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Shloka
Shloka or śloka ( , from the root , Macdonell, Arthur A., ''A Sanskrit Grammar for Students'', Appendix II, p. 232 (Oxford University Press, 3rd edition, 1927).) in a broader sense, according to Monier-Williams's dictionary, is "any verse or stanza; a proverb, saying"; but in particular it refers to the 32- syllable verse, derived from the Vedic '' anuṣṭubh'' metre, used in the '' Bhagavad Gita'' and many other works of classical Sanskrit literature. In its usual form it consists of four '' pādas'' or quarter-verses, of eight syllables each, or (according to an alternative analysis) of two half-verses of 16 syllables each. The metre is similar to the Vedic '' anuṣṭubh'' metre, but with stricter rules. The ''śloka'' is the basis for Indian epic poetry, and may be considered the Indian verse form ''par excellence'', occurring as it does far more frequently than any other metre in classical Sanskrit poetry. The ''śloka'' is the verse-form generally used in the '' Maha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bhagavad Gita
The Bhagavad Gita (; ), often referred to as the Gita (), is a Hindu texts, Hindu scripture, dated to the second or first century BCE, which forms part of the Hindu epic, epic poem Mahabharata. The Gita is a synthesis of various strands of Indian religious thought, including the Vedic concept of ''dharma'' (duty, rightful action); samkhya-based ''yoga'' and ''jnana'' (knowledge); and ''bhakti'' (devotion). Among the Hindu denominations, Hindu traditions, the text holds a unique pan-Hindu influence as the most prominent sacred text and is a central text in Vedanta and the Vaishnava, Vaishnava Hindu tradition. While traditionally attributed to the sage Veda Vyasa, the Gita is historiographically regarded as a composite work by multiple authors. Incorporating teachings from the Upanishads and the samkhya Yoga (philosophy), yoga philosophy, the Gita is set in a narrative framework of dialogue between the pandava prince Arjuna and his charioteer guide Krishna, an avatar of Vishnu, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mahabharata
The ''Mahābhārata'' ( ; , , ) is one of the two major Sanskrit Indian epic poetry, epics of ancient India revered as Smriti texts in Hinduism, the other being the ''Ramayana, Rāmāyaṇa''. It narrates the events and aftermath of the Kurukshetra War, a war of succession between two groups of princely cousins, the Kauravas and the Pandava, Pāṇḍavas. It also contains Hindu philosophy, philosophical and devotional material, such as a discussion of the four "goals of life" or ''puruṣārtha'' (12.161). Among the principal works and stories in the ''Mahābhārata'' are the ''Bhagavad Gita'', the story of Damayanti, the story of Shakuntala, the story of Pururava and Urvashi, the story of Savitri and Satyavan, the story of Kacha (sage), Kacha and Devayani, the story of Rishyasringa and an Ramopakhyana, abbreviated version of the ''Rāmāyaṇa'', often considered as works in their own right. Traditionally, the authorship of the ''Mahābhārata'' is attributed to Vyasa, Vy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Valmiki
Valmiki (; , ) was a legendary poet who is celebrated as the traditional author of the epic ''Ramayana'', based on the attribution in the text itself. He is revered as ''Ādi Kavi'', the first poet, author of ''Ramayana'', the first epic poem. The ''Ramayana'', originally written by Valmiki, consists of 24,000 shlokas and seven cantos (kaṇḍas). The is composed of about 480,002 words, being a quarter of the length of the full text of the ''Mahabharata'' or about four times the length of the ''Iliad''. The ''Ramayana'' tells the story of a prince, Rama of the city of Ayodhya (Ramayana), Ayodhya in the Kosala, Kingdom of Kosala, whose wife Sita is abducted by Ravana, the demon-king (Rakshasa) of Lanka. The scholars' estimates for the earliest stage of the text ranging from the 8th to 4th centuries BCE, and later stages extending up to the 3rd century CE, although original date of composition is unknown. As with many traditional epics, it has gone through a process of interp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sanskrit Prosody
Sanskrit prosody or Chandas refers to one of the six Vedangas, or limbs of Vedic studies.James Lochtefeld (2002), "Chandas" in The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Vol. 1: A-M, Rosen Publishing, , page 140 It is the study of poetic metres and verse in Sanskrit. This field of study was central to the composition of the Vedas, the scriptural canons of Hinduism; in fact, so central that some later Hindu and Buddhist texts refer to the Vedas as ''Chandas''. The Chandas, as developed by the Vedic schools, were organized around seven major metres, each with its own rhythm, movements and aesthetics. Sanskrit metres include those based on a fixed number of syllables per verse, and those based on fixed number of morae per verse. Extant ancient manuals on Chandas include Pingala's ''Chandah Sutra'', while an example of a medieval Sanskrit prosody manual is Kedara Bhatta's ''Vrittaratnakara''. The most exhaustive compilations of Sanskrit prosody describe over 600 metres. This i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ramayana
The ''Ramayana'' (; ), also known as ''Valmiki Ramayana'', as traditionally attributed to Valmiki, is a smriti text (also described as a Sanskrit literature, Sanskrit Indian epic poetry, epic) from ancient India, one of the two important epics of Hinduism known as the ''Itihasas'', the other being the ''Mahabharata''. The epic narrates the life of Rama, the seventh ''avatar'' of the Hindu deity Vishnu, who is a prince of Ayodhya (Ramayana), Ayodhya in the kingdom of Kosala. The epic follows Exile of Lord Rama, his fourteen-year exile to the forest urged by his father King Dasharatha, on the request of Rama's stepmother Kaikeyi; his travels across the forests in the Indian subcontinent with his wife Sita and brother Lakshmana; the kidnapping of Sita by Ravana, the king of Lanka, that resulted in bloodbath; and Rama's eventual return to Ayodhya (Ramayana), Ayodhya along with Sita to be crowned as a king amidst jubilation and celebration. Scholarly estimates for the earliest stage ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tristubh
''Trishtubh'' (, , IAST: ) is a Vedic metre of 44 syllables (four padas of eleven syllables each), or any hymn composed in this metre. It is the most prevalent metre of the Rigveda, accounting for roughly 40% of its verses. The Trishtubh pada contains a "break" or caesura, after either four or five syllables, necessarily at a word-boundary and if possible at a syntactic break. Structure Different scholars have different methods of showing the structure of the line. Thus Hermann Oldenberg (1888) divided the line into three sections by placing one break at the caesura and another break four syllables before the end: : x x x x x, , x x , – ᴗ – x : x x x x, , x x x , – ᴗ – x E. Vernon Arnold (1905) divided it into 4 + 3 + 4 syllables, whatever the caesura: : x x x x , x x x , – ᴗ – x A more recent author, H. N. Randle (1957), on the other hand, divides it 4 + 4 + 3: : x x x x , x x x – , ᴗ – x The division 4 + 4 + 3 is also favoured by the comp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anuṣṭubh
(, ) is a metre and a metrical unit, found in both Vedic and Classical Sanskrit poetry, but with significant differences. By origin, an anuṣṭubh stanza is a quatrain of four lines. Each line, called a ''pāda'' (lit. "foot"), has eight syllables. In Vedic texts Arnold distinguishes three varieties of anuṣṭubh in the Vedic corpus: an early free form, with very few restrictions except a general iambic (u – u x) tendency in the cadence (vṛtta) of each of the four ''pāda''s; e.g. : , , – – – – , u – u – , : , ‖ – – – – , u – u – ‖ : , , – – – u , u – u u , : , ‖ – – – – , u – u – ‖ Next came a mildly trochaic development in the opening of each ''pāda''; and finally the development of the "epic anuṣṭubh" (mostly in the Atharvaveda) prefiguring the classical śloka form. Although in these hymns the iambic cadence of the first verse is still the most frequent (25%) of all varieties, it is already v ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pada (foot)
''Pāda'' is the Sanskrit term for "foot" (cognate to English ''foot'', Latin ''pes'', Greek ''pous''), with derived meanings "step, stride; footprint, trace; vestige, mark". The term has a wide range of applications, including any one of four parts (as it were one foot of a quadruped), or any sub-division more generally, e.g. a chapter of a book (originally a section of a book divided in four parts). In Sanskrit metre, ''pāda'' is the term for a quarter of a stanza. Thus in the shloka it is any of the eight-syllable sections of the 32-syllable stanza. As a measure of length, a ''pada'' amounts to 12 or 15 fingers' breadth, or 1/2 or 1/3 or 3/7 of a Prakrama. In Sanskrit grammar, a ''pada'' is any inflected word (noun or verb). In Buddhism, ''pāda'' is the term for a Buddha footprint. Gautama Buddha's footprints symbolized his presence, and his image and iconography developed several centuries after he had died. There are also several landmarks venerated as "footprints ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tristubh
''Trishtubh'' (, , IAST: ) is a Vedic metre of 44 syllables (four padas of eleven syllables each), or any hymn composed in this metre. It is the most prevalent metre of the Rigveda, accounting for roughly 40% of its verses. The Trishtubh pada contains a "break" or caesura, after either four or five syllables, necessarily at a word-boundary and if possible at a syntactic break. Structure Different scholars have different methods of showing the structure of the line. Thus Hermann Oldenberg (1888) divided the line into three sections by placing one break at the caesura and another break four syllables before the end: : x x x x x, , x x , – ᴗ – x : x x x x, , x x x , – ᴗ – x E. Vernon Arnold (1905) divided it into 4 + 3 + 4 syllables, whatever the caesura: : x x x x , x x x , – ᴗ – x A more recent author, H. N. Randle (1957), on the other hand, divides it 4 + 4 + 3: : x x x x , x x x – , ᴗ – x The division 4 + 4 + 3 is also favoured by the comp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Syllable
A syllable is a basic unit of organization within a sequence of speech sounds, such as within a word, typically defined by linguists as a ''nucleus'' (most often a vowel) with optional sounds before or after that nucleus (''margins'', which are most often consonants). In phonology and studies of languages, syllables are often considered the "building blocks" of words. They can influence the rhythm of a language, its prosody, its poetic metre; properties such as stress, tone and reduplication operate on syllables and their parts. Speech can usually be divided up into a whole number of syllables: for example, the word ''ignite'' is made of two syllables: ''ig'' and ''nite''. Most languages of the world use relatively simple syllable structures that often alternate between vowels and consonants. Despite being present in virtually all human languages, syllables still have no precise definition that is valid for all known languages. A common criterion for finding syllable bound ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bharavi
Bharavi () was a 6th century Indian poet known for his epic poem '' Kirātārjunīya'', one of the six '' mahakavyas'' in classical Sanskrit. Date According to multiple grant inscriptions of the Ganga dynasty, such as the Gummareddipura inscription, the Ganga king Durvinita wrote a Kannada-language commentary on the Canto 15 of Bharavi's '' Kirātārjunīya''. The date of the Gummareddipura inscription is debated among scholars, but the end of Durvinita's reign is dated to c. 580 CE, which means that Bharavi lived around or before this time. ''Avanti-sundara-katha'' of Dandin (7th-8th century) suggests that Bharavi was a contemporary of the kings Simha-vishnu, Vishnu-vardhana, and Durvinita; he was also a contemporary of Dandin's fourth-generation ancestor Damodara (see Biography below). Based on this account, Sanskrit scholar G. Harihara Sastri theorizes prince Kubja Vishnuvardhana of Chalukya family was a patron of Bharavi, before he became the Eastern Chalukya king ar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
