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A History of Indian Literature v3.c35.s3: Beginnings of Ornate Poetry

A History of Indian Literature v3.c35.s3

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Beginnings of Ornate Poetry

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As already suggested, we are to see the first stage of Indian poetry in the Mahābhārata and, more particularly, in the Rāmāyaṇa. Whatever, in our opinion, may be the amount of alterations and additions made by later authors in them, it can-not be denied that the first traces of the kāvya style are to be found in these two epics, in their earliest parts, that go back to a date before Christ. Nevertheless, so far as the poetic materials used are concerned, the difference between the epics, such as the Mahābhārata and the Rāmāyaṇa, on the one hand, and the poetical works of writers like Kālidāsa and Amaru, on the other, is so great that in any case we are obliged to admit a lapse of a big interval of time between these two types of poetry. Apparently, court ornate poetry did not on the whole originate in the soil of the epics; it did so in that of the lyrics. Evolution of prosody no doubt shows that the first poetic metre must have developed in love-ballads². Here, when the theme of the song admitted of little alteration, the poet was obliged to attract the attention of his audience and to win their admiration through external form and through artificiality of metre and of language. Like erotics, panegyrics did not offer a less important stimulus for artificial form. When the poets extolled in their songs glories of the princes, in whose courts they lived, their poems, being expressive of high admiration for the patrons, all along were full of artifices. Consequently, it was just natural that the court poets vied among themselves, surpassed one another, and finally one who knew how to introduce into his poems the largest number of "embellishments" was considered to be the greatest of them. This kāvya style in due course found its way into the epics through the panegyrics.

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² Cf. Jacobi, ZDMG 38, 615ff. and above p. 32.

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History of court poetry would go back at least as far as the 4th century B.C., when lived the great grammarian and poet Pāṇini, to whom is ascribed also the authorship of two epics, namely Pātālavijaya and Jāmbavatī- vijaya, as well as of not a few verses, quoted in anthologies¹. None of the two epics has come down to us, and consequently it is not certain whether the Pātālavijaya and the Jāmbavatīvijaya are two different works or just two titles of one and the same work. Rājaśekhara in the following verse says:—

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¹ P. Peterson (JBRAS 17, 1889, 57ff; Subh. 54ff.) has particularly set himself to the task of identification of this poet with the grammarian. Before him already Pischel (ZDMG 39, 1885, 95ff., Gram. der Prākrit Sprachen, p. 33) proposed to place the grammarian in the 5th century A.D., an impossible dating, upon which he himself did not insist later (KG. 182f.). See against this Kielhorn, NGGW 1885, 185 ff., R. G. Bhandarkar, JBRAS 16, 344; D. R. Bhandarkar, Ind. Ant. 1912, 125 n. Recently Kane (Ind. Ant. 1912, 125) has again tried to prove the identity. Thomas, Kavīndrasamuccaya 51ff. (where is given a collection of the verses of Pāṇini) holds the question as still undecided. Th. Aufrecht (ZDMG 14, 581 f., 27, 46; 36, 365 ff.; 45, 308) has collected together and translated the stanzas ascribed to Pāṇini. Rāyamukuṭa, in a commentary written in 1431 A.D. on the Amarakoṣa (ascribed to him) has quoted a piece of a poem from Jāmbavatīvijaya. The poet Pāṇini has been cited by Ruyyaka too.

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*namaḥ pāṇinaye tasmai yasmād āvirabhūdiha* l
*ādau vyākaraṇaṁ kāvyaṁ anu jāmbavatīvijayam* ll

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"Hail to Pāṇini, who by the grace of Rudra, first wrote the grammar and then the poem Jāmbavatīvijaya"². Whether this Rājaśekhara is the poet, to whom a large number of verses are ascribed in anthologies or the dramatist Rājaśekhara (end of the 9th and beginning of the 10th century) or a different Rājaśekhara—in any case, he belongs to too late a period and is too unreliable a testimony for establishing the identity of the grammarian, who wrote his grammar towards the close of the Vedic period, with a poet, whose language is hardly different from that of Kālidāsa. But it is of great significance to note that in one of the stanzas quoted by Namisādhu (in a commentary written in 1068 A.D. on Rudraṭa's Kāvyālaṅkāra) from Pāṇini's Pātālavijaya there are horrible solecisms, unlikely from the pen of the grammarian³. The verses ascribed to Pāṇini exhibit, however, no mean artistic merit :

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² Since this verse occurs in Subhāṣitamuktāvalī, written by Jalhaṇa in 1247 A.D., this Rājaśekhara cannot be the Jaina writer, who lived in the 14th century; but he may be either the dramatist or yet another third.

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³ [3. The ungrammatical horrors mentioned by Keith (HSL, p. 204) are: *apaśyati*, *gṛhya*, narrative aorists, etc.]

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*tanvaṅgīnāṁ stanau dṛṣṭvā śiraḥ kampayate yuvā* l
*tayorantarasamlagnāṁ dṛṣṭim utpāṭayanniva* ll

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"The youth, having seen the two breasts of beautiful women, shakes his head, as if he were extricating his gaze fast stuck 'twixt them.”

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*kṣapāḥ kṣāmīkṛtya prasabham apahṛtyāmbu saritāṁ*
*pratāpyorvīṁ kṛtsnāṁ tarugahanamucchoṣya sakalaṁ* l
*kva saṁpratyuṣṇāṁśurgata iti tadanveṣaṇaparās-*
*taḍiddīpālokā diśi diśi carantīva jaladāḥ* ll

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“Having made the nights short, having perforce dried up the water of the streams, having parched all earth and scorched every thicket, where has the sun gone to’, so saying the clouds are stalking hither and thither, as if holding lightning for a lamp”.

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The existence in the 2nd century A. D. of secular lyrics composed in artistic metres and in the style of the ornate court poetry is attested to by Patañjali, the second great grammarian, in whose Mahābhāṣya we find a number of citations from ornate poetry¹. In anthologies Patañjali too is here and there referred as the author of a number of stray stanzas². Piṅgala’s time was really not far away from that of Patañjali³. His manual of prosody would also prove the existence of an erotic ornate poetry in the 2nd century.

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¹ Cf. Bühler, Die indischen Inschriften und das Alter der indischen Kunstpoesie p., 72. and Kielhorn, Ind. Ant. 14, 326f. H. Lüders (Bruchstücke buddhistischer Dramen, p. 62) believes in the existence of the kāvya style already in the Hāthigumphā Inscription of Khāravela, written in the 2nd century A. D. (according to Smith, Early History, p. 207 in 218 A.D.). But this Prākrit inscription is preserved in such a mutilated form that we can understand little about its style and language. On the inscription, cf. Lüders, Ep. Ind. X, App. p. 160f and Charpentier, WZKM 29, 1915, 208 ff.). Recent researches on the Hāthigumphā inscription by R.D. Banerji and K.P. Jayaswal in JBRAS 1917, 425ff; R.C. Majumdar and K. G. Sankara Aiyar, Ind. Ant. 47, 1918, 223f.; 48, 1919, 187 ff; 49, 1920, 43ff. According to V. A. Smith (JRAS 1918, 543) ff. the date of this inscription is estimated at 170 B. C. See also Ramā Prasāda Chanda. Smith and F. W. Thomas, JRAS, 1919, 395ff.; 1912, 83 f.; Ind. Ant. 48, 1919, 214 ff.

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² Cf. Peterson, JRAS 1891, 311 ff.

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³ See above p. 31.

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We have nothing of the ornate court poetry written in Sanskrit between the 2nd centuries B.C. and A.C. It seems that during this period Prākrit poetry was cultivated in the courts of princes. Remnants of this class of poetry have been preserved in the Sattasaī of Hāla and in the Bṛhatkathā of Guṇāḍhya, (which unfortunately is not preserved in its original version).

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Also in the Therīgāthās, belonging to the Buddhist canons, we find songs and verses that show the style of ornate poetry¹. Besides, in Prākrit there is an inscription of Nāsik, written in the 19th year of the reign of King Pulumāyi of the Andhra dynasty (154 A.D.)² showing all the characteristics of the style of ornate prose.

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¹ See above II, 84f., trans. p. 106. It was long believed that in the first century A.D. there came into existence a formal literary style in course of development in Sanskrit literature, and that in the 6th century A.D. took place a “renaissance of Sanskrit literature” for the first time (see Max Müller, India, What it can teach us, London 1882, Indien in seiner weltgeschichtlichen Bedeutung, Leipzig, 1884). This theory in particular has been fully developed by G. Bühler in Die indischen Inschriften und das Alter der indischen Kunstpoesie (SWA 1890). Cf. also Haraprasād Śāstri in the JASB 6, 1910, 305ff. R.G. Bhandarkar (A Peep into the Early History of India, JBRAS 1900, p. 407 f., Reprint p. 52 f.) in fact does not believe in a complete cessation of Sanskrit literature, but in its irregular development during the centuries of Buddhism and Prākrit literature from the 1st century B.C. to the 4th century A.D. It does not appear correct to speak about a “Prākrit period” of Indian literature, as has been done by F. Lacôte, *Essai sur Guṇāḍhya et la Bṛhatkathā*, Paris 1908, like Jacobi Ausgewählte Erzählungen in Māhārāṣṭrī, p. XIf.), to have preceded the classical period. Prākrit poetry is the composition of certain class of people, apparently of several courts, certainly belonging to different sects, but our study has not revealed any particular period of which we possess an Indian literature in which Prākrit alone, and not Sanskrit as well, happened to be the literary medium.

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² Cf. Bühler, Die indischen Inschriften etc. p. 56ff., and Smith, Early History, p. 210.

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Of the same period is the great Sanskrit inscription of Mahākṣatrapa Rudradāman, that is a formal poem in prose³. Long compounds and long sentences, like those required by Daṇḍin for prose composition, as well as the various embellishments are all through found in this inscription. The style is what has been designated by Daṇḍin as the “Vaidarbha” style. The fact that already in the 2nd century A.D. the style of ornate poetry was taken over to prose too and was used in inscriptions as well probably proves that it had developed much earlier.

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³ The inscription has been published by Kielhorn, Ep. Ind. 8, 36 ff. and is regarded by him as of 151 or 152 A.D. Bühler (loc. cit. p. 49) places it between 160 and 170 A.D. The inscription is found also on a rock near Girnār. Rudradāman belonged to the so-called “western Kṣatrapas”. Kṣatrapa is a Sanskrit adaptation of Persian Khshathrapa (Greek “Satrap”, as the land-lords and chieftains of the Indo-Scythian kings were designated, who ruled over the whole of north-west and west India in the first two centuries A.C.

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Of the 2ndcentury A. D. we have the epics and the dramas of the Buddhist poet Aśvaghoṣa⁴, that in language and style belong to the ornate court poetry. The finished form of the epics together the perfect technique of the dramas of Aśvaghoṣa proves that they were composed only on some long-standing models. By itself it appears improbable that a thoroughly Buddhist poet should be the first to have composed in this style. On the contrary, the possibility is that he adopted the earlier poetic style to Buddhist themes for the simple reason that this style was common for secular poetry in his times. Aśvaghoṣa, however, was not the solitary Buddhist poet. Mātṛceṭa and Āryaśūra must have been not very far away from him in time¹.

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⁴ See above II, p. 201 ff., transl. p. 256ff.

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¹ See above II, p. 201ff. trans. p. 269ff. The language of Śūra has been praised in one of the stanzas of the anthology Saduktikarṇāmṛta; see Aufrecht, ZDMG 36, 365; Peterson, Subh. 131. Other Buddhist and Jaina texts in the kāvya style belong to later centuries, so also the Divyāvadāna (see above II, 222, 225), trans. pp. 284, 288, Candragomin's poems and other Buddhist stotras (see above II, 259, 267, trans. p. 365, 380). For Pāli works like Mahāvaṃśa and Jinālaṃkāra (see above II, 170, 179 trans. pp. 211, 223, and for stotras of Bhadrabāhu and others (see above II, 339, trans p. 549).

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It would be of importance for the history of ornate poetry if we could be able to determine precisely the antiquity of the alaṃkāraśāstra (science of rhetorics) and its relation to the kāvya style. But, unfortunately, it has to be admitted that we are neither able to fix the time of Bhāratīya-Nāṭyaśāstra nor do we know anything about the age of probably the oldest manual on poetics of Bhāmaha with some certainty. Yet, we have hardly any reason to think that poetics developed from a source other than the study of some model poetical pieces of the Mahābhārata or more particularly of the Rāmāyaṇa. Vālmīki certainly did not yet know about a manual of poetics; but, Aśvaghoṣa was perhaps familiar with the theory of the alaṃkāras². Further development of poetry took place no doubt under the influence of alaṃkāraśāstra. Bhāsa and Kālidāsa definitely knew the Nāṭyaśāstra of Bharata³.

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² Cf. Kane, Ind. Ant. 1912, p. 127.

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³ On the relationship of Kālidāsa to Nāṭyaśāstra, cf. A. Hillebrandt, Kālidāsa, p. 107ff.

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In general we have been accustomed to regard a work of poetry that is older as less refined and less influenced by the theory. But this conclusion is correct only in a limited sense. It would be more correct to say that when a poet writes in a simple style, it is said that either he belongs to an older period or that he has a superior taste. There have been poets, even in later days who had sufficient taste to avoid a very high flown kāvya style¹. Besides, we learn from Daṇḍin's poetics that there arose great local differences in respect of the style². In eastern India, in the courts of mighty kings, poetry seems to have been cultivated earlier than in the south-west. For the first time in the 4th and 5th centuries A.D., when the Guptas attained sovereignty, the poet of the west too entered into the field of poetic competition³.

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¹ R. G. Bhandarkar, JBRAS 16, 266. In spite of the high regard for finer poetry, Indians themselves have always considered the simple epics the Mahābhārata and the Rāmāyaṇa as model works.

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² See above, p. 15.

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³ Cf. Jacobi, Ausgewählte Erzählungen in Māhārāṣṭrī, p. XVI f.

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Naturally, the development of court poetry on the whole essentially depended upon the courts in which poetry found special encouragement, and the question is not always of antiquity of time, but often also of place and circumstances.

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It is probable that court poets and ornate court poetry already existed during the reign of the Maurya dynasty. It is yet doubtful as to how far the Arthaśāstra of Kauṭilya reflects the condition of the court of the Maurya King Candragupta. The tradition ascribing the authorship of this work to the wise minister of Candragupta agrees little with the facts of history. In any case, the work goes back to a considerably high antiquity, and it is probable that its earliest elements reach upto the Maurya period. And it is noteworthy that among the large number of court employees are mentioned also paurāṇikas, sūtas, māgadhas, kuśīlavas; (i.e. chroniclers, bards, singers and dramatists), but there is not a word about the court poet. The teacher and the taught (ācāryāḥ vidyāvantaś ca) who got an honorarium of 500 to 1000 paṇas⁴, according to merit, were probably only prominent Brāhmaṇas, whom the king wanted to honour and not perhaps the poets who would have been called "kavi". Among the names of literary works referred to in Kauṭilya's Arthaśāstra there is no mention of kāvya anywhere. This accords also with the fact that the inscriptions of Aśoka are written in a plain and simple style and do not bear any trace of the ornate style. It is near about this time that the rise of the poetical form is often suggested.

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⁴ Arthaśāstra of Kauṭilya, ed. by R. Shama Sastri, Mysore, 1909, p. 245f.

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To the 3rd or 4th century A.D. probably belongs T a n-t r ā k h y ā y i k ā, the oldest form of the P a ñ c a t a n t r a. The dramas of B h ā s a too must have originated in the 4th century A.D. With some compromise we can characterise the poems of Aśvaghoṣa and those of his contemporaries, Hāla's Sattasaī (in its oldest constituent), Guṇāḍhya's Bṛhatkathā, Tantrākhyāyikā and the dramas of Bhāsa (in the form they are) as belonging to the classical or early classical period of Indian ornate poetry.

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We can just guess that this classical poetry blossomed in the courts of the later Āndhra rulers, the western Kṣatrapas and the Kuṣaṇa princes and their contemporaries. We are not in a position to determine with certainty the date of any of the works of this period.

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Summing up, therefore, we can only say that the inscriptional as also the literary testimony in fact enables us to place the continuity of ornate court poetry upto the 2nd century A.D., its existence in the 2nd century B.C. and the beginnings of its golden age in the 4th century A.D.

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