Dexterity

Bhattathiri's dexterity in condensing vast material into a small compass can be gleaned from the following examples:

1. Dasakam 15 : This dasakam sets out in ten verses the essence of Kapila's (an incarnation of the Lord Himself) advice to his mother, Devahuti, on the Sankhya, which, in the Bhagavatham, spans ten chapters (Nos. 24 to 33) of the third Skanda (or Canto).
2. Dasakams 34 and 35 : The whole of the Ramayana epic of Valmiki is covered in twenty verses, as against two chapters of the 9th Canto in the Bhagavatham, and 24000 lines in Valmiki Ramayanam.
3. Dasakam 86, verse 6 : This sets out in a single verse, the essence of the Lord's teaching to Arjuna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra, which spans 18 chapters of the Bhagavadgeeta.
4. Dasakam 93 : This dasakam briefly deals with the 25 teachers or preceptors, all found in nature, and the lessons to be learned from each one of them, for either emulation or avoidance in daily life by a devotee.
5. Dasakam 95, Verse 8 : In this verse, Bhattathiri gives an graphic, encapsulated head-to-foot description of the Lord, in an easy-flowing cascade of phrases, that are simple and easy to memorise and also recall for constant chanting and meditation.