The “Rukminiparinaya”
of Bellamkonda Rama Raya Kavi
Dr. K. S. R. DATTA
Bellamkonda Rama Raya (A. D. 1875-1914) was a great Sanskrit writer who made
a significant contribution to Sanskrit and Advaita
Vedanta. He was born in Pamidipadu in Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh. In a short span of 38
years of his life he produced 143 works including kavyas,
stotras and works on ethics, grammar, and Advaita Vedanta. His major works are the Bhagavadgitabhashyarthaprakasika, Sankarasankarabhashyavimarsah etc., where he meets the
criticism of Ramanuja and Vedanta Desika
against Sankara and gives a word-to-word reply to
their arguments. All his writings have the characteristic clarity and lucidity.
Though mainly a philosopher, Rama
Raya was able to write, like Vedanta Desika, sweet poetry too apart from dry and abstract
subjects like Vedanta or Dharma-sastra. Poetry wooed
him in his early age. So the art of writing poetry was acquired by him not by
his effort but by the grace of Lord Hayagriva. He was
a born-poet. Being highly proficient both in kavyas
and sastras he could be called, in
the words of Rajasekhara, an ubhayakavi.
His mastery over sastras like the
grammar, logic and Vedanta amply justifies his writing of poetry, since a knowledge of these sastras
is considered a necessary pre-requisite for writing kavyas.
Rama Raya was inspired by
the sweet and devotional poetry of ancient writers, especially of Kalidasa, Santara and Vedanta Desika. His intense devotion to God and his love for poetry
made him produce a few independent poetical works. He combined devotion and poetry
in his works and thus made his life fruitful.
The following kavyas
of Rama Raya are
available to us. 1) Srikrishnalilatarangini,
2) Samudramathana-campuh, 3) Rukmini-parinaya-campuh, 4) Kandarpadarpavilasa-bhanah.
Now let us study briefly the Rukminiparinaya-campuh.
As the name suggests, the work deals with the story
of Krishna wedding Rukmini. The adhyayas
52, 53 and 54 of the tenth skandha of
the Bhagavata-purana, depicting the
story of Lord Krishna marrying Rukmini, form the
basis of the present work. While the story in the original is only in 161
verses and is small and simple, it has been elaborated by Rama
Raya. This work is in nine vilasas
or chapters and is comparatively smaller than Rama
Raya’s other kavyas.
It contains 618 verses and 53 prose pieces. Vilasa
II, the biggest of all, has 111 verses and six prose pieces. The prose
pieces are small and the entire work has not more than ten big gadyas; but for the small number of gadyas, this work is more a padyakavya than a campuh.
There is a very brief commentary by Rama Raya himself on this and he
has not named it. He observes in the beginning of the commentary on the first
verse that he writes his own commentary lest he should be misconstrued.
However, it does not satisfy the pancalakshanas
of a standard commentary.
The Rukminiparinaya-campuh
is a typical mahakavya fulfilling
all the requisites. It commences with a salutation to Madhava,
Who is the Supreme Soul, Who is otherwise called satyam,
jnanam and anantam.
The author observes that even a matter of fact statement (svabhavokti) made with regard to gods like Brahma and others,
will be hyperbolic; on the other hand, any hyperbolic statement, made by
Brahma, etc., will be a natural statement with regard to Madhava.
Krishna (Madhava) is the hero and Rukmini
is the heroine of the work and sringara is
the chief sentiment. Rama Raya
states that his work, which may contain some blemishes, will yet be delightful
and sweet like the indistinct words of a parrot.
The story as contained in this work is mostly faithful
to the core of the original, i. e., the Bhagavata-purana with a few deviations or
innovations. Rukmini, the daughter of Bhishma, the king of Kundina,
aspires to marry Krishna Whose virtues, narrated and praised by her father’s
bards, have attracted her to Him. But her brother, Rukmi,
insists on her being wed to Sisupala whom she
dislikes. She sends her message of love; through a Brahmin, to Krishna. That
Brahmin returns and informs her of Krishna’s readiness to marry her. On the day
of wedding, Krishna arrives at Kundina along with Balarama and takes away Rukmini
on his chariot while all the princes look on helplessly. When Rukmi chases and hurls abuses at him, Krishna shows his Narasimharupa and tries to kill him. But, he desists from
killing as Rukmini intervenes. Krishna reaches Dvaraka along with Balarama and Rukmini. In the meanwhile, Bhishma
too arrives at Dvaraka and he himself celebrates the
marriage of his daughter with Krishna. Thus, Rukmini
weds Krishna and leads a happy life with him. A close study of this work
reveals that Rama Raya has
imitated and profusely drawn from the Krishnalilatarangini
(Taranga XII) of Narayanatirtha
in the field of story, descriptions, etc.
The poet has made the following innovations in the
story: (1) the Brahmin messenger returns to Kundina
and reports to Rukmini about Krishna’s agreeing to
marry her as desired by her while in the original story it is stated that
Krishna, along with His retinue and the Brahmin, came straight to Kundina. Later, on Krishna’s arrival, the Brahmin informed Rukmini of Krishna’s plan to take her away to Dvaraka. (2) Krishna shows his Nrisimhavatara
to Rukmini and attempts to kill him. This is not
found in the original story. (3) Rukmini intervenes
and begs of Krishna in philosophical terms to desist from killing her brother.
(4) Rukmini’s father comes to Dvaraka
to celebrate his daughter’s marriage with Krishna. The original story says that
Krishna married her at Dvaraka and it seems no
relative of her attended the marriage.
The author seems to have been influenced much by
the story contained in Bammera Potana’s
Andhramahabhagavata in the context of
the wedding of Rukmini, in places like Rukmini sending a message to Krishna through a Brahmin and
her worry over his delay in returning from Dvaraka.
The only deviation herein is that Krishna is described as having shown his
ferocious Narasimharupa to kill Rukmi.
In matters like describing Rukmini’s
intense love for Krishna (Vilasa I), the beauty of Rukmini (Vilasa II), the marriage of Krishna
and Rukmini (Vilasa VIII), the applause of the
ladies of the town for the fine match of Rukmini and Krisbna (Vilasa III) and the love sports of
Krishna and Rukmini (Vilasa
IX), Rama Raya closely
imitates Kalidasa’s description of Parvati’s beauty, her marriage with Lord Siva, the ladies
of Oshadhiprastha eulogising
the match of Siva and Parvati and their love sports.
During the wedding, Bhishma,
while offering his daughter to Krishna says. “This, my daughter, who is very
dear to me like my heart, is being offered to you. May she be accepted by you
as your better half, ardhangi.” This
is reminiscent of the King Janaka’s saying, while
giving away Sita to Rama in
marriage. The priest remarks that Krishna’s wish was to make Rukmini his purnangi and
not merely his ardhangi and this is a
unique way of indicating Krishna’s abundant love for Rukmini.
Though Rama Raya is a devotee of Hayagriva
(Vishnu), he is equally devotional to other gods. He bursts into raptures of praise
when he makes Rukmini eulogise
the goddess Gauri in the temple a little before her
proposed marriage with Sisupala. These slokas, full of devotion, evidently show that
he was influenced by the Devidasasloki attributed
to Kalidasa.
The poet seizes every opportunity to portray
Krishna as the Supreme God, Who creates, maintains and destroys this Universe
and Who grants moksha
to all the individual souls. These philosophical ideas are very
ingeniously put into the mouth of Rukmini who eulogises and entreats the enraged Krishna to pardon and
save the life of her brother.
To demonstrate his knowledge of the mantras, slokas etc., recited during the wedding ceremony, the
poet has composed eight verses called mangalashtakas
recited during the marriage of Krishna with Rukmini,
wishing well to the couple and this is rarely done by other writers. The Vedic
ideas like Yo vaitaam
brahmano veda …(Taittiriyaranyaka, 1,27,3)
and Sahasrasirsha purushah
sahasrakshah ........ Rigveda
X, 90. 1) are incorporated in certain verses as
eulogies of Lord Krishna by Brahma, Rudra and Indra.
Rama Raya’s proficiency in
the Kamasutras is also well revealed
when he describes the love-sports of Krishna and Rukmini
in detail in Vilasa IX. It may be
mentioned here without any reservation that he goes a step further than Kalidasa in describing the love-sports. Perhaps he was
guided by the Bhagavatacampu which too is
highly erotic in canto VI.
In accomplishing some astonishing feat of verbal
jugglery Rama Raya shows
great skill in the ingenious construction of verses known as the citrabandas and follows the examples found in
the Kiratarjuniya (canto XV), the Sisupalavadha (canto XIX) and the Yadavabhyudaya
(canto VI). He has exhibited his mastery of metrics by using a variety of metres. Being an Andhra, he introduces, now and then, rules
of Telugu prosody like praasamaitri and
yatiniyama in canto VII.
An interesting feature of Rama
Raya’s work lies in the way of skillfully introducing
the manners and customs of Telugu people observed during marriages. He has
composed .and introduced five nirajanaslokas
called Mangalahaarati-paatalu in
Telugu, which are recited by the elderly suvasini
ladies, who hold and wave, by way of blessing the couple, a metallic plate
containing water mixed with turmeric and lime powder. This is an auspicious
custom observed even now in Andhra and other parts of South India. The suvasini ladies, wishing well of Krishna is
imitative of Kausalya’s conferring blessings on Rama at the time of his going to the forest.
He seems to compete as it were with Bana in writing prose with long and high-sounding compounds
whose meaning can be known after the second or third reading only with the help
of a lexicon. His descriptions are often graphic and effective and for this
purpose he resorts to gadya. He uses a
variety of sabdalanakaras and arthalankaras. though
he composed this work after the Samudramathana-campu
and the Ramaparinaya-campu, which
are simple and easy in style, he must have written this in order to display his
learning and skill in writing in an ornate style also. He claims, in his
commentary on the first verse of the first canto, that this work is an uttama-kavya since it abounds in dhvani or suggestion.