Samasya Poornam – Part III

In an earlier post in this space, I had shared some well known samasya pooranam examples from samskrta and some more examples from Kannada poetry. Later, I had also shared some of my own solutions for samasya pooranam questions posted on Padyapaana. Since there were a few more such verses since the last post, I thought rounding them up here.

The first one is a question set in the Shardula vikreedita meter:

ಕುಣಿದಿರ್ಕುಂ ನಲಿವಿಂದೆ ಸೋಗೆಸೊಗದೊಳ್ ಕಾರ್ಗಾಲಕಿಂ ಮುನ್ನಮೇ

It’s well known that peacocks dance at the arrival of the monsoon rains. However the problem given here states the peacock is dancing much before monsoon.

For a solution, I took a few very unlikely events such as fish surviving in sand and lions eating grass,  and composed a verse saying if those unlikely events do happen, then a peacock can as well dance without clouds and rain. Here goes my solution:

ಉಣಿಸಂ ನೀಡಿರೆ ತಾಯಿ ತಾನು ಮುದದೊಳ್ ಬಾಯ್ಮುಚ್ಚೆ ತಾ ಕಂದನುಂ

ಸೊಣಗಂ ಬಾಲಮನೆಟ್ಟಗಿರ್ಟು ನಡೆಯಲ್ ಪುಲ್ಲಂ ತಿನಲ್ ಸಿಂಗಮುಂ

ಮಣಲೊಳ್ ಮೀನ್ಗಳು ಕಟ್ಟ ಪೋಗೆ ಮನೆಯಂ ನೀರಾನೆ ತಾ ನರ್ತಿಸಲ್

ಕುಣಿದಿರ್ಕುಂ ನಲಿವಿಂದೆ ಸೋಗೆಸೊಗದೊಳ್ ಕಾರ್ಗಾಲಕಿಂ ಮುನ್ನಮೇ

The next samasyapooranam is about the five arrows of the Love God, Manmatha. It is said that Manmatha carries a bow made of sugarcane, and has five arrows made of flowers. But the problem given here says that Manmatha carries 10 arrows, and not five.

ಮನಸಿಜನ ಬಳಿ ಹತ್ತು ಬಾಣಗಳಿರುವುದೇ ನಿಜವೈ!

Samasya pooranam involves lot of word play. So it is quite possible to turn one thing into another! I used a fact from Saint Tyagarja’s life to complete this verse. Composer Tyagaraja was an ardent devotee of Rama, but married twice in his life unlike Rama. If such a devotee should marry again after his first wife passed away, it should indeed be because the lord of Love should have had another set of arrows, thus making it ten in total!

ಅನವರತದೊಳು ತ್ಯಾಗರಾಜನು
ವಿನಯದಲಿ ಜಾನಕಿಯ ಪತಿಯನೆ
ಕನವರಿಕೆಯಲು ಭಕ್ತಿವೈರಾಗ್ಯದಲಿ ನೆನೆದಾತ;
ಕೊನೆಯುಸಿರೆಳೆಯೆ ಮಡದಿ ಪಾರ್ವತಿ
ಯನುಜೆಯನು ಮರುಲಗ್ನವಾದನೆ!
ಮನಸಿಜನ ಬಳಿ ಹತ್ತುಬಾಣಗಳಿರುವುದೇ ನಿಜವೈ!

It is quite possible to write multiple solutions to the same problem in Samasya Poornam. So here is one more solution to the same problem,where I changed the last line a bit keeping the same meaning.

The Love God Manmatha is said to visit Earth during the spring season , but as we know the spring occurs in different times in the northern and southern hemispheres, he then should have two sets of five arrows- and the following verse is written about these ten arrows of Manmatha.

ಉತ್ತರದಲರೆಭಾಗ ಪೃಥಿವಿಗೆ
ಚಿತ್ತಚೋರ ವಸಂತ ಕಾಲದ
ಲತ್ತ ಹೂಡುವನೈದು ಹೂವಿನ ಶರವ ಮುದದಿಂದ
ಮತ್ತೆ ಪೋಗುವ ದಕ್ಷಿಣದ ಕಡೆ
ಗತ್ತ ಪ್ರೀತಿಯ ಸೊದೆಯ ಹಂಚಲು!
ಹತ್ತುಬಾಣಗಳಿಹುದೆ ಸೈ ಮನ್ಮಥನ ಚೀಲದಲಿ !

After having spent arrows made of lotus, ashoka, mango, blue lily and jasmine flowers during the spring in the northern hemisphere, if Manmatha has to go to the southern hemisphere he must indeed have a second set of these love arrows!

Another problem given on Padyapaana  was to complete a verse that ends in the phrase ಮಳೆಯು ಮುದವಾಯ್ತು.  By the time I saw the problem, there were already a bunch of solutions. So I had to look for a different type of shower, a meteor shower in this case:

ಕುಳಿರುಗಾಳಿಯ ಮಾರ್ಗಶಿರದಲಿ
ಚಳಿಯ ತಡೆಯಲು ತೊಟ್ಟು ಟೊಪ್ಪಿಯಿ-
ರುಳಿನ ಮೂರನೆ ಜಾವಕೆನ್ನುತ ಕಾದು ಕುಳಿತಾಯ್ತು
ಇಳೆಯ ಹಾದಿಯ ಬಾಲಚಿಕ್ಕೆಯ
ಪಳೆಯುಳಿಕೆಗಳು ಹಾದುಹೋಗಿರೆ
ಹೊಳೆಯುತಾಗಸ ತುಂಬಿ ಲಿಯೊನಿಡ್ಸ್ ಮಳೆಯು ಮುದವಾಯ್ತು!

Leonids meteor shower is seen during mid November every year, and the solution describes how waiting for the meteor  shower in a chilly winter night was fruitful with a fabulous display of the meteors in the sky.

I will end with another samasya pooranam, set in Bhamini shatpadi. This was a question given to the audience in an Ashtavadhana in Puttur a few years ago.  The line given was

ಹರುಷದಿಂದರ್ಜುನನು ಸಾರಥಿಯಾದ ಕೃಷ್ಣನಿಗೆ

We all know that Krishna was the charioteer for Arjuna during the Mahabharata war. However this line is stating otherwise – ” Happily, Arjuna became the charioteer for Krishna”. Quite interesting indeed.

I ended up writing more than 30 solutions to this question – some of them relating to the final battle of Karna and Arjuna are posted in this link, but will post a couple of lighthearted ones here:

ತುರಿದು ಕಾಯನು ಘಮಘಮೆನ್ನುತ
ಹುರಿದ ರವೆಯುಪ್ಪಿಟ್ಟು ಮಾಡುವೆ
ತರುವ ಸಮಯವು ಬಾಲಕೃಷ್ಣನ ಶಾಲೆಯಿಂದೆನಲು
ಹೊರಟನರ್ಜುನ ಪುಟ್ಟ ಮಗನನು
ಕರೆದು ಮಾರುತಿಯೊಳಗೆ ಕೂರಿಸಿ
ಹರುಷದಿ೦ದರ್ಜುನನು ಸಾರಥಿಯಾದ ಕೃಷ್ಣನಿಗೆ॥

ವಿರಸ ಬೇಡೆಲೆ ಮಾನಿನೀ ನಾ-
ನರಸುತಿಲ್ಲವು ಸುಳ್ಳುಕಾರಣ
ಕರೆಯಬೇಡವೆ ಮಾಲಿಗೇ ಶಾಪಿಂಗ ನಾ ಮಾಣೆ ।
ಹೊರಡಬೇಕಿದೆ ಮಗನು ಟ್ಯೂಷನ್
ತರಗತಿಗೆ ತುಸು ಹೊತ್ತಿನಲೆನುತ
ಹರುಷದಿ೦ದರ್ಜುನನು ಸಾರಥಿಯಾದ ಕೃಷ್ಣನಿಗೆ॥

In the above contemporary solutions, Arjuna is the dad of a lad named Krishna, and drives the boy in his car. In the second one, he is also trying to avoid going shopping in the pretext of taking the child to a class.  🙂

-neelanjana

Image courtesy: Manmatha Vijaya, on the ceiling of Virupaksha temple, Hampi; taken from http://iiacd.org/murals-south-india/#/hampi-virupaksha-temple-ceiling-paintings-interactive-plan