Hindu Dharma: Chandas

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Foot of the Vedapurusa We so often hear people[Tamils] speak of 'Chanda-t-Tamizh'. Men of devotion say that the praises of the lord must be sung in 'Chanda-t-Thamizh'. 'Chanda(m)' is derived from 'Chandas'. 'Chandas', as I have already said, means the Vedas. ...
 
Pada or Foot I said Chandas is the foot of the Vedapurusa. Poetry also has its foot. In tamil poetry there are 'iradikkural' (stanzas with two feet), naladiar(stanzas with four feet), etc:'adi' here has the same meaning as 'pada', that is foot. Naladiar does not mean four adiyars. Great devotees are called adiyars because they lie at the lotus feet of the Lord. (In Sanskrit too we have similar terms like ...
 
Feet and Syllables A Vedic mantra or the stanza of an ordinary poem is divided into four parts. In most metres there are four feet and each foot is divided into the same number of syllables or mantras. When the feet are not equal we have what is called a metre that is 'visama': 'vi+sama' = 'visama'. 'Sama' indicates a state of ...
 
How Poetry was Born There is no tonal variation in poetry as there is in Vedic mantras. The unaccented poetic stanza corresponding to the accented Vedic mantra owes its origin to Valmiki, but its discovery was not the result of any conscious effort on his part. One day Valmiki happened to see a pair of kraunca birds sporting ...
 
Some Metrical Forms 'Indravajra', 'Upendravajra', 'Bhujangavijrmbhita', 'Sragdhara' are some of the metres in devotional and other poetical works. Some of them are intricate and only highly gifted people are capable of composing them. As mentioned earlier, the foot of a stanza with eight syllables Anustubh. With nine syllables it is 'Brhati' and with ten 'Pankti'. ...
 
Uses of Chandas Sastra Siksa sastra may be said to be a 'guard' to ensure the right enunciation of a (Vedic) mantra. But it is Chandas that determines whether the form of the mantra is right. Of course the form of a mantra can never be wrong. The mantras, as mentioned so often, were not created by the sages and are not the product of their thinking. It was Bhagavan who caused them to be revealed to them. Man, beast, tree and other sentient creatures and ...
 
Foot for the Vedas - Nose for the Mantras Each mantra has a deity (the deity it invokes), its own metre and its own seer (the seer who revealed it to the world). Mentioning the name of the rsi and touching our head with our hand have their own significance, that of holding his feet with our head. We first pay obeisance to the sages because it is from them that we received the mantras. We then mention the chandas or metre of the hymn and touch our nose with our hand. Chandas protects ...