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A History of Sanskrit Literature c21.s9: 9. Bāṇa's Style

A History of Sanskrit Literature c21.s9

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9. Bāṇa's Style

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Weber,¹ who was rarely moved to wrath, made once a most effective protest against Bāṇa's defects of style; he condemned him, as compared with Daṇḍin, for a subtlety and tautology which were repugnant, the outrageous overloading of single words with epithets, the construction of sentences in which the solitary verb is held over for pages, the interval being filled by epithets and epithets upon these epithets, these epithets moreover frequently extending over more than a line in the form of compounds, so that Bāṇa's prose is an Indian wood where progress is impossible through the undergrowth until the traveller cuts out a path for himself, and where even then he is confronted by malicious wild beasts in the shape of unknown words to terrify him. The censure is just; Bāṇa revels in the construction of sentences consisting of heaped up epithets in compound form, throwing away all the advantages of an inflected language; moreover he loves to pile up in these compounds double meanings, and these he brings about repeatedly by the use of rare senses of ordinary words or the use of utterly abnormal phraseology. He shows his exact knowledge of grammar in many points, and adheres to the due use of the perfect, as against Subandhu who employs it as a narrative tense without the restriction of reference to matters not within the experience of him who uses it. His employment of the figures of speech is unwearying, and he is largely dominated by the desire to produce prose which shall be rhythmical. His long compounds are often clearly built up and interspersed with shorter words simply in order to achieve this effect which Daṇḍin and other writers of poetics extol under the style of Ojas, strength. Like other Indian authors he clearly attaches to this end an importance foreign to our conceptions, but part at least of his influence on later writers such as Dharmadāsa, Govardhana, and Jayadeva must be assigned to his sound effects as well as to his brilliance in figures of speech, to which they no doubt, from a modern point of view, attached undue merit. But it is fair to remember that Bāṇa is by no means without sense of propriety; he can resort to brief interchange of speeches when he deems it fit, Kapiñjala's advice to Puṇḍarīka is direct and forcible, and the ejaculations of the maidens of the queen Rājyaçrī when on the point of lighting the pyre, or of the dying king Prabhākaravardhana, are perfectly phrased. In its own way there is a model of force in the picture of the exclamations of the motley host of the royal army and the cries of the despairing villagers who are being plundered right and left. Nor is Bāṇa at all incapable of epigrammatic brevity, though unhappily he too rarely practises it.

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¹ Accepted by M. R. Kāle, *Kādambarī*, p. 25. Weber's treatise on the romances is in *Ind. Streifen*, i. 308-86.

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The description of the doorkeeper,¹ a maiden, in the *Kādambarī* exhibits his normal style: *ekadā tu nātidūrodite navanalinadalasaṃpuṭabhidi kiṃcidunmuktapāṭalimni bhagavati sahasramarīcimālini rājānam āsthānamaṇḍapagataṃ aṅganājanaviruddhena vāmapārçvāvalambinā kaukṣeyakeṇa saṁnihitaviṣadhāreva candanalatā bhīṣaṇaramaṇīyākṛtir aviralacandanānulepanadhavalitastanataṭonmajjadairāvatakumbhamaṇḍaleva mandākinī cūḍāmaṇipratibimbacchalena rājājñeva mūrtimatī rājabhiḥ çirobhir uhyamānā çarad iva kalahaṃsadhavalāmbarā jāmadagnyaparaçudhāreva vaçīkṛtasakalarājamaṇḍalā vindhyavanabhūmir iva vetralatāvatī rājyādhidevateva vigrahiṇī pratīhārī samupasṛtya kṣititalanihitajānukarakamalā savinayam abravīt.* 'Once, when the sun, garlanded with a thousand rays, bursting open the fresh lotus buds, relaxing something of his ruddy hue, had risen no great space in the sky, to the king seated in the presence chamber, came the keeper of the door, and with bent knee and lotus-like hand touching the ground addressed his majesty. Her form was lovely, yet dread, even as a sandal plant wherein lurks a snake, by reason of the sword which she wore at her left side, belying her womanhood; she was as it were the Ganges, her bosom whitened by sandal showing like the temples of Airāvata as he emerges from his bath; through her reflection in their crest jewels she was as it were an embodiment of the king’s order, borne on the heads of obedient princes;

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by the whiteness of her robe which vied with the swans, she resembled the autumn when they return home; she conquered all the assembled kings as did the edge of Paraçurāma’s axe; with the cane wand which she bore she resembled the Vindhya forest land, and she seemed none other than the guardian deity of the realm in human shape.’ We would no doubt be unjust to Bāṇa if we held that he did not realize the humorous side of these exaggerations, just as he no doubt saw the comic aspect of the putting of his tale into the mouth of a parrot, and enjoyed as much as we should his remark on Skandagupta: *nṛpavan̄çadīrghaṁ nāsavan̄çaṁ dadhānaḥ*, ‘with a nose as long as his sovereign’s pedigree,’ which has been solemnly censured by unimaginative stolidity.

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Against this peaceful picture we may set the striking picture of the return of Bhaṇḍi with the news of Rājyavardhana’s death: *malinavāsā ripuçaraçalyapūritena nikhātabahulohakīlakaparikararakṣitasphuṭaneneva hṛdayena hṛdayalagnaiḥ svāmisatkṛtair iva çmaçrubhiḥ çucaṁ samupadarçayan dūrīkṛtavyāyāmaçithilabhuja-daṇḍadolāyamānamaṅgalavalayaikaçeṣālaṁkṛtir anādaropayuktatāmbūlaviralarāgeṇa çokadahanadahyamānasya hṛdayasyāṅgāreṇeva dīrghaniçvāsaveganirgatenādhareṇa çuṣyatā svāmiviraha-vidhṛtajīvitāparādhavailakṣyād iva bāṣpavāripaṭalena paṭeneva prāvṛtavadanaḥ viṣaṇṇa iva*, ‘His raiment was besmirched and he manifested his grief by his heart which was filled with the foe’s darts and arrows, as though they were clamps of iron to restrain it from breaking, and his beard which lay over the heart on which his master’s good deeds were engraved. On his long arm, relaxed from lack of exercise, was as sole ornament his lucky bracelet. His parched lip, faintly coloured through neglect of use of betel, protruded under the stress of his long sighs like a coal from a heart afire with sorrow, and he covered his face with a mantle of tears as though in shame for the sin of living when his master had fallen.’ Yet Bāṇa can be brief, though he must be pointed, as in Harṣa’s oath;

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*çapāmy āryasyaiva pādapaṅ-* *susparçena yadi parigaṇitair eva vāsaraiḥ sakalacāpacāpaladur-lalitanārapaticaraṇaraṇaraṇāyamānanigaḍāṁ nirgauḍāṁ na karomi medinīṁ tatas tanūnapāti pītasarpiṣi pataṅga iva pātakī pātayāmy ātmānam*, ‘By the dust of my noble one’s feet I swear that, if I do not within a measured tale of days make the earth without a Gauḍa and cause it to resound with the fetters on the feet of kings made haughty by the elasticity of their bows, I will hurl myself, worthless as I shall be, like a moth on to a flame fed of oil.’ Even in the death scenes of Harṣa’s mother and father epigram must prevail: Prabhākaravardhana thus addresses his darling boy: *mahāsattvatā hi prathamaṁ avalambanaṁ lokasya paçcād rājajīvitā. sattvavatāṁ cāgraṇīḥ sarvātiçayaçritaḥ kva bhavān kva vaiklavyaṁ? ‘kulapradīpo’ sīti divasakarasadṛçatejasas te laghukaraṇam iva. puruṣasiṅho’ sīti cauryapaṭuprajñopabṛṅhita-parākramasya nindeva. kṣitir iyaṁ taveti lakṣaṇākhyātacakra-vartipadasya punaruktam iva. gṛhyatāṁ çrīr iti svayam eva çriyā gṛhītasya viparītam iva*, ‘Magnanimity is the mainstay of this world, next royal blood. How incompatible is weakness with thee who art the first of the magnanimous, endowed with every perfection? Shall I call thee lamp of our line? That were almost a making light of thee whose brilliance matcheth the sun. To call thee lion of men is as it were a censure to one whose prowess is manifested not alone in heroism but in keen intelligence.

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’Twere tautology to say, “The earth is thine”, when thou bearest the clear signs of imperial splendour to come. ’Twere contradiction to bid thee grasp the goddess fortune when she already hath thee in her embrace,’ and so on until the poet grows weary, for there is no logical end to these elegancies. Rhythmical effects and alliterations abound and often are happy: *apratihataratharaṅhasā Raghuṇā laghunaiva kālenākāri kaku-bhāṁ prasādanam*, ‘In a brief space with the irresistible onset of his chariot Raghu brought peace to the world.’

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¹ For the representation of such a Yavanī in art see Foucher, *L'Art Gréco-Bouddhique du Gandhāra*, ii. 70 ff.

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Bāṇa’s fondness of figures is obvious, and metaphors, similes, seeming incongruity, exemplification, Sahoktis, as in the description of Rājyaçrī as *akulāṁ keçakalāpena maraṇopāyena ca*, ‘bewildered with dishevelled locks and as to the means of death,’ *dagdhāṁ caṇḍātapena vaidhavyaena ca*, ‘burnt with the fierce heat and the pains of widowhood’, and others abound. Among his few verses is a fairly good example of lively fancy, Utprekṣā:

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*jayaty Upendraḥ sa cakāra dūrato: bibhitsayā yaḥ kṣaṇalab-*
*dhalakṣyayā*
*dṛçaiva kopāruṇayā ripor uraḥ: svayam bhayād bhinnam iv-*
*āsrapāṭalam.*

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‘Supreme is that Upendra, who by his mere glance from afar which struck at once its mark with angry red, made the breast of his foe ruddy with gore as though in fear it had burst open of its own accord.’ A good instance of hyperbole, Atiçayokti, is presented in his eulogy of his preceptor:

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*namāmi Bharvoç caraṇāmbujadvayaṁ: saçekharair Maukha-*
*ribhiḥ kṛtārcanam*
*samastasāmantakirīṭavedikā-: viṭaṅkapīṭholluṭhitāruṇāṅguli.*

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‘I revere the lotus feet of Bharvu, worshipped by the Maukhari princes with diadems on their heads, whose toes gleamed red as they moved on the lofty footstool formed by the crowns of all the feudatories of the realm.’

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The number of verses used by Bāṇa is small, though less limited than in the case of Subandhu. Bāṇa does not observe the rule laid down by Bhāmaha¹ that the Ākhyāyikā should contain at the beginning of each Ucchvāsa Vaktra and Aparavaktra verses announcing the subject of the chapter. The first Ucchvāsa of the *Harṣacarita* has an introduction on poetry; the others have two verses, but the form is either two Āryās or a Çloka and an Āryā. In the body of the chapters we have an Aparavaktra in i; three stanzas Vasantatilaka, Çārdūlavikrīḍita and Aparavaktra in ii; two pairs, Āryā and Sragdharā in iii; a pair of verses, Vaktra and Aparavaktra, and a detached Āryā in iv; a Çloka and an Aparavaktra in v; and an Āryā in vi; the last two have no inserted verses. The Vaktra of Bāṇa is not the Çloka as in the metrical textbooks, but a sort of Çloka with a spondee at the close of the even lines. The *Kādambarī* after its verse prelude is essentially in prose.

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¹ i. 26. Nobel (*Indian Poetry*, pp. 178, 187) argues that both Daṇḍin and Bhāmaha cannot have known Bāṇa’s work: as regards Bhāmaha this can hardly be true in respect of time, but he may have lived far away. In Rudraṭa we have accounts of the Kathā (xvi. 20–3) and Ākhyāyikā (xvi. 24–30) which obviously are based on Bāṇa; cf. S. K. Dé, BSOS. iii. 514 f.

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