Arrogance, Ego Battles and BhartRhari
Rao Veluri (rveluri@smtpgate.anl.gov)
Wed, 29 Oct 97 12:32:11 CST
[Disclaimer: The above subject head has not at all been prompted by
any two or more nettors that are pitted against each other in the
battle of wits. If any one imputes any such motives to this post, be
aware that such person will be bitten by billions of little red
ants;-- an inevitable consequence of a boon I have been bestowed by my
favorite and the most gullible god, the Lord of the Universe, the one
and only Shiva!
Commetary to Continue....]
vasantatilakaa vRttam: BhartRhari
ambhojinee vanavihaara vilaasa mEva
hamsasya hantunitaraam kupitO vidhaataa,
na tvasya dugdha jala bhEdavidhau prasiddhaam
vaidagdhya keerti mapahartumasau samardha@h
Paraphrase: If the Creator, the good Lord brahma gets mad on the
divine swan(his own Rolls Royce), for any reason what so ever, he can
ban the swan from the padmasarOvara, and deny it the the pleasures of
leisurely strolls. But, can he take away the innate skills of the swan
to separate milk from water?
----------------------------------------
Continue Commentary : start digression 1.
The Creator can, out of sheer anger or out of imagined but unfounded
dangers, order to stop further discussions on topics that aren't his
cup of nectar, but do the nettors obey? No way Jose! They find
devious ways and dubious methods to show off their scholarship on the
banned subject with redoubled vigor!
Question: Coming back, why then the subject head?
Answer: Simple my Lord! My ego & my arrogance!
Question: Why sAnskrit on telugu (literary) forum?
Answer: Why don't you ask why we write in english
in a telugu forum? (My my! How arrogant one could be!)
end digression 1.
-----------------
The translations of the above SlOkam into Telugu:
First, by the most popular translator Enugu(paiDipaaTi)
lakshmaNa kavi.
ca: vanajabhavumDu kOpamuna vaahanamaina maraaLa bhartakun
vanaja vanee vihaara kalanambu tolangaga cEyugaani gum-
bhanamuna dughdha jeevana vibhaaga vidhaana niroodha naipuNee
janita mahaa yasOvibhava saaramu hamsaku maanpa jaalunE?
The second translation was by elakooci baala saraswati, the first
poet-scholar who translated BhartRhari's all three Satakaas! My
suspicion is that lakshmaNa kavi had access to this tr.
u: ullambakkalahamsapai kupitamai yunnanvinOdimpagaa-
nillau daani sarOjinee vaname maayimpan samarumDu; taa
neeLLunbaalunu nErparimpa galapaandityambu maanpamga lE-
dallOkESwaruDEmeyi-nsurabhimallaa neeti vaacaspatee.
----------------------------------------
Continue Commmetary : start digression 2.
baalasaraswati chose the anchor line 'surabhi mallaa neeti
vaacaspatee,' or 'surabhi mallaa maaninee manmadhaa,' and
'surabhi mallaa vaidushee bhooshaNaa.' Poor guy, he was
restricted by the rules dictated by prosody. He could translate even
simple and small slOkaas only into either Saardoolams or mattEbhams.
Half of the last stanza is wasted (lost) as the repeated anchor line!
His translations are excellent examples of how strictly 'form'
restricts and some times even clutters the 'content.' The above
translation is one of the exceptions, though!
Here I go again! My favorite pastime; irritating the scholars!
end digression 2.
-----------------
The third translation was by pushpagiri timmana: I am sure, he had
acess to the other two translations, but only his translation of the
the neeti Sataka was recovered.
ca: ala kamalaasanunDu madi nalkavahimcenEni amcapai
lalita sarOjinee vanavilaasa nivaasamu maancu gaaka; daa
patiyuDanamcu daanidagu paalunu neerunu nErparimcu nE-
rpula gala suprasiddha yaSamun hariyimcuTakun samardhuDE?
Certainly this is a better than the other two! Actually, even
the translation by baalasaraswati was a tad better than the
one by lakshmaNa kavi!
------------------
start digression 3:
Some times I wonder whether the vaaviLLa press used their biased
'censors'and forced us to neglect baala saraswati and timmana, in
favor of Enugu(paiDipaaTi) lakshmaNa kavi, by making his works
readily available! ( Could the pseudo-creators do that?)
end digression 3.
-------------------
If interest persists (I doubt it very much, though!) I'll post
some more that are not even remotely close to the subject head!
Regards.
Venkateswara Rao Veluri