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A History of Indian Literature v3.c35: Section IV. Ornate Poetry

A History of Indian Literature v3.c35

Language
English

Contents

Section IV. Ornate Poetry

Characteristics of Ornate Poetry

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By "ornate poetry" the people in the west render the Indian term "kāvya" which, though ordinarily meaning "poetry", in rhetorics has the special connotation—polished expression", the main characteristic whereof, as a poetic piece, is that it attaches more importance to the form than to the subject-matter. It was cultivated particularly, if not exclusively¹, in the courts of Indian princes and, consequently, is often styled "court poetry".

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¹ Not only the princes, but all high dignitaries and rich people, as a rule, appear as patrons of poets, and literary "saloons" flourished not only in courts but also in Brāhmaṇical settlements and in big cities...Cf. F.W. Thomas, JRAS 1910, 972f.

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Originally, even the old heroic poetry, that later became so popular, as we learn from the Mahābhārata and the Rāmāyaṇa, was courtly. The bards (sūtas), who were the carriers and propagators of this ballad lore, too, lived in the courts of the princes and sang to make their exploits known. They would accompany their patrons even to battlefields, so that on return they could sing of the exploits of the warriors. These court bards stood closer to the Kṣatriyas than to the learned Brāhmaṇas. Very often they worked as chariot-drivers of the warriors in these campaigns and participated in their ventures. It was, however, a time of unrest in which these heroic songs originated—an age of strifes and crude practices, when hunting, gambling, and competitive contests were favourite recreations of the princes. It was only during hours of rest, at banquet gatherings, victory celebrations, and on occasions of sacrificial performances that bards would recite their ballads². Firstly as life in courts became more refined, in place of these bards there came in more learned artisans who were brought up in the schools of the Brāhmaṇas and competed in scholarly contests with them. These poets described strifes and battles too merely on the basis of heresays in a mechanical manner. They would attach greater importance to the elegance of form and to erudition¹ than to the creative faculty or poetical talent. Writers of panegyrics who could sing in praise of their patrons in artistic verses were past masters in the poetic art. Apparently, panegyric constituted the original theme of this kind of poetry (for being sung publicly in courts). And this explains also the origin of the kāvya style, that is to say—the style of court poetry. The more the poet strained himself, the more he displayed his skill, the more difficult his work, and the prince felt flattered the more².

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² Cf. above I, 262 (tr. p. 315) and Hertel, Tantrākhyāyikā, I, pp. 10ff. Indians call the Mahābhārata too a "kāvya"; see above I,267 (tr. p. 312).

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¹ Even a poet of the eminence of Kālidāsa does not escape this; he too airs his knowledge of grammar occasionally in similes; see Raghuvamśa 12, 58 and 15, 9.

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² [2. The other view about the origin and development of the "kāvya" style may be presented as follows: "The pessimism of the Buddhistic ideal gradually disappeared, having been replaced by more-accommodating views about the value of pleasure. Even the Buddhist author of the Nāgānanda has thought it fit to weave a love-theme into the lofty story of Jīmūtavāhana's self-sacrifice, and in his opening benedictory stanza he does not hesitate to represent the Buddha as being scolded for his hard-heartedness by the ladies of Māra's train. From Patañjali's references we find that from its very dawn love was recognised as one of the dominant themes of kāvya poetry. The Buddhist conception of the love god as Māra or Death makes way for the flower-arrowed god who is anticipated in the Atharvaveda and is established in the epics, but whose appearance, name and personality are revived and developed in the fullest measure in the kāvya.

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"The dominant love-motif of the kāvya is explained by the social environment in which it grows and from which alone it can obtain recognition. It is, however, not court-life alone which inspires this literature. At the centre of it stands the nāgaraka, the polished man of the town, whose culture, tastes and habits so largely mould this literature that he may be taken to be as typical of it as the priest or the philosopher is of the literature of the Brāhmaṇas or the Upaniṣads.
"It is not impossible to offer a compromise between these two divergent views on the development of kāvya that is neither wholly heroic or courtish, nor completely erotic. Poetry developed in courts no doubt, but its background was laid in the society at the same time. Naturally, therefore, whilst the poet would like to sing in praise of his patrons, he would introduce anecdotes from the life of the common man for the development of his theme in a suitable manner. Poetry offers recreations. Neither the heroic kāvya nor the erotic alone could be always agreeable; of course in the opinion of the Indian rhetoricians the vira or the śṛṅgāra could become the dominant sentiment of kāvya.
This blending of two different tastes in kāvya is reflected in the writings and legends of the very ancient period. Rājā Janaka, the ascetic king of Mithilā, is reported as maintaining a band of courtesans and the Buddha is described as pining in his anxiety for the welfare of the world, for peace, patience and enjoyment. (S. K. De, Sans. Lit. p. 18 ff.) ].

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Earliest evidence traces of "court poetry" is found in the Rāmāyaṇa. Indians themselves call Vālmīki "the first poet (ādikavi)" and the Rāmāyaṇa "the first poem (ādikāvya)", and several sections of this epic, in fact, already exhibit in full characteristics of the kāvya style¹. The court epic of the classical age of Sanskrit poetry presents this style in full blossom; besides, it has made inroads into lyrical compositions, gnomic poetry, drama, and narrative literature, and has not spared even the religious poetry of the Buddhists and the Jainas.

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¹ See above, I, 404f. (tr. p. 475). The possibility indeed is not always ruled out that here we have a case of later-day interpolation made in an old poem. Cf. above I,416 A, 417A, 424, 431 (tr. pp. 489,490,497,505). The places showing the kāvya style are more seldom in the Mahābhārata (ibid I, 308, 320, 393 (tr. pp. 364,376,461) and the Harivaṁśa (ibid, I,387A, tr. p.452). [Keith, Sans. Lit. p. 43—Vālmīki and those who improved upon him, probably in the period 400-200 B.C. are clearly the legitimate ancestors of the court epic. Although some of its parts showing elegances of style, which mark the poem, are later additions, there is no ground whatever to admit that these additions fall later than the second century B.C., and they may be even earlier in date (ibid, p. 42). Jacobi, Rāmāyaṇa, pp. 119ff. The Rāmāyaṇa also shows the development of the śloka metre almost in its classical state; cf. SIFI. VII, ii, 38ff. Love charms of the Atharvaveda attest the beginning of erotic poetry (IS. V, 218ff. Keith, ibid)].

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The essential peculiarities of the kāvya style are:—accumulation of similes and fascination for long, winding descriptions—especially for certain stereotyped representations (e.g., of the seasons, the sun-rise, the moonlit night, etc.). Descriptions of this sort not infrequently occupy so much space that the subject of the poem disappears into the back-ground so much so that the contents of many cantos of an epic or of books of a romance at a stretch become capable of two distinct interpretations. Not to speak of employing artificial internally rhyming and artistically-constituted metres, the use of rare words and long compounds of words with more than one meanings, strange, play of words, strenuous efforts made throughout to express nothing in a straight-forward way², with a desire to conceal as much as possible or to express an idea in a round-about way and that too in the form of a riddle¹. The climax of artistry is attained when a poet succeeds in making one and the same sentence or verse express two different ideas at one and the same time! This phase of Indian poetry cannot be better described than through these stanzas of Fr. T. Vischer's² ridiculing symbolico-mystic poetry:

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² [2. This point has been further elaborated by inclusion of poetic conventions in this list by S. K. De, Sans. Lit., p. 28 ff. There he refers to the following in support of the view : Kāvyādarsa I, 14-19; Sāhityadarpaṇa VI, 315-25; Kāvyamīmāṁsā XIV; Kāvyakalpalatā I, 5; Sāhityadarpaṇa VII, 23-24 etc.; and M. Bloomfield Festschrift, Ernst. Windisch, Leipzig 1914, pp. 349-61; JAOS XXXVI, 1917, p. 54-89; XL 1920, p. 1-12; XLIV 1924, 202-42); W. Norman Brown, JAOS XLVII, 1927 pp. 3-24; etc. Here he has further successfully justified the standpoint of the Indian poets (ibid, pp. 32 ff.)].

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¹ The rhetorician Ānandavardhana says: *prasiddham astyeva vidagdhavidvatpariṣatsu yad abhimataṁ vastu vyaṅgyatvena prakāśyate na sākṣād-vācyatvena*, “In the refined society of the cultured people it is a settled practice that one does not speak out what lies in one’s inmost heart in a straight-forward manner, rather that one should convey it in the form of a suggestion, (Dhvanyāloka IV, 5, translated into German by H. Jacobi, ZDMG 57, 335).

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² In his parody “Faust, der Tragoedie, dritter Teil (6th ed.. Tübingen 1907, 165 ff.).

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“That Poetry above is most valuable
As has its meaning quite—obscure!”
“That which a reader understands without much strain
Comparable to the ordinary home-made bread surely is,
The finest pastry of his bakery is out
What the poet projects in a riddle.”
“Poetry radiates its magic light most brilliantly—
When a reader baffled breaks his head in vain”.

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“Kāvya” poetry, is not only artificial, it is also learned. The real poet must have studied most of the different sciences. Needs must he master lexicons for the purpose of finding out the rarest possible words and such words as have diverse meanings, with a view to being able to form long compounds analysable in different ways and capable of connoting different meanings. He must learn grammar so that he may not err in verbal structures. He must be adept in treatises on war-craft and politics for introducing in his poem descriptions of wars and political trickeries in appropriate contexts. He must be thoroughly familiar with the science of erotics (kāmaśāstra) to be able to describe love-scenes and sentiments of loving couples in accordance with “prescribed” regulations. Above this he must have made his own the text-books on prosody and poetics in order to introduce into his poem possibly the most difficult metres and a rich variety of the figures of speech (alaṁkāras, “embellishments”). It is significant to note that Indians designate what in Europe is called poetics as “The Science of Embellishment (Alaṁkāraśāstra)”.

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In order to achieve a true representation of Indian poetry it is necessary to study Indian poetics along with dramaturgy and prosody as closely associated disciplines. Although such a study properly would have constituted a section on scientific literature, even here it will be not out place, since this science itself is originally based on certain master-works that belonged to poetry on the one hand and to the earlier traditions of the Alaṁkāraśāstra on the other. Moreover, these treatises on poetics always illustrate their rules with examples either composed by the authors of the manuals themselves or cited from (in their opinion) the best poets, or from anthologies, (in which are preserved many pieces of genuine poetry, that otherwise would have been lost).

Indian Poetics, Dramaturgy and Prosody

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Poetics (alaṁkāraśāstra) has been cultivated in India from a very early date as a science. However, we do not possess the earliest work. As is mostly the case with Indian scientific literature, we know about the existence of earlier works only from quotations from them in later manuals. As soon as a more recent scientific work became famous or proved practical, the earlier works, in general, were referred to with respect and there their story ended. Hence they have not come down to us. Even so is the case with the alaṁkāraśāstra too.

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Usually it is assumed that poetics is preserved in its oldest form in the Bhāratīya-Nāṭyaśāstra², a text book on dramaturgy by Muni Bharata¹. Critics appear first to have felt the necessity of writing manuals for mimes for the purpose of giving the players necessary guidance in dramatic performances and in representations of dramatic poetry. From brief rules or a primer for actors (naṭasūtra)² might have developed more voluminous text books on dramaturgy (nāṭyaśāstra), in which not only mimicry, dance, music and song, but also dramatic songs would be dealt with. Then from it must have, first of all, issued individual manuals on the art of poetry or poetics. In this way we can at least explain the supposition that the theory on the art of poetry, in its oldest form, is found in the Bhāratīya-Nāṭyaśāstra. But our misfortune is that this Bhāratīya-Nāṭyaśāstra has not come down to us in its original form and is available in fragments only, wherein mostly half the text is found in a very bad condition.

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¹ Cf. P. Regnaud, La Rhétorique Sanskrite, Paris 1884; R. Pischel, GGA 1885, p. 757 ff; G.A. Jacob, JRAS 1897, 281ff; 1898, 289 ff.; Joh. Nobel, Beitrage zur älteren Geschichte der Alaṁkāraśāstra; Diss., Berlin 1911, and ZDMG 66, 1912, 283 ff.; 67, 1913, 1 ff.; 73, 1919, 189 ff.; P.V. Kane, Outlines of the History of Alaṁkāra Literature. Ind. Ant. 41, 1912, 124 ff.; H. Oldenberg, LAI 203 ff.; Hari Chand, Kālidāsa et l'art poétique de l'Inde, Paris 1917. The best representation of Indian poetics and theory of poetry is given by H. Jacobi in "Uber Begriff und Wesen der poetischen Figuren in der indischen Poctik", NGGW 1908, and in "Die Poetik und Ästhetik der Inder" in the Internat. Wochenschrift, 29 Oct. 1910. [Contributions to the Alaṁkāraśāstra literature have been made also by F.W. Thomas and V.V. Sovani in Bhandarkar Com. Vol. 375ff., 387ff. ].

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² W. Heymann was the first scholar to throw light on the Bhāratīya-Nāṭyāśāstra on the basis of south Indian manuscripts in NGGW 1874, 86ff. P. Regnaud published a number of chapters: Adhyāya 6-74 in the La Rhétorique Sanskrite, Paris 1884, adhy. 15-17 in the Annales du Musée Guimet, part I and part II. The adhy. 20-22 and 34 (=18—20 and 34 of the Km. ed.) are published by F.E. Hall in the Annexture to his edition ot Daśarūpa. The adhy. 28 (on music) has been published by J. Grosset, Contribution à l'étude de la musique hindoue, Paris 1888. A critical edition of the adhy. 1—14 by J. Grosset appeared in Paris 1898. The complete work is published in the Km. 42, 1894. F. Cimmin's L'uso delle didascalie nel dramma Indiano, Napoli 1912 was known to W. only through the review of Pavolini (GSAI 25, 1937, 321 f.). The discovery of a complete manuscript has been announced by S. Lévi in Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres 1899, p. 85. Cf. also H. H. Dhruva in Asiat. Quart. Review III, 2, 1896, 349 ff. and Haraprasād Śāstri in JASB 5, 1909, 351 ff.

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¹ At the end of the book occurs the word "Nandibharata-*saṅgītapustakam*", that is capable of two interpretations : it may suggest that Nandibharata was its author, or it may mean that the copy of the manuscript belonged to a person of that name. The latter one appears more cogent on account of the occurrence of *samāptaścāyam*, both in the masculine, before it, since *ayam* cannot be used in relation to *pustakam*. The name Nandi-bharata appears also as the author of a work on music (Aufrecht, CC I, 276), and Nandin as author of a work on mimic (Abhinayadarpaṇa). However, there, is also one Abhinayadarpaṇa of Nandikeśvara (Aufrecht CC III, s.v.). This book has been translated into English by Anand Coomaraswamy and G. K. Duggira (Cambridge, Mass. 1917), see L. D. Barnett, JRAS 1917, 627f. Bharata means also "actor." R. Pischel, KG. 183 has translated the Bhāratīya-Nāṭyaśāstra, therefore, as "Lehrbuch der Schauspielkunst für Schauspieler—Manual of Histrionic Art for Actors" and adds "Or, as the Indian interpret, of Bharata, who is considered to be the director of the theatre of gods and is claimed to be the originator of the drama". Firstly, it is doubtful if the word "Bharata" means "actor" and therefore, cannot be associated with the mythical author of Nāṭyaśāstra, or if Bharata, as the name of the author of the famous manual on the historionic art could later get the meaning "actor". In the Viṣṇupurāṇa III, 6, Muni Bharata is named as the originator of the Gandharvaveda, that is to say, of Music.

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² This was known to Pāṇini 4, 3, 110.

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The Nāṭyaśāstra, as inherited by us, has an encyclopaedic character and gives the impression as if it is collected from several different texts. It is composed in greater part in the epical ślokas, but there occur also verses in other metres (notably in Āryā) and small stray big pieces in prose. The work comprises of 38 sections (adhyāyas or “lessons”).

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The first and the last three sections relate to the origin of the art of drama and are wholly mythical. The gods, under the leadership of Indra, expressed their desire for some sort of entertainment that should be enjoyable by the eye and delightful to the ear at the same time, to the creator Brahman, the grand’Father, who was pleased to create, as a fifth Veda—the Nāṭyaveda. It was proposed that the drama should be staged for the first time on the occasion of the flag ceremony (*dhvaja-mahaḥ*) to celebrate the defeat of the demons by the gods in honour of Indra and in his palace. Bharata and his disciples made arrangements for its staging. They selected as its plot the victory of the gods over the demons. The gods, when they saw it, were very much pleased, and they distributed rewards to the actors. The demons, who too were there, became very much angry and they threw all sorts of obstacles, catastrophically paralysing the tongue, the mind and the skill of the actors with demoniac magic. Indra became very angry and severely chastised the demons. The actors were again busy with preparation for the stage and again the aggrieved demons presented obstacles in their way. Adequate security measures were taken by the gods; then they requested the creator Brahman to find out if the matter could be settled by mutual agreement. Accordingly Brahman approached the demons and inquired as to what the trouble was with them. The chief of the demons replied that both the gods and the demons had in the creator Brahman their common grand’Father and as such the grand’Father ought not to have done this. Brahman appeased them by explaining that the Nāṭyaveda he had created would depict both the noble as well as the ignoble activities of the gods as of the demons, and concluded by saying: “This art has been created by me as reflecting of life and activity of the world, with all the different sentiments amidst changing situations and in their entirety as a centre, where the activities of the people (the highest, middle and lowest) converge—so as to have the same as a medium of education and as a force, giving impetus to bravery and as a source of entertainment, pleasure, etc. There is no learning, no craft, no science, no fine art, no religious exercise (yoga), no ascetic discipline, that is not witnessed in this Nāṭyaveda”¹. In the last two sections is described how the drama that was first staged in the court of Indra in the presence of gods by the disciples of Bharata and Nārada came to the earth in consequence of a curse from the sages, (whom the actors had ridiculed rather vulgarly) to the effect that they would have to lead a despised life, maintained by their women and children. At this Indra and other gods expressed their fear to the sages that the art of drama might perish, to which the latter said that they had not meant so and that it would not be so. Thereupon, Bharata taught this science to the apsarases so that it might not die out. At the time king Nahuṣa was ruling over the earth. He was a great friend of Indra. The king of men requested the king of gods to depute the apsarases (actresses) to stage a drama in his palace on the earth. But the gods led by Bṛhaspati objected to the free association of the divine beings with the human’s. Nevertheless, they advised Bharata to go to the earth and organise the drama there. The latter asked his children and disciples to go to the earth and wished them to be born there. They instantly obeyed and through them developed on earth the drama. To minimise the effect of the curse god Brahman blessed that it should never die.

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¹ I, 78f, 82. (Grosset 110f., 115).

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This wholly mythological framing of the text-book, reminiscent of the purāṇas as it is, in any case, shows that the histrionic art was held in great esteem and played a significant part in the life of the people.

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The individual chapters of the Nāṭyaśāstra, however, are not concerned with the drama alone as a form of literature, but rather with theatrical performance as a whole. They describe construction of the stage and its inauguration with observance of religious ceremonies (II, III) and the different types of physical movements in dance and mimicry (IV, VIII-XIV, XXIV, XXV). For example, here is enjoined how the actor will express the setting-in of the various seasons: winter, summer etc., the feelings of pleasure, anger, jealousy, etc., explaining facts about the pūrvaraṅga—that is the religious prelude to the performance (V), the sentiments (rasa, VI), emotions (bhāvas, VII), prosody (chandaḥ XV) and the figures of speech (alaṁkāra, XVI), the different languages and dialects to be used in dramas and their allocation to different characters, the modulation of voice, etc. (XVII), the ten types of dramatic poetry (daśarūpa) and their distinctive characters (XVIII), the development of action in the drama (XIX), the different kinds of dramatic style of composition (XX), the costumes, the decoratives, colours of the dress and ornaments etc., distinguishing the different characters (gods, demi-gods, and the different castes, etc.) appearing on the stage (XXI), the many types of heroes, heroines and characters in the play (XXII-XXIV)¹, the allotment of roles to and the training of actors (XXVI, XXXV), the time, place and occasion for a performance etc., etc., (XXVII) and for music and songs (XXVIII-XXXIV).

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¹ XXII, 94-138 and XXIII, 51 ff. The portion dealing with the lover and the beloved has been translated by R. Schmidt, Beiträge zur indischen Erotik, p. 250 ff. and 161 f., into German.

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The arrangement is in no way systematic and makes us feel that probably we do not have here a work of single author, but a compilation of older and more recent texts, before us. The original work, presumably, was a sūtra-text, in the manner of the oldest scientific writings². The memorial verses (kārikās), that relate to the histrionic art, had early already existed. It is, however, not possible to determine the time when the oldest texts, from which our work was compiled, were written. And, likewise, we have yet to establish the time when the redaction of the text-book, as we have it, took place³. The fact that it did undergo such a final redaction is proved by its purāṇa-style construction and as a regular dialogue between the Muni (Bharata) and the ṛṣis. With regard to the time of its composition we can only say this that a work on dramaturgy ascribed to Bharata did indeed exist during the time of the poet Bhāsa¹. Kālidāsa mentions not only the Nāṭyaśāstra, but knows also its law-giver Bharata². Mātṛgupta, a contemporary of Kālidāsa, is believed to have written a metrical commentary on it³.

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² A poet of the 9th century comparing the dark waves of the Yamunā with the style of Bharata, points to a sūtra form (see Lévi 300).

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³ When Regnaud (cf. Lévi 299 f., Oldenberg, LAI 205) gives "the first century of the Christian era" as the time of Bharata, his statement is as much unfounded as that of Pischel (GGA 1885, 763 f.) when he comes down to the 6th or 7th century A.D. P. R. Bhandarkar (Ind. Ant. 41, 1912, 158 f.) rightly explains that it will be futile to attempt to determine the age of the author of the Nāṭyaśāstra, since it is a remodelled work. He believes with regard to the chapter on music especially that its age can never be earlier than the 4th century. Haraprasād Śāstri (JASB 6, 1910, 307) conjectures that the Nātvaśāstra belongs to the 2nd century A.D. Jacobi (Bhavisatta Kaha von Dhaṇavāla p. 84) "perhaps to the 3rd century". P.V. Kane (Ind. Ant. 46, 1917, 177 ff.) shows that Bhāratīya-Nāṭyaśāstra could not have been written later than the 3rd century A.D.

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¹ Sten Konow in Festschrift Kuhn, p. 111.

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² Mālavikāgnimitram, Act 1; Vikramorvaśīyam, Act III, where Bharata enters as a stage-director in the celestial palace of Indra and where too is mentioned the doctrine of eight rasas. Report about staging a drama in the heaven is found also in the Uttararāmacaritam of Bhavabhūti.

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³ So according to a quotation in Nāṭyapradīpa of Sundaramiśra (1613 A.D.). Cf. Eggeling, Ind. Off. Cat. III, p. 348. The kārikās of Kāvyaprakāśa (4, 7-11) are identical with Bharatiya-Nāṭyaśāstra VI, 18-22). Bhāratīya-Nāṭyaśāstra has been quoted at Kāvyaprakāśa, 4, 27 f. Poet Acala hails Bharata, as the author of the Nātyaśāstra in a pillar edict (8th or 9th century A.D.) in two verses; see Kielhorn, Ep. Ind. VII, App. Nr. 1042.

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The basic principle of rasas or "sentiments" in Indian poetics and aesthetics must have been developed for the first time in the Nāṭyaśāstra⁴. The word rasa primarily means "taste". Just as different spices leave behind different tastes, sweet or sour or bitter, even so does the emotion (bhāva) represented on the stage arouse in the mind of the audience apt sentiments. Bharat observes eight such rasas, namely : the sentiments excited through love (śṛṅgāra), humour (hāsya), pity (karuṇā) terror (raudra), heroism (vīra), fear (bhayānaka), aversion (bībhatsa)⁵ and astonishment (adbhuta)⁶. From this theory of the rasas originates the remarkable system of Indian aesthetics as an inevitable offshoot from its psychological theory of emotions (bhāvas). When one reads, however, the strikingly apt and scientific, though elaborated classification of the plot (vastu, itivṛtta) of heroes (nāyakas) and heroines (nāyikās)¹ and of many another matter besides, it becomes clear unfortunately that we have before us a pretty fruitless science that is devoted more to classification and systematisation than to exploration of facts and formulation of rules. Much the same is the case with poetics too.

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⁴ Cf. Max Lindenau, Beiträge zur altindischen Rasalehre, mit besonderer Berücksichtigung des Nāṭyaśāstra das Bharata Muni. Diss. Leipzig 1913. Rudra (Śṛṅgāratilaka 1, 5) expressly says that he generally uses the rasa-theory in poetry too which is usually confined to drama alone by Bharata and others.

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⁵ W. has bībhatsā.

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⁶ It points to fine dramatic taste amongst Indian rhetoricians that they exclude the sentiment of peace (śānta) from a performance permitting it exclusively in didactic poetry.

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¹ W. nayakī.

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In the section on poetic embellishments (alaṁkāras) Bharata has not so much to say as the other text books on poetics have. In fact the number of figures of embellishments in his book falls far short of those of Bhāmaha, Udbhaṭa, Daṇḍin etc.

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The Agnipurāṇa, which deals with poetics in chapters 336—346, includes chapters 337—341 devoted to the drama exclusively, approaching the Bhāratīya-Nāṭyaśāstra scheme even literally. Whilst, however, Bharata knows only ten types of drama, in the Agnipurāṇa there are enumerated its 27 varieties. Chapter 340 in particular treats of mimicry in detail. Here we are told, for example, that there are 13 different kinds of postures for the head, 7 different kinds of movements for the eye-brows, 36 ways of expressing sadness eyes, 58 love through eyes, 6 turns for the nose, 24 gestures for the hand, etc. Then, poetic embellishments themselves are divided into "embellishments of the sound" (śabdālaṅkāra) and "embellishments of the meaning" (arthālaṁkāra)—a division yet unknown to Bharata. The highly complicated figures of speech enumerated in the Agnipurāṇa show that this section on Indian poetics does not go to a very high antiquity².

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² All that we can say about the antiquity of the Agnipurāṇa is that it is cited as an authority in the Sāhityadarpaṇa (see Lévi, op. cit. p. 16).

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The older school of poetics is represented by three rhetoricians: Bhāmaha, Daṇḍin and Vāmana.

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That Bhāmaha, the son of Rakrilagomin, is the oldest among native rhetoricians (those whose works have survived to date), stand to reason on weighty grounds³, although we are position to determine his exact date. He is often quoted by later rhetoricians with high esteem. His Kāvyālaṁkāra¹ is written in ślokas and treats in six sections of the "body of poetry", the embellishments, the faults, the logic and grammatical correctness of poetry. In the introductory verses Bhāmaha refutes the idea that one can become a poet only through mastery of rhetorics, and stresses the importance of poetic genius:

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³ They have been stated by Jacobi, ZDMG 64, 1910, 130ff., 751 ff., Joh. Nobel, Beiträge zur altern Geschichte des Alaṁkāraśāstra, p. 78, f.; and passim (see also ZDMG 73, 1919, 190 ff.), K.P. Trivedi, Pratāparudrayaśobhūṣana, Introd. p. XXVIII ff and Ind. Ant. 42, 1913, 258 ff., and R. Narasimhachara, Ind. Ant. 41, 1912, 90 ff., 42, 1913, 205 and have not been weakened by K.B. Pathak, Ind. Ant. 41, 1912, 232 ff. T. Narasimhiengar and P.V. Kane, JRAS 1905, 535 ff. and 1908, 543 f. consider Bhāmaha younger than Daṇḍin. Gaṇapati Śāstrī (Bhāsa's Svapnavāsavadattam, Intro. p. XXV ff.) adduces very weak arguments in support of his view that Bhāmaha lived in the first century A.D. It is apparent that he flourished later than Kālidāsa, since I, 42 (as W. in spite of Nobel, ZDMG 73, 192., believes) presupposes an acquaintance with Meghadūta. See also Hari Chand, Kālidāsa, p. 70 ff. [Keith, Sans. Lit. p. 375 ff., considers Bhāmaha posterior to Daṇḍin, since Bhāmaha's defence of the distinction between kathā and ākhyāyikā seems especially directed against Daṇḍin's views on the subject. Bhāmaha certainly used the work of Uddyotakara (c. 650 A.D.), and probably knew Nyāsa (c. 700)]. On Bhāmaha see also V. V. Sovani, Bhandarkar Commemoration Volume 392 f., and K. P. Trivedi, 401 ff. ibid. Bhāmaha's time is fixed to a point (as Jacobi has shown in an unpublished essay, communicated to W. on June 3, 1922 in course of a private talk) from the fact that he has quoted from Nyāyabindu of Dharmakīrti at two places, almost literally. According to Jacobi Bhāmaha lived later than 640 A.D. and Daṇḍin still later—towards the end of the 7th century A.D. This accords well with the fact that Daṇḍin in his Kāvyādarśa, II, 197 gives a reminiscence from Bāṇa's Kādambarī (see Peterson, Daśakumāracarita Ed., II, Preface p. 3, note). G. J. Agashe, Ind. Ant. 44, 1915, 67 f. would like to prove that Daśakumāracarita's Daṇḍin is different from Kāvyādarśa's. But his argument is not convincing.

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¹ Published in Appendix VIII to K. P. Trivedi's edition of the Pratāparudrayaśobhūṣana (BSS Nr. 65, 1909).

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*adhanasyeva dātṛtvaṁ klībasyevāstrakauśalaṁ* ।
*ajñasyeva pragalbhatvam akaveḥ śāstravedanam* ॥
"Like generosity to a beggar,
Or like bravery to a coward,
Or proficiency in arts to the unlettered,
Rhetoric science hath no meaning,
To one, who is not a poet."
*vinayena vinā kā śrīḥ kā niśā śaśinā vinā* ।
*rahitā satkavitvena kīdṛśī vāgvidagdhatā* ॥
"What charm is there in beauty lacking grace?
Or there in night's wan moonless face?
Or without poetic touch or fling or trace,
What sort of beauty one finds in words?"
*akavitvaṁ adharmāya vyādhaye daṇḍanāya vā* ।
*kukavitvaṁ tu punaḥ sākṣān mṛtim āhurmanīṣiṇaḥ* ॥
"To miss the poetic "mark" is just a lack in (physical, mental, social) health; naught more.
But to have taste's ah, unpoetic worse:
'tis deardly, death itself, an irrevocable sore".

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Probably in the 7th century A.D.¹ Daṇḍin, himself a poet, wrote his Kāvyādarśa or “Mirror of Poetry”². This manual of rhetorics is written in verses illustrating rules of poetics with numerous examples, mostly his own compositions.

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¹ It is now certain that Daṇḍin was considered as an authority already in the 8th century A. D. Jacobi (ZDMG 64, 1910, 138 f.) thinks that he could not have lived before the 7th century A.D., since he stands on a more advanced position, than Bhaṭṭi does. Cf. G.A. Jacob, JRAS 1897, 284; L.D. Barnett, JRAS 1905, 841 f.; Bernheimer, ZDMG 63, 1909, 709. ff.; P.V. Kane, Ind. Ant. 1912, 128; Gray, Vāsavadattā, p. 11. f. There exists a Tibetan translation of Daṇḍin's “Kāvyādarśa in the Tanjūr (G. Huth, SBA 1895, 268; ZDMG 49, 283 f.). [A manuscript of this work has recently been acquired for the Sanskrit University Museun, Vārāṇasī.]

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² Sanskrit and German published by O, Böhtlingk, Leipzig 1890. Besides more often in Indian editions. [Keith, Sans. Lit. p. 296 ff. thinks for certain reasons that Kāvyādarśa was written definitely before Bhāmaha. (C. 700 A.D.)... and the chief impression conveyed by the Daśakumāracarita is that its geography contemplates a stage of things anterior to the empire of Harṣavardhana and that its comparative simplicity suggests a date anterior to the works of Subandhu and of Bāṇa. Cf. also Collins—The Geographical Data of the Raghuvamśa.

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Since the main doctrines, as enunciated by Daṇḍin, were sure to become a veritable standard for his successors to follow or emulate, it would not be out of place here to examine the contents of this book at some length for, in respect of time, Daṇḍin's organum closely precedes the chief works of Sanskrit poetry and so can offer to the reader a nice cross-section of what advice scholars and critic of India have to offer the poets.

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According to Daṇḍin, every poem needs consist of a body and an embellishment³. By the body of a poem is understood the set of words in a sentence, set so as to suit the desired meaning. This set of words is capable of being put either in a metrical (padya), non-metrical (gadya) or mixed (miśra) style. For the metrical language he prescribes a large number of metres, measured either way: according to syllables or according to mora. One must learn this from metrics (chandoviciti), “which is a veritable ship for those who want to go across the vast ocean of poetry.” But metre is not the most important thing in poetry. Kāvya, according to the general conception of Indian critics can be equally well written in verse or in prose. That is why the nature of poetry is not rigidly fixed. No Indian could ever imagine that versification might become poetry too. When, for example, a scientific work is written in verses, as so frequently is met with in India, it might be said that it belonged to poetry. Grammars, dictionaries, astronomical or medical works written in verse are not poems, but manuals written in verse, able to impress memory more easily than if written in prose. However, there are truly scientific works that are in touch poetic as well; for instance the Bṛhatsaṁhitā of Varāhamihira. On the contrary when a prose novel is endowed with all the possible alaṁkāras in accordance with the rules, it belongs to kāvya, as a class and, in fact, is as good a poetry as an epic.

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³ *taiḥ śarīraṃ ca kāvyānāmalaṃkārāśca darśitāḥ* । *śarīraṃ tāvadiṣṭārthavyavacchinnā padāvalī* ॥ *padyaṃ catuṣpadī tacca vṛttaṃ jātiriti dvidhā* । *chandovicityāṃ sakalastatprapandho nidarśitaḥ* ॥ *sā vidyā naustitīrṣūṇāṃ gambhīraṃ kāvyasāgaram* ॥]

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It is further explicitly stated that good poetry can be composed equally well in Sanskrit, in Prākrit, or in Apabhraṁśa (a literary dialect or a spoken idiom). In fact Indian poets have successfuly employed kāvya style for both Prākrit and Sanskrit poetry. The same writers have sometimes expressed themselves with equal facility in Sanskrit as well as in Prākrit. In general, the same rules are valid both for Prākrit and Sanskrit kāvya, at least by imitation¹.

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¹ Cf. Bühler, Die indischen Inschriften etc., p. 59 and Jacobi, ZDMG, 48, 415 f.

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Daṇḍin next formulates the rules that hold good for a literary epic (sargabandha, mahākāvya) :

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*sargabandho mahākāvyam ucyate tasya lakṣaṇam* ।
*āśīrnamaskriyā vastunirdeśo vāpi tanmukham* ॥
*itihāsakathodbhūtamitarad eva sadāśrayam* ।
*caturvargaphalāyattaṁ caturodāttanāyakam* ॥
*nagarārṇavaśailartucandrārkodayavarṇanaiḥ* ।
*udyānasalilakrīḍāmadhupānaralotsavaiḥ* ।
*vipralambhair vivāhaiśca kumārodayavarṇanaiḥ* ॥
*alaṁkṛtamasaṁkṣiptaṁ rasabhāvanirantaram* ।
*sargairanativistīrṇaiḥ śravyavṛttaiḥ susandhibhiḥ* ॥

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“It should begin with a benediction, a homage or an indication of the subject-matter. The plot should be built either upon a legend, a romance or an historical fact, suggestive as to how the four ends of life are to be attained, depicting the adventures of a hero, overflowing with wisdom and nobility. Descriptions of the town, the sea, the mountain, the seasons, rising of the moon and the sun, sports in pleasure-gardens or in tanks, drink banquets, love-scenes, feasts, marriages, birth of a son, conferences, emissaries, war expeditions, battles and sieges by heroes etc. go to the making of what it is an epic. The plot should be so developed as to be permeated by one basic sentiment (rasa) along with its corresponding emotion (bhāva). It shall consist of a number of cantos (sargas), not too long, composed in properly rhythmical and suitable verses". Daṇḍin then proceeds to describe prose kāvya and its varieties and the mixture of both, to which class the drama and the campū belong. In this connection he touches on the subject of employment of the different languages and dialects in poetry, in the end dealing with the different kinds of style. He says that there is a number of styles, but that they do not differ much one from another. A sharp distinction exists only between the Vaidarbha and the Gauḍa styles¹. Cohesion, clarity, evenness, grace and tenderness are the characteristics of the Vaidarbha, while the Gauḍa inclines more towards obscurity and bombast, delighting in exaggerations and has special fascination for long compounds². Thus, for example, whilst a poet in the Vaidarbha style said—

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¹ Vidarbha is the country of modern Berar. Gauḍa, the country of modern Bengal. From the exposition of Daṇḍin we see that there existed great local variations in style. It is attested by Bāṇa in Harṣacarita, introductory verse 8.

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² [2. *śleṣaḥ prasādaḥ samatā mādhuryaṁ sukumūratā* | *arthavyaktirudāratvamojāḥkāntisamādhayaḥ* || *iti vaidarbhamārgasya prāṇā daśa guṇāḥ smṛtāḥ* | *teṣāṁ viparyayaḥ prāyo dṛśyate gauḍavartmani* || ]

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*anayoranavadyāṅgi stanayorjṛmbhamāṇayoḥ* |
*avakāśo na paryāptastava bāhulatāntare* ||
"Thy pair of budding breasts,
O maiden, with faultless limbs,
Between thy creeper-like arms,
Misses space enough for growth";

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a Gauḍa poet would express to same thus—

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*alpaṁ nirmitamākāśaṁ anālocyaiva vedhasā* |
*idaṁ evaṁvidhaṁ bhāvi bhavatyāḥ stanajṛmbhaṇam* ||
"O lovelist mine, the Creator,
Not foreseeing thy bosom's posibilities to outgrew itself,
left the world too narrow ('tween thy arms)".

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In the description of these different types of style (rīti) the writer stresses that alaṃkāras or "the embellishments" are all in all in poetry. And the fact that Daṇḍin hardly devotes one-sixth of his work to the "body" of poetry, the rest being occupied. only with a discussion about the "embellishments," clearly shows what significance is attached to the latter in Indian poetics. The alaṃkāras, defined as the "attributes, that lend glitter (beauty) to poetry", have been analysed exhaustively and elaborately. Which done, i.e. only after that, the writer proceeds with "embellishments of the sense" (arthālaṃkāras) and "embellishments of the sound" (śabdālaṃkāras). To the first category belong natural description, the simile and the metaphor. According to Daṇḍin, there are thirty-two kinds of simile (upamā). He illustrates, e.g., how one could express in twenty-five different ways the beauty of a lotus-face. One can say—

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*rājīvamiva te vaktraṁ netre nīlotpale iva* |
“Thy face red like a thy at bloom, thine eyes like lotuses blue”,
or
*tavānanamivāmbhojam ambhojamiva te mukham*
“The lotus is like thy face and thy face is like the lotus,”
or
*yadi kiṁcid bhavet padmaṁ subhru vibhrāntalocanam* |
*tatte mukhaśriyaṁ dhattām*
“If but the lotus had two rolling disturbed eyes, one would think it was thy face;”
or
*śatapatraṁ śaraccandrastvadānanam iti trayam* |
*parasparavirodhi*
“The lotus, the autumnal moon and thy face—what a triple paradox!;”
or
*tvadānanam adhirākṣam āvirdaśanadīdhiti* |
*bhramadbhṛṅgamivālakṣyakesaraṁ bhāti paṅkajam* ||
“Thy face, with quivering eyes and glimmering teeth, is like a lotus-flower, swarmed over by bees, from where little visible filaments are moving upward”.

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Closely related to the simile is the metaphor (rūpaka). There are metaphors that appropriately belong to the standing vocabulary of the poet, as: *mukhacandra* “face-moon”, *bāhulatā* “arm-creeper”, *hastapadma* “hand-lotus” etc.

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An amplified rūpaka is illustrated by:—

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*aṅgulyaḥ pallavānyāsan kusumāni nakhārciṣaḥ* ।
*bāhulatā vasantaśrīstvaṁ naḥ pratyakṣacāriṇī* ॥
“Thy fingers are the leaves; the rays (issuing) from thy nails, the flowers;
Thy two arms, the two creepers: the vernal beauty vividly moving before us, thou art.”

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Among the embellishments of meaning (arthālaṅkāra), very often is met with the ākṣepa, that is to say, the concealed or roguish reproof or opposition, as in the stanza beautifully translated by Th. Aufrecht¹ :

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¹ ZDMG 16, 749 ff., Kāvyādarśa II, 147.

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*gaccheti vaktumicchāmi tvatpriyaṁ matpriyaiṣiṇī* ।
*niragacchan mukhād vāṇī mā gā iti karomi kim* ॥
“I wanted to speak what you like—
Thou must now go away ;
Yet the mouth, obedient to the inclination
Of my heart, stammers forth ‘Hasten not’.”

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Daṇḍin mentions the hyperbole (atiśayokti) as the best of embellishments. Śleṣa (pun) or double-meaning is very much liked by the poets. “The śleṣa heightens beauty in all figurative expressions (vakrokti)”, says Daṇḍin (II, 363) Thus, for example, in a panegyric verse, in which the king is compared with the moon, it is said :—

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*asāvudayamārūḍhaḥ kāntimān raktamaṇḍalaḥ* ।
*rājā harati lokasya hṛdayaṁ mṛdubhiḥ karaiḥ* ॥
“*This king* (*moon*), *who has attained the peak of prosperity* (*has risen*), *who is beautiful* (*lovely*), *who has made people loyal* (*red orb*), *enchants the heart of his dependants* (*the people*) *with his mild taxes* (*rays*)².

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² II, 311. The words in Italics in the translation have two meanings; the second meaning has been given within brackets. The K e n-y ō g e n of Japanese poetry is much similar to Śleṣa. Cf. K. Florenz, Geschiohte der Japanischen Litteratur, Leipzig 1906, p. 27 f; Winternitz, Mitteilungen der Anthropolog. Gesellschaft in Wien. Bd. 35, 1905, p. 240, and J. Takakusu, JRAS 1905, 871 ff. The kāvya-style has all through manifold parallels in Chinese and Japanese poetry. See Florenz, ibid. p. 129f., 148, 154. On similar aspects in other literatures, see Gray, Vāsavadattā, p. 32 ff.

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To the embellishments of sound belong, in particular, the numerous types of the yamaka, poetic rhyme, (in which a good number of syllables, that stand in immediate proximity or are separated by other syllables, are repeated). Such a repetition may appear in the beginning or in the middle or at the end of a foot. The same series of syllables, when repeated, have, nevertheless, different meanings. Thus, for example, a verse reads :

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*pātu vo bhagavān viṣṇuḥ sadā navaghanadyutiḥ* ।
*sa dānava-kuladhvaṃsī sa dāna-varadantihā* ।।¹

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¹ May the exalted Viṣṇu, who has brilliance of a fresh cloud, who destroyed the race of the dānavas and killed the chief of the elephants in rut, protect you. (III, 28).

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All sorts of possible poetical devices are made here and there. Thus, for example, there is a stanza in which the two syllables *kā* and *la* are repeated twenty-four times. Or else, a stanza may consist of identically sounding quartets, each having a different meaning. It may be that two stanzas, that have different meanings, have wholly identical lines and, according to sense going together, follow one another.

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There are, further, most highly refined poetical pieces made of syllables, set together for being read in an inverse direction or in a zig-zag manner or from above downward or from below upward. Another poetical device requires that stanzas should be composed with nothing but a limited number of vowels and consonants.

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Of the numerous types and sub-types of embellishments Daṇḍin treats only a few in his poetics.

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Whilst the oldest Indian rhetoricians like Daṇḍin were satisfied with defining and classifying the alaṃkāras and with rejecting the view that the essence of poetry lay in embellishments, Vāmana, who lived about 800 A.D. in the court of the King Jayāpīḍa of Kashmir², first of all raised the question about the true nature of poetry and answered it by saying *rītirātmā kāvyasya*, "the soul of poetry abides in the style," i.e., in combination of certain excellences of diction. His Kāvyālaṃkāravṛtti³ consists of a theoretical section on aesthetics and a practical section on grammar. The latter¹ contains rules on prosody and grammar, in which, with regard to the rules of Pāṇini's grammar, the poet is advised as to how he should be able to write in correct Sanskrit.

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² He was a minister of this king, who ruled between the years 779-813 A.D. See Jacobi, ZDMG 64, 1910, 138 ff.

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³ Vāmanas Lehrbuch der Poetik, published for the first time by C. Cappeller, Jena 1875; published also in Km. 15, 1889. [Vāmana's Kāvyālaṁkārasūtravṛtti (with Vāgbhaṭālaṁkāra and Sarasvatīkaṇṭhābharaṇa had been published by Anundoram Borooah, Calcutta, 1883. An English translation of Vāmana's sūtras and vṛtti had been published in Indian Thought, 3 and, 1912. The name of the book is Kāvyālaṁkārasūtrāṇi sviya-vṛttisametāni (Bombay 1958; 4th Ed. Vāṇīvilāsa Press 1909, trans. G. Jha. Its III and IV, reprinted, Poona, several times). "Rīti is specified arrangement of words, the term specified referring to distinction according to the qualities possessed as being the cause of charm in poetry."—Keith, HSL. p. 381.]

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¹ Treated by C. Cappeller, Vāmanas Stilregeln, Strassburg, 1880.

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A contemporary and rival of Vāmana was Udbhata, who was posted in the court of the same king as the chief paṇḍita (sabhāpati)². He wrote a work Alaṁkārasaṅgraha³, "Short Synopsis of the Essence of Poetics", in which he is said to have stated that the soul of poetry is to be found in sentiment (rasa). The ascription to him of this doctrine has been proved to be wrong, as it was based on the error of ascribing to him a verse cited by Pratīhārendurāja. But it is true that Udbhaṭa stressed the importance of sentiment in poetry and added Śāntarasa to the list of eight sentiments of Bharata, thus making it nine. He further introduced a new classification, based entirely on sound effects, primarily alliteration, in the shape of a theory of vṛttis, manners, classed as elegant (upanāgarikā), ordinary (grāmyā) and harsh (paruṣā). In treating embellishments, he adds Dṛṣṭānta and Kāvyaliṅga, and divides simile according to the grammatical form of expression...and starts the investigation into the relation of double meaning to other figures... as well as complex issue of the different kinds of blendings of figures, saṁsṛṣṭi and saṁkara. He himself composed an epic Kumārasaṁbhava, from which he quotes examples in his poetics, and wrote Bhāmahavivaraṇa, a commentary on Bhāmaha's poetics, that is not available.

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² Rājātaraṅgiṇī IV, 495. Cf. Bühler, Report 64 f.

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³ Published by Jacob, JRAS 1897, 829-853. [The name of the book is given as Alaṁkārasangraha, Keith, HSL p. 383, where the work is reported to have been published also in BSS 1925.]

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The alleged theory, that sentiment is the soul of poetry, wrongly ascribed to Udbhaṭa, formed the basis of the Dhvanikārikās, 120 metrical kārikās on poetics by some anonymous writer¹, upon which Ānandavardhana of Kashmir, about 850 A.D.², wrote a running and learned commentary Dhvanyāloka³ (which in fact is an independent work on the nature of poetry). According to Ānandavardhana, all good poetry has two meanings, the spoken one or denotation, that is to say, what is expressed by words and is embellished by alaṁkāras and the implied or concealed one, that is, what is inferred by the reader or the hearer. And in this implied one (that is designated as dhvani or tone) lies the real soul of poetry. The alaṁkāras, including metaphor and other poetical figures, thereby, become so much more impressive that they even hint at the implied meaning, that is purely suggested, "in the same way as the bodice covers the breasts and nevertheless lends them more charm". Above all the feeling and sentiment (rasa) belong to the unspoken. Accordingly Ānandavardhana distinguishes between three types

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¹ Generally he is known simply as "Dhvanikāra, the author (of memorial verses) on dhvani". It is not likely that he was called Sahṛdaya, as V. V. Sovani tries to prove (JRAS, 1910, 164 ff.), since at best it is an epithet. Sushil Kumar De, BSOS I 4, 1920 p. 1 ff. attempts to answer the question as to who was Dhvanikāra but arrives merely at the conclusion that he must have been at least one hundred years earlier than Ānandavardhana. Subsequently the latter became such a strong single advocate of the dhvani-theory that people did not distinguish between the Dhvanikāra and the Vṛttikāra.

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² Ānandavardhana wrote during the period of the reign of Avantivarman of Kashmir (855-883). There is a verse on him in Rājaśekhara (See Peterson, Subh. p. 9 ff): "To whom Ānandavardhana is not an *ānandavardhana* (that is to say, an increaser of pleasure) with his well thought dhvani permeating into the deep essence of poetry ?".

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³ Published with the commentary of Abhinavagupta in Km. 25, 1891. Translated into German by H. Jacobi in ZDMG 56 and 57 (separately printed, Leipzig, 1903). On this translation is based A. Dyroff, "Eine indische Ästhetik" in the Archiv für Philosophie, 1. Abt. 18, Bd. (N.F. 11 Bd. ), 1904, p. 113ff. Dyroff, praising the aesthetics of Ānandavardhana says that like that of Aristotle it happens to be empirical and proceeds like modern aesthetic psychology. [Translated into Hindī by Viśveśvara, Delhi, 1952. In the Introduction, p. 72 ff, Viśveśvara, agreeing with Sankaran (Some Aspects of Literary Criticism in Sanskrit), refutes this view on the strength of the words *asmadupajña* "established by ourselves" in the stanza "*iti kāvyārthavivekoyaṁ cetaścamatkṛtividhāyī | sūribhir anusṛtasārair asmadupajño na vismāryaḥ ||*" and on the strength of the concluding stanza of the Dhvanyāloka that reads :

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