Anushtup Chanda...

Ok so I know the Sanskrit pundits will look down upon me when I start writing from a basic concept like "anushtup chanda"..
There are so many times in lives when we simply follow the rituals that are passed down from generations..

I remember during my childhood .. my grandmom would make me and my siblings do "sandhya-dhyan". Sandhya-dhyan/ "diya-baati" as it is called popularly is a evening ritual in most of the Indian households and it is considered auspicious. All the family members are supposed to participate in this ritual. Pray, meditate etc, etc. For me, the whole ritual of sandhya-pooja was kind of meaningless because it would mean that I had to do, say things which made no/little sense to me as a child..
So one of the ritual was to sing chants for "ram-raksha storam". Now this stotra is actually supposed to be very powerful by many Hindus (and yes I do chant this whenever I am in distress).. nooo don't roll your eyes yet!!

Ok, so coming back to the point, this ram raksha stotra starts with word "anushtup chanda"
And I always would wonder what anushtup chanda actually means.. until wikipedia came to my rescue..
Here it is .. straight from the horse's mouth:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anustubh

And for those of you who are interested in reading more, this is another great post:
http://ram-raksha-stotra.blogspot.com/2010/10/anushtup-chanda.html

(And while I am writing this blog.. an almost another parallel thread of thought pops up in my head. .what if I want to become a politician in India.. the thought runs something like this: because of this blog I will be termed as extreme Hindu and would branded as an RSS enthusiast and then may be Muslim votes would be lost forever..) Damn.. this vote bank politics in India.. I can't even focus on being a hindu now :P

To quote the blogger .Dr. Bharat Bhushan

The story of Valmiki discovering the Anushtup Chanda metre of poetry is in itself extremely fascinating, especially because of the romanticisation of the love of the Krauncha birds and their subsequent sorrow. The death of one of the birds caused the sage, Valmiki, to exclaim in verse, that he later realized was in a proper metre, and was accepted and recognized as the Anushtup.

The verses in Anushtup metre were grouped into chapters that were termed as Sarga, that were later compiled within a Kaanda. Interestingly, the word Kaanda, is usually meant to depict the internode point of sugarcane, and in ancient Sanskrit, was used to depict an interlude within a story. Valmiki’s Ramayana, now recognized as the Srimad Valmiki Ramayan, is organized into six Kaandas or Books. There is a seventh Kaanda, and its inclusion is a different story and a different argument elsewhere.

The Anushtup metre is comprised of 32 syllables in one verse. Each sloka, or a para within the poem, is usually comprised of four lines, and sometimes more. Uniquely, the sage-poet, Valmiki, seemed to have confirmed to most of the rules of Sanskrit Grammer, that must have been defined much later. The Ram Raksha Stotra is also similarly constructed, in precise Anushtup metre, with 32 syllables in four lines of the verse.

Sri Budha Kousika Rishi, as did Valmiki, did not stray from the rules that would later be written to depict the system governing the structural and functional relationships of the verse, following its earlier verse, and subsequently leading to the compilation of the entire Sri Ram Raksha Stotra. There is extremely complex interplay of word components, mostly of course, with the word ‘Ram’, which is to be expected. There is also complex organization of the morphology and syntax of the series of words within each metre.

In fact, so powerful is the ram raksha stotra that it is actually part of "garbha-sanskara" ritual.
Garbha-sanskara is a collective set of rituals for a pregnant woman in hinduism. Chanting these mantras helps in creating a peaceful pregnancy and labor experience.
Also, it is said that chanting this verse from ram raksha helps to remove any stuttering problems
for a baby:

Rama rame rameti,

rame rame manorame |

Sahasra naama tatulyam,

rama naama varanane ||

More later..