Both the terms parody and pastiche refer to an artistic creation that imitates the style of an artist, genre, or period; but the first is necessarily jocular (often sarcastic or nonsensical), and the second is an homage more often than not. In this series, I will quote snippets of poetry that can be considered examples of intertextuality: Some of these are genuine parodies, and others (which I would classify as pastiches) were often produced as solutions to literary puzzles, samasyas (समस्या): In a samasya, the poet is usually given a segment of a verse (that may sound inconsistent or indecorous) and is required to include it in an original, impromptu epigram respecting the dictates of grammar, prosody, and tradition (also see this post, last paragraph).
Without further ado, here is the first offering of the series.
One of the most prominent hymns of the Rigveda is Hymn 90 of Book 10, known as Purusha Sukta; it is dedicated to the complex concept called purusha (पुरुष), often translated as "cosmic being" (and I will not make a fool of myself by trying to go into detail on the topic). More everyday meanings of the word purusha include "man", "male being", "human being", and "grammatical person". The opening half-verse of the hymn goes सहस्रशीर्षा पुरुषः सहस्राक्षः सहस्रपात्, "Purusha has a thousand heads, a thousand eyes, and a thousand feet (or legs)", where "a thousand" is a metaphor for an indefinitely large number. Below are two stanzas written centuries apart in each of which the author has cleverly embedded this hemistich, altering its meaning in an interesting way.
(1) This first verse is attributed to the poet-scholar Mahamahopadhyaya Shankara Mishra (शङ्करमिश्र), son and student of Mahamahopadhyaya Bhavanatha Mishra of Mithila; both of them were great exponents of the Navya Nyaya (नव्यन्याय) school of Indic philosophy, but their dates are uncertain. The story goes that Shankara Mishra was still a child (and a child prodigy) during the reign of Shiva Singh (शिवसिंह), king of Mithila in the early 15th century, and had his talent recognized and rewarded by the latter. The king once asked Shankara to add his own half-verse to the one under consideration in today's post, and he came up with a tribute (चाटु) to the king himself (in another variant, the monarch was less specific and just wished him to pastiche any excerpt from the Vedas).
Devanagari text:
Without further ado, here is the first offering of the series.
One of the most prominent hymns of the Rigveda is Hymn 90 of Book 10, known as Purusha Sukta; it is dedicated to the complex concept called purusha (पुरुष), often translated as "cosmic being" (and I will not make a fool of myself by trying to go into detail on the topic). More everyday meanings of the word purusha include "man", "male being", "human being", and "grammatical person". The opening half-verse of the hymn goes सहस्रशीर्षा पुरुषः सहस्राक्षः सहस्रपात्, "Purusha has a thousand heads, a thousand eyes, and a thousand feet (or legs)", where "a thousand" is a metaphor for an indefinitely large number. Below are two stanzas written centuries apart in each of which the author has cleverly embedded this hemistich, altering its meaning in an interesting way.
(1) This first verse is attributed to the poet-scholar Mahamahopadhyaya Shankara Mishra (शङ्करमिश्र), son and student of Mahamahopadhyaya Bhavanatha Mishra of Mithila; both of them were great exponents of the Navya Nyaya (नव्यन्याय) school of Indic philosophy, but their dates are uncertain. The story goes that Shankara Mishra was still a child (and a child prodigy) during the reign of Shiva Singh (शिवसिंह), king of Mithila in the early 15th century, and had his talent recognized and rewarded by the latter. The king once asked Shankara to add his own half-verse to the one under consideration in today's post, and he came up with a tribute (चाटु) to the king himself (in another variant, the monarch was less specific and just wished him to pastiche any excerpt from the Vedas).
Devanagari text:
सहस्रशीर्षा पुरुषः सहस्राक्षः सहस्रपात्|
चलितश्चकितश्छन्नः प्रयाणे तव भूपते||
– शङ्करमिश्र
Harvard-Kyoto transliteration:
sahasrazIrSA puruSaH sahasrAkSaH sahasrapAt|
calitazcakitazchhannaH prayANe tava bhUpate||
– Shankara Mishra
Loose translation: O Lord of the Earth! As you march (to battle, with your army), he who has a thousand heads (i.e. Ananta) is shaken, he who has a thousand eyes (i.e. Indra) is shocked, and he who has a thousand rays (i.e. the Sun) is shrouded!
Notes: Ananta (अनन्त), also called Shesha (शेष) or Adishesha (आदिशेष), is the serpent king who bears the Earth upon his one thousand expanded hoods, and the trembling of Ananta is a standard metaphor for the earth quaking under a marching army; Indra, being the monarch of heaven, is supposed to command the greatest military force in existence, but he too is struck with awe at the sight of the earthly king's legions – classic hyperbole employed by panegyrists; the Sun vanishing behind great clouds of dust (raised by feet, hooves, and wheels) is another poetic device (over)used in the description of marching armies. But the ingenuity with which our poet has invoked all these tropes here just leaves one dumbfounded (for a justification of the reading of सहस्रपात् as "thousand-rayed", recall that the alternative meaning "ray of light" is attested by lexicographers for each of the words पद and पाद which primarily denote the foot or the leg).
In some versions, the first and second halves of the stanza are interchanged (but that does not change the meaning).
Notes: Ananta (अनन्त), also called Shesha (शेष) or Adishesha (आदिशेष), is the serpent king who bears the Earth upon his one thousand expanded hoods, and the trembling of Ananta is a standard metaphor for the earth quaking under a marching army; Indra, being the monarch of heaven, is supposed to command the greatest military force in existence, but he too is struck with awe at the sight of the earthly king's legions – classic hyperbole employed by panegyrists; the Sun vanishing behind great clouds of dust (raised by feet, hooves, and wheels) is another poetic device (over)used in the description of marching armies. But the ingenuity with which our poet has invoked all these tropes here just leaves one dumbfounded (for a justification of the reading of सहस्रपात् as "thousand-rayed", recall that the alternative meaning "ray of light" is attested by lexicographers for each of the words पद and पाद which primarily denote the foot or the leg).
In some versions, the first and second halves of the stanza are interchanged (but that does not change the meaning).
(2) Ambika Datta Vyas (अम्बिकादत्तव्यास) (1858-1900) of Varanasi was a leading literary figure of 19th century India who wrote extensively in Hindustani dialects as well as in Sanskrit, his magnum opus being the Sanskrit prose romance Shivarajavijaya (शिवराजविजय) based on the life of Chhatrapati Shivaji. It is said that one day, after a tour of the grand Amer Fort in Jaipur State, he was given the same samasya as in (1) by Thakur Hari Singh, the then commander-in-chief of Jaipur. His solution was as delightfully apropos as that of his predecessor.
Devanagari text:
प्रविष्टो राजभवने प्रतिबिम्बैर्न् को भवेत्|
सहस्रशीर्षा पुरुषः सहस्राक्षः सहस्रपात्||
सहस्रशीर्षा पुरुषः सहस्राक्षः सहस्रपात्||
– अम्बिकादत्तव्यास
praviSTo rAjabhavane pratibimbairna ko bhavet|
sahasrazIrSA puruSaH sahasrAkSaH sahasrapAt||
– Ambika Datta Vyas
Loose translation: There is not a single person who, on entering this royal residence, is not rendered thousand-headed, thousand-eyed, and thousand-legged by their (numerous) reflections!
Notes: Presumably, this is a reference to the famous Sheesh Mahal, "mirror palace", a hall where parts of the walls and the ceiling are patterned with small mirrors of various shapes, located within the fort that the poet had just visited.
Source: Both anecdotes are found in Subhashit Aur Vinod (सुभाषित और विनोद), "epigrams and entertainment", a Hindi-language collection of bite-size stories about South Asian poets and scholars of various eras and their interesting creations, compiled by Shri Gurunarayan Sukul and published in 1952.
Today's first quote (or a variant) is found in many modern anthologies as an example of a samasya; the 14th century Shaarngadharapaddhati gives a variant (Verse 494) in which the second half reads दलितश्चकितश्छन्नस्तव सैन्ये विसर्पति||, i.e. Ananta is crushed and not just shaken as the army marches on! That the compiler Shaarngadhara is dated to the 14th century does not necessarily rule out the authenticity of the first story in this post; it is believed that this anthology in its present form includes many later additions.
Notes: Presumably, this is a reference to the famous Sheesh Mahal, "mirror palace", a hall where parts of the walls and the ceiling are patterned with small mirrors of various shapes, located within the fort that the poet had just visited.
Source: Both anecdotes are found in Subhashit Aur Vinod (सुभाषित और विनोद), "epigrams and entertainment", a Hindi-language collection of bite-size stories about South Asian poets and scholars of various eras and their interesting creations, compiled by Shri Gurunarayan Sukul and published in 1952.
Today's first quote (or a variant) is found in many modern anthologies as an example of a samasya; the 14th century Shaarngadharapaddhati gives a variant (Verse 494) in which the second half reads दलितश्चकितश्छन्नस्तव सैन्ये विसर्पति||, i.e. Ananta is crushed and not just shaken as the army marches on! That the compiler Shaarngadhara is dated to the 14th century does not necessarily rule out the authenticity of the first story in this post; it is believed that this anthology in its present form includes many later additions.
मनोहराः कथा अमी । परिश्रमस्तवातीवश्लाघनीयस्सखे ।
ReplyDeleteअहो सौभाग्यमस्य वराकस्य! सफलोऽस्य परिश्रमश्च जातोऽद्य, यतः श्रीहृषीकेशहृदयगतस्य हृदये लेगुरेतद्बालभाषितानि!
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