A History of Sanskrit Literature: Classical Period, Vol. I c4.7

c4.7

This opinion may be confirmed by reference to the writings of other rhetoricians who followed Bhāmaha. It is a pity that Winternitz should have such an unfounded and uncharitable opinion of Indian poetry. It is also difficult to imagine why Winternitz should render *kāvya* as ornate poetry, which he defines as that in which "the poet makes it his highest ambition to astonish his readers or hearers by as numerous, as original and as elaborate similes as possible." His remarks about ornate poetry apply only to the poets of a degenerate time, when the true ideals of real poetry was lost sight of and when the poets had to pose themselves as great pundits. It is no doubt true that many of the famous poets like Bhaṭṭi, Māgha or Śrīharṣa follow the worst standard of artificial poetry and indeed Bhaṭṭi boasts that his *kāvya* is such that it is not intelligible without explanation; yet it must be pointed ont that this was not the opinion of the critics of literature and that for that reason *kāvya* style should not be confounded with artificiality. During the period that many of these poets flourished there was such an ascendancy of the scholarly philosophers, that the poets often thought that learning was greater than poetry and they tried to pose their learning through their poetry. But I do not see how a poet like Aśvaghoṣa can be regarded as a representative of ornate poetry in the same sense in which Mahākṣattrapa Rudradāman's inscription-texts can be regarded as ornate.