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Critical Appreciation of Prahasanas - Part 14

We quote the translation of  the verse uttered by Yamapuruṣa as rendered by Lockwood and Bhat to further the discussion.

श्यामां प्रसन्नवदनां मधुरप्रलापां
मत्तां विशालजघनां वरचन्दनाद्राम् ।
रक्तोत्पलाभनयनां  नयनाभिरामां
क्षिप्रं नयानि यमसादनमेव बालाम् ॥२३॥

Kathāmṛta - 78 - Velā-lambaka - The Story of Candrasāra and Velā

नमताशेषविघ्नौघवारणं वारणाननम् |
कारणं सर्वसिद्धीनां दुरितार्णववारणम् ||

We pray to the elephant faced Ganeśa, who removes all traces of torrents of obstacles!
Who is the cause of all achievements and warder-off of the ocean of hardships!

Sir K Seshadri Iyer (Part 2)

Competence at Work

Alongside his reputation for proficiency at work, there is another trait of Seshadri Iyer that needs to be mentioned as a corollary. He was never a person who yearned for people’s endorsement. A German historian defines the term ‘people’—one of the elements of the State—in the following manner:

The people is that part of the State which does not know its own interests.

Kālidāsa - 2

Let us have a look at the dialogues before and after this verse. A minor character expresses concern that Kālidāsa might lose face if his play is performed disregarding the compositions of past masters. The stage-director uses the phrase viveka-viśrānta in his dialogue. The minor character listens to the verse, acquiesces, and says āryamiśrāḥ pramāṇam.

The Āṅgikābhinaya of Baḍagutiṭṭu Yakṣagāna (Part 3)

The āṅgikābhinaya of Yakṣagāna can be sub-divided into that of nāṭya and of nṛtya, which are nibaddha and anibaddha, respectively. We will limit our discussion to the aspect of nṛtta. Āṅgikābhinaya that caters for nāṭya is performed through the mode of loka-dharmī and it should have sāttvikābhinaya as its undercurrent.

Sir K Seshadri Iyer (Part 1)

Sir K. Seshadri Iyer was a native of Madras. He hailed from the region of Palghat (Palakkad). He wasn’t, in fact, someone the British authorities had summoned. I have heard that it was Rungacharlu who brought Seshadri Iyer into government service. When Rungacharlu was in the government service of the Madras Presidency, there were occasions when he had to visit places such as Coimbatore, Wayanad, and Palghat on government duty. On one such official trip, he got introduced to the family of Seshadri Iyer and came to realize that young Seshadri was a brilliant intellectual.

K Krishnamoorthy (Part 2)

Krishnamoorthy joined the Sharada Vilas College in 1949 and worked there until 1952. During this time, at the behest of A R Krishna Shastri, he wrote an elaborate introduction to Ānandavardhana’s aesthetic method and translated Dhvanyāloka into Kannada. In the introduction, he outlined the concepts of kindred subjects that are essential to understand Dhvanyāloka, summarized the contents of the text and explained them with apt examples chosen from Kannada poems, both ancient and modern.