Jānakīharaṇam written by Kumāradāsa is one among the earlier Mahā-kāvyas in Sanskrit literature. Kumāradāsa was a great poet of Sri Lanka in 6th Century BCE with innate literary talents in Sanskrit. He was quite at ease in handling chaste words of exquisite beauty. His utterances suit the occasion even by their mere sound effect. In the art of description he has shown his composing proficiency with high order. His imaginations are so vivid and graphic.
Janakiharanam
is about abduction of Sita by Ravana. It consists of 20 Cantos.
In the beginning of
the first canto, Kumāradāsa devotes eleven verses to describe the city of Ayodhyā. In the very first verse, he says that the
city of Ayodhyā has all the splendour and wealth of the celestial
city and that if it has come down to earth, it is only because of its weight
due to excess of prosperity.
The
poet also sets forth in detail the marriage rituals in the Janakiharanam. First the pāṇigraha or holding
of the bride’s hand by the bridegroom, then offerings into the fire and going
round the fire which is made a witness for the marriage are described..
At
the end of the eighth canto, the five verses dealing with drinking. Among those
the 99th one is very beautifully narrated. While drinking wine, the
lady is being profusely kissed by her beloved and due to repeated kissing the
red colour on the lips gradually faded.
Kumāradāsa
has revealed throughout his work, his power to depict and evoke the various
sentiments. Ofcourse Śṛṅgāra
and Vīra from the major rasas depicted by him
in the poem.
Equally
skilled is the poet in the depiction of the sentiment Karuṇa or
pathos. Even in the first canto, while
describing the tragic end of the sage-boy at the hands of Daśaratha, he devotes
about
ten verses to the depiction of pathos.
When the king approached the target of his arrow, he found, contrary to
his expectation, a young sage with his chest pierces by the arrow and the poet
fancies that Daśaratha was hit at heart by a terrible shaft in the form of the
boy’s cry of agony rendered more unbearable tears.
The
sentiment of Vīra coupled with Raudra and bībhatsa
is powerfully depicted in the 19th canto while describing the fight
between Rāma and Rāvana. When the heads
of Rāvana were fell down by the arrows of Rāma, new ones immediately
substituted them. Thus Rāvana himself
could see his own heads rolling on the earth with their crowns tossed away and
with blood flowing from the lips that were crushed between the rows of teeth.
Following
the poetic convention, as defined by Daṇḍin, he generally
employs a single metre throughout a canto, with larger ones to mark the end of
each canto and in the matter of choosing appropriate enough to the sentiment or
theme depicted. Though he uses more than
20 metres, he seems to have a special liking for Vamśastha in
which he has composed the maximum number of verses.
According to poetic convention, Kumāradāsa
devotes almost the whole of canto 18 for exhibiting his skill in the difficult
form of Śabdacitras.
The Nature-descriptions of Kumāradāsa not
only delectable for the vista that they open up but also for the smooth flow of
the verses. Kumāradāsa strictly followed the poetic
rules set forth by Daṇḍin. One of the favourite methods of the poets in their
descriptions of Nature is to invest it with life and deal with aspects of
Nature in terms of human feelings giving rise to fine examples of Samādhi
and Samāsokti, Kumāradāsa has some notable achievements.
This
Mahākāvyam Jānakīharaṇam is therefore of interest from many sides. It integrates not only India and Śrī Laṅkā
but also South East Asia with creative work of Sanskrit.
