Early History of the Vaishnava Faith and Movement in Bengal, from Sanskrit and Bengali Sources c11.s5.95

c11.s5.95

The Aṣṭādaśa-cchandas, as its name implies, makes similar attempts at eighteen Chandas or rhythmic prose and verse forms, but it is more diversified in content inasmuch as it proposes, in the succeeding pieces, to deal with some of the episodes of Vṛndāvana-līlā, ranging from birth (Nandotsava) to the slaying of Kaṃsa (Raṅgasthala-krīḍā). The charming names of the eighteen Chandas are Gucchaka, Koraka, Anukula, Praphulla-kusumāvali, Kala-gita, Aśoka-puṣpa-mañjarī, Anaṅgaśekhara, Dvipadikā, Hārihariṇa, Indirā, Matta-mātaṅga-līlā-kara, Mugdha-saurabha, Samphulla, Lalita-bhṛṅga, Kānti-ḍambara, Mukhadeva, Gucchaka (different from the first-named) and Bhṛṅgāra, applied successively to the familiar eighteen topics of Nandotsavādi, Sakaṭa-bhaṅgādi, Yamalārjuna-mocana, Go-vatsa-cāraṇādi, Vatsa-haraṇādi, Tālavana-carita, Kālīya-damana, Bhāṇḍīra-krīḍādi, Varṣā-śarad-vihāra, Vastra-haraṇa, Yājñapatnī-prasāda, Govar-dhanoddharaṇa, Nandāpaharaṇa, Rāsa-krīḍā, Sudarśana-mocana, Gopikā-gīta, Ariṣṭavadhādi, and Raṅga-sthalakrīḍā, (=Kamsa-vadha). Although some of the metres, like Aśoka-puṣpa-mañjarī, Anaṅga-śekhara and Matta-mātaṅga-līlā-kara are included in the Daṇḍaka class of metres in such orthodox works on Prosody as the Vṛtta-ratnākara, most of them, not so reckoned, are of the Gaṇa-cchandas or Mātrā-cchandas type. But since the Gaṇa and Mātrā schemes are also the basis of the Biruda Vṛttas, this group of metrical and rhymed Chandas bears a close resemblance to the Birudas. The stretches of the stanzas, with their non-stop lines ranging from eight to sixty, are too lengthy for full quotations here, but we cite a few lines only from some of them to illustrate the variety of verbal melody which they attain: