Mandākrāntā is the name of a metre commonly used in classical Sanskrit poetry. The name in Sanskrit means "slow-stepping" or "slowly advancing". It is said to have been invented by India's most famous poet Kālidāsa,, who used it in his well-known poem Meghadūta. The metre characterises the longing of lovers who are separated from each other, expressed in the Sanskrit word viraha विरह "separation, parting".
Metrical pattern
Modern analysis
A line in mandākrāntā has 17 syllables, divided into three sections, each separated by a pause. The first section consists of four long syllables, the second of 5 short syllables and one long, and the third a mixture of long and short alternating, in this pattern: As with other Sanskrit metres, the length of the final syllable is indifferent. Deo argues that the mandākrāntā metre is basically trochaic. She notes that where the third strong beat should come, some performers traditionally leave a pause equivalent to one short syllable; the third strong beat is then silent, and the fourth strong beat then falls on the fourth short syllable. Deo argues that this rhythm is also trochaic, with a strong beat on the 1st, 4th, and 7th syllables.
Relationship to other metres
The final section of 7 syllables is also found at the end of other metres such as śālinī, mālinī, candriṇī, sragdharā, and vaiśvadevī. The śālinī metre, a variety of triṣṭubh, goes as follows: It thus consists of the beginning and end of the mandākrāntā without the central section. The 21-syllable sragdharā metre goes as follows: This is the same as the Mandākrāntā except for an additional four syllables. It has been argued that both mandākrāntā and sragdharā are later expansions of the earlier śālinī, which occurs occasionally even in the Vedas mixed with other varieties of triṣṭubh.
The traditionalIndian method of analysing metre is to use three-syllable patterns known as gaṇa, which are algebraically represented by letters of the alphabet. So, the 11th/12th century metrician Kedārabhaṭṭa in his work Vṛtta-ratnākara characterised the mandākrāntā metre by the following mnemonic line, which is itself in the mandākrāntā metre: The meaning of this line is that the metre has a pause after four syllables, then after six, and can be described using the gaṇas ma bha na ta ta followed by two long syllables, known as guru, that is:
Kālidāsa's
The first poem to use the mandākrāntā metre appears to have been Kālidāsa's Meghadūta or Meghadūtam "the Cloud-Messenger". This consists of approximately 120 four-line stanzas, each line identical in metre. The opening stanza of the poem is as follows: When scanning Sanskrit poetry, the vowels e and o are always long.
Later use
Kālidāsa's poem was admired and imitated by many later poets, giving rise to a genre known as saṁdeśa-kāvya "message poems" or dūta-kāvya "messenger poems", mostly in the same metre, although other metres are sometimes used. The mandākrāntā metre was also used in the play Mālatīmādhava by Bhavabhūti, for a scene in which the abandoned lover Mādhava searches for a cloud to take a message to his beloved Mālatī.
