ShringaraAdvanced

शरद

Sharad

Sachchidananda Hirananda Vatsyayan 'Agyeya'

6 verses · ~2 min

सिमट गयी फिर नदी, सिमटने में चमक आयी गगन के बदन में फिर नयी एक दमक आयी दीप कोजागरी बाले कि फिर आवें वियोगी सब ढोलकों से उछाह और उमंग की गमक आयी

बादलों के चुम्बनों से खिल अयानी हरियाली शरद की धूप में नहा-निखर कर हो गयी है मतवाली झुंड कीरों के अनेकों फबतियाँ कसते मँडराते झर रही है प्रान्तर में चुपचाप लजीली शेफाली

बुलाती ही रही उजली कछार की खुली छाती उड़ चली कहीं दूर दिशा को धौली बक-पाँती गाज, बाज, बिजली से घेर इन्द्र ने जो रक्खी थी शारदा ने हँस के वो तारों की लुटा दी थाती

मालती अनजान भीनी गन्ध का है झीना जाल फैलाती कहीं उसके रेशमी फन्दे में शुभ्र चाँदनी पकड़ पाती! घर-भवन-प्रासाद खण्डहर हो गये किन-किन लताओं की जकड़ में गन्ध, वायु, चाँदनी, अनंग रहीं मुक्त इठलाती!

साँझ! सूने नील में दोले है कोजागरी का दिया हार का प्रतीक - दिया सो दिया, भुला दिया जो किया! किन्तु शारद चाँदनी का साक्ष्य, यह संकेत जय का है प्यार जो किया सो जिया, धधक रहा है हिया, पिया!

इलाहाबाद, 5 सितम्बर, 1948

इति

Rasa: Shringara
Stanzas: 6
Lines: 21
Reading time: ~2 min
Form: Metrical verse (chhand)
Metre: rhythmic verse
Rhyme: AABB

The poem evokes a luminous and bittersweet atmosphere of shringara, characterized by the interplay between the crisp, silver-drenched clarity of autumn moonlight and the lingering ache of longing. Visually, the scene unfolds as a vibrant landscape where glistening rivers shrink under a radiant sky, lush greenery basks in mellow sunshine, and the shy, white shephali flowers carpet the earth, while a row of cranes takes flight into the distance against a vast, open horizon. Symbolic of both loss and endurance, the solitary kojagari lamp flickering in the twilight acts as a testament to past heartbreak, yet the overarching imagery of untethered moonlight and fragrant malati vines suggests that love survives as an eternal, intoxicating force. The tone is deeply romantic and elegiac, transmuting the sting of separation into a triumphant celebration of the heart’s capacity to feel, rendered through a lush, sensory tapestry of scent, light, and nature’s rhythmic renewal.

शरद (Sharad), by Sachchidananda Hirananda Vatsyayan 'Agyeya' runs to 21 lines across 6 stanzas, set as Four-line stanzas with rich classical imagery and end rhymes. Its governing rasa is Shringara, shaded by Shanta. The metre is rhythmic verse. Rhyme falls as AABB.

यह कविता 1948 में इलाहाबाद में लिखी गई थी, जो स्वतंत्रता के बाद के शुरुआती वर्षों में कवि के प्रकृति-प्रेम को दर्शाती है।

Read it for शरद ऋतु के आगमन पर प्रकृति का निखार and चांदनी रात में विरह और मिलन के मिले-जुले भाव. 4 words in it carry older or regional senses, so the poem rewards a second pass.

The verse is hung beside Damayanti and the Swan: Raja Ravi Varma’s composition radiates the quiet anticipation of love and a sense of reverent wonder, capturing a pivotal moment from the Mahabharata where Princess Damayanti encounters a golden swan sent by King Nala.…

Words worth pausing on

कोजागरी: शरद पूर्णिमा का उत्सव
प्रान्तर: मैदान या जंगल का किनारा
थाती: धरोहर या अमानत
अनंग: कामदेव (प्रेम के देवता)

Threads

Moon Autumn Nature Separation Love

Sachchidananda Hirananda Vatsyayan 'Agyeya'

The Poet

अज्ञेय

Sachchidananda Hirananda Vatsyayan 'Agyeya'

1911 · 1987

Sachchidananda Hirananda Vatsyayan, universally known by his pen name Agyeya, completely rewired the circuitry of modern Hindi literature. Born in 1911 in a British archaeological camp in Uttar Pradesh, his life was as fiercely untraditional as his prose. Before he became the architect of the Prayogavaad (Experimentalism) movement, he was an active revolutionary who spent four years in British colonial prisons for attempting to help Bhagat Singh escape. In those prison cells, he began drafting Shekhar: Ek Jivani, a psychological novel that shocked the literary establishment with its unapologetic exploration of the individual ego. He rejected the prevailing romanticism of the era and instead assembled the Tar Saptak series, bringing together a new generation of poets who wrote in free verse about alienation, intellect, and the fractured modern psyche. He won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1964 and the Jnanpith Award in 1978. Agyeya was a novelist, a combatant officer in World War II, a journalist, and a profound existential thinker. He gave Hindi literature the vocabulary to interrogate the inner self without the comfort of traditional morality.

Paired Painting

Damayanti and the Swan

This evocative scene captures a pivotal moment from the Mahabharata, where Princess Damayanti encounters a golden swan sent by King Nala. The painting radiates with the quiet anticipation of love, as Damayanti stands in a lush, serene garden, her hands folded in a gesture of reverence and wonder. Ravi Varma masterfully portrays her elegance, balancing the grandeur of Indian royalty with an intimate, deeply human vulnerability. The swan, serving as a divine messenger, bridges the gap between the earthly and the celestial, symbolizing hope and the promise of a destined union.

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