A poem in Sanskrit poetry format
-Gayathri B. Seetharam
The Encyclopaedia Brittanica website said that Sanskrit poetry consists of metaphor, simili and hyperboles. The lines are in different metric lengths.
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Love and work in me form a train in motion
And merges like the pen and the paper
And becomes such a long journey
With the destination being heaven on earth;
Love is like a malady, a fatal affliction
And it is a drama, a tragicomedy of everyday events
And is enacted in thousand fold splendour
In the magnificent interiors of our home;
Since science and engineering, arts and literature
Have provided a rich harvest for me
Money should accompany success just as
Aphrodite carries the growing Eros
Then it would mean my soul and mind
With the ocean-like vastness of Psyche
Should flourish and attract Eros;
But the God of Intellect says, to the gardener in me
Let the richness of soul and mind
Grow like a beautiful botanical garden
And money would bless me with its lovely, lush languor
For it comes slowly to some inspite of
Their extraordinary quality of work;
"Time is the same in a relative way but I am older" sang the Pink Floyd
And if Albert Einstein's Theory of General Relativity says that a street car measures
Time to be 3 seconds faster than for the person in the bus station
Then time is an indicator of movement in life
And I, the person in the streetcar am like H.G. Wells, moving into the future
And time with its relentless ticking, says that the future belongs to those who believe in their dreams.
Acknowledgements:
1. The Agora Museum, Athens, for telling me through a book on Athens that there is a damaged statue of Aphrodite carrying her son, Eros.
2. BrainyQuotes for giving me Eleanor Roosevelt's quote.
Part 4 Just as in the case of English meters, we have in Sanskrit small meters like Anushtuppu (8 letters in each line) , meters of medium length like Indravajra (11 letters in each line) and the longer ones like Sragddhara with 21 letters is each line or Panchachamaram (16 letters in each line) .
Part 3 The types and number of GaNams is each line define a meter. Usually, all the four lines in a shlokam have exactly same set of GaNams at the same position. This is what makes recitation of a poem in one meter makes it distinctly unique and different from that in another meter.
Part 5 In the case of Panchachamaram, in each line, there are five GaNams of three letters each and the sixteenth letter is a Guru. There are meters with different set of rules for different lines in a shlokam. Such meters are called Vishama Meters, whereas meters that have the same rule for all the four lines is “Sama meter”.
Really an insightful creation nicely crafted with conviction. A beautiful work of art. Thanks for sharing and do remain enriched.
Sanskrit poem on Eros, that is interesting. The emotion is built up very well. Thanks for sharing. Keep on writing. I hope to read more.
Part one In Indian languages including Sanskrit, one letter constitutes one syllable. So, let use the word “letter”, when I talk about Sanskrit meters. In Sanskrit meters, the poem is always written in shlokams. A shlokam is a stanza of four lines. A poem can have any number of shlokams. It is said that epic Mahabharatam has one hundred thousand shlokams.
Part 2 The letters can be Laghu (short, as in ‘ka’) or Guru (long, as in ‘kaa’) . A set of three letters constitutes one GaNam. Based on the position of Gurus and Laghus in the GaNam, GaNams are of 8 types. For example, ‘Ya’ GaNam has its letters as follows: First letter is Laghu Second letter is Guru Third letter is Guru.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
Part 5 In the case of Panchachamaram, in each line, there are five GaNams of three letters each and the sixteenth letter is a Guru. There are meters with different set of rules for different lines in a shlokam. Such meters are called Vishama Meters