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A History of Sanskrit Literature c23.s1: 1. The Aims and Training of the Poet

A History of Sanskrit Literature c23.s1

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English

1. The Aims and Training of the Poet

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INDIAN poets and authors of works on poetics are in substantial agreement in their views of the poet’s purpose.¹ The two great ends which appeal to them are the winning of fame and the giving of pleasure; even after the poet has gone to heaven, Bhāmaha says, his body remains on the earth, pure and pleasant in the shape of his poem. No doubt other ends may be added; Bhāmaha himself mentions skill in regard to duty, practical life, love, and final release, and in the arts, but these are merely subsidiary matters, which can be gained by other means and are not therefore worthy of mention. Nor is instruction a necessary part of the aim of the poet, though it may be designed by him; if this is his purpose he serves the purpose of the persuasion of a lovely lady as opposed to the religious teachers who can command or the authors of scientific treatises who advise as friends. The pleasure of poetry accrues to the reader or auditor; when pressed, Indian theory does not admit that the pleasure lies in the creation; it is appreciated by the poet when, his work accomplished, he becomes the critic and in this capacity partakes of the sentiment which, relished, is the purest form of delight. We have here a parallel to the doctrine that it is the spectator, not the actor, who enjoys the sentiment of a drama.

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¹ F. W. Thomas, *Bhandarkar Comm. Vol.*, pp. 397 ff. Cf. above, chap. ii, § 5.

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If, however, the poets desired their own fame, they were conscious that they could not achieve it without patronage, and this was naturally to be sought primarily from the king, or failing him from some rich patron. The motives which should influence kings are expressed repeatedly and most effectively. The glory of ancient kings, Daṇḍin assures us, mirrored in speech, endures after they have passed away; the fruits of men’s deeds, heaven &c., may pass away, says Rudraṭa, but the poet can preserve their names for ever, and Kalhaṇa, as we have seen, is most emphatic on this score.¹ In Rājaçekhara we have the utmost insistence on the duty of the king, both in regard to poetry and the sciences; he is to hold a formal durbar at which a vast array of poets and others are to be present and to examine the merit of the work presented for consideration, and he should reward poets according to their merits, following the example of Vāsudeva, Sātavāhana, Çūdraka, and Sāhasāṅka. He is also to set up assemblies of Brahmins, Brahmasabhās, in the great cities of the realm in order to have tests applied to works presented there for approval, and we have given to us lists of the great poets Kālidāsa, Meṇṭha, Amara, Rūpa, Sūra,² Bhāravi, Haricandra, Candragupta, acclaimed at Ujjain, while the writers of Çāstras, Upavarṣa, Varṣa, Pāṇini, Piṅgala, Vyāḍi, Vararuci, and Patañjali, were approved at Pāṭaliputra. The *Bhojaprabandha*, though late and unhistorical, presents us with amusing pictures of such contests at court, and similar pictures are drawn in the *Prabandhacintāmaṇi*, showing that Rājaçekhara’s ideal was not seldom realized, while a more formal picture of a Sabhā is given by Maṅkha. Nor need we doubt that the relation between poet and king was happy for both; if Bāṇa’s wealth through the generosity of Harṣa was famous, there is much truth in the anonymous poet who asks where are departed the loads of gold, the rutting elephants bestowed by the great king on Bāṇa’s merits, whereas his glory limned in the poet’s flowing verses will not pass away even at the aeon’s waning.

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¹ Cf. *Subhāṣitāvali*, 150, 160, 167, 186.

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² Perhaps Ārya Çūra.

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Poets, of course, hoped that kings would be men of taste, but they remembered also that they sought a wider audience than kings, and that to be permanent in renown they must capture the fancy of the man of taste (*rasika*) whose expert judgement would test their works. Such a man is one who has deeply studied poetry so that there is no flaw in the mirror of his mind, and who can thus by reason of sympathy identify himself with the writer’s aim. Such a man will feel his heart stirred as by the drinking of much wine when he hears a true poem; his hair will thrill, his head tremble, his cheeks redden, his eyes fill with tears, his voice falter when he seeks to repeat the poet's words.¹ And, as we have seen, these effects the true poet will experience in himself when he places himself in the position of a reader, and thus enjoys objectively and dispassionately the aesthetic pleasure of his own creations.

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¹ *Subhāṣitāvali*, 158, 163, 165. The importance of inspiration is recognized in Buddhist tradition, *Añguttara Nikāya*, ii. 230, where poets are classed on the basis of reflection, study, subject-matter, or inspiration.

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But to produce such fine poetry is the result of many factors. There must be genius (*pratibhā*), there must be culture (*vyutpatti*), there must be practice (*abhyāsa*); Daṇḍin, indeed, disagreeing with others like Bhāmaha, insists that even in the absence of genius or fancy, much may be accomplished by dint of the other two, and all are agreed in demanding the combination of all three for the highest poetry. The idea that from a simple uncultured soul there might well up a stream of poetry limpid and undefiled would certainly not have appealed to Sanskrit poets, and the writers on poetics demand from them, and they take pains to show that they possess, a vast fund of useful information. Vāmana gives us a quite clear list of what a poet requires to know. He must have worldly knowledge, understand what is possible or not; he must be a master of grammar, must know the correct meanings of words as shown in dictionaries; must study metrics; must be expert in the arts, including singing, dancing, and painting; and study the Kāmaçāstra, so as to be aware of the usages of love. Again, he must study politics, so as to know what is policy and the reverse, and to gather propriety of incident. These, however, are by no means all the duties of the poet. He has certain miscellaneous matters still to attend to: he must make himself acquainted with existing poetry, practise the writing of poems or at least parts of poems, show reverent obedience to masters who instruct him in the art of poetry, practise the choosing of the right word which when found could not possibly be changed without injury to the poem. His talent must be concentrated by attention to his aim, and for this purpose the early morning is the best, a doctrine which may be supported by the testimony of Kālidāsa and Māgha.

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Refinements on the doctrine of the sources of poetry yield little of value. Rājaçekhara² discusses the function of imagination (*pratibhā*) as creative or discriminative, a distinction which really deals with the distinction between the power to create and the power of appreciation. Kālidāsa is cited as discriminating between the two capacities. Rājaçekhara is also interesting for his picture of the poet, who is essentially to be a man of fashion and wealth. His house is to be well garnished, with rooms meet for each season, a shady garden with lakes, ponds, a pavilion, a bathing-place, a palanquin, swans, and Cakora birds. The poet must be pure in speech, mind, and body; he is to have short-clipped nails, be anointed, wear a splendid but not gaudy garment, chew betel after meals. His retinue must match his elegance; the menials shall speak Apabhraṅça, the maids Māgadhī, the ladies of the harem Sanskrit and Prākrit, his friends all languages; his writer should have the same capacity and be himself a poet. Some even might go so far as to insist on special rules of speech in the household, like the Magadhan Çiçunāga who prohibited the use of cerebrals save *ṇ*, sibilants and *kṣ* in his hearing, while Kuvinda of Çūrasena would not have harsh consonants used, Sātavāhana of Kuntala insisted on Prākrit only, Sāhasāṅka of Ujjain demanded Sanskrit from his court. The poet’s day is neatly divided; he is to rise early, pay devotion to Sarasvatī, goddess of learning, study sciences and their accessories, then give a period to composition, take his midday meal, thereafter engage in a discussion on his poem or poetry in general (*kāvyagoṣṭhī*), later examine his poem with some intelligent friends, in the evening repeat his worship of the goddess, and in the early part of the night write out his final version. All this, of course, is somewhat tainted with artificiality, but everywhere in Rājaçekhara, as in his distinction of poets according to the part played by science in their works, we are faced with the fact that poetry was essentially a learned pursuit, the product of much cultivation.

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² *Kāvyamīmāṅsā*, iv.

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Rājaçekhara devotes much attention to an issue which his predecessors less completely discuss, the issue of the borrowing of phrases and ideas by one poet from another. Ānandavardhana¹ is not anxious for overmuch borrowing; the province of poetry is unlimited, though for centuries hundreds of poets have been writing. There may be resemblances between the works of two inspired poets; of such similarities we must disapprove those in which we have such a relation as that of a thing and its image, or an object and a picture thereof, but similarity such as exists between two men is not to be condemned. Rājaçekhara¹ gives us divergent views on the issue of borrowing phrases or part or even the whole of a stanza, and though he discriminates between mere stealing and appropriation his views turn out to be lax. He cites indeed the excellent maxim that while other thefts pass away by lapse of time the theft of words endures even to sons and grandsons, but only to cite his wife Avantisundarī's excuses for appropriation, whether in words or matter. Thus he may say, 'I have a reputation, he has none; I enjoy a secure position, he is a climber; this is inappropriate in him, appropriate in me, his words are like a tonic, mine like wine, that is, our styles are different; he ignores specialities of dialect, I attend to them; no one knows that he is the author; the author lives a long way off; the book he wrote is obsolete; this is the work of a mere barbarian.' These excuses were evidently duly availed of by later writers in Sanskrit, and they are too well known in modern practice to render serious condemnation in point. Rājaçekhara's own view is stated in the doctrine that 'there is no poet that is not a thief, no merchant that does not cheat, but he flourishes without reproach who knows how to hide his theft. One poet is a creator, another an adapter, another a coverer up, another a collector. He who here sees something new in word, sense, phrase, and writes up something old, may be accounted a great poet.' As regards theft of matter Rājaçekhara propounds a doctrine which attained acceptance, and is summed up by Hemacandra.² The relation of imaging is condemned, being defined as 'the case where the sense is entirely the same but there is a setting in other expressions. In the case of the copy the subject is made to appear different by a moderate elaboration of particulars, and this is a superior form to the previous. Corporeal resemblance is the case where, with difference of subject, there is apprehension of identity because of great similarity; even clever poets produce such works. In the form named 'foreign city entrance', there is identity in substance, but the garnishing is widely different and even excellent poets adopt this mode. There is, of course, another side to this process; Bāṇa distinctly condemns in the preface to his *Harṣacarita* the poet who modifies phrases and hides the signs of authorship, as a thief, worthy of condemnation.¹

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¹ iii. 12 f.

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¹ *Kāvyamīmānsā*, xi ff.; cf. Kṣemendra, *Kavikaṇṭhābharaṇa*, ii. 1.

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² *Kāvyānuçāsana*, pp. 8 ff.

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¹ Cf. Someçvara, *Surathotsava*, i. 37, 39.

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The process of copying, of composing verses for practice in metre without much regard to sense, and the working up of commonplaces, resulted in a large number of poetical conventions being established, which the Kāvyas repeat almost mechanically; the Cakravāka bird is parted at night from its mate and affords a constant reminder of human suffering; the Cakora is fabled to subsist on the moonbeams, and its eyes redden at the sight of poisoned food; the Cātaka drinks the waters of the clouds alone; the Haṅsa discriminates milk in water; fame and laughter alike are white; affection is redness; darkness can be handled; the mouth of envy is two-tongued and filled with poison, the toenails of the king are burnished by the crest jewels of the vassals who lie prostrate at his feet; the day lotuses close their calyx eyes in the evening; the Açoka blooms beneath the touch of the beloved's foot, and a large number of *motifs* are rehandled by poet after poet. Rājaçekhara² deals fully with these poetic conventions, which he prosaically explains as really due to observations made at different places and times from ours. Thus we find the rule that lotuses always exist in rivers, swans only in water, every mountain has gold and jewels; or, again, facts are ignored, as when the jasmine is denied the right to exist in spring, sandal trees are said to have neither flowers nor fruit, and Açokas denied fruit. Or, again, there are artificial restrictions on the existence of things; dolphins exist only in the ocean, pearls only in Tāmraparṇī. He illustrates the same style of conventions for substances, actions, qualities, and gives us the characteristics of the seasons as they are established by the poets. There is also much repetition of wider ideas, and interesting collections have already been made of variant treatments of ideas in Hindu fiction: such *motifs* are the art of entering another's body, the laugh and cry *motif*, talking birds, the act of truth, the Dohada or craving of pregnant women, false ascetics and spurious nuns, the Joseph and Potiphar *motif*, the idea of avoiding fate, the fable of the crow and the palm tree, change of sex, and many others important or trivial.¹

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² *Kāvyamīmāṅsā*, xiv ff.

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¹ Bloomfield, JAOS. xxxvi. 54-89; PAPS. lvi. 1-43; *Festschrift Windisch*, pp. 349-61; Burlingame, JRAS. 1917, pp. 429-67; Bloomfield, JAOS. xl. 1-24; xlii. 202-42; TAPA. liv. 141-68; Brown, JAOS. xlvii. 3-24; AJP. xlvii. 205 n.

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Another fact of importance in the development of Sanskrit literary taste was the fondness for the composition of poetry *ex tempore* or at least on a given theme with the least possible delay. This device might easily lead to undue regard for a complete and ready command of conventions enabling the poet to turn out verses with the greatest possible speed. The praise bestowed on the quick-writing poet Çīghrakavi² to us must seem exaggerated, but the existence of the feeling is clearly attested. Less reprehensible as an essay in poetic skill was the practice of Samasyāpūraṇa,³ when a poet constructed a stanza usually on a single line given to him. Tradition ascribes proficiency in this amusement even to Kālidāsa.

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² Cf. *Nalacampū*, p. 16; Someçvaradeva's Praçasti, 114 (EI. i. 21); *Gītagovinda*, i. 4.

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³ *Kāmasūtra*, p. 33; *Çārṅgadhara Paddhati* xxxii; Merutuṅga and Ballālasena give many examples; Aufrecht, ZDMG. xxvii. 51.

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