Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v2.c80.32

v2.c80.32

With these general remarks we may now turn to a brief consideration of other topics in the work of Bhāmaha. Bhāmaha rests content by taking the *kāvya* to consist of *śabda* and *artha* (*śabdārthau sahitau kāvyam*), giving equal prominence to word and sense in poetry. But he implies by his treatment that the *kāvya* should also be faultless (*nirdoṣa*) and embellished by poetic figures (*sālaṃkāra*). Then follows the classification of poetry (i) according to form, into verse and prose (ii) according to the language employed, into Sanskrit, Prākrit and Apabhraṃśa (iii) according to the subject-matter, into fourfold division, so far as it deals respectively with incidents human or divine, incidents invented by the poet's imagination, or incidents based on the several arts or sciences, (iv) according to the conventional way of grouping compositions into fivefold recognised division, viz. *sarga-bandha* (*mahākāvya*), *abhineyārtha* (drama), *ākhyāyikā*, *kathā* and *anibaddha-kāvya* (i. e. detached poems like *gāthās* or individual *ślokas*). Bhāmaha's definition of a *mahākāvya* is more or less conventional, and practically agrees with that to be found in Daṇḍin (i 14 f) and in the *Agni-purāṇa* (336, 24-32). With regard to *abhineyārtha*, he omits its treatment because others have treated of it already. Bhāmaha lays down a somewhat hard-and-fast line of demarcation between the *kathā* and the *ākhyāyikā*, a view which is not accepted by Daṇḍin and which Vāmana does not enter into as being too fine¹⁴. With regard to the formal classification of verse and prose, it may be remarked that poetry, according to the view of Sanskrit theorists, has a twofold aspect according as it consists of verse (*padya*) or prose (*gadya*), although some authors speak of a mixed kind (*miśra*), e. g., the drama in which both prose and verse occur.