Alom-Vilom Kavya The Greatest Form Of Writing

Have you ever imagine how wonderful and exciting it would be if you all can read my piece right to left and left to right and it makes sense both the way and successfully conveys two different subject matters! in a single piece simply Wow. Our Indic-ancestors were expert of this form of poetry writing called as Alom-Vilom shastra or vidya which involves reading “with the grain“ that is going with the verse in the normal direction called as “Anulomena” and reading against the verse in the opposite direction or “against the grains” called as “Pratilomena”. It has two major types i.e “Visamksara” or when verse sound different when read bi-directionally and “Samaksara“ which is a palindromic sounding verse.

This form of writing is very rare and doesn’t find much attention and place in the history of Sanskrit literature but some of the historians and researchers such as Yigal Bronner claim Suryadas as the inventor of this form of verse writing since his work is one of the oldest and authenticated works available today. the most famous out of this works is Suryadas’s “Raghavpandivayam” or also called as “Ramkrushnavilomkavya” can be dated anywhere between the mid-late sixteenth century.

“Raghava-Yadaviyam“ by Venkatadhvari (17th century) is another very recent account of “Alom-Vilom” type of poetry and shloka writing. let's look up at one of its shloka -

वन्देऽहं देवं तं श्रीतं रन्तारं कालं भासा यः ।
रामो रामाधीराप्यागो लीलामारायोध्ये वासे ॥

“I pay my obeisance to Lord Shri Rama, who with his heart pining for Sita, travelled across the Sahyadri Hills and returned to Ayodhya after killing Ravana and sported with his consort, Sita, in Ayodhya for a long time.”

In reverse

सेवाध्येयो रामालाली गोप्याराधी मारामोरा ।
यस्साभालंकारं तारं तं श्रीतं वन्देहं देवं ॥

“I bow to Lord Shri Krishna, whose chest is the sporting resort of Shri Lakshmi who is fit to be contemplated through penance and sacrifice, who fondles Rukmani and his other consorts and who is worshipped by the gopis, and who is decked with jewels radiating splendour.”

The other available accounts of “Alom-Vilom” kavya are a very recent and rare example- Cidambara Devi-“Sabdarthcintamani”, Venkatadhvari -” Nalaharishchandriya”.

Our literature is full of jewels such as Kalidas, Adi Shankara, Bharavi, Magha, Bhatti, Jaydev, Vedant Desika and many more who are splendid and top-notch stalwarts of there field their piece of literature is marvellous and intriguing we must read them and understand the essence and glory of our historical literary past.