I will introduce you to another of my favourite Sanskrit poets today.  Perhaps I shouldn’t say that.  I have introduced him to you earlier.  I hope you remember चन्दनचर्चितनीलकलेवरपीतवसनवनमाली.  This is Jayadeva, born in the 12th century.  There is some confusion because there were two poets named Jayadeva, the major one born in Odisha and the minor one born in what is now West Bengal.  We are talking about the major one.  This major Jayadeva’s famous and influential work was गीतगोविन्दम्, though this wasn’t his only composition.  गीतगोविन्दम् influenced all kinds of things – music, dance, painting, temple architecture.  गीत is of course song.  I am generalizing a bit.  But before Jayadeva, Sanskrit poetry didn’t quite have rhyming, something we associate naturally with poetry today, though it had rhythm and metre.  In गीतगोविन्दम्, there is quite a bit of poetry in the classical style.  However, there are also 24 songs, with rhymes, and these are beautiful.  गीतगोविन्दम् was first translated into English in 1792.  Currently, the favoured English translation seems to be Barbara Stoler Miller’s, done in 1977, and translated as “Love Song of the Dark Lord”.  No translation, however good, can do justice to something like this.  You have to read it in the original and in those 24 songs, the Sanskrit is reasonably easy.

गीतगोविन्दम् is about the love between Radha and Krishna, so “love song” is fine.  Why “Dark Lord”?  Because of Krishna of course. गोविन्द is one of Krishna’s names and can be translated as cowherd.  गो is cow or cattle, no problems there.  But what’s the विन्द part?  Once you begin to ask and answer questions like this, you will begin to pick up Sanskrit really fast.  This isn’t a difficult one.  Look up any dictionary and you will get your answer.

It is a great pity that outside Odisha, people rarely read गीतगोविन्दम् now, despite an excellent multi-media presentation devised by IGNCA a few years ago.  The only exception is the dashavatara stotram.  That seems to be much more familiar.  Dasha is ten, everyone knows that. Avatara or अवतार is incarnation and again, everyone knows about Vishnu’s ten incarnations.  But you are learning Sanskrit.  Don’t be satisfied with someone telling you avatara means incarnation.  Look up a simple dictionary and trace its meaning to descent.  With ten incarnations, you would expect there to be 10 verses in this stotram.  That’s true, except that there is an 11th one to tell us that the poet Jayadeva wrote this stotram.

प्रलयपयोधिजले धृतवानसि वेदं ।

विहितवहित्रचरित्रमखेदम् ॥

केशव धृतमीनशरीर जय जगदीश हरे ॥

This is the first one.  As you begin to read Sanskrit literature, you will realize that it is not enough to know Sanskrit.  You also need to know about Hindu mythology, perhaps a little bit more than you already do.  Let me give you the translation of this first verse.  I am not going to give you my own translation, nor that of Barbara Stoler Miller. Instead, I will give you C. John Holcombe’s translation.  This is based on the assumption that word for word translations (like Barbara Stoler Miller’s) have utility.  But they miss out on the poetry.  Instead, one should perhaps be more flexible with the exactness of the translation and capture the poetry instead.  This is how Holcombe does this verse.  “When world was water, you became a tireless vessel of the Vedas.  You, in Pisces form, Keshava: conqueror of the world, Hari!”  Well, Vishnu assumed the form of a fish (pisces), meena or matsya.  On the mythology part, some of us may not know, or remember, that a demon named Hayagriva had stolen the Vedas then.  In the form of a fish, Vishnu saved the Vedas.  I don’t think there should be any problem with प्रलयपयोधिजले धृतवानसि वेदं । or with केशव धृतमीनशरीर जय जगदीश हरे ॥ But there is a problem with विहितवहित्रचरित्रमखेदम् ॥ Holcombe hasn’t captured that.  First break it up as विहितवहित्रचरित्रम् अखेदम् अखेदम् is easy.  It means tirelessly, easily, effortlessly and that is how Vishnu did this, the task of rescuing the Vedas.  We are left with विहितवहित्रचरित्रम्. विहित is to bestow or endow and चरित्रम् is character or conduct.  We are left with वहित्र.  This has a general meaning, like a vessel.  But it also has a specific meaning, like a boat.  The image is thus that Vishnu bestowed his character, like a boat, on that fathomless ocean.  Poetry apart, it is impossible to capture something like this in English translation.

The 10 incarnations move up the evolutionary ladder.  The first was a fish, the second was a turtle.  Hence, the second verse is the following.  This is Holcombe’s translation of the second verse.  “When this heavy earth you carried on your callused turtle’s back, how venerable you were, Keshava: conqueror of the word, Hari!

क्षितिरतिविपुलतरे तव तिष्ठति पृष्ठे ।

धरणिधरणकिणचक्रगरिष्ठे ॥

केशव घृतकच्छपरूप जय जगदीश हरे ॥

Most of us know the story of how Vishnu, as a turtle, bore the earth on his back, at the time of the churning of the ocean.  There is no absolutely no problem with केशव घृतकच्छपरूप जय जगदीश हरे ॥          Once you break up the first line as क्षिति: अति-विपुल-तरे तव तिष्ठति पृष्ठे ।, there is no problem with that either.  The interesting bit is धरणि-धरण-किण-चक्र-गरिष्ठे ॥  धरणि-धरण means from holding up the earth. किण is callus or scar and चक्र is circular. गरिष्ठ is large. Hence, large and circular scars have formed on the turtle’s back from the act of holding up that extremely heavy burden of the earth.  How can this be satisfactorily captured in any translation?

I will certainly not translate all the 10 verses.  Read and savour them yourself.  Aided by translations if need be, but do read the Sanskrit.  That’s where the beauty is.  The dashavatara stotram figures regularly in songs and dance performances.  See if you can understand the Sanskrit.  But I want you to read Jayadeva not because of the dashavatara stotram.  As I have said, this is reasonably well known.  I want you to read Jayadeva because of the other parts of गीतगोविन्दम्, no longer that well known.  Wait for next week’s tidbit.

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