# Figures that carry a verse *Chakrabandha, padmabandha, murajabandha and the other shape-poems: syllables plotted on a grid so that the figure itself holds the reading rule.* # Figures that carry a verse. Each figure carries a reading rule. The figures rely on Devanāgarī, where one akṣara is one glyph, so they lose their property under transliteration. Classical bandhas - Chakrabandha चक्रबन्ध Syllables sit on the rim, hub and spokes of an n-spoked wheel. Found from Daṇḍin's Kāvyādarśa onward and richly developed in chapter 30 of the Pādukāsahasra. Read anti-clockwise around the rim for one verse. Read along the spokes, rim to hub, for a second. - Padmabandha पद्मबन्ध An eight-petalled lotus with a calyx. Each petal carries a unit of the verse. Syllables shared at petal joins serve two readings at once, which forces dense lexical play. - Murajabandha मुरजबन्ध A grid shaped like a muraja (mṛdaṅga) drum. The Agnipurāṇa fixes its metrical rules. Read across the parallel skins for one verse. Read along the curving body for another. - Khadgabandha खड्गबन्ध Syllables arranged along a sword's silhouette: hilt, guard, fuller and edge. Māgha (7th century) is the locus classicus; canto XIX of the Śiśupālavadha holds a celebrated example. Reading follows the silhouette from hilt to point. - Nāgabandha नागबन्ध The verse coils along a serpent's body. A favourite of the temple-inscriptional tradition, with instances at Kanchi and Tirumala. Begin at the tail and end at the hood. Mirror readings double back. - Gomūtrikābandha गोमूत्रिका Two lines of verse arranged so that a zigzag path through them yields a third. An unusually compact case of information shared across line boundaries. Read the lines straight for two verses, then alternate along the zigzag for a third, grammatically valid verse. - Sarvatōbhadra सर्वतोभद्र A 4×4 or 8×8 grid in which the same śloka reads the same left-to-right, right-to-left, top-to-bottom and bottom-to-top. Each row, each column and the verse as a whole is a palindrome. Read in any cardinal direction; the syllabic sequence repeats. Sarvatōbhadra ## The four-fold palindrome. A 4×8 surface on the syllables sa, ka, ra, ta. Reading left to right, right to left, top to bottom or bottom to top repeats the same sequence. स क र त त र क स क र त स स त र क र त स क क स त र त स क र र क स त Each row is a palindrome, and each column mirrors the column across the centre. Pick a row or a column to see the symmetry. ## Kirātārjunīya 15.25, Bhāravi. The full 8×8 square. Each row and each column is a palindrome, and the whole square reads the same from any side. दे वा का नि नि का वा दे वा हि का स्व स्व का हि वा का का रे भ भ रे का का नि स्व भ व्य व्य भ स्व नि नि स्व भ व्य व्य भ स्व नि का का रे भ भ रे का का वा हि का स्व स्व का हि वा दे वा का नि नि का वा दे देवाकानिनि कावादे वाहिकास्वस्वकाहि वा । काकारेभभरे काका निस्वभव्यव्यभस्वनि ॥ devākānini kāvāde vāhikāsvasvakāhi vā / kākārebhabhare kākā nisvabhavyavyabhasvani Modern English chitrakāvya, Donald Knuth, 2005 In 2005, in correspondence with the IIITB-CSL group, Donald Knuth contributed two English-language chitrakāvyas: pairs of 32-word verses arranged on a 4×8 chessboard so that a knight's tour over the first verse produces the second. They are the only widely known modern analogues of Vedānta Deśika's Pādukāsahasra and the Harivijaya. Where the Sanskrit originals exploit the meaning-stable word order of Sanskrit, Knuth exploits the homophonic looseness of English: two and too, four and for, see and sea, terns and turns, passed and past are the same syllable when spoken aloud. Both poems are reproduced with audio recitations from the IIITB archive. Press Listen to recital and the knight jumps in time with the voice, one cell per spoken word; the word-onset timestamps were recovered from the recordings by onset detection. Step and Auto-play walk the tour silently. Poem 1, after the Pādukāsahasra ### One, two, three, four, see each word here… Sequential reading (verse 1) 1 One 2 two 3 three 4 four 5 See 6 each 7 word 8 here 9 Jumps 10 so 11 wise 12 now 13 find 14 their 15 place 16 passed 17 Terns 18 can't 19 soar 20 like 21 flies 22 the 23 free 24 rook 25 Goose 26 steps 27 just 28 won't 29 mean 30 knight 31 hops 32 last Knight's-tour reading (verse 2) 1 One 2 knight 3 jumps 4 like 5 three 6 rook 7 wise 8 steps 9 Past 10 sore 11 too 12 mean 13 so 14 just 15 for 16 free 17 Hops 18 here 19 turns 20 there 21 flies 22 each 23 goose 24 now 25 Can't 26 place 27 last 28 word? 29 Won't 30 find 31 the 32 sea 0 / 32 Verse 1, sequential One two three four, See each word here. Jumps so wise now, find their place passed. Terns can't soar like flies, the free rook. Goose steps just won't mean knight hops last. Verse 2, knight's tour One knight jumps like three rook wise steps. Past sore too mean, so just for free. Hops here turns there, flies each goose now. Can't place last word? Won't find the sea. The same multiset of syllables, read in two orders. Listen with the recital playing: both verses sound nearly identical, only the punctuation and spelling change. Poem 2, after the Harivijaya ### Have some fun, watch this or that word… Knight's-tour reading (verse 1) 1 Have 2 some 3 fun 4 Watch 5 this 6 or 7 that 8 word 9 great 10 four 11 lines 12 take 13 out 14 each 15 gives 16 eight 17 Left 18 than 19 two 20 black 21 and 22 just 23 here 24 white 25 three 26 rook 27 steps 28 make 29 one 30 knight 31 move 32 right Sequential reading (verse 2) 1 One 2 two 3 three 4 four 5 watch 6 each 7 word 8 here 9 or 10 take 11 some 12 left 13 steps 14 and 15 move 16 eight 17 just 18 right 19 gives 20 this 21 black 22 rook 23 great 24 fun 25 than 26 have 27 lines 28 make 29 out 30 that 31 white 32 knight 0 / 32 Verse 1, knight's tour Have some fun, Watch this or that word. Great four lines take out each, gives eight. Left than two black and just here white. Three rook steps make one knight move right. Verse 2, sequential One two three four, watch each word here, or take some left steps and move eight. Just right gives this black rook great fun, than have lines make out that white knight. Here the order is reversed, as in the Harivijaya: the knight's-tour reading is the first verse, and the sequential reading is the second. Watch the left grid light up as the knight walks the right one. Nineteenth-century bandhas - Matsyabandha मत्स्यबन्ध Verse fitted to a fish's silhouette: body, tail, gill, eye. Late-Vaiṣṇava poets used it for invocations of Viṣṇu's matsya avatar. Reading starts at the mouth and runs along the spine. - Toraṇabandha तोरणबन्ध The lintel carries the opening line; two pillars carry mirrored secondary lines descending in parallel. Common on praise inscriptions at Tirupati and Srirangam. Lintel first, then each pillar top to bottom. - Chatrabandha छत्रबन्ध Canopy syllables read across the curved arc; staff syllables descend the vertical. An arrow marks the start of reading. Arc first, then down the staff. - Padmabandha (12) पद्मबन्ध The eight-petal lotus elaborated to twelve, with a syllabic centre. One verse spirals inward and a second appears in the calyx. Reading direction is given by an external arrow. - Chakrabandha (16) चक्रबन्ध The classical wheel doubled to sixteen spokes, so two interlocking verses share a hub syllable. Appears in late-19th-century stuti literature, at Pandharpur, and in Maithili anthologies. Two interlocking rim readings; the hub syllable belongs to both. - Chakrabandha (simple) चक्रबन्ध A tighter wheel with two concentric reading rings, used as a mnemonic in 19th-century pāṭhaśālā instruction. Reading directions differ between the outer rim and the inner ring. The figures are set in Tiro Devanagari Sanskrit. Misalignment usually indicates font fallback. References - [Chitra-kāvya, Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chitra-kavya) - [Sreenivasa Rao on chitrabandha](https://sreenivasaraos.com/2012/10/10/chitrakavya-chitrabandha/) - [Wisdomlib, padmabandha](https://www.wisdomlib.org/definition/padmabandha) - [Wisdomlib, Jarasandhavadha Mahākāvyam (bandhas)](https://www.wisdomlib.org/hinduism/book/jarasandhavadha-mahakavyam/d/doc419451.html) - [Pollastri, Sound, image and meaning (PDF)](https://www.academia.edu/8786970/Sound_image_and_meaning_Many_aspects_of_Sanskrit_figurative_poetry) - [Śiśupālavadha, Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shishupala_Vadha) - [Tiro Devanagari Sanskrit, Google Fonts](https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Tiro+Devanagari+Sanskrit) --- https://emergence.live/chitrakavya/visuals