Notion of Pannaga Narayana

[pat...@iitk.ac.in]

Dear Colleagues,

Would you kindly enlighten me on the notion of Pannaga Narayana? There is
reference to him in the Mahabharata that the Odia poet Sarala Das wrote in
the 15th century. It is said that he was cursed to be born in the mortal
world. He is surely not Narayana (Vishnu), that's quite clear in Sarala's
text itself. What is the notion of Pannaga Narayana in the tradition?

I will benefit immensely from your input.

Best respects,
B.N.Patnaik

Retired Professor of English and Linguistics
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur

Current Address:

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Blog: http://saralamahabharat.blogspot.com
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Website: http://bnpatnaik.wordpress.com

[narayanan er]

Respected Professor Patnaik,

The term "पन्नग" is a synonym of snake. "पन्न" means downward motion. पन्नं अधोगमनं पतितं वा गच्छतीति। गमॢ गतौ।  अन्तात्यन्ताध्वदूरपारसर्वानन्तेषु डः (Panini Rule 3-2-48). सर्वत्र पन्नयोरुपसंख्यनम् (Katyayana Varttika Rule) इति गमेर्डः। पद्ग्यां न गच्छतीति वा विग्रहः। सर्पः is the meaning according to Amarasimha.

The Hindi version of the Oriya Mahabharata is available in the Google book from internet. Vaikuntha is the location of Narayana. There is a Vaikuntha named Pannagabandha where Pannaganarayana is residing, who is shapeless, having colour of transparent glass prism. Neither night nor day can hardly enter into Pannaganarayana.

The context is the conversation in between Vyasa and the King Bhumanyu. Vyasa says : King !, Listen, I explain scientifically. The gods among their groups incarnate in between space of heaven and earth. Duryodhana is an apparent incarnation of Pannaganarayana. You, Bhumanyu! had become the King of Bhutala (earth) after breaking shackles of Svarga, Martya, Patala, Sutala, Rasatala and Atitala etc.  Bhumanyu's daughter Bhanumati had been the wife of Duryodhana for many a number of births. King! your daughter Bhanumati did continuous thinking about Pannaganarayana for one lakh years to achieve Pannaganarayana for herself. So, it is gods' wish that you gave your daughter to Pannaganarayana. One Brahman called Sudraka also did penance of Pannaganarayana for long. But its result never went as equal to the dedication of Bhanumati."

The notion behind this story might be how dedicated you are for many a number of births to achieve something virtuous; and secondly, the genuine matching of marital relationship might inherit even era after era, thirdly, rebirth soul transformation, fourthly, quality transformation through many births, acquiring virtues though multiple births etc. These messages might be what Vyasa wants to teach the world. For twelve thousand years Nara and Narayana did penance and fight to defeat Sahasrakavaca, on alternative fight and penance method; where Nara was Arjuna and Narayana was Krishna.

 

Regards,
Narayanan

---

From: "pat...@iitk.ac.in" <pat...@iitk.ac.in>
To: bvpar...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Sun, 10 July, 2011 9:04:08 PM
Subject: {भारतीयविद्वत्परिषत्} Notion of Pannaga Narayana

--
अथ चेत्त्वमिमं धर्म्यं संग्रामं न करिष्यसि।
ततः स्वधर्मं कीर्तिं च हित्वा पापमवाप्स्यसि।।
तस्मादुत्तिष्ठ कौन्तेय युद्धाय कृतनिश्चयः।
निराशीर्निर्ममो भूत्वा युध्यस्व विगतज्वरः।। (भ.गी.)

[Dipak Bhattacharya]

Dear Dr. Narayanan, I did not find the mail sent by me to which your reply came. Could you kindly forward that? As far as I remember that I had at least thought whether one could link pannaga to Tamil panna which my late lamented teacher Paṭṭabhirama Shastri often uttered while teaching ativyāpti: Appā kuṭṭiḥ sādhuḥ, kuṭṭitvāt, pannakuṭṭivat, na tu pāmbukuṭṭivat, tatrātivyāpteḥ I am not finding the folder containing this message, if I at all sent that to the BVP. But unless I had sent you would not have written to me. So kindly forward the supposedly lost message. Sincerely Dipak Bhattacharya   --- On Mon, 11/7/11, narayanan er <drerna...@yahoo.com> wrote:

[hnbhat B.R.]

I think this is the verse I had heard long ago:

 

अप्पा कुट्टिरयं साधुः कुट्टित्वात् पन्निकुट्टिवत्।

पाम्बुकुट्टावतिव्याप्तं तद्भिन्नत्वं निवेश्यताम्॥

 

The meaning for both Panni is pig, (it is not correct reproduction of Tamil word, Panri would be the one, through malayalam panni.). I recollected from my memory पाम्बु paambu (is संवृत उकारः common for many Tamil and Malayalam common stock words)  which means separately serpent and not related with the previous one as the verse itself makes it clear. कुट्टि- is also Tami/Malayalam common stock word, meaning young one. अप्पा is Tamil Interjection word denoting exclamation. How this child is smart, like cub of pig. Easy way of escaping अतिव्याप्ति by modifying the hetu, with "tadbhinnatva" is made the point here. This was I heard from the above verse from my Malayalee friends. The one you have heard may be a Tamil version of the same idea.

 

With regards

 

--
Dr. Hari Narayana Bhat B.R. M.A., Ph.D.,
Research Scholar,
EFEO,
PONDICHERRY - 605 001

[narayanan er]

Respected Professor Bhattacharya,
I have checked my previous send mail items but nothing regarding this topic.

From your quoting : Appā kuṭṭiḥ sādhuḥ, kuṭṭitvāt, pannakuṭṭivat, na tu pāmbukuṭṭivat, tatrātivyāpteḥ a change is required as pannikkuttivat not pannakuttivat.

Professor H. N. Bhat just added an interesting verse on the term पन्नि but not on पन्न। पन्नि is pig and पाम्प् (pronunciation पाम्ब् ) is snake. Any शिशु in the form of शाव, शावक, अर्भक or पोतक can be a कुट्टि। Human child and animal cub are equally called कुट्टि।
Professor H. N. Bhat reminds us about the popular verse :

अप्पा कुट्टिरयं साधुः कुट्टित्वात् पन्निकुट्टिवत्।

पाम्बुकुट्टावतिव्याप्तं तद्भिन्नत्वं निवेश्यताम्॥

This may be used to laugh at some Nyaya usages like अतिव्याप्तिः and तद्भिन्नत्वम् .

If you add Sanskrit suffixes to the local dialectical stems or roots the derivations are called मणिप्रवाळम् in Malayalam. Usage कुट्टिरयं is अयं कुट्टिः with सुप् is added to the प्रातिपदिक,  कुट्टि। Regarding पन्निकुट्टि, it should be पन्निक्कुट्टि, as the क doubles when it comes after इ। Similarly, पाम्पिन्कुट्टि will be correct, popular and literally sound. 

Similarly, one of my colleague and scholar friend Dr. R. Balamurugan was remembering some popular fake Sutra, Varttika usages among some scholars as gossips :

शूलममङ्गलं विधवानाम्। कन्यायाश्च । प्रोषितभर्तृकाया इति वक्तव्यम् । etc. etc.

Regards,
Narayanan

---

From: Dipak Bhattacharya <dbhattach...@yahoo.com>
To: bvpar...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Mon, 11 July, 2011 11:50:19 AM

[Vineet Chaitanya]

Dear Dr. Narayanan,

The Hindi version of the Oriya Mahabharata is available in the Google book from internet.

Can you kindly, either give the title of the book and the name of the translator etc. or the address of the web-page?

Regards
Vineet Chaitanya

2011/7/11 narayanan er <drerna...@yahoo.com>

[narayanan er]

Yes, I could have quoted the URL of the same. Here it is :

http://books.google.co.in/books?id=zasVHktyrYIC&pg=PA154&lpg=PA154&dq=%E0%A4%AA%E0%A4%A8%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%A8%E0%A4%97+%E0%A4%A8%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%B0%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%AF%E0%A4%A3&source=bl&ots=dZGnPqck_W&sig=mY1C5J4JvYs66GmC5SXAXUgew2s&hl=en&ei=ab0aTtiBF8fQrQe0_IDQAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBcQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%E0%A4%AA%E0%A4%A8%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%A8%E0%A4%97%20%E0%A4%A8%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%B0%E0 %A4%BE%E0%A4%AF%E0%A4%A3&f=false

Or, you just type पन्नग नारायण in Unicode Devanagari in the Google Search, then you will get the URL for Oṛiyā Mahābhārata, Volume 1, page No. 154. You will get the details. Thank you.

 

Regards,
Narayanan

---

From: Vineet Chaitanya <v...@iiit.ac.in>
To: bvpar...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Mon, 11 July, 2011 1:11:35 PM
Subject: Re: {भारतीयविद्वत्परिषत्} Notion of Pannaga Narayana

[Vineet Chaitanya]

Thank you very much for the link.

[Dipak Bhattacharya]

So my guess was correct about the original 'lost' letter to which you had replied. I wonder how such error could occur on your part, quite harmless though. As for the honesty of the little one (Kutti), Shastriji taught us so many decades ago that it is difficult to remember every detail. Yes, he was asking us to avoid false ativyaaptis by which the properties of mantra could be wrongly attributed to non-Vedic stanzas. He never used the board, the class was very big and heavy, hence we could often only guess, may be erroneously. Best DB

[narayanan er]

Respected Professor Bhattacharya,
I have only heard about the name, naturally, of the great prolific scholar and teacher Mahamahopadhyaya Pattabhirama Sastri, from Professor Satya Vrat Shastri and Professor Satkari Mukhopadhyaya. And, Sir, you were being a direct disciple of him, you can kindly share more with us about the teaching methodology, versatility in scholarship, intimacy towards the listeners, extreme respect for the Shastras etc. that he might have practised in his life time. I will love to read it such proficiency, dedication and intimacy that a good number of people had in certain period of time.
Regards,
Narayanan

---

From: Dipak Bhattacharya <dbhattach...@yahoo.com>
To: bvpar...@googlegroups.com

Sent: Mon, 11 July, 2011 4:33:49 PM

Subject: Re: {भारतीयविद्वत्परिषत्} Notion of Pannaga Narayana

So my guess was correct about the original 'lost' letter to which you had replied. I wonder how such error could occur on your part, quite harmless though. As for the honesty of the little one (Kutti), Shastriji taught us so many decades ago that it is difficult to remember every detail. Yes, he was asking us to avoid false ativyaaptis by which the properties of mantra could be wrongly attributed to non-Vedic stanzas. He never used the board, the class was very big and heavy, hence we could often only guess, may be erroneously. Best DB