two fathers
Velcheru Narayana Rao (vnrao@facstaff.wisc.edu)
Sat, 9 Dec 1995 11:25:43 -1200
This is with reference to Aravinda Pillamarri's post on Kalidasa's verse.
This verse was discussed earlier, too. What I offer is nothing new.
Standard meaning of this verse is what is strightforward: jagatah pitarau vande/
paravtiparamesvarau. the couple intended are paarvati and paramesvara.
Mallinatha comments following the obvious meaning: "paarvatii ca
paramesvaras ca paarvatiiparamesvarau." Division of this compound as
paaravtiipa and ramesvarah
is for deriving a vaishnava meaning out of it and is a clever (and more
recent) scholarly fun, not intended as an interpretation of Kalidasa's
famous text. Sanskrit scholars loved playing with words and twisted texts
out of shape for pleasure of word games, but, as far as I know, they did
not let their games affect the integrity of the texts.
VNR