Charyapada

The Charyapada is a collection of mystical poems and songs of realization from the Vajrayāna tradition of Buddhism. It comes from the tāntric tradition in places like Assam, Bengal, Bihar, and Odisha. People put these poems together between the 8th and 12th centuries, using a special old language called late Apabhraṃśa or various Abahaṭ‌ṭha dialects.

Scholars who study eastern Indo-Aryan languages, such as Assamese, Bengali, Maithili, and Odia, see bits of these languages in the Charyapada. A palm-leaf book of the Charyāpada was found again in the early 1900s by Haraprasād Shāstrī at the Nepal Royal Court Library. The Charyapada was also kept safe in the Tibetan Buddhist canon.

Manuscripts

The original manuscript of the Charyapada has 47 verses and a Sanskrit explanation. It was edited by Haraprashad Shastri and published in 1916. Today, it is kept at the National Archives of Nepal. Later, a different version with 50 verses was found and shared by Prabodhchandra Bagchi. This version is a Tibetan translation, and tradition says it was done by Vairocanavajra, a Buddhist teacher from the 12th century.

The Tibetan translation gave more details. It said that the Sanskrit explanation was written by someone named Munidatta. It also said the original text was translated by Shilachari, and the explanation was translated by either Chandrakirti or Kirtichandra.

Poets

Main page: Category:Poets of Charyapada

The poems in the Charyapada were written by 22 special poets called Mahasiddhas, who lived between 750 and 1150 CE. Each poem usually starts with the name of the poet who wrote it. Some parts of the old books with these poems are missing. But we have a translation of 50 poems that includes some of the missing ones.

The poets' names and the music style for each poem are mentioned before the poems. These names were likely added by a commentator named Munidatta.

Period

Haraprasad Shastri found the Charyapada and thought it was written in the 10th century. Other experts had different ideas. Suniti Kumar Chatterji thought it was made between the 10th and 12th centuries. Sukumar Sen agreed but said it might have been written between the 11th and 14th centuries. Muhammad Shahidullah thought it could be even older, maybe between the 7th and 11th centuries. Rahul Sankrityayan guessed it was probably written between the 8th and 11th centuries.

Language

Haraprasad Shastri said the language of the poems was a "twilight language" based on old commentaries.

The poems were written by poets from many places, so their language shows links to many local dialects. Scholars have found similarities between the Charyapada and the languages of Assamese, Bengali, Maithili, and Odia.

Affinities with Assamese

Luipa was from Kamarupa and wrote two charyas. Sarahapa was from Rani, near today’s Guwahati. Some features connect the Charyapada to Assamese, like word order and endings.

Affinities with Bengali

Many poets of the Charyapada were from Bengal. The language shows links to the Bengali language in endings, verbs, and words.

Affinities with Bihari languages

Scholars have seen links between the Charyapada and Bihari languages like Maithili and Magahi. Some historians think the poems are an early form of these languages.

Affinities with Odia

The start of Odia poetry happened around the same time as the Charyapada poems were written.

Rāga

Before each song in the Charyapada, a special music style called a Rāga is listed to guide how the song should be sung. The list of these Rāgas used in the Charyapada is shown below.

Some of these Rāgas are not used today, but others might be known by different names now.