While translating the first verse of the Rāghavayādavīyam of Veṅkaṭādhvarin, I came across a word that I simply could not decipher on my own: mārāmorāḥ (मारामोराः in Devanāgarī). I had to look up the English commentary of Dr. Saroja Ramanujam to figure it out. She resegmented it as mā-ārāma-urāḥ, and glossed it as a bahuvrīhi (an “exocentric” compound functioning as an adjective) that means “one whose chest is a pleasure garden for Mā”. (There is no way I would have figured that out on my own!)
But what, or who, is Mā? Dr. Ramanujam simply noted that it was a name for Lakṣmī, but I wanted to find out more and dug deeper. Now, digging too deep is fraught with difficulties. (Just ask the dear departed dwarves of Dwarrowdelf, who delved too deep, disturbing a denizen of the dark depths that then dealt the deathblow to their delightful dominion.) But in this case, what I found was pure mithril.
Prof. Ajay Rao has written a fascinating paper called “Theologising the Inaugural Verse: Śleṣa Reading in Rāmāyaṇa Commentary” for the Journal of Hindu Studies. The underlying argument of the paper (which Prof. Rao elaborates in his dissertation) is that the Rāmāyaṇa was not always perceived as a fully religious text, and that at least early in its history it was seen as a work of literature (kāvya) and not a received tradition (smṛti). Indeed, the Rāmāyaṇa is seen not just as any literary work, but as the first literary work (ādi-kāvya), and its composer, the poet-sage Vālmīki, is regarded as the First Poet (ādi-kavi). Prof. Rao further argues that the “theologization” of the Rāmāyaṇa was accomplished by a series of Śrīvaiṣṇava commentators who interpreted key episodes in the narrative as illustrative of the theological ideas underpinning their philosophical theology. Foremost among these commentators was the sixteenth-century Govindarāja, upon whose Rāmāyaṇa-bhūṣaṇa commentary Prof. Rao relies.
In this particular paper, he examines one very specific (and remarkably deft) hermeneutic twist that Govindarāja pulls off. It is commonly accepted in the Indic world that Vālmīki became a poet when, upon seeing a hunter kill one of two mating birds, he cursed the hunter out of sorrow by inadvertently producing a metrically accurate verse. This verse, the First Verse of classical Sanskrit, is:
In the translation of Prof. Rao,
But what does this intricate story have to do with the word mā? That is where we began, after all. It turns out that one of the key steps Govindarāja takes is to interpret the word mā not as a negative injunctive particle, but as a noun which means prosperity, or śrī / lakṣmī. This meaning is well-attested, and was actually used by the Buddhist grammarian Maitreya Rakṣita (whom Govindarāja cites) in his attempt to solve the puzzle of the augmented-aorist-that-ought-be-augmentless. It was Govindarāja, however, who solved both problems in one stroke, and and it is his work that illustrates the importance of the hermeneutically skilled reader in the continuation of a literary tradition.
But what, or who, is Mā? Dr. Ramanujam simply noted that it was a name for Lakṣmī, but I wanted to find out more and dug deeper. Now, digging too deep is fraught with difficulties. (Just ask the dear departed dwarves of Dwarrowdelf, who delved too deep, disturbing a denizen of the dark depths that then dealt the deathblow to their delightful dominion.) But in this case, what I found was pure mithril.
Prof. Ajay Rao has written a fascinating paper called “Theologising the Inaugural Verse: Śleṣa Reading in Rāmāyaṇa Commentary” for the Journal of Hindu Studies. The underlying argument of the paper (which Prof. Rao elaborates in his dissertation) is that the Rāmāyaṇa was not always perceived as a fully religious text, and that at least early in its history it was seen as a work of literature (kāvya) and not a received tradition (smṛti). Indeed, the Rāmāyaṇa is seen not just as any literary work, but as the first literary work (ādi-kāvya), and its composer, the poet-sage Vālmīki, is regarded as the First Poet (ādi-kavi). Prof. Rao further argues that the “theologization” of the Rāmāyaṇa was accomplished by a series of Śrīvaiṣṇava commentators who interpreted key episodes in the narrative as illustrative of the theological ideas underpinning their philosophical theology. Foremost among these commentators was the sixteenth-century Govindarāja, upon whose Rāmāyaṇa-bhūṣaṇa commentary Prof. Rao relies.
In this particular paper, he examines one very specific (and remarkably deft) hermeneutic twist that Govindarāja pulls off. It is commonly accepted in the Indic world that Vālmīki became a poet when, upon seeing a hunter kill one of two mating birds, he cursed the hunter out of sorrow by inadvertently producing a metrically accurate verse. This verse, the First Verse of classical Sanskrit, is:
mā niṣāda pratiṣṭhāṃ tvam agamaḥ śāśvatīḥ samāḥ |
yat krauñca-mithunād ekam avadhīḥ kāma-mohitam ||
In the translation of Prof. Rao,
Hunter, may you never attain stability, since you killed one among this pair of krauñca birds in the thrall of sexual desire.There are a couple of issues with this verse that have bothered people over the ages.
- First, there is something that appears to be a grammatical mistake, or at least a real oddity, in the first line. As students of first-year Sanskrit know, the negative injunctive is formed by using the particle mā with an augmentless aorist—but the verse shows an augmented aorist in agamaḥ. [This is not a trivial issue in Sanskrit. Grammar is accorded tremendous reverence, and grammatical bugs are squashed ruthlessly, all pretentions to ahiṃsā be damned!]
- Second, there is the troubling idea that the very first poetic utterance in Sanskrit was a curse. Why would a great sage like Vālmīki inaugurate a great tradition (inadvertently, of course) in this manner?
May you, o Śrīnivāsa, who killed the one among the pair of [GM: crooked] demons filled with lust, be forever victorious.Govindarāja is able to pull this off while strictly following all of the rules of Sanskrit grammar. His interpretive results are non-obvious (which might explain why nobody before him had done this for close to two thousand years!), but they are entirely legitimate fruits of the operation of Sanskrit grammatical rules. If you want to know exactly how he does it, you’ll have to turn to Prof. Rao’s exposition!
But what does this intricate story have to do with the word mā? That is where we began, after all. It turns out that one of the key steps Govindarāja takes is to interpret the word mā not as a negative injunctive particle, but as a noun which means prosperity, or śrī / lakṣmī. This meaning is well-attested, and was actually used by the Buddhist grammarian Maitreya Rakṣita (whom Govindarāja cites) in his attempt to solve the puzzle of the augmented-aorist-that-ought-be-augmentless. It was Govindarāja, however, who solved both problems in one stroke, and and it is his work that illustrates the importance of the hermeneutically skilled reader in the continuation of a literary tradition.
amarakosha has indirA lOkamAtA mA ramA mangaladevatA...
ReplyDeleteGood srivaishnavas also interpret the last line of the first verse of Raghuvamsha as pArvatIpa-rameshvarou, thereby getting in Vishnu in on an equal footing with Shiva and proceed in comfort with the rest of the work.