Poetry (Padyam): Meaning, Metre and Appreciation
What is tested
Prescribed verses: padaccheda and anvaya, word-by-word meaning, a prose paraphrase, and appreciation - alaṃkāra, rasa, chandas and the lesson or sentiment. Verses are typically drawn from subhāṣita collections, the epics, Bhartṛhari's śatakas and classical kāvya.
Core tools
- Anvaya: rearrange into subject–object–verb. Verse scrambles order for metre, not for meaning.
- Chandas: count syllables per quarter - anuṣṭubh 8, indravajrā and upendravajrā 11, vasantatilakā 14, mālinī 15, śārdūlavikrīḍita 19. Āryā is counted in mātrās, not syllables.
- Alaṃkāra: upamā (comparison - identify upameya and upamāna); rūpaka (metaphor - the two are identified); utprekṣā (as if); arthāntaranyāsa (a general truth clinching a particular statement); anuprāsa (alliteration); atiśayokti (hyperbole).
- Rasa: name one only when the verse actually evokes it - śṛṅgāra, vīra, karuṇa, hāsya, śānta, adbhuta.
Worked example
vidyā dadāti vinayaṃ vinayād yāti pātratām / pātratvād dhanam āpnoti dhanād dharmaṃ tataḥ sukham.
- The anvaya is already linear: the last word of each quarter becomes the cause in the next.
- Sense: knowledge gives humility; humility brings worthiness; worthiness, wealth; wealth, merit; and from merit, happiness.
- Metre: anuṣṭubh, eight syllables a quarter.
- Figure: a chain of cause and effect closing in a general maxim - usually labelled arthāntaranyāsa; some textbooks call such a chain kāraṇamālā. Name your figure and justify it by pointing to the two elements involved.
Traps
Offering a vague "theme" instead of a translation; naming an alaṃkāra without saying what is compared with what; miscounting syllables by doubling consonants in a cluster or by counting a final visarga as a syllable; and inventing a rasa the verse does not carry.