Pramāṇa · Search · About · API

A History of Sanskrit Literature c9: II. The Origin and Development of Kāvya Literature

A History of Sanskrit Literature c9

Language
English

Contents

II. The Origin and Development of Kāvya Literature

1. The Sources of the Kāvya

c9.s1.1

INDIA produced no historian of her Sanskrit literature, and, naturally enough, the appearance of great poets of the calibre of Kālidāsa, Bhāravi, and Māgha so eclipsed earlier efforts that their works and even their names passed into oblivion. Natural causes helped the result; it was difficult to multiply manuscripts, difficult to preserve them, and it is not surprising that the lesser poets should have passed from recollection. On the other hand, the absence of literary remains for the centuries just before and after the Christian era, and the fact that foreign invasions, Greeks, Parthians, and Çakas, and Yueh-chi deeply affected the north-west of India, gave an appearance of reason to Max Müller's famous suggestion¹ that there was a comparative cessation of literary activity in India until in the sixth century a great renaissance began with Kālidāsa and his contemporaries. The theory is now wholly discredited in the form in which it was put forward, if for no other reason than that it ignored the Brahmanical revival of the Gupta empire at the beginning of the fourth century A.D. But it lingers on in the form of the suggestion² that in the period up to that revival Sanskrit was little used for secular poetry, which was composed in Prākrit, until the reviving power of the Brahmins resulted in their creating the epic by translation from Prākrit originals, developed a lyric poetry to replace the simpler Prākrit songs of the people, and transformed the popular beast-fable and fairy-tale.

c9.s1.2

¹ *India* (1883), pp. 281 ff. Contrast Lassen, *Ind. Alt.*, ii.² 1159 ff.

c9.s1.3

² Bhandarkar, *Early Hist. of India* (1920), pp. 70 ff., who admits the existence of some Sanskrit literature, but places Açvaghoṣa under Kaniṣka *c.* A. D. 300. But as early as 185 B.C. there was a Brahmanical revival under Puṣyamitra; EHI. pp. 208 ff.; Przyluski, *La légende de l'empereur Açoka*, pp. 90 ff.

c9.s1.4

For this theory of a Prākrit period of Indian literature preceding the Sanskrit period there is no evidence of value. The suggestion of the translation of the epic may be dismissed as absurd, but the case with other forms of literature is more worthy of consideration. The fairy-tale is a thing which readily circulates among the people long before it is dignified by literary treatment by the higher classes of society, and in point of fact there is a strong tradition to the effect that it was in a Prākrit dialect, though one closely allied to Sanskrit, that the great collection of such tales, which powerfully affected Sanskrit literature, as the *Bṛhatkathā* of Guṇāḍhya, was composed. Guṇāḍhya's work, however, is of very complex art and uncertain date, and in all probability came into being at a time when we have abundant evidence of the existence of Sanskrit literature, so that this instance is irrelevant to the contention in favour of a Prākrit period of literature. Equally little value attaches to the argument for the priority of Prākrit lyric. It was founded on a wholly misleading view of the antiquity of the anthology of Hāla, who was placed in the first century A. D. Against this view must be set the form of Māhārāṣṭrī Prākrit, which shows a development in the language such as cannot be dated before the latter part of the second century A. D., if regard be paid to the evidence of the inscriptions and of the Prākrits of the dramas of Açvaghoṣa.¹ It is true that Vararuci's Prākrit grammar recognizes Māhārāṣṭrī of the type of the anthology, but there is no evidence that Vararuci is early in date, for his identification by later tradition with the Kātyāyana who criticized Pāṇini is without serious value. Jacobi,² on the other hand, has identified Hāla with the Sātavāhana under whom Jain tradition records a change in the Church calendar in A. D. 467. There is no cogent reason to accept or deny this date; what is clear is that so far as the evidence goes there is nothing to suggest great antiquity for Prākrit lyric. Lüders, who finds traces of its existence about the second century B. C. in the short inscriptions of the Sītābengā and Jogīmārā caves on the Rāmgarh hill, and who assigns to the same century the Hāthīgumphā inscription of Khāravela of Kaliṅga, which displays, though faintly, some of the characteristics of Sanskrit prose Kāvya, makes no claim for the priority of Prākrit to Sanskrit in these literary uses; on the contrary he acknowledges fully the coexistence of a Sanskrit literature.

c9.s1.5

¹ *Bruchstücke buddh. Dramen*, pp. 61 ff. On the Sītābengā inscr. cf. Boyer, *Mélanges Lévi*, pp. 121 ff. Khāravela's date is still disputed.

c9.s1.6

² *Ausg. Erzählungen in Mâhârâshṭrî*, p. xvii; cf. *Bhavisatta Kaha*, p. 83. The *Paumacariya* of Vimala Sūri, the oldest Māhārāṣṭrī epic, is not before A. D. 300 and may be much later (cf. *ibid.*, p. 59).

c9.s1.7

Still less can be said for the priority of Prākrit in the sphere of the beast-fable. Such fables are readily current among the people, and the *Mahābhārata* shows their popularity in the circles to whom the epic appealed. The Jātaka tales of the Buddhists show likewise the skill by which they could be turned to the service of that faith, but of an early Prākrit fable literature we know little or nothing. On the other hand, the Sanskrit literature is marked by the fact that it adopts the fable to a definite purpose, the teaching to young princes and their entourage the practical conduct of life, and thus constitutes a new literary genre.

c9.s1.8

The causes of the rise of Sanskrit literature are in fact obvious, and there was no need for writers in Prākrit to set an example. It would indeed have been surprising if the simplicity of the earlier epic had not gradually yielded to greater art. The Upaniṣads show us kings patronizing discussions between rival philosophers and rewarding richly the successful; we need not doubt that they were no less eager to listen to panegyrics of themselves or their race and to bestow guerdon not less lavishly. We have indeed in the Vedic lists of forms of literature references to the Nārāçaṁsīs, encomia,¹ which candour admitted to be full of lies, and we have actually preserved a few verses from which we can guess the high praise promiscuously bestowed on their patrons by the singers. Into the *Ṛgveda* itself have been admitted hymns which contrive to flatter patrons as well as extol the gods, and added verses, styled praises of gifts (*dānastutis*), recount the enormous rewards which a clever singer might obtain. We cannot doubt that from such contests must have sprung the desire to achieve ever-increasing perfection of literary form as compared with the more pedestrian style of the mere narrative of the epic.

c9.s1.9

¹ Macdonell and Keith, *Vedic Index*, i. 445 f.

c9.s1.10

In yet another sphere such heightening of style must have been striven after. The Vedic poets, who can compare¹ the goddess Dawn to a fair dancer, to a maiden who unveils her bosom to a lover, cannot have been incapable of producing love poetry for secular use. Nor is it doubtful that it was the early writers of the love lyric who enriched Sanskrit with a vast abundance of elaborate metres; for the flow of epic narrative such metrical forms were wholly unsuited; on the other hand, the limited theme of love demanded variety of expression if it were to be worthily developed. The gnomic utterance of which the *Aitareya Brāhmaṇa* has preserved some Vedic specimens naturally shared in the cultivation of the lyric, and the elaboration of verse doubtless reacted on prose style, inducing writers to seek to reproduce in that medium something of the elegance after which poets now habitually strove. There is, then, no justification for presuming a breach in literary continuity, and, despite the fact that so much has perished, we have indisputable proofs of the active cultivation of Sanskrit literature during the period from 200 B. C. to A. D. 200, when on one theory it had not yet come into being, and secular literature was composed in Prākrit.

c9.s1.11

¹ Hirzel, *Gleichnisse und Metaphern im Ṛgveda* (1908). For the early, which is also the later, ideal of feminine beauty, see *Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa*, i. 2. 5. 16; iii. 5. 1. 11; the love charms of the *Atharva* attest the beginnings of erotic poetry (IS. v. 218 ff.).

2. The Testimony of the Rāmāyaṇa

c9.s2.1

The validity of the *Rāmāyaṇa* as evidence of the growth of the Kāvya has been disputed on the score that the poem was, even if in large measure early in date,² still under constant revision, so that those features in it which foreshadow the later Kāvya and justify its own claim to that title as the first of Kāvyas may be dismissed as interpolations. The argument, however, is clearly unsatisfactory, and does not establish the result at which it aims. We may readily agree that some part at least of the elegancies of style³ which mark the poem is a later addition, but there is no ground whatever to admit that these additions fall later than the second century B. C., and they may be earlier in date. The *Rāmāyaṇa* in fact, as we have it, affords an illustration of the process of refinement which style was undergoing, but it is essential to realize that even in its original form the poem must have shown a distinct tendency to conscious ornament. The mere theme, the blending together of two distinct legends, the court intrigues of Ayodhyā and the legend of Rāma's war on Rāvaṇa for the rape of Sītā—in ultimate origin a nature myth—is the work of an artist, and the same trait is revealed in the uniformity of the language and the delicate perfection of the metre, when compared with the simpler and less polished *Mahābhārata*. Vālmīki and those who improved on him, probably in the period 400–200 B.C., are clearly the legitimate ancestors of the court epic.

c9.s2.2

² Keith, JRAS. 1915, pp. 318 ff.

c9.s2.3

³ Jacobi, *Rāmāyaṇa*, pp. 119 ff. The *Rāmāyaṇa* also shows the development of the Çloka metre almost to its classic state; cf. SIFI. VIII. ii. 38 ff. See also Krishnamachariar, *Raghuvaṅçavimarça* (1908).

c9.s2.4

Ānandavardhana¹ has not inaptly contrasted the object of the court epic with that of the legend (*itihāsa*); the latter is content to narrate what has happened, the former is essentially dependent on form. The *Rāmāyaṇa* occupies an intermediate place, and its formal merits are not slight. But in any case it essentially anticipates the means by which the later poets seek to lend distinction and charm to their subject-matter; as they drew deeply upon it for their themes, so they found in it the models for the ornaments of their style. If the city of Ayodhyā appears in human form to the king in Kālidāsa's *Raghuvaṁça*, Vālmīki has set the example in his vision of Laṅkā in the Sundarakāṇḍa. The action in the later Kāvya is all but obstructed by the wealth of the poet's descriptive powers; Vālmīki's followers have described with no less than twenty-nine similes the woes of Sītā in her captivity, with sixteen the sad plight of Ayodhyā bereft of Rāma.² Descriptions of the seasons, of mountains and rivers, bulk largely in the Kāvya, but Vālmīki has set the example in his elaborate accounts of the rainy season and autumn, of the winter, of Mount Citrakūṭa, and of the river Mandākinī.³ Metaphors of beauty abound in the Kāvya side by side with those of strained taste and pointless wit; the *Rāmāyaṇa* is guilty of

c9.s2.5

¹ *Dhvanyāloka*, p. 148.

c9.s2.6

² ii. 19 and 114.

c9.s2.7

³ iv. 28; iii. 16; ii. 94, 95. There is a brilliant picture of the sound of the sea: *parvasūdīrṇavegasya sāgarasyeva niḥsvanaḥ*.

c9.s2.8

*viṣādanakrādhyuṣite paritrāsormimālini*
*kiṁ māṁ na trāyase magnāṁ vipule çokasāgare?*

c9.s2.9

‘Why dost thou not save me that am sunk in a broad ocean of woe, whose coronal of waves is horror, and in which dwell the crocodiles of despondency?’

c9.s2.10

Much happier is the famous simile:

c9.s2.11

*sāgaraṁ cāmbaraprakhyaṁ ambaraṁ sāgaropamam*
*Rāmarāvaṇayor yuddhaṁ Rāmarāvaṇayor iva.*

c9.s2.12

‘Ocean peer of sky, sky ocean’s counterpart; Rāma and Rāvaṇa alone could match their mortal combat.’ A later commonplace is foreshadowed in:

c9.s2.13

*tvāṁ kṛtvoparato manye rūpakartā sa viçvakṛt*
*na hi rūpopamā hy anyā tavāsti çubhadarçane.*

c9.s2.14

‘When he had made thee, I ween, the All-maker stayed from his making of lovely forms, for there is no beauty on earth to match thine, o fair-faced one.’ As later, we find as prognostications of good the wind that blows free from dust, the clear skies, the flowers that are rained down to earth, and the resonance of the drums of the gods. Indra’s banner, erected and then taken down at the festival in his honour, affords material for similes; eyes expand with joy (*harṣotphullanayana*); men drink in faces with their eyes (*locanābhyām pibann iva*); breasts are like golden bowls (*kucau suvarṇakalaçopamau*); before men’s wondering eyes the host stands as if in a picture; the Ganges shows her white teeth as she smiles in the foam of her waves (*phenanirmalahāsinī*); winds blow with fragrant coolness; the clouds rumble with deep and pleasant sound (*snigdhagambhīraghoṣa*); the action of the fool is like that of the moth that flies into the flame; man leaves his worn frame as the snake its old skin. The love of alliteration is already present, as in *dakṣiṇā dakṣiṇaṁ tīram*; we find even an example of the figure, concise expression (*samāsokti*), in which the dawn is treated on the analogy of a loving maiden:

c9.s2.15

*cañcaccandrakarasparçaharṣonmīlitatārakā*
*aho rāgavatī saṁdhyā jahātu svayam ambaram.*

c9.s2.16

‘Ah that the enamoured twilight should lay aside her garment of sky, now that the stars are quickened to life by the touch of the rays of the dancing moon.’ The *Rāmāyaṇa* is not given to erotic descriptions; its tone is serious and grave, but such passages¹ as the description of the vision by Hanumant of the sleeping wives of Rāvaṇa mark the beginning of a tradition which Açvaghoṣa handed on to his successors. Imitation in detail of the *Rāmāyaṇa* is frequent and patent, and its language and verse technique deeply affected the whole of the history of the Kāvya.

c9.s2.17

¹ Not probably by Vālmīki. For Vedic precedents in alliteration and Yamakas see Hillebrandt, *Kālidāsa*, pp. 161 ff.; for the epic, Hopkins, *Great Epic*, pp. 200 ff.

c9.s2.18

The content of the *Mahābhārata* naturally afforded to later poets an inexhaustible material for their labours, but save in its later additions the great epic suffered little elaboration of style, and affords no evidence comparable to that of the *Rāmāyaṇa* attesting the development of the Kāvya style.

3. The Evidence of Patañjali and Piṅgala

c9.s3.1

Direct and conclusive evidence of the production of secular Sanskrit literature before 150 B. C. is afforded by the testimony of the *Mahābhāṣya*.² Much earlier evidence from the point of view of grammar would be available, if we could believe the assertion³ of Rājaçekhara—perhaps the dramatist—that Pāṇini was the author not merely of the grammar but also of the *Jāmbavatīvijaya*; that epic and apparently another, the *Pātālavijaya*, are ascribed to him by anthologies which cite verses from them. The fact, however, that grammatical errors occur in a verse from the latter work renders the ascription implausible, even if epic excuse can be alleged, and we may reasonably accept the existence of two or more Pāṇinis, despite the rarity of the name.

c9.s3.2

² Cf. Weber, IS. xiii. 356 ff., 477 ff.; Kielhorn, IA. xiv. 326 f.; Bühler, *Die indischen Inschriften*, p. 72; Bhandarkar, IA. iii. 14.

c9.s3.3

³ See Thomas, *Kavīndravacanasamuccaya*, pp. 51 ff.

c9.s3.4

The testimony of the *Mahābhāṣya*, however, is quite clear, and its value is all the greater because it is given incidentally and by accident in the discussion of disputed rules of the master. Patañjali, of course, knows the Bhāratan epic, but he refers also to dramatic recitals of epic legends—perhaps to actual dramatic performances—and the topics mentioned include the slaying by Kṛṣṇa of his wicked uncle Kaṅsa and the binding of Bali by the god Viṣṇu. We are told of rhapsodes who tell their tales until the day dawns, and stories were current which dealt with the legends of Yavaprīta, Yayāti, Priyaṅgu, Vāsavadattā, Sumanottarā, and Bhīmaratha. A Vāraruca Kāvya is actually mentioned, though unfortunately we know no more of it. We have, however, invaluable help in appreciating the growth of Kāvya in the incidental citation of stanzas clearly taken from poems of the classical type. Many are tantalizing in their brevity; we hear of a maiden bought with a price who was dearer to her lord than his life (*sā hi tasya dhanakrītā prāṇebhyo 'pi garīyasī*). The verse *varatanu sampravadanti kukkuṭāḥ*, 'O fair one, the cocks proclaim together', has afforded later authors an opportunity of exhibiting skill in filling up the missing three verses (*samasyāpūraṇa*).¹ Erotic verse is attested also by *priyāṁ mayūraḥ pratinarnṛtīti*, 'The peacock danceth towards his beloved', perhaps also by *ā vanāntād odakāntāt priyam pantham anuvrajet*, 'Let her follow the wanderer she loveth to the end of the woods, to the end of the waters'. Epic or panegyric is found in the address *prathate tvayā patimatī pṛthivī*, 'The earth with thee as lord maketh true its name as wide'; so also *asidvitīyo 'nusāra Pāṇḍavam*, 'With sword as mate he attacked Pāṇḍu's son', *jaghāna Kaṁsaṁ kila Vāsudevaḥ*, 'Vāsudeva slew Kaṁsa.' Brief as it is, there is pathos in

c9.s3.5

¹ See Chap. IX, § 1.

c9.s3.6

*yasmin daça sahasrāṇi putre jāte gavāṁ dadau*
*brāhmaṇebhyaḥ priyākhyebhyaḥ so 'yam uñchena jīvati.*

c9.s3.7

'On his scanty gleaning now he liveth, he for whose birth were given ten thousand kine to the Brahmins who brought the good tidings.'

c9.s3.8

Gnomic poetry is also strongly represented:

c9.s3.9

*tapaḥ çrutaṁ ca yoniç cety etad brāhmaṇakārakam*
*tapaḥçrutābhyāṁ yo hīno jātibrāhmaṇa eva saḥ.*

c9.s3.10

'Asceticism, learning, birth, these make the Brahmin; he who lacks asceticism and learning is a Brahmin by birth alone.' Or again, *bubhukṣitaṁ na pratibhāti kiṁcit*, 'Nothing seems right to a hungry man.' Solomon's maxim regarding the education of children has a worthy parallel:

c9.s3.11

*sāmṛtaiḥ pāṇibhir ghnanti guravo na viṣokṣitaiḥ*
*lāḍanāçrayiṇo*² *doṣās tāḍanāçrayiṇo guṇāḥ.*

c9.s3.12

² Cf. the forms in *Festschrift Wackernagel*, p. 303.

c9.s3.13

‘Fraught with life, not with poison, are the blows that teachers give; vice grows by indulgence, virtue prospers by reproof.’ The inevitability of death is recorded:

c9.s3.14

*ahar ahar nayamāno gāṁ açvam puruṣam paçum*
*Vaivasvato na tṛpyati surayā iva durmadī.*

c9.s3.15

‘Though day by day he takes his toll in cattle, horses, men, and beasts, Vivasvant’s son is sated never, as a drunkard is never wearied of brandy.’ A maxim of political wisdom may be seen in

c9.s3.16

*kṣeme subhikṣe kṛtasaṁcayāni: purāṇi rājñāṁ vinayanti kopam.*

c9.s3.17

‘Citadels well stored in peace and abundance calm the wrath of kings.’

c9.s3.18

Noteworthy also is the fact that in the scanty number of verses there occur specimens of such ornate metres as the Mālatī, the Praharṣiṇī, the Pramitākṣarā, and the Vasantatilaka, beside the normal Çloka and Triṣṭubh. These new metres lead us into a different sphere from the Vedic metres, and striking light on this development is afforded by the metre of the Kārikās,¹ mostly, if not all, written probably by predecessors of Patañjali, which deal with disputed points of grammar. Among these are besides the Çloka and Vaktra, Indravajrā, Upajāti, Çālinī, Vaṅçasthā, all later usual, and the much less common metres, Samānī, consisting of four verses each of four trochees, Vidyunmālā, similarly made up of spondees, the anapaestic Toṭaka, and the Dodhaka, in which the verse has three dactyls and a spondee. This richness and elaboration of metre, in striking contrast to the comparative freedom of Vedic and epic literature, must certainly have arisen from poetical use; it cannot have been invented for grammatical memorial verses, for which a simple metre might better suffice. The names Toṭaka and Dodhaka have been suspected of Prācritic origin, and the latter of ultimate Greek origin, but these are unproved hypotheses without literary or other support.

c9.s3.19

¹ Cf. Kielhorn, IA. xv. 229 ff.; Jacobi, *Festschrift Wackernagel*, p. 127.

c9.s3.20

In addition to the clear indications thus given of the existence of epic, lyric, and gnomic verse, we may deduce from other hints the existence of the material whence later developed the beastfable. We have allusions¹ to such proverbial tales as that of the goat and the razor (*ajāḳr̥pāṇīya*), of the crow and the palm fruit (*kākatālīya*), and to the hereditary enmity of the snake and the ichneumon, and of the crow and the owl, later famous as the theme of a book of the *Pañcatantra*.

c9.s3.21

¹ *Mahābhāṣya*, ii. 1. 3; v. 3. 106; *IS.* xiii. 486.

c9.s3.22

Corroboration of the evidence of Patañjali can be obtained from the *Chandassūtra* of Piṅgala, which ranks as a Vedāṅga but is mainly devoted to the exposition of secular prosody. Piṅgala ranks as an ancient sage, being sometimes identified with Patañjali; the aspect of his work suggests considerable age, and many of the metres which he describes are certainly not derived from the Kāvya literature which has come down to us. They suggest a period of transition in which the authors of the erotic lyric² were trying experiment after experiment in metrical effect. The names of the metres can often most plausibly be explained as epithets of the beloved; the stanzas may have been so styled because the word in question occurred in them. Thus we have the metre Kāntotpīḍā, the plague of her lovers, Kuṭilagati, she of crooked gait, Cañcalākṣikā, she of the glancing eyes, Tanumadhyā, she of the slender waist, Cāruhāsinī, the sweetsmiling one, and Vasantatilakā, the pride of spring. Other names suggest poetic observation of animal life; thus we have Açvalalita, the gait of the horse, Kokilaka, the cry of the cuckoo, Siṅhonnatā, tall as a lion, Çārdūlavikrīḍita, the tiger's play. The plant world gives others as Mañjarī, the cluster, Mālā, the garland. That a strong school of lyric poetry existed about the Christian era and probably much earlier we cannot seriously doubt; to its influence we may with reason ascribe the appearance and bloom of the Māhārāṣṭrī lyric about A.D. 200.

c9.s3.23

² Jacobi, *ZDMG.* xxxviii. 615 f.

4. Kāvya in Inscriptions

c9.s4.1

Chance has preserved for us certain evidence in the early inscriptions³ which disposes definitely of the theory of the dormancy of Sanskrit during the period of foreign invasions in India. An inscription at Girnār⁴ dated about A.D. 150-2 under the Mahā- kṣatrapa Rudradāman, grandson of the Kṣatrapa Caṣṭana, known to Ptolemy as Tiastanes of Ozene, Ujjayinī, is written in prose (*gadyaṁ kāvyam*) and shows in a most interesting manner the development from the simple epic style to that of the Kāvya. Grammar is obeyed, but epic licence is found; *patinā*, for *patyā*, is thus explained, and *vīçaduttarāṇi* is a Prākritism for *viṅcad-*, which the epic, though not the grammar, permits; epic again is the pleonasm in *Parjanyena ekārṇabhūtāyām iva pṛthivyāṁ kṛtāyām*, 'when the storm had turned as it were all earth to ocean'. But in *anyatra saṁgrāmeṣu*, 'save in battles', we have a pure error. From the epic style a distinct departure is made in the use of compounds; Daṇḍin, doubtless following earlier authority, bids them be used freely in prose, and approves of their being long. The inscription prefers compounds to simple words, and at the beginning presents us with a compound of nine words with twenty-three syllables; the description of the king produces even a finer effort of seventeen words of forty syllables. The length of the sentences vies with that of the compounds; one attains twenty-three 'Granthas, each of thirty-two syllables. Of the figures of sound (*çabdālaṁkāras*) alliteration is freely used as in *abhyastanāmno Rudradāmno*, sometimes with real effect. Of figures of sense (*arthālaṁkāras*) one simile compares in the later manner the curtain wall of a reservoir to a mountain spur in the Kāvya phrase *parvatapratisparddhi*. The description, if never of a very high order, displays some merit, especially in the vivid picture of the destruction by flooding of the dam of the reservoir. But what is far more important is that the author thinks it fit to ascribe to the king the writing of poems in both prose and verse; flattery or not, it was obviously not absurd to ascribe to a Kṣatrapa, of foreign extraction, skill in Sanskrit poetry. Moreover, the poems are qualified by a string of epithets as adorned by the qualities of simplicity, clearness, sweetness, variety, beauty, and elevation arising from the use of conventional poetic terminology (*sphuṭalaghumadhuracitrakānta-çabdasamayodārālaṁkṛta*). The term *alaṁkṛta* points unmistakably to the author's acquaintance with a science of poetics prescribing the ornaments of poetry, and a comparison with the merits ascribed by Daṇḍin¹ to the Vaidarbha style which he admires is decidedly instructive. Simplicity and clearness may well be equivalent to the *arthavyakti* and *prasāda* which he mentions; sweetness is his *mādhurya* which includes richness in tasteful sound and sense (*rasavat*); variety is probably akin to the strength or force (*ojas*) prescribed by Daṇḍin, and he recognizes that in the view of some authorities elevation was induced by the use of the stock terms of poets such as *krīḍāsaras*, a lake for sport.

c9.s4.2

³ Bühler, *Die indischen Inschriften und das Alter der indischen Kunstpoesie* (1890).

c9.s4.3

⁴ *EI.* viii. 36 ff.; EHI. pp. 139 f.; *IA.* xlviii. 145 f.

c9.s4.4

¹ *Kāvyādarça*, i. 40 ff. See below, chap. xviii, § 2.

c9.s4.5

The evidence of this inscription is confirmed and strengthened by that derivable from a record¹ of Siri Puḷumāyi at Nāsik, written in Prākrit prose. There can be no doubt of the familiarity of the writer with Sanskrit; it is even possible that he wrote his text in that language and then, in order to comply with the usage of the day, rendered it into Prākrit for purposes of publication. Siri Puḷumāyi may be identified with Siro-Polemaios of Baithana, Pratiṣṭhāna on the Godāvarī, of Ptolemy and the date of the inscription is not far removed from that of the Girnār record. It begins with an enormous sentence of eight and a half lines, long compounds fill lines 2–6, then a brief rest is given by the insertion of short words, and the whole ends with a compound of sixteen words and forty-three syllables. This is deliberate art, however little we may admire it, and the same technique is found in Bāṇa, used perhaps with greater skill. Alliteration is freely used; the queen is *mahādevī mahārājamātā mahārājapatāmahī*. What, however, is specially interesting is the appearance of mannerisms of the later Kāvya, used in a way which implies current familiarity with the themes. Thus the king is of like strength with the mountains Himavant, Meru, and Mandara, a brief allusion to the view that the king, like the Himālaya, possesses abundant treasures, like Meru is the centre of the world and overshadows it with his might, and, like Mandara, which the gods used as their churning stick when they churned the ocean, can produce and preserve Lakṣmī, the *fortuna regum*. The king again is compared with the heroes of the epic in a manner which preludes the frequent use of this theme made by Subandhu and Bāṇa. Finally, he is described as winning victory in a battle in which in wondrous wise the Wind, Garuḍa, Siddhas, Yakṣas, Rākṣasas, Vidyādharas, Bhūtas, Gandharvas, Cāraṇas, the sun, the moon, the Nakṣatras, and the planets take part. Thus early we find that confusion of the mortal and the supernatural which induces an alleged historian like Bilhaṇa to allow Çiva to intervene when needed in the fate of his patron.

c9.s4.6

¹ *EI.* viii. 60 ff.; S. Lévi, *Cinquantenaire de l'école pratique des Hautes Études* (1921), pp. 91 ff., who holds that its hero Gotamīputa's, death in victory is described.

c9.s4.7

There can be no doubt from these inscriptions of the existence of Sanskrit Kāvya, and doubtless also of a science of poetics among the Brahmins.¹ It is, therefore, accident only which has preserved Buddhist works like those of Açvaghoṣa as the earliest specimens of the Kāvya. Moreover there is a simple explanation of the accident; Açvaghoṣa was one of the great names of Buddhism; no one arose to surpass his achievement in depicting the life of the Buddha, whereas the glory of earlier poets was eclipsed by that of Kālidāsa. Nor is this mere theory; we know in fact that of the predecessors in drama enumerated by Kālidāsa himself the works of all save one are lost, apparently irretrievably.

c9.s4.8

¹ The use of compounds in ornamental epithets appears to have been much promoted by their convenience in eulogies of kings, places, &c., in inscriptions, just as in Jain texts they are heaped up in stock descriptions.

5. The Kāmasūtra and the Poet's Milieu

c9.s5.1

Vātsyāyana's *Kāmasūtra*² is of uncertain date, but it is not improbably older than Kālidāsa, and in any case it represents the concentrated essence of earlier treatises on the Ars Amoris. There is no question of the importance of knowledge of this topic for the writers of erotic poetry, and there is abundant proof that the *Kāmasūtra* was studied as eagerly by would-be poets as were grammar, poetics, and lexicography. To Vātsyāyana we owe a vivid conception of the Indian parallel to the man about town (*nāgaraka*) whose existence was due to the growing elaboration of Indian life, and whose interest the poet was anxious to propitiate. We see him,³ opulent, a denizen of the town which lends him his name, or, if compelled by adverse fortune to vegetate in the country, seeking, like Martial in his retreat from Rome, to find congenial society with which to continue the pleasures of his town life. His home boasts all the luxury of the age, soft couches, a summer house in a park, seats strewn with flowers, and swings to amuse the ladies who share and lend zest to his leisure moments. Much of his time is devoted to his toilet; he must bathe, be anointed, perfumed, and garlanded; then he can teach the cage birds which surround him to speak, or enjoy the brutal spectacle of ram or cock fights, both favourite amusements of the gilded youth of the period. Or, in the company of ladies of the demi-monde, he may visit the parks outside the town, returning home crowned with the flowers which they have plucked. There are concerts to be attended, ballets and theatrical spectacles to be visited; he has a lute beside him so that he may make music when he will, and a book to read at leisure. Boon companions and hangers-on of various ranks, the Viṭas, Pīṭhamardas, and Vidūṣakas of the texts, are essential to his happiness, and drinking parties are not unknown, but the ideal forbids mere rude licence; even in his enjoyments the man about town aims at elegance, moderation, and a measure of dignity. He condescends to the use of the vernacular, but blends it with Sanskrit, thus indicating his fine culture. Hetairai are essential to him, but they also are not without accomplishments; indeed the *Kāmasūtra* demands from them knowledge encyclopaedic, including poetic taste. The most famous of them achieved great riches, as we learn from the description of the palace of the heroine in the *Mṛcchakaṭikā* and, as in the Athens of Perikles, discussions on literature, music, and art, must often have afforded the participants a pleasure which could not be expected from their own wives, from whom they demanded children and care for their homes.

c9.s5.2

² See below, chap. xxiv; cf. Haraprasād, *Magadhan Literature*, chap. iv. On the arts, Kalās, sixty-four in number at least, of early India, see A. Venkatasubbiah and E. Müller, JRAS. 1914, pp. 355-67.

c9.s5.3

³ The comm. allows him to be of any caste.

c9.s5.4

An atmosphere of this kind is unquestionably favourable, if not to the highest poetry, at least to the production of elaborate verse, and the care demanded from those who are exposed to keen criticism cannot but produce excellent results in the case of men naturally gifted, though on the other hand it leads to exaggerated love of style with inevitable tasteless extravagance. If under such a system Maecenases produce few Vergils, they are responsible for a plentiful crop of Valerii Flacci, and to the kings of India¹ we unquestionably owe most of the poets of repute; patronage by the king was at once the reward of skill in panegyric and the means of obtaining the leisure for serious composition and a measure of publicity for the works produced. It was the duty of the king to bridge the gulf between wealth and poetic talent, of the poet to save his patron from the night of oblivion which else must assuredly settle on him when his mortal life closed. At the royal courts poets vied in eager rivalry with one another; probably in quite early times there were practised such arts as the composition of verses to complete a stanza when one verse was given, and the production of extempore poems on a given topic. The festival of Sarasvatī each month afforded opportunities for displays in honour of the patroness of poetry and the arts. Fortunately, too, for the poets, kings were willing to claim renown for skill in poetry; we have seen that his panegyrist thought well to ascribe fame in this sphere to Rudradāman and we shall see that the great Gupta Emperor Samudragupta strove for renown as a man of letters.² Harṣa not only patronized Bāṇa, but claimed the authorship of dramas and poems, though unkind hints were prevalent that others were the true begetters of his literary offspring.³ Four hundred years later Bhoja of Dhārā was more fortunate, for we have no real knowledge to disprove his claim to polymathy exhibited in a large variety of works. In the twelfth century⁴ the court of Lakṣmaṇasena revived the glory of Harṣa's patronage, for besides the famous Jayadeva, other poets such as Umāpatidhara, Dhoī, and Govardhana wrote with acceptance. The kings of Kashmir often distinguished themselves by generosity to their laureates, (*kavirāja*) and to such enlightened activity we owe Somadeva's *Kathāsaritsāgara*. Yet it is worth remembering that we cannot prove any royal patron for Kālidāsa, greatest of Indian poets, or even for Kalhaṇa, the one historian of real merit in Sanskrit literature. Nor, of course, was royal generosity confined to Sanskrit poetry; to a king, Hāla or Sātavāhana, is ascribed the anthology of Māhārāṣṭrī verse, and Vākpatirāja wrote his epic, *Gaüḍavaha*, for Yaçovarman of Kanauj, thus assuring him an immortality to survive his defeat at the hands of Lalitāditya of Kashmir. So, too, if we believe tradition, it was perhaps the patronage of Kaniṣka which produced the first great work of the court epic preserved to us, the *Buddhacarita* of Açvaghoṣa.

c9.s5.5

¹ Rājaçekhara (*Kāvyamīmāṅsā*, p. 55) gives Vāsudeva (? the Kāṇva or the Kuṣaṇa), Sātavāhana, Çūdraka, and Sāhasāṅka (? Candragupta II; Pischel, GN. 1901, pp. 485–7) as famous patrons.

c9.s5.6

² Minor royal authors include the dramatists Mahendravikramavarman (*c.* 675); Yaçovarman, patron of Bhavabhūti (*c.* 735), the Kalacuri Māyurāja (*c.* 800), and Vigraharājadeva (1153). We have stanzas of a Nepalese king (8th cent.), of Amoghavarṣa (815–77), of Muñja (975–95), and Arjunavarman's comm. on Amaru (13th cent.). Cf. Jackson, *Priyadarśikā*, pp. xxxvii ff.

c9.s5.7

³ Cf. Keith, *Sanskrit Drama*, pp. 170 ff.

c9.s5.8

⁴ Smith, EHI. pp. 419 ff., 432 wishes to place this king about fifty years before the usual date, but ignores important evidence; see R. C. Majumdar, JPASB. 1921, pp. 7 ff.; C. V. Vaidya, IHQ. i. 126 ff.; C. Chakravarti, iii. 186 ff.

Linked texts (20)