Raghuveera Gadyam
Author: Swami Vedanta Desika
Tradition: Sri Vaishnava stotra
Desikan's prose-poem in praise of Rama's valor.
Raghuveera Gadyam — Sundara Kanda passage
apāra-pāravāra-parikha-parivṛta-para-pura-parisṛta-dava-dahana-javana-pavanabhava-kapivara-pariṣvaṅga-bhāvita-sarvasva-dāna !
अपार पारावार परिखा परिवृत परपुर परिसृत दव दहन जवन पवनभव कपिवर परिष्वङ्ग भावित सर्वस्व दान !
He who gives everything, moved by the embrace of that best of monkeys — born of the wind, swift as wildfire, who spread through the enemy city surrounded by its moat of the fathomless ocean!
This is the entirety of Swami Vedanta Desikan’s Sundara Kanda section in the Raghuveera Gadyam (also called Sri Mahaveera Vaibhavam). The whole Sundara Kanda — Hanuman’s ocean crossing, discovery of Sita, burning of Lanka — is condensed into a single flowing prose compound.
The key image is apāra-pāravāra-parikha — “the fathomless ocean as the moat.” Desikan does not describe the crossing at all. He names the ocean merely as the defensive ditch around Lanka. What took Valmiki 210 shlokas and Kamban an entire padalam, Desikan treats as a fortification feature of the enemy city — something Hanuman passed through on the way in.
Read the full text at the source ↗
License / provenance: Traditional stotra composition of Swami Vedanta Desikan (13th–14th century); public domain.