The Ocean of Prosody

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About the Author R.V.S. Sundaram retired as Professor and Director of the Kuvempu Institute of Kannada Studies at the University of Mysore in 2008, where he taught for 39 years. He was also Visiting Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. He has published over one hundred books and monographs in Kannada, Telugu and English. These include translations of classical texts like Udayaditya Alankāram (with Gil-Benherut, Centre of Excellence for Studies in Classical Kannada, 2015), Andhra sabdacintamani (with Deven M. Patel, Centre of Excellence for Studies in Classical Telugu, 2016), Kavirajamārgam (with Deven M. Patel, JNU and Manohar, 2017), and Vadḍaradhane (with Shubhachandra and H.S. Kamalesh, JNU and Manohar, 2020).

Ammel Sharon has translated a medieval Kannada epic, Ranna's Gadayuddham, with R.V.S. Sundaram as The Duel of the Maces (JNU and Manohar, 2018 and Routledge, 2021). She holds an M.Phil. Degree from the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta where she is pursuing her PhD.

Foreword Kannada, a major Indian language, has made rich contributions to literature for over a thousand years. In 2008, it was accorded the status of a classical language by the Government of India, following which the Central University of Karnataka established the Centre for Classical Language - Kannada, supported by the Ministry of Human Resource Development in 2011.

The Centre is pleased to publish the English translation of Nagavarma's Chandombudhi, the earliest treatise on Kannada Prosody. It is an excellent classical text in Kannada and continues to be a text book for students of Kannada language and literature. This translation is expected to extend the vistas of knowledge prevalent in Kannada.

Professor R.V.S. Sundaram is engaged in the commendable task of translating classical Kannada texts into English. Sundaram and Ammel Sharon have already published an English translation of Ranna's great epic, Gadayuddham. Now, they have taken the responsibility of introducing this important text to the world.

I am pleased to make this text available on behalf of the Centre for Classical Language - Kannada. I am sure that it will receive the appreciation of scholars and students interested in classical studies.

Introduction It is sometimes said that prosody is the heartbeat of poetry. While the word 'prosody' comes from the Latin root prosodeia, itself based on the Greek prosodie which means 'song with accompaniment', it has led to some mistaken conflation between music and poetry. But poetry does not conform to western musical expressions, like, harmony or timbre. Rather than describe poetry as 'musical', the critic Alfred Corn suggests we use terms such as "effective sound", "expressive rhythm" or "rich verbal texture." Music and poetry, nonetheless, share a concern with 'rhythm' which means to flow.

The pleasure of rhythm lies in its repetition of accents in sequence. The Sanskrit word for prosody is chandas which derives from a root that means pleasure. The text we have translated, Chandombudhi or the Ocean of Prosody, is written within metrical traditions that span Sanskrit, Prakrit, Apabhramsa and many regional languages. Indeed, the title of the work recalls the seventh century Sanskrit poet, Dandin, who said,

Metre is a veritable ship,

for those who want to go,

across the vast ocean of poetry (Kavyādarśa, 1.12)

The earliest work in this tradition is by Pingala in Sanskrit, whom our poet Navavarma also acknowledges. Kannada Chandas borrows some metrical structure and creates some of its own.

Book's Contents and Sample Pages