I loved recording this episode of The Sanskrit Podcast. One thing I didn’t know was how important poetry was in ancient India. We have an unbroken tradition of poetry starting from the second century and coming down all the way to Kalidasa. In this episode, we discuss why anyone should pay attention to this rich tradition and repository of points that we have in Indian culture.
Poetry is like exercise–you know that it is good to do it, but somehow you can never bring yourself to do it. I confess that I don’t read much poetry. I’ve tried, but usually the call of Scandal, House of Cards is louder than the quiet pleasures of poetry. I think I figured out a way to access poetry though–through the vernacular. Tamil poetry is beautiful, particularly since I can understand it. Urdu poetry is also probably beautiful but I don’t understand it. As for the pleasures of Sanskrit poetry, why don’t you listen to the show yourself?
Watch the episode here
Listen to it in iTunes here.
Podcast website here
One the one hand, poetry or any art should not need any justification. Poetry, said Wordsworth, is emotion recollected in tranquility. It is a way to compress emotion and aesthetics through words. We get all that. Poetry is important. Yet, when was the last time you read poetry? How do schools and colleges teach poetry? Why does poetry get cut when there is a funding crunch. To cut to the chase, is poetry relevant in today’s world? To discuss this topic is Dr. Shankar Rajaraman, a psychiatrist, polymath, translator, Sanskritist and most importantly, a poet.
1) The Science of phonetics originates with the [veda] of the Hndu 2) Every [veda mantra] has to be pronounced in one way & only tht what way 3) Every [veda mantra] has [RuShi], [Candas] (pronounced chandas) 4) [Candas] is metre or prosody – This research article explains the concept of chandas http://www.new.dli.ernet.in/rawdataupload/upload/insa/INSA_1/20005b59_259.pdf 5) The emotive content in Chandas is ctegorized by different metres – for example [gAyatri] has emotve content of feeling when a person wants to sing (songs can depict different moods – `) 6)The poetry of the [veda) has use in computational linguistics, artificial intelligence and robotics besides developing machine teaching and learning systems – Glad that this articile has been written by somebody that is an arts lover and female. Women are born with this love. And that is whatis taught to the child in the womb even before birth!!! Best wishes
Thank you very much, Kedar
Reference to this article is published in Sanskrit Science & Technology© Daily Cues & Clues – Research & Development – India Heritage Literature https://paper.li/kedar_sleeping8/1415581011 Edition 22 January 2015 Happy New Year 2015
Thanks. I looked at both yours and Kedar’s links