Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v2.c87.19

v2.c87.19

The *Kāvya-kalpalatā-vṛtti* of Arisiṃha and Amaracandra and the *Kavi-kalpalatā* of Deveśvara, written in imitation of that work, need not detain us long. They are essentially treatises on the composition of verses, including a practical treatment of prosody and rhetoric. They furnish elaborate hints on the construction of different metres, on the display of word-skill of various kinds, on *jeux de mots* and tricks of producing double meaning, conundrums, riddles, alliterative and rhyming verses, and various other devices of verbal ingenuity, concluding with a chapter on the construction of similes and enumeration of parallelisms for the purpose of ordinary comparisons. It gives also a list of *kavi-samayas* or conventions observed by the poets, and states in detail what to describe and how to describe it. These decadent treatises, therefore, offer such adventitious aids for ready-made poetry, as may—to take a particular point—be afforded, for instance, by a modern rhyming dictionary or works of similar nature.