shloka

shloka, chief verse form of the Sanskrit-language Indian epics (Ramayana and Mahabharata) and the most common poetic meter (chhanda) in classical Sanskrit literature. It is a fluid meter that lends itself well to improvisation and musical accompaniment. The shloka consists of 2 verse lines (distich) of 16 syllables each or 4 half-lines (hemistichs; Sanskrit: padas [“feet”]) of 8 syllables each.

Metrical form

The metrical form of the shloka’s total 32 syllables—divided into 4 padas (“feet”) of 8 syllables each—is partially structured by the weight of the syllables, which are labeled either heavy (guru) or light (laghu). These weights give the meter its rhythm. In Sanskrit’s syllable-based meters (vrittas), heavy syllables contain long vowels (ā, ī, and ū), diphthongs (e, ai, o, and au), anusvara (ṃ) or visarga (ḥ), and syllables that precede conjunct consonants (e.g., kr, tr, pr, and śl). Heavy syllables are accentuated. Syllables with short vowels (a, i, u, and ṛ), if before single consonants, are light and unaccented. Compared with other Sanskrit syllable-based meters—from 4 to upward of 26 syllables per pada—the shloka meter allows for considerable variability and improvisation relative to more complex and longer meters that have more regularized weighting schemes.

For the shloka meter, the simple rules state that in every pada the fifth syllable is light and the sixth is heavy, and in the second and fourth padas the seventh syllable is light, but it is heavy in the other padas. Using ◡ to designate light syllables, – to designate heavy, and ● to indicate either, the most common formula for shloka (called pathya) is as follows:

padas 1 and 3: ● ● ● ● ◡ – – ●
padas 2 and 4: ● ● ● ● ◡ – ◡ ●

There are many other variants of shloka (called vipulas), however, that provide more complex rhythm schemes.

Origins

The shloka form evolved from the anushtubh meter, likewise a meter of 8 syllables per quarter verse, which is found in the Vedas, sacred texts that originated in the late 2nd millennium bce. As Sanskrit prosody developed, the anushtubh became more regularized in its rhythm scheme, leading to the classic shloka form in the Hindu epics and poetic literature in the last centuries bce and early centuries ce.

The beginning of the Indian epic Ramayana (c. 300 bce) recounts a popular story about the origin of the shloka meter. The tale relates that the sage Valmiki, composer of the Ramayana and often called “Adi Kavi” (“First Poet”), first created the meter before composing the entirety of the 24,000-verse epic in shloka. As the story goes, while Valmiki performs his ritual ablutions in the Tamasa River, he sees a pair of krauncha birds (likely referring to sarus cranes) in the midst of mating. Krauncha birds are known in Sanskrit literature to be monogamous and to mate for life. A hunter from a tribal community (nishada) kills the male bird, whereupon the female laments bitterly. Angered and sorrowful, Valmiki curses the hunter in a verse (Ramayana 1.2.14) that is regarded in the text as the first shloka. Here is that famous shloka in Sanskrit transliteration and in an English translation:

mā niṣāda pratiṣthāṃ tvamagamaḥ śāśvatīḥ samāḥ
yatkrauñcamithunādekamavadhīḥ kāmamohitam


Since, Niṣāda, you killed one of this pair of krauñcas,
Distracted at the height of passion, you shall not live for very long.

Valmiki, using a bit of wordplay, then says that his shloka verse emerged from his shoka (Sanskrit: “sorrow” or “grief”) upon witnessing the bird’s death and its mate’s lamentation. For some readers, this scene suggests that the Ramayana and its tales of Rama and Sita ought to be read in terms of the rasa (aesthetic flavor; literally “juice”) of sorrow.

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Examples

Despite shloka’s sorrowful origin per the Ramayana’s narrative, it was a favored meter for Sanskrit literature of all aesthetic flavors. In India’s other major epic, the Mahabharata, shloka is the most common metrical form, although others do appear among the text’s prodigious 100,000 verses. In the oft-quoted verse 4.7 of the Bhagavad Gita, the sacred text found within the Mahabharata, the god Krishna explains the concept of avatars in shloka:

yadā yadā hi dharmasya glānir bhavati bhārata
abhyutthānam adharmasya tadā’tmānaṁ sṛjāmyaham


Whenever sacred duty [dharma] decays
And chaos prevails,
Then, I create
Myself, Arjuna.

Shloka is also the most common verse form in classical Sanskrit kavya (poetry), which emerged in the early centuries of the Common Era. A notable example is the first verse of the Raghuvamsha, composed by celebrated 5th-century poet and playwright Kalidasa:

vāgarthāviva saṃpṛktau vāgarthapratipattaye
jagataḥ pitarau vande pārvatīparameśvarau


For mastery of word and meaning, I venerate the parents of the world, who are entwined together like word and meaning: Parvati and Parameshvara.

Beyond the epic and classical texts, there are examples of popular shlokas in the form of subhashitas (good sayings): proverbs, aphorisms, and poetic nuggets of wisdom meant to educate, often compiled in collections for student memorization. One such shloka, which is originally from the 12th-century Hitopadesha (“Good Advice”) and often found in later student collections of subhashitas, counsels:

udyamena hi sidhyanti kāryāṇi na manorathaiḥ
na hi suptasya siṃhasya praviśanti mukhe mṛgāḥ


Duties are accomplished by means of effort alone, not by means of wishes.
For, deer do not enter the mouth of a sleeping lion.

The shloka form continued to be popular among 20th-century Sanskrit poets. The prolific scholar and modern Sanskrit writer V. Raghavan’s elegy to Mahatma Gandhi (“Mahātmā”; 1970), written in mixed meters, includes, as verse 17, the following contemporary shloka:

rātrau kurvannaṇusphoṭaṃ sarvadeśasabhā divā
he loka yadyārjavaṃ te gāndhino darśanaṃ śṛṇu


At night they make atoms burst. By day they are the United Nations.
Hey World, if you are sincere, listen to the philosophy of Gandhi.