Padya (Poetry): Rasa, Alankara and Chhand
What Padya tests
Padya tests your handling of Sanskrit verse: padacheda, anvaya, meaning, poet's message, rasa/bhava, alankara, and chhand. You must read a verse as a unified statement, not as isolated words, and justify literary labels with evidence from the verse.
Core rules
- Split compounds and sandhi carefully; a wrong split changes the metre and meaning.
- Restore anvaya before identifying the figure of speech.
- Name the alankara only after showing its components: upameya, upamana, sadharmya, and upamavachaka for upama.
- For rasa, link the emotion to situation, character and words; do not simply write 'karuna rasa' without support.
- Count syllables per quarter for chhand; note laghu/guru and the gana pattern where required.
Worked example
Verse line: तव मुखं चन्द्र इव शोभते।
- Meaning: Your face shines like the moon.
- Upameya: मुखम् (face). Upamana: चन्द्रः (moon). Sadharmya: शोभा (radiance). Upamavachaka: इव (like).
- Therefore the alankara is उपमा, not रूपक. If the line were मुखमेव चन्द्रः, the face would be identified with the moon, giving रूपक.
- For chhand, count each quarter separately; a 32-syllable four-quarter verse points to अनुष्टुभ्, while longer quarters suggest metres such as वसन्ततिलका or मन्दाक्रान्ता.
Traps
Calling every comparison upama even when the comparison is implicit (utpreksha) or denied (virodhabhasa); ignoring the upamavachaka; miscounting syllables because a sandhi join was missed; and writing rasa without connecting it to the verse's situation. Also avoid paraphrasing the verse in prose and calling it vyakhya; add the poetic effect.