Raghavayadhaveeyam

Raghavayadhaveeyam (Raghava-Yadaviyam) written by 17th Century poet, Sri Venkatadhvari, is truly a magnificent work in Sanskrit language!

Sri Venkatadhvari was born at Arasanipalai near Kancheepuram and was a follower of Sri Vedanta Desikan (also known as, Swami Desika, Swami Vedanta Desika, Thoopul Nigamaantha Desikan) who was a Guru and a philosopher of Sri Vaishnavism.

I chanced upon this poem, Raghavayadhaveeyam, recently and have been fascinated about it since then! The brilliance of this poem is that, Raghavayadhaveeyam is written as an “anuloma-viloma-kavya”, meaning, a poem with two meanings! The poem in its primary order narrates the story of Lord Rama from the Ramayana while in its reverse order, it narrates the story of Lord Krishna from the Mahabharata, thus covering two of the most famous epics of Sanatana Dharma!

Sri Venkatadhvari is believed to have composed 14 works, of which, the most important one was Lakshmisahasram. It is believed that, the poet was blind and got back his eyesight while composing Laskhmisahasram!

There are 30 slokas in Raghavayadhaveeyam and all of that is written as “anuloma-viloma” method. Here in this article, let us look at some of the slokas and see how beautiful Sanksrit language is and how brilliant our ancient poets are!!

This translation and commentary is taken from the book written by Dr.Saroja Ramanujam, who is a Shiromani in Sanksrit and has done extensive research in Advaita Vedanta!

Before we proceed, my pranams to Sri Venkatadhvari and to Dr. Saroja Ramanujam for beautifully translating this for all of us..!