some doubts

[Guest guest]

Dear Sri Badri Narayanan:

 

Your two questions are welcomed ; they are

not trivial as you feared.Here are some brief

answers.

V.Sadagopan

 

At 09:04 PM 10/10/01 -0700, you wrote:

 

> i have a few doubts and i would be extremely

>grateful if the esteemed members of this group could

>clarify. i apologise i they seem trivial.

>

>(1)what is chandas?

>i read the translation to mean " meter " . could someone

>explain more clearly with an example if possible.

 

The meter or Metre is the one in which either a Veda manthram

(Rg Vedam) is set. It is known as Vedic Chandas.By counting

the number of syllables , one can arrive at classifications.

 

For instance , Gayathri metre has a total of 24

syllables . In making these counts of syllables ,

only the number of vowels is taken into count

and not consonants without vowels. The vowels are

a, aa, i, I , r, R ,lr, e, ai, o , au ,visarga(

and anusvara ( m with a dot on top).

 

From Gaythri(24) to Athidhruthi (76) , there are 14 metres

and the number of Syllables increase by 4 between them.

 

Gayathri chandas has 24 syllables , Ushnik has 28 , Anushtup

has 32 and so forth.

 

The three gaayathra paadhaas forms the Gaayathri metre

of equal weight (8+8+8). This number of 24 for Gaayathri

chandas can be less than 24 by one (23) or greater than 24

by one or two syllables( 25 or 26).In those cases ,

these special type of gayathris are known as

nicruth Gayathri(23 Syllables) ,Bhurik Gaayathri(25)

and Svarat Gayathri(26 Syllables).

 

Our Famous Gayathri manthram has 23 syllables ( 7+8+8)

and is therefore set in nicruth gaayathri chandas.

 

A standard text known as Sarvanukramani of KatyAyanA

covers all these variations from the Standard syllables

alloted.

 

There are special combination of metres known as

PragATA:

 

For instance , anushtuba pragaaTA has 80 syllables made up of

a combination of Anudhtup(32)+ Gayathri (24)+ Gayathri (24).

 

Rg Veda manthram (VIII.68.1-3 ) is cited as an example

of such a Anushtup PrAgaTA.

 

In the Rg Vedam , The largest number of Manthrams are

found in Thrishtup meter with 44 syallables each .

There are 4,251 Thrishtup metre mantrams with

4,251x 44= 1, 87,004 syllables.

 

In Rg Vedam , there are 2,449 Rks with Gayathri

chandas and that results in 58,770 syllables.

 

There are Pratisakhya texts , which try to

simplify the number of the various chandas

into elaboratons of 4 basic metres ( Gaayathra ,

Viaraaja , Thraishtuba and Jagata ).

 

Vedic poets (Rishis) are Masters of Chandas .

 

Here is an example of counting of Syllables (24)

in the famous Rg Veda Manthram in SamhithA Paatam :

 

ag-ni-mi-lE-pu-rO-hi-tam(8)

ya-jna-sya-de-va-mr-tvi-jam(8)

H-ta-ram-ra-tna-dha-ta-mam (8)

 

Now coming to non-Vedic poetry , there are many

beautiful metres that are used by great poets

such as KaaLi Daasa, Swamy VedAntha Desikan ,

Swamy ParAsara Bhattar, Swamy KurEsar et al.

 

Swamy Desikan is known as Kavi Simham for

capturing verses with profound thoughts

in beautiful and appropriate metres. For instance ,

he has used 22 different chandas /Virutthams /Metres

for his 862 slOkams of the 28 ShtOthram that

he blessed us with . He set the largest number (266)

in Vasantha TilakA metre. He assigned one

slOkam to the Saalini meter, RathOtthathA and Dhrutha

ViLambitham. 64 slOkams are set in anushtup

metre and 116 are in AaryA metre. One can spend

a lot of time studying this subject.

 

>(2)where can i know more about gayathri devi whom we

>worship in sadhyavandhanam.

 

You can see a beautiful image of Gayathri Devi

in the Mysore MahaarAjA's DharbhAr Hall ( Jagan mohani(?)

palace), which is an elaboration of the dhyAna slOkmas of

Gayathri MaathA used in SandhyA Vandhana Manthrams.

A clear image of Her color, weapons et al ar ecaptured here.

 

Hope this is of help,

V.Sadagopan