History of Sanskrit Poetics c6.8.3

c6.8.3

4) and which marks the difference between the man who does not understand the greatness of speech and him who looks more to the inner meaning of speech than to the nice words in which it may be clothed. The word ‘kāvya’ (poem) occurs several times in the Ṛgveda; e. g. III. 17 is भा देवानांभवः केतुरभे मन्द्रो विश्वानि काव्यानि विद्वान् ॥ ‘Agni! thou art the banner of the gods and knowest all poems’; vide also III. 1. 18 for ‘अग्निर्विश्वानि काव्यानि विद्वान्’; IV. 3. 16 (nivacanā kavaye kāvyanya-samsiṣam); in Ṛg. VI. 11. 3 ‘मधु च्छन्दो भनति रेम इष्टौ (the singer utters in the sacrifice a sweet verse); VIII. 3. 15 ‘उदुत्ये मधुमत्तमा गिरः स्तोमास ईरते’ (those men send forth songs of praise, that are most sweet words); the word गाथा (a verse that is sung) also often occurs in the Ṛgveda; e. g. VIII. 43 ‘तं गाथया पुराण्या पुनानमभ्यनूषत’ (with an ancient gāthā they send forth a laud towards Soma that is being washed); vide also X. 85. 6. These passages show that poems with sweet words were highly valued in those very ancient times and, though no theory of Poetics could be stated to have been evolved, the germs of it were there. The शतपथब्रा. I. 2. 5. 16 emphasizes the same points of female beauty as later classical Sanskrit poets do (एवमेव हि योषीं प्रशंसन्ति पृथुश्रोणीर्विमृष्टान्तरांसा मध्ये संग्राह्यति). This much will suffice for the different aspects of Poetry in general. As regards dramas and dramatic representation the following points have to be noted.