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CHAPTER SEVEN. Pothana’s Poetry
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CHAPTER SEVEN
Pothana’s Poetry
Generally, a poet is compared to the creator. This is based on the saying: “In this endless world of poetry, the poet alone is the creator. ” As the creator creates the world with the help of the five elements, the poet creates the world of poetry with the five elements of description, characterization, sentiments, ideas and words. The rhetoricians enunciated that originality, scholarship and application are essential for this creation. These three qualities are seen in equal proportion in all the great classical poets and Pothana does not lack them. We cannot say that any great poet can describe any theme magnificently and beautifully. Imagination becomes doubly brilliant when there is harmony between the spirit of the theme and the mind of the poet, Pothana is by nature a great devotee and Bhagavatha is a veritable ocean of devotion. This coincidence between the spirit of the theme and the nature of the poet invested the Bhagavatha with unparallelled beauty and sweetness. It was indeed the good fortune of the Andhras that the composition of the Bhagavatha, a work full of devotion, had been taken up by Pothana, a great devotee.
Pothana composed the poem Veerabhadravijayamu and the Bhogini Dandaka prior to the composition of Bhagavatha and he was adept in writing poetry when he began to write the Bhagavatha. He might have read, time and again, the Bharatha of Kavitraya, Nrisimhapurana of Errana, Uttara Harivamsha of Nachana Somana and the works of the Shaivite poets. Among the Sanskrit poets, he paid homage to Vyasa and Valmiki, Bhasa and Kalidasa, Bharavi and Magha in the beginning of the Bhagavatha. He might have studied with enthusiasm their works also. The impact of the works of those great poets is seen in his Bhagavatha in many places. Besides self-exertion he had complete divine grace. He himself stated that it was Ramabhadra that was making him speak. As a result, the whole of Bhagavatha appears to have been written by him under divine inspiration.
When one reads the Bhagavatha the first thing that attracts one is the uninterrupted flow in it. It can be compared to the flow of the divine Ganges in sanctity and swiftness. He makes every verse run very fluently. One never comes across limping verses in his work. The reason is that he wrote it with pure inspired devotion and never struggled either for the ideas or for yatis and prasas. They fit in on their own accord without the least attempt on his part and endow his work with natural splendour. There are many who become poets by studying his Bhagavatha alone. Besides devotion, mellifluence also is one of the reasons why many people can easily memorize his verses, by rote.
Pothana’s descriptions are very pleasant and natural. He is adept in making the object of description appear before the reader by means of his exhaustive description. When one reads the two verses describing the growth of Vamana in the eighth skandha, one feels as though one is seeing the Dwarf Vamana growing gradually and occupying the whole universe. In the story of Rukmini’s marriage, the skill with which Pothana described the youth and the youthful movements of Rukmini is praiseworthy. When Lord Vishnu was going to save Gajendra, he described Goddess Lakshmi following him like lightning going after the cloud, as if he Was actually seeing her. He described the fight between the elephant and the crocodile vividly and tried to dextrously point out how one wanted to overwhelm the other.
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In the first skandha, Bhishma describes Krishna charging at him (Bhishma) unmindful of the shower of arrows discharged by him. The description is so vivid and picturesque that the reader feels the whole sense being enacted before him. In the tenth skandha, while describing the fight between Satyabhama and Narakasura, Pothana excelled himself in depicting the fast-changing moods of Satyabhama and portraying her as the very embodiment of the confluence of Vira and Shringara. While reading the description of the downpour of rain in the Kuchelopakhyana one feels the sensation of actually being present on the scene. The description of the mischievous deeds of Krishna, reported by the Gopis to Yashoda, is very fasinating. In the same skandha, Pothana gave a charmingly natural description of the artless and hearty life of the Gopis and Gopas in their beautiful pastoral surroundings.
The descriptions of winter and autumn, preceding the Gopikavastrapaharana, and those of the moon-set and sunrise while Krishna and Balarama were on their way to Mathura to put an end to Kamsa, serve as excellent examples of Pothana’s keen observation of the phenomena of nature. Though traditional, they are refreshingly realistic and vivid and hence very beautiful. Here and there Pothana wrote descriptive prose passages of considerable length. Among such passages the description of Naimisharanya at the beginning of Bhagavatha, the description of Svarga in the Vamanavatara, the description of Gangavatarana in the ninth skandha and the description of Rasakrida in the tenth skandha are noteworthy. In these descriptions, Pothana exhibited not only his knowledge of the world but also his unbounded scholarship. Abounding in slesha, virodhabhasa and other Alamkaras these passages remind the reader of similar passage in Bana’s Kadambari. In the second and third skandhas Pothana followed the original text as well as the commentary of Shridhara in explaining the philosophical concepts in long prose passages.
Pothana is an expert at delineating Rasa. Himself being a great devotee, he becomes highly emotional and eloquent, while delineating the devotional sentiment. Gajendra Moksha, Prahlada Charitra, Rukmini Kalyana, Ambarisha Charitra etc. may be cited as examples. In the Bhagavatha the situation in which the devotees praise the glories of the Lord seem to overflow with the sentiment of devotion of the tranquil type. The stotras of Bhishma, Kunti and Gajendra serve as examples of this. As a matter of fact most of the situations in Bhagavatha are dominated by the devotional sentiment alone. Of course, there are some situations where other sentiments predominate and Pothana does ample justice to them also. The way he managed the simultaneous delineation of the mutually antagonistic emotions of Bhakti and Shringara in depicting the amorous sports of Krishna and the Gopis, and Vira and Shringara in the situation where Satyabhama fought with Narakasura while Krishna was lying unconscious, is indeed marvellous. The situations in the first skandha, where Arjuna tells Dharmaja of the death of Krishna and where Draupadi addresses the defeated Ashvatthama, are replete with Karuna. The situation in which Nrisimha kills Hiranyakashipu is full of Adbhuta and Raudra. Vira and Raudra flood the situations where the Lord fights with Kamsa, Naraka, Bana, Hiranyakashipu, etc. and kills them. Shringara Rasa, coupled with devoted love, is fully developed in the love episodes of Krishna and Rukmini and Usha and Aniruddha. Hasya and Bhibhatsa are found in the incident where Krishna puts Rukmi to defeat and disgrace. In this way, Pothana develops every Rasa through a vivid description Of the Vibhavas, Anubhavas and Sancharibhavas, and carries the reader to a state of supreme bliss.
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Pothana displays great skill to depicting the various characters also. The characters are drawn in such clear lines that they make a lasting impression on the minds of the readers. He depicts Lord Vishnu in many places as one who is full of kindness and anxiety for saving the devotees. In the tenth skandha, he describes the childish pranks of Krishna with as much interest and attention as he describes his omnipotence. The nobility and motherly affection displayed by Draupadi when Arjuna put Ashvatthama to cruel mortification are depicted by Pothana with great skill. In the course of Bhishma’s praise of Krishna’s glory, Pothana clearly brings out the devotion and wisdom of the great hero, Bhishma. Dhruva, Prahlada, Ambarisha and Gajendra are the very embodiment of devotion to Vishnu. Pothana describes their personality, nature and character very vividly. Pothana spotlights the self-esteem of Dhruva, the gentleness of Prahlada, the self-effacement of Ambarisha and the distress of Gajendra. The way he depicts the Madhura Bhakti of the Gopis is unique. The gentleness and selflessness of Kuchela, the haughtiness of Durvasa, the aggressiveness of Shishupala, the stubbornness of Rukmi, the tender affection of Nanda, Yashoda, Devaki and Vasudeva, the valour and benevolence of Bali, the loyalty of Shukra, the timidity and cruelty of Kamsa, the maternal love of Aditi, the greed of Satrajit, the unparallelled devotion of Uddhava and Akrura and the sacrificing spirit of Rantideva — all these traits are drawn by Pothana very clearly. Pothana depicts Hiranyakashipu as a person who, while priding himself over the acquisition of divine boons, arrogating to himself the overlordship of the universe and putting his little son to untold miseries, was at the same time tenderly affectionate to his brother and highly philosophical in temperament. Thus, Pothana depicts the characters of the main theme as well as those of the secondary episodes with care and skill.
Being a translation of the Sanskrit Bhagavatha Pothana’s work is bound to contain a large mass of ideas directly taken from the original. Yet, it is not a blind translation. Pothana’s displayed remarkable skill in presenting the original material with a touch of added beauty in the translation, in elaborating the germinal ideas of the original and in contributing his own ideas at the proper places. Such original ideas are characterised by nobility, depth, propriety and beauty, and serve as illustrations of his extraordinarily brilliant imagination. The words spoken by Draupadi when she saw Ashvatthama brought captive by Arjuna are full of effervescent emotion:
They have not been aggressive; they have not come to the battlefield armed with missiles; they have not been treacherous to you. Yet, alas! how could you raise your hands of terrible strength to massacre in darkness these pretty-looking little ones who are unskilled in the art of fighting and immersed in deep slumber?
In one stroke, this verse brings out the tenderness of Draupadi’s maternal love as well as the poignancy of Ashvatthama’s inhuman cruelty. The stotras of Kunti and Bhishma are veritable mines of high philosophy and deep devotion.
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With a pure mind I pray to Hari, the divine being, who, in his divine sport, assumes various forms and eternally shines in the lotus-like hearts of the multitude of creatures created by Himself just as the same sun appears as a different sun. to different individuals.
This verse of Bhishma suggests the omniscience and all pervasiveness Of Vishnu. The verses in which Arjuna reports Krishna’s death to Dharmaja are full of Karunarasa and clearly show the intensity of Krishna’s kindness and affection towards the Pandavas and particularly towards Arjuna.
O king, when his consorts quarreled among themselves out of uncontrollable love for Him, Krishna used to depute me to appease their anger and make peace.
This verse not only indicates the familiarity and confidence which Krishna bears towards Arjuna but also suggests their whole-hearted friendship. In the second skandha, requested by Parikshit to describe the nature and qualities of Hari, Shuka elaborates not only on the qualities of Hari but also on the efficiency of Bhakti. In the Suyagnopakhvana in the seventh skandha, when the hunter caught the female kulinga bird and took it away, the male kulinga wails for its mate in the following verse:
These little ones have not developed wings. Having had no food since morning and unable to fly away from the nest they cry for food. Expecting the mother to come from some quarter they lift their heads and with fixed gaze look in all directions with misery. Alas, how can I bear this.
This verse is full of Karuna and forcefully depicts the agony of the male kulinga and the misery of its offspring’s. There are many verses in the story of Prahlada which are pregnant with emotion. When Prahlada spoke of the glory of Hari, Hiranyakashipu asked him how he could get that knowledge which was not taught by his teachers. Prahlada replied:
Having fallen into darkness, having taken to household life and haying been immersed in worldly pleasures, men usually get entangled in the vicious circle of birth, death and re-birth. The knowledge of Hari never dawns on them soon whether taught by others or by their own effort or by tempting rewards or even by going to the forests.
The verse describes the mode of life of ignorant men and suggests that devotion to Hari is inborn and not acquired. The anxiety of Hari to save his devotees is beautifully brought out in the following verse:
He does not inform Lakshmi, does not take Shankha and Chakra in his hands. does not summon any retinue, does not harness the lord of the birds, does not set right the tuft of hair falling on his ears, does not let go even the fringe of Lakshmi’s upper cloth pulled from over her breasts during a quarrel — in his enthusiasm to save the life of the elephant.
In this episode there are numerous verses which the Telugu people relish and appreciate. In the story of Vamana the verses uttered by Bali in response to Shukra who tried to dissuade him from offering three feet of land to Vamana are characterised by melodious flow and deep feelings:
Is it not better that my hand should be above and his hand below — that hand which formerly enjoyed the privilege of beings placed on the tufted hair, the body, the shoulder-mantle, the lotus-like feet, the cheeks and the breasts of Lakshmi? Is the worthless kingdom everlasting? Is the body deathless?
The verse is replete with the sentiment of Shringara, and at the same time reveals the unparallelled magnanimity and detachment of Bali. The following verse addressed to Durvasa by Vishnu when the former clung fast to his (Vishnu) feet, is a fine illustration of Vishnu’s affection for his devotees.
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Wise and pious people zealously steal my heart with ease and bind it with the creepers of pure devotion, And I too, O Sage, caught in their nets like a fat elephant, do not try to escape owing to my affection for my devotees.
In the tenth skandha there are hundreds of verses which bear testimony to Pothana’s fertile imagination and powerful emotion. The beauty of the devotional feelings found in the Gopikagita’s and Bhramaragita’s defies description. Having failed in his attempt to hide the cows and the cowherds and having suffered defeat and disgrace at the hands of Krishna, Brahma praised Krishna in the following verse:
What for is the post of Brahma? Is it not enough if my head is covered by the dust of the feet of one of the cowherds who, in this world, in this forest and in this very herd of cattle, see you who could not be seen even by the Vedas and addressing you as Krishna, dedicate to you all their actions including speech.
The verse proclaims the superiority of the cowherds over Brahma and is full of propriety coming as it does from the mouth of Brahma himself. Similarly, many verses in Rukminikalyana, Narakasurasamhara, Syamantakopakhyana and other episodes are pregnant with feeling and thought and bear out the poetic genius of Pothana.
In the Bhagavatha we come across a few verses where Pothana appears to have adopted the ideas of ‘Kavitraya’ and Palkuriki Somanatha. In the first part of the tenth skandha Pothana wrote a verse which describes how the Gopis Wandered in quest of Krishna imploring the trees to tell them about the whereabouts of Krishna, This verse resembles the verse Written by Nannaya describing Damayanti’s quest for Nala in the forest. The verse in which Yashoda tauntingly asks Krishna, “who is this gentlemen? Is he not Krishna? It seems he has never seen butter”, resembles the verse which Nannaya put in the mouth of Drona when he addressed Drupada, brought captive by Arjuna. Pothana wrote a verse describing how the women of Mathura looked at Krishna when he entered the city along with Balarama and the cowherds, and exclaimed, “Is this indeed that wonder boy who sucked the breast milk of the demon until her life was out? ” This verse is modelled on a verse which Tikkana wrote describing how the women of Hastina looked at Krishna with thirsty eyes while he was proceeding along the streets to the court of Dhritarashtra, and mentioned the same incident of Krishna’s childhood.
In his Nrisimhapurana, Errana narrated the story of Prahlada very beautifully. There are some verses in Pothana’s Prahlada Charita which are clear imitations of Errana’s verses. Most Andhras are familiar with Pothana’s verse in the Bhagavatha: “Does the bee which rejoices in the honey of the Mandara ever go to the Datura, etc.? ” The original for this verse is to be found in Somanath’s Basavapurana, Canto III and Chaturveda Saramu. The idea occurs in Pothana’s Bhogini Dandaka also. From this we may surmise that Pothana, who was a Shaivite in his early life, might have carefully studied the Kavyas of the Shaiva poets.
At the beginning of Bhagavatha, Pothana declared: ‘Some like Telugu, others like Sanskrit and yet others like both. So I shall please all of them in the various parts of my work. ” In his Bhagavatha we come across verses packed with Sanskrit compounds as well as those composed of simple Telugu words. But, on the whole, his work contains more Sanskrit words than Telugu words. Yet this composition is throughout luminous and lucid, and free from intricate constructions and hence makes pleasant reading. If one desires to taste the sweetness of the Telugu language one has to read the Bhagavatha of Pothana. Pothana’s poetry abounds in verbal beauty and Nannaya stated that this quality was to be found in his poetry also. Bhamaha, a great Sanskrit rhetorician, said that just as a florist weaves a garland knowing fully, well which flower goes well with which other flower so as to make a pattern pleasing to the eye, even so a poet should compose a poem selecting such words and arranging them in such order that the sound pattern of the verse is highly pleasing to the car. There is no gainsaying the fact that Pothana acquired such a high degree of skill in versification as no other Telugu poet could. Verbal beauty is uniformly present throughout his composition and offers a delightful feast to the ear.
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A composition in which verbal embellishments predominate is regarded by the rhetoricians as low-class poetry. But there are some high-ranking poets who employ the verbal embellishments very lavishly, not as an end in themselves, but only as a means to the effective expression of thought and emotion. Pothana is one of them and his fondness for embellishments of sound and sense is boundless. Most of his verses, particularly those of a descriptive nature, invariably contain some sort of verbal embellishment — aniyanuprasa or vrittyanuprasa or yamaka. The sense is neatly echoed by the sound in the short kanda verse written by him describing the agitation and hesitation of Lakshmi, when she noticed Lord Vishnu running posthaste to save Gajendra. The alliteration of the d sound and the preponderance of light syllables enable the verse to communicate effectively the fast and muffled heart-beats of Lakshmi in a mood of sudden agitation.
Pothana employs verbal embellishments like vrittyanuprasa, antyvanuprasa, chekanuprasa, yamaka, slesha, etc. very frequently with an interest bordering on craze. He also uses metrical embellishments like dviprasa, triprasa, etc. to heighten the beauty of the verses. He is interested equally, if not more, in a liberal use of Arthalankaras also. Upama, utpreksha, rupaka, atisayokti and arthantaranyasa are very common in his work. In many places his upamas are exceedingly beautiful and suggestive. The following verse may be cited as an example:
In the hand of the lotus-eyed Krishna, mount Govardhana looked pretty like a lotus. And over it the cluster of clouds shone like a swarm of bees.
In addition to upama (simile) the original text of the above verse contains chekanuprasa and vrittyanuprasa also. The upama not only gives a vivid and beautiful picture of Krishna holding up mount Govardhana in his hand with dark clouds hovering over it, but also suggests how easily Krishna lifted the mountain with his tender hands and held it as high as the sky.
In the episode of Gajendramoksham, Pothana compares the elephant to a man of doubting nature and the crocodile to a Yogin who clings steadfastly to Brahman that Is pure bliss. These metaphysical similes are most appropriate to the context and lend a charming grandeur to the situation.
With its regular rhythm resulting from metrical movement, with its melodious drum-like sounds supplied by the Shabdalankaras, and with its literary flavour produced by the use Of sweet and significant words, Pothana’s poetry reminds one of a perfect musical concert. That is why it delights every One even as it falls on the ear whether he understands the meaning or not. This is the chief quality which secured unusual popularity to Pothana’s poetry.
The style of Pothana is mainly descriptive and narrative. He narrates the story introducing short descriptions wherever necessary. Occasionally he employs short dialogues which are natural and appropriate. The dialogue between Bali and Vamana and Bali and Shukra in the Vamanavatara, and those between Hari and Narakasura may be cited as examples.
Pothana wrote some good prose passages here and there in the Bhagavatha. Some of them are pretty long. Such long passages are copiously embellished with Shabdalankaras like amuprasa and yamaka, and Arthalankaras like upama, rupaka, etc. with a spray of slesha and virodhabhasa. They reveal his sound scholarship and mastery over language and expression. Pothana’s prose, like that of Nannaya, is characterised by melodious flow in spite of the abundance of Sanskrit words and compounds. The total number of verses and prose passages contained in the Bhagavatha is 7, 915. Of these, the prose passages number 2, 364. A third of the prose bits are as a single word or a single sentence.
The kanda verse occupies nearly a third of the total composition of Pothana. His mastery Over the art of versification enabled him to produce a rich variety of rhythmic grace in the movement of the kand verse. Next to the kanda comes the sisa, numbering 899. Of these, the tetageeti is appended to 677 and the ataveladi to 222. Of the 118 sisas written by Pothana in his Veerabhadravijayamu, as many as 101 have the ataveladi appended to them. This shows that, as age advanced, he shifted his interest from the ataveladi to the tetageeti. The rhythm of his balanced sisas is too well-known to need any special mention. Among the common vittas, he seems to have a special fondness for the mattebha, Next comes the champakamala, then the utpalamala and last of all comes the sardula. Critics opine that Pothana must have used a cood number of the mattebha vritta in the episode of Gajendra, as the story itself belongs to a mattebha or fat elephant. Among the special vrittas, Pothana used a good number of mattakokilas and taralas, both of which have a fast and pleasing movement. In the third and tenth skandhas he used the dandaka metre. He composed only one mahasragdhara and two sragdharas. Whatever metre he adopts, whether vritta or jati, Pothana imparts to it a flowing and melodious movement very pleasing to the ear.
Certain peculiarities of yati are to be found in the portions of the Bhagavatha composed by Pothana. He accepted the akhanda yati. It occurs in the second line of the very first verse of the Bhagavatha. He observed yati between vu and u, u and ri, ru and ri and dru and dre. In two or three places violation of yati rules is also found and this might have been due to inadvertence. Some editors tried to correct the peculiar yatis used by Pothana and some opine that such yatis are not in those written by Pothana. But such yatis were used not only by the Shaivite poets but also by some others. Some Lakshanikas have not considered Pothana as a standard poet. because he observed yati and prasa between Repha and Sakatarepha.
Some deviations are seen in Pothana’s Bhagavatha in the matter of language also. Here and there he observed sandhi for krwarthaka ekara; used the termination Au of the genitive case without Nagagama. Compounds like Vikachakamalanetri, Misrasamasa, Drutadvityasandhis, and some other usages of the spoken tongue are found occasionally in his poems. It is the duty of the grammarians to keenly observe the usages of great poets and prescribe rules according to them. it is their mistake if they do not do so. It should never be considered as a defect on the part of the poets. To find fault with the usages of great poets from the point of the rules prescribed by grammarians is not proper. The greatness of Pothana’s poetry does not suffer a little even if narrow-minded Lakshanikas do not consider him as a standard poet. He is always a great poet and if some people do not care to read his poetry thinking that there are some prosodical mistakes or grammatical errors in it, they have to repent afterwards for the loss of delight incurred by them in ignoring him.
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