How is 'chandassu' framed (in telugu)? How many types it is?
'chandassu' is framed based on the number of 'aksharaas' (syllables) in
each and every line (paada) of a poem. As the same lines are repeated
(aavRtta), these are called 'vRttaas'. If all the lines in a poem follow
the same 'types of aksharaas', it is called a 'sama vRtta'. There are 26
types of 'chandassu'.
Before going into the deatils of them, what is an 'akshara'?
There are two separate 'telugu' equivalents for English words 'letter' and
'syllable'. The first one is 'varNamu' (letter). This is the basic 'letter'
of the language (telugu) in the alphabets, hence, the name 'varNa
samaamnaayamu'. These are 56 in telugu. However, the equivalent for
'syllable' in telugu is 'aksharamu'. 'Syllable' is often defined as the
'unit of pronounciation at a stretch' with a collection of letters
(varNaas) in it. However, there is a critical but practical difference in
'English' and 'telugu' here. In English at least on quite a few occasions,
a syllable may be a 'word' (i.e., one syllable words, for eg., pen, gun,
fun, fan, bill, kill, kick, chick, duck, pick etc.) hence, sense-making.
But certainly not that often, an 'aksharamu' (syllable) can be
'sense-making' (word) in telugu. To my knowledge, 'Sree, stree, lE!, pO!,
raa!,chee!' and a few others may be the only very few exceptions possible.
Also, in telugu , every varNamu (letter) is an aksharamu (syllable), but
every aksharamu can't be a varNamu. For eg. 'a, aa' are both varnaas and
thereby aksharaas also. Whereas, in a word like 'svapnamu', 'sva' is an
aksharamu (syllable), but not a varNamu (letter) as it has two 'varNaas'
(sa and va) in it. These 'aksharaas' (syllables) are divided into
'laghuvu' and 'guruvu' based on the time period of pronounciation. (The
scope of the discussion of 'laghuvu' and 'guruvu' distiction is beyond this
article.) These 'aksharaas' (syallables, which very often don't make
complete sense in telugu) are the fundamental aspects in designing the
'chandassu'.
How many types of 'chandassu' are there?
(chandassu of 'jaatulu and upajaatulu' of telugu literature is beyond the
scope of this article. chandassu of 'vRttaas' is only touched upon here.)
There are 26 types of chandassu. Each 'chandassu' is recognized by the
number of 'aksharaas' present in each line of the poem. As an 'akshara' can
be either a 'laghuvu' or a 'guruvu', the number of variations possible in
each type of 'chandassu' follows a 'binary system'. The names /numbers of
'chandassu' and the numbers of 'sama vRttaas' that can be generated in each
variety are as follows.
_______________________________________________________________
# of chandassu Name # of aksharaas # of sama vRttas
per each line possible
_______________________________________________________________
1 ukta 1 2
2 atyukta 2 4
3 madhya 3 8
4 pratisTha 4 16
5 suprstisTha 5 32
6 gaayatri 6 64
7 ushTikku 7 128
8 anusThuppu 8 256
9 bRhati 9 512
10 paMkti 10 1,024
11 trishTuppu 11 2,048
12 jagati 12 4,096
13 atijagati 13 8,192
14 Sakvari 14 16,384
15 atiSakvari 15 32,768
16 ashTi 16 65,536
17 atyashTi 17 131,072
18 dhRti 18 262,144
19 atidhRti 19 524,288
20 kRti 20 1,048,576
21 prakRti 21 2,097,152
22 aakRti 22 4,194,304
23 vikRti 23 8,388,608
24 sukRti 24 16,777,216
25 abhikRti 25 33,554,432
26 utkRti 26 67,108,864
_____________________________________________________________
Total # of sama vRttaas in 26 chandassus is 134,217,726
_____________________________________________________________
Source for the chart: 'sulakshaNa saaramu' by 'lingamagunTa timmakavi.
Supposedly a contemporary of 'tenaali raamakRshNa, so belongs to 1550s or
so.
The amazing point is, inspite of the possible generation of millions of
'vRttaas' in 26 chandassus, the chandaah kartaas did not designate more
than 200 vRttaas. The reason is anyone's guess. Not that all the
combinations aksharaas will generate a specific rythm that suits a
meaningful disposition of the 'language' to form the 'literature'. This
truly requires a genius to designate which of these forms or patterns will
suit that particular 'language' (telugu). It requires lots of thorough
knowledge of the language and much more than that. Of course. it is not
known, how and why a triplet akshara unit is considered to set a 'gaNa' to
design the sequence of a chosen 'vRtta'.
Inspite of 200 prescribed 'vRttaas', not more than 45-50 were regularly
used in the various 'kaavyaas' over 1000 years of telugu literature.(to be
continued)
With regards,
Prabhakar Vissavajjhala