The Orbit of The Sun and The Moon in Sanskrit Wordplay

Abstract

Rāma and Kṛṣṇa are the famous kings in solar and lunar race respectively. A lot of Sanskrit literatures contain their stories as main plots. Rāmakṛṣṇavilomakāvya (RKV) is one of Sanskrit literature of wordplay that narrates the two stories as parallel thoroughly. It is noteworthy that RKV does not only prove significantly poetic creativity of the composer, but represents the orbits of the sun and the moon as well. It is the very objective of this article: to study some reflections of the orbits of the sun and moon in the literature. The findings are as follows: virtues in the stories of Rāma and Kṛṣṇa are related to sunlight and moonlight that appear to the world. Uses of Vilomacitra, Sanskrit bidirectional wordplay, make space in each stanza symmetric and can be compared to division of equal space in orbit of the sun and moon. Each stanza starts with the story of Rāma and ends with Kṛṣṇa’s reflects counting the day, starting from the sun to the moon day by day. The orbits in the same way of the luminaries are reflected in ability to be read in only one way of Sanskrit language, although there are many kinds of Sanskrit endings or suffixes that cause uncertainty in word order. Besides, haziness of sunlight and moonlight when orbiting appears in imperfection of its content. RKV, therefore, is the witness of the power of language, which interestingly represents natural phenomena.