Retold by DKM Kartha
प्रसिद्धं चैतल्लोके कथानकम्
भुजङ्ग प्रयातो भुजङ्ग प्रयातः
भुजङ्ग प्रयातो भुजङ्ग प्रयातः |
भुजङ्ग प्रयातो भुजङ्ग प्रयातः
भुजङ्ग प्रयातो भुजङ्ग प्रयातः ||
bhujaṅga prayātō bhujaṅga prayātaḥ
bhujaṅga prayātō bhujaṅga prayātaḥ |
bhujaṅga prayātō bhujaṅga prayātaḥ
bhujaṅga prayātō bhujaṅga prayātaḥ ||
A story is told in a meter-related book by Lakṣmīnātha Bhaṭṭa about the magical power of metrical composition:
Lord Viṣṇu’s divine bed, śēṣanāga, also known as Ananta — the endlessly long one — is the first expositor of the Metrical Science or Chanda:śāstra, which is an ancillary to the Vedic corpus although there are laukika (non-Vedic) meters as well in our tradition. The divine śēṣa was also going to take birth in later eras as Lakṣmaṇa, Balarāma , and more interestingly as the great grammarian Patañjali, the author of the celebrated commentary on Pāṇini’s Aṣṭādhyāyī. In our story, śēṣanāga one day became curious about the weight of the earth that he habitually carries. To calculate the terrestrial weight, he came down on the earth to measure its area. Right then, Garuḍa, the perpetual enemy of snakes, caught sight of him and flew down to catch śēṣa and kill him off before eating him up as a hawk is a natural predator of snakes.
As death was imminent between the beak of śēṣa’s own step-brother Garuḍa younger in age, the divine serpent tried a tactic to put off his death by a few minutes. He told his step-brother between gasps that he knew an amazing body of knowledge about Meter in poetry (as well as in mantra-s and lyrics). Could Garuḍa kindly spare a few moments and listen to the remarkable science of Chandas? Later, the bird could freely consume his natural prey, the snake.
Garuḍa was enchanted by what his older step-brother śēṣa narrated about the magic of using words in rhythmically attractive ways and creating lines of varying lengths. The divine serpent told the divine bird about the classification of syllables into groups
(gaṇa-s) based on whether the syllables were guru or laghu — long or short | light or heavy — and other facts about rhythm, tempo, pauses, etc. occurring in meters of a bewildering variety. The eloquent śēṣa who had a thousand tongues was all praise about the Vedic Chandas and described clearly how in the Vedic realm, Chandas has the same significance and receives the same respect as the Dēvatā, r̥ṣi, and Viniyōga in each and every Vedic mantra.
Garuḍa responded: “I am fully spellbound by the science that you have explained to me. I did not know that Chandas in mantra, meter in poetry, and laya in music are similar powers which Vaak (Expressivity) has as described by you. And I am happy to have learned that each meter has a picturesque name such as Tiger Play (śārdūla vikrīḍitaṁ), Separated Heroine (viyōgini), and so on. Kindly give me an example where I can hear and experience the magical power meters have.”
The infinitely clever and verbally astute śēṣanāga chose Bhujaṅga-prayātaḥ, a meter with twelve syllables in each line. The name of the meter means the “Peculiar Movement of the Serpent.” He recited a stanza of four lines, which uses the title itself repeatedly to create the metrical structure because the two words ‘Bhujaṅga’ and ‘Prayātaḥ’ repeated twice fit the requirement per line of the meter Bhujaṅga-prayātaḥ!!
bhujaṅga prayātō bhujaṅga prayātaḥ
bhujaṅga prayātō bhujaṅga prayātaḥ |
bhujaṅga prayātō bhujaṅga prayātaḥ
bhujaṅga prayātō bhujaṅga prayātaḥ ||
The peaceful flow of the twelve syllables in each line created a lull in the mind of Garuḍa and he was able to enter a kind of samādhi — the super-conscious state described in the Yogic science. This state also involves a withdrawal of the senses and a suspension of normal logical activities.
Utilizing the temporary suspension of the senses and the mind of his younger step brother, śēṣanāga slithered away and escaped.
“Foul, foul,’ cried out, the cheated bird! “You had promised that I could eat you up after listening to your narration! Now you are slithering away!”
The divine serpent countered: “You are right, but you did not pay attention to the meaning of each of the words in my stanza as you were under the spell of the meter. I repeated my message eight times in the space of four lines: “the snake is leaving, the snake is leaving. Bhujaṅgah = the animal that moves using its torso; prayātaḥ = is enacting its special movement = slithering. As I informed you of my slithering away before actually doing it, you cannot blame me for doing what I did because I gave you eight warnings! Esteemed Garuḍa! You have no one to blame except your own inattention to the meaning of my words. Or, perhaps you can blame your vulnerability to the charms of meter? You decide! Farewell!”