October 2020
The story of Śrīdatta
In the past, there lived a brāhmaṇa by name Yajñasoma in the Mālava kingdom. He had two sons by name Kālanemī and Vigatabhaya. After the death of their father, they headed to Pāṭalīputra, got educated there under Devaśarmā. Devaśarmā was pleased enough to give away his daughters by marriage to them. A snake swallowed Vigatabhaya’s wife and grief-stricken, he exiled himself desirous of pilgrimage. Kālanemī pleased Lakṣmī by...
continued from the previous part...
Though Manmatha avoided Śiva ’s glance, he has placed himself in a convenient position, such that Śiva was visible to him. He observes Śiva, whose costumes (āhārya), bodily features (āṅgika) and mental frame-work (sāttvika) are absolutely orthogonal to his own. [The next set of verses have been beautiful treated by Shatavadhani Dr. R Ganesh ins his talks and his article on the cinematography in Kumārasambhava...
Felicity of Language
Ramaswami Iyer learnt Kannada within three or four months of moving to Mulbagal. A few Kannada words were already familiar to him because he hailed from the Coimbatore region. The Kannada pronunciation is similar to Tamil, so learning Kannada was quite straightforward for him. Initially he became fluent with speaking in Kannada. In about four or five months, he also learnt to read Kannada. Then he became comfortable with...
Fruits of Scholarship
After a few weeks, that discourse was published in the magazine [Karnataka] . A person who was close to Murthy read that work and said: “Murthy the article that you wrote -- what do you call it -- Grotius -- It is atrocious? How do we understand it?”
This is the fruit of scholarship.
We started three or four more such study groups. Murthy’s enthusiasm would join us in making fun of these groups. Murthy was among the persons...
गौरीनवपरिष्वङ्गे विभोः स्वेदाम्बु पातु वः |
नेत्राग्निभीत्या कामेन वारुणास्त्रमिवाहितं ||
May the sweat beads adorning Shiva, brought about by his embrace of Gauri, protect you. It seems as though Kāma, fearful of Shiva’s fiery third eye, released Varuna-astra!
There is a big city called Kauśāmbi in the kingdom of Vatsa, which was created as an earthly competitor to the heavens by the creator, as though to keep the pride of the heavens in...
The next verse in the third sarga of the Kumārasambhavam is yet another instance where the poet takes the opportunity to personify nature and superimpose elements of abhinaya on it.
पर्याप्तपुष्पस्तबकस्तनाभ्यः स्फुरत्प्रवालोष्ठमनोहराभ्यः ।
लतावधूभ्यस्तरवोऽप्यवापुर्विनम्रशाखाभुजबन्धनानि ॥ 3.39
The creeper-wives of the trees tightly hugged (āṅgika) the trees with their hands made of tender leaves. The lips of these heroines are the red sprouts...
[On the occasion of D V Gundappa’s forty-fifth death anniversary, Prekshaa is delighted to publish the first episode of a new series – a modern English translation of DVG’s Kendra Sahitya Akademi Award-winning work, Bhagavad-gītā-tātparya or Jīvana-dharma-yoga. Translated from the original Kannada treatise by Sri. Raghavendra Hebbalalu and Smt. Sreelalitha Rupanagudi. —Editor]
Invocation
जगद्रणाङ्गणे यस्य
स्मरणं जयकारणं।
पार्थसारथये तस्मै...