15. CHAPTER VII POSITIVE MERITS OF THE KALĀPŪRŅODAYAM (Contd )

CHAPTER VII POSITIVE MERITS OF THE KALĀPŪRŅODAYAM (Contd )

Turning from characterisation, one may take up the next item for examination namely the background provided for the vanous events, episodes and characters. On a closer study, its organic connection with the theme will be obvious. Without it there will be neither the story nor the characters; they simply refuse to move, to appear before the mind's eye. As in the works of other poets, it is not simply an appendage, a colour-giving stuff, a mere means of making concrete the when, the where and the how of ideas, but an integral and inseparable part of the whole. This background in the Kalapurnodayam, for the sake of analy- sis, can be divided into two, one provided for the events, and the other for characters. Under the first come the reign of Krsna, the 149

participation of Närada, the temple of Mrgendravahana and Kash- mir. Under the second come the geographical, cultural and so- cial background ofKalabhāsini, Manikandhara, Yajnasarman and Abhinavakaumudi. To take up the first section, the first scene of the Kalāpūrņodayam commences in Dväraka when Srikrsna was rul- ing over the world. Why does the poet select this particular pe- nod and place, and in what way does it help the story? Mr.Süryanarayana Sastri in his commentary on the Kalāpūrnodayam giving three kinds of reasons enumerates all the important events that take place at Dväraka. Under the sec- ond he provides three reasons from the stand point of the poet. They are firstly, because the poet promises the readers to give a poem worth hearing by virtue of the delienation of sacred and pious theme or things(Sesa so o5e), he begins the poem with the description of Dvaraka one of the seven famous cities capable of bestowing moksa. Secondly Nandyala Krsnabhūpati to whom the poem is dedicated is a Vaishnavite. To please him G. V. Knsnna Rao

the poet has begun with the description of Dvaraka. Thirdly, it manifests the poet's faith in Vaisnavism. Under the third he says that Dvaraka helps a great deal to give puranic colouring to his story of pure invention181. Under the first the commentator does not tell us clearly the invariable connection between Dvaraka and those incidents. Why cannot they take place in some other city than Dvaraka? The second, as he himself says, is not of intrinsic nature. The reason mentioned under the third is prob- ably not important to aesthetic experience because there is no necessity for the poet to give puranic. colouring to the story. On the contrary the poet openly says at the outset that he is giving a completely new or a very wonderful ( 010 SScboa) story. Moreover, the theme also does not positively require such a colouring. Thus the question why Dväraka alone is spoken of as the opening scene of action remains still to be answered. For rea- 150 sons to be mentioned later on, Narada is essential for the story. His regular visits to some body or to some place for a sufficiently long time are also utterly necessary. Otherwise Kalabhasini and Manikandhara cannot be expected to meet each other and de- velop mutual attachment and love. Narada is not an ordinary mortal to be dragged to any place or person at all. Which place or person can require from him regular visits for a considerable pe- nod? It cannot be sacred places of pilgrmage, or monarchs well known for their power and devotion, because Narada is a maharsı far above the needs and wants of mortals. What can attract him, a released soul, is pure devotion to God and music of a high order. Though Rama is an incarnation of God, he is not known for his music. Moreover, Krta, Treta and Dvapara ages do not give any scope for making Kalapūrna a powerful monarch. So avoiding other incarnations and yugas the poet has selected Srikrsna and the later part of his reign. What more can be de- sired on the part of Narada than attending upon Srikrsna, the very incarnation of Visnu. Does not Visistadvaita establish be- yond doubt that released souls attend upon Lord Visnu? Thus along with Srikrsna Dvaraka cannot but come into the picture. Studies in Kalapurnodayam

Coming to the second point, why is Narada brought into the story? To play his role, one must be a divine person with powers to curse and bless, and be proficient in music. He must also be in a position to command respect and honour from the celestial beings such as devas and gandharvas Besides, he must be capable of knowing everything in all the worlds, the past, the present and the future. His temperament must be such that he takes some sort of dignified interest in clashes and conflicts. Who can satisfy all these needs? Had the poet brought in or created a character de nove and endowed him with all these powers, the story would have certainly grown in bulk beyond proportion and the unity would have been ruined, because such a thing demands creation of many events to establish all these characteristics. Even if some other maharsi of puranic fame had been brought in, he would have lacked proficiency in music and interest in clashes and conflicts which are of vital importance to the story. Supposting Tumburu had been assigned this role of Narada, could he have 151 done justice to it? He is well known for his proficiency in music. The answer is an emphatic no, since he cannot be expected to command respect from devas Secondly, he cannot know the story of Kalapurna which Nalkubara himself is unable to guess. Lastly, he is not said to be anxious to bring about quarrels and feuds Thus all these considerations leave no other alternative than the selection of Narada. Regarding the importance of the temple of Mrgendravahana, Mr. Sūryanārayana Sāstr gives a fairly good explanation when he comments :-

G V. Knsnna Rao

and what purpose does it serve? Will the story be affected by giving them some other country nearer to that of Mrgendravahana? Would not proximity to the temple have helped a great deal to secure unity of place? No, it would have on the other hand spoiled two things. Sumukhasatti would not have taken a long time and become very old by the time she reached the temple; nor the terrible speed of the lion could have been manifested clearly to the readers. If it is purely a question of providing a long distance, the poet would have done well to select Nepal or Assam or the southern most point of South India. But he selected Käshmir and that with a definite purpose. Manistambha comes of a Brah- min family, and brahmanas are, generally speaking, spuritual- minded with great aversion to deeds of bloodshed and horror. But Manstambha not only pierces his eyes and ears with a style and an arrow, but also tries to sacrifice Kalabhasiņi to Mrgendravahana. How can this behaviour be reconciled with his 154 caste and up-bringing without any damage to probability which is the life of poetic creations? But for those deeds there would have been no story. And hence, the poet, it may be argued, would have done better to have kept silent over the history of his family. Even this would not have helped him because he and his wife had to practise yoga which used to be imparted in those days only to brahmanas. The result is that Manistambha should be a Brahmin and at the same time perform those horrible deeds. To reconcile these apparent incongruities without infringing the laws of probability, the poet had to assign them Käshmir which is thought to be the seat of kaula sampardaya. Tradition says that this sampradaya is prevalent among Käshmiri Brahmins and that it enjoins on them such tantric rites. Nowhere else in ancient India such a thing is found among the brahmanas. Hence, Manistambha and his wife are described as natives of Kashmir. Above all these, there is a more weighty consideration which is deffered to the next chapter. Now to turn to the importance of the social background provided for the characters. Kalabhäsini is said to belong to the courtezan class because of the following reasons. She has to Studies in Katapurnodayam

visıt the court of Krsna so as to come into contact with Narada and Manikandhara, and learn music from Krsna and his wives. Secondly, she has to go along with Manistambha to the hermit- age of Manikandhara without the least hindrance from her rela- tives and friends. Lastly, Sarasvati curses, her that she will be boin as a courtezan. This curse, in its turn, is determined by the nature of the fair sex. In the case of Manikandhara there is no such predetermi- nation. Nevertheless, he is said to have come from the gandharva class. Had he been simply a human being, it would have been impossible to travel by the aerial path along with his guru, Nārada. Besides this. he has to retain his spring time of yough without ever growing old. This trait of his may seem to have no role to play in the story. But a closer study will reveal its necessity. By the time he visits Kashmir to get his poetic faculty tested, he should have at least been a youth of twenty or twenty-five sum- mers. At that time Salina should have been thirty or thirtyfive 155

years old because the latter's dallance is described as follows :-

ரல் சகக கல த்துுதாலகி

eK 3. 185 When one sees her at the temple of Mrgendravahana, her age is de- scnbed in the following stanza :-

G. V Ansnna Rao

These lines show clearly that she must be more than sixty. That means more than thirty years should have passed between Manikandhara's visıt to Käshmir and to the temple of Mrgendravahana. This makes him more than sixty years old

156 when he made love to Rambha and Kalabhasini. Not only that; he gives a terrible fight, more terrible than a youth can to Nalakubara.187 If Manıkandhara is simply a human being, this 1s practically incredible and much less probable. If the foregoing are the only considerations, Manıkandhara could as well have been spoken of as belonging to the class of devas, or kınnaras This argument will lose all its significance if it is only remembered that his class has to be subordinate to that of dêvās so as to receive a curse from Nalakūbara, and that gandharvas are more well-known for their music than any other class of celestial beings. Thus all these necessitate that he should be a gandharva. Even the same meticulous care is bestowed on Alaghuvrata alias Yajnasarman. That he is the son of a Malabar Brahmin, nch, spiritual-minded, well-versed in the Vedas, and thoroughly grounded in yoga is necessary and significant. It is helpful not only to give colour and life but also to sow the seeds for future development.188 Had not his father been spirtual-minded and nch, Alaghuvrata would not have been requested to carry on annadana. If his father had not been a yogin, Alaghuvrata would Studies in Kalapurnodayam

not have heard something of yoga by which, as explained before, he was able to know the veracity of the story narrated by Madhuralälasa. Because he is said to be a native of Malabar, it has become possible for him to sell his wives to a merchant car- rying on trans-oceanic trade. Abhinavakaumudi is said to be an apsarasa of the moon so that she may be able to marry Manikandhara in his next birth wothout giving rise to any feeling of incongruity. Does the social, political and geographical background provided for Madasaya and Satvadātman carry any significance as in the above cases? One can neither positively assert nor deny. It is yet to be enquired nto.

With this survey in view, what is one to conclude? Does it not clearly reveal that the backgrould provided for the events as well as for the character is not simply an appendage, a colour- gving stuff, a mere means of making concrete the when, the where 157

and the how of ideas, but an integral part of the whole? How many poets and creative artists have been able to achieve this as Surana has?

NAMA VAKRATA

Pingali Surana's peculiarity is not confined only to provid- ing significant background; the very names of his characters are a marvel. They reveal beauties, unheard and undreamt of, unattempted and unachieved. Had vakroktikara the opportunity to have the Kalapumodayam before him, he would have certainly included a separate chapter in his treatise under the title, nama väkrata. But he was denied that opportunity, for he came centu- nes before Sürana. A crtic who was alive to vakrata in the very title189 ofa poem could not be said to be mnsensitive to namavakrata. Then why he did not include it in his treatise is, he had no poem from which he could illustrate his point. Now what is this pecu- Lar beauty which Surana :sreals?

G V. Knshna Rao

Many are the ways followed by parents in naming their chil- dren. They may name them after the gods or goddesses they like and worship, or after their own deceased parents or elders, or after the heroes of the epics or puranas, or after the heroes for whom they have immense regard, or in accordance with the plan- etary positions at the time of their births. They may acquire new names in the later part of their lives on account of their deeds and achievements. But the method generally followed by poets is somewhat different. They assign names to the characters in their books in accordance with their character or origin or an event in their life, or they name their characters as their fancy and ca- price dictates with the only provision that they do not appear improbable or unreal. The names such as Rama, Bhima, Bhisma etc. are in accordance with their character while others like Sıta, Sakuntala denote their origin or an event in their life. Names such as Prataparudra, Perigādu, Girisam, Buccamma come un- 158 der the second category. The first method followed by poets has too much artificiality. Nevertheless, idealists still have a soft cor- ner in their hearts for this method which may be traced to their unconscious leanings to self-evidence and self-sufficiency. The second method being neither positive nor negative, does not re- quire commendation or censure. Some poets have followed an- other method by way of utpreksa; they have tried to establish a definite connection between the name of the character and his or her life though there is apparently nothing of that sort between them. There can be no more beautiful example of this point than Kalidāsa's famous verse :-

But Surana blazes a new trail in this matter. He follows neither the first method nor the second. The names of his char- acters are not the result of apperception as in the first, or of arbitration as in the second. They are completely determined by the inner events of the story. Every event every word and ges- ture, every feeling and emotion, every action and reaction in the Stches in Kalapurnodayam

dallance of Sarasvati and Caturmukha becomes a name and a lıvıng character Kalāpurņa, Satvadātman, Madāsaya, Svabhāva, Manstambha and the four Agamas are the reflected face and the soul of Sarasvati. the heart of Brahma, nature, the jewelled pillar in the lake, and the four faces of Brahma respectively while Madhuralalasa, Rupanubhuti, Abhinavakaumudi and Sumukhäsatt are the desire, the enjoyment derived from the for- mal beauty by Brahma, the smile on the face of Sarasvati and the close proximity of Sarasvati's face to the pillar in the lake,191 Thus these names of characters arse out of the incidents of the story making everything self-sufficient and self-evident. There is noth- ing of improbability, artificiality or unnaturalness which wipes out the make-believe world of art. This is not the only peculiarty with the names of Surana's characters. Their very names play an important role in their lves, they even determine their fate to some extent. Has any- 15g body ever heard of such things in the annals of history or social science or psychology? What is known is that castes and creeds have plaved and are still playing havoc with the lives of men. The rehgious uifferences in medieval Europe the caste system in India, the race hatred in Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, the segregation laws of South Africa and the "brain wash" policy of the Commumsts in Russia and China are outstanding examples. Surana, with his profound psychological insight, goes a step fur- ther when he reveals that even names play such a role. This is too subtle to be accepted, and too ingenious to be believed. Un- less illustrated, no one can honestly admit this to be true. The names of Manikandhara, Manistambha and Sumukhasatti are concrete examples of this unusual function of names. Supposing the hero of the poem had some other name than Manikandhara, would Kalabhäsini have met with the same fate and the story taken the same course as they do in the story taken the same course as they do in the poem? Certainly not. Kalabhäsini. in that event. would not have been reminded of G. V. Krısnna Rac

Manigriva and the ternble curse he received from Narada. Con- sequently she would not have been afraid of the seer's curse, and much less bothered by Nalakubara. Thus she could have avoided becoming a victim of Manistambha and of the curse of Rambha. On the other hand, she would have awaited her chance which would ultimately lead to her marriage with the hero. Hence, Kalabhasinı's whole fate and the curse of the story are deter- mined to a very great extent, if not completely, by the name Manikandhara. Similar is the effect of the names Manistambha and Sumukhasatti. Had not Salina and Sugatr acquired new names and had they introduced themselves to each other by their old ones, the events from the fifteenth verse of the second canto would have followed altogether a new line. One may say that even the whole story would have gone to peices. The reason for this is not 160 too difficult to be grasped. Had they known each other by their onginal names, they would have immediately managed somehow or other to recognise and be reconciled to each other. In that case there would have been no attempt on the part of Manistambha to sacrifice Kalabhasini to the goddess Mrgendravahana. The later developments also would not have taken place. Thus these two names also have in their own way contributed to the struc- ture of the story. In this connection a doubt may arse as to how these difer from disguise and false names which are very com- mon to the comedies of Shakespeare and of Sansknt play-wrights. In the latter, they are assumed with a definite purpose in view, whereas they are quite unintentional in the former. Sugatri and Salina never thought of assuming new names; on the other hand, those were bestowed upon them by the society in which they moved. And hence, disguises and false names do not have any- thing to do with the present problem. Thus the poet, Surana, blazes a new trail in creative litrature by making the very names of the characters play an important role as well as by making them an integral part of the story. Studies in Kalapurnodayam