"in an instant the pious one reached and espied
heavenly water gates birthing whorls and eddies
unending resounds abounding a beautiful sky
footfalls of lumbering elephants shaking the trees
deceived peafowls unfurling a riot of feathery hues
a snowy peak's divine beauty no longer abstruse"
That's a translation of a beautiful and immensely popular poem from allasaani peddana's swarOchishamanu sambhavamu popularly and perhaps incorrectly known as manucharitra.
The original poem is as follows
అటజని కాంచె భూమిసురు డంబరచుంబి శిరస్సరజ్ఝరీ
పటల ముహుర్ముహుర్ లుఠ దభంగ తరంగ మృదంగ నిస్వన
స్ఫుట నటనానుకూల పరిఫుల్లకలాప కలాపి జాలమున్
గటక చరత్కరేణు కరకంపిత సాలము శీతశైలమున్
Thanks to Sri BhairavabhaTla Kameswara Rao for explaining this poem so beautifully in his blog (telugupadyam.blogspot.com). He mentions that onomatopoeic quality of the highlighted lines and I tried to capture that sabdaalankaaram in my translation though it can never match up to the unparalleled way peddana wove his magic.
The background of the poem is when Pravara travels to Himalayas with the help of a magical paste he manages to get hold of from a wandering saint. As an inert Brahmana till then who hasn't moved from his city, he has an abiding interest in seeing the sights of the world. The moment the saint agrees to give him a handful of the paste, without a second thought he heads to Himalayas. What follows is an interesting encounter with a heavenly beauty Varudhini. But before that, a bit about what Pravara saw at the foot of the snowy peak. And that's where peddana excels in paining a motion picture for the readers using the right amount of sabdaalankaaram making the poem a gem.
The first highlighted and underlined part 'paTala muhurmuhur luTha" tells us about the water falling on mountain rocks both in its meaning and also through the hard sounding syllables. The part I wanted to bring this out was in "heavenly water gates birthing whorls and eddies".
In the same way 'abhanga taranga mrdanga' tells us about the musical quality of the sound emanating that confuses the peafowls to think that the skies are melting and unfurling their beautiful shimmering feathers. And this part in "unending resounds abounding".
That's my effort as I tried to capture the beauty of the original gem in my translation. It is up to the readers to decide whether I succeeded in my attempt or not.
