National Sanskrit Poets’ Meet
Offered by Centre for Avadhanam, a joint initiative of Chinmaya Vishwavidyapeeth and Indic Academy
11 July 2021 | 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm
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Kavi-goṣṭhī or kavi-sammelanam (Poets’ meet) has a longstanding history in our culture, not only in Samskṛtam but also in vernacular languages. In the present scenario, however, we see that poetry is gradually moving away from the mārga kāvya tradition. But such a trend needs to be nipped in the bud to control further dilution and degradation of our classical tradition.
‘Mārgonmeṣa – A National Sanskrit Poets’ Meet’ is being organised in keeping with such principles.
The title of the event is itself suggestive of one of the objectives of the Centre for Avadhanam, i.e., to preserve and promote the tradition of classical poetry (Mārga/Abhijāta-śailī) in Samskṛtam as well as in regional languages. To achieve this the Centre has planned several initiatives and this annual event is one of those. The Centre has decided to conduct this event on the first day of Āṣāḍha every year.
Significance of the Day
The first day of the bright fortnight in the Āṣāḍha (July-August) month is special for lovers of Samskṛtam literature as it is mentioned by the poet Kalidasa in the ‘Meghadūtam’, as the day on which the Yakṣa met and requested the cloud to convey a message to his wife-
‘आषाढस्य प्रथमदिवसे मेघमाश्लिष्टसानुं
वप्रक्रीडापरिणतगजप्रेक्षणीयं ददर्श’
āṣāḍhasya prathamadivase meghamāśliṣṭasānuṃ
vaprakrīḍāpariṇatagajaprekṣaṇīyaṃ dadarśa
It is to commemorate the romanticism that permeates a major portion of the poet’s work that this day is celebrated as Kālidāsa Divasa. The months of Jyeṣṭha-Āṣāḍha typically ring in the south-west monsoon in Bhāratavarṣa, a time to celebrate after having experienced the dry heat of summer. The rains are naturally imbued with a pleasant flavour, and Kālidāsa rightly puts it in his Ṛtusamhāra – ‘ghanāgamaḥ kāmijanapriyaḥ’. It is therefore the best time to bring together poets who can spontaneously compose, reminisce the beautiful kāvyas from our rich legacy, and also discuss literary issues. Thus, the first day of Āṣāḍha which falls on the eleventh of July this year has been chosen by the Centre to arrange ‘Mārgonmeṣa’ as one of its flagship events.
Details of the speaker/resource persons
Chair: Padma Shri Prof Abhiraj Rajendra Mishra (Former Vice Chancellor, Sampurnanand Sanskrit University, Varanasi)
Prof. Abhiraj Rajendra Mishra is a leading Sanskrit lyricist, fiction writer, dramatist and critic of modern Sanskrit Literature. He is the recipient of one of India’s greatest civilian awards, the Padma Shri, in 2020 for his work in the field of literature and education. Among the many positions he has held, his headship of the Department of Sanskrit, Himachal Pradesh University, Shimla, and Vice Chancellorship at the Sampurnanand Sanskrit University, Varanasi, stand out.
He has also been a visiting professor at the University of Indonesia, and during this period, earned much name and fame through his epoch-making literary and research works which include the Devanagari transcription and Hindi translation of the Old Javanese Ramayan Kakavin, along with 44 sporadic poems and articles. Prof. Mishra has composed and published two voluminous epics – Jānakī Jīvanam and Vāmanāvataraṇam, twenty khaṇḍakāvyas, seven anthologies of poems, six ghazal collections, 12 anthologies of one-act plays (85 one-act plays in all), four nāṭakams and nāṭikās, nine story collections, 17 critical works (in Hindi, Sanskrit, and English) and eight textbooks.
Apart from these, Prof. Mishra has compiled and edited several anthologies for Sahitya Akademi, Delhi Sanskrit Academy and other institutions, as well as translated many books. The list of awards and titles that he has been honoured with, is unending and includes the President’s Award, Kalidas Samman and Sahitya Akademi Award to name a few.
Invited Poets
1) Prof. Satish Kumar Kapoor, Professor and Head of the Department of Sanskrit Literature at Shri Ranbir Campus, Jammu
Prof. Satish Kumar Kapoor is a Sanskrit poet and academician with 25 years of teaching experience, presently working as Head of the Department of Sahitya, Central Sanskrit University, Shri Ranbir Campus, Jammu. He has authored two works of poetry – ‘Śrībhuvanabhāskarastavaḥ’ and ‘Abhinavamauktikaśatakam’ and written commentaries (ṭīkā-s) on various Sāhitya texts like Candrāloka, apart from translations from different languages into Sanskrit. A multifaceted personality, he has composed several musical compositions in novel tāḷa-s (rhythmic cycles), and adapted many songs from Hindi, Punjabi, Dogri, Ladakhi, Kannada, English, as also from Urdu and Parsi Ghazals into Sanskrit.
2) Dr. Shankar Rajaraman, Post-Doctoral Fellow, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru
Dr. Shankar Rajaraman is a psychiatrist by training and a Sanskrit poet by passion, interested in Sanskrit literature, Indian aesthetics and Indian psychology. A Postdoctoral Fellow with the Consciousness Studies Programme at the National Institute of Advanced Studies and highly qualified on the academic front, he has many degrees to his credit: MBBS (2000), post-graduate Diploma in psychiatry (2004), MA in Sanskrit (2006 – Gold medallist), MSc in psychology (2012) & PhD in psychology (2019) on the topic ‘A Qualitative Approach to the Psychology of Three Self-conscious Emotions from Sanskrit Poetics’. Being a proud recipient of numerous awards, which include the prestigious Badarayan Vyas Samman (2019) from the President of India and the Vagdevi Puraskara (2021) by the Akhil Bharatiya Sahitya Parishad, he has several publications to his credit – including original poetry, translations in Sanskrit, English and Kannada, edited books and research papers in reputed journals.
3) Dr. Balram Shukla, Assistant Professor, University of Delhi, New Delhi
Dr. Balram Shukla, a Sanskrit poet, academic and scholar of Indic and Persian languages, works as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Sanskrit, Delhi University. He has three collections of poems in Sanskrit, two collections of poetry in Persian and has translated several Persian texts directly into Hindi. He has been delivering lectures on Sanskrit grammar and different aspects of Indo-Iranian languages and literature in different parts of the country and Iran. Many awards have been conferred on him, amongst which the Badarayan Vyas Samman from the President of India and Kalidas Samman from Uttar Pradesh Sanskrit Sansthan are notable. He has taken up two projects sponsored by the Indian Council for Social Sciences Research (ICSSR) and is presently a Project Fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla.
Contact: avadhanam@cvv.ac.in | +91 98442 10845 | +91 94973 90716