A Secular Appreciation of Mayura's Surya Stakam

I attempt here to make a demystified appreciation of Mayura’s Surya Satakam, which over centuries has accumulated so much of myth around itself and its author. I must admit this exercise is an audacious attempt on my part since Sanskrit has never been my subject or medium of study at any stage during my student career. Whatever little understanding I have of Sanskrit is, ironically, through Telugu which itself has been greatly influenced and enriched by liberally borrowing its vocabulary from Sanskrit. As such, this is more an expression of my understanding of the work rather than a critical appreciation of it.

I delineate the contours and scope of this essay so that the learned reader may have a grasp of the limits and limitations of my exercise. I strongly believe that three forces act on poets (on any studious writer of any literary genre for that matter) during the course of his creative work… his times, his cultural background and his creative self. As such, a literary work should be critiqued keeping in mind firstly the period to which it belongs, secondly the cultural milieu of the poet, and finally the actual text of the work. We can put it in another way; when we have a good corpus of creative work, we can get a fair understanding of the political, cultural, social practices of the times; the philosophical grounding, the linguistic and literary capabilities, and the volition and prejudices of the poet; and how the corpus of work posits itself in relation to other works of the times … by interpolation and extrapolation. Further, I must also admit my prejudice against most of the Satakams written in praise of this God or that Goddess, as it has been my observation that in most cases there will be just a liberal dose of epithets, eulogies and Puranic references in them rather than any poetic excellence that pleases a literary enthusiast. And if at all there is any, it is more an exception than a rule. I don’t grudge the poet for that; after all, that was not the poet’s intention in the first place. But when I read, I look - besides the nuances of images and expressions - for the mathematical, astronomical and philosophical references and issues, which were our forte for ages before the continuity was snapped sometime somewhere.

When a small literary work like a Satakam of about four hundred lines survives more than thrice as many years; if its author with that singular work commands as much respect and attention in literature as the likes of Kalidasa, Dandi, Bharavi, and Bhavabhooti; if that work attracts attention of literati of alien lands and languages getting translated and expounded even after a millennium; such work beckons the attention of any serious student of literature. And to my pleasure, aided by the commentary of Paturi Sitaramanjaneyulu [1], I found this book an interesting exception, next only to Adi Sankara’s Sivanandalahari.

We should look at the kind of constraints the poet has set for himself, to make an honest assessment of his monumental effort. He wrote all the poems in the meter Sragdhara, a quatrain of 21 letters in 7 Ganas, triplets of long (guru) and short (laghu) vowel and consonant combinations, for each line in a specific order. That is too lengthy a meter that calls for exceptional command and skills over language and grammar to sustain interest. Otherwise, the entire effort would peter out into a meaningless exercise of indulgence of words. He uses no refrain (Makutam) which comes in handy to a poet taking care of a certain length of the fourth line in each quatrain. The main theme, which is too small to fill a hundred quatrains, is about Sun, an important though minor God in the hierarchy and without too many references or legends about him in the Hindu epics. (It is interesting to note that Mayura has not touched upon the two important legends regarding his parentage that occur in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. In fact, but for the personification, he has all through the Satakam treated Sun as merely a source of abundant energy and light, very much in sync with current scientific knowledge). All the wares that he employed in this work were some conventional poetic practices (kavi samayams), perhaps some contemporary knowledge of astronomy, his magnificence of language, his ingenuity of imagery, his precision and propriety of similes and metaphors and his innovative exuberance of fancy or imagination to felicitously contrive the popular legends from epics to his purpose.

In this context, I am reminded of a story of a family of poets … father, mother, son and daughter-in-law… visiting the court of King Bhoja to please him with their poetry and win some livelihood; the scholar king who was fastidious and a great connoisseur of arts, presents them with a samasya (a literary poser for an impromptu poetic versification) with the last line of a quatrain, and asks them to complete it. It reads: “kriyaa sidhdhih sattvE bhavati mahataam nOpakaraNE (Success accrues to great people … of their serenity - satva guna - and not of their apparatus). Each of them completes the samasya befitting their age and maturity. The father completes it with respect to Sun God which is relevant and worth mentioning here. I quote this to give an idea of the kind of apparatus Sun is equipped with.

“His chariot has only one wheel (Time), the seven horses snake in all directions (7 basic rays that spread multiplying in all directions), the road (firmament) is infirm or ‘base’less, and the charioteer (Anoora) is a cripple. Yet, Sun circles the infinite universe once every day… Why not? Success accrues to great people … of their serenity (satva guna) and not of their apparatus.”

The pleasantly surprising point is that in his deification of Sun as the visible God (pratyaksha daivam) and establishing his superiority over the triumvirate of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, (respectively the creator, sustainer and annihilator of the universe according to Hindu mythology) he relied on visible, physical, existential features rather than contrived or strained tropes just for the sake of embellishment.

Seamlessly blending his imagery into a vivid picture like a snapshot in each stanza, Mayura raised the status of his work from the scope of a Satakam to that of a Kavya. The end of a Kavya is to seek the welfare of the world (visvasrEyah kaavyam). (His refrain, not of text but in meaning, like ‘that you may be blessed (yushmaan paatu), may all your wishes be fulfilled (abhimatanudEstaat), may all your evils be annulled (kRcCaaNi haramtu )’ amply justifies it). That it could withstand the rigors of time and critics over centuries is a testimony in itself to its quality. Here are a few ideas, images, and metaphors that have immensely pleased me that I would like to share.

In a picturesque description of the wee hours of dawn in Sloka 50, Mayura compares Anoora to the Sootradhari (the person who initiates a performance on stage with his introduction and occasional interventions to indicate passage of time and action that cannot be displayed on stage). As the curtain of darkness slowly rises on the dais of Orient Mountain(praatah-Sailaagra-rangE,rajani-yavanikaapaaya) for the day-long four-act gripping drama of the world by Sun (each Yamam being the act of 3 hours duration), Anoora plays Sootradhari showering exotic starry flowers on the spectators invoking their attention. What a pen-painting!

This reminds me of Sloka 26 where he compares the pre-dawn tints of Sun’s rays with that of a paint brush which draws its colors from various sources on the palette. He says … the picture of the world is slowly unveiled before the canvas of the eye (and of course the mind’s eye as you read), as the sun’s rays borrow their pale whiteness from the moonshine (jyOtsnaam-Saakarsha-paanDu-dyuti); the slightly impure ashen shade from the departing night (timira-mashee SEshakalmaasham); the light yellowish hue from the pollen of the just blossoming lotuses (eeshat-jRmbhOdbhootEna-pingam-sarasija-rajasaa); and the reddish shade from the sandhya (sandhyayaa SONa-Sochi).

It is common to all cultures to deify forces of nature and give them lordship over one thing or the other. As per Indian mythology, Varuna is the rain god who is the lord of the West direction. He has many reins to drive the watery clouds to the places he desires; Krishna, one of the incarnations of Lord Vishnu, the sustainer of this world, has spinning discus as his chief weapon; Indra, the Lord of the Heaven and East has in his possession most of the magnificent things in the creation one of which is his famous horse Uccaisrava. Mayura knits a wonderful ingenuity using this information in Sloka 59. Reassuring his charioteer Anoora that his chariot would run with the harnesses it has, it seems, Sun is advising him not to seek any reins from Varuna for fear of failure to control the horses (paaSaan-aaSaantapaalaa-daruNa-varuNatO maa-graheeh pragrahaartham); nor to desire the discus of Krishna for a second wheel lest the chariot should trip running on one wheel at such speed (tRshNaam kRshNasya cakrE jahihi na hi rathO yaatimE-naika cakram), and not to hanker after Indra’s Uccaisrava feeling short of a horse (yOktum yugyam kimuccaiSSrava-samabhilasha-syashTamam vRtra-SatrO), as there are 8 directions and he has only 7 horses.

A goldsmith evaluates the quality of gold by melting, cutting and testing it on a touchstone. That Sun moves around Meru, the Mountain of gold in the Heavens is mythology. Mayura makes a lovely hyperbole out of that in Sloka 82. While passing over Meru, it appears that Sun is testing if it were really made of gold in the following three ways (taptaamSu-stat-pareekshaa-para-iva): by melting its peaks with the intense heat of his rays (cakravaalasya-taapaat), cutting it with the sharp hoofs of his speeding horses (cEdaa-dacCinnagacCat turaga-KurapuTanyaasa- niSSamka-Tamkaih) and testing its quality over the rim of his chariot’s wheel (nissanga syandanaanga bhramaNa nikashaNaat). When we imagine the picture and see how apposite the word “nissanga” (the rim of the wheel passing tangentially) is here, we cannot but admire Mayura’s precision of expression.

As per the current scientific understanding, Sun is 75% Hydrogen, 23% Helium and about 2% Heavy Elements including Gold (6 ten-billionth’s part of Sun which is roughly equivalent to 12 billion billion tonnes). He is almost half-way through his life burning 600 million tonnes of Hydrogen per second in its core and releasing light, heat and energy that makes Earth habitable by supporting all life forms and driving its climate and weather. It is expected to live for about another 5 billion years. Scientists now predict that in the next 1.1 billion years its brightness would increase by about 10 percent as a result of which our Earth would be superheated and all life forms would cease with all the seas boiling off and Earth reducing to a superheated rock. Against this background, some of the expressions in Sloka 78 make interesting reading. At the time of Pralaya or yugaamta (annihilation of the world), all the seas on the earth will boil and dry up to deserts (sushyant-yoodhaanukaaraa makara-vasatayO maaraveenaam-sthaleenaam), all the mountains of the world would crack and explode to the size of a Sesame seed (sphuTamtO-taDiti tila-tulaayaam yaanty-agEndraa).

And in Sloka 97 he mentions that when it is dusk in one island, it is dawn in another (dveepE-yOstaacalOsmin bhavati Kalu sa E vAparatrOdayaadri) and when the moon shines full bright here, it is hot day light in another place (yaa yaamin-yujjvalEmdu-dyutiriha divasO-nyatra deeptaatapassah); it is with Sun that time is reckoned and lands identified and he is not bound by time and land (yadvaSyou dESa-kaalaa viti niyamayatO nOtu yam dESa-kaalaa). This certainly indicates, I feel, that the people of Mayura’s times were aware that earth is not flat but round.

And his genius perhaps came out best when he demystifies Gods, though it is not in tune with his times. In Sloka 99, he says that if people refer Brahma as Yonissaamnaam (originator of Samaveda) instead of Vidhaata; Vishnu as Ajita (unconquerable) instead of Muraripu (the vanquisher of the demon Mura); Shiva as Samkara (one who blesses with all comforts) instead of Dhoorjati; Death as Time; Lord of the Alaka Puri, Kubera as Dhanada (one who blesses with riches) and the god of Fire as Paavaka (one who purifies everything), it is only for the sake of identification. But for all practical purposes these epithets don’t apply to them. He asserts that all of them respectively apply only to Sun since, … with his first appearance on the orient sky the birds start singing (saama), he is truly unconquerable (beyond our reach), he blesses all comforts to the world with his presence, it is Sun that truly makes time tick, blesses the world with rains and riches, and finally it is he who purifies things (sterilizes). That Sun is unconquerable is not pure figment of imagination. It was not until early 19th century, when Fraunhofer designed Spectroscope and viewed hundreds of spectral lines and Kirchoff showed that they come from incandescent sources that scientists made first attempts to know about Sun. Even to this day when we know a lot about Sun, scientists won’t say that they have known all about him that could be known. But whether the people of Mayura’s times were aware of this is an interesting question to be looked into.

The origin of this world is one of the most fascinating subjects to theology as well as to science. What was there before Big Bang was anybody’s guess and perhaps more intelligent guesses get approval and circulation; but again, it depends upon which side your loyalty lies … whether in science or in theology. Scientists believe that there was a huge gaseous matter that independently existed and gradually contracted to initiate Big Bang. Mayura wonderfully imagines (and perhaps that was the concept prevalent even amongst the theologians) and expresses the period before epoch of creation in Sloka 96 thus:
“Etat paataaLapanka phlutamiva tamasaachaika mudgaadhamaaseet aprajnaataa apratarkyaam niravagati tathaa llakshaNam suptamamtah, yaadRk sRshTE purastaat niSiniSi nikhilam jaayatE taadRgEva trailOkyam tadviyOgaat…”

(Like something that was immersed in the mire of PaataLa, the three-tier world was under a dense shroud of darkness… invisible to the senses and hermetic to reason, in a state of hibernation; and the world returns to that state every day in his absence. Here is an interesting sidelight: perhaps the cosmological knowledge of that time, viewed the skies as a Solar System independent of the Earth; but, of course, added Sun, the Moon and the points of intersections of the paths of Sun and Moon in the celestial sphere, called Rahu and Ketu, as planets to Mercury, Venus, Mars and Jupiter, and Saturn. (Planet Uranus was invented by British astronomer Hershel on March 13, 1781). We should, however, mark that Sun was given the central spot, as the epithet GrahagrAmaNi (Sloka 98 lord of the Planets) indicates.

In Sloka 31 he describes the state in which the life lies in Sun’s absence each day: with eyes closed (meelaccakshuh); ears insensitive (vijihma SRti); tongue insipid (jaDa raanam); nose impaired of its olfactory sense (nighnita ghraaNavRtti); skin devoid of its tactile sense (svavyaapaaraakshamatvak); an unmindful mind (parimushita manah); and, limbs languid and indifferent (visrastaamgam) with only breathing remaining (SvaaSamaatraavaSEsham) to give a feel of life - the world looks like a person bitten by the snake of time (kaalavyaalaavaleeDham). And Sun acts like an antidote to that venom, bringing it back to life.

He delights us with some of the finest similes, metaphors, pun on words and meaning, alliterations, assonances and other feats of language which double whenever we recollect them in a tranquil mood.

In Sloka 15, he compares the eight directions (digvadhoo) to young maidens. The baby rays of Sun appear like the just shooting visibly invisible tawny moustache on the boyish face of the lotus-eyed youth, the Day; and as the maidens look at him, they slip into a state of sweet imaginative pleasures looking amorously at him. (samadhika madhraalOka ramyaamavasthaa aaroodhaphroudhi lESOtkalita kapilimaalamkRti kEvalaiva; ujRmbhaambhOjanEtradyutini dinamuKE kimcit udbhidyamaanaa SmaSESrENeeva bhaasaam iva):
In Sloka 33 he uses 31 bha’s while in Sloka 98 he uses 13 gra’s (and 26 ga’s in all with various vowel and consonant combinations):

bhootvA jambhasyabhEttuh kakubhi paribhavArambha bhooh SubhrabhAnO
rbibhrANA babhrubhAvam prasabha mabhinavAmbhOja jRmbhApragalbhA
bhooshA bhooyishTaSObhA tribhuvanabhavanasyAsya vaibhAkaree prAg
vibhrAmti bhrAjamAnA vibhavatu vibhavOrbhootayE sA vibhAvah

vyagrairagragrahODu grasanagurubharai rnOsamagrai rudagraih
pratyagrai reeshadugrai rudayagirigatOgOgaNai rgourayangAm
udgADhArcirvileenA maranagaranagagrAva garbhAmivAhnA
magrEyOgrE vidhattE glapayatu hahanam sagraha grAmaNeervah

In Sloka 38, he regales with alliteration at the beginning and end of each line of the quatrain - achieved with authority over the word and grammar. For that matter, there is not a single line in any Sloka without a touch of these embellishments. The nuances and expressions in Sloka 92 are a scholar’s delight and it would be Quixotic to attempt to explain them for a dilettante like me.

In my opinion, Mayura’s Surya Satakam is a veritable trove of linguistic excellences coupled with conscious attempt to demystify Sun (though he deifies him) with universally known, accepted, observable, and sometimes verifiable phenomena. This is not a vain literary work in praise of Sun but an excellent source for critical enquiry into the cosmological knowledge of his times (assuming he belongs to 7th century CE) or to establish his times with the internal evidence. I consciously avoided mentioning of various debatable matters about the book, his times and his person because of my limitations.

While it is heartening to note that it caught the attention of Carlo Berheimer [2] who translated it into Italian and Quackenbos [3] who translated it into English (along with Mayurashtaka [4a] [4b] and Bana’s Chandi Sataka) and was scholarly reviewed and corrected by Edgerton Franklin [5], it is deeply disheartening to note that no scholarly follow up or references from Indian counterparts are available (at least to me) after Quackenbos. It was edited, explained and commented upon in Sinhalese as can be seen from WS manuscripts [7] WS 21, WS 205, WS 232, WS 271and WS 358. Though there are several commentaries, the oldest version is that of Tribhuvanapala - edited by Pandit Durgaprasad and Kaasinatha Panduranga Parab [6], the copies are not available in Indian Universities. (If they are, it shows the necessity to put them in the public domain.)

But more importantly, there are many lessons to learn here. Quackenbos’ work published in the Indo-Iranian series vol.9 has a translation of Mayurashtaka. The text of this, he mentions, he got from a unique manuscript available with the University of Tübingen, Germany. It looks there have been no commentaries after that, as there had been none before. It is certainly a good research material. The WS manuscripts, among other things will be useful for comparison of textual variations in the Surya Satakam. With Telugu along with Kannada, Tamil enjoying the Classical Language status with Sanskrit, it is imperative that we should scout for every manuscript, one way or other connected with these languages, that is available in Universities and libraries world over but not available in India (This can be done with the help of Indian diaspora). This also speaks of the necessity for all the Indian Universities and public libraries to form a network to make all works of language and literature available in catalogue form as well as texts in the public domain, wherever there are no copyright issues. The links of these languages with other oriental languages should also be explored; those languages should get into curricula, and inter-language translation projects get encouraged. Private manuscripts, inscriptions, insignia on paper, leaf, skin or metal that are available in people’s homes and kept as valuable and sacred possessions may be collected or digitized with the support of the families in immediate future. That would be a real tribute to people who sustained the language and culture to pass it on to us.

Notes:
[1] Sitaramanjaneyulu, Brahma Sri Paturi, Mayura Mahakavi Krutam Sree Soorya Satakam, Tagore Publishing House, Hyderabad, 2005.

[2] Berheimer Carlo, Suuryacatakam di Mayura introduzione traduzione e note, Livorno, Tipografia di R. Giusti, 1905, 42 pp. Italian.
(There are two books one each available with Cleveland Public Library and Columbia University, US)

[3]Quackenbos, George Payn, The Sanskrit Poems of Mayura, edited with translation and notes and an introduction, together with the text and translation of Bana’s Chandisataka, Columbia University Indo-Iranian Series Vol. 9, Ed. A V Williams Jackson.

[4a] Quackenbos, George Payn, Mayurashtaka, Journal of the American Oriental Society for 1911 vol.31 pp. 343-354; (discovered and edited for the first time from a unique manuscript in the Library of the University of Tübingen, in JAOS.31. 343 ff.)

[4b] Quackenbos, George Payn, The Sanskrit Poems of Mayura, edited with translation and notes and an introduction, together with the text and translation of Bana’s Candisataka, Columbia University Indo-Iranian Series Vol 9, Ed. A V Williams Jackson.
(http://archive.org/stream/indoiranianseri00univgoog/indoiranianseri00univgoog_djvu.txt)

[5]Edgerton Franklin, American Journal of Philology, volume 38, no.4, 1917. (Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/288969) published by The Johns Hopkins University Press.
[6] Mayura, The Suryasataka, with commentary by Tribhuvanapala, Ed. Pandit Durgaprasad and Kaasinatha Panduranga Parab, Kavyamala Series 19, Nirnaya Sagara Press, Bombay, 1889, 51 pp.
(Available with (a) University of Manitoba Libraries, Winnipeg, MB R3T 2N2 Canada, Universities of Oxford and Cambridge UK and with Columbia University, Brown university, Harvard University US with OCLC no. 85086780; (b) Cleveland Public Library and Yale University with OCLC No. 7465913
[7] Sinhalese Manuscripts - The Wellcome Library - Wellcome Trustlibrary.wellcome.ac.uk/assets/wtx063099.pdf)

Books Consulted:
(1) Sitaramanjaneyulu, Brahma Sri Paturi, Mayura Mahakavi Krutam Sree Soorya Satakam, Tagore Publishing House, Hyderabad, 2005.
(2)