Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Poetry and Art

SABCL - Volume 27

Part 1. Poetry and its Creation
Section 3. Poetic Technique
Metrical Experiments in Bengali

Akṣara-vṛtta and Mātrā-vṛtta

I have read your account of the tridhārā and my mind is now clear about it; I have not yet read Anilbaran’s contentions, so there I am still in the dark. But here are certain points that I want to make clear.

(1) Prabodh Sen’s rule of the yaugika-vṛtta does not agree with what I was taught about the akṣara-vṛtta. When I first heard of Bengali metre in England, my informant was quite at sea. He confidently described Michael’s blank verse as a 14 syllable line (8+6), but when asked to give examples we found that the lines as pronounced were of 12, 13, 14 or more syllables and when my brother Manmohan asked him to explain this discrepancy, he could merely gape — no explanation was forthcoming! However, when I took up seriously the study of the literature, it was explained to me by competent people, themselves poets and littérateurs — thus

“The line is strictly a line of 14 syllables, no more, no less (i.e. it is a true akṣara-vṛtta), but the akṣara or syllable here is not the sonant Bengali syllable as it is actually pronounced, but the syllable as it is understood on the Sanskrit principle. In Sanskrit each consonant letter (akṣara) is supposed to make a separate sound (syllable), either with the aid of other vowels or by force of the short a sound inherent in it — except in two cases. First, if there is a conjunct consonant, e.g. gandha, the n is not sonant, not separate, but yukta to the dh, and therefore does not stand for a separate syllable; secondly, if there is a virāma-cihna as in daibāt, then also it loses its sonant force, there is no third syllable — it is a dissyllable, not a trisyllable. Bengali has applied this rule, dropping only the last part of it, in disregard of the actual pronunciation. Thus দান [dāna] or ধন [dhana] is in Sanskrit (as in Oriya) a dissyllable, in Bengali also it is treated as such in poetry, although in fact it is a monosyllable to the ear. Externally this sounds artificial and false to fact, but rhythmically it is unexceptionable, the cadence of the voice supplying a double metre there. গন্ধ [gandha] will be a dissyllable as in Sanskrit, because ndh is a yuktākṣara. On the other hand দৈবত্ [daibāt] will be a trisyllable because there is no distinction made of a virāma-cihna, no distinction therefore between সরিত্ [sarit] and নিধন [nidhana], each is a trisyllable.”

According to this explanation and the rule it supplies, it is true that a yugma-dhvani at the close of a word has always two mātrās, but the other part of Prabodh Sen’s rule is not always true, viz. that in the middle of a word it counts only as one. That would be invariably true of an indubitable যুক্তাক্ষর [yuktākṣara], as in গন্ধ [gandha], but not otherwise. On this principle there is no difficulty at all about মহাভারতের কথা [mahābhāratera kathā], the line is of 14 syllables and cannot be reckoned in akṣara-vṛtta as anything else. There is no difficulty about such lines as Michael’s

রাˡবˡˡণ শ্বˡশুˡˡর মˡমˡ মেˡˡঘনাˡˡদ ম্বাˡমীˡ

[rābaṇa śbaśura mama meghanāda mbāmī]

— 10 svaras, but 14 akṣaras,— because the মেঘ [megha], though in the middle of a word, must be two mātrās, since the ghn in Meghnad is not a compound consonant, but two separate akṣaras. There is a difficulty about দিক্ প্রান্তে [dikprānte] and মৃত্পাত্র [mṛtpātra], but that is because one is undecided whether to treat it as a compound ক্ প্রা [kprā] and a compound ত্পা [tpā] or as two separate words joined together, দিক [dik], মৃত্ [mṛt] being kept apart as with the t of সরিত্ [sarit] or the k of ত্বক্ [tbak]. In the latter case মৃত্ [mṛt] and দিক [dik] are dissyllables, in the former, trisyllables. And so on, as regards other doubtful points like চাওয়া [cāoẏa].

This, I say, was what I was taught and it is according to this rule that I have hitherto scanned the akṣara-vṛtta. I am quite prepared to adopt a new principle if it is more scientific, but I think that historically this explanation is not unsound, that it represents the idea Michael and Nabin Sen and the rest had of the basis of their verse and shows why it was considered as of a syllabic character.

(2) I did not think or hear that Tagore invented the mātrā-vṛtta — I could not, because I never heard of the mātrā-vṛtta at that time. What I understood was that the svara-vṛtta was not recognised as a serious or poetic metre before Tagore,— it was used only for nursery rhymes etc. or in some kinds of loose popular verse. Tagore did not invent, but he popularised the svara-vṛtta as a vehicle for serious poetry — it was at least professedly under his banner that a violent attack was made on the supremacy of the akṣara-vṛtta. I remember reading articles even in which it was reviled as a nonsensical conventional fiction: Oriya Bengali. “If you want to keep it” thundered the polemist, “let us all learn to read like Oriyas, ‘Rabana swasura mama, Meghanada swami’, but let us rather be Bengalis and drop this absurd convention of a pseudo-Sanskritic past.” The article amused me so much by its violence in spite of my prepossession for the akṣara-vṛtta that I remember it as if I had read it yesterday — and it was only one of a numerous type. At any rate as a result of this campaign, svara-vṛtta fixed itself on an equal throne by the side of akṣara-vṛtta. I mention it only as a point of literary history of which I was a contemporary witness. I suppose, as usually happens, Tagore’s share in the revolution was exaggerated and there were others who played a large part in its success.

(3) Mātrā-vṛtta is therefore to me a new development, not as an invention perhaps, but as a clearly understood distinct principle of metre. But it exists, if I have understood your explanation, by a thorough extension of the principle which the akṣara-vṛtta applied only with restrictions. As the Sanskrit limitation about the virāma-cihna was swept away in the akṣara-vṛtta, so now in the mātrā-vṛtta the limitation about conjuncts like ন্ধ [ndha] is swept away and all yugma-dhvanis are reckoned as two mātrās. In that sense Anilbaran’s description of it as সগোত্র [sagotra] of the akṣara-vṛtta would have some meaning, but at the same time it would not diminish the validity of your contention that it is a new opening with endless possibilities in a new principle of metrical rhythm. Two men may be cousins or brothers or near relatives, but one a conservative, the other a revolutionary creating a new world and a new order.

All this is no part of my final formed opinion in the matter. I have not yet gone through either Anilbaran’s writing or Prabodh Sen’s letter. It is only to put down my present understanding of the situation and explain what I meant in my letter.