I have been reading the posts and counter-posts on this topic. It
must be obvious to any, where my sympathies lie. From that biased
vantage, it does appear to me that for the most part there is an
attempt not to understand any arguments from the side of so-called
tradition. Too many times the arguments seem to be "straw-men" put
up, so they can be easily taken down.
I thought yesterday's post by Bapa Rao was very balanced. I liked
the comparison of a poem to a painting, by Dronamraju.
Rules are there everywhere. In typing and sending this mail, I have
to "obey" certain rules. Otherwise I can't accomplish that. Starting
from a simple letter home, to writing a technical paper, we don't
have any compunction in obeying rules laid down by someone for us,
or sometimes laid down by ourselves.
Sadananda's comparison to rAga is appropriate too. I am not that
much up on this subject, but I think that if you take a song from
this country, Poland, Albania, or Timbaktu, it's rAga can be discerned
(not by me, but by the cognoscenti). never mind the fact that the
Polish guy who wrote the song or set the tune to it may not
know the existence of the Indian Classical Music System.
So, to those who propose that "new chandas forms" be created or
discovered or formulated, I say this. There is nothing new. One
may think it is new, as is the case with "gurajADa's mutyAla sarAlu".
Or with "Arudra's kUnalamma padAlu". What these people have done
with these chandO-forms is merely "popularaize" them. If I tentatively
name the structure (yes, definite structure) for sandhyA-samasyalu,
or dESa-caritralu of SrISrI as "sandhya", it doesn't mean this is a
"new" metrical form. As SrISrI himself shows in his book "anantam",
the meter for "polAla nannee halAla dunnee" follows that of the
archaic, dead, formaldehyde soaked "bhaja gOvindam, bhaja gOvindam".
I don't think discussion on this topic is going anywhere. One thing
worthwhile in this has been the fact that Syamala Rao, and Sridhara Rao,
who have been quite quiet for a while, became active. So did
the doubt-full Ramakrishna. And it drew the new member Dronamaraju
Srirama Krishna into the discussion. Perhaps we can call it quits
at this point.
I have been (methinks) rather quiet on this matter. The actual reason
I started thi smail is to comment on the last line of the SlOkam:
sadaa bhajatvam tava paada pankajam||
Now here, does it mean "always worshipping", or "worshipped by Sadananda"?
Ramakrishna