Mandakranta metre

Mandākrāntā (Sanskrit: मन्दाक्रान्ता) is the name of a metre commonly used in classical Sanskrit poetry. The name in Sanskrit means "slow-stepping" or "slowly advancing".[1] It is said to have been invented by India's most famous poet Kālidāsa,[2] (5th century CE), who used it in his well-known poem Meghadūta ("the Cloud-Messenger"). The metre characterises the longing of lovers who are separated from each other, expressed in the Sanskrit word viraha विरह "separation (of lovers), parting".[3]

Metrical pattern

Modern analysis

A line in mandākrāntā has 17 syllables, divided into three sections, each separated by a pause. The first section consists of four long syllables, the second of 5 short syllables and one long, and the third a mixture of long and short alternating, in this pattern:

| – – – – | u u u u u – | – u – – u – x |

As with other Sanskrit metres, the length of the final syllable is indifferent.

Deo (2007) argues that the mandākrāntā metre is basically trochaic (i.e. consisting of a "strong-weak, strong-weak" rhythm). She notes that where the third strong beat should come (after the fourth syllable), some performers traditionally leave a pause equivalent to one short syllable; the third strong beat is then silent, and the fourth strong beat then falls on the fourth short syllable. Deo argues that this rhythm is also (a variation of) trochaic, with a strong beat on the 1st, 4th, and 7th syllables.

Relationship to other metres

The final section of 7 syllables is also found at the end of other metres such as śālinī, mālinī, candriṇī, sragdharā, and vaiśvadevī. The śālinī metre, a variety of triṣṭubh, goes as follows:

| – – – – | – u – – u – x |

It thus consists of the beginning and end of the mandākrāntā without the central section.

The 21-syllable sragdharā metre goes as follows:

| – – – – u – – | u u u u u u – | – u – – u – x |

This is the same as the mandākrāntā except for an additional four syllables. It has been argued that both mandākrāntā and sragdharā are later expansions of the earlier śālinī, which occurs occasionally even in the Vedas mixed with other varieties of triṣṭubh.[4]

If compared with the traditional śloka metre, the mandākrāntā can be seen to be similar. For example, the first line of the Bhagavad Gita scans as follows:

| – – – – | u – – – || u u – – | u – u – |

whereas the mandākrāntā metre is as follows:

| – – – – | u uu uu – || – u – – | u – – |

The differences are as follows:

  • The śloka can have many variations but in the mandākrāntā every verse is the same.
  • The break after the first quarter is obligatory in mandākrāntā, but optional in a śloka.
  • The second quarter has resolutions, i.e. u uu uu – instead of u – – –.
  • The fourth quarter of the line is catalectic, i.e. u – – instead of u – u –.
  • In a śloka two lines make a stanza, but in mandākrāntā there are four lines in a stanza.

Traditional scansion

The traditional Indian method of analysing metre is to use three-syllable patterns known as gaṇa, which are algebraically represented by letters of the alphabet. (See Sanskrit prosody.) So, the 11th/12th century[5] metrician Kedārabhaṭṭa in his work Vṛtta-ratnākara characterised the mandākrāntā metre by the following mnemonic line, which is itself in the mandākrāntā metre:[6]

मन्दाक्रान्ता जलधिषडगैर्म्भौ नतौ तो गुरू चेत्
mandākrāntā jaladhi-ṣaḍ-agair mbhau natau tād-gurū cet

The meaning of this line is that the metre has a pause after four syllables (jaladhi = ocean, traditionally four in number), then after six (ṣaḍ = six), and can be described using the gaṇas[7] (trisyllabic metrical patterns) ma bha na ta ta followed by two long (or heavy) syllables, known as guru, that is:

(– – –) ( – | u u ) ( u u u ) (– | – u) (– – u) (–) (–)

Kālidāsa's Meghadūta

The first poem to use the mandākrāntā metre appears to have been Kālidāsa's Meghadūta or Meghadūtam "the Cloud-Messenger". This consists of approximately 120[8] four-line stanzas, each line identical in metre. The opening stanza of the poem is as follows:

कश्चित् कान्ताविरहगुरुणा स्वाधिकारात् प्रमत्तः
शापेनास्तंगमितमहिमा वर्षभोग्येण भर्तुः ।
यक्षश्चक्रे जनकतनयास्नानपुण्योदकेषु
स्निग्धच्छायातरुषु वसतिं रामगिर्याश्रमेषु ॥ १ ॥
kaścit kāntā-, viraha-guruṇā, svādhikārāt pramattaḥ
śāpen-āstaṃ-, gamita-mahimā, varṣa-bhogyeṇa bhartuḥ
yakṣaś cakre, janaka-tanayā-, snāna-puṇyodakeṣu
snigdha-cchāyā-, taruṣu vasatiṃ, rāma-giry-āśrameṣu
"Separated painfully from his beloved, after being negligent of his duty,
having lost his power by a curse, lasting for a year, of his master,
a certain yakṣa (nature deity) took up, where the water was made pure by the bathing of Janaka's daughter (Sita)
and shady trees were densely clustered, his residence in Rama's mountain hermitages."

When scanning Sanskrit poetry, the vowels e and o are always long.

Later use

Kālidāsa's poem was admired and imitated by many later poets, giving rise to a genre known as saṁdeśa-kāvya "message poems" or dūta-kāvya "messenger poems", mostly in the same metre, although other metres are sometimes used.[9] The mandākrāntā metre was also used in the play Mālatīmādhava by Bhavabhūti (8th century), for a scene in which the abandoned lover Mādhava searches for a cloud to take a message to his beloved Mālatī.[10]

References
  1. Morgan et al. (2011), p. 142.
  2. Deo (2007), p. 105.
  3. Reddy (2017), preface.
  4. Dr R. Ganesh, SanskritMetres 10 Shalini.
  5. Michael Hahn, A Brief Introduction p. 1
  6. Vṛtta-ratnākara 3.97; cf. Morgan (2011), p. 142.
  7. Described by Michael Hahn, A Brief Introduction, p. 1.
  8. According to the synoptic table in Pathak (1916).
  9. Lienhard (1984), p. 126.
  10. Lienhard (1984), p. 118.

Bibliography
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