A History of Sanskrit Literature c9.s4: 4. Kāvya in Inscriptions
A History of Sanskrit Literature c9.s4
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4. Kāvya in Inscriptions
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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.
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³ Bühler, *Die indischen Inschriften und das Alter der indischen Kunstpoesie* (1890).
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⁴ *EI.* viii. 36 ff.; EHI. pp. 139 f.; *IA.* xlviii. 145 f.
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¹ *Kāvyādarça*, i. 40 ff. See below, chap. xviii, § 2.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.