d ed. (Madras: Tirumalai-Tirupati Devasthanams Press, 1937), 512
9. nor E. V. Vira Raghavacharya, "Dvyarthī and Tryarthī Kāvyas in Sanskrit," in Commemorative Essays Presented to Professor Kashinath Bapuji Pathak (Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1934), 381, identifies this work as a vilomakāvya.
10. Bronner follows NCC (7: 47), which does identify the work as a vilomakāvya, referring to the Tanjore Descriptive Catalogue (7: 2840ff.). That catalogue, however, nowhere identifies the work as viloma. The excerpts published in the TDC show a work that is a ślescombining dot belowakāvya of the Rāma story and the Krcombining dot belowscombining dot belowncombining dot belowa story simultaneously, but the commentary reads both of these narratives from the verses in the same direction. One of the verses of the introduction to the commentary identifies the poem as having different meanings in krama and vyutkrama. The verses given in the catalogue appear to offer the possibility of at least a partial viloma reading.
11. See Lienhardt, Classical Literature, 148-50;
12. M. S. Narasimhacharya and M. C. Porcher, Le Rāghavayādaviya par Veṅkatcombining dot belowādhvarin (Pondicherry: Institut français d'indologie, 1972)
13. and M. C. Porcher, La Viśvaguncombining dot belowā darśacampū de Veṅkatcombining dot belowādhvarin (Pondicherry: Institut français d'indologie, 1972), 1-11.
14. Krishnamachariar, 194. A manuscript in the Madras Triennial Catalogue (2: 1716-17) shows that it contained twenty cantos and was a vilomakāvya of the Nala and Hariścandra stories.
15. Krishnamachariar, 194, also lists Anantasuri's Hariścandrodaya in his section devoted to vilomakāvya, though he does not explicitly say that it is a vilomakāvya.
16. In fact it is a ślescombining dot belowakāvya but not a vilomakāvya. (See the Mysore Descriptive Catalogue 8: 206-7.)
17. The Rāghavayādaviya of Someśvara (Krishnamachariar, 191)
18. is extant in a manuscript in the Madras Triennial Catalogue (4: 5489-91).
19. The description in the MTC makes it clear that it is a ślescombining dot belowakāvya, but not a vilomakāvya. On the existence of a lost work of Śrutakirti, see below, n. 23. In the introduction to his edition of Sūrya's Rāmakrcombining dot belowscombining dot belowncombining dot belowavilomakävya, K. N. Miśra identifies, in addition to some of the works already mentioned, two other titles as vilomakāvyas: the Pārvatirukmincombining dot belowiya of Vidyāmādhava and the Śrcombining dot belowngāravairāgyataraṅgini of Somaprabhäcärya. Both of these are listed by Krishnamachariar (190, 193), but neither is identified by Krishnamachariar as a viloma work, and indeed neither one is, as is clear from consulting the example of the former work given by Krishnamachariar and the text of the latter published in the Kāvyamālā. One suspects that Miśra has inferred that these are vilomakāvyas because of where they are described by Krishnamachariar, that is, on the pages adjacent to the ones where the vilomakāvyai are listed.
20. The work survives in only one manuscript (see n. 10) and is unpublished. Given the relative length of the WOrk - Sūrya's and Veṅkatcombining dot belowa's are only thirty-six and thirty-two verses respectively - and its subject matter - the stories of two human kings - it would seem to postdate the shorter works by Sūrya and Veṅkatcombining dot belowa, which explore one of the central topics of bitextual poetry, the combination of the stories of Rāma and Krcombining dot belowscombining dot belowncombining dot belowa. Where would the glory be for them in writing a work of thirty or so verses, if there already existed one in ten cantos?
21. See, e.g., the short poems at the end of S. B. Velcombining dot belowancombining dot belowkar's edition of the Rāmakrcombining dot belowscombining dot belowncombining dot belowakāvya.
22. The title is also sometimes listed as Rāmakrcombining dot belowscombining dot belowncombining dot belowakāvya or as Rāmakrcombining dot belowscombining dot belowncombining dot belowavilomäksarakävya. Editions: J. Haeberlin, Kāvyasamgraha (1847);
23. Kāvyamālā, part 11 (1895);
24. K. N. Mísra, Haridas Sanskrit Series, vol. 288 (Vārāncombining dot belowasī: Chowkhamba, 1970);
25. S. B. Velankar (Bombay: K. B. Dhawale, 1977).
26. Lienhardt, Classical Poetry, gives a date of 1540
27. which appears to be drawn from Winternitz, Geschichte, 125. Neither author gives a rationale for this date, which is presumably based on Sürya's floruit derived from his other dated works.
28. David Pingree, Jyotihcombining dot belowśāstra (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1981), 124, lists astronomical works of Sūrya's that can be dated to 1538 and 1541. See below, however, for another work of his that can be dated to 1583. I would argue that the Rāmakrcombining dot belowscombining dot belowncombining dot belowakāvya is in fact a later work, composed closer to 1580 than 1540. Note that despite its great success, Sūrya makes no special point of referring to it in the closing verses of his works, where he describes what earlier works he has written. The situation is the same for the Siddhāntasamcombining dot belowhitāsārasamuccaya, another late work not yet composed when those various concluding verses were written.
29. Note that most bitextual works come with an autocommentary, a guide to the double reading being considered a necessary component of its composition.
30. There appears to be a reference here to the most famous early ślescombining dot belowa double epic, Kavirāja's Rāghavapāncombining dot belowdcombining dot belowaviya, which speaks of the merging of the two epics as being like the Gaṅgā flowing to the ocean (Bronner, 247-48). Sūrya claims that his accomplishment is that much more astounding.
31. Anecdotal evidence of early, dated manuscripts suggests early dissemination of the work. Jaipur Pothikhānā 623 has the date 1718 Samcombining dot belowvat. The Dikshit collection in the Deccan College includes a manuscript (Accn. No. 3920) dated Śaka 1644. There are eight copies in the Mysore Descriptive Catalogue, though unfortunately no date is given.
32. Tanjore Descriptive Catalogue, 6: Cat. nos. 3843-46.
33. Edwin Gerow, A Glossary of Indian Figures of Speech (The Hague: Mouton, 1971), 185.
34. The chief authors who describe the alamcombining dot belowkāra are Dancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowin, Kāvyādarśa 3.70, 74-77
35. and Rudratcombining dot belowa, Kāvyālamcombining dot belowkāra 5.22-23.
36. See also M. C. Porcher, Figures de style en Sanskrit: Théories des alamcombining dot belowkāraśāstra: Analyse de poèmes de Veṅkatcombining dot belowādhavarin (Paris: Publications de l'Institut de civilization indienne, 1978), 260-68.
37. Kirātārjuniya 15.18, 20, 22, 23.
38. Śiśupālavadha 19.33-34, 40, 44, 88, 90. Each of these is a verse containing a different variety of the anulomapratiloma alamcombining dot belowkāra; some are palindromic and some are not. Other varieties of word-play are invariably displayed in adjacent verses, so that the anulomapratiloma verses always form a part of a set of varied effects.
39. See, similarly, vss. 8,9, in Ānandavardhana's Deviśataka (Daniel Ingalls, "Ānandavardhana's Deviśataka", JAOS 109 [1989]: 568).
40. Dancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowin specifies a pāda, half-verse, or verse as the potential length of the effect.
41. The only trace of a possible earlier work is a lone reference to a poem of Śrutakīrti. Pampa in his Pamparāmāyancombining dot belowa says that Śrutakirti wrote a Rāghavapāncombining dot belowdcombining dot belowaviya that was gatapratyāgata 'going and returning'. The scholarly community has been divided on the identity and date of Srutakirti (in any case before Pampa in the twelfth century) and the nature of the work composed. There is no certainty that gatapratyāgata refers to a vilomakāvya in the sense defined above. The term could as easily mean a poem in which verses are read from first to last and last to first, but always left to right. Furthermore, if it ever existed, this work was lost early on. No author after Pampa knows of it. Sūryadāsa would have had to (re-)invent the genre in any case. For bibliography, see H. Jain and A. N. Upādhye, "Pradhān Sampādakīya" in Dvisandhāna Mahākāvya of Mahākavi Dhanan̄jaya, ed. K. C. Gorawala (Delhi: Bharatiya Jnanapitha, 1970), 23-31.
42. Also sometimes called Sūrya, Sūrya Pandita and Sūryasūri, but not the same as Sūryakavi, author of the commentary on the Kavikalpalatā. On Sūrya, see K. Madhava Krishna Sarma, "Siddhānta-samcombining dot belowhitā-sāra- samuccaya of Sūrya Pancombining dot belowdcombining dot belowitā," Viśva Bhārati 2 (1950): 222-25.
43. For further bibliography, see Minkowski, "Astronomers and Their Reasons: Working Paper on Jyotihcombining dot belowśāstra," Journal of Indian Philosophy 30 (2002): 507-10.
44. Sarma, "Siddhānta-samcombining dot belowhitā-sāra- samuccaya," 221-24. The Vedic works are not extant.
45. In a discussion of the precession of the equinoxes in the grahakakscombining dot belowākrama section of the last chapter, evamcombining dot below vartamāne śālivāhanaśake 1505 haste saptarscombining dot belowayas tiscombining dot belowtcombining dot belowhanti. This would make Sūrya seventy-five years old at the time of its composition. The work is not yet published, but I have had access to a copy of Jaipur Khasmohor 5026, and to copies of Baroda 3344 and 9473.
46. For more on this chapter, see Minkowski and Pingree, "The Mlecchamatanirūpancombining dot belowa of Sūryadāsa," forthcoming.
47. Sarma, p. 221. The work is as yet unpublished, and I have not seen a copy of a manuscript at the time of writing.
48. David Pingree, "Tājika: Persian Astrology in Sanskrit," in From Astral Omens to Astrology: From Babylon to Bikaner (Rome: Istituto Italiano per l'Africa e l'Oriente, 1997), 79-90.
49. D. Pingree, "Indian Reception of Muslim Versions of Ptolemaic Astronomy," in Tradition, Transmission, Transformation, ed. F. J. and S. P. Ragep (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 474-75.
50. For the growing importance of Islamicate courtly culture, from the fifteenth century on, in Vijayanagar, see Phillip B. Wagoner, "'Sultan among Hindu Kings': Dress, Titles and the Islamicization of Hindu Culture at Vijayanagara," Journal of Asian Studies 55 (196): 851-80.
51. For patronage by Muslim rulers of Sanskrit authors in Bengal, see J. P. Chaudhuri, Muslim Patronage to Sanskritic Learning (Calcutta: J. B. Chandhuri, 1942).
52. For similar patronage in Kashmir, see references in S. Pollock, "The Death of Sanskrit," Comparative Studies in Society and History 43 (2001): 395-400.
53. Especially Murtaza Nizām Shāh I, a.k.a. The "Madman" (r. 1565-88). See Radhey Shyam, The Kingdom of Ahmadnagar (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1966), 151-201. An ancestor of Sūrya had been a śāstrī in the court of the Devagiri Yādavas. There is no record of contact of the family with the Ahmadnagar court, though it is probable that the family's land-revenue income would have been confirmed by them.
54. Burhān Nizām Shāh supported the work of Sābāji Pratāparāja, while Ahmad Nizām Shāh had Dalapatirāya as an officer in his court. Both were the authors of Dharmaśāstra works (P. K. Gode, "Sābājī Pratāparāja, a Protegé of Burhān Nizām Shah of Ahmadnagar, and His Works - Between A.D. 1500 and 1560," ABORI 24 (1943): 156-64).
55. Furthermore, the narrative of the eminent Bhatta family of Banaras, the Gādhivamcombining dot belowśavarncombining dot belowana, describes various offers of support made by the Nizām Shāhī ruler to Rāmeśvara Bhatcombining dot belowtcombining dot belowa, who lived in the Ahmadnagar kingdom before migrating to Banaras (James Benson, "Śamcombining dot belowkarabhatcombining dot belowtcombining dot belowa's Family Chronicle, the Gādhivamcombining dot belowś avarncombining dot belowana" in The Pandit: Traditional Scholarship in India, ed. Axel Michaels [New Delhi: Manohar Publications, 2001], 105-18).
56. According to one contemporary source, the Nizām Shāhīs were Muslim-converted descendants of a family of Deccani Brahmins who came from Pathri, i.e., Pārthapura! (Benson, "Chronicle," 108).
57. See, e.g., Chaudhuri, Muslim Patronage, 86-88.
58. This Tājika text was also translated into Persian at Akbar's request. See M. Athar Ali, "Translations of Sanskrit Works at Akbar's Court," Social Scientist 20 (1992): 38-45.
59. There are contemporary accounts, for example, that the Adil Shāhī rulers in Bījapur employed many Brahmins as ministers (Muzaffar Alam, "Persian in Precolonial Hindustan," in Literary Cultures in History, ed. Sheldon Pollock [Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press, 2003], 157).
60. For some remarks on this trend at the turn of the seventeenth century, see Pollock, "The Languages of Science in Early-Modern India," in Halbfass Commemoration Volume, ed. K. Preisendanz (Vienna: Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2003), n. 44.
61. On the phenomenon of macaronic verse, see S. Phukan, "'Through Throats Where Many Rivers Meet': The Ecology of Hindi in the World of Persian," Indian Economic and Social History Review 38 (2001) 33-58.
62. On his works such as the Madanāscombining dot belowtcombining dot belowaka, see J. B. Chaudhuri, Khān Khānān Abdur Rahīm and Contemporary Sanskrit Learning (Calcutta: J. B. Chaudhuri, 1952), 8-25;
63. C. R. Naik, 'Abdur-Rahim Khan-i-Khanan and His Literary Circle (Ahmedabad: Gujarat Univ. Press, 1966), 228-79.
64. Though the work is grammatically in Sanskrit, nearly every line is loaded with Arabic or Persian astrological terms. Chaudhuri, Khān Khānān, 26-52, 126-59, provides an edition and translation.
65. Pingree, "Tājika," 84.
66. For two Sanskrit authors in the Mughal courts, Siddhicandra and Jagannātha, and the kinds of innovation opened up to them by their functioning with Persian, see Pollock, "Death of Sanskrit," 404-12.
67. The Bhāskarabhūscombining dot belowancombining dot belowa, ed. K. Madhav Krishna Sarma, Poona Orientalist 11 (1946): 54-66;
68. and the Nrcombining ring belowsimcombining dot belowhacampū, ed. Sūryakānta Śāstrī, Chowkhamba Vidyabhavan, vol. 43 (Vārāncombining dot belowasī, 1959).
69. Readers may also wish to consider the maṅgala verses of Sūrya's commentary on the Bhagavad Gītā, published with seven other commentaries, ed. Jivaram Śastri, M. D. Bakre, D. V. Gokhale, by the Gujarati Printing Press in Bombay in 1915 (rpt. Delhi: Parimal Publications, 2001). The first verse, by way of example, shows some viloma effects, to which one can compare the first verse of Veṅkatcombining dot belowa's (later) Yādavarāghaviya: samcombining dot belowvidānandasamcombining dot belowdohasāndram indīvareksanam | indirāmandiramcombining dot below devam vande tam nandananandanam 1||
70. Several other reverse-direction practices in the Sanskrit sphere, such as the pratiloma recitation of Vedic or Tantric verses, were mentioned at the 2003 AOS meeting by members of the Society present. I am grateful for these suggestions. There was no evidence that Sūrya would have known of these practices, however, and none of them is meaning-bearing in reverse.
71. Bronner, Poetry at Its Extreme, 241-52.
72. Porcher has already laid out some of the implications for the vilomakāvya of Veṅkatcombining dot belowa, Rāghavayā daviya, 64-76.