Glimpses of Sanskrit literature

GLIMPSES OF SANSKRIT LITERATURE GLIMPSES OF SANSKRIT LITERATURE LdilcJ by A. N. D. Haksar INDIAN COUNCIL FOR CULTU...

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GLIMPSES OF SANSKRIT LITERATURE

GLIMPSES OF SANSKRIT LITERATURE

LdilcJ by

A. N. D. Haksar

INDIAN COUNCIL FOR CULTURAL RELATIONS NEW DELHI &

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C o p y r i g h t © 1995 ICCR (Indian Council for C u l t u r a l Relations) N e w Delhi

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Foreword Tine Indian Council for Cultural Relations has great pleasure in presenting this volume on Sanskrit Literature. Sanskrit has an unbroken literary tradition of at least three thousand years stretching into present times. As the lingua franca of India's cultural growth and the principal vehicle of its thought for much of this period, it has a unique position in national identity- Its study occupies a prominent place, both in traditional learning and in current scholarship on various aspects of Indic civilization. But the fruit of this knowledge has, to a considerable extent, tended to stay within the domain of the scholar and the specialist. It is widely known that Sanskrit has a vast ancient literature. What it comprises, apart from the famous sacred and philosophical works, is not equally well known. The intention in bringing out the present volume is to provide for the modern lay reader, both in India and abroad, an informative survey of Sanskrit literature which is attuned to general interest and, at the same time, inspired by scholarship of the first rank. Included as a special feature is a select anthology of translated excerpts from well-known Sanskrit classics, which will give readers a flavour of the language's genius and its rich literary heritage. The objective of the Council's publication programme is to project India's cultural image through the print medium. The programme includes six periodical journals in Hindi, English, Spanish, French and Arabic, and over 200 titles already published in different languages. These publications also represent a wealth of knowledge and scholarship on diverse aspects of Indian culture, which gives them a lasting value. Translations from Sanskrit classics like Shakuntala and Vikrarih Urvashi figured among the Council's earliest publications. But a comprehensive compilation giving a broad perspective of this magnificent literature for general readership remained a long felt

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Foreword

need. The Council is grateful to the distinguished Indian and foreign scholars who have contributed to this volume. The task of assembling them, as also of devising the format of contents and editing the whole volume w a s entrusted to former Indian Ambassador A.N.D. Haksar, a student and translator of Sanskrit classics in the old tradition of scholar-diplomats. We thank him for agreeing to be the guest editor of this special issue on Sanskrit Literature, which the Council is very pleased to place before the public. Their comments, will, as always, be most welcome.

New Delhi October 29,

Meera Shankar 1995

Director General Indian Council for Cultural Relations

Acknowledgements The Editor and the Publisher express their gratitude to the following for the copyright material in this volume. Penguin Books Ltd., London, UK for granting copyright permission for verses 8,14,15,70,75,125,131,135,144,153,182,235, (pp. 55,56, 71, 72, 85, 86, 87, 90, 92, 117, 131, 137—total of 76 lines), 257 from Poems from the Sanskrit translated by John Brough (Penguin Classics, 1968) copyright (©) John Brough 1968. The excerpts from 'MeghadootanV ofKalidasa from Loom of Time are reproduced courtesy the publishers (Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd.) and the translator. The excerpts from Bilhana's poems from The Hermit & the Love Thief'are reproduced courtesy the publishers (Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd.) and the translator. 'Kama's Burden' from The Shuttered Thigh mid other Plays ofBhasa is reproduced courtesy thepublishers (Penguin India Pvt. Ltd.) and the translator. Y.K. Publishers, Agra, for granting copyright permission lor extracts from The Indian Poetie Traditon (©fl983 V.N. Mishra, L. Natham, S.H. Vatsyayan, all rights reserved. National Book Trust, Tndia, New Delhi for granting copyright permission for extracts from the Talcs from the Panehatantra by A.N.D. Haksar, ISBN 81-237-0021-0. Publishers o( Sanskrit Poetry from Vidyakara 's 'Lreasury, translated by Daniel Ingalls, Cambridge, Mass: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Copyright (©) 1965, 1968 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College, for granting permission to reprint extracts. Mrs. Nayantara Sahgal, Dehra Dun, for granting copyright permission for extracts from Ritusamhara ofKalidasa translated by R.S. Pandit, published in 1947 by the National Information & Publications Ltd. of Bombay.

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Acknowledgements

R a m a k r i s h n a Math, M a d r a s for granting c o p y r i g h t p e r m i s s i o n for e x c e r p t s from the verse p a r t of C h a p t e r 1 from the b o o k BJiagwat Gita (The Song of God) translated by S w a m i P r a b h a v a n a n d a a n d C h r i s t o p h e r Tsherwood. Columbia University P r e s s , N e w York, for granting copyright p e r m i s s i o n for r e p r o d u c i n g a song from Gita Govinda of J a y a d e v a from Love Song of the Dark Lord t r a n s l a t e d by B a r b a r a Stoller Miller. Copyright (©) 1977. Reprinted with p e r m i s s i o n of the publisher. * The other selections in this book are taken from the following s o u r c e s no longer in copyright: K a l i d a s a ' s Shakuntala by M. Monier Williams is from Hindu Literature ( N e w York, P.F. Collier & Son, 1900); and extracts from Bhagvadgita or Song Celestial a r e by Edwin Arnold in Sacred Writing Vo\. 2, The Harvard Classic ( N e w York, P.F. Collier & Son, 1910.)

Contents Foreword

v

Acknowledgements

vii

Introduction

xi

1. Evolution of Sanskrit Literature: A Reappraisal N. P. Urim

1

2. The Adikdvya and the Legacy of Rsi Valmiki R. P. Goldman

11

3. Poetry of the Mahdbliarata Satya Pal Narang

30

4. Sanskrit Linguistics and Mathematics in Ancient India Pierre-Sylvain Filliozat

39

5. Bhasa and Kalidasa: The Inseparable Divergence Shriniwas Rath

51

6. Prakrt Poetry: Hala's Sattasai Herman Tieken

61

7. Classical Sanskrit Prose Literature Saroja Bhatc

72

8. Public Poetry in Sanskrit Sheldon Pollock

85

9. The Major Dramatists Rajendra Mishra 10. The Development of Aesthetics and Literary Criticism in India Anthony K. Warder

108 124

i

Contents 11.

Anthologies, Gnomic V e r s e s a n d A p h o r i s m s Sukumari Bhattacharji

136

12. Give a n d Take: Sanskrit Poetry in Context Friedhelm Hardy

147

13. The Contribution of K a s h m i r to S a n s k r i t Literature Ved Kumari Ghai

161

14.

173

S o m e Peripheral Literature: Lexicography a n d Medicine Satya Vrat Shastri

15. C o n t e m p o r a r y S a n s k r i t Writing Radha Vallabh Tripathi

180

16.

187

Sanskrit Studies Abroad Arvind Sharma

17. A T r e a s u r y of Translations

196

Appendices A p p e n d i x 1: S o m e Sanskrit Educational Institutions in India.

247

A p p e n d i x 2: S o m e Indian P u b l i s h e r s of Sanskrit Books. Contributors

250

Index

257

253

Introduction Sanskrit has a long history as a language of thought, learning and culture in India and beyond. Though a part of its literature may have been lost over the course of time, some has been recovered in the last century, and a huge corpus covering a vast variety of topics is available. Most of it is the subject of traditional study or modern research, but only a part of it usually comes before the public eye. In thepresent popular perception of Sanskrit as a major component of India's cultural heritage, it is as the language of religion and philosophy that it is best known. One of the important effects of this perception has been to dccmphasize the other dimensions of the literary wealth of Sanskrit as a whole. The effort here is topresent Sanskrit literaturepurely as literature: as poetry, drama and prose, as inspirational and creative, narrative, descriptive, gnomic and aphoristic expression of literary value. Examples of this, often of surpassing excellence, are also found in scriptural texts, as willbe seen reflected in some of the contributions and a section of the translations included in this compilation. But the focus here, in the main, is on secular cla ssical literature as compared to sacred or philosophical works. The latter have been researched and translated extensively. Some, like the Bliagavadgita, and the principal Upmmhads and Vedic hymns, are already widely known. But classical literature, to quote the late Harvard Sanskritist Daniel lngalls, "has remained to the English reader, like the Sleeping Beauty of the fairy tale, hidden behind a hedge of thorns." This collection seeks to provide a small opening in that hedge of mostly recondite study of a cloistered knowledge. Given the formidable range of Sanskrit literature, the attempt here is to provide a broad perspective of it through an initial overview, followed by a series of closer looks at specific facets. The former also touches on the Vedicperiod;thelatter include the epics, later poetry, drama and prose; the aphoristic literature of the

xii

Introduction

anthologies; epigraphic literature; and examples of technical works. Also considered are the development of Sanskrit aesthetics and literary criticism; and the interaction between Sanskrit and other poetry. The spread of Sanskrit literary activity is further exemplified by an area study of its quantum in a single region. The perspective is brought up to the present with a review of contemporary writings and studies abroad. It is our good fortune that the format outlined above has been illuminated by contributions from eminent academic specialists. Dr. N.P. Unni appraises the sweep of Sanskrit literature as a whole in an introductory survey. Professor R.P. Goldman looks anew at the seminal legacy o( the Rilmaymm of Valmiki, while some poetic aspects of the MnhribluTratn are analyzed by Professor S.P. Narang. Dr. R.P. Mishra describes and quotes from the principal Sanskrit dramatists and their works, while Dr. S. Rath focusses on two towering figures among them, Kalidasa and Bhasa. Dr. F. 1 lardy comments, with interesting examples, on the mutual influence of Sanskrit and other poetic forms, and Dr. H. Tieken recalls the beau ties of Ha la's Prakrit verses. A neglected but important a spect, the poetry of Sanskrit inscriptions found in and outside India, is illustrated with translations by Professor S. Pollock. Ur. Sukumari Bhattacharji makes a critical review of gnomic and epigrammatic verse anthologies which are a characteristic of Sanskrit literature, while Professor Saroja Bhate does the same for works in prose, includingalso her translation of a sample from Bana. Professor A.K. Warder traces the evolution of the aesthetic criteria and the literary theories on which Indians judged their own literature. Many ol these theories originated in Kashmir, and Dr. Ved Kumari Ghai studies the overall contribution to Sanskrit literature from that part of the county. Illustrative examples of technical literature, ranging from linguistics and mathematics to lexicography and medicine, are provided by Dr. P.S. Filliozat and Professor S.V. Shastri, also touching upon some scientific a spect s of the Vedic corpus. Professor R.V. Tripathi surveys contemporary Sanskrit writings, pointing to the continued currency of this ancient but far from dead language. Finally, Di\ A. Sharma raises pertinent issues while describing the sizeable extent of ongoing Sanskrit studies outside India. Also deserving mention in this context are the studies taking place in some countries with historic cultural links with India, like Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Thailand.

Introduction

xiii

Individually, these e s s a y s will give the r e a d e r s o m e revealing g l i m p s e s of significant a s p e c t s of Sanskrit literature; together, they p r e s e n t a p a n o r a m i c view pointed out by expert g u i d e s . It is s u p p l e m e n t e d with a select anthology o( English translations of e x c e r p t s from Sanskrit c l a s s i c s to enable the literature to s p e a k for itself. This indeed is the m o s t effective w a y of m a k i n g it better known, and a larger anthology w o u l d h a v e been compiled but for p h y s i c a l limitations. Differences of linguistic construction and literary convention c o m p o u n d the difficulties ot translating from Sanskrit into English,but the s a m p l e s included here should disprove, at least in p a r t , the contention of earlier s c h o l a r s like Keith that Sanskrit poetry is essentially untranslatable. It m u s t h o w e v e r be a c k n o w l e d g e d that good literary translations into English a r e not e a s y to c o m e by, and m o r e need to be e n c o u r a g e d to m a k e it p o s s i b l e for Sanskrit literature to reach a bigger a u d i e n c e . There is an u n a v o i d a b l e overlap b e t w e e n s o m e contributions, gi\-en the impossibility of complete c o m p a r t m e n t a ligation in dealing with our subject. The o b s e r v a n t r e a d e r will also note divergences, of opinion a s well a s fact. The former are i n e s c a p a b l e in the format h e r e a d o p t e d ; t h e latter, specially in r e s p e c t o l d a t i n g a n d ascription, are not u n c o m m o n in any h i s t o r i o g r a p h y w h e r e there is a paucity of conclusive evidence, a s in the c a s e of Sanskrit. The v i e w s e x p r e s s e d in their contributions are naturally those of the individual a u t h o r s , and not necessarily s h a r e d by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations or the present editor. S o m e indeed m a y be questioned by other s c h o l a r s . In editing no a t t e m p t h a s been m a d e t o h a r m o n i z e chronology or attribution, transliteration, or the u s a g e of N a g a r i or R o m a n scripts for Sanskrit quotations. The question of selection a l w a y s p o s e s p r o b l e m s in any work such a s this. Exclusions are regrettable, but inevitable, given the m a s s of material needing notice and the limits of s p a c e . This h a s aiiectcd the choice ol subjects to be covered in the e s s a y s , a s well a s the e x c e r p t s to be included in the translations. The r e a s o n s for concentration on p u r e literature a s such ha veal ready been explained; for w h a t h a s got left out, the r e a d e r ' s sufferance alone can be solicited. 1 I opefully, this "lion's view", to u s e the Sanskrit expression for a brief look behind a s one m o v e s forward, will attract r e a d e r s to venture further into the verdant g r o v e s of Sanskrit literature in s e a r c h of other delectable fare.

xiv

Introduction

It remains for the editor to record his deep gratitude to the sixteen distinguished scholars of Sanskrit and Indie studies who have kindly contributed to this volume. The ten Indian contributors hail from far corners of the land, ranging from Kerala to Kashmir, and Maharashtra to West Bengal;,one teaches in distant Canada. The six foreign contributors arc from North America and West Europe: if scholarship from other regions is not represented, it is mainly because of the language of this publication. I would crave the indulgence of all these academicians for any editing or printing lapses which may still persist in their contributions despite corrections, as also for any omissionsby oversight in thebiographical notes. I thank Shri Niranjan Desai, the then Director General of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, for inviting me to edit this work and for giving the initial ideas regarding its outline; and his successor, Shri Shiv Shankar Mukherjee, for his consistent coopera tion while the project wa s in progress. His sucessor in turn, Shrimati Meera Shankar, is to be thanked for the final publication. Appreciation is due to Dr. Vidya Niwas Misra for his suggestions about the format, and to Dr. G. Panda, Deputy Educational Adviser (Sanskrit), Department of Education, for providing particulars of possible contributors as well as the details now contained in the appendix. The latter are for those readers who may wish to know about Indian institutions connected with Sanskrit studies and publications. I am also grateful to Shri Amit Dasgupta, Deputy Director General, Shri Ashok Srinivasan, Senior Programme Director, Shri O.P. Madan, Programme Director and, in particular, to Shri Padam Talwar, Programme Officer and Shrimati Nishi Malhotra, all from the Council's New Delhi office, for their ready assistance at different times in furthering the preparation of this publication. Special thanks are due to the publishers represented by Shri V.S. Johri of New Age International (P) Limited. I am indebted to Shri Madhav K. Dar for his general comments. Above all I am grateful to my wife Shrimati Priti Haksar for her unfailing support and understanding in this as in all my endeavours. A. N. D. Haksar

Evolution of Sanskrit Literature: A Reappraisal N. P. Unni

Sanskrit has been the language of India's religion, philosophy and culture, a source of inspiration for her intellectual and aesthetic achievements and a great instrument for establishing unity throughout the land. The history of Sanskrit literature generally falls into two main periods, namely, the Vedic and the Classical. The former perhaps begins as early as 1500 BC and extends at the latest about 200 BC. The Classical period concurrent with the final stages of Vedic literature, strictly speaking, closes with the turn of the millenium. But owing to the continued literary use of Sanskrit this period may be regarded as coming down to the present day. The Vedic Period The term Veda is applied to a group of literature that forms the earliest records of Indian civilization or, to put it safely, the Vedas are the earliest literary records since tradition asserts that these are eternal. These texts are classified mainly into four groups: the Rk, the Yajus, the Soman and the Atharvan, each of them ha ving different recensions called sakhds. The Rgveda consists of 10 mandalas 1028 suktas and 10552 mantras (or 8 astakas, 64 adhyayas, 2024 vargas and 10552 mantras). In the Yajurveda there are 40 adhyayas and 1975 mantras while the Sdmaveda contains 27adhyayas and 1875 mantras.

2

N. P. Unni

The Atharvavcda h a s 20 kandas, 731 silktas a n d 5977 mantras. The w h o l e literature is available only in portions and h e n c e it is difficult to get a c o m p r e h e n s i v e picture. These four Ved a s h a v e their own Brahmanas which are explanatory portions. H e r e again all the m a t e r i a l s a r c not available. S o m e of t h o s e available are called Aitareya, Kausltaki, Taittirlya, Satapatha, Tandya and Gopatlia. There are further portions of the Brahmanas known a s Aranyakas, or forest treatises, w h i c h deal with certain disciplines to b e o b s e r v e d ; and the Upanisads form the third and final p a r t of the Brahmanas. T h o u g h all the V e d a s d o not h a v e an Aranyaka; there are Upanisads a t t a c h e d to all the V e d a s . Veddhgas or auxiliary texts n e c e s s a r y for u n d e r s t a n d i n g the V e d a s a r e r e g a r d e d a s six; viz., Siksa (phonetics), Kalpa (ritual m a n u a l s ) , Vydkarana ( g r a m m a r ) , Nirukta (etymology) Chandas (metres) and Jyolisa (astronomy). Kalpa dealing with rituals is of three kinds a s Srauta Sutras (Vedic manuals), Grhya Sutras (domestic m a n u a l s ) and Dharma Sutras (legal m a n u a l s ) . V a r i o u s other texts h a v e c o m e d o w n to u s a s V e d a s like the Gdndharvaveda (science of music), DJianurveda (science of archery) and Ayurveda (science of life or medicine). Agarna sdstras or texts dealing with the w o r s h i p of deities and idols in t e m p l e s a r e also r e g a r d e d a s b a s e d on the V e d a s . Then there a r e c o m m e n t a r i e s on the a b o v e texts all of which a re included in the generic term of Vedic literature. Anviksikl or Mimarhsa (critical investigation of t h e p u r p o r t of the V e d a s ) is another b r a n c h closely related to it. Ancient Science All the sciences and a r t s of India trace their origin to the V e d a s , particularly the Atharvavcda which gives u s an insight into the scientific k n o w l e d g e of the period. The necessity of laying out the sacrificial altar in a c c o r d a n c e with m e a s u r e m e n t s given in the instructions s u g g e s t s a s i m p l e s y s t e m of geometry. M a t h e m a t i c s and a s t r o n o m y w e r e in a highly d e v e l o p e d s t a g e and the Indian m a t h e m a t i c i a n h a d a clear conception of the a b s t r a c t n u m b e r a s distinguished from numerical quantity or spatial extension. With the aid of a simple numerical notation India d e v i s e d a r u d i m e n t a r y algebra. The v a l u e of sunya or zero w a s a fundamental contribution m a d e by India even before A r y a b h a t t a ( A D 4 4 9 ) and this k n o w l e d g e w a s later acquired by A r a b s and R o m a n s t h r o u g h their t r a d e contacts. A s a l r e a d y noted Ayurveda and a s t r o n o m y , including

Evolution of Sanskrit Literature: A Reappraisal astrology, formpartofthe auxiliaries of the Vedas. Surgery was not unknown as over 125 surgical instruments arcmentionedby Susruta. The Vedas are indeed the foundation of all Sanskrit literature— general and technical—that developed later. The Classical Period The second period came to be called Sanskrit, the 'refined' as against Prakrt, which was the 'unrefined' dialect. From the second century onwards, probably Sanskrit was a spoken language in the whole of Aryavarta between the Himalayas and the Vindhya range. Dramas show that even those who did not speak Sanskrit understood it. From the sixth century onwards Sanskrit also prevails in inscriptions and by the time of the Muslim incursion it was perhaps ti'ic only written language of India. As regards the form, the classicalperiod contrasts with the Vedic period. While prose was employed in the Yajurveda and Brdhmanas and developed to a certain degree, it appears less in classical Sanskrit. For, nearly every branch of the literature, excepting perhaps grammar and philosophy, is composed in verse, literary prose being found only in fables, fairy-tales, romances and partially in the dramas. The general contents of classical literature embrace a variety of secular subjects. The period touches perfection in many branches of literature: in the epics, in Puranas, in court epics or Mahukavyas, in prose romances, in dramas, in fairy-tales and fables and finally in commentaries. Epics and Purdnas Sanskrit epic poetry falls into two main classes, Itilulsa or legend which comprises old stories, and Kdvya or artificial epic. While the Mahdbhdrata is the chief and oldest representative of the former group, the Ramayana represents the latter division. Both these great epics are composed in the sloka metre which prevails in the classical period. The Mahdbhdrata in its present form consists of over 100,000 s'lokas and is perhaps the longest poem in literary history. Consisting of eighteen books called parvans, with a nineteenth, the Harivamsa forming a supplement, the work is a conglomerate of epic and didactic matter. The number of verses in each parvan varies. All the eighteen books excepting the eighth and the last three arc divided

3

4

N. P. Unni

into subordinate parvans which are divided into several chapters. The epic kernel of the Maliablmrata describes the eighteen days war between the Kauravas and the Panda vas ending in the destruction of the former. After some more years the victors go to the Himalayas leaving Pariksita, the grandson of Arjuna, to rule over Hastinapura. Within this narrative framework there are numerous legends of gods and kings and sages, accounts of cosmogony and thcogony, and disquisitions on philosophy, religion and ethics. The BhagavadgUd, the philosophical poem consisting of eighteen cantos, is included in it. The Harivamsa, containing 16,000 verses and divided into three sections, narrates the family history of Krsna. The sage Vyasa, the son of Parasara, is the compiler of the Mahdbhdrata as is mentioned in the work itself. The exact date of the compilation remains anybody's guess. The Rdmdyana in its present form consists of about 24,000 verses and is divided into seven books called kdndas. Composed by the sage Valmlki, the work shows excellence in plan and execution. It describes in detail Rama's exile, the abduction of his wife Sita by Ravana, his efforts to find and regain her and his final victory over Ravana. The second part or Uttarakdnda describes the banishment of Sita, whom Valmiki takes to his hermitage where she delivers Kusa and Lava, whom the sage himself brings up. The story ends with Rama's meeting with his sons, his wife having been swallowed by the mother earth. The Purdnas constitute an important branch of classical literature and are often designated as the fifth Veda. The name Parana signifies 'old traditional story'. Composed chiefly in the si oka metre with occasional passages in prose, they deal with a vast range of subjects. They are eighteen in number and are said to have been composed by the ancient sage Vyasa. They often aim at exalting one of the three gods of the I Iindu Trinity. Thus the eighteen Purdnas are classified according to the deity who is exalted. Brahma, Brahmdnda, Brahmavaivarta, Mdrkandcya, Bluwisya and Vdmana Purdnas are related to Brahma, the creator. Another group, namely, Visnu, Bhdgavata, Ndrudlya, Garuda, Padma and Vardlia are Vaisnava Purdnas. The Purdnas that glorify Siva are Siva, Linga, Skanda, Agni, Matsya and Kilrma. Besides these there are eighteen Upapuranas. The Purdrias do not belong to one particular period. While some of them are very ancient, others are more recent.

Evolution of Sanskrit Literature: A Reappraisal

5

Kavya Literature It is not e a s y to trace the beginnings of kavyas in Sanskrit literature. They m u s t certainly belong to a m u c h earlier period. For w e h a v e the i m p o r t a n t literary e v i d e n c e of t h e references in Patanjali's Mahabhasya w h i c h s h o w that kavyas flourished in h i s day. A s v a g h o s a ' s Buddhacarila and Saundarananda are t w o earlier kavyas. H e w a s a c o n t e m p o r a r y of King Kaniska of the first century AD and himself a Buddhist. The t w o m o s t important kavyas a r e Raghuvamsa a n d Kumar asambhava by K a l i d a s a , w h o probably lived in the beginning of the fifth century AD. Raghuvamsa, the line of Raghu, d e s c r i b e s in nineteen cantos, the story of R a m a together with his forefathers and s u c c e s s o r s . Beginning with Dilipa, the story e n d s with the d e a t h of Agnivarna. Kumdrasambhava consists of seventeen cantos. Beginning with the c o u r t s h i p of Siva and P a r v a t i the story e n d s with an account of t h e destruction of the d e m o n T a r a k a by K u m a r a , the son of the couple. Bhattikdvya, ascribed also to Bhartrhari, is a w o r k consisting of twenty-two cantos which d e s c r i b e the story of R a m a illustrating the forms of Sanskrit g r a m m a r . The Kirdtdrjuniya of Bharavi, w h o is mentioned in an inscription of AD 634, along with K a l i d a s a , is a kavya a b o u n d i n g in richness of meaning. In eighteen c a n t o s it d e s c r i b e s the battle b e t w e e n Arjuna and Siva d i s g u i s e d a s a Kirata. Sisupalavadha of M a g n a is a kavya of extraordinary merit. It is famous for its three qualities: similes, r i c h n e s s of meaning and simplicity of diction. In twenty c a n t o s the w o r k d e s c r i b e s the killing of S i s u p a l a , the King of Cedi, b y Krsna. Naisadhiyacarita of Sri H a r s a , in twenty-two cantos, d e a l s with the story of N a l a , the King of N i s a d h a , and D a m a y a n t i , the d a u g h t e r of King Bhima. The e p i s o d e is taken from t h e Mahablmrata and t h e a u t h o r belongs to the twelfth century. Among the h i s t o r i c a l / M t r y a s K a l h a n a ' s R ^ Navasahasdnkacarita of P a d m a g u p t a also d e s e r v e s mention. Prose Romance The a b u n d a n t u s e of lengthy c o m p o u n d s , vivid descriptions of n a t u r e , a n d long strings of similes and m e t a p h o r s often teeming w i t h p u n s are s o m e of the m o s t important characteristics of classical p r o s e . The narrative portions a r e almost m e a g r e . The high s t a n d a r d s p r e s c r i b e d for p r o s e writing r e n d e r it difficult and only men of the calibre of Bana a n d Dandin could lay h a n d s on it. There a r e t w o

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t y p e s of r o m a n c e s , the Akhyayika a n d the Kathd, t h e t h e m e of the former t y p e being historical w h i l e the latter is p u r e l y i m a g i n a r y . S u b a n d h u ' s Vdsavadattd is an interesting b u t fictitious story. In style it c o m e s u p to the p r e s c r i b e d s t a n d a r d . Bana' s Harsacarita a n d Kadambari are t w o i m p o r t a n t w o r k s c o m p o s e d in o r n a t e p r o s e . The former is an e x a m p l e of Akhyayika while t h e latter is a m o d e l for Kathd. Harsacarita in eight c h a p t e r s d e s c r i b e s the story of King H a r s a partially. The first three c h a p t e r s contain a short b i o g r a p h y of thcpoct. Kadambari is an i m a g i n a r y story c o m p r e h e n d i n g several generations. Dasakunidracarita by D a n d i n is a story of c o m m o n life and reflects a cross-section of a c o r r u p t society. The w o r k r e v e a l s the ability of the a u t h o r in writing beautiful p r o s e . O w i n g to the higher s t a n d a r d p r e s c r i b e d for p r o s e , w o r k s in this b r a n c h of literature a r e c o m p a r a t i v e l y less in n u m b e r . There is, h o w e v e r , a species of writing called Campil w h e r e p r o s e and poetry are mingled together. Bharata Campu and Rdmayana Campu are excellent treatises in this field. Lyrics Generally lyrics in Sanskrit a r e short p o e m s . The merit of every lyric p o e m consists in its description of d y n a m i c feeling e x p r e s s e d in simple, direct and i m p a s s i o n e d l a n g u a g e w h i c h could thrill and c a p t i v a t e the h e a r t s of the r e a d e r s . K a l i d a s a ' s Meghaduta or 4 The cloud m e s s e n g e r ' is a lyric g e m w h i c h won the admiration of critics a s a m o s t wonderful love p o e m in any l a n g u a g e . It c o n s i s t s of 115 s t a n z a s c o m p o s e d in the manddkrdntd m e t r e and is divided into t w o p a r t s . The t h e m e is a love m e s s a g e sent by a yaksa, an exile living at Ramagiri, t h r o u g h a cloud to h i s wife dwelling far a w a y in Alaka. The w o r k formed a m o d e l a n d m a n y a similar w o r k w a s p r o d u c e d in this field. K a l i d a s a ' s Rtusamhdra of 144 s t a n z a s divided into six sections a n d c o m p o s e d in v a r i o u s m e t r e s gives a vivid a n d highly poetical description of the six s e a s o n s . The Caurapancdsikd of Bilhana is a p o e m in fifty s t a n z a s describing the p o e t ' s experience of the joys of love. Another short lyric is the Gliatakarparakdvya in twenty-two s t a n z a s . The Spigdrasataka of Bhartrhari d e a l s with the erotic sentiment and r e v e a l s t h e d e e p insight of the poet in the a r t s of love. H o w e v e r the m o s t i m p o r t a n t w o r k w h i c h d e a l s with t h e erotic sentiment is Amarusataka of A m a r u , w h e r e the author exhibits his skill in depicting lovers in all their m o o d s . Gitagovinda b y J a y a d e v a of Bengal is a

Evolution of Sanskrit Literature: A Reappraisal

7

notable w o r k in this field in that it d e a l s with divine love and indirectly hints at the relation of the s u p r e m e deity to the h u m a n soul. Dramas The s a g e B h a r a t a is the mythical inventor of nataka (drama). The chief characteristics of this d r a m a t i c form are: (i) Vira or Srrigara should b e the p r e d o m i n a n t sentiment, the o t h e r s being s u b o r d i n a t e to it. The last act should contain the sentiment of w o n d e r , (ii) The hero should be one of the four t y p e s : Dhlrodatta, Dluroddhata, Dhlralalita and Dhlrasanta. (Hi) The plot m u s t b e either f a m o u s or imaginary, preference being given to the former, (iv) There should be five to ten acts in a play. Besides nataka there are several other forms of d r a m a t i c r e p r e s e n t a t i o n s s u c h a s Prakarana, Bfulna, PraJiasana, and others. T h e e a r l i e s t forms of d r a m a t i c l i t e r a t u r e m a y be found in the Rgvedic d i a l o g u e s such a s t h o s e of S a r a m a and Panis, Yama and Yami, P u r u r a v a s a n d Urvasi. But the earliest references to acted d r a m a s is found in the Mahdbhdsya w h e r e K a r h s a v a d h a and Balibandha are mentioned. Bhasa is an earlier d r a m a t i s t mentioned by Kalidasa. Thirteen p l a y s a r e ascribed to h i m the chief of which are Svapnavasavadatta, Urubhariga, Madhyauuwyaxjoga and others. M a n y s c h o l a r s question his a u t h o r s h i p of the d r a m a s . Kalidasa is p e r h a p s the g r e a t e s t Sanskrit dramatist. T lis Vikraniorvash/a isa play in fiveactsdescribing the love of king P u r u r a v a s and U r v a s i , a celestial n y m p h . Mtllavikagnimitra in five a c t s d e s c r i b e s the love b e t w e e n King Agnimitra and M a l a v i k a , a princess. Abhijnanasakunlalam is the g r e a t e s t of h i s d r a m a s both in length and in merit. In seven a c t s the d r a m a d e s c r i b e s the love of King D u s y a n t a for S a k u n t a l a , the d a u g h t e r of M e n a k a . Mrcchakatika of S u d r a k a in ten a c t s is distinct from other p l a y s in its d r a m a t i c qual ities of vigour of life and action a n d its h u m o u r . The heroine of the p l a y is a courtesan. S r i H a r s a is t h e a u t h o r of three d r a m a s . They a r e Ratnavali, describing the love of U d a y a n a and S a g a r i k a , Naganamia, a play with a Buddhistic c o l o u r i n g , a n d Priyadarsikd. A n o t h e r i m p o r t a n t d r a m a t i s t is Bhavabhuti with three d r a m a s to his credit. His Malallmadliava is a prakarana in ten acts, and h i s Ma)idvlracarita d e r i v e s its plot from the Ramayana and, consists of seven acts. Uttarardmacarita is p e r h a p s the g r e a t e s t of his p l a y s . The description of the love of R a m a for Sita, purified by sorrow, is p e r h a p s unique in Indian d r a m a .

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N. P. Unni

Visakhadatta'sMudrdrdksasa is another unique play since it contains political intrigues. The hero is Candragupta, the founder of the Maurya dynasty. Bhattanarayana's Venisarhhara is a drama of considerable merit based on the Mahabhdrata. Among other dramatists Rajasekhara deserves mention. Four of his plays: Viddhasdlabhanjikd, Karpuramanjari, Balardmdyana and Bdlabhdrata have survived. Among allegorical plays Prabodhacandrodaya of Krishna Misra in six acts is important. Abstract notions such as religion, reason, and knowledge are personified as characters in thisplay. There arehundreds of dramas with varyingmerit produced in Sanskrit down to modern times. Fables and Fairy Tales Fairy tales and fables in classical Sanskrit literature are noteworthy for their didactical value. Ethical reflections and philosophical proverbs are the characteristics of the fables. It is often difficult to follow the main thread of the narrative for there are numerous stories inserted within the framework of the main story. Pancatantra of Visnusarman is perhaps the greatest didactical fable and it has been translated into almost every major language in the world. Probably the work was written for instructing some prince in moral values. Through these stories various human vices are exposed. Hitopadesa is an old fable of doubtful authorship. It contains instructions in domestic and foreign policies. Nitisdra is a similar work dealing with the principles of polity. Among various collections of fairy talcs Vetdlapancavimsati of Jambhaladatta,wherca goblin narrates twenty-five quizzical stories to King Vikramaditya, is interesting. Simhdsanadvdtrimsikd is a collection of thirty-two stories narrated to the king by images on the throne. Another collection is Sukasaptati, where a parrot narrates seventy stories to a separated wife in order to dissuade her from running after other men. The greatest of them all is Kathdsaritsdgara by Somadeva consisting of 124 tarangas divided into eighteen chapters. The work is based on Gunadhya's Brhat-Kathd supposed to have been written in the Paisaci language. Brhat-Kathd itself is not available and is known only through references by Bana and Dandin. Another important workbased on it is the Brhat-Kathdmanjari of Ksemendra. Commentaries on various books form a good division of Sanskri t literature. The greatest commentator w a s perhaps Mallinatha, a

Evolution of Sanskrit Literature: A Reappraisal

9

Brahmana scholar who, besides writing other works, has commented on all the five Mahakavyas. The growth of this branch of literature is evident from the fact that the Kumarasambhava has more than twenty-two commentaries, while there are sixty-three on the Meghaduta and forty on the Raghuvarhsa. This branch continues to flourish down to the present day. Modern Period

It was the so-called discovery of Sanskrit in India that marked the dawn of linguistic study in a scientific manner. The formulation of the Indo-European family of languages w a s made possible by this revelation. Before the Asiatic Society of Bengal in Calcutta, Sir William Jones declared in 1786 : The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of wonderful structure, more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin and more exquisitely refined than either; yet bearing toboth of them a stronger affinity in the roots of verbs and the forms of grammar than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed that no philologcr could examine them at all without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which perhaps no longer exists. There is similar reason, though not quite forcible, for supposing that both Gothic and Celtic, though blended with a different idiom, had the same origin with Sanskrit and the old Persian might be added to the same family. Sanskrithad anlndo-Europcanbackground and a close connection with the Central Asian region. The language gained an extra-Indian vogue through religion, philosophy, art and civilization spread over Central Asia, China, Cambodia, Siam and the Indonesian Archipelago. It brought a script and literature to South-East Asia where numerous Sanskrit inscriptions are found. In fact the foundations of Greater India were laid in this language. The role of Sanskrit in spreading Buddhism is known through translations into local languages, the originals of which seem to have been lost in India. The role of Sanskrit as a symbol of national unity and the bond of an international friendship which comprehends Europe and most regions of Asia is significant. It rejuvenated with its infinite resources

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N. P. Unni

local languages and cultures; absorbed local excellence and evolved a constructive and harmonious synthesis. It is a matter of gratification that Sanskrit still continues to be u sed a s a med ium of communication and literary expression through Indian audio-visual electronic media on a dailybasisby means likenewsbulletins. In fact Sanskrit can still serve national interests of emotional and territorial integration which are relevant today more than ever.

The Adikavya Rsi Valmiki

and the Legacy of

R. P. Goldman

4\rM\4>HHlU$W <=hfadM-HlRui:l ^: f^RTcm JUMRdlMdUHKH I

I pay homage to the koil, Valmiki who, having ascended the tree of poetry, perches there sweetly warbling the sweet song, "Rama, Rama!" For who, having once heard the tale of Rama, the roar of Valmiki, lion among sages, who ranges the woodlands of poetry, would not attain the highest bliss? So I pay homage to that blameless sage Pracctasa, who drinks incessantly from the ocean of the nectar of the tale of Rama, and yet is never sated. The past decade has witnessed something of a revival within the western Indological community of scholarly interest in the study of the Ramayanu in many of the innumerable forms in which it has

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R. P. Goldman

enriched the arts, letters, folk-cultures and devotional traditions of South and Southeast Asia for millennia. Evidence for this can be found in such recent publications as the ongoing translation of the critical edition of the Valmlki Ramdyana; Hart and Heifetz' translation of the Aranya Kdnda of Kampan's Irdmdvatdram; monographs like Lutgcndorfs The Life of a Text: Performing the Rdmcaritmdnas of Tulsidas, van der Veer's Gods on Earth, Smith's Ramdyana Traditions in Eastern India, Brockington's Righteous Rama; and edited volumes such as Richman's Many Rdmayanas: The Diversity of a Narrative Tradition in South Asia and Thiel-Horstmann's Ramdyana and Rdmayanas. During the same period the public's fascination with the epic tale of Sri Rama, a l w a y s profound, w a s further enhanced by Doordarshan's broadcasts of Ramanand Sagar's enormously popular serial Rdmdyan and its subsequent dissemination both in India and throughout the Indian diaspora in the form of video cassettes. Noteworthy here is the director's efforts to suggest that his version is some sort of amalgam of virtually all major regional literary versions of India. One curious and recurrent thread in the fabric of recent Ramdyana studies has been the question of the alleged "privileging" of certain versions of the Ramdyana over others. This is especially the case with respect to versions of the Rdmakathd that are regarded as literary rather than oral or "folk" renderings and which arc represented as embodying elitist and regressive social values as opposed to allegedly "populist", "subaltern", or "feminist" retellings of the story. In another context, the question of the authority of Valmiki's rendering of the tale was raised during the course of the political conflict between various groups over whether Sagar's televised serialization should includeepisodes associated with the Adikavi's Uttarakdnda but absent from some other highly influential versions. This trend in epic scholarship is a reflection of relatively recent developments in those branches of cultural studies that focus attention on relations of power in the areas of post-coloniality, subaltern studies, gender and so on. The intention here has been to allow the voices of less empowered sectors of society—construed as previously silenced—to be heard. These voices arc represented as being in contestation to the more powerful and hegemonic voices of the traditional elites. This trend, I believe, is a healthy one for it

The Adikavya and the Legacy ofRsi Valmiki

13

opens up to scholarly inquiry whole areas of humanistic research that had previously been overlooked, ignored or even despised. Nonetheless, there are areas, and I believe that Ramayana studies have been one of them, where, in their righteous zeal to highlight areas of cultural production that have hitherto been kept in the background, scholars have sometimes tended to inaccurately represent the nature and significance of what they describe as 4 'elitist*' renderings, and havepcrhaps drawn too sharp a distinction between these versions and the supposedly more "populist versions" that form the focus of their studies. This, in turn, has led to a certain unfortunate ambivalence towards Valmiki's monumental creation. Thus, for example, several authors in one of the collections mentioned above openly and repeatedly state their intention not to "privilege" Valmiki. For, in the minds of many scholars whose research h a s been largely focused on w h a t they view as "contestatory" Rdmdyanas produced by women, backward caste groups, folk poets and popular performers, the Adikavi has been made into the virtual personification of precisely the sort of patriarchal, BrahmanicaLliteratepan-Indianelitism thathasbecome an object of scorn among many post-orientalist students of Indian culture. This issue comes most clearly to the fore when such scholars attempt to summarize the Rdmakatlid for their readers and find themselves—often reluctantly—forced to provide a synopsis of the Valmiki Ramayana as the most "normative" version of the talc. Let me give a few examples. Paula Richman, in her introduction to the volume of Ramayana studies she recently edited, 1 presents Valmiki's version "not as an L7r-text but only as the story of Rama with which the majority of Western Ramayana scholars are most familiar. My goal is not to privilege Valmiki's Ramayana . . . " (p. 5). In the same collection the late Professor Ramanujan calls Valmiki's version, "the earliest and most prestigious of them all" (p. 25). Frank Reynolds complains that, "The tendency unduly toprivilege Hindu versions in general, and certain Hindu versions in particular, is evidenced by the common practice of referring to the various tellings of the Rama story by the essentially Hindu term Ramayana" (p. 60). Kathleen Erndl in her comparative study of Valmiki's and Kampan's treatments of the episode of the mutilation of Surpanakha hastens to inform us that, "My intention is not to privilege it (Valmiki's version) as the normative or tir-text" (p. 68).

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R. P. Goldman

Other authors are similarly at pains to indicate that one clement or another in the particular version they have chosen to study is not to be found in Valmiki. Thus Professor Narayana Rao in his interesting study of women's Ramdyana songs from Andhra Pradesh writes of songs that "tell a Ramdyana story very different from the familiar one attribued to Valmiki" (p. 114). From these and similar comments scattered through much of recent Ramdyana scholarship one derives a sense that Valmiki remains a kind oi eminence grise for students of oral, folkloric, and "contcstatory" versions of the tale, a ghostly presence whom, despite their best intentions, contemporary scholars cannot quite exorcise. Ironically it often seems that these same scholars do indeed "privilege" Valmiki's poem despite their protestation. Moreover their scholarly compari sons of regional and folk Rdmdyanas with the monumental epic of Valmiki seem but poorly informed about the history, nature, substance, and even contents of the Adikavya. In the light of the recent resurgence in interest in Ramdyana studies I should like to speak up in defense of Valmiki and his Ramdyana and try to contextualize this seminal version within the broader domain of the i^flmY7/c^///iJand the vast scholarly and popular literature it has inspired. It must at the outset be noted that the Adikavi has not been without his defenders. Although it has become unfashionable to "privilege" a figure who has come tobe regarded in some scholarly circles as a kind of poet-laureate of high caste, patriarchal, Brahmanical culture—the culture of varndsramadliarma as it is codified by authors such as Manu—some highly knowledgeable but nonacademic writers have challenged the current trend in lay publications that are, p e r h a p s , rarely read by professional Indologists. One such writer, Ruth Vanita, in a recent issue of the well-known progressive women's journal Manushi offered a review of Professor R i c h m a n ' s collection. Many Rdmdyanas, mentioned above. Responding to several contributors to that volume who state their intention not to privilege certain Hindu versions of the epic story, Ms. Vanita remarks: In the process, however, they implicitly and explicitly privilege Buddhist and Jain over Hindu version s, oral over written versions,

The Adikavya and the Legacy of Rsi Valmiki

15

and so-called ''people's" versions over texts attributable to an individual author. They have a general tendency to see the former in each of these pairs as more progressive, flexible and freedom-oriented. These preferences largely derive from the currently fashionable deconstructionist tendency for decanonisation. For instance, in their desire to "offset the prevalent attitudes to Valmiki", some contributors overlook the fact that this well-established prevalent atti tude may have something to do with poetic excellence. To say that Valmiki's telling is merely * 'one among many** is to overlook the time factor—the earliest extant version is likely to have been more influential than later versions. Instead of viewing differences as representing polar opposites, .. . these differences could be seen as part of the tradition's selfrcflexiveness. Overlooking this important feature of the tradition results in simplistic readings and in self-contradiction as, for instance, saying that "men labeled 'low-caste' . . . have created and maintained counter-Ramayanas", when Valmiki himself was a member of one of the "lowest" castes and is widely recognized as such by all castes. If the most privileged text was composed by a member of a low caste, then what were the k 'counter-Ramayanas'' countering? 2 Although Ms. Vanita' s arguments are no doubt subject to a number of qualifications, she is certainly correct to call our attention to some of the positive reasons for the longevity, influence and unparalleled prestige of Valmiki's poetic rendering of the Rama story. One may object to the "privileging" of the Valmiki Ramayana; but one still has to account for it. The point here is that in very large measure the work comes by its privileged status honestly, not only through its reputation and hoary antiquity but through the general consensus on the part of its original audiences and the many generations that have followed them that the poem is outstanding, even unique, in its literary merit. For perhaps no other poet in the history of world literature has taken so vast and grand a theme, rendered it in an idiom that is both simple and noble, and imbued his rendering with greater pathos. It was not Western scholars who conferred the title of Adikavi on the Rsi Valmiki nor was it academicians who have seen to it that his ma stcTwork genuinely lived up to its claim tobethe^^^HiHi^RTT the greatest source of inspiration for poets.

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R.P. Goldman

That status is confirmed by the greatest of India's poets and alamkarasastrins. For even the incomparable Kalidasa confesses that he would not have dared undertake so awesome a theme as the history ofthcRaghu lineage were it not for the fact that the path had already been worn for him by the First Poet and his followers: 3T*rai chdc||Jgft ci^bfU^cfuRfa: I

On the other hand, there is a means of access for me, a passageway in the form of poetic language fashioned by the great poet-seers of old. It is like the passageway for a thread drilled through a gemstone with a diamond. Even when the great authorities on poetics propose a new formulation to explain the essence of poetry, they take care to show that they do no differ from the intentions of the celebrated rsis who composed the great epics of antiquity:

No doctrine that we have expounded lies outside the scope of the intentions of the celebrated master poets beginning with Valmiki and Vyasa. Nor is it the case that the prestige of Valmiki was confined to poets of the elite Brahmanical idiom of Sanskrit. It is not at all uncommon for authors composing in regional languages to explicitly cite the adikavya as their exemplar and its author their inspiration even when, as is often the case, they have evidently derived much of their thematic material from some other version. Thus, for example, Smith cites the claim of the Oriya poet Mahesvaradasa in the latter*s Tikd Rarnayana to the effect that,

The Adikavya and the Legacy ofRsi Valmiki

17

I related in the Prakrt language as much of Valmiki as 1 deem excellent.5 Ms Vanita's comment on the "time factor*' too must be taken seriou sly. One docs not have tobe a Sanskrit chauvinist to appreciate the fact that in the absence of serious merit in the arguements of those who have championed the Mahablulrata's RamopakJnjdna and the Pali Dasaratha Jataka, Valmiki's monumental poem is the earliest version of the Rama story of which we have knowledge. Although earlier and parallel versions of the tale have been hypothesized, we ha veno real evidence for such versions, and the failure to trace later regional and sectarian variants to such texts means that for all practica 1 purposes we must accept the various recensions of Valmiki as, in some sense, the ultimate literary source for all known versions. This is not quite the same, however, as saying that Valmikf s mahakavya, orally composed and aurally consumed, is the original version of the story of Sri Rama. Indeed the poem itself, as it has come down to us, explicitly precludes such a notion. The talc of Rama is after all not intended to be understood as a piece of fiction created from the fertile imagination of a poet, but rather a poetic rendering of historical events. The Adikavi is himself represented as ha ving been first the aud ience of a terse oral rendition of the talc of Rama as told by devarsi Narada before rendering that vision, along with many incidents revealed to him through his newly acquired pratibha, into the adikavya: ^T ^

wru CW;H[CHI

rt^i

And so it came about that the righteous man, having learned the entire substance of that story, the talc of wise Rama exemplary of righteousness, sought to make it public. 6 In fact the entire thrust of the upodgMta, the prologue that precedes the narration of the story proper, is to show that Valmiki's contribution is principally one of form not of content and that his creation, the Ramayana, also called here the Paulastyavadha and the Sitacarita,7 was an oral performative and musical piece which, in deriving its power from its unique sublimation of emotion into art and its ability to convey this emotively charged art through

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R.P. Goldman

performance to an audience distanced in time and space from the events it describes, became the original vehicle for the popular diffusion of the substance of N a r a d a ' s dry, puranic recitation: WTT$A^df^f: Ml^iTdl H^raun |

The soka, grief, that the great seer sang out in four metrical quarters, all equal in syllables, has, by virtue of itsbeing repeated after him, been transformed into sloka, poetry. 8 As far as the question of the numerous differences—some subtle and some considerable, some literary and some sectarian—that distinguish one version of the tale from another, the following should be kept clearly in mind. Although it may be seen as transparently obvious to an Indian audience deeply steeped in the story of Sri Rama in at lea st one of its innumerable versions, it must constantly be stressed to the Western critic that Valmiki's reputation does not at all rest on his having created the Rama story but on his having transformed a historical tale that—however uplifting and inspiring it may be—is merely a chronicle of events, into a work of poetry and of music, that appeals as powerfully to the senses and the emotions as to the intellectual and spiritual faculties. In discussing the AndhraBrahmana women, who incidentally feel that Valmiki's accountof the events in the lives of Rama and Sita isnotnecessarily the "correct" one, Professor Narayana Rao has observed that, Like most of the participants in the tradition, these women believe the Rdmayana to be fact and not fiction, and its many different versions areprecisely in keeping with thisbelief. Contrary to the usual opinion, it is fiction that has only one version; a factual event will inevitably have various versions, depending on the attitude, point of view, intent, and social position of the teller.9 This question of the often considerable diversity in the renderings of the story of the Rdmayana is indeed an interesting one and one that occupied the attention of both traditionalists and modern scholars. Where the latter have generally attempted to explain the variations on the basis of stemmatic structures deriving from lost nonValmikian versions, the former have tended to rely on an equally

The Adikavya and the Legacy of Rsi Valmiki

19

s c h e m a t i c model, that of the recurrence of the s a m e historical events with relatively minor variations over the unimaginably long cycle of the kalpas. This last notion is p e r h a p s m o s t simply p u t in the A nanda ramayana:

3T^cfRT: o ^ f d ^ s ^ cm ^ T : cjcrfg^ <wklcU I10 Since, in c o u r s e of the different eons, tens of millions of incarnations of Sri R a g h a v a a r e born, n a t u r a l l y there are, h e r e a n d there, s o m e differences a m o n g them. This idea is p e r h a p s n o w h e r e a s c h a r m i n g l y s t a t e d a s in the Adhyatma Ramayana w h e r e Sita, in p r e s s i n g R a m a to allow her to a c c o m p a n y him into exile, u s e s the unanimity a m o n g Ramayana versions on at least this point a s a powerful culminating a r g u m e n t :

TTrTI fzFU ^H TFTt ^TcT: % cMfag< 11 Til tell you something else, a n d once you h a v e h e a r d it you will h a v e to take m e to the w i l d e r n e s s . M a n y B r a h m a n s h a v e h e a r d m a n y Rdmayanas. N o w tell m e , in any of t h e m d o c s R a m a ever go to the forest w i t h o u t Sita? 1 1 Nonetheless, d e s p i t e the i m p o r t a n c e of the Ramayana's diversity a s a m e c h a n i s m for both enriching a n d binding together d i s p a r a t e regional, social, sectarian and cultural c o m m u n i t i e s d u r i n g t h e c o u r s e of its long history, there a r e a n u m b e r of w a y s in w h i c h V a l m i k i ' s p o e m — w h i c h itself h a s c o m e d o w n to u s in a c o m p l e x m a t r i x of r e c e n s i o n a l d i v e r s i t y — m e r i t s both its s u p p o s e d l y " p r i v i l e g e d " s t a t u s and g r e a t e r r a t h e r than less attention on the p a r t of s c h o l a r s interested in Ramayana studies. For a close a n d careful r e a d i n g of the g r e a t epic of Valmiki, together with the s t u d y of the m a s s i v e and g r o w i n g c o r p u s of s e c o n d a r y literature the Ramayana h a s engendered, 1 2 s u g g e s t s t h a t in a t l e a s t three significant a r e a s scholarship on the Valmiki Ramayana h a s tended to overlook critically i m p o r t a n t a s p e c t s of the work.

20

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These areas—literary genre, textual history, and religious orientation—are closely interconnected. They can, h o w e v e r , b e d i s c u s s e d separately. The first of t h e s e a r e a s , that of the exact literary genre a n d s t a t u s of the p o e m h a s been often subject to m i s u n d e r s t a n d i n g on the p a r t of younger s c h o l a r s . In their e n t h u s i a s m for one or another of the various and undeniably interesting oral and performative Ra may anas found in India a r d S o u t h e a s t Asia, w h e t h e r they b e Telugu w o m e n ' s songs, the great R a m l i l a s of R a m n a g a r , the C e n d u b h a g a v a t a m of A n d h r a P r a d e s h , or the s h a d o w p u p p e t p l a y s of Kerala or Indonesia, they h a v e tended—unreflectingly, I feel—to too s h a r p l y c o n t r a s t t h e s e oral and performative versions with w h a t they style a s V a l m i k f s " l i t e r a r y " version. The distinction b e t w e e n " o r a l " and " p e r f o r m a t i v e " on the one h a n d and " l i t e r a r y " on the other is at b e s t a difficult one to m a k e with reference to traditional Indian poetry; for it is all to a large extent p e r f o r m a t i v e and w a s generally intended to be c o n s u m e d either aurally (sravyakdvya) or both aurally and visually (drsyakdvya). Rarely w a s it intended—as thcLatinate word " l i t e r a t u r e " s u g g e s t s — to b e c o n s u m e d visually from a written or printed p a g e . But w h a t is implicit in even the m o s t highly " l i t e r a r y " renderings of the Ramakathd, w o r k s like the Raghuvamsa or the Uttaranlmacarita, is in fact highly explicit in the great p o e m of Valmiki. For h i s Rd may ana is not only the m o d e l and inspiration for p o e t s : it is, according to the tradition recorded in the w o r k itself, the a r c h e t y p e of orally c o m p o s e d and t r a n s m i t t e d poetry. It w a s , m o r e o v e r , specifically designed to b e p r e s e n t e d a s a m u s i c a l p e r f o r m a n c e and c o n s u m e d aurally and p e r h a p s even visually by its a u d i e n c e s . A s the well-known upodghdta or p r o l o g u e to the p o e m m a k e s clear, the Rdmdyana w a s from its very beginning, or oral composition, d e s i g n e d to be sung to a musical a c c o m p a n i m e n t . Just a s V a l m i k i ' s seminal c u r s e a s s u m e s a musical form so d o e s his c o m p l e t e d poem: MM£\WiU4W-4ld^JHMf^d: I (It w a s ) divided into metric q u a r t e r s , equal in syllables, a n d s u i t a b l e for t h e a c c o m p a n i m e n t of m e l o d i c and r h y t h m i c instruments. 1 3

The Adikavya and the Legacy of Rsi Valmiki

21

As taught to its legendary first performers, the singers Lava and Kusa, and a s performed by them, the epic is described with minute attention to the technical vocabulary of classical Indian vocal music:

It is sweet both when recited and w h e n sung in the three t e m p o s to the seven n o t e s of the scale; and it is suitable for t h e a c c o m p a n i m e n t of melodic and r h y t h m i c instruments. 1 4 It is also noteworthy that along with the v o c a b u l a r y of classical m u s i c w e find, in the description of the performative quality of the Ramdyana, one of the earliest u s e s in a poetic text of the technical terminology of traditional theatrical performance a s p r o m u l g a t e d in the hJdtyadastra of Bharata Muni:

The two of them s a n g the p o e m , which is replete with all the poetic sentiments: the h u m o r o u s , the erotic, the p i t e o u s , the wrathful, the heroic, the terrifying, the l o a t h s o m e , and the rest. 15 These nzs^s—it should be kept in m i n d — a r e most fully conveyed not merely by the e x p r e s s i v e singing of well w r o u g h t v e r s e (i.e. aurally c o n s u m e d ) b u t also especially visually through d r a m a t i c representation, such a s the ubhhunja etc. of classical d r a m a . I s u s p e c t indeed, that s o m e element of visual representation, w h e t h e r through painted scenes, m i m e , or s o m e form of tableaux vivants (ct.thc jIlanki of Ramhla and other forms of p o p u l a r theatre), m a y h a v e been p r e s e n t in the earliest p e r f o r m a n c e s of Ramdyana, m a y well be s u g g e s t e d in the upodghtlta itself. Let us recall that according to the upodghata a m o n g the very first a u d i e n c e s of the Ramdyana were a g r o u p of s e e r s (rsis) w h o w e r e associated from Vedic times with special k i n d s of aural and visual capacities. 1 6 Deeply m o v e d by the s w e e t singing of the b a r d s the seers a d d a visual element to the auditory sensation that they feel.

22

R. P. Goldman

Marvelling at the brilliance of the twins' performance they cry:

Ah! How sweet is the singing and especially the slokasl Even though this all took place so long ago, it seems to be happening right before our very eyes. 17 Important here i s not only the fact of visual representation, but of the sense of direct realization that it engenders; of a profound emotional conviction that one is seeing not merely a representation of past events but is witnessing and indeed participating in the actual events themselves. 18 This sense of immediacy, of the reality of the past in the present, will later become a central feature of artistic representation in traditional India; nowhere more consistently than in dramatic representations of the Ramakatha. Nowhere, perhaps, is this theme developed more fully towards the limits of its emotive power than in the Uttararamacarita, thepoetplaywright Bhavabhuti's wrenching dramatic meditation on the closing book of Valmikf s poem. Here too, when characters witness representation, whether painted or dramatically portrayed, of the emotionally charged scenes of their own past, they erase the intervening years and react in ways appropriate not to the present reality but the more powerful reality of the representation. Thus, when Sita views her own wedding portrait she exclaims, in what constitutes almost a refrain of the play and a powerful reminder of the experience of the seers who constitute Lava and Kusa's first audience: 3THTI vjuunfa cTfe? ^m xfrft c#R ^

^Tet ^TTpT

Oh, I feel as though I am in that same place and time again.19 Or, beholding a likeness of the raksasi Surpanakha, she cries out:

The Adikavya and the Legacy of Rsi Valmiki

23

Alas, my lord, I shall sec you no more!20 But even as Rama seeks to reassure her that this is just a representation, he begins to cxpericencc the very same feelings himself: F ^ 4dHM ^

^ * H ^ H c | d H : "SrfcT^TTfcT

Ah! It seems as if the events that took place in Janasthana were happening in the present. 21 Then, seeing a scene of Mt. Prasravana and hearing Laksmana begin to describe his grief there, Rama cuts him short crying:

My separation from Janaki seems to be happening again.22 Bhavabhuti is merely playing variations on a central theme that is first articulated by Valmiki. Poetic performance of moving events is a means to the direct (pratyaksa) visualization and experience of these emotions in a highly sublimated form that isboth aesthetically satisfying and spiritually uplifting. This is, after all the essence of rasfld/rcwiz as it is first set forth by Bha rata Muni and latcrscientifically expounded by Anandavardhana and Abhinavagupta. Thus we see that for all of the poetic artifice and skill of Valmiki, his poem is in essence an oral-performative piece composed and performed for the popular audiences of his day. Scholars of more modern, regional versions of the Rama story should not, just because Valmiki composed in Sanskrit, make the mistake of anachronistically believing that he intended his poem for elite courtly and Brahmanical audiences only, that is for the royal and priestly upholders of patriarchy and cast eism.lt was a very different thing to compose in Sanskrit in the eighth or ninth century BC when forms of Old Indie were doubtless current among a wide spectrum of north Indian society than it was, say, in the sixteenth century AD when the language had come to be largely restricted to the elite

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R. P. Goldman

worlds of liturgy, royal inscription, courtly literature, and sastraic scholarship. So, far from placing Valmiki's work at the opposite end of a literary spectrum from thepopular, oral and performative Ramayanas scholars might do well to see the poem as the ancient precursor and generic prototype of Indian oral-epic composition. It is not because of the dominance of social and ritual elites that the Valmlki Ramayana has continued to be enjoyed to the present-day in its original language despite its many retellings in all the languages of the subcontinent. It has survived because of the genius of the Adikavi which has rightfully lent his work the immense prestige and popularity it has conferred upon his poem. The areas of textual history and religious orientation are closely connected. Here the misunderstandings with respect to the Valmlki Ramayana originated not with contemporary scholars of oral poetry or subaltern history but with the great European philologists who first took up the study of Indian literature in earnest in the nineteenth century. Unfortunately, despite the evidence constituted by the critical edition of the poem and the theoretical advances in cultural studies made in the past several years, many of these misunderstandings continue to be held by many contemporary students of the Indian epics. A significant element in the scholarly project of the early philologists was their relentless effort to use the tools of textual criticism to pare the vast and complex Indian epics back to the simple bardic heroic tales they were certain must have been their original forms. This theory, articulated by scholars such as Jacobi held that the Ramayana as we know it must have grown over a period of centuries or even millennia from genealogical ballads composed and sung by courtly bards into the vast, complex, and monumental poem we have today. 23 Starting from an alien aesthetic representing itself as ' 'higher criticism", scholars expended much effort and ingenuity on determining which passages of the poem were spurious and which genuine. Little attention was paid to the important indigenous critique of the Ramayana recorded in the copious and learned Sanskrit commentaries on the poem and little effort was made to read or understand the work in the light of the aesthetic, social and religious norms of Indian culture. An important corollary of this school of criticism is that the epic hero Rama, who is known throughout the Hindu tradition as an

The Adikavya and the Legacy of Rsi Valmiki

25

avatara of the Supreme Lord Visnu, was not, at the level of the theoretically reconstructable 4 'ur-texf' of the poem, even regarded as a divinity. According to the proponents of this widely accepted line of thought, the hero came to be identified with Visnu only in the course of time as the result of a proposed progressive Vaisnava sectarian appropriation of the epics. 24 Often these two areas of inquiry—the philological and the theological—havcbecnsoclosely joined in scholars' assertions that it is precisely those portions of the epic texts in which the divinity of these figures is most explicit that we must therefore regard as later additions or interpolations. Thus every Western student of traditional India down to the present-day is taught to take for granted Jacobi's dictum that the Bella- and Utiarakdndas of the Rdmdyana arc late appendices to the poem despite the fact that, even after the completion of critical editions here at the Oriental Institute, absolutely no convincing text-historical evidence for the extraneous character of these sections has ever been adduced. 25 Sheldon Pollock, the transla tor of the Ayodhya- and Aranyakdndas of the critical edition has powerfully demonstrated in the case of the Ramavatara 26 what Sukthankar argued sopassionately in the case of the MahabJulrata 's Krsnavatara 27 and what has always formed an integral part of traditional India's reception of the epics, viz., that the Western notion that these poems recognize these heroes as incarnations of God only in their late strata is without textual s u p p o r t and is, m o r e o v e r , b a s e d upon f u n d a m e n t a l mi sunderstandings of the conception, treatment and representation of divinity in Vaisnava I Iinduism. As Pollock has suggested, scholars' failure to recognize the divinity of Rama in Books 2-6 of the epic is in large measure due to the subtlety of Valmiki as a poet. The theory of the Vaisnava avatara, most particularly as it is conditioned by Brahma's boon to Ravana, requires that the God become man must experience the human condition to the fullest. Thus he must not explicitly acknowledge or even always recognize his divine nature. This theme is filled with powerful ironies and fruitful ambiguities and it is the genius of Valmiki that he tunes his poetry to them, now revealing now concealing the divine nature of the hero, showing him now prey to despair at the loss of his beloved wife and now in the grip of a rage that can shatter the universe, depicting him as a lord of the world who nonetheless may need, occasionally to be reminded of his power.

26

R. P. Goldman

Many later poets of the Ramayana theme, poets of the stature of Tulsidas, have retold the story as a vehicle for a profound Ramabliakti that minimized the human quality of the avatara. However the fact that as a poet Valmiki chose to explore the fullness of the rasas derived from the all too human emotions such as grief (karuna), rather than constantly foreground the omnipotence and omniscience of his hero, does not mean that any part of his work regards Rama as a mere man. On the contrary it is a tribute to the skill and subtlety of the poet. The bhakti model in its fully developed schemata tends often to undercut the irony of recognition so central to the vision of Valmiki. The authors of other, more devotionally oriented, versions of these tales assume, after all, the divinity and Vaisnava identity of Rama as do most of their characters. In works such as Ramacaritmanas and the Adhyatma Ramayana,1* all the characters including the epic antagonist are fully aware of the divinity and salvific power of their foe. Tulsidas' raksasa warriors are shown as eager to be slain in battle by Rama for they know he is God and that such a death will take them straight to his heaven. Even the evil Ravana is frequently depicted as the greatest of devotees since his unremitting hatred— in the form of dvesabliakti—is one of the purest forms of mental and emotional concentration upon the godhead. 29 Rama himself, far from being generally unaware of his true nature, is often shown to know the entire epic plot in advance, submitting to its vagaries only for the sake of his lila.30 Such texts have clearly sacrificed a certain narrative tension for a heightened experience of the powerful emotive transport, the consuming bhava, of bhakti; but it docs not follow from this that Valmiki was una ware of the divinity of his hero and the demonic nature of his foes. On the contrary, Valmiki's Ramayana in every one of its known recensions clearly presupposes the divinity of its hero and thepoet clearly intended and understood his story to have cosmic as well as purely historical significance.31 In conclusion I should like to acknowledge the debt the scholarly world owes to the long and devoted labours of the scholars and administrators of the Oriental Institute who have placed before us the extremely valuable critical edition of Valmikf s timeless epic and also to the great rszhimselfwhoseworkhas few equalsin world literature for gravity, beauty, nobility, and pathos. It has become one of the fundamental texts for many of the cultures of Asia and I must say its study has afforded me many of the happiest and most stimulating hours of my life.

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27

A l t h o u g h t h e p o e m is very ancient, it still h o l d s m u c h for scholars and rasikas to .explore a n d I w o u l d like close with an a p p e a l to my scholarly c o l l e a g u e s a n d the general r e a d e r to t a k e a fresh look at this v e n e r a b l e text before m a k i n g j u d g e m e n t s a b o u t the Ramayana tradition a s a w h o l e . It is not m e r e accident that h a s k e p t this p o e m alive for n e a r l y t h r e e t h o u s a n d y e a r s a n d it b e h o v e s u s to s t u d y the t e x t c a r e f u l l y in o r d e r to fully u n d e r s t a n d w h y B r a h m a ' s e x t r a o r d i n a r y p r o m i s e to Valmiki h a s p r o v e n so true:

A s long a s the m o u n t a i n s a n d rivers shall e n d u r e u p o n the earth, so long shall t h e Talc of t h e Ramayana b e told a m o n g the p e o p l e . A s long a s the tale of R a m a w h i c h you h a v e c r e a t e d shall be told, so long shall you r e m a i n i m m o r t a l in m y w o r l d s a b o v e and below. 3 2 References 1. Paula Richman, cd., Many Ramayanas: The Diversity of a Narrative Tradition in South Asia, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1991. 2. Ruth Vanita, "We Make it Better", Manushi, No. 78. Sept-Oct. 1993, p. 3^. 3. RV, 1.4. It is worth noting that the commentator Mallinatha remarks here: "purvaih suribhih kavibhih vdlmikddibhih I krtavdgdvdre krtam rdmayanddiprabandharupd yd vdk saiva dvaram praveso yasya tasmin i 4. Anandavardhana, Dhvanydloka 3.19 (kdrikd). 5. W. L. Smith, 1988:51. 6. Ram., 1.3.1 7. Ram., 1.4.6 and note at loc. in Goldman, 1985:286. 8. Ram., 1.2.39. 9. V. Narayana Rao, "A Ramayana of Their Own: Women's Oral Tradition in Tclugu," in Many Ramayanas, 1992, p. 115. 10. Anandaramdyana 10.7.29 cited in Smith, 1988:12. 11. Adhydtma Ramayana 2.4.77-78. Cited in Smith 1988:11. 12. See for example A Critical Inventory of Ramayana Studies in the World, published by Sahitya Akademi (1991) whose first volume, dealing only with works in English and Indian Languages contains more than 500 pages of entries.

28 13. 14. 15. 16.

17. 18.

19.

20. 21. 22. 23.

24. 25.

26. 27. 28. 29. 30.

R. P. Goldman Ram, 1.2.17. Ram, 1.4.7. Ram. 1.4.8. Thus the Vedic texts that were revealed to them are known collectively as sruti, "that which is h e a r d " while the seers themselves are often referred to as drastarah, literally "those who sec". Ram, 1.4.6. I:or a more detailed discussion of this theme in the Uttararamacarita and Bhasa's Svajmavasavadattam, see R. P. Goldman, "The Serpent and the Rope on Stage: Popular, Literary, and Philosophical Representation of Reality in Traditional India", Journal of Indian Philosophy Vol. 14, 1986, pp. 319-69. llttararamacarilam with the Commentary of Chanasyama with Notes and Introduction by Mahamahopadhyaya P. V. Kane, Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass, 1962. Act I after, v. 17 (p. 13). Kane, 1962, Act 1 after, v. 27 (p. 18). Ibid. Ibid. For examples of this type of scholarship, see I lopkins, 1901 and Jacobi, 1893. The hegemonic power of this received wisdom is compelling and 1 myself, although skeptical about specific formulations, was like most Western-trained Indologists originally inclined to accept it as axiomatic. Muir 1S73, van Daalen 1980:139, Sukthankar 1957, csp.. Chapters 1 and 4. Now to be sure, a variety of textual and historical evidence has been cited in support of these hypotheses. There is, for example, the often noticed reference in the Asvaldyana Crhya Sutra (3.4.4) which speaks of a Bharata epic of some 24,000 verses. Also, it might be noted, the epic stories ind heroes arc common cultural property in South (not to mention Southeast) Asia so that numerous non-1 Undu versions of the tales appear in Buddhist and Jaina texts as well as in other sources where the notion of avatura-hood ma v be downplayed, ignored, or even ridiculed. Nonetheless, no manuscript of either epic is known to omit these sections while passages dealing centrally with the divinity of the heroes often demonstrate unusually consistent manuscript support. In many cases, widely accepted arguments alleging inconsistencies and even contradictions between these supposed interpolations and the "epic cores" prove, on close examination, to be illfounded. For example, on Jacobi's assertions concerning the lateness of the Bdlakanda, sec Goldman, 198-1:60-67. For a discussion of the use of detailed metrical analysis as a potential tool for isolating various text-historical strata of the epic, see Ingalls and Ingalls, 1985; and Smith, 1972. Pollock, 1991:15-54. Sukthankar, 1957. For further references and a discussion of the influences of bhakti on the Ramayana, see Smith 1988:100-104. For and examination of the theme of dvesabhakti, see Smith 1988:113-21. Cf. Adhyalma Ramayana and Tulsi's handling of Slta's abduction. Rama informs Sita in advance of the event and instructs her, as the Goddess, to

The Adikavya

ami the Legacy ofRsi Valmlki

29

withdraw into hiding and leave a simulacrum in her place (Smith 198S.9293), or Blwgavata Purana's discussion of the gopls' full knowledge of the divinity of Krsna (BlidgP, 10.22.14; 10.29.31). In some instances, however, the gopis see Krsna as only a mortal (10.29.12). 31. Thus the Mahabharata 's talc entirely revolves around the notion of avatura. As detailed in its early sections all of the p o e m ' s characters, on both sides of the conflict, are the earthly incarnations of divine or demonic forces who carry the eternal struggle between the devas and the asuras into a historical place on behalf of the overburdened earth. On this, sec Hiltebeitel: 1984. This point is even clearer in the Rdmayana, for although its heroes, like those of the Mahabharata are avatdras, its villains arc not. instead they arc unmodified rdksasas whose titanic leader, cast in the mould of the great Puranic asuras, cannot be successfully confronted by a mere human. On this, see Pollock, 1991:29-43. 32. Ram, 1.2.35-36.

Poetry of the Mahabharata Satya Pal Narang

One of the great epics of India, the Mahabharata attributed to the sage Vyasa is important not only for its rich cultural material and thought, but h a s also been inspiring poetry both in its contents and expressions from the very beginning. Paying tribute to the poetry of the Mahabharata, Bana h a s accepted it a s a test of a poet with regard to descriptions and allpervasiveness. 1 The s a m e poet recognizes Vyasa a s an omniscient creator ofpoetry. 2 Vijjika, a p o e t e s s of the medieval ages, recognizes only Brahma, Vyasa and Valmiki a s p o e t s and rejects all the later poets and prose-writers. Authorship According to Winternitz: 3 "It is attributed to the great sage V y a s a w h o is conceived to be the grandfather and contemporary person of the K a u r a v a s and t h e P a n d a v a s . H e i m p a r t e d it to his pupil V a i s a m p a y a n a which w a s recited by him in the intervals of the great snake-sacrifice of King Janamcjay a. The suta U g r a s r a v a s told the story which he h e a r d from V a i s a m p a y a n a in a recast a n d enlarged version." But in its final stages from ]aya to Bhdrata and Bharata to the MaJiabharata, a b a n d of poets and thinkers from various regions, and trained in various disciplines, including recitation in various styles,

Poetry of the Mahabharata

31

tried to incorporate all the current t h o u g h t s and s t o n e s to m a k e it m o r e than an e n c y c l o p a e d i a . A n o n y m o u s v e r s e s attributed to Vya sa, c o m p a r e d with the extent of the Mahabharata and the Puninas, s h o w that a n u m b e r of v e r s e s are not authentic although collected in his n a m e . A n u m b e r of p o e m s and scattered v e r s e s written in the style of later classical Sanskrit m a y also not be the original v e r s e s of the Mahabharata. Background of the Poetry The poetry of the Mahabharata h a d a d e v e l o p e d b a c k g r o u n d oi Vedic literature w h e r e a n u m b e r of styles of expression along with mythological and l e g e n d a r y figures h a d a l r e a d y evolved. The n a m e s of rsis like V a s i s t h a , Arigiras, Bhrgus, Atri, and Trta also point to the Vedic b a c k g r o u n d . According to Hopkins, 4 the recited stories a r e recognized in the Mahabharata. The story-tellers sit and talk of the k 'glorious d e e d s of old and m a n y other t a l e s " , or, a s it is e x p r e s s e d e l s e w h e r e , " t a l e s of w a r and moil and genealogies of s e e r s and g o d s ' 1 . There are genealogical v e r s e s ; memorial s t a n z a s in h o n o u r of the family; hero-praising v e r s e s ; congratulations that utter the p r a i s e of t h e Kuru race. T h u s it h a p p e n s that l e g e n d s of g o d s , mythological n a r r a t i v e s of Brahmanical origin, and to a great extent even d i d a c t i c sections referring to Brahmanical p h i l o s o p h y , ethics and law, w e r e received into the Mahabharata.5 Other Vedic stories like t h o s e of Indra and Vrtra, Prajapati, B r a h m a , M a n a s , Asvin a n d Aditi etc. a r e found in one or another form in the Mahabharata^ A few Vedic deities might h a v e c h a n g e d into h u m a n c h a r a c t e r s in the Mahabharata.7There are a n u m b e r of objects w h i c h a r e u s e d a s similes including the sacrificial objects (yajna) and fire 8 which might h a v e been b o r r o w e d in the Mahabharata. According to W a r d e r , "There a r e a few p r o s e n a r r a t i v e s in dkhyclna The main story of the G r e a t Epic is dkhydna . . . . The later Vedic texts refer a l r e a d y to Itihasa and Purdna Their tradition w a s evidently oral and fluid and reflected changing fashions until at last they w e r e written d o w n well after the beginning of the k a v y a p e r i o d . " 9 Poetry The Mahabharata inherited the serious tradition of Vedic poetry and the s i m p l e and s p o n t a n e o u s poetry of the Mahabharata w a s t r a n s m i t t e d generation to generation by the sutas w h o recited or s a n g it not only at folk-gatherings but also in t e m p l e s and on

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festivals. Later, the w o r s h i p p e r s or reciters of the Mahabharata in the t e m p l e s and the professionals in this art m i g h t h a v e d e v e l o p e d it in their regional idiom and e n h a n c e d the contents. H o p k i n s 1 0 h a s attached it with variousprofessionalsand remarks, 'Ttwasoriginally recited by Kusllavas, Kntliakas and the Vaitdlikas b e s i d e s other epic professional mdgadhas, ndndivddyas, bandins, gay anas, saukhyasdyikas, vaitdlikas, kathakas, graritliikas, gdtliins, kusilavas and paurdnikas. T h e s e s o n g s w e r e s u n g either with lyres or with h a n d c l a p p i n g . " The m o d e of reciters exhibits that its p o p u l a r i t y in recitation h a d a p l a c e in social, royal, religious, legendary, d r a m a t i c and folk s p h e r e s of life. The r e m a r k s of H o p k i n s h a v e further i m p o r t a n c e with r e g a r d to the m e t h o d of narration of the Mahdhlidrata. H e thinks that the epic story is that of the old priestly legend, w h e r e the verse-tale is knitted together, a s in the epic, by p r o s e s t a t e m e n t s a s to the s p e a k e r . So in the epic, a narrative, not a r h a p s o d i c or d r a m a t i c , delivery is indicated by such p h r a s e s . They p r o b a b l y took the epic legends a n d a r r a n g e d t h e m in o r d e r for the p o p u l a r recitation, which is recognized w h e n p r i e s t s recite the Mahabharata at the a s s e m b l i e s of w a r r i o r s . In its final form it is not a p u r e form of heroic poetry but an a m a l g a m of heroic, theological, moralistic and legendary genres. In traditional criticism, it is declared a s a c o m p e n d i u m of the Dharma, Artha, Kama and the Moksa. In t e r m s of traditional criticism, d u e to its simple and elegant style, the Mahabharata m a y be classed in the V a i d a r b h i riti. The complicated c o m p o u n d s which b e c a m e a test for later p r o s e w r i t e r s are absent from its language. Of course, there is a formula poetry which is related to arrival, d e p a r t u r e , p a s s a g e of time, falling in love, c h a n g e of s e a s o n and religious poetry w h i c h is not only the idiom of the Mahabharata but of e p i c s in general including a few Purunas. A salient feature of the Mahabharata is the flow of l a n g u a g e which d o e s not know the barrier of the artificial contents a l t h o u g h the Mahabharata itself p r e s e n t s m a n y h a r d - n u t s to crack (kilt a si okas). Figures of Speech Although a few o b s e r v a t i o n s about figures of s p e e c h a r e given by H o p k i n s r e g a r d i n g the Mahabharata, Professor R. K. S h a r m a 1 1

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33

h a s a n a l y s e d t h e m in detail. The w o r k s on p o e t i c s frequently quote the Mahabharata not only for figures of speech b u t also for varieties of Dhvani or suggestion. Anuprdsa or alliteration is frequently found in the Mahabharala and c o n s t i t u t e s an e l e m e n t of m u s i c a l diction. Yamaha is found particularly in the kutaslokas of the v e r s e s . N a t u r a l slesa is a l s o frequently visible. The similes of the Mahabharata a r e taken from v a r i o u s p h a s e s of m y t h o l o g y and from natural p h e n o m e n a ; including the sun, fire, moon, p l a n e t s , c o m e t s , earth etc. Other objects u s e d for similes a r e s u p e r n a t u r a l a p p e a r a n c e s ; p h i l o s o p h i c a l t e r m s and c o n c e p t s ; a n i m a ] s like c o w s , b u l l s , h o r s e s , e l e p h a n t s , lions, tigers, s n a k e s and others; b i r d s , insects, forests, trees and p l a n t s ; the lotus, the aristocrat, m e t a l s , and jewels. Various a s p e c t s of h u m a n life include the m a n in the street, social habits, courts, p r o s t i t u t e s , vamavyavastha, material culture including philosophical and ethical v a l u e s . The similes of the Mahabharala are very natural, apt, forceful and e x p r e s s i v e . There is less of a craze to exhibit in tellectualism like in later Sanskrit literature. Professor S h a r m a h a s accepted utpreksus with r e g a r d s to verbs, nouns and adjectives; rupakas: both s i m p l e and complex; atisayokti or hyperbole, arthapatti, virodha, parisariikhijd, vyalireka, pratipa, samdeha, bhrdnlimdn, tulyayogita, sahokli, kdvyaliriga, svabhdvokti, visarna and samusokti.17 By the application of the definitions of classical Sanskrit criticism, one can find all the figures oi s p e e c h in this e n c y c l o p a e d i c p o e m . But the definitions of t h e s e figures w e r e certainly l e s s known to the poet Vyasa. Mel res Tor the battlefields and in general, the m e t r e found in the Mahabharala is anustubli, the simplest m e t r e with a larger n u m b e r of structures. H o p k i n s fully analyzed this topic and his o b s e r v a t i o n s are a s follows: The m e t r e s found in the Mahabharata which c o r r e s p o n d to the Ramayana and the classical structure of m e t r e s a r e the upajdtis and their components; vaisvadevi, bhujangaprayata, rucira, praharsirii, vasantatilakd and maliiil The m e t r e s exclusively found in the Mahabharata a r e salini, drutavilambita, rathoddhald and sardulavikridita. The probability of introduction of these m e t r e s in

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Satya Pal Narang the Mahabharata d u e to the i m p a c t of the classical style of p o e t r y cannot b e ruled out.

The s t r u c t u r e and varieties of m e t r e s a r e very useful for s t u d y i n g t h e d e v e l o p m e n t of the MahabJidrata, p a r t i c u l a r l y the e v a l u a t i o n of the critical edition afresh. W a r d e r a p p r e c i a t e s t h e m a s n e w regional a n d m u s i c a l m e t r e s . In the opinion of H o p k i n s , " t h e different possibilities concern us h e r e only a s they affect t h e c a d e n c e , for t h e m o n o t o n y of the pdda is varied quite a s m u c h b y the rhetorical c a d e n c e a s b y the foot which is different from the Vedic m e t r e in structure." A n u m b e r of m e t r e s and their varieties u n k n o w n in classical Sanskrit are found in the Mahabharata. There a r c a n u m b e r of h y p e r m e t r c s or double h y p e r m e t r e s which really constitute the original c h a r a c t e r of the epic m e t r e s and a n u m b e r of varieties. Rasas The Mahabharata dominantly consists of v e r s e s h a v i n g heroic poetry. The m a i n rasa of the Mahabharata is the vira rasa, b u t if w e a p p l y the intricacies of classical Sanskrit criticism, a l m o s t all the rasas can be extracted from it. The b l e n d s of v a r i o u s rasas a r e also illustrated by rhetoricians with v e r s e s from the Mahabharata. V i s v a n a t h a , quite in a g r e e m e n t with A n a n d a v a r d h a n a and M a m m a t a , q u o t e s the following p a s s a g e from the Mahabharata a s an e x a m p l e of arthasakti/udbhava dhvani: alam sthitva, smasdne' smin grdhragomdyusankulc I karikdlabahule gJwrc sarvaprdnibhayankare 11 Santa: A n a n d a v a r d h a n a s e e m s to h a v e h a d the Maliabiiarata in his mind while writing the Dhvanydloka. A s a kdvya, h e a c c e p t s the sentiment of quietism (sdnta rasa) a s dominant. H e h a s clearly explained that the main p u r p o s e of the Mahabharata is to delineate sdnta a s the p r e d o m i n a n t rasa along with other s u b o r d i n a t e rasas. R a g h a v a n ( N u m b e r of Rasas) presents t h e v i e w s of A n a n d a v a r d h a n a , A b h i n a v a g u p t a , K s e m e n d r a , and the a u t h o r of the Bhdgavata t h a t the Mahabharata is essentially and primarily a w o r k (prabandhahivya) of the sentiment of tranquillity (sdnta rasa). Raudra: V y a s a is a p a s t m a s t e r in handling inimical sentiments a n d m a i n t a i n s perfect h a r m o n y in their delineation. H e r e w e first

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35

observe the rise of p a t h o s and then its fall and then the rise of the furious sentiment—mudra. Vyasa showed his artistic skill to maintain harmony even a m o n g inimical and diametrically o p p o s e d sentiments and feelings. Pathetic: It is not only a d o m i n a n t sentiment h e r e b u t according to Hopkins, ' ' t h e r e is a distinct a t t e m p t at p a t h e t i c r e p e t i t i o n s " . Humour and Satire: Satirical v e r s e s a r e found in the e x p r e s s i o n s of the kings for the e n e m i e s b u t Ingalls a c c e p t s the Virdta-Parvan a s essentially a c o m e d y . Language Generally the l a n g u a g e of the Mahdblidrata is definitely not influenced by the g r a m m a r of Panini. It is the l a n g u a g e of an i n t e l l e c t u a l (prajfia) a n d an i g n o r a n t (ajna) p e r s o n w h i c h notwithstanding having a musical c h a r a c t e r is free from artificial b o n d a g e s including embellishment and g r a m m a r . The vast extent of variants in the critical edition of the Mahabharata indicate to its popularity of e x p r e s s i o n s and a c h a r a c t e r of spoken Sanskrit. Mahabharata itself d e c l a r e s that i4 it is just like the sound of the cuckoo and after listening to it the other s o u n d s a r e like those of crows'': pimiskokilagiram srutvd ruksadhvdhksasya vagiva. A b o u t the emotional c h a r a c t e r of the l a n g u a g e of the Mahabharata, Professor Sharma remarks: By nature, a c o m m u n i t y ' s emotional l a n g u a g e of lamentation, honor, anger, w o n d e r etc., is w h a t w e call poetic in the real s e n s e of the term. We can a l w a y s h e a r for e x a m p l e , the so-called elements of alliteration, reptition, introduction, refrain, r h y t h m , r h y m e and allegory, even in the l a n g u a g e of lamentation of an illiterate village w o m a n . But the n u m b e r of difficult v e r s e s in the form of riddles is also not less. The Mahabharata declares itself: astau slokasahasrdni astau slokasatani ca aham vedmi suko vetti sanjai/o vetti va mi va A n u m b e r of sections m a y b e c l a s s e d a s pretexi-kavya. Sanskrit rhetoricians h a v e recognized it a s a prabandha-kdvya particularly in the context of the Gomayu-Grdhra-samvdda w h e r e p o p u l a r poetry

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e x p r e s s e s the d e e p e s t intention and s e n s e of the context b y one or the other pretext of the l a n g u a g e . Phrases and Idioms H o p k i n s followed by S h a r m a h a s collected a n u m b e r of i d i o m s which a re found either exclusively in the Mahabharala or in the e p i c s and the Purdnas in general. A few of t h e m a r e a s follows: anayad yama sadanam for d e a t h ; dsivisa iva kruddhah (angry like a serpent with venom); mdradhvaja ivoccharitah; kampayann iva 7i w din 1 m; krodhasamraktalocanah; jvalantarn iva pdvakam; daridahasta ivanlakah; diin/dbharanabhusitah; dirgham usna7n ca nihsvasya; bdspavyakulalocanah; satasoth saJiastrasah; salabha iva pdvakam etc. Characterization Originally the intention of the a u t h o r w o u l d h a v e been to c r e a t e c h a r a c t e r s which would h a v e different characteristics in v a r i o u s s p h e r e s of the battlefield. The p r o p e r n a m e s u s e d for different c h a r a c t e r s m a y also s u g g e s t characteristics w h i c h later on c h a n g e d to s t e r e o t y p e s not only in contents but also in e x p r e s s i o n s so a s to suit the n e e d s of the battlefield. A few c h a r a c t e r s might h a v e b o r r o w e d their characteristics from Vedic deities. Folk-elements are also not missing and their anthropological c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s a r e h i g h l i g h t e d e.g., G h a t o t k a c a a n d I l i d i m b a . T h e s o c i o l o g i c a l b a c k g r o u n d of the c h a r a c t e r s like Bhisma, Kunti and D r a u p a d i is i m p o r t a n t for the formation of the t h e m e of the Mahabharala. A h u g e bulk of ethical v a l u e s w a s w r a p p e d around the c h a r a c t e r s so a s to m a k e the Mahabhdrata a moral p o e m . So m a n y colours w e r e introduced to m a k e the c h a r a c t e r s par excellence. But the formula poetry style exhibits their stereotype characteristics. Impact The impact of the Mahabhdrata is very strong on ethical v a l u e s , literature, p h i l o s o p h y and legal concepts w h e r e either the t h e m e or the e x p r e s s i o n is influenced by its poetry. It h a s influenced the literature of India from K a s h m i r to K a n y a k u m a r i irrespective of the a u t h o r ' s c a s t e or religion. The declaration of the Mahabhdrata that, " W i t h o u t t h e b a s i s of t h i s s t o r y , n o s t o r y c a n e x i s t (ands'rilyaitaddkJiydnam kathd bhuvi na vidyate)" h a s p r o v e d t r u e b e c a u s e there is no literatu re in India w h i c h in e x t e n t / form / t h e m e /

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37

value or l a n g u a g e is not inspired by the Mahabharata particularly from the beginning of m o d e r n Indian literature. F.ven t o d a y , w h e n s o e v e r , there is a question of the identity of India or v a l u e s , the m e d i a including the radio, opera, d r a m a s , m o v i e s , or television take the refuge of the Mahabharata. The p o p u l a r i t y of the television serial Mahabharata is an evidence that it h a s not only inspired the folk but also tried to re-establish national unity. The novelty of the story is so fascinating that its a d a p t a t i o n s s e a r c h for fresh v a l u e s for m o d e r n India in the Mahabharata. There m a y be a c h a n g e in the t h e m e but in l a n g u a g e or idiom the i m p a c t of the Mahabharata is visible. Sanskrit literature h a s been influenced by the Mahabharata ah initio, line list includes p o e t s and d r a m a t i s t s like Bhasa, Kalidasa, B h a r a v i , M a g h a , Sri H a r s a , D h a n a n j a y a , and M e g h a v i j a y a U p a d h y a y a , Jaina Puranas like Pandavacarila, H e m a c a n d r a ' s Trisastisalakdpurusacanta and a n u m b e r of the slcsa p o e m s . T h e p l a y VenisamJiara w a s so p o p u l a r that a n u m b e r of its events and v e r s e s re-entered the Mahabharata. The Mahabharata h a s entered all the folk traditions 01 both north and southern India. Its serious i m p a c t is visible on art, architecture, n u m i s m a t i c s and sculpture not only throughout India but also in the Far Hast. It h a s influenced poetic trends in K a m p u c h i a , Java, and Thailand b e s i d e s having v a r i o u s translations in the leading l a n g u a g e s of the world. Literary criticism w a s so much influenced by the Mahabharata that Santa Rasa w a s established a s an independent rasa which entered the texts o( literary criticism later. T h u s the Mahabharata not only p r o d u c e d a most natural and s p o n t a n e o u s poetry but also a h u g e literature in l a n g u a g e s o\ the world in content, expression, translations, a d a p t a t i o n s , innovations and new creative writings. Its c h a r a c t e r s inspire fresh v a l u e s for time immemorial both in content and expression. References 1. Bel n a' s / tar sac a rita, 1.9. kirn kaveslasya kdvyena sarvavrttiinla^anunW kalheva bhdrati yasyu na vyupnoti ja^attrayam II 2. Ibid., 1.3. narnah sarvavide tasniui vyasaya kavivedhase I cakre punyarn sarusvatya yo varsamiva bhdratam II 3. M. Wintcrnitz, History of Indian Literature, (English Tr.) Vol. I, p p . 323 ff.

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4. Hopkins, The Great Epic of India: Its Character and Origin, pp. 363ff. 5. Wintcrnitz, op. cit., pp. 319ff. 6. S. P. Narang, ed., Modern Evaluation of the Mahahharata. (Prof. R. K. Sharma Felicitation Volume), Delhi, 1995. Bodcwitz, pp. 40ff; Madhusudan Mishra, pp. 48ff; Pravcsh Saxcna, pp. 63ff. 7. Ibid. Robert, P. Goldman, pp. 73ff. Gods in hiding: The Mahahharata Virata Parvan and the divinity of the Indian epic hero where a number of similar papers are cited. 8. R. K. Sharma, Elements of Poetry in the Mahahharata, 1988, pp. 29ff. 9. Indian Kavya Literature, Vol. II, Sec. 512. 10. Hopkins, The Great Epic of India, Reprint 1978, p. 366. 11. R. K. Sharma, op.cit., pp. 28ff. 12. Ibid.

Sanskrit Linguistics and Mathematics in Ancient India Pierre-Sylvain

Filliozat

Logical reasoning is a universal aptitude of man. But the methods of research, the tools used for progress in scientific inquiry, and the way of presentation of the resulting knowledge depend very much on regional cultures. There is nothing surprising in the fact that scientific knowledge grounded on the rational faculties of the human mind appeared in very different civilizations of the world, in the course of history. However one notes that the number of discoveries is higher in some periods, in some places. It shows that there are historical and cultural conditions that are favourable to the birth and progress of science. The way of presentation of scientific material is still more dependent on particular cultures. It can be explained only by reference to the intellectual environment in which the scientists did their work. The task of the historian of sciences is not only to make the catalogue of the discoveries and appreciate the level of scientific knowledge at different historical times, but also to understand the conditions which led to the attainment of such or such level, to explain the original form of exposition. The evolution of the form of the scientific texts is not unimportant for the historian. It is an error to actualise the ideas of past scientists, to transpose in modern terminology their ancient expressions. For example, in the history

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Picrre-Sylvain Filliozat

of Sanskrit mathematics, it is often said that Aryabhata calculated the value of n as 3.1416, but that formulation implies he was using a decimal notation, which is wrong, as he expressed the said value in the form of a fraction, lie really said that "100 plus 4, multiplied by 8, and added to 62,000 is the approximate measure of the circumference of a circle whose diameter is 20,000". Ancient India reached a good level, not lower than other great ancient civilizations, in the field of mathematics and astronomy, but appears to have had a great originality in the exposition. That becomes easily explainable when one examines the environment and the culture of the authors. The ancient Vedic literature reveals to us a very intense intellectual activity in the context of a refined religion slife.Thcpracticc of religious rites appears to ha vebeen the main profession of intellectuals. Even in such a context there was a lot of rational thinking and real scientific inquiry in several fields. Rational thinking is prominent in the analysis of language. The first etymologies are found in the Taittiriya Samhitd. The first interpretations of texts with systematic procedures appear in the Brdhmanas. The old Vedic corpus of texts has been augmented with six ancillarics, the Veddrigas, which are techniques aiming at the conservation and correct understanding of their form and contents. The Veddugas, because of their technical and practica 1 character, a re almost completely free from irrational speculation, and can be taken as representing the beginning of pure scientific literature in Sanskrit. Four of them bear upon language: vydkarana or technique of formation of words and sentences, siksd or phonetics, nirukta or etymology, chandas or prosody and metrics. Two are ancillarics of rituals: kalpa or techniques of rites, jyolisa or astronomy with reference to the calendar of rites. This classification reflects theprominenceofthe study of language. This is a permanent character of the Indian intellectual tradition. In the second century HC Patanjali declares vydkarana to be the main Vcddnga. A medieval theoretician of poetry, Anandavardhana, pays the highest homage to liguistics: ' T h e Vaiyakaranas are the first scholars, because all sciences are based on vydkarana". Obviously in the mind of the Indian learned men the study of language held the place which mathematics held in the mind of the ancient Greek philosophers. In the Vedic context mathematics do not occupy the first rank. They appear as an appendix to the techniques of rituals. Geometry

Sanskrit Linguistics and Mathematics in Ancient India

41

comes in the context of the construction of brick-altars for the celebration of Vedic sacrifices. It is not the production of a professional mathematician. It is one among several activities which were conducted in the same time for a common purpose, a religious celebration. A Vedic mathematician was not a specialist of mathematics; he was also a linguist; and most probably he was a priest having duties in ritualistic performances. Similarly, the linguist was not specialised in that field only; he was a ritualist and a performer of rites; and he had the same mathematical notions. This is clear from PaninFs treatment of ordinal numbers and words expressing fractions. Now, considering the important rank of linguistics in the mind of the Vedic authors, vve understand that this discipline may have had a strong influence on other disciplines. Tt is in this field that the ancient Indian thinkers achieved their best rationalistic inquiry and found their best method of scientific exposition, so that vyakarana has always been taken as a model of methodology. In this paper we try to determine what kind of influence vyakarana could have on a branch of knowledge as distant as mathematics, or at least what kind of relationship between the two disciplines was created by the supremacy of linguistics. Panini is not the first Indian linguist. lie is the most ancient among those whose works have come down to us. He mentions masters anterior to him. His date is not known. Reasonable hypotheses on this much debated question place him in the seventh century BC at the earliest, in the fourth century BC at the latest. For those times, his work represents a scientific achievement of high level. Tt is slightly improper to call it a Sanskrit grammar. First the designation "Sanskrit" was not yet existing and Panini never used this denomination for the language he spoke and described. He called it blulsd "spoken language, speech". In fact he did not mention any particular language. Nothing in his work shows that he had knowledge of other languages. He mentions only a few dialectal forms, which he conceives as pertaining to his unique language. He knows also unusual forms found only in Vedic hymns, and describes them as exceptions in the same language. And he describes this as if it were the totality of language. His work is a work of general liguistics, an inquiry on human speech considered from his own language taken as basic material. Thus the word "grammar" does not translate exactly the Sanskrit

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Pierre-Sylvain

Filliozat

n a m e s of the discipline. The ancient and traditional n a m e s a r e sabdanusasana " t e a c h i n g of w o r d s " and vyakarana. This second designation isparticularly interesting, b e c a u s e it contains a reference to the method of teaching. Etymologically it m e a n s the action to m a k e something completely and in a special w a y . With reference to w o r d s i t m c a n s t h c a c t i o n t o form them from their basic components, root and suffixes, to construct a sentence from them. It is a ssociated to the word vyupadana or vyutpatti which m e a n "birth, production'*. Vyakarana is the discipline which s h o w s h o w to build u p w o r d s to m a k e a sentence. It is not an analysis of a given word or of an a l r e a d y used sentence. It s h o w s h o w to generate new sentences and eventually new w o r d s such as secondary derivatives and compounds. There is a notable difference between generation and analysis. The former is creative, the latter only an examination of already created objects. Panini h a s described his knowledge of the language, not a limited c o r p u s of s a m p l e s or r e a d y m a d e sentences. To know a language m e a n s to be able to build up sentences from a c o r p u s of g r a m m a t i c a l rules and a dictionary kept in o n e ' s memory. Panini defines the competence of the basic elements to realise meaningful a n d a c c e p t a b l e c o m b i n a t i o n s . W i t h t h e k n o w l e d g e of t h i s competence the user can create new acts of speech. The vyakarana is such a creation. And Panini's work is definitely a practical method to create correct acts of speech. Vyakarana and vyutpatti a r e sometimes explained with the w o r d samskara. This word is commonly used for all kinds of preparation for some action, arrangement of multipleelements for a performance requiring all them, preparation of materials for an operation. With reference to language it is the collection and arrangement with eventually p h o n e m i c transformations of word-elements and full w o r d s to p r e p a r e an act of speech. That m u s t be the origin of the designation of the language a s " S a n s k r i t " , i.e., samskrta. The set of forms which h a s received a samskara according to the rules of vyakarana, a s formulated by Panini or other linguists, is samskrta. Long after the possible times of Panini, even after Patanjali w h o d o e s not yet u s e this term, samskrta started to be used a s the n a m e of the language which w a s regularly p r e p a r e d for u s a g e by the application of the rules. The operative rule is called laksana. Patanjali explains this term. H e s a y s that one cannot learn a language by hearing the list of all

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Linguistics

and Mathematics

in Ancient India

43

possible forms of all possible words in all possible uses. They are too numerous. He relates a myth. Brhaspati, preceptor of the gods, started to teach language, word by word, form after form, to the king ofgods,Indra. After one hundred divine years he did not reach the end. Therefore, he concluded : fa.facUIMMpc|£lMc|cT^I

"gclrzf ^TTc^R ^ R

" ^ f "RFfi: ¥l*
One should undertake a certain laksana made of that which is common and that which is distinctive. By such a light effort one can learn the huge flow of words. The word laksana h a s several meanings in Sanskrit. The most common is ' 'mark, sign". For logicians it is the sign from which one infers an object to be different from others. It is a characteristic property which belongs to all members of a class of objects, and which is proper to that class. The perception of the characteristic feature is sufficient to identify an object and distinguish it from others. When one knows the laksana, he knows a whole class of objects. Thus the laksana is an indirect, light tool for knowing a class of objects, indirect because all the members of the class are known, not through direct, individual presentation, but through a common feature, light because there is presentation of only one property, not of a high, sometimes infinite, number of individuals. For linguists the laksana is an operative rule or structure which serves the purpose of building up a number of word-forms. The rule is unique for multiple cases. As the basic material of vyakarana is the competence of linguistic structures to create new acts of speech, its laksanas consist of one characteristic feature common to many possible, existing and future, occurrences. Language is complex. There is practically no case of actual usage which can be built up with a single rule. Generally a long chain of rules applied in a definite order is necessary. Thus the rule appears to settle only one step in the formation of a usable form. Nevertheless, generally it is a unique rule serving multiple cases, one particular step in the formation of many cases. Fetus consider one example of a small chain of rules formulated by Panini. Among the basic elements of Sanskrit there are about 2000 verbal roots called dlultu and a smaller number of suffixes. Panini prescribes a theoretical suffix / to express the idea of agent after a root which expresses the idea of an action:

44

Pierre-Sylvain Filliozat

Taking the root m " t o l e a d " w e obtain from t h e s e two r u l e s : * nllL 'agent of the action to l e a d " . A rule p r e s c r i b e s the theoretical form lot to the suffix, w h e n the action is d e s c r i b e d in the p r e s e n t time: * m-lat m e a n s " a g e n t of the p r e s e n t action to l e a d ' *. Another rule r e p l a c e s lot b y ti to signify the third p e r s o n ; a n o t h e r a d d s a modifier-affix sap before the agent-signifying suffix; a n o t h e r s u b s t i t u t e s e to the final i of t h e root; one m o r e s u b t i t u t e s ay to e before the vowel a : * nl-li; * nj-a-ti; * ne-a-ti; nay all " h e l e a d s " . This is a verbal form. An equivalent formation is the agent noun derived from t h e s a m e root with the suffix a/a?. Panini p r e s c r i b e s the theoretical form nvul to e x p r e s s the idea of agent of an action, after a root, using again the rule " d h a t o h " : ^TTcTT: I ^W^\

\

From the s a m e root m we obtain * nl-nvul signifying * 'agent of the action to l e a d " . Further r u l e s substitute ai to the final v o w e l of the root, aka to vu, and ay to ai, a d d the fist or nominative c a s e - e n d i n g su, r e p l a c e su by // : * nai-vu, * nai-aka, * nay-oka, * nay-okas, nayakah " l e a d e r " . This is the formation of one individual w o r d . P a n i n i ' s g r a m m a r p r o v i d e s r u l e s to build u p longer e x p r e s s i o n s m a d e of several w o r d s , u p to a c o m p l e t e sentence. For instance to build u p an expression yielding the m e a n i n g " l e a d e r of the g o d s " , starting from deva " g o d " and nayakah " l e a d e r " Panini p r e s c r i b e s the sixth or genitive case-ending, am in the plural, a s e x p r e s s i n g the idea of object of an action : <4MH°--.- ^rmpri ^m^m: ^fai * deva-am nayakah. The g o d s a r c the object of t h e action to l e a d performed by an agent. Each component of the m e a n i n g c o r r e s p o n d s to a p a r t i c u l a r element: deva : god a)n idea of object of the action n 1/nay : action of 1 e a d aka : idea of agent of the action s/h : nominative

Sanskrit Linguistics and Mathematics in Ancient India

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F u r t h e r p h o n e t i c rules a d d n to the ending and substitute a to the final vowel of deva, m to the final m. W e obtain the final expression: devanam nayakah. This is not the sole form obtainable for the s a m e meaning. Panini p r o v i d e s r u l e s to build u p an optional form which can be used alternatively. H e enjoins to consider the sequence devanaru nayakah, not a s a s e q u e n c e of t w o w o r d s , but a s a unit called samdsa ' ' c o m p o u n d " and to treat this unit a s a basic stem (pratipadika) inside w h i c h p r e v i o u s c a s e - e n d i n g s a r e s u p p r e s s e d and which can receive a n e w c a s e - e n d i n g such a s the first: W i I ^dfocKH'-imiSr I TT?I *lldyifdlJf^Ti: I * devdnamndyakah, * devanayaka, devanayakah " l e a d e r of the g o d s " . From t h e s e e x a m p l e s one can see clearly P a n i n f s methodology. H e is well a w a r e of the s t r u c t u r e of derivatives, c o m p o u n d s etc. But h e d o e s not p r e s e n t it in analytic form. H e d o e s not s p e a k about the splitting of an existing c o m p o u n d . l i e just enjoins a p r o c e s s of building u p a c o m p o u n d structure, in the form of the transforma tion of a set of t w o w o r d s into a single n e w unit. H i s formula is basically a tool to c r e a t e new c o m p o u n d s . It t e a c h e s the c o m p e t e n c e of the s t r u c t u r e to p r o d u c e forms at the time of u s a g e . The short form of P a n i n i ' s rules is a s r e m a r k a b l e a s their nature. With reference to its form a rule iscalled sutra. A s P a n i n i h a s a p p l i e d to the composition of his sutms the greatest n u m b e r of p r o c e d u r e s of abbreviations and other types offormalisation devices, his w o r k h a s been a m o d e l oi scientific writing in the entire Indian scholarly tradition. The m o s t ancient Indian sutras which h a v e c o m e down to us are P a n i n f s and a few treatises of Vedic rituals called Kalpa-sutras. They a r e c o m p o s e d in the s a m e spirit, even if they do not u s e formalisation to the s a m e degree. Like P a n i n f s work the ritualistic w o r k s a r e practical m a n u a l s for performing religious rites. They are oriented t o w a r d s action and they p u r s u e the s a m e ideal of generality. A siitra of ritual d e s c r i b e s an action which m a y be c o m m o n to several rites. In the siitrns o f B a u d h a y a n a , A p a s t a m b a , K a t y a y a n a etc. one c o m e s a c r o s s a section dealing with the construction of brick-altars for Vedic sacrifices. It is called Sulbasutra " C o r d - f o r m u l a r y " , b e c a u s e the cord is the main tool for such constructions. It explains w h a t a priest should do to pile up bricks o^ different sizes and s h a p e s to build an altar. The Vedic altar is s o m e t i m e s a c o m p l e x s t r u c t u r e of h u g e dimensions, a s in the c a s e

Pierre-Sylvain Filliozat

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of the syena-citi, and altar having the shape of an eagle with his wings spread out. In this context the authors of the siltras have solved a number of basic problems of geometry. The first striking feature of a Sulba-sutra is its high degree of generality. This is a quality which it shares only with Panini's model. It is composed with less brevity than the linguistic sutra. But it follows the same methodology. It consists of laksanas, defined in this case, as in the case of linguistic, as general rules applicable to many individual cases. For instance, let us consider the Sulba-sutra ofBaudhayana which in its first chapter formulates a set of rules to make the construction of squares and rectangles with the help of a few pegs and a cord. To construct a square one should take a cord measuring two times the side of the desired square, with a loop at each end. One should make a mark in the middle of the cord. One half is technically called praci. Another mark is done in the second half, at a point shorter by one-fourth and the mark is technically called nyancana. Two pegs are set into the ground at a distance equal to the praci. The loops of the cord are fixed on the pegs. Then one should stretch the cord, holding it at the nyancana point Fig. 1. nyancana

-o

Pig. 1

By stretching the cord at the nyancana point, one draws a triangle, the sides of which measure 3, 4, 5 respecitvely. A right angle is obtained and thus a lineperpendicular to thepegs line. The operation is repeated on the other side to obtain another right angle and

Sanskrit Linguistics and Mathematics in Ancient India

47

•mother perpendicular. By using the middle mark of the cord, one P n ° r i w easily the four sides of the required square. Tine ratio 3,4. 5 m , v h"ve been discovered by an empirical method. We remark fhTt Baudhayana has already formulated a general rule which is ' t l i c . b e to many individual cases, as he refers not to a grven n S urement for the side of the square, but to any measurement BaudhTyana had the knowledge of other ratios for the s.dcsof rrctanele triangles. He describes the same operation with a cord lasurinXlcngthofthesideoftherequ,^ n ? n e h T c n o-ning to place the nyancana mark at a point shorter by

a

" T h f ' n e c e s s i t y of duplicating the area of certain bricks for

Here Baudhayana introduces the term » W ^ ™ an important role in Sanskrit ™ t h e m a h c a . f c ^ ^ meaning is -producer". The diagonal cord:„f a ' ^

of a square of doublearea. Thus it is to d t ^

^

™

squareofdoublearea-orinanabbreviatedform^ W

f

X ft|u.

roduccr Q

of 2 " . Similarly the cord of the ^ g ^ ^ ' o f 3 " If thefirst square of treble area is called tn-karam P ^ u ~ r °J 3 a r e a , square is taken as a unit with a side measuring 1 and

Pierre-Sylvain Filliozat

48

to 1, the dvi-karanl is its diagonal, produces a square of area equal to 2 and is itself equal to \ 2 . Similarly the tri-karanl produces a square of area equal to 3 and is itself equal to V3. In this way, with the technical term karani, Baudhayana has given a representation of irrational numbers. Such a construction could have been discovered empirically. But after presenting a few examples of this sort Baudhayana comes to a very general statement, which is a real mathematical proposition:

The diagonal cord of a rectangle produces both the areas which the length and breadth produce separately. This is the first theorem enunciated in the history of Sanskrit mathematics. Baudhayana does not give a demonstration. It appears to be an induction made from the examples given before. By such a general proposition Baudhayana is really a mathematician who has gone above experience and empirical methods. This theorem, in its turn, will be the starting point of further propositions, which are not empirically observable and which can be deduced only through logical reasoning. An example of this is as follows. Baudhayana formulates a procedure to construct a square whose area is the sum of the areas of two given squares. One has to cut in the larger square a rectangle whose breadth is the side of the smaller square. The diagonal of this rectangle is the side of the desired square (fig. 3).

Fig. 3

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49

This is obviously b a s e d on the p r e v i o u s theorem: the diagonal o{ the r e c t a n g l e p r o d u c e s both the a r e a s p r o d u c e d by its sides s e p a r a t e l y . B a u d h a y a n a is t h u s able to d e d u c e several other constructions. The i m p o r t a n t methodological point h e r e is that the p r o c e d u r e is obtained t h r o u g h a set of rules logically connected and a p p l i c a b l e in a given order. T h e s e e x a m p l e s s h o w the operative a s p e c t of the formulas of the treatise. W e h a v e a l r e a d y underlined their levels of generality. All that d o e s not fail to recall the m e t h o d of formation of w o r d s through a set of general rules applied in a definite order. Each formula of a geometrical construction is a sort of laksana a d a p t e d to its object. The b a s i c m e t h o d o l o g y is the s a m e . Indian m a t h e m a t i c i a n s w e r e Sanskrit p a n d i t s . V y a k a r a n a m u s t ha v e b e e n one of the main c o m p o n e n t s in their intellectual education. A s they w e r e initially trained in this discipline, it is quite likely that they h a v e b e e n influenced by the general m e t h o d s and even by p a r t i c u l a r p r o c e d u r e s . They w e r e led to work with geometrical figures a s they w e r e w o r k i n g on w o r d s . W e h a v e described a b o v e the m e t h o d o l o g y oi the linguists and noted their practical attitude, their orientation t o w a r d s operative devices. They ha venot done any descriptive presentation o\ language s t r u c t u r e s . They only w o r k e d out an efficient system o( rules for the practical p u r p o s e of building u p sentences for direct use. They enjoined a w a y to transform a set of w o r d s into a single c o m p o u n d unit. T h a t e s t a b l i s h e d a scientific law by itself. And in m a t t e r of l a n g u a g e r u l e s no d e m o n s t r a t i o n w a s to b e given. The practical efficiency w a s the proof of the accuracy of the rule. If the law a p p e a r e d to be contradicted by u s a g e , the linguist formulated an exception. The sulru of g e o m e t r y h a s b e e n conceived in the s a m e inlellecuf al b a c k g r o u n d . It d i s p l a y s the s a m e spirit and attitude t o w a r d s p r a c t i c e a n d efficiency. From e x p e r i e n c e it i n d u c e s g e n e r a l p r o p o s i t i o n s , and when satisfied with their operative efficiency, d o e s not give any m o r e d e m o n s t r a t i o n . B a u d h a y a n a induces the general t h e o r e m from his observation of the ratio 3, 4, 5 etc., and d o e s not give a d e m o n s t r a t i o n . H e d o e s not do in m a t h e m a t i c s that w h i c h h e w a s not doing in linguistics. The relationship of the sutnis of m a t h e m a t i c s and linguistics s e e m s very probable. And it may b e this a b s e n c e of a u t o n o m y of the Sulba-sutru with regard to other disciplines, which h a s given to ancient Indian geometry its specificity

50

Pierre-Syluain Filliozat

and which explains that the Indian mathematician, in his researches, has not encountered the logical form, comprising theorem and demonstration, which gives to ancient Greek mathematics their originality.

Bhasa and Kalidasa: The Inseparable Divergence Shriniwas Rath

Kalidasa had known Bhasa, Saumilla and Kaviputra asplay wrights of the past, who continued to hold sway in the field of theatre. Unfortunately we know nothing of Saumilla and Kaviputra beyond their enumeration alongside Bhasa. Dandi and Banabhatta also testify to the widespread fame and immense popularity of Bhasa. 1 Finally, in the course of the next three or four hundred years, Rajasekhara comes forward to record the eminence gained by Svapna-Vasavadattam in withstanding the acid test of time.2 This statement has, in the first place, confirmed thepersisting popularity of Svapna-Vasavadattam and in the second place, has led the way to the discovery of the long-lost plays of Bhana in the second decade of the twentieth century. The spell of Bhasa on the youthful curiosity and idealism of Kalidasa is strikingly evident in the structure and phrasing of the prologue to his Malavikagnimitram. Kalidasa calls himself a 'Vartamana-Kavf or a present-day poet in contrast to Bhasa, Saumilla, Kaviputra and the like of enormous fame. Yearning for instant recognition he invites, in the same breath, the audience or the prudent lot to exercise a certain discrimination between the old and the new on the basis of critical evaluation. This is a complex

52

Shriniwus

Rath

situation. I low could one compare a singular play with almost a bunch of earlier plays? Although Kalidasa sounds as having struck a note of universal interest, seeking to mitigate the lingering discord between the old and the new, the use of the word 4 Anyatarat\ denoting 'either of the two', with reference to Millavikagnimitrarn shifts the focus of attention to the best of the bunch. Kalidasa is so sure of his work outmatching Svapna-Vasavadatlam in the critical estimation of the wise that he does not hesitate to call the conformist a fool: Mudhah piini-pralyayii-neya-buddhih. It is very likely that the Svupna-Vasavaduilam of Bhasa continued to draw a good crowd till at least the staging of the first play of Kalidasa. The ascendancy oi Kalidasa's popularity on the Sanskrit stage might as well have contributed to hold the Bhasa plays in check, even in the lifetime oi Kalidasa himself. May be the old folk in the land of Avanti, said to be well-versed in Udayana-Katha in M^//^J/7//7////\nvedtheirproficiency totheUdayana-plnys of Bhasa, which had in the meantime, lost currency for the younger people. Be that as it may, Kalidasa finds it difficult to reconcile himself to the plot construction of Svapna-Vasuvadattam and decides to better the perspective in his Millmnka^iiiinitmni. The centraltheme of Sr.Y//;////is Uday ana's devotion to Vasavadatta. Under t he strain of certa in political compulsions Yaugand ha ray ana concocts a plot with the consent o( Vasavadatta. Both of them are declared to have been consumed by a devastating fire at 1 .avanaka, whereas they move away incognito to Magadha as pilgrims. Vasavadatta is entrusted to the care of princess Padma vatl, who in turn gets married to Udayana. Even after the marriage Udayana continues to entertain a strong bond of attachment with Vasavadatta. Padmavati and her attendants including Vasavadatta overhear the king, confiding in Vasantaka, the jester, to this effect with tears in his eyes, and Padmavati does try to console him. Now Padmavati is reported to be ill with a severe headache. Vasantaka leads the king to Samudra-grha. It is found to be vacant and the king sits down to wait and falls asleep on the bed dreaming about Vasavadatta. Vasavadatta is next to enter the room and finds her husband asleep. The king wakes up and catches a glimpse of Vasavadatta while she manages to run away. Vasantaka tries to explain the whole thing as a dream. Udayana is informed of the successful military manoeuvrings to thwart the aggression of Aruni. Tnspite of the final victory, the recovery of the Ghosavati lute

Bhasa and Kalidasa: The Inseparable Direryrnee

53

r e n e w s t h e grief of t h e k i n g for V a s a v a d a t t a . P a d m a v a t i i d e n t i f i e s V a s a v a d a t t a t h r o u g h her p o r t r a i t r e c e i v e d from Ujjain. Y a u g a n d h a r a y a n a r e a p p e a r s to c l a i m h i s s o - c a l l e d s i s t e r a n d is f o r g i v e n for h i s s c h e m i n g . U d a y a n a d e c i d e s t o v i s i t Ujjain w i t h Vasavadatta and Padmavati. K a l i d a s a s e e m s t o h a v e s e t h i s e y e s on t h e a p p a r e n t i n c o n g r u i t i e s of SvnpiuhVasazHidathvu a n d p l a n n e d to d e v i s e a c o m p l e t e contrast to t h e t h e m a t i c s t r u c t u r e w i t h a m o r e c o n v i n c i n g a n d r e a l i s t i c a p p r o a c h in h i s MiJlmukrignimitmm. Political a s c e n d a n c y g a i n e d t h r o u g h t h e m i l i t a r v a c t i o n led b y R u m a n v a n o r V l r a s e n a c o n s t i t u t e s a c o m m o n b a c k g r o u n d t o b o t h t h e p l a y s . T h e c h a r a c t e r i z a t i o n of U d a y a n a w i t h r e g a r d t o h i s g r o w i n g i n t e n s i t y of grief a t t h e l o s s oi h i s e a r l i e r l o v e in t h e f a c e oi h i s s e c o n d m a r r i a g e w i t h a y o u n g e r m a i d e n i s c o m p l e t e l y r e v e r s e d in t h e p o r t r a y a l oi A g n i m i t r a . K a l i d a s a v i s u a l i z e s A g n i m i l r a to r e p r e s e n t t h e n o r m a l m a l e a l t i t u d e of p a s s i o n a n d t e n d e r n e s s t o w a r d s t h e object of h i s d e s i r e s . T h e d r a m a t i c d e v i c e of B h a s a in c r e a t i n g a s c a r e a b o u t t h e s n a k e a t t h e e n t r a n c e oi a v a c a n t S a m u d r a - g r h a in t h e fifth a c t of SvnpiuiVdsniHidattiini h a s b e e n r e s u r r e c t e d by K a l i d a s a at t h e d o o r s t e p oi h i s S a m u d r a - g r h a in t h e f o u r t h a c t oi Mtllnvikii^Tunitnim to b u i l d a more ellective d r a m a t i c situation. Kalidasa h a s consciously opted to n a m e t h e m e e t i n g p l a c e oi M a l a v i k a a n d A g n i m i t r a a l s o a s Samudra-grha. K a l i d a s a is p r o m p t e d b y a p o w e r f u l u r g e to e n t e r t h e s p i r i t of e v e r y t h i n g a v a i l a b l e in l i t e r a r y o r c u l t u r a l h e r i t a g e a n d t u r n it t i m e l e s s . T h i s is n o t t h e p l a c e e i t h e r to d i s c u s s K a l i d a s a a s a n i n h e r i t o r of t h e l i t e r a r y t r a d i t i o n or to a s s e s s H h a s a for i n s b e q u e s t s to t h e w o r t h y s u c c e s s o r . It is t h e i n s e p a r a b l e d i v e r g e n c e oi i n t e r e s t in t h e m a t i c a p p r o a c h w i t h r e g a r d t o t h e d e n o u e m e n t b e t w e e n B h a s a a n d K a l i d a s a t h a t s e e k s o u r i n d u l g e n c e h e r e . K a l i d a s a is c e r t a i n l y free t o t r y h i s h a n d in r e s t r u c t u r i n g t h e p l o t t o s u i t h i s i m a g i n a t i o n a t a n y p o i n t oi t i m e after H h a s a , b u t t h e plot c o n s t r u c t i o n oiSvapna-Vasaviidattam s e e m s t o h a v e b e e n conditioned by a definite f r a m e of m i n d p o s s e s s e d of p r o m p t r e a c t i o n t o t h e c o n t e m p o r a r y c o u r s e of e v e n t s . A c a r e f u l s t u d y of t h e e p i l o g u e s o r T V h a r a t a - V a k y a s ' in t h e p l a y s of B h a s a r e f l e c t s v a l u a b l e c h a n g e s in t h e s o c i o - p o l i t i c a l c o n d i t i o n s oi t h e c o u n t r y . In h i s e p i l o g u e to Kanuiblulram4 b h a s a s e e m s t o f o c u s on t h e f a i l u r e oi t h e G a n a r a j y a s b y p r a y i n g for t h e e m e r g e n c e oi a m o n a r c h e n d o w e d w i t h k i n g l y q u a l i t i e s . I lis d r e a m s c o m e t r u e a n d

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h e is fortunate to w i t n e s s the rise of a central authority exercising effective control over a d v e r s a r i e s . Bhasa is quick to c o m m i t h i s s u p p o r t to this m o n a r c h in h i s epilogue to Urubhangarh — 'Gam Patu No Narapatih Samitaripaksah.' It is in this play that A s v a t t h a m a enthrones Durjaya without a coronation merely by dint of verbal p r o c l a m a t i o n by a Brahmin. 5 Since there is nothing a b o u t a son of D u r y o d h a n a in the epic, B h a s a ' s invention d r a w s a close parallel to C h a n d r a g u p t a , said to h a v e been declared a king b y C h a n a k y a , a Brahmin m u c h in a d v a n c e of a formal coronation. With the g r a d u a l consolidation of p o w e r and his rise to s u p r e m a c y , this Raja or ' N a r a p a t f is called 4 Raja-Sirhha*orthebcstofkings in the estimation of Bhasa. B h a s a h a s a d o p t e d a c o m m o n epilogue to the next t h r e e p l a y s , n a m e l y , Pratijna, Abhiseka and Avimaraka. The epilogue, "May the cattle (wealth) h e secure; M a y the external aggression s u b s i d e : M a y our Raja-Sirhha rule over this entire e x p a n s e of the country" — s p e a k s of a s h a t t e r e d e c o n o m y s u b s e q u e n t to the r e t r e a t of A l e x a n d e r ' s Indian c a m p a i g n a n d a s yet insecure b o r d e r s of the country. Besides s o m e three h u n d r e d t h o u s a n d h e a d of cattle taken a w a y from India, the lifting of cattle continued to b e a favourite p a s t i m e with the soldiers stationed in foreign settlements s c a t t e r e d all over. The first half of the epilogue to Pancharatram p r e s e n t s a s p e c t a c u l a r c h a n g e in the p e r s p e c t i v e ; " W h a t a joy ! All of u s a r e h a p p y with the attainment of e x p a n d e d fraternity". 6 In s e e m s r e a s s u r e d at the stability and i n d e p e n d e n c e of t h e n o w powerful m o n a r c h y . In o r d e r to e s t a b l i s h h i s point, B h a s a m a k e s his D u r y o d h a n a p r e s e n t half his k i n g d o m to the P a n d a v a s . 7 Bhasa h a s taken e n o r m o u s liberties with the Mahabharala story, to suit the festive mood of his a u d i e n c e in celebrating the treaty b e t w e e n Seleukos Nikator and Chandragupta Maurya. A voluntary s u r r e n d e r of four p r o v i n c e s in the b a c k g r o u n d of a l o n g - d r a w n hostility is a s unbelievable a s D u r y o d h a n a h a n d i n g over willingly, half the territory of his e m p i r e to the P a n d a v a s . S u b s e q u e n t to this expansion of jurisdiction, a full f a c e p i c t u r e of the territory extending u p to the o c e a n s with H i m a l a y a and Vindhya a s its earrings, u n d e r the unrivalled sovereign s w a y of Raja-Sirhha, a s s u m e s the right connotation to constitute a c o m m o n epilogue 8 to t h e next three p l a y s , n a m e l y Balacaritam, Duta-Vakyam a n d Svapna-Vasavadattam. Bhasa h a s consciously planned t h e p u r p o s i v e u s e of his d r a m a t i c art. H i s explicit c o m m i t m e n t to contemporary relevance is conveyed

Bhasa and Kalidasa: The Inseparable Divergence

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by a specially coined term 'Kala-Sarhvadi' in Pratima and Pratijiia. Bhasa docs not, for a moment, seem to exploit a traditional story for his Udayana plays. Udayana, Pradyota, Vasavadatta and may be even Darsaka are drawn from history but Yaugandharayana and Pa dmavati are certainly concoctcdby Bhasa to suit his convenience. He has used Yaugandharayana as a replica of Chanakya. The description of Yaugandharayana on his entry in the fourth act of Pratijiia turns out to be a virtual portrait of Chanakya. He is compared with the lightning cloud revealing, at the back a bit of 'Chandra' or the moon. 9 Chanakya is well known for his pratijiia to justify the title of the play also. Chanakya has also picked up a verse from this very play in order to quote in his Artha-Sastra.™ At this period of time Bhasa seems to have known the Greek theatre at close enongh quarters to introduce an artifical elephant on the model of the Trojan horse, while Bhamaha is distanced by almost a millennium to find it incredible. Bhasa has avoided the appearance of Udayana and Vasavadatta on the stage since his focus of attention is Chanakya represented by Yaugandharayana. In the same way, the contemporary relevance of Seleukos is al so conveyed to the audience in Paricharatram, by forcing Duryodhana, against the epic content, to surrender half of his kingdom to the Pandavas. Seleukos is known to have crossed the Indus in 305 B.C. to recover the Macedonian conquests and according to Vincent A. Smith, " — t h e hosts of Chandra gupta were too strong for the invader and Seleukos was obliged to retire and conclude a humiliating peace." 11 Vrddha-Gopalaka the poor old herdsman of Bhasa is seen clamouring for peace with the words 'Santir-Bhavatu' etc. in the Paricharatram. Bhasa had all along emphasized the futility of wars and made his Duryodhana explicitly realize the same in Urubhangam and Pancharatram.Thc: conclusion of peace in or about 303 B.C. with Seleukos provided Chandragupta and his mentor Chanakya with an opportunity to reconstruct the administrative nnd economic institutions in the best interest of the empire. Bhasa a;s a witness to these monumental efforts has set his eyes on the consolidation of peace and subsequent disarmament. In his Ddlacharitam he fights to the finish the forces of disruption and concludes, "Give up this excitement of war and what is there to do with the weaponry too"— Sanndliam Ty.iiata Kimayudhaischa Kdryamn The message ot Diitavakyam stands out in bold relief with the personified entry of

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weapons and their voluntary withdrawal followed by a touching farewell to each weapon individually and collectively. The concept of disarmament propounded by Bhasa is unique for his age of monarchy. He is alive to the dangers of oppression by despotic rulers and docs not hesitate to portray his Vasudeva pleading guilty of reckless indiscretion in so many words, "Sudarsana! In anger I forgot my duty." 1 3 Bhasa's commitment to peace and contemporary relevance is genuine. He does not aim at converting the stock of popular tales, mythological stories of historical events into dramatic composition. In his support to monarchy, he has always tried to preserve his right to independent judgement. The situation in Svapna-Vasavadattam is altogether different. Ratification of the treaty between Seleukos and Chandragupta masterminded by Chanakya culminates in a matrimonial alliance. 14 The entry of the Greek princess seems to have pushed the mother of Bindusara to a secondary position. Bhasa, at the same time, seems to harbour some ah initio reservation about the whole situation. The proposal of Virata in offering Uttara's hand in marriage to Arjuna in Ptmcharatram draws a quick comment from Yudhisthira, 'Etadavatiatatii sirah' or this brings our heads down with shame. The situation is reversed subsequently, with the conditional acceptance of the proposal in favour of his own son, to 'Etad unnalam sirah' or this is that holds our heads up. 15 Who knows, Bhasa might have reconciled to the marriage if it had been with Bindusara ? However Bhasa does not want to spare Chanakya now and starts rearranging the cast of his earlier Pratijnd to emphasize his reaction to the changed circumstances by inducting Padmavati to represent the Creek princess. He makes the bold move to throw his weight behind the older queen (mother of Bindusara) by restoring Vasavadatta to Udayana. The play opens in the vicinity of a hermitage with the entry of Yaugandharayana travelling incognito as a mendicant along with Vasavadatta as his sister dressed in Avanti attire. Yaugandharayana seems tohavebeen receiving the willing cooperation of Vasavadatta in implementing his plot to hasten a materimonial alliance with the kingdom of Magadha. He reiterates his faith in the predicted marriage of Padmavati and Udayana. Vasavadatta knows nothing about the prediction and feels elated to note that the hand of

Bhasa and Kdliddsa: The Inseparable Divergence

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Padmavati had been sought for her own brother. Her singular devotion to the well-being of her beloved husband has prompted herto support thcefforts of Yaugandharayana and as such she fails to scent the danger to the interests of her personal life and domestic harmony. She is soon assigned the protective care of the princess Padmavati. She is left alone to grin and bear the wedding ceremony of her husband and Padmavati. It is the philosophic indifference of an astute politician like Yaugandharayana that sets the trap from behind the curtain. Padmavati seems to accept the developments innocently. Bhasa does not allow Padmavati to share the same amount of tenderness and sympathy as Vasavadatta. Padmavati with her reported headache is not found occupying the k Samudra-grha\ However, the quest leads to the dream encounter between Udayana and Vasavadatta and nobody as such bothers to trace the whereabouts of Padmavati later. The dramatic device of creating a sea re with the snake culminates in pointing to a dubious comparison between Padmavati and the snake. Ending a sentence with the word 'Kakodara' or snake and beginning the next with Padmavati provides the Vidusaka with a comfortable scope to exploit the proximity and conjoin both the words to denote differently. Bhasa is known to introduce Patdkd-Sthdnaka on the same lines. It is interesting to note here that the Vidusaka in the traditional 'Koodiattam' performance of the fifth act of Svapna-Vdsavadallam warns the king to stay back since he had sighted a snake wriggling on the floor. The king tries to verify the situation and calls him a fool for his inability to see the garland made to assume the movements of the snakeby a little gust of the evening breeze. 16 At this point the Vidusaka interprets with a hint of glee the factual observation of the king to mean a 'foolish she snake'—instead of the garland. He connects his own appellation 'Murkha' or fool with 'Sarpa' the snake and the feminine gender used in Sanskrit for 'Mala' the garland and ends up in amusing the audience with his ingenious idea of a 'foolish she snake' Sanskrit plays are known to start with a prayer dedicated to the welfare of the spectators commonly conveyed by the work 'Vah'. It is only Bhasa who has made two exceptions. He has used 'To' in Avimaraka and 'TvanY in Svapna-Vdsavadaliam. 'To' in Avimaraka in convincing since 'the earth beneath one royal umbrella' could not have been offered collectively to the spectators under a monarchy. The monarch was either seated prominently in the audience or it

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must have been a special show for the monarch and his retinue. A.C. Woolnerhas unnecessarily changed T e ' to Tarn' and translated it to 'this earth' (Tarn Vasudharh) with a footnote for the change. 17 Fortunately he has retained Tvarh' in singular in the present context of Svapna-Vasavadattam and translated it as 'thee'. Does this mean that Bhasa has succeeded to arrange a special inaugural show for his beloved 'Raja Simha' or Chandragupta Maurya to witness the performance ? If the play was intended to emphasize the comparative importance of the senior queen as against the newly wedded princess instrumental in the expansion of the empire and political supremacy, the possibility of the dedication to the monarch looks all the more justified. In the light of the foregoing discussion the play may be easily dated between the ratification of the treaty in 303 B.C. and the imperial succession in 298 B.C. of Bindusara. With the allocation of three years for the preparation and staging of Balacharitam and Dfitavakyam after the production of Pancharatram in 303 B.C., our choice for theproduction of Svapna-Vasavadattam isfurthernarrowed down to the last two years (299-298 B.C.) of the rule of Chandragupta Maurya. Since the death of a monarch of the stature of Chandragupta Maurya could not pass unnoticed by the contemporary world, the possibility of Svapna-Vasavadattam affecting the monarch to abdicate in favour of his son may also notbe ruled out. Bhasa may havebeen humbled or silenced for the defiance of authority, the fire (Chanakya?) has certainly failed to consume the great play. Be that as it may, tradition has always held Svapna-Vasavadattam in high esteem. The theatrical norms adopted by Bhasa seem to differ from the convention prescribed by Bharata Muni in his Natyasastra. A.C. Woolner feels that the death of Duryodhana on the stage was introduced deliberately against orthodox Sanskrit dramaturgy and reflects, "Does it date from a time before the convention was fixed, or does it represent a defiance of that convention at a later date?" Although we do not know the specific norms of Indian theatre prevalent before Bharata, the possibility of his discarding alien influences on the Indian stage may not be ruled out. The purposive character of the plays of Bhasa in this case turns out to be a good example of the fact that Bhasa was quick to assimilate new ideas or influences of Greek theatre. Bhasa is not alone. The stage of Sudraka also represents apre-Bharata model. Indiahas assimilated

Bhasa and Kalidasa: The Inseparable Divergence influences from many cultures and the plays of Bhasa provide ample scope for a fresh evaluation in this direction. Kalidasa is certainly inspired by the fundamentals of Bharata's Natyasastra. He is a poet of perfection. His concern to improve upon the plays of Bhasa is both natural and desirable. It is not without reason that Kalidasa has set a high goal to compete with his own mentor. The unconsciou s cmula tion of Bha sa' s style in the prologue of Vikramorvasiyam speaks for the powerful influence of Bhasa and the inseparable divergence between the two becomes all the more evident in the comparable situations in Svapna and Malavika. References 1. Suvibhakta-Mukhddyangair-Vyakta-Laksana-Vrltibhih j Pareto'Pi Slhilo Bhdsah sarircnaiva Ndtakaih // D a n d i n in Avantisundari-Katha Cited in Indian Hist. Quarterly, 1929, p. 726. Sutradhdra-Krtdrambhair Ndtakair Bahu-Bhumikaih / Sapatdkair-Yaso Lebhe Bha so Devakulairiva // Bana Bhatta, Harsacharitam 2. Bhdsa-Nataka-Chakre'smin Chhekaih Ksipte Pariksitum / Svapna-Vasavadattasya Dahako'bhunna Pavakah // — R a j a s c k h a r a q u o t e d in Suktimuktavali 3. Purva-Megha, 30. 4. Sarvatra Sarhpadah Santu Nasyantu Vipadah Sadd / Raja Rajagunopeto Bhumimekah Prasastu Nah // —Karnabhararn, 1.25 5. Vindbhisekam Raja Tva?n Viproktair Vachanair Bhava / Urubhangaw, 1.65 6. Hanta Sarve Prasannah Smah Pravraddha-Kula-Sangrahdh / Imamapi Mahim Krtsndm Rdja-Simhah Prasastu Nah 11 —Parlchardtram, 3.26 7. Bddham Dattam Maya Rdjyam Pdndavebhyo Yathdpuram / —Panchardtram, 3.25 8. Imam Sdgara-Paryantdm Himavad-Vindhya-Kundaldm / Mahim Ekatapatrdhkam Rdja-Simhah Prasastu Nah // 9. Satadidiva Payodah Kinchid-Udgirna-Chandrah Pratijrld, 4.3 10. Navam Sdravam etc. Pratijrld, 4.2 11. Vincent A. Sm\ih,The Early History of India, Oxford University P r e s s , 1924, p . 125. 12. Bdlacharitam, 5.13.

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13. Sudarsana ! Rosat Samudacharo Naveksitah. Gamyatam Svanilayam Eva. Dutavakyam, after 1.46 14. Vincent A. Smith, op. cit., p . 125. 15. Pancharatram, before and after 2.71. 16. Svapna-Vasavadattam, 5.3. 17. A.C. Woolner and Lakshman Sarup, Thirteen Plays ofBhasa, Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, 1985. Avimaraka, p. 63. 18. Ibid, The Broken Thighs, p.43.

Prakrt Poetry: Hala's SattasaV Herman Tieken

I When in Visakhadatta's Mudrardksasa (ninth century) the snakecharmer Jirnavisa is not allowed into Minister Canakya's presence (the latter is apparently not in the mood for a rope trick) he asks the servant to inform the minister that he is not only a snake-charmer but also a Prakrt poet. In evidence of his art he presents a verse written by him, which runs as follows: All bees should listen carefully to the way thatbeehums, who all on his own managed to suck the honey from the flower to the very last drop. Upon hearing this verse Canakya realizes that the snake-charmer is actually one of his own spies he had sent toPataliputra,thc "City of Flowers", who has returned with information. Thevcrscisprcscntedasa specimen of a spccificpoetic tradition. A similar function is involved in the verse the heroine of Kalidasa's play Sakuntala has inscribed with her nails on a leaf: Why arc you so cruel and won't you tell me what you think of me? For night and day love torments my body which belongs to you.

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Both verses are in the so-called Maharastri dialect, though it should be noted that Jirnavisa's disguise as a snake-charmer must have been more convincing than that as a Prakrt poet, as his verse contains a capital blunder which in enemy country could have cost him his life. Otherwise, these lines, with their coded message clothed in a description of a scene from nature, are perfect examples of a well-known, independent poetic tradition in Maharastri Prakrt, and so is the verse produced by Sakuntala, in which she complains about the painful nature of love. Our earliest source for this type of poetry is the Sattasai (Saptasatl), a collection of 700 erotic verses (gatlws), which, according to tradition, were compiled by the first-century Satavahana king Hala. The S a t a v a h a n a s ruled over p a r t s of the present-day state of Maharashtra, and many of the scenes depicted in the Sattasai have been set in this area. Thus, the poems mention, among other things, the Godavari, the Narmada, and the Vindhyas. It is due to the great prestige and popularity of this text from Maharashtra that its dialect has come to be known under the name Maharastri. By its own declaration (v. 2) the Sattasai forms a side show to the Kamasutra and other learned treatises on love: Those who loudly claim to know all there is to be known from learned treatises on love, but at the same time fail to understand this nectar-like poem in Prakrt, by reading or by listening to it, why should they not change their tune? While texts like the Kamasutra teach an ideal form of love-life, available only to the rich and the smart, the Sattasai shows love in all its complications whether arising out of jealousy, separation, poverty or stupidity. The verses of the Sattasai describe how people, mainly the women involved, react to the various awkward situations which arise in the course of their lives as lovers or as wives, and what they say in such situations. The Sattasai offers examples of both superbly clever and completely foolish, or even self-destructive reactions. As a whole, however, this poetry was clearly aimed at a sophisticated audience, or reading public, consisting of quick-witted people who were able at a glance to grasp the implications of the scenes and to discriminate between the deft reaction and the foolish one. Or, as the seventh-century poet Bana wrote:

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Satavahana made an immortal compilation (treasure) of beautiful sayings containing pure descriptions (of pure jewels) which was pleasing to people with sophisticated tastes. Apart from the pun on "compilation** and "treasure", this verse also contains a pun on the word ''sophisticated*' (agrdmya), in that indeed many of the scenes depicted in the Sattasai are set in the village (grama). Before turning to these village scenes, which form probably the most interesting part of the Sattasai, it should also be noted that the imagery in the verses is almost exclusively derived from nature, not as something known only from a distance, but as part of the immediate surroundings. Thus, when a woman wants make clear to an impatient lover that he should slow his pace and proceed in a more gentle way, instead of telling him so directly, she draws his attention to a scene in the surrounding nature: The bees are buzzing wildly, eager to taste the sweet honey, but the lotus will open only after it has been kissed by the rays of the sun (v. 495). Verses like this are fairly common in the Sattasai. In the following example (v. 394) a woman complains about her husband who failed to come home before the onset of the rains. She puts the blame for this delay on his chasing after some mirage instead of being practical and thinking about his wife: The peacock stretches its long neck in order to drink, of all rain drops, that particular one trembling on the tip of a blade of grass, which looks like a pearl pierced by an emerald-green needle. Another example is verse 462: Satisfied and motionless, thebees sit on top of the white waterlilics: they look like the knots with which the darkness sealed the flowers before it was chased away by the sun. Last night* s love bouts seem to have left the lovers exhausted but content! These three verses are also good examples of the secret language used in this poetry to deal with the subject of love and sex. It should

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be noted that the cast of the Sattasal is made up of the family, that is, husband, wife, her companion, her parents, and her in-laws. Within the family one docs not openly show that one is in love or made love the night before. If a person cannot help showing it, he orsheisnotharshly rebuked or openly corrected. Usually, recourse is taken to teasing. Alternatively, the situation is presented with humour, as is the case in, for instance, verse 433: First she tried brushing, next she tried washing, and, when that did not help, she tried beating: the foolish wife did not know how to get rid of the marks of her husband's nails on her breasts. II Many of the scenes are set in the village, and feature its inhabitants, among them the ploughman, the farmer, the hunter, and the headman. Occasionally also forest people are described, such as the Pulindas. When these people occur it is often in the role of the proverbial fool or blunderer. They serve as a counterbalance to a category of more successful lovers. The latter type figures in verse 188, which describes a woman who is completely in charge of the situation and deftly deals with her unfaithful husband without suffering from it herself: By disentangling the hair of her husband, who had fallen down at her feet, from the clasp of her anklet, she made it clear (without saying one word) that her heart had not yet returned from its journey into the Land of Sulking. This woman has her opposite in the Pulinda's wife, a tribal woman living on the slopes of the Vindhyas, depicted in 636: After she had seen her husband's lip which wa s swollen by a bee sting the Pulinda's wife, burning with jealousy, walked away from him and stood in the shade of another tree. Apart from the fact that the woman failed to notice the presumably obvious (!) difference between a lip swollen by a bee sting and one hurt from vehement kisses, the point of the verse seems to lie basically in the primitive way in which she gives vent to her anger,

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namely ,by refusing to share any longer with her husband the shade of the same tree. The proverbial nature of the villagers' stupidity becomes clear in verse 643, in which the farmer figures in a comparison: Honey bee, how stupid you are to leave the lotus for sake of the ripe, aromatic woodapple. But you will discover your mistake when you touch it, just like that farmer who tried to grab a sweetmeat in a painting. Such stupidity proves disastrous in matters of love, as shown by verse 636 quoted above, and, again, by verse 360: The cotton, bent down by the burden of its half-opened pods, looks like people laughing, as the ploughman runs away from his wife, leaving her for dead, while she has merely lost consciousness in the ecstasy of their love-making. Ill But the love-life of the villagers is not hampered only by their stupidity. Another complication is the hard, exhausting work on the fields, which leaves them no energy to satisfy their wives: The farmer's wife, who failed to reach her climax as her husband had fallen asleep, exhausted from dragging the plough through the thick mud, cursed the rainy season. However understandable her disappointment, the w o m a n ' s reaction, cursing the rainy season, is foolish, because it is selfdestructive, as the harvest, and with it the well-being of the family, depends on an abundant rainfall. The theme of impossibility to combine love and work returns in the verses depicting the hunter. The hunter seems to have chosen in favour of his wife, but making his wife happy has exhausted him so much that he is no longer able to draw his bow. As a result he is forced to pare it more thin: Look! From the courtyard of the hunter' shut a whirlwind throws up a line of shavings from his bow. It looks like a flag proclaiming his wife's bliss (v. 120);

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and as a result his arrows have lost the speed and the power required to kill an elephant: My son, who formerly needed no more than one arrow to turn the elephant-cow into a widow, is so completely devastated by the glances my daughter-in-law casts at him, that nowadays he has to take with him a whole quiverfull (v. 632). Being no longer able to kill an elephant, the hunter has turned to meeker game: The hunter's wife walks amid her co-wives who are decked out with pearls taken from the skulls of elephants, flaunting a peacock feather on her ear (v. 173). The young wife's pride is of course completely misplaced, as it is impossible to sustain the family by hunting peacocks. Moreover, marriage has made the hunter sentimental and because of that he is no longer fit for carrying out his profession: The doe, which had been set up as a decoy, glanced full of desire at the lonely stag so that the hunter, who had a loving wife himself, dropped his bow (v. 620). A figure caught in a dilemma similar to that of the hunter is the wrestler: Woman, shouldn't you be ashamed instead of dancing, while the beating of the drum to celebrate your husband's victory in the wrestling-match proclaims your unhappiness in love (v. 687). To this category also belong those poems which describe the wayfarer. The upkeep of his family forces the husband to travel through an inhospitable, sun-scorched country, and to lcavebehind his wife worrying about his fate and anxiously awaiting his safe return home.

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M a n y a w k w a r d situations arise b e c a u s e p e o p l e h a v e m a r r i e d the w r o n g p a r t n e r . W h e r e there is a winner, there a l s o is a loser. Thus, while the p o o r tenant farmer h a s m a n a g e d to m a r r y the l a n d h o l d e r ' s d a u g h t e r , she, a c c u s t o m e d a s s h e w a s to s o m e m e a s u r e of comfort a n d sophistication in her f a t h e r ' s h o u s e , suffers greatly in her n e w environment: The p l o u g h m a n d o e s not u n d e r s t a n d a thing, not even slowly. His genteel wife is dying, b u t w h o can w e tell, for in this w r e t c h e d village t h e r e is no h e a l e r for h e r ills (v. 602). The w o m a n m i s s e s the b r i g h t conversation and jokes m a d e in her father's h o u s e : W h o s h o u l d I glance at, w h o s h o u l d I talk to a b o u t m y p l e a s u r e s and my griefs, w h o s h o u l d I h a v e fun with, in this d r e a r y village full of yokels? (164). The l a n d h o l d e r himself fares no better. H e h a s m a r r i e d the tenant f a r m e r ' s d a u g h t e r w h o , coming from a s i m p l e family, is lacking in sophistication, a s b e c o m e s evident from the laborious w a y in which she, in the following v e r s e , tries to attract her h u s b a n d ' s attention: W h e n the f a r m e r ' s d a u g h t e r s a w h e r h u s b a n d , the l a n d h o l d e r ' s son, s t a n d i n g on top of the b a n k of the G o d a v a n , s h e b e g a n to c l a m b e r u p w a r d s , deliberately choosing a s t e e p and difficult p a t h (107). C o m p a r e t h e f a r m e r ' s d a u g h t e r ' s strategy with the primitive w a y in w h i c h the Pulinda w o m a n referred to earlier e x p r e s s e d her anger, n a m e l y , by leaving her h u s b a n d to stand in the s h a d e of a n o t h e r tree. In the h i e r a r c h y of village life the tenant farmer s t a n d s at the bottom. A b o v e h i m h e finds the landholder, and at the apex s t a n d s the village h e a d m a n . In choosing a wife the latter is, h o w e v e r , not a w h i t better than the o t h e r s . H e h a s m a r r i e d the l a n d h o l d e r ' s d a u g h t e r , w h o frustrates h e r h u s b a n d ' s ambition to be c o n s i d e r e d a real Ksatriya. For s h e p r o v e s unable to fulfill hi s final wish, w h i c h is to h a v e h e r a d d lustre to his funeral a s a sati:

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The landholder's daughter extinguishes the fire, its flames already shooting up high, as she starts to sweat lying in the arms of her dearest husband at the occasion of following him into death (v. 407).

A considerable number of verses deal with the problems the wife encounters in her husband's household. After marriage the girl is to live with her in-laws. For them, however, she is just one more mouth to feed. She is expected not to embarrass the family with extravagant desires, which proves especially hard on her when she is pregnant and has to "eat for t w o " (dolwda): The pregnant wife living in a poor man's household, when asked what she desired to eat, asked again for water, as she did not want to embarrass her husband (v. 472); or: The poor man's pregnant wife, knowing the state of the household, kept her desires to herself, as she also does with the improper words addressed to her by her-in-laws (290). This verse introduces yet another problem the young wife encounters in her new environment, namely, the sexual advances she has to endure from some members of her husband's family, notably her husband's younger brother: She does not complain about her brother-in-law's constant teasing, not because she has improper intentions herself, but because she fears to become the cause of a break-up of the household. But she cannot prevent her body from growing thin (59). On top of that her mother-in-law keeps a close watch on her every movement, and, almost out of habit, finds fault with everything she does. Their relation comes to a crisis when the husband is away from home for a longer period. In these circumstances the motherin-law doubles her watch over her son's wife, a fact which under no circumstances is to be misconstrued as selfless pity:

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The mother-in-law did not l e a v e her d a u g h t e r - i n - l a w ' s side, w h o w a s actually close to dying after seeing the first rain-clouds a p p e a r in the sky, a s if the girl w a s a p r e c i o u s elixir with w h i c h s h e could bring her son b a c k to life (v. 336). The m o t h e r - i n - l a w ' s only concern is the well-being of the family, and the only thing w h i c h might m o v e her in relation t o h e r d a u g h t e r in-la w is the fear that her son m i g h t actually h a v e died on one of his travels. The following v e r s e s h o w s h o w things m a y d e t e r i o r a t e before the mother-in-law relents: The mother-in-law, w h o is usually angry at w h a t h e v e r her s o n ' s wife d o e s , w a s m o v e d to t e a r s a s the girl collapsed in front of her, seeing the b r a c e l e t s slip from her a r m s (v. 493). The v e r s e s d i s c u s s e d a b o v e of necessity cover only a small s a m p l e of the m a n y situations d e p i c t e d in the Sattasal. In addition, one m a y find, for instance, v e r s e s w h i c h deal with the secret m e e t i n g s of the lovers, or rather, with their frustrations at being unable to meet, with the h u s b a n d ' s unfaithfulness and the w o m a n ' s sulking, with the h u s b a n d ' s a b s e n c e from h o m e and his failure to return in time before the r a i n s h a v e started, with t h e w i f e ' s grief on account of her h u s b a n d ' s a b s e n c e or h i s being d e l a y e d , and with the h u s b a n d taking on a younger, second wife and his s u b s e q u e n t neglect of the first one. Together with the situations d i s c u s s e d a b o v e , t h e s e form the c o m m o n stock of t h e m e s of all later erotic p o e t r y , w h e t h e r in P r a k r t or in Sanskrit. The Sattasai the earliest e x a m p l e of this literary genre, s e e m s to h a v e set the trend once and for all. VI A s a l r e a d y d i s c u s s e d , the poetry of the Sattasai w a s aimed at a s o p h i s t i c a t e d a u d i e n c e . The v e r s e s containing coded m e s s a g e s a p p e a l e d in p a r t i c u l a r to this a u d i e n c e ' s intellectual capacities. T h e v e r s e s a b o u t the villagers s e e m to a d d to this an element of h u m o u r , or at least, w e m a n y a s s u m e t h a t they also served to a m u s e the a u d i e n c e . It s h o u l d b e noted that the h u m o u r is occasionally of a very w r y n a t u r e , a s in the c a s e of, for instance, v e r s e 169:

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The poor farmer keeps hanging on in the fields, though nothing is left for him to do there. He does not go home, wishing to avoid the pain of an empty house after his wife's death. Underlying this pathetic picture of the farmer is the idea that, if one can possibly afford it, one should have more than one wife. It should be noted, however, that the extent to which the poetry of the Sattasai evokes the ideals of a leisured class of sophisticated, learned, and, above all, rich people is, literally, an ideal. Humour at the cost of a poor and foolish farmer can only be appreciated if it is realized that no one is excepted from being a fool once in a while, and that poverty is lying around the corner for everybody. The farmer and his likes are just the projections or surrogate scapegoats. VII The question then remains why this poetry was composed in this particular Prakrt dialect, or why in a Prakrt at all and not in Sanskrit? The second question is probably the easier one to answer. The verses imitate words spoken to oneself or to a close friend or relative about highly intimate matters. While, as the dramatic literature shows, Sanskrit is the language reserved for conversation about learned topics, Prakrt is thelanguage for ordinary conversation. But why then has this particular Prakrt dialect been used, which of all Prakrts appears to be the one removed furthest away from Sanskrit? In this connection it should be noted that the Sattasai is the very first text which was composed in this dialect, which means that the origin of Maharastri as a literary dialect is, most likely, directly connected with this particular type of poetry. Given the fact that the scenes are set in the village among simple people it might well be possible that we have to do with an imitation of a rustic dialect. If so, it is interesting to see its subsequent career: this "rustic" dialect has become the most dominant of Prakrt dialects, in tha t i t ha s come to be used for epic poetry, as in the Setubandha and Gaudavaho, and for narrative literature, notably by the Jainas. Reference * The Sattasai is also known as Gatlidsaptasati, Saptasati or Gahakosa. The numbers of the verses refer to the edition by A. Weber, Ucbcr das Saptasatakam

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des Hala. AKM VII, 4. Leipzig 1881. Another good edition, especially because it includes the complete text of the commentary by Garigadhara, is the one by Durgaprasad and Pansikar, Kavvamala 21 (Bombay 1911). Recently, an edition and translation have appeared of the (Jaina) version commented upon by Bhuvanapala: Hala's Gahakosa (GatlidsaptasatJ with the Sanskrit Commentary o/Bhuvanapala, by M.V. Patwardhan, Part I (Ahmedabad 1980), Part II (Delhi 1988). A stcmma of the many available manuscripts has been prepared by Herman Tieken, Hala's Saitasai. Stemma and Translation (GatJias 1-50), with Translation and Notes. (Leiden 19S3. Privately published and available from the author). As to translations, mention may be made of the one by M.V. Patwardhan (see above, Part II) and the one by Radhagovinda Basak, The Prakrit Galhd-saptasati (Calcutta 1971). For a recent poetic translation of a selection of poems, see Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, The Absimt Traveller: Prakrit Love Poetry from the Gdthasaptasati ofSdtavahana Hala (Delhi 1991).

Classical Sanskrit Prose Literature Saroja Bhatc

Introduction When we talk of classical Sanskrit literature we talk of kavy a.This is a wider designation selected by the Indian rhetoric tradition to cover all literary compositions which are works of the imagination and which, to be more precise, belong to the category of what we call belles lettres. The term kavya, literally meaning 'poetry\ thus includes 'non-poetic' compositions such as prose and drama. Therefore, when we deal with classical Sanskrit prose, we actually deal with prosQ-kavya. This implies that, in Sanskrit, prose and poetry are not in contradistinction to each other. On the contrary, they arc two modes of literary expression quite close to each other. They share all the essential characterisations of a literary composition. Prose (gadya) distinguishes itself from poetry (padya) by the non-use of metre. In all other respects they are on par. Versification is a mere outer apparel of poetry rather than a significant, distinct feature. Versification was, in fact, accepted as a convenient mode of composition, even by ancient writers of scientific treatises, as it was suitable for memorizing. Prose was, on the other hand, opted for by commentators on terse texts for writing expository commentaries. Apart from this non-literary option, both prose and poetry shared a common aim, namely, providing the highest aesthetic pleasure through fine embellishment and expression of subtle sentiments.

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N o t w i t h s t a n d i n g this c o m m o n aim, the classical Indian literary genius a p p e a r s to h a v e h a d a special predilection for poetry r a t h e r than p r o s e . A c a s u a l glance at classical Sanskrit literature reveals t h a t t h e great bulk of it c o n s i s t s of poetic compositions. Even the earliest r e c o r d s of literary w o r k s which h a v e survived to this day a r e in t h e form of poetry. This p r e p o n d e r a n c e of poetic literature is c o n s i d e r e d a s d u e to the a p t i t u d e of the Sanskrit l a n g u a g e itself with its extraordinary flexibility, sonorous character and adaptability to different s o u n d combinations. Its suitability for any n u m b e r of metrical p a t t e r n s allured Indian literary artists t o e x p r e s s themselves in r h y t h m i c c o m p o s i t i o n s . Poetry t h u s b e c a m e the n o r m a l m o d e of literary e x p r e s s i o n . It w a s chosen a s an e a s y and convenient style of composition even by a u t h o r s of scientific treatises. An a p p e a l for p r o s e w a s m a d e by e x p e r t s in rhetorics like V a m a n a w h o invited p o e t s to c o m p o s e in p r o s e by declaring TO ^frrf IV+^ wfa "prose is said to b e the t o u c h s t o n e of literary artists." It a p p e a r s from a look into the history of classical Sanskrit literature that this invitation received a not very e n c o u r a g i n g r e s p o n s e and, a p a r t from a few o u t s t a n d i n g p r o s e w o r k s , literary activity in Sanskrit h a s a l w a y s r e m a i n e d a 'poetic' activity'. In spite of poetic lyricism dominating the history of Sanskrit literature, from t h e b e g i n n i n g t h e p r o s c style w a s a d o p t e d for storytelling, the r o o t s of w h i c h are to b e found in the Brahmanical literature of the Vedic period. The simple, artless p r o s e u s e d by the a u t h o r s of t h e B r a h m a n a s of the Black Yajurveda is the first a p p e a r a n c e of p r o s e in S a n s k r i t literature. Later, p r o s e for storytelling w a s opted for by Buddhist and Jain thinkers for the p r o p a g a t i o n of their r e s p e c t i v e religious tenets. Early existence of p r o s e literature in Prakrit is indicated b y inscriptions a s well a s by later references to the Brhatkathd, 'the great story', of G u n a d h y a w h i c h w a s p r e s u m a b l y c o m p o s e d in Prakrit p r o s e before the Christian era and which is r e g a r d e d a s the first great narrative of India. S a n s k r i t inscriptions also d e v e l o p e d a p r o s e which w a s in conformity with the poetic style described and prescribed by rhetoricians. R u d r a d a m a n ' s inscription for instance is considered a s an illustration of the Vaidarbhi style. Literary p r o s e in Sanskrit started in the period after Kalidasa. It h a s contributed to tales, n a r r a t i v e s and r o m a n c e . A brief survey of the p r o s e literature consisting of t h e s e three t y p e s is u n d e r t a k e n here.

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Early Beginning From times i m m e m o r i a l stories h a v e o c c u p i e d t h e h u m a n mind. N a r r a ti v e s , talcs and fables form an important c o m p o n e n t of h u m a n culture. In Sanskrit literature our journey into this g e n r e begins with t h e Vedic period and continues t h r o u g h the g r e a t epic, the Mahabharata a s well a s the P u r a n a s w h i c h p r o v i d e interesting stories c o m p o s e d in p r o s e mixed with v e r s e . A l t h o u g h w e h a v e to travel a long w a y till w e arrive at stories a s literary compositions, w e d o c o m e a c r o s s during our journey into the p a s t a few v e s t i g e s of the s o u r c e of this t y p e of literature. It m u s t b e n o t e d , t o b e g i n w i t h , t h a t t h e d o c t r i n e of m e t e m p s y c h o s i s , w h i c h implied the equality of a n i m a l s a n d h u m a n beings, h a s p l a y e d a significant role in the rise of fables the origin of w h i c h is to b e sought a l r e a d y in w o r k s like the Chdndogya Upanisad (1.12. IV. 1.5). The relief on the s t u p a of Bharhut indicates the existence of fables in the second century before Christ. A m o n g the ancient g r a m m a r i a n s , both K a t y a y a n a a n d Patanjali (belonging to the third and second centuries BC respectively) mention n a m e s of Akhyayika ( n a r r a t i v e s ) s u c h a s Vasavadatta, Sumanottara and Bhaimarathl. Patanjali's reference to e x p r e s s i o n s like kakatdliya (the c r o w and the branch) a n d ajakrpdniya (the s h e e p and the s w o r d ) is an evidence indicating the p o p u l a r i t y of tales a n d fables during h i s period. Reference h a s a l r e a d y b e e n m a d e to the B u d d h i s t a n d Jain story collections w h i c h a p p e a r to b c the foremost a t t e m p t s at collecting stories and putting t h e m together in a literary form. Jatakamala of A r y a s u r a , Divyavadana a n d Cariyapitaka a r e s o m e of the e x a m p l e s of collections of stories written in s i m p l e p r o s e mixed with verse. Credit g o e s to G u n a d h y a , a friend of king S a t a v a h a n a , for collecting the floating m a s s of stories a n d c o m p o s i n g the w o r k called Brhatkatha, 'the g r e a t story', in Paisaci Prakrit w h i c h w a s to be the first of its kind. Although the original is lost a n d h a s therefore left a controversy a s to w h e t h e r it w a s c o m p o s e d in p r o s e or p o e t r y (Dandin the well-known writer of the later period, hints t h a t the original w a s in prose), the great p o p u l a r i t y enjoyed b y the w o r k is evident from its mention along with the t w o g r e a t e p i c s , t h e Ranmyana a n d the Mahabharata by later writers. It is claimed that Brhatkatha exerted influence through its poetic v e r s i o n s in the later period on Turkish a n d Persian literature. T h u s , in spite of belonging to Prakrit literature a n d its doubtful form a s a p r o s e , Brhatkatha

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d e s e r v e s a mention in this s u r v e y of classical Sanskrit p r o s e literature b e c a u s e of originating the genre later known a s Katha. Pancatantra A l m o s t at the s a m e time w h e n G u n a d h y a w a s b u s y organizing the g r e a t m a s s of floating tales, another composition, w h i c h later c a m e to b e k n o w n a s the Pancatantra w a s taking s h a p e . Although instructionby a p o l o g u e , a characteristic of ancient Indian mentality, can b e t r a c e d b a c k to B r a h m a n i c literature, it is fully illustrated for the first t i m e b y the Pancatantra. H i s t o r i a n s often d e s c r i b e this w o r k a s t h e m o s t largely circulated book around the world, next only to t h e Bible. It is, indeed, this w o r k w h i c h b r o u g h t the n a m e of India on the m a p of world literature. The painstaking efforts of the w e s t e r n scholar Hertel h a v e b r o u g h t forth the interesting hi story of the w o r l d w i d e t r a n s m i s s i o n of this work. Hertel recorded a s many a s t w o h u n d r e d v e r s i o n s of the Pancatantra in a s m a n y a s fifty l a n g u a g e s of the w^orld. A l t h o u g h the origin alongwith the a u t h o r s h i p of this w o r k is s h r o u d e d in m y s t e r y , the large n u m b e r of the v a r i o u s recensions that h a v e s u r v i v e d t h r o u g h the a g e s allow us to reconstruct the story of its journey t h r o u g h o u t the country. S c h o l a r s h a v e classified the a v a i l a b l e recensions of this w o r k into four g r o u p s . To the first g r o u p b e l o n g s the lost s o u r c e of that version in the Pahlavi l a n g u a g e which w a s r e s p o n s i b l e for the s p r e a d of the w o r k through the West. The lost s o u r c e of the later v e r s i o n s which w e r e incorporated into Brhatkathd retellings in p o e t r y , t h e Brhatkathamarljan and t h e Kathasaritsagara, is known a s the n o r t h w e s t e r n version. To the third g r o u p b e l o n g s the lost s o u r c e on which t h e K a s h m i r v e r s i o n a s w e l l a s the t w o Jain v e r s i o n s a r c b a s e d . Finally, the southern version and t h e N e p a l e s e version a r e b a s e d on the lost s o u r c e belonging to the fourth g r o u p . This variety of versions s p e a k s for the i m m e n s e p o p u l a r i t y enjoyed b y the w o r k t h r o u g h o u t the country. This solitary surviving work of the b e a s t fable is not a m e r e collection of stories b u t a craftily contrived composition of tales w o v e n together in s u c h a s m a n n e r that one story e m e r g e s from the other. T h e p r o c e s s of e m b o x m e n t of stories is a n o t e w o r t h y contribution of the c o m p o s e r w h o is a n o n y m o u s . The technique of a story within a story k e e p s the interest of the r e a d e r growing till the m a i n story c o m e s to an end. Another o u t s t a n d i n g feature of the w o r k is its d i d a c t i c motive. It is said in the prologue of the book that

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the stories are told by a pandit called Visnusarman to the four sons of a king who are blockheads in order to train them in the science of polity. The stories told in this work do not however, have a bearing on the science of polity alone. They teach what can be described as dharrna in a wider sense to cover la w,polity, ethics and commonsensc wisdom in general. Here animals like bulls and lions, jackals and monkeys and crows play the role of human beings. The composer of the stories has made ingenious use of animal traits which could be equated with human traits. The work presupposes the existence of a large bulk of floating tales from which the author selected a few. About 40 stories are cmboxed in five tantras (meaning science of polity). In spite of political wisdom being the primary aim of the work, its popularity is due more to the interesting stories rather than the implicit lesson. They entertain more than teach morals. For instance, there is the story of the greedy jackal which, in spite of the food before it, tries to lick the blood on the bowstring of the dead hunter and gets transfixed. The touching story of a mongoose thoughtlessly killed by its owner, who sees blood around the cradle in which his child is sleeping and wrongly suspects the mongoose tobc the killer of his child, has a sad note rather than a moral to teach. All these stories are told in simple but elegant prose interspersed with gnomic stanzas. The epigrammatic verses teaching wordly wisdom are a part of the richest treasure of classical Sanskrit literature. They teach in very elegant manner how to behave in the world. The composer of the stories shows himself as a master of narrativespossessingboth wit and wisdom. The superfine network of the deep laid stories, the unparalleled skill in emboxing them and achieving unity, and the simple, forceful and lively prose accompanied by beautiful epigrammatic verses ha ve won a unique position for the Pancatanlra in the history of world literature. After the Pancatanlra there is a wide gap till we come to the middle ages. The period after the 10th century AD, which is described by historians as a decadent period, has again contributed to the literature of tales and fables. However, in between the Pancatanlra and this literature there arose a distinct genre of classical Sanskrit prose described as romance. The works of Banabhatta, Subandhu and Dandin, which belong to this type, have been a landmark in the history of Indian prose.

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Banabhatta

Banabhatta, who belonged to the seventh century AD, is regarded as the greatest of the writers of the post-Kalidasa period. He is credited with the pioneering effort to popularise a special literary style devoid of versification. He illustrated this in two works of outstanding literary merit, the Kddambari and the Harsacarita. The former is accepted as a model of the prose type Akhydyikd. Rudrata, a rhetorician of the 9th century has, in fact, tailored his definition of Kathd and Akyayikd on these two works. Kddambari is the first novel in Sanskrit. Banabhatta could not complete it and the half-completed story was carried to its consummationby his son, Bhusana. One therefore wonders whether the story as it is told in the work was conceived in the same way by Bana. This is a story of transmigration of love told, for the first time, as a first-hand narration. It is, in fact, a blend of two love stories, of Kadambari and Candrapida, and of Mahasveta and Pundarika. Characters like Candrapida and Vaisampayana appear in their second or third birth. The latter is transformed into a parrot who is the main narrator of the story. The mystery surrounding the complicated and very elaborately laid plot is cleared at the end. Bana's is a good example of poetry in prose. It contains all the features of poetry except versification. Bana cxcells in flights of imagination and depiction of sentiments. The rhetoricians describe prose as that which consists of vigorous expressions and plenty of compounds (afe^iTCWJ^Md<^ Tra^ eTOTH). The prose style of this work aptly illustrates this definition. The forcefulness of the prose is evident in Bana's long descriptions of nature. The picturesque and luxuriant imagery, the stately compounds, the swing ind music in his expressions show Bana as a great master of prose sty !c. His command over the rich vocabulary of Sanskrit and skilful use of rolling compounds have won him a fame as a poetic genius. Notwithstanding thegrandcur of his vivid and majestic expressions, the plot gets totally lost in the labyrinth of lengthy description and one has to strain the memory as well as the imagination to keep track of the story. A western scholar describes Bana's prose as 'an Indian wood where all progress is rendered impossible by the undergrowth until the traveller cuts out a path for himself and where, even then, he h a s to reckon with malicious wild beasts in the shape of unknown words that affright him' (cited by M.R. Kale in his edition of the Kddambari 1968, p. 34). An excerpt from the

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Kddambari given at the end of this article illustrates Bana's prose embellished with imageries and long compounds. The Harsacarita is yet another example which shows him as a forerunner of the literary genre called the historical novel. This is an unfinished biography of king Harsa vardhana of Thanesar (606-648 AD) who w a s Sana's patron. It is, in fact a scmihistorical romance and covers a very small part of Harsa' s life. It is more important for the depiction of contemporary social life. For the first time in the history of Sanskrit literature we come across a full account of a poet given by the poet himself. Although intended as a panegyric of Harsa the work is more interesting for its elegant poetic style, vivid descriptions of nature, and of pcoplebelonging to different strata of society. Bana' s impression of Harsa at the first sight is described in a sentence which covers as many as ten printed pages of a book! This work shows Bana as a master of pen-pictures. His use of ornate puns and various figures of speech, splendid descriptions of flora and fauna, the animal and human life evince his perfect mastery over both sound and sense. He emerges from both works as a unique poet of Sanskrit who incorporated all the essential features of poetry into prose and performed the role of a path setter. Subandhu Subandhu, the author of the romance called Vasavadatta, is highly praised by later poets for his skilful use of figures of speech. Although no final word is yet said about the interrelationship between Bana and Subandhu, it is generally believed that Subandhu closely followed Bana, not only in chronology but also in his composition. His Vasavadatta is a work of fiction, having nothing in common with the ageold tale of Udayana and Vasavadatta beyond the name. It is difficult to say whether he invented the plot or drew upon some lost source for the tale. However, he should be credited with making, for the first time, abundant use of tale-motifs such as magic steeds, dream-visions, voices in the air, parrots talking in human language and the transformation of a human into stone. The plot as such does not apear to be of any significance to the author himself who takes delights in lengthy descriptions of personages and of natural events in words equiped with double meaning. The work is used by him for exhibiting his poetic skill as well as his pedantry. Although as compared to Bana Subandhu shows a lack of the power of imagination, at times he rises to the height of a great

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p o e t b y t h e u s e of m a j e s t i c c o m p o u n d s a n d skilful u s e of p a r o n o m a s i a . H o w e v e r , the e x u b e r a n c e of o r n a m e n t s both in l a n g u a g e a n d meaning, w h i c h g o e s out of proportion considering the slender plot, m a r s the original b e a u t y of the work. Yet the novel h a s left a considerable impression upon later tradition a s is indica ted by a g o o d n u m b e r of c o m m e n t a r i e s on it. Dandin D a n d i n is t h e m o s t illustrious star in the galaxy of w r i t e r s of o r n a t e fiction in Sanskrit. The questions about the identity of Dandin, the a u t h o r of the r o m a n c e called Dasakumaracaritam, with the rhetorician Dandin, the a u t h o r of Kavyadarsa, and about his chronology h a v e r e m a i n e d unsolved till today. It is a r g u e d by s o m e s c h o l a r s t h a t Dandin, the a u t h o r of the r o m a n c e , w a s thoroughly a c q u a i n t e d with Banabhatta. The Dasakumaracaritam is a story of the a d v e n t u r e of ten princes, Rajavahana being the h e r o a m o n g t h e m . It r e c o u n t s the reunion of t h e s e princes w h o g r e w u p together, after a long time of s e p a r a t i o n c a u s e d by their setting out to win their fortunes. The story e n d s with the hero regaining h i s k i n g d o m with the h e l p of h i s friends. The plot a p p e a r s to be b o r r o w e d from fable literature. Unfortunately, the text h a s not been p r e s e r v e d intact. Both t h e beginning and the end are lost. Seven out of ten stories, and the beginning of the eighth h a v e survived the r a v a g e s of time. T h e Purvaplthika (preface) which is, in all probability, w r i t t e n b y a different person, contains, in addition to the introduction, the stories of the first t w o princes. The diversity of e p i s o d e s , the w i d e r a n g e of c h a r a c t e r s a p p e a r i n g in them, and the p i c t u r e s q u e description of colourful e v e n t s h a v e led different s c h o l a r s to label the w o r k differently; for e x a m p l e , it is described a s a r o m a n c e that can r a n k w i t h t h e b e s t p i c a r e s q u e r o m a n c e s of Europe, a s a k n a v e ' s fiction or a s a m o r a l fiction. Indeed, h e r e w e are in a different world, the w o r l d of thieves, buffoons, rogues, g a m b l e r s and b a w d s . W e encounter p r o s t i t u t e s a n d unfaithful wives, crooked ascetics and hypocritical p r i e s t s . S o m e of the a d v e n t u r e s m a y remind u s of the t a l c s of Robin H o o d . The w o r k h a s , therefore, a g r e a t value a s a source-book on ancient Indian culture with special reference to the world of the c o m m o n p e o p l e . Dandin h a s deliberately violated the principal t h a t a literary piece should h a v e a noble hero with good c h a r a c t e r . On the contrary, 'immorality rather than morality is its deliberate t h e m e ' a s o b s e r v e d by one scholar.

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The stories are told in elegant prose decked with glittering imageries and proportionate compounds. The author emerges as a master of vigorous and elegant prose. In spite of the restrained use of poetic features in his prose, Dandin could not resist the temptation of exhibiting the height of his technical skill. Thus the complete narrative of Mantragupta, whose lips have been made sore by the passionate kisses of his fiancee, is told in a language devoid of labial letters! Tradition appreciated the magnificent beauty of his expressions (dandinah padalalityam, the beauty of words used by Dandin, is well known'). Because of the matter and manner in perfect match w ith each other, the gay colours pleasantly shining throughout the descriptions and the journey along an untrodden path, the Dasakumaracaritam has a special place in the history of Sanskrit literature. Before we rest at the last milestone of our journey we may have a glimpse of relatively less important prose literature. Firstly, there were attempts to emulate great authors like Bana and secondly, a new genre in prose emerged. For instance, Dhanapala composed his romance called Tilakamanjari in the tenth century. This novel with an ordinary love story as its theme is a blind imitation of Kddambarl. Udayasundarikathd is a tale told in eight chapters by Soddhala sometime in the eleventh century. In the later centuries Prabandhaciutrimani of Merutunga, Prabandhakosa of Rajasckhara Suri and Bhojaprabamlha of Ballala are a few examples of semihistorical novels which followed the Harsacarita. All these works are poor imitations of the prototypes handled by incompetent writers and deserve only, a passing reference. Campii Sometime in the tenth century a new genre called campii developed as a midway between prose and poetry. A campii is defined as a composition in prose and poetry mixed together. Rhetoricians like Dandin describe this type; but the proportion of prose and poetry with each other was fixed neither in theory nor in practice. The first specimen of this typebelongs to the tenth century. From the number of available campus it appears to have been a popular type of composition. However, barring a few exceptions all campus arc of mediocre quality. In the Nalacampii of Trivikramabhatta, which is the earliest work of this type, a deliberate attempt to imitate the greatpoets of an earlier period is seen. Somadeva, the author of the

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Yasastilakacampu is a Jain poet of high merit belonging to the tenth century. His poetic genius is, however, overshadowed by his ardent religious faith. A few other campus followed in the wake of the Yasastilakacampu and were used for the propagation of religious sects. Themes from the stories of Rama and Krishna were selected for writing campus. In addition to Blidratacampu and Ramayancampu we have Visvaguna darsacampu of Venkatesa of Tirupati. This campu is noteworthy for deviation from the trodden path by introducing elements of wit and satire. On the whole however, campu literature does not rise to any outstanding level. Narratives Historians of Sanskrit literature remark that the real creative period of Sanskrit literary activity came to an end in the tenth century. What followed was a decadent period characterised by poetry of a very inferior quality. However, in contrast to poetry the prose literature of this period (between the tenth and the eighteenth centuries) is marked by the development of interesting story books which enjoyed immense popularity. One of the most popular tales, next only to the Pancatantra and the Brliatkatha, is the Vetalapancavimsaliby an unknown author. This is a collection of 25 tales told to king Trivikramasena by a ghoul entered into a corpse. Every story ends in a riddle to be solved by the king. The king succeed s every time but the ghoul escapes as a result of the contract with the king to that effect. Finally, the king is victorious because he is able to kill the ascetic who wants to dethrone him. The stories in this book were so appealing to the people that the text was circulated throughout thecountry and underwent several redactions. It is available in divergent versions. The version of Jambhaladatta (14th century) is almost in prose. This set of 25emboxed stories has retained its popularity even today, and is already translated into almost all Indian languages. Written in simple but lively prose; it has created a record in being the most popular book of the middle ages in India. Next in the line follows the Sirhliasanaiivatrimsatika, probably belonging to the thirteenth century. This work is available in two recensions, the northern and the southern. It is the story of king Bhoja who is prevented from ascending the throne of Vikramaditya by the thirty-two statues of maidens supporting it. Each one of the statues comes to life and narrates the story of the greatness of

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Vikramaditya, the original owner of the throne, and tells Bhoja to ascend the throne only if he has the same qualities. Although the stories told in this cycle are less imaginative, they are significant because they contain some ethical lessons. This work can be described as a good illustration of the use of the story for moral instruction. The prose is simple and less ornamental. It makes the journey through the stories easy and comfortable. The Sukasaptati, 'seventy talcs told by a parrot', is a more lively cycle of attractive stories. Probably belonging to the thirteenth century this work is available in two recensions, one by a Jain preacher and the other, by Cintamani Bhatta. While the former is written in a simple artless prose the latter is more embellished. Here we have a collection of seventy stories told by a pet parrot to the mistress of the house who wants to go to some other person to console herself in the absence of her husband. Every night the parrot keeps her engaged in listening to a story about a women facing difficulty while meeting her paramour, and thus persuades her horn going out. Seventy nights pass in listening to the tales and the wife is kept engaged in thinking about the solutions to the difficulties faced by the women who feature in them. Finally, her husband returns and the parrot is thus successful in its mission. This book contains many interesting stories of naughty, unfaithful wives who cheat their husband to the extent of making them feel guilty of being suspicious of their wives' infidelity. The genre o( story cycles continued in the subsequent period though the standard came down both in respect of content and style. Bharaliikadvatrinisatika, of an unknown author and date, is a collection of thirty-two stories told to ridicule the Bharatakas, who were probably Saiva ascetics. In spite of an interesting theme the style of narration does not make an interesting reading. Equally med iocre in quality i s the Purusapatiksaof Vidyapati of the fourteenth century which consists of forty-four tales describing the qualities of a man. Finally, it is interesting to note that the Jain contribution to this type of prose literature has been very substantial although the literary merit is not very distinct. Often stories with good possibilities are spoilt by forced in religious morals. Conclusion The bird's-eye view of classical Sanskrit prose presented in the foregoing pages should be enough to convince us of the great

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significance of this literature in spite of its relatively small volume. It m a y b e r e m a r k e d that the traditional Indian concept of kavya, w h i c h m a d e p r o s e a kind of poetry, is responsible for arresting the growth oigenuine p r o s e in Sanskrit. Simple, vigorous and colloquial p r o s e h a r d l y m a k e s its a p p e a r a n c e in p r o s e w o r k s , b e c a u s e it w a s a l w a y s r e g a r d e d a s subservient to poetry. Since p r o s e s h a r e d with p o e t r y all its distinct features including m u s i c a l c a d e n c e , w e c o m e a c r o s s w o r k s written in an ornate sytle. Secondly, even the earliest available p r o s e w o r k s a r e mixed with poetry. While poetry w a s a m o r e s p o n t a n e o u s expression of literary artists, p r o s e h a d an artificiality about it. Except for a few w o r k s like the Pancatantra and the Dasakumaracaritam, p r o s e literature a p p e a r s to be a laboured creation of the poet, a vehicle for exhibiting his p o w e r of imagination a s well a s s c h o l a r s h i p . Even the flow of great stories like Kadambari is often h a m p e r e d by lengthy descriptions. Loyalty to earlier p a t t e r n s , which is a characteristic of Sanskrit poetic g e n i u s in general, is not absent in this c l a s s of literature. Each genre h a s , for instance, p r o d u c e d a p r o t o t y p e which is a l m o s t blindly imitated by posterity. There a r e very few instances of a desire to o v e r s t e p the trodden p a t h . G r e a t relief is h o w e v e r p r o v i d e d by the colourful stories which w e r e w i d e l y circulated and w e r e t h u s responsible for keeping alive the tradition of Sanskrit literature. Although the story element in t h e s e w o r k s is often o v e r s h a d o w e d by the religious interest of the writer, the story cycles created during this period did contribute to the continuation of the tradition. Note H e r e is a p a s s a g e from the Kadambari of Bana (z^f^V^hq-description of the city Ujjain.j This description r u n s over one a n d a half printed p a g e . S o m e p a r t of it is p r o d u c e d below.

ddNd>lfr^R^r^HHMfeTbPMRcj|r>|^cf,dl T R ^ p ^

T T ^ f a ^m\k:,

^H'slH'lV-4

UcM*§:f
^ W t :

. . T^Ttfrfft

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Translation: There is in the country of Avanti, a city called Ujjayinl which h a s b e c o m e an ornament of all the three w o r l d s ; w h i c h is, a s if the b i r t h p l a c e of the krtayuga, a s if a second earth created by P r a m a t h a n a t h a , the lord of P r a m a t h a (Cupid), called M a h a k a l a , convenient for his stay; d e c o r a t e d with long and w i d e m a r k e t - r o a d s w h i c h a p p e a r like o c e a n s with their w a t e r s d r u n k by s a g e A g a s t y a and exposing h e a p s of conches, oyster-shells, p e a r l s , c o r a l s and e m e r a l d s s t a c k e d with gold d u s t and gravel h e a p s ; d e c k e d with p i c t u r e - g a l l e r i e s full of p a i n t i n g s of g o d s , d e m o n s , s i d d h a s , g a n d h a r v a , V i d y a d h a r a s and N a g a s , (the galleries) looking like a fleet of aerial c a r s d e s c e n d e d from h e a v e n with an intense d e s i r e to see the fair ladies a l w a y s e n g a g e d in festive activities; a s if full of hills on account of big m a n s i o n s , a s if containing large s u b u r b s on account of m a n y buildings, a s if p o s s e s s i n g wish-granting trees on account of v i r t u o u s p e o p l e , a s if exhibiting the form of the entire world an account of painted walls, a s if twilight on account of being coloured by rubies, w h i t e - l i k e n e c t a r a l t h o u g h red in colour; without o r n a m e n t s a l t h o u g h with hanging pearl o r n a m e n t s ; firm a l t h o u g h with m a n y prukritis (people), and which h a s won the s p l e n d o u r of th e w o rid o f go d s.

8 Public Poetry in Sanskrit Slichlon Pollock

For m o r e than a millennium, and over an e x p a n s e of s p a c e that stretched from the environs of Kabul to F r a m b a n a n on the pla ins of central Java, Sanskrit poets covered the world with poetry. 1 If one w e r e alive in the year 1000, one would have seen public p o e m s in Sanskrit engraved e v e r y w h e r e , on the sides of village tanks or stepwells or m o d e s t shrines, on the ubiquitous copper-plate grants recording royal gills, on vast stone pillars or walls looming u p from g i g a n t i c a r c h i t e c t u r a l w o n d e r s on M o u n t Abu in G u j a r a t , G a n g a k o n d a c o l a p u r a m in Tamil N a d u , or Angkor in C a m b o d i a . Sanskrit poets—not necessarily " I n d i a n " poets but p o e t s w h o wrote in Sanskrit—created a world like no othei ,a world thoroughly s a t u r a t e d with poetry. The story of how this all c a m e about, h o w Sanskrit travelled this vast distance, h o w it c a m e to be usod for public poetic: texts, and w h a t t h e s e texts are like, h a s never been told in the detail and with the care it merits. It is not in fact even clear w h e t h e r it h a s been recognized that there is a story to tell. There are a n u m b e r of factors for this neglect. For one thing, the a s s u m p t i o n s e e m s almost c o m m o n p l a c e that Sanskrit h a d a l w a y s , to one d e g r e e or another,

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been used for poetry—or rather, that what came to be called poetry, kavya, had always been written in Sanskrit—and so scholars have failed to give due attention to the historical process in the growth of Sanskrit, especially public Sanskrit poetry, that we actually have the evidence to trace. For another thing, virtually all modern readers of these public poems have been uninterested in them as texts, and have only used them as documents to be mined for reconstructing the economic or social or political history of southern Asia. These histories of course ask important questions, but one could argue that what has been ignored in their favour is the defining feature of these inscriptions, namely, their literariness. Not only has some very good, at times wonderfully moving, poetry often unlike anything else available in the language thereby been lost to modern readers, but our sense of what poetry meant in the social and political domains of many communities in this part of the world has perforce remained rudimentary. For if we do not ask, as we have not yet asked, why every man who came to rule—and not just rulers, but many others who sought the distinction of selfpresentation in some permanent public form—found it desirable or indeed necessary to express himself in Sanskrit poetry, we are missing something central to the way sand visions of life in southern Asia before modernity. II As every student of Indian culture knows, the world of public texts in the subcontinent largely begins with the Prakrit inscriptions of Asoka, around 275-50 before the common era. (I say "largely" because it has recently b^en argued that certain old Tamil cave inscriptions in the Brahml script may narrowly predate the Asokan texts). What is not often realized is that for the entire following period otncarlyfour hundredyearsnot only arenoliterary inscriptions produced in Sanskrit but there are only a handful of inscriptions in Sanskrit altogether, and of these a mere two or three were issued from royal courts. The half-dozen or so Sanskrit documents that have been discovered to date arc very exiguous, and are used exclusively to record a sacral event, the establishment of a ritual precinct, a sacrificial post-memorial (yupa), or the like. All other public texts, of which we have a great number both from the Satavahana world in the Deccan (ca. 230 BCE - 230 CE) and that of the

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$7

K u s a n a in the north (from about 50 BCI- to ca. 250 en), a r c c o m p o s e d in v a r i o u s forms of m i d d l e Indie. W h a t this evidence s u g g e s t s is a s s u r e d l y not that " s t a n d a r d " Sanskrit w a s obsolescent let alone unknown but that its u s e in the public or laukika d o m a i n w a s s c r u p u l o u s l y a v o i d e d or, if u s e d at all, then in a highly restricted m a n n e r . Indeed, I think there is reason to believe that the u s e of Sanskrit for poetry a s s u c h — a g a i n m o r e correctly, w h a t w o u l d c o m e tobeknowTt a s poetry, that is, kavya—may ha v e b e e n avoided, too. The s t a t e of affairs a s w e can read t h e m off the cpigraphieal record for these four centuries s e e m s tobe substantially corroborated by w h a t else w e k n o w of the growth of Sanskrit culture-A great deal of evidence p o i n t s to the restriction of Sanskrit, from early on, to the d o m a i n of sacral activity and its ancillary knowledges (its special propriety for the liturgical sphere is certainly the primary connotation of its very n a m e ) , and this is the inference to which we a r e led by such historical events a s the Buddhist rejection of Sanskrit in favour of non-hieratic ' ' v e r n a c u l a r " l a n g u a g e s . As for kavya in Sanskrit w e h a v e great difficulty d i s c o v e r i n g a n y of it before thebeginningof the c o m m o n era. The single text that actually cites such poetry is the Mahabliasya of Palanjali, which p r o v i d e s u s with a dozen half- or quarter-line quotations. The problem here is that it is not e a s y to d a t e Patanjali's w o r k with any real confidence. If w e a s k w h a t Sanskrit p o e t s h a v e r e m e m b e r e d and memorialized about the beginnings of their own tradition; if, for example, w e c o m b through later poetic eulogies in Sanskrit texts—for from the time oi Bana if not earlier it b e c o m e s the fashion to preface o n e ' s lKerary creation with a p r a i s e of p o e t s p a s t (kaviprasamsa)—we will discover that no Sanskrit poet t r a n s m i t s the n a m e of any poet w e can securely place before the beginning of the c o m m o n era. The sole exception, of course, is V a l m i k i ' s Ratndyana. But here, I think, w e m a y w a n t to take seriously the work' s o w n self-presentation a s something unpreceden led in the cultural history of India. Although so far a s I can tell from the m a n u s c r i p t s collected for the critical edition, the text d o e s not u s e the term 'Tirsl p o e m " (ddikdvya) m reference to itself (this s e e m s to be a s o m e w h a t later tradition, though one w h o s e origins a r e h a r d to pinpoint), it d o e s claim novelty. The Rdmdyana s e e s itself a s inventing the first formally ordered—versified and regularized (pddabaddha, aksarasama)— lingui stic representation of everyday human experience, (clearly code.!

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Shchhm Pollock

in Valmiki's celebrated etymology, sokdrtas\/a pravrtlo rue sloko bhavatu). Although it is notoriously difficult to determine the date of what may be termed the "monumental" version of the text (the term by which T refer to the work that synthesized earlier versions and gave a kind of grand shape to the narrative as a whole, and that the tradition has attributed to Valmiki), most level-headed scholarship today favours tine later Suhga world, or around the first century before the common era. Now, something qu itebreathtakinghappens around this time, or within a few generations. The transformation is signalled by a grand inscription—originally eleven by five feet in size—on the rock face at Mount Girnar in Gujarat. It is juxtaposed to a number of Asokan edicts from the middle of the third century BCK, and to an inscription of King Skandagupta of 458 a:. The huge rounded granite boulder speaks seven hundred years of Indian cultural history, but it is the prasasti or eulogistic poem (a prose poem, in this case) from the court of the Ksatrapa king Rudradaman, dated to 150 ci:, that 1 want to focus on here. The king uses the occasion of his repair of a great public waterworks, the reservoir called Sudarsana that had been damaged in a storm, to compose a Sanskrit poem celebrating his own political and cultural achievements. . . . the water, churned by a furious storm, like the storm at the end of time, leveled the hills, uprooted trees and tore down embankments, turrets, towers, shelters—scattered and broke to pieces (. . .) and the stones and trees and shrubs and vines lay strewn about everywhere . . . He who from the womb possessed the splendour of consummate royalty, to whom all castes resorted and chose as their lord; he who vowed—a vow he kept—to take no life except in battle (...) bul never hesitates to strike an equal foe who faces him in combat; he who rules as lord of eastern and western Akaravanti, Anupa country, Anarta, Saurastra, Svabhara, Maru, Kachcha, Sindhusauvira, Kukura, Aparanta, Nisada, and other areas gained by his valor, and everywhere—town, market, countryside—

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is untouched by trouble from robbers, snakes, wild beasts, or disease. . . he who (composes) prose and verse, clear and pleasant, sweet and charming, adorned with figures and stamped by proper use of language; whose body is beautiful and marked with most excellent marks and signs . . . He, Mahaksatrapa Rudradaman . . . by a vast sum of money from his own treasury and in good lime, strengthened the dam and lengthened it, three limes greater than before (. . .) and far more beautiful now has Lake beautiful become. The text of this inscription has been known for more than a century and a half, since James Trinscp first published it in 1838. What 1 think may not yet have been adequately appreciated, however, is the fact that in all the hundred and fifty years since Prinsep—a period that has witnessed an intensive hunt for inscriptions throughout South Asia, issuing in forty-two volumes of Epigrapliia hidica% eight volumes of Corpus Inscriplionum Imlicuruni, and countless other reportsof inscriptional finds from archaeological investigations around the subcontinent—virtually nothing has been discovered to diminish the cultural-historical significance oi Rudradaman's work. (The one exception may be the Mora step well inscription published by Liiders in 1937-38, but this pushes back by only a few generations the transition to public Sanskrit whose invention, I want to argue, constitutes a new moment in South Asian cultural history). The appropriation of Sanskrit for purposes that are political and public around the beginning of the common era, as evidenced in the materials 1 adduce above, is an event that, whether as symptom or cause, announces a radical transformation of thehistorical sociology of Sanskrit. In this process newly settled immigrants from northwestern India, the Ksatrapas, seem to participate centrally. The outstanding French scholar Louis Renou may have been right to argue years ago that it is likelier "foreign" kings consecrated rather than originated the vogue of literary Sanskrit, and others have reminded us that their use of public Sanskrit may be more a concomitance with other developments rather than a cause ol them. Yet the evidence we actually possess suggests that others may be

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right to find in the Ksatrapas an innovating force. But what 1 find to be really historically important is not so much that newcomers from Iran and Central Asia should begin to participate in the prestige economy of Sanskrit, since other communities over time had been easily incorporated into Indian, indeed Sanskrit cultural communities, but rather that they and others begin to turn Sanskrit into an instrument of polity and the mastery of Sanskrit into a source of political charisma. This is very new, and I think we must be clear about this novelty. When one scholar, in a recent census of some Ksatrapa inscriptions, remarks on the "prestige that the Indian civilization of Madhyadesa had for these tribal chiefs of Swat' \ wc might be led to assume that these "tribal chiefs" just pick up "Indian civilization" as if it were lying about already full-formed. What happens instead, I think, is that they helped to create this civilization by employing Sanskrit in a way that earlier would have been unimaginable. They make political poetry—and public poetry—in a language that had never been used for that purpose. Never beforehad a king in India spoken (or been made to speak) publicly in the voice of Sanskrit hlvya. And after this point for the next thousand years, this is the voice that would be dominant in South and Southeast Asia. Ill The speed with which and the distances to which, after the second century, the new habit of composing public poetry in Sanskrit spread through the world, and the particular factors that seem to have been at work in thisprocess, seem tome toconstitute a cultural transformation comparable to no other in world history. As I have noted, prior to the innovations around the first or second century en, virtually all public records besides a few inscriptions commemorating sacrifical events were composed in one or another form of Prakrit. I use the term ' "records" here in the strict sense. Prakrit-language records do not, as I will suggest the Sanskrit texts strive to do, interpret the world; they simply intend to document it or even to establish it (for example, by declaring the boundaries of a land grant). Accordingly, not a single one of them is versified—versification being one of the markers, though by no means an exclusive marker, of expressivity in a text—and only one or two of them, from the Satavahana kingdom, could be said to be

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prose poetry. Sanskrit public poetry begins with the prose poetry of Rudradaman's inscription. Versified poetry (leaving aside the Mora step-well inscription mentioned earlier, which has more to do with an earlier sacral use of the language than with the habit that replaced it) begins to appear from about the end of the third century, with the Kanakhcra stone inscription of Sndharavarman (who describes himself as nialiadandanayakena sakena, k 'a Scythian appointed as regional governor"). In northern India, Sanskrit once adopted utterly displaces all other local languages from the realm of inscriptional discourse after the fourth century; it alone becomes the language used both for documenting and interpreting the world. In the South, where as we shall see Sanskrit divides up its linguistic labour with local languages, the latter are excluded from the domain of the poetic, until such time (variously in the nintheleventh centuries) aspolitical-cultural conditions allow or demand otherwise. It is striking how quickly Sanskrit, once it comes to be used for public poetry in the north in the second-third century, is adopted elsewhere. Prakrit is abandoned, and abandoned permanently, in northern India after around 300. In the upper Deccan among the Vakatakas, the last Prakrit inscription dates from 355 ci:. In the case of the Iksvaku kings of Andhra, who succeeded the Satavahana dynasty abut 225 CH, the first forty of their records are in Prakrit; three Sanskrit texts appear only later, the likely date being the fourth century. Further south, in Tamil Nadu, the picture is even clearer, since we can trace the linguistic preferences of the Pallavas continuously over a 600-year period. Their records begin near the end of the third century with documents in Prakrit (a rather peculiar kind of Prakrit, in fact). This remains the fashion until the end of the century, when Sanskrit is adopted, never to be abandoned (indeed, there is no going back to Prakrit anywhere for the purpose of public discourse). One last example is furnished by the Kadambas of western Karnataka. They continue to write public documents in Prakrit through the middle of the fourth century; by the middle of the next, however, they move irreversibly to Sanskrit. At the same time that this turn to Sanskrit for the creation of a public poetry is taking place in the Indian subcontinent—in fact, with striking simultaneity—we find the same thing happening in what are now the nations of Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, Taos, Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia (Sumatra, Borneo and Java).

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Sanskrit culture, in a real sense, is being created in different if closely related ways in North India, South India, and Southeast Asia at virtually the same time. And while the culture of Sanskrit public poetry dies out rather quickly in Burma, somewhat more slowly in Thailand and Champa (south Vietnam), it continues to be produced for centuries elsewhere: the last dated Sanskrit inscription in Cambodia, for instance, is around 1295 en, a little before the abandonment of Angkor. In Java, royal texts in Sanskrit are produced in some quantity tai til the ninth century, though they are occasionally found as late as the middle of the fifteenth. I want to elaborate on a point made briefly above that once Sanskrit became a language for the public and poetic expression of political will, it remained for many centuries the only language used for that purpose. When other languages are permitted to speak in the public domain, so to put it, it is only to document and specify. In the north, in fact, "local" languages are never granted even this permission, except at the beginning and the end of the epoch of Sanskrit: The last Prakrit inscription of the Vakatakas (355 en) is a good example of the fashion that will be maintained elsewhere if not in the north. Here, the genealogical portion, which is not quite "interpretative" but still rhetorical, is composed in Sanskrit, the business portion, concerning a grant of land to a number of Brahmanas, is in Prakrit (One thing this record shows, by the Wc.y— and this is something we find in many other places throughout this era—is that by this period the fashion of Sanskrit is pan-social, there no longer remains any necessary concomitance between Brahmanism and Sanskrit, or non-brahman ism and Prakrit. The sole concomitance has to do with discursive purposes—Sanskrit for expressivity, even where Buddhists are concerned, as the occasional Sanskrit public text from Nagarjunakonda shows; Prakrit for documentation, even wherebrahmanas are concerned—rather than with what once may have been social-linguistic communities). For perhaps a thousand years from this point on, local languages in the north will be banished from the royal public record. At the end of this period, a change in sensibilities occurs in the north, a growing awareness that the Sanskrit epoch is over. One of the first texts 1 have found that registers this change is a Mewar inscription of AD 1489: "In accordance with the king's command, we now write a few lines in our regional language, which is easily understandable to those not skilled in the gods' speech" {girvanavanyam avicaksanair

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narais sukhavascyufii vac a nisi kiinicit/sndcsablui sum [read: svadc*abhasam\ anusrtya bhupntcr anujfunja lekliapiitlnini iiayuniuhc 11). Even more eloquent about the poetic privileging of Sanskrit is the inscriptional record in South India. Despite its ancient literary history Tamil is not admitted at all into the Pallava public record until the middle of the sixth century, or two hundred years after the founding of the dynasty; even then, it is used exclusively for the pragmatic portions of the grant, its practical contents. Throughout the 600 year existence of the Pallava dynasty, not a single inscription in Tamil was produced that does anything but the work of documenting the everyday—announcing a remission of taxes, specifyingtheboundariesof a land-grant, acknowledging the receipt of goods, recording the transaction of a village council, registering the sale of land. Only with the Colas in the early eleventh century will Tamil take on tasks beyond thepragmatic. The same holds true in the world of Kannada. Neither the Kadambas nor the western Gangas nor the Badaml Calukyas use Kannada for anything but documentary purposes; it is not until the middle of the tenth century, with Krishna III of the Rastrakuta dynasty, that Kannada has a literary role to play. (The reasons for this development, what 1 call the vernaculari/ation of southern polities, are the subject of another essay-) In Southeast Asia, the world of public poetry remains a world of Sanskrit. Although old Khmer is found along with Sanskrit in dated inscriptions from the very beginning of recorded literacy in the country (early seventh century), it is used only to detail the concrete terms or conditions of royal grants. Old Javanese does not appear in public documents until the early ninth century, or at least 400 years after the first documents; after that date, and very quickly, Javanese becomes increasingly and then exclusively the language used in official documents. But the inscriptional materials in Old Javanese are virtually without exception documentary and not interpretative texts. This is even more striking in view of the existence, from the tenth century on, of a brilliant literary efflorescence in the language, the so-called kakawin (kdvya) literature (such litcrized poetry seems to be absent in Cambodia until well after the end of Angkor).

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N o t only d o e s t h e s p r e a d of political S a n s k r i t h a p p e n with e x t r a o r d i n a r y s p e e d and over a v a s t s p a c e , but, a s I mentioned, it also h a p p e n s in a w a y t h a t s e e m s to m e to b e quite w i t h o u t parallel in w o r l d history. First, no organized political p o w e r s u c h a s the R o m a n i m p e r i u m u n d e r w r o t e the c o n q u e s t of Sanskrit. T h e r e occurred no internal or externa] Indian " c o l o n i z a t i o n " , in any remotely a c c e p t a b l e u s e of t h a t term, of S o u t h India or S o u t h e a s t Asia. T h e r e w e r e no d e m o g r a p h i c a l l y meaningful m i g r a t i o n s of the subjects of any Indianpolity, no military c o n q u e s t s , no tics of political subservience, no materia] d e p e n d e n c y or exploitation of w h i c h w e h a v e even a shred of evidence. Second, Sanskrit w a s carried by no c o h e r e n t s c r i p t u r e - b a s e d religion such a s Islam; no religious revolution took p l a c e during this period with any v a s t or s y s t e m a t i c p r o s e l y t i z a t i o n of this s p a c e following in its w a k e . Quite the contrary, S a n s k r i t ' s diffusion w a s effected, it s e e m s , by small n u m b e r s of traditional intellectuals, often following in the train of scattered g r o u p s of t r a d e r s and a d v e n t u r e r s , and carrying with them, b e s i d e s the full p a n o p l y of Sanskrit cultural m o n u m e n t s such a s g r a m m a r s , lexicons, epics, and courtly p o e m s — a l l of which m a k e t h e m s e l v e s felt in the p o e t i c i n s c r i p t i o n s t h e m s e l v e s — t h e d i s p a r a t e and d e c i d e d l y uncanonized texts of a w i d e variety of c o m p e t i n g religious o r d e r s . Third, there is no evidence w h a t e v e r that Sanskrit ever b e c a m e a languagc-of-trade—a b r i d g e l a n g u a g e or link l a n g u a g e , a koine l a n g u a g e or lingua franca—like other imperial l a n g u a g e s s u c h a s Greek, Latin, Arabic, Persian, Chinese. During this p e r i o d I find nothing to s u g g e s t that, o u t s i d e the scholastic arena, Sanskrit w a s ever an e v e r y d a y m e d i u m of c o m m u n i c a t i o n in South Asia let alone S o u t h e a s t Asia. Fourth, and closely related to this, w e h a v e no r e a s o n to believe that Sanskrit ever functioned a s a language-ofstate—ifby that w e m e a n t h e a d m i n i s t r a t i v e functions of a language, e.g., t h e m e d i u m of chancellery communication—certainly not in S o u t h c a st Asia, a l m o s t certainly not in South India. W h a t is c r e a t e d in the period t h a t c o v e r s roughly the millennium b e t w e e n 300-1300 is a cultural formation that s e e m s a n o m a l o u s in antiquity, a kind of " c o m m u n i t y ^ w i t h o u t intensive c o m m u n i o n , globalized a s any culture before modernity w a s , b a s e d largely on a s h a r e d , if locally inflected, c o m m i t m e n t to certain features of culture, w h i c h I h a v e

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taken to calling the Sanskrit cosmopolis, or Sanskrit cultural ecumene. But if none of the conditions usually required for the spread of a linguistic medium and idiom obtains in the case of Sanskrit, what does account for it? And what cultural work did the ubiquitous public poetic texts of Sanskrit do? Here we confront one of the more profound questions of Indian cultural history, and at present I can do no more than offer a set of hypotheses. One place to start is by recognizing that Sanskrit became a key feature in a widely shared repertory of culture in a peculiar kind of empire system of premodernity. In the system of nation-states of modernity, the structure of the system itself produces a number oi cultural effects: one cannot, for example, have a "nation" as currently understood without at the same time having a singular language in which to represent it, and thus the elevation and standardization oi one dialect are systemic features of nationalism. Similarly, in the empire-system of premodernity, at least as it seems to have operated in much of South and Southeast Asia, imperial culture and self-understanding—in a word, the ability to qualify as imperial polity—required demonstrated mastery of a language of cosmopolitan character. This had to be a language of transethnic attraction, transcending even theethno-identity of the ruling elites themselves. It had to be a language capable of making translocal claims (beyond the local claims that were within the province of desabhasa) of what has insightfully been called "limited universal sovereignty." It had to be a language powerful not so much because of its numinous qualities (I find little in the epigraphs we actually possess to suggest that Sanskrit was prized because of its supposed transcendent character; it is certainly false to assert, as some do, that the audience of public poetry was the gods!), but because of its aesthetic qualities, its ability somehow to make reality more real—more complex and more beautiful—as evinced by its literary idiom and style, and a literary history that embodies successful exemplars of such linguistic alchemy. It had, moreover, to be a language dignified and stabilized by grammar. Only in such a language, and not one unconstrained by grammar and therefore constantly in danger of degenerating, could the fame of the ruler expect to receive permanent, indeed, eternal expression. But there is more to grammaticality than just this kind of simple quasi-functionalism, something deeper rooted. In a way,

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t h e o r d e r of Sanskrit poetry w a s the o r d e r of S a n s k r i t g r a m m a r — t h e greatest linguistic a c h i e v e m e n t in all antiquity, and p e r h a p s since—and that order w a s a model or p r o t o t y p e of the moral, social a n d political order. A just (sadhu) king w a s a king w h o u s e d and p r o m o t e d the u se of correct l a n g u a g e (sadliusabda), in the s a m e w a y that, to a p p e a l to the great p h i l o s o p h e r Kumarila in h i s critique of Pali B u d d h i s m , it is only by using a l a n g u a g e w h o s e form is t r u e (sad) that one can p o s s i b l y s p e a k the truth (satya). Not only w a s S a n s k r i t t h u s the a p p r o p r i a t e vehicle for t h e expression of royal will, b u t Sanskrit learning itself b e c a m e a crucial c o m p o n e n t of kingliness. This trope of the learned king is very w i d e s p r e a d and long-standing. W e can trace it from R u d r a d a m a n in second century Gujarat, " h e w h o won w i d e fame b y h i s theoretical and practical m a s t e r y and retention of the g r e a t k n o w l e d g e s , g r a m m a r and the r e s t " (sabddrtha-[. . .] vidydndm mahatlndm pdranadlidranavijndnaprayogdvdptavipulakirti-), to Bhoja in tenth century D h a r a , " h e w h o w a s w i s e in all a s p e c t s of l i t e r a t u r e " (nihsesavdrimayavid), Sanjaya in eighth century Java, " h e w h o u n d e r s t o o d the finest points of the s h a s t r a s * ' (sdsirasuksmdrtluwcdi-), and S u r y a v a r m a n in eleventh century Angkor, H e w h o s e mind itself s e e m e d truly a moving b o d y , with the [Great \ Commentary [of Patanjali J and the rest [of the g r a m m a t i c a l treatises | for its feet, [the two kinds of J p o e t r y for its h a n d s , the six s y s t e m s of p h i l o s o p h y for its s e n s e s , dharmsdstra for its h e a d (b lias y a d i c a r a n a k a z J y a p anih s a d d a r sa n e n d r i y a /y a n m a t i h dharmasdstrddimastakd jarigamdyate \ sic leg. 1). 1 h a v e a l r e a d y called attention to h o w central is the literariness of Sanskrit public poetry, and I w a n t to return to it briefly. Clearly Sanskrit w a s not u s e d to give expression to w h a t w e might call politics a s material p o w e r . The p o w e r e m b o d i e d in the l a n g u a g e s of-state for p u r p o s e s of taxation, for e x a m p l e , w a s a l w a y s inclined to s p e a k in the so-called v e r n a c u l a r idioms. Sanskrit w a s u s e d to give expression to politics a s aesthetic p o w e r . In public texts Sanskrit alone is p e r m i t t e d to be the l a n g u a g e of the figure of s e n s e (of simile, m e t a p h o r , and a b o v e all slesa or double-entcndre); it alone is the l a n g u a g e of the figure of sound (alliteration in all its varieties) and the l a n g u a g e of m e t r i c s (the controlled d e p l o y m e n t over time of recognizable p a t t e r n s of p h o n e m e s ) . T h e s e functions

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separate the object of Sanskrit discourse from the world of the everyday, not only for the obvious reason that the everyday world does not contain, except randomly, the figures of sense and sound and metric, but because the everyday world—of village boundaries, freehold conditions, tax exemptions, endowment requirements—is not the place for the activities with which these functions of language are associated: the interpretative, the ambiguous, the polysemic, the imaginative, the persuasive, the captivating. This is by no means to claim that Sanskrit inscriptional d iscourse does not at the same time make important arguments about reality: about genealogical authenticity and validation, relations of political dominance, royal virtue and royal rights. But as its very form showir,, and shows increasingly by growing more complex and learned overtime (the influence of Bana and other slesa poets grows with almost equal intensity in the Deccan and Cambodia), this is not its only purpose: it also is concerned to enhance reality by poetry. For these reasons we ha vetobegin to realize that these epigraphs are important symbolic as well as discursive gestures. The Western scholars who edited the Cambodian inscriptions, for example—to whom we own an enormous debt of gratitude for their labours—like Indologists elsewhere working with such records, never cease to complain of what they saw as the sheer inanity otprasusti texts. As impoverished of facts as they are rich in things devoid of interest", "interminable panegyric", says one scholar, and many before and after him have agreed. Without interest and interminable to whom? Someone in the Khmer country took care beyond imagining to compose the 218 complex punning verses (in the best tradition of Subandhu and Bana) of Mebon (952 CK) or the 298 oi Pre-Rup (961 ci-:)—indeed, if we are to believe one scholar, to composeit according to the dimensions of a stone surface that had already been selected!. —engrave it and erect it in a visible spot in a grand temple complex. More than this, he took care to learn a Sanskrit that deploys all the rhetorical and formal resources of the most complex and sophisticated poetry from the subcontinent (not to mention virtually perfect orthography and grammar whose mastery shows no slackening to the very moment of the disappearance of Sanskrit culture from Cambodia). What else must we have before we begin to take thesepoems seriously as cultural statements of significance7 And when will we begin to see that among the "facts" that are important in these texts is their textuality itself, their celebrating

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royal (or other) power through the aesthetic potentialities of a language that projects such power beyond the confines of the local by linking up the local with a cosmopolitan culture of shared aesthetic presuppositions and moral-political commitments?

The discourse of public poetry in Sanskrit differs not only from the public discourse for which regional language could be used, but it also differs in some ways from non-public Sanskrit poetry. I want by way of a few examples to try to capture some of those differences and illustrate a few of the more general features of public Sanskrit poetry that I have been discussing. But I want to preface these examples by a few remarks about the poets themselves. One of the striking facts about the poets who wrote public poetry is that only rarely do they seem to have been poets of courtly, salon, ''private'' poetry. We know the names of over threchundred poets who composed in scrip tional verses. Of these, I can identify only a handful who are known, whether from extant manuscripts of their works, from being cited in anthologies or named elsewhere, or by their own declaration in an epigraph, to have written literary texts. Of these few only a handful are reasonably well known (Trivikramabhatta of Manyakheta, tenth century; Cittapa of Dhara, late tenth century; Umapatidhara of Bengal, twelfth century;Sripala of Gujarat, twelfth century; Jayamaiigala Suri, thirteenth century). Moreover, many authors of public poetry are clearly identified as men positioned outside the literary salon, whether as high officials (sandliivigrahika, attested from the time of Hariscna, minister of Samudragupta in the fourth century, to that ofoneKubera, minister of Netrbharijadeva in the fifteenth century; a senapati composed a pmsasti to Suryavarman in 1002 en), or indeed, members of the royal family (e.g., the princes Suryakumara and his brother Virakumara, authors of twrelfth-century;;ra^7S/zs on their father, Suryavarman of Angkor) or less elevated clerks (kcli/astha, such as a Suryaditya who signs a public poem of j 128, or one Baijuka ofMathura two hundred years later). Public and private poetry seem thus, by and large, to have been separate domains of cultural production that rarely intersected. A second fact about this poetry is that, despite its vast profusion and its pervasion of the Indian cultural sphere—or more justly put,

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its role in the creation of that sphere—the theoreticians of literature ignore it totally. It is never discussed in saliityasastra analyses of literary art in general or genre in particular, with two very minor exceptions. (The c o m m e n t a t o r N a m i s a d h u on R u d r a t a ' s Kavyalamkara is the sole authority to give a definition, but only a definition, of a principal genre of public poetry, the prasasti ["a prasasti is a eulogy wherein a king's family is described"] and Visvanatha in his Sahityadarpana defines the virudam as i4a praise poem for a king composed in verse and prose/') An unsympathetic reader (such as Ludwik Sternbach, who asserted that the "versifiers" lacked poetic inspiration and their verse is without literary interest) might of course argue that no one considered "pub'ic poetry" as poetry. Well, no one perhaps except the writers themselves. We find them claiming this status almost from the beginning of the Sanskrit millennium, with the Allahabad Pillar inscription of Samudragupta (before 376 ci-), whose author Harisena calls his work a kavya; and it continues, from the celebrated Tajagunda inscription of the K a d a m b a s in the south (undated; ca. 455-470 CK), In deference to the command of King Santivarman Kubja has written this his own kavya upon the face of this rock to the recently published Bilpank epigraph of Sripala in 1141: Srlpala, emperor of poets and adopted kin of King Siddharaja . . . composed this superb praise-poem (prasasti). No doubt there were features of inscriptional poetry that accounted to some extent for its usual marginalization by literary elites, features that certainly were a function of the inscriptionality of the texts, if I may put it that way, and that may also, in some way or other, be related to the social location of their producers. But this is also something else at work, in the fabric of the texts themselves. Readers of Sanskrit poetry, as it is found in the great works of the courtly poets and dramatists, sense—and this is a feeling that reaches its fullest theoretical realization in the aesthetic philosophy

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of the late tenth-century critic Abhinavagupta—that it presents a language world quite different from any other. What has to strike the reader of this poetry in the first instance is what I would call the attenuated historicity of Sanskrit literary experience, generated above all by the fact that it is not the language of everyday personal experience. It is not the language of childhood, the kitchen, the market, the army; of friendship or love; of memories or dreams. Nor, accordingly, is it the purpose of Sanskrit literature to deal with local habitations and names. It is rather to distill human experience into as generaiizable and universalizable account as language can possibly produce. The transcendently beautiful poems of Amaru or Bhartrhari,namelessandplacelessasthey arc, are perfect expression of this tendency—one so well-known to readers and critics of Sanskrit that it has become something of a cliche. The character of the public poetry of Sanskrit can be very different from this. It is here that the locally placed, the dated, the particular, the referential manifests itself in such abundance and, sometime, power. Pieces d'occasion they may by definition be, but the public poetry of Sanskrit tells us something precious about the fuller possibilities of what poetry could do and mean in early India, something that supplements the great canonical works and sets off in relief the latter's own literary purposes and procedures. VI Here is not the place to provide an anthology of inscriptional poetry; this is something I hope to do at some length elsewhere. But in closing Jet me offer just a very few examples of some of the things I have been trying to suggest. How rare it is to find elsewhere in Sanskrit literature thepersonal, deeply autobiographical sentiment such as we find constantly in the prose-poem epigraphs of the Badami Calukyas, as in the following copper-plate record of Vikramaditya II (742 en): He became infused with divine energy the moment he was anointed into sovereignty over the entire world, and he resolved to destroy the Pallava, his natural enemy, who had stolen the luster of the former kings of his dynasty. Straightaway he reached Tundaka district, where he came face to face with the Pallava, Nandipotavarman. He defeated

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him in battle and put him to flight and he got hold of precious things, t h o s e m u s i c a l i n s t r u m e n t s , the karumukha and samudraghosa. the khatvfiriga standard, and elephants without peer, drunken, full-grown, celebrated elephants; a treasure of rubies whose rays could shatter the darkness; and a treasure of gold so great it took many men to carry. But he spared Karici, that gorgeous belt of the lovely lady, the South, the place where the sage Agastya was once born in a sacred vessel. I le brought great happiness to brahmanas, the wretched, the fatherless by his unstinting charity. He acquired great spiritual merit by returning vast treasures oi gold to the stone temples built by Narasimhapota, like the Rajasimhesvara temple. With *he shooting flame o( his power he scorched many kings—the Pandya, Cola, Kerala, Kalabhra and others. And he planted the victory pillar of his fame, brilliant as the autumn moon, at the southern ocean, where waves come boiling at the shore, and the shore shim mors with rays of mounds oi pearls loosed from oysters when his dolphin-like elephants, shaken by their fear of the ocean, struck them and broke them open with their trunks . . . . 1 have already mentioned the Talagunda inscription of the time of Santivarman. It is carved on a 12-foot high granite pillar set before a temple in Shimoga District, Karnataka, and relates the story of the Kadamba kings, a brahmana clan of Karnataka, "the sons of Hariti, who travelled the path of the triple ancient lore," and ultimately achieve kingship. The first of the clan is ivlayurasarman. whose story begins in his student days, and whose personality emerges from the epigraph with unusal boldness of delineation: . . . So May Lira sarman went down wiih his guru Virasarman to the city of Pallava kings eager to master sacred learning, and enrolled as a student in the vedic school. A heated agrument broke out ovor the horse sacrifice of the Pallava king—Mayurasarman was enraged. 4 'How miserable is life in this Kali age, with priests become so much weaker than kings.

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"It makes no difference how much you please your teachers, or how hard you study your sacred texts—to become a real brahmana will still depend on the king. What could be worse than that?" And so with a hand trained to handle holy kusa grass, kindling for the sacred fire, the mortar and ladle, the ghee and oblation pot, he drew out a flashing sword, ready to take on the world. He proceeded to defeat in battle the frontier guards of the Pallava kings, and occupied the impassable wilderness to the very gates of Snparvata, Mount of Royal Splendor. The following verse, by a poet of the Rastrakuta king Indraraja III writing on copper in the year 914 CE about an earlier king of the dynasty, locates this kind of historical referentiality in popular memory: When the monsoon clouds gather and the downpour follows and the arc of Indra's bow appears old people tell of the time Krsnaraja fought the Gurjaras, how in a black rage he spanned his bow studded with glittering jewels and shot arrows upon the head of enemy heroes, and how they howled. Public poetry is not only the place where a new kind of royal historicity comes to expression. It is also the place for more modest gestures of remembrance and memorialization, such as are rare elsewhere in Sanskrit poetry. Here is a part of a fragmentary commemorative inscription from 510 en. It is engraved on a pillar found implanted under the trees on the banks of the Bima river in Eran (Sagar District, Madhya Pradesh); the pillar is crowned with the sculpted heads of the husband and wife referred to in the verses, which recount the battlefield death of the man, an official in the Gupta empire:

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His son w a s glorious Goparaja, a m a n famed for his b r a v e r y , the n e p h e w of Sarabharaja and the < . . . > ornament of his dynasty. W h e n B h a n u g u p t a , h e r o equal to Partha, w a s e m p e r o r of the world, they s a y that Goparaja c a m e with him to this place, in c o m p l i a n c e with their pact. H e fought brilliantly in battle and went to h e a v e n like a celestial king. In devotion and loyalty his beloved wife a s c e n d e d the p y r e with him, holding h i m tight. An u n d a t e d prasasti recording an e n d o w m e n t to the great Buddhist university of N a l a n d a in southern Bihar (twelfth century)—not the prasasti of a king but of a Buddhist cleric hailing from near Rajshahi in B a n g l a d e s h ( S o m a p u r a = P a h a r p u r ) — s h o w not only h o w far the inscriptional habit of public Sanskrit poetry s p r e a d beyond the royal centres t h e m s e l v e s , b u t m o r e important, h o w this poetry e m b o d i e d deep-felt emotion—indeed, a s w e read it, the stone s e e m s to s p e a k with an almost p a l p a b l e s a d n e s s : In S o m a p u r a there lived an ascetic named Karunasrimitra. I le cultivated the Buddhist virtues by s h o w i n g c o m p a s s i o n to all living things and bringing them h a p p i n e s s and welfare. From Varigala c a m e a r m i e s , they threw fire in his dwelling, and it burst into flames. Clutching the B u d d h a ' s lotus feet the ascetic went to heaven. The intensity of the i m p u l s e that p r o m p t e d Sanskrit p o e t s to cover the world in poetry, far beyond the service to any court, I find r e p r e s e n t e d in the following little verse from p e r h a p s the seventh century. It is incised on a boulder lying at the foot of the M e r b a b u volcano in central Java, near a spring (the ' T u k M a s " or " G o l d e n

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Spring") that gushes out from its steep and stony walls. The lines stand alone on the rock, doing what Sanskrit poetry can do so well, giving praise to what is beautiful: Her younger sisters are the pure white lotuses, she gushes from the rock face here and from among the pebbles there, and there pours out her cold clean water, this spring that like the Gariga makes all it touches pure. In all these instances we find not just a discourse that by its unadorned directness gains forcefulness, sometimes pathos and even a kind of sublimity, but also a quality of localization that strives to fix in the stuff of language, somehow imagined to be as durable as the substance upon which it is incised, a fleeting and very real human moment. Both of these are qualities typically absent from other Sanskrit poetry, which has its own and very different resources to employ in achieving its extraordinary results. A number of these features, I think, are present in the following two inscriptions of which I provide selections. The first is from the court of King Manadeva of Nepal (464 CE), inscribed on a tall pillar before the Changu Narayan temple (10 kilometers northeast of Kathmandu). It begins with a genealogy of kings, starting with Vrsadeva, and Saiikaradeva, and then speaks of Dhaimadeva, who "through righteousness alone protected the great kingdom of Nepala" : His wife was the grand Sri Rajyavati. She was the offspring of a pure family, a Laksmi to his Visnu with all her virtues. And he loved her more than life itself. < . . . > the king had shed the lustre of his fame over this whole world, but then he left for the realm of the gods—it was peaceful, like a trip to a pleasure garden—but his wife suddenly collapsed, wild with the fever of grief < . . . > utterly immobilized— a woman who before separation from her husband was ever busy with rites and rituals and the feeding of the gods.

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N o w this Queen Rajyavati—called the k i n g ' s wife b u t really his royal p o w e r incarnate— w a s a b o u t to follow her h u s b a n d , h e r t h o u g h t s fixed on the other world. S h e c a m e to h e r son, Prince M a n a d e v a , a m a n of faultless conduct, in b e a u t y like the a u t u m n moon a n d like the moon a delight to all the people. The w o r d s catching in h e r throat, d r a w i n g sighs so slowly, her face stained with tears, s h e said, with d e e p emotion, " Y o u r father h a s gone to h e a v e n . O m y son, there is no r e a s o n for m e to live n o w t h a t y o u r father h a s p a s s e d a w a y . My d e a r son, rule the k i n g d o m , I will t a k e the p a t h m y h u s b a n d took, before the day is out. " H o w could T live w i t h o u t my h u s b a n d , held back by the h o p e — which long y e a r s of m u t u a l p l e a s u r e still a r o u s e — of being reunited with him, w h e n that could never b e m o r e than a d r e a m or m i r a g e ? T am going," she said with determination. But then her broken-hearted son t o u c h e d his h e a d to her feet in devotion and firmly spoke. " W h a t u s e w o u l d I h a v e for p l e a s u r e s , w h a t possible joy in living if I w e r e p a r t e d from you? First I will give u p m y life—and only then can you go from this world to h e a v e n . " T h e s e w o r d s o\ his, m o i s t e n e d with t e a r s from his lotus eyes, w e r e the c o r d s of a net that t r a p p e d her like a bird. And t r a p p e d she stayed . . . The second is one of the few inscriptional w o r k s in India to gain s o m e r e n o w n o u t s i d e the n a r r o w circles of e p i g r a p h i s t s and h i s t o r i a n s . It is c a r v e d on a slab of s a n d s t o n e that h a d been set in the wall of a s t a i r c a s e leading u p to a t e m p l e in the small village of M a n d a s o r in M a d h y a P r a d e s h ; n o w it is on display in the Curl M a h a l M u s e u m , Gwalior. The p o e m tells the story of the migration of a g r o u p of s i l k - w e a v e r s from Lata in southern Gujarat to their n e w h o m e in M a n d a s o r , in the year 436 CK. . . . In the land of Lata, the trees bend u n d e r the weight of their flowers,

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there are beautiful temples, royal halls, holy monasteries. But the world-famous craftsmen of Lata left that land of theirs and its wooded mountains, attracted by the good king of this region. Despite the hardships of the journey, they came with great hopes to Dasapura—at first only in their daydreams, and then with children and kin . . . . They formed close associations with their neighbors; day by day friendship grew. The kings treated them like their own sons, and they lived happily in Dasapura. A girl can be very young and pretty, gold at her neck, flowers in her hair and betel in her mouth—yet the real beauty only comes when she puts on her pair of silks. And who makes the silk that adorns the land far and wide—soft silk, with a riot of colors, a true delight to see? These craftsmen from Lata. Yet knowing that the life of man, and wealth, however vast, are far more fragile than a petal blown from the ear of a forest spirit, they made a firm and good decision, while King Kumaragupta was ruling the earth,

and Bandhuvarman was the lord protecting the rich town of Dasapura: With the wealth acquired from their craft the guild of silk-weavers would have a temple built' a noble temple like no other, in honour of the blazing sun.

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In the year four hundred ninety three from the founding of the Malava tribe, during the time of year when clouds begin to rumble in the month of Sahasya, in the white fortnight, the lucky thirteenth day, this place was opened, with hymns of praise. As long as Lord Siva bears his high pile of matted yellow hair and pure crescent moon within; as long as the bright lotus garland hangs at Visnu's shoulder, this noble house will last. By order of the guild and with true devotion this house of the sun was built; and with great care the above was composed by Vatsabhatti. Foolishly criticized by past scholars as trite, the work of a poeta ster, the Mandasor epigraph offers us a rare and memorable chance to hear another voice speak, one usually silenced in Sanskrit literature, and speak with an honest pride and piety we can still admire 1500 years later. And like the other epigraphs I have noticed—a minute selection of the hundreds of thousands available, of which perhaps less than two-thirds have yet been published—this gives eloquent testimony to how Sanskrit poets, participants in one of history's most extraordinary cosmopolitan cultures, made the world alive with poetry. Reference 1. The first four sections of this paper arc a much abbreviated version, omitting the full presentation of evidence and bibliographical references, of a work in progress, entitled ' T h e Sanskrit Cosmopolis, AD 300-1300: TranscuUuration, Vernacularization, and the Question of Ideology", that will appear in a volume on the Ideology ami Status of Sanskrit, ed., J L M. Houbcn (Leiden, forthcoming).

The Major Dramatists Raj end ra Mi slim

Bhasa, Kalidasa, Sudraka, H a r s a v a r d h a n a , Bhavabhuti, Visakhadatta,BhattaNarayana,MurariJ\aj\^sekharaandJayadeva are the major d r a m a t i s t s in Sanskrit literature, flourishing in the range of the 4th century B.C. to the 13th century A.D. Bhasa A great d e b a t e regarding B h a s a ' s identity, authenticity and authorship h a s been creating ideological fluctuation in the m i n d s of Sanskrit pandits. For a long period the d r a m a t i c w o r k s of Bhasa were unavailable. But his authorship and historicity w e r e a l w a y s beyond any doubt. Kalidasa (1st century BC) referred to Bhasa in the prologue of his first d r a m a Malavikiignimilram. Banabhatta, the court-poet of H a r s a v a r d h a n a (606-648 AD) praised the d r a m a t u r g i c excellence and social prestige of Bhasa in his Ifarsncluiritam. Rajasekhara, the court-poet of the great Gurjara-Pratihara king of Kanyakubja, M a h e n d r a p a l a (J0th century AD) describes the popularity of Bhilsimatakachakram. S o m e great rhetoricians also refer to the a u t h o r s h i p of Bhasa. The first and foremost among them is Acharya B h a m a h a , w h o d i s c u s s e s the t h e m e of the Pratijnamltikil of Bhasa.

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In later p e r i o d s , B h a s a h a s been recalled by Vakpatiraja and J a y a d e v a t h r o u g h their p a n e g y r i c e x p r e s s i o n s . It w a s M.M.T. G a n a p a t i S h a s t r i , the scholar c u r a t o r of the M a d r a s M.S. Library, w h o p u b l i s h c d thirteen d r a m a s of Bhasa u n d e r the Ananta S h a y a n a Series in 1912. This publication g e n e r a t e d a stormy d e b a t e on B h a s a ' s historicity and his a u t h o r s h i p . But the evidence p r e s e n t e d by B a n a b h a t t a , Sutradliarakrtarambfuuh, is alone sufficient to p r o v e t h e a u t h o r s h i p of t h e s e p l a y s , since all of them c o m m e n c e with the direct entry of the S u t r a d h a r a ( H l ^ cT?T: y^ipd W J R : ) . W e can easily d i v i d e B h a s a ' s p l a y s in three categories on the b a s i s of their t h e m e s : A. P l a y s Based on the R a m a y a n a : 1. Pratimanataka and 2. Ablrisekanatuka B. P l a y s Based on the M a h a b h a r a t a : 3. Panchcmitra 4. Madhyama Vyayoga 4. Dutavakya 6. Diita Ghatotkacha 7. KarnabluTni 8. Balacharita and 9. Urubhanga C. P l a y s Based on Folktales & U d a y a n a Stories 10. Daridracharudatta 11. Avimaraka 12. Pratijful Yaugandharayana and 13. Svapnavasavadallnm. B h a s a ' s g r e a t e s t contribution is to r e p r o d u c e the R a m a y a n a and the M a h a b h a r a t a in the e a s i e s t d r a m a tic form. H e achieved s u c c e s s in p o p u l a r i z i n g the e p i s o d e s of the t w o great Indian e p i c s which w e r e confined to scholastic society. But the poet d o e s not p r e s e n t t h e s t o r i e s in their original form. On the other h a n d , h e h a s profusely altered the incidents, d i a l o g u e s and s e q u e n c e s in his presentation for the s a k e of d r a m a t i c p l e a s u r e and m a s s interest. B h a s a ' s imagination is significant. The concept of U e v a k u l a (the temple) in Pratima and the concept of S v a p n a (the d r e a m ) in Svapnavasavadattam a r e unique. T h e s e h a v e p r o v i d e d guidelines for s u b s e q u e n t great d r a m a t i s t s like Kalidasa and V i s a k h a d a t t a also. Due to t h e s e d r a m a t i c d e v i c e s Bhasa s t a n d s unparalleled in the t r e a t m e n t of dualistic love. This love is not merely a physical h u n g e r for s e n s u a l p l e a s u r e . It is an overflowing sensual satisfaction w h i c h w a s h e s a w a y all physical a s p e c t s . U d a y a n a , the h e r o of the Svapnavasavadattam feels the e c s t a s y of that love which e n d s in an

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indescribable contentment and eternal peace and not in sensual lust. Bhasa's treatment of nature and his literary presentation is somewhat indebted to the Ramayana. He often repeats the expressions of Valmiki. The pathetic condition of an unprotected lawless society,1 depicted by Bhasa reminds us of Ayodhya being deprived of the great king Dasaratha.

—Pratima. 3.24. Although not superlative in literary grandeur, the similes of Bhasa are free from any kind of artificiality, classicism and other rhetorical devices. On the whole they are full of spontaneity and naturalness. For example:

—Pratima. 2.7. 'Rama vanished like the sun. Lakshmana also followed him as the daylight follows the sun. Alas! Sita has also become invisible like the shadow in the absence of the sun and the d a y / Likewise is Bhasa's treatment of nature. Kalidasa's treatment of nature is totally subjective, reflecting the inner feelings of his characters. But nature (Prakrti) has nothing to do with the innate sensibility of any character. It focuses exclusively upon the evcrchanging curtains of the cosmic drama—multicoloured clouds, flying birds, the rising sun or moon, dense smoke piercing the roof of the hermitage and so on. In this natural depiction simplicity and reality seem to predominate. I would like to justify my statement by quoting a single textual testimony. WTT ciujftdl: ufddHcHlldl HpMH:

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Kalidasa A l t h o u g h a g r e a t literary confrontation h a s been going on a m o n g S a n s k r i t s c h o l a r s r e g a r d i n g h i s life-history, w e h a v e s o m e very i m p o r t a n t and i n d i s p e n s a b l e evidence for placing him in the 1st c e n t u r y be. Actually it is the co-ordinating genius of Kalidasa which m a k e s him s u p e r b a n d extraordinary. In his d r a m a t i c w o r k s h e h a s ably c o m b i n e d t h e divine and the mortal (heaven and earth), the urban and the rural cultures. H e h a s presented the whole creation a s a c o m b i n e d family, in which not only h u m a n beings but A p s a r a s , G a n d h a r v a s , K i n n a r a s , R a k s h a s a s and D e v a s a l s o live a s a c o u n t e r p a r t . They h e l p e a c h other in their miseries and relish the delight of life in the m o m e n t s of victory and prosperity. This cultural co-ordination, s e e m s to b e the back-bone of Kalidasan literature a s a whole. W h e n S h a k u n t a l a d e p a r t s from the h e r m i t a g e of her god-father M a h a r s i Kanva, the V a n a d e v a t a s (the forest deities) s h o w e r good w i s h e s on her: i^Al^i: ^MIdH>rlKrl:Trnf'q \ N I c*>$Vt I <4 i vsfl H $ 'J K WI: 7TRTT5T+>dMcH!M fmT^

^-JI: 11

—Act 4.10 Such a r e the countless v e r s e s in Kalidasan poetry, w h e r e this t y p e of co-ordination can be perceived. K u m b h o d a r a (a lion) is a p p o i n t e d for keeping safe the d e v a d a r u trees, planted and w a t e r e d by Parvati. S a n u m a t i (a n y m p h ) carries a w a y Shakuntala from the court of D u s y a n t a . D u s y a n t a goes to s w a r g a \:\ order to help Indra, the ruler of p a r a d i s e . Nandini (the divine cow) obliges the great king Dilipa by giving a son (Raghu) to him. Kusha, the son fo R a m a m a r r i e s a N a g a k a n y a (a s e r p e n t ' s daughter). P u r u r a v a , the king of the l u n a r - d y n a s t y , m a r r i e s Urvashi, w h o is an A p s a r a s . T h e s e references s h o w , the art of co-ordination and combination h a n d l e d by K a l i d a s a . In short, he d e a l s with the whole universe in his themes. N o w w e c o m e to the second point and that is his treatment of n a t u r e . For K a l i d a s a n a t u r e h a s been a conscious counterpart of

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scnsatc society. He makes no difference between the two. Senselessness has never been the distinctive feature of nature in Kalidasan poetry. What the great English poet Wordsworth did in the 18th century, Kalidasa did more successfully in the 1st century BC. The flora and the fauna seems to be the companion of human beings in their happiness and sorrow. This has been a unique feature of Kalidasa's poetry. The treatment of nature in Kalidasan poetry has some suggestion, some motivation, some future indication. Shakuntala, on her way to Hastinapura beholds a couple of Chakravaka bird. They are separated by the thick leaves of the lotus plant. The Chakravaki, unable to see her companion, restlessly quivers for a while. Shakuntala, comparing herself with that Chakravaki plunges into deep sorrow, capturing a note of future separation from her husband, the Hastinapura ruler Dusyanta. But Anasuya consoles her saying: "Lookhere my darling, the assistance of hope, makes a man endure the greatest sorrow of separation." To quote the original context: Tn^3N fim f^RT J|H<Mfd T5FJt fcmi
—Act 4.15

Another distinctive feature of Kalidasa's poetry is his limitless love for his country. The great mountain Himalaya isjiot merely an object of nature. For Kalidasa, Himalaya is a divine being, a Devatatma.2 The meeting point of the three sacred river-streams (Ganga, Yamuna and Sarasvati)hasbecntheonlysourceof salvation to Kalidasa. 3 It may bc the travel-track of the cloud-messenger (Meghaduta) or the world-victory-cxpedition of Emperor Raghu or the Swayamvara (self-selection) of Indumati—Kalidasa takes advantage of the situation and expresses his heart-felt and deep love for Bharata, alongwith its rivers, mountains, provinces and seasons. From that point of view he seems to bc the first National Poet known in the history of our nation. It seems rather hard to fathom the depth of the poetry of Kalidasa. He never means only that which the words, used in his poems, acutally say. His poetry is not confined to a conventional meaning. Truly speaking, he is beyond tradition, beyond the beaten track and beyond any m a n - m a d e foiinality. The g r e a t e s t

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c o m m e n t a t o r of his era, M. M. Mallinatha Suri, also finds himself u n a b l e to explain the h i d d e n meaning of K a l i d a s a ' s poetry:

Sudraka T h e historicity of S u d r a k a is still doubtful. But most of the critics h a v e fixed h i s d a t e , s o m e w h e r e b e t w e e n Kalidasa (1st century BC) a n d D a n d i n (7th century AD). Kalidasa, while quoting the n a m e s of h i s p r e d e c e s s o r d r a m a t i s t s like Bhasa, Saumilla and Kaviputra o m i t s S u d r a k a * s n a m e . This is the most reliable evidence for accepting t h a t S u d r a k a w a s not prior to Kalidasa. On the other h a n d A c h a r y a Dandin, in h i s Kavyadarsa, quotes a verse from the Mrcchukatikam of S u d r a k a :

3UkM*fc|^S|ci c^r^+K'ldi\TM\\ 1.34 A p a r t from this conclusive standpoint, s o m e m o r e significant opinions a r e p r e s e n t e d here: 1. A c h a r y a V a m a n a in his Kavyalankara Suhavrtti mentions the w o r k of S u d r a k a , 4 which p r o v e s his precedence. Van i ana flourished u n d e r the p a t r o n a g e of the K a s h m i r ruler Jayapida (779-813 AD) as mentioned b y K a l h a n a in h i s Rajatarangini.5 2. Pandit B a l a d c v a U p a d h y a y a p r e s e n t s an excellent standpoint. In t h e 9th act of the Mrcchakatikam, the planet Jupiter (^rrqfa) h a s been s t a t e d a s the rival of M a r s FFT^).6 But the great astrologer V a r a h a m i h i r a h a s a c c e p t e d t h e m a s fast friends in his Brhajjdtaka7. This clearly p r o v e s t h a t S u d r a k a might h a v e flourished before V a r a h a m i h i r a (died 580 A.D.) Mrcchakatikam, w h i c h m e a n s an earthen-cart, is a d r a m a of the Prakaratw genre. It is divided into ten acts. It is considered to be the first social d r a m a is the history of Sanskrit d r a m a t i c literature. T h e h e r o , C h a r u d a t t a , w h o is a B r a h m a n a by caste is a great lover of m u s i c . Previously h e w a s a great S a r t h a v a h a (merchant) bu t now unfortunately h a s b e c o m e penniless. But h i s great merits like truthfulness, benevolence, gentleness, munificence and kindness

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arc still with him and he still maintains his social prestige in the city of Ujjayini. His wife Dhuta is of a submissive nature. She is chaste and virtuous and never complains. The beautiful, chaste and affectionate danseusc Vasantasena loves Charudatta deeply and hates Shakara (Sansthanaka) who pursues her in order to satisfy his lust. But she keeps herself a way from the grip of Shakara who happens to be the brother-in-law of the valourless ruler Palaka. The two never falter but stand still like a banyan tree in storms. Charudatta never regrets his poverty. But he is shocked to see that the friends, who often attended his home, have been slinking away, because of his pennilessncss. TT^T ^ i\ f^lcHm^dirw

fa^

*1H*I*^U|- % ERTft *rafcT "ZTTPrf I

—Act 1.13 Mrcchakatikam s e e m s to be a reflecting mirror of its c o n t e m p o r a r y society. Deviation from prescribed rules of morality,police atrocities,

gambling, thievery, prostitution, litigation, biased verdicts and many other social distortions can be seen in this distinctive dramatic work of Sudraka.The high character of Charudatta really enchants the reader's mind. He is the noblest of human beings who helps himself in his helplessness. He has been entrapped in the murder case of Vasantasena. Tine hangmen make fun and utters satirical remarks about him. The judges also accuse him. In his own defence, Charudatta submits only this much: T have never plucked even a flower from the branch of a creeper (out of compassion). How can 1 throttle a lady, pulling her hair as dark as the wings of the large black bee?

—Act 9.28

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Visakhadatta A short introduction of Visakhadatta is available in the prologue of his drama Mudrarakslmsam. According to it thepoet's grandfather, Va teshvaradatta, was a ruler. His father Bhaskaradatta also earned the title of Maharaja. The poet was fully adept in the Arthashastra treatise on polity, philosophy, astrology and logic. He was a staunch follower of the Vedic religion. Although the only extant dramatic work of Visakhadatta is Mz^mrJ/:s///7S^m; literary evidence indicates some other works also. A brief account of these works is given below: 1. Dcvlchandraguptam—Based on the historical account of Chandragupta, the son of Samudragupta and DevlDhruvaswamini. The popularity of the theme is evident through its mention in the llarsacliaritam of Banabhatta ana Kavyamunamsa of Rajasckhara. 2. AbJiisarikavanclutakam: The Abhinavabharati of Acharya Abhinavagupta and the Snigdrapnikiisa of kingBhojadeva mention this dramatic work, which wasbased on the life-history ofVatsaraja Udayana of Kaushambi. Thus, all the three dramatic works of Visakhadatta are related to history. This shows the intrinsic interest and partiality of the playwright towards historical and traditional themes. Visakhadatta's stagecraft achieved its acme in his monumental play Mudraraksluisum based on the story of Chanakya and Chandragupta, the first sovereign ruler of the Mauryan dynasty. The drama, having been divided into seven acts of full length, delineates the political dexterity and diplomacy of Mahaprajria C h a n a k y a , the political teacher, guardian and mentor of Chandragupta. It was only he, who could smash the mighty kingdom of the Nandas into pieces and establish the Mauryan empire. For strengthening its political rule he wanted to get hold of Rakshasa, the faithful premier of the Nandas. It was really an impossible task. But the great diplomat Chanakya makes it possible through his political expertise. He writes a forged letter, with the help of Shakatadasa, who happens to be the fast friend of Rakshasa. Chanakya gets this letter duly stamped with the signature of Rakshasa. This 'mudra' or the stamped letter proves to be the most forceful device in achieving victory. Chanakya succeedsin grabbing Rakshasa, through this stamped letter. That is why, the drama has been entitled Mudrdrdkshasam. Muddrdkshasam is a marvellous play from the dramatic point of

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view. The dialogues a r e t r e m e n d o u s l y meaningful and the t r e a t m e n t of the r a s a s (sentiments) is s u p e r b . C h a n a k y a , C h a n d r a g u p t a , R a k s h a s a and M a l a y a k e t u a r c the four m i g h t y pillars of this d r a m a . T h e s e c h a r a c t e r s , along with their peculiar individuality, s e e m to b e alive and full of vitality. The p l a y w r i g h t h a s a c h i e v e d m u c h s u c c e s s in p o p u l a r i z i n g even a difficult a n d c o m p l i c a t e d subject like politics. The a b s e n c e of even a single female c h a r a c t e r m a k e s this p l a y distinctive. Another peculiarity lies in the a b s e n c e of V i d u s h a k a or the traditional jester. The d r a m a t i c t h e m e itself is s o convoluted and tricky and full of curiosity that the s p e c t a t o r s never feel impatience. Every m o m e n t they r e m a i n alert, excited and e a g e r to see the climax of the d r a m a . Harsavardhana Harsavardhana^thcrulerofKanyakubjabelongedtotheVardhana d y n a s t y of S t h a n v i s h v a r a (modern T h a n c s a r city n e a r K u r u k s h e t r a , H a r y a n a ) . H e w a s the second son of P r a b h a k a r a V a r d h a n a , the c o n q u e r o r o f t h e H u n a s and Y a s h o m a t i . Prince R a j y a v a r d h a n a w a s h i s elder brother. H i s o n l y sister Princess Raja s h r e e w a s m a r r i e d to G r a h a v a r m a , the Kanyakubja ruler of the M a u k h a r i d y n a s t y . The p r o s p e r o u s k i n g d o m of H a r s a v a r d h a n a lasted from 606 to 648 AD. An authentic, b u t incomplete account of H a r s a d e v a is available in the f a m o u s akhi/ayika, Harsacharitam, of the great p o e t B a n a b h a t t a . H a r s a v a r d h a n a , a g r e a t lover of t h e fine a r t s and an a d e p t in B u d d h i s t canonical literature, w a s a great d e v o t e e of the G o d d e s s S a r a s w a t i . N o t only Banabhatta b u t s o m e other highly r e p u t e d p o e t s a l s o a d o r n e d t h e l i t e r a r y a s s e m b l y of H a r s h a d e v a . M a y u r a b h a t t a (the creator of Suryashataka) and M a t a n g a D i w a k a r a w e r e a m o n g them. It is h e a r d that M a t a n g a D i w a k a r a w a s a C h a n d a l a by c a s t e . Even then h e e a r n e d a reputation e q u a l to Bana and M a y u r a b e c a u s e of h i s poetic talent. This is evident from the expression of Rajaslwkhara, given below:

H a r s a v a r d h a n a , revived the tradition of the high a c a d e m i c t a s t e of p r e d e c e s s o r kings like V i k r a m a d i t y a , S u d r a k a , R u d r a d a m a n ,

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Satavahana Hala and others. He could influence the mind of later poets and critics like Padmagupta (in his Navasahasankacharilam) Soddhala (in his UdayasundarikatJia) and Damodaragupta (in his Kuttanimulam). The Chinese traveller Itsing, who visited India after the demise of Harsadeva, recalls his literary services in his travelaccounts. He tells that the king Shiladitya (Harsadeva) had got staged the story of Bodhisattva Jimutavahana, with actors, along with musical instruments. His court-poet Banabhatta also praises his poetic talent, saying: 7TTT]' TF-^TTWg "qfrr^TrfiTrfq T^J c r q ^ ^ T ^ T " ^ ! <W i j | d i\ H d i j ^ H -d fH Fd 1 4->o||r^^ ^ R l 1 M^ikil fmH:

3TPT etc.

— IlarsacJiaritam. Harsavardhana wrote three plays—Priyadarsika, Rat-nlvali and Ndgarumda. The first two plays are based on the Udayana episode and the last one on a tragic Jataka story (of Vidyadhara Jimutavahana). H a r s a ' s dramatic art is excellent. He seems tobe adept in various Shastras. The erotic scenes show his expertise in the science of sex. Most rhetoricians have quoted verses from Ratnavali, a masterpiece dramatic work. Dramaturgical rules and regulations have been strictly applied by Harsadeva in his plays. He knows well, how a lovelorn heart beats! In short, romanticism prevails everywhere in his comic plays, Priyadarsika and Ralnuvali. For example: fa" 1 T^R T^r i irfo ^ R P T ^ fam H far

"Patience has become helpless. Where should go benevolence? Charity has vanished. Compassion seems tobe dead. Oh my son! The whole world has become void, being deprived of you." This lamentation of Jimulavahana's father, makes the reader tearful. Just see the situation:

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OT: tfTfcf % ^ ^ F , fecTT
Bhattanarayana Bhattanarayana originally belonged to Kanyakubja territory but he migrated to Gaudadesha or Bengal on the invitation of Adishura, the ruler of that region in the 8th century AD. Adishura was the ruler preceding the Pala kings. The only dramatic work of Bhattanarayana is Vc«fsflm//«r«, based on the Mahabharata episode. It is divided in six acts. The dramatic theme starts with the peace talks of Lord Krishna, initiated by the Pandava brothers. Bhima becomes angry and does not like this proposal. Ultimately, the proposal for reconciliation fails due to the intransigence of Duryodhana, who wants to arrest Lord Krishna. Yudhisthira, the eldest Pandava, gets incensed by the disgrace of his well-wisher and consequently the war breaks out. The critics adept in stagecraft and dramaturgy have accepted this play as an ideal drama. Although Yudhisthira is the hero of the play on technical grounds, the characterization of Bhimasenaexcells him everywhere. The stormy dialogues between Ashvathama and Karna, also hold the spectators spellbound. Ashvathama, beingenraged by the killing of his revered father, challenges the Pandava warriors, in burning words. The language used by Bhattanarayana is very forceful and standardized. The plentiful use of compounds makes it befitting the war-theme. The main sentiment in theplay is Vlra and the supporting sentiments are Raudra and Srngdra. Bhavabhuti Bhavabhuti, who flourished under the patronage of the great 8th century ruler Yashovarma, was born in Padmapura, situated somewhere in Vidarbha. 1 le was a Kashyapa-gotri Brahmana and belonged to the Taittiriya branch of the Black Yajurveda. Neelakantha, Jatukarni and Bhatta Copala were his father, mother and grandfather respectively. The name of his teacher w a s Jnananidhi. In the prologue of his Mahaviracharitam, Bhavabhuti

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i n t r o d u c e s himself a s *il<^cJM
3TTTTSRTC dl + W H>^
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her husband Rama. Rama returns back to Dandakaranya again after several years and beholds his deserted hermitage. He recalls the happy days, enjoyed with his sweet-heart wife Sita. The tempestuous rcminiscencs make him remorseful and he weeps bitterly for his beloved wife, cursing and accusing the public which stood responsible for this henious crime.

His heart shatters. He feels burnt inwardly. His sensibility plunges into blind darkness and he becomes totally dejected and listless. FT FT ^fa! FRfcT W* mti

^Rl:

Uttara 3.38. Bhavabhuti proves tobc an expertplay wright in characterization. Divinity permeates his poetry. Although he has attempted almost all the sentiments in his plays, his treatment of pathos (Kiiruna) is superb and unparalleled. Even the stones weep and the heart of the thunderbolt breaks into pieces: 3?fq TJM irfe^fq ^rft ^ITPT ^ m ! ! Bhavabhuti is par excellence the poet of compassion and pathos. In his opinion, all other sentiments are only transformations of the single Karuna rasa. In the ocean, we behold ripples, bubbles and whirlpools separately. But do they have a separate existence? No, they are only manifestations of the sea. In other words, they all merge in the entity of the ocean. In the words of Bhavabhuti:

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121 "QqFt TO: ^R^T "QcT f=rfrTrtfteT-

^|c|d^
17/tarfl. 3.47. B h a v a b h u t i h a s u s u a l l y chosen n a t u r e ' s elemental scenes. H e is a h a b i t u a l of witnessing only the pristine form of n a t u r e w h e r e the b i r d s a r e warbling in a r d e n t p a s s i o n , hilly rivulets a r e flowing swiftly, and being e c h o e d by the falling ripe fruit of blackberries. Unlike K a l i d a s a , h e could never see the h u m a n i z e d form of nature. Describing D a n d a k a r a n y a the p o e t s a y s :

Uttara. 2.10. The critics of the later period h a v e p r a i s e d several e l e m e n t s of Bhavabhuti*s poetry. H i s t r e a t m e n t of innate h u m a n feelings and e n c h a n t i n g u s a g e of the Shikharini m e t r e a r e t w o of t h e m . K s h c m e n d r a (12th century AD) in h i s Suvrltatilaka writes t h a t the Shikharini of B h a v a b h u t i s e e m s to b e a river, flowing p a u s c l e s s l y . It d a n c e s like a p e a c o c k in the d e n s e forest.

Most e x p r e s s i o n s of h u m a n feelings a r e c o m m o n in all the d r a m a t i c w o r k s of Bhavabhuti. A good n u m b e r of such v e r s e s occur in Uttararamacharila and Malatirnadhava in a similar w a y . Dramatists of the Later Period The excellence of the d r a m a t i c art and the g r a n d e u r of stagecraft w e r e not the s a m e after Bhavabhuti- But the s p o n t a n e o u s flow of

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dramatic creativity never stopped. Mayuraja (Anangaharsa) Murari 8 , Rajasekhara, Shaktibhadra, M a h a d e v a , Jayadeva, Kulasekhara Varma, Ramachandra Suri, Vamanabhatta Bana and Rama Varma nourished the drying sprout of Sanskrit drama in later centuries. Rajasekhara, undoubtedly the greatestpoct, dramatist, rhetorician and political mentor of the Gurjara-Pratihara dynasty, deserves a special mention among Sanskrit dramatists. He was a great supporter of the local-dialects or Prakrtas and composed one of his plays entirely in Prakrta. That is his Karpuramanjarl satlaka. He belonged to a rich family tradition, which had been adorned by great poets like Akala-Jadada (the grand father of thepoct)Kadarbani Rama, Surananda, Tarala and Kaviraya. His wife, Avantisundari also had much poetic talent and helped him in establishing his rhetorical theories. She hasbeen occasionally quoted by Rajasekhara in his Kdvyamimdmsa. Rajasekhara, originally belongs to Maharastra but he flourished under the patronage of the great Pratihara king Mahendrapala. Being a contemporary ofMahendrapala,Mahipala and Yuvaryadeva of Tripuri, Rajasekhara may be dated between 880 to 920 AD. Pie wrote the following plays: 1. Balaramayanam, in 10 acts. 2. Bdlabhdratam or Prariiandapandavarn, of which only 2 acts arc extant, 3. Karpuramanjari (Natika) 4. Viddhashdlabhanjikd (Natika) Rajasekhara has exhibited his poetic talent, imaginative splendour and linguistic beauty in his Balaramayana. Several alterations in the basicRamaepisodehavebeenundertakenbythepoet. The dialogues arc witty and enjoyable.9 Jayadeva, the most brilliant among the playwrights of the later period, flourished in the 13th century AD. His dramatic work Prasannardgliavam seems to have been an epoch-making literary creation, which could attract the common public towards the Rama-episode. The Hindi poet Goswami Tulasidasa is partially indebted to J a y a d e v a , in s e v e r a l d e s c r i p t i o n s . In h i s Ramacharitamanasa he has directly borrowed the garden-scene from the Prasannaraghavam. The proud dialogues between Parashurama and prince Lakshmana have also motivated Goswamiji to incorporate this thrilling context in his work.

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This is only a brief account of the major dramatists in Sanskrit literature. The stream of creativity is still in progress. Modern Sanskrit literature (beginning from 1784 AD) is rich in dramatic creation and stage-performances. References 1. Cf ^ R T ^ ^ R ^ etc. Valmiki Ramayana 2.65.15. 2. Sec: ^WtUWI ftftT ^dkMI etc. Kumar. 1.1 3. S e c : Raghuvansham.

13.58.

4. TT^lfef^Rta OT^fa etc. 5. Rajatarangini

4.497.

6. ^TTT^Ffe^W y # H W ^ : ^ : I UtfUwU: T-I[?5 ^idRctff^tf: 11 ^T^J 9.33. 7. ^ W F K I cfwU^j TT"^:I ^F 2.16

8. y i f t t i f e p ' ^ ^

^T ^-nn

3#T + dl
10 The Development of Aesthetics and Literary Criticism in India Anthony

K.

Warder

Why study Indian aesthetics and criticism? In the first p l a c e they are fascinating subjects. But there is b r o a d e r social or political interest, for the a u s t e r e w h o d e s p i s e indulgence. These s t u d i e s a r e not 'English' or Western. N o r a r e t h e y 'eastern'. TTiey are specifically Indian, in the cultural, not the present political, sense. They are a symbol of independent thinking in India. This might seem selfevident, but again and again one sees that the resumption of political i n d e p e n d e n c e in India h a s , in the main, not been followed by the r e s u m p t i o n of cultural independence. 1 The w i d e s p r e a d u s e of the old imperial language, in p l a c e of Sanskrit, a s a k hnk' (chain?) between the various p a r t s of India h a s e m b e d d e d Anglocentrism and Eurocentric thinking in the m i n d s of t h o s e groomed in the ' m o d e r n ' (Victorian) educational system, those trained to run the present b u r e a u c r a c y and economy a s well a s to p e r p e t u a t e this alienising education. P e r h a p s a journal of the Council for Cultural Relations is not the p l a c e to write against relations, to insist on the u n r e l a t c d n e s s , the Indianness, oi this topic. But this is the only w a y to s h o w its importance: it is different, it is not a u s e l e s s duplication. Indian aesthetics yields powerful insights into art and into (universal) h u m a n nature. The earliest substantia] texts on aesthetics extant in India a r e

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T o l k a p p i y a n a r ' s Tolkappiyam in Tamil 2 and the Natyasastra3 in Sanskrit attributed to the e p o n y m o u s ' B h a r a t a ' , 'Actor'. A s to chronology, the Natyasastra w e h a v e is clearly a c o m p o s i t e work collecting the traditions of the actors. 4 The essential doctrine of ' t a s t e ' (rasa), aesthetic experience (as w e shall see), p r e s u p p o s e d by everything else, a p p e a r s to ha v e b e e n e s t a b l i s h e d by the second century BC, or even the fourth century BC: P a n i n i ' s 'sutras of the a c t o r s ' (IV.3.110) a r e likely to h a v e been the kernel of the eventual sdstra. T h e Tolkappiyam is usually d a t e d in the first century BC and in any c a s e d e r i v e s from the s a m e tradition (with the s a m e eight rasas), t h o u g h earlier than the extant Natyasastra text (undated but not earlier than the second century AD). Indirect testimony for the d e v e l o p m e n t of technical s e n s e s of rasa, including 'joy' and ' a c c o m p l i s h m e n t ' , is found in t h e Pali Tipitaka (Anguttara, Patisambhidamagga, etc.) and its C o m m e n t a r i e s , i.e., from a b o u t the fourth century BC o n w a r d s . 5 H o w e v e r , the exact starting point is i m m a t e r i a l for us h e r e and w e need not now explore the Veda for rasa. Suffice it that this w a s an ancient Indian (Sanskrit) w o r d w h e n it w a s a p p r o p r i a t e d for an a e s t h e t i c concept and a p p l i e d in the theatre. S i n c e r e ? s e c m s o r i g i n a l l y t o h a v e m e a n t 'juice', 'fluid', ' e s s e n c e ' and especially ' t a s t e ' a s one of the s e n s e objects (with rasana a s the 'tongue'), its u s e in the Natyasastra for w h a t is a c c o m p l i s h e d in the theatre (rasanispatti), the p l e a s u r e or joy of the a u d i e n c e (bJiwydndh . . . sumanasah preksakdh),6 implies that it is a sensation which the a u d i e n c e enjoys if the actors do their work successfully. The a u d i e n c e s e e s the a c t o r s and h e a r s t h e m , but in w h a t s e n s e d o e s it t a s t e them? Of c o u r s e only in a figurative sense: the ' t a s t e ' is of the invisible and inaudible a s p e c t of the d r a m a and the Natyasastra m a k e s it clear that it is the emotions (bliavas) that create this. It is the p l a y itself, the d r a m a t i c action and h u m a n p a s s i o n s behind their visible and a u d i b l e expression, which the s p e c t a t o r s p e r c e i v e in their m i n d s a n d enjoy ( e x p e r i e n c e 'joy', harsa, Natyasastra). W e can therefore accept Gnoli's translation of rasa a s ' a e s t h e t i c experience'. 7 It is the f u n d a m e n t a l concept of Indian a e s t h e t i c s . From the thea tre it w a s extended to the other a r t s , which w e shall t o u c h on below. The Natyasastra d i s c u s s e s the aesthetic experience from the practical point ofview of the a c t o r s working to p r o d u c e it. The m a in e m o t i o n s (bhavas) in the p l a y s , d o m i n a t i n g the action, called

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sthayibhavas, Staying' or lasting' or 'enduring emotions*, were found to be eight in number. This number is not accounted for in the Natyasastra; it seems to be taken as a fact of observation. These staying emotions are: love {rati), mirth, grief, anger, courage (or energy, utsaha), fear, disgust and astonishment. Other emotions, which are many, are merely 'transient* (vyabhicarin), for example pride, depression, shame. The emotions do not actually occur in the theatre, though they are understood to be in the drama. The actors are expected not to experience them but to act as if they did: to speak and gesticulate accordingly, part of which is to use conventions of acting to project 'emotions' to the audience, part based on the world, on their own past experience. Thus they act the effects of emotion, since the supposed staying emotions cannot be made directly visible. The professional actor will not really feel the emotions, but must control his acting to project their effects in speech, expression (facial) and gesture. The causes of emotion (other characters, the situation, the season, news, expectations, experiencing entertainments and games, etc.) are present or are described by the characters, fitting the effects. The characters are not present in person but only represented by the actors; their emotions, if supposed to be historical, ceased to exist long ago. But the members of the audience imagine that they arcpercei ving actual emotions in the characters. It is these emotions imagined, from their causes and effects shown by the actors, that create the real experience of the audience, which is not the emotions but an aesthetic experience. They are, for example, not in love with the actors or with the imagined characters; or if any of them are, this ha s no more relevance to the play than the private lives of the actors. An emotional reaction to an incident in the play by a member of the audience would be due either to some intense experience he remembered, breaking his enjoyment of the play, or to inexperience of the theatre. The 'taste' or aesthetic experience had by the audience is, according to the Natyasastra and Tolkdppiyam, of eight kinds correspond ing to their staying emotions. Their names a re adjectives qualifying rasa: 'brilliant* (or 'pointed*, vaguely 'sensitive*; see below), comic, compassionate, furious,heroic, apprehensive,horrific and marvellous. It is evident that the relations between these kinds of experience and their emotions vary. In fact the explanations in the Natyasastra

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vary, 8 whilst t h e Tolkappiyam a p p e a r s to confuse t h e m (III.246-47). But if t h e ' c o m m e n t a t o r s ' referred to by S u b r a h m a n y a a r e right in taking the staying emotions and ' e x p r e s s i v e s ' (sattvikas) a s 'one', this m a y reflect the old 'expression-acting' w e h a v e conjectured 4 to b e o n e o f A b h i n a v a g u p t a ' s ' f i v e p a r t s ' of d r a m a and to refer to rasa. T h u s w e should u n d e r s t a n d T o l k a p p i y a n a r a s implying that a staying emotion p r o d u c e s the ' s a m e ' ('one', i.e., similar) rasa. This will h a v e to b e clarified by Tamil scholars. According to the Natyasastra8 the staying emotion is usually the ' e s s e n c e ' (atman) of the aesthetic experience: mirth of the comic, anger of the furious, c o u r a g e of the heroic, disgust of the horrific, fear of the a p p r e h e n s i v e a n d a s t o n i s h m e n t of the marvellous. But grief is instead the ' s o u r c e ' (prabhava) of the c o m p a s s i o n a t e . Love likewise is the ' s o u r c e ' of the brilliant (snigara), but it is a d d e d that the ' e s s e n c e ' of the brilliant is 'brilliant d r e s s ' (ujjvalavcsa): a p e r s o n w e a r i n g brilliant d r e s s is s a i d to b e ' p o s s e s s i n g b r i l l i a n c e ' (srrigaravant, i.e., ujjvala and srngara are synonyms). This is b e c a u s e w h a t e v e r is p u r e , fresh or beautiful in the world is c o m p a r e d with (variant: 'inferred t h r o u g h ' ) the brilliant (srngara). M o r e o v e r the brilliant h a s a ' c a u s e ' (hctu): ' w o m e n and m e n ' ; which s e e m s a qualification of the ' s o u r c e ' (love). The c h a r a c t e r s a r e at 'the height of y o u t h ' . T h u s the brilliant is complex. The furious also is complex: anger is its ' e s s e n c e ' , b u t its ' s o u r c e ' is ' d e m o n s and h a u g h t y h u m a n s ' and its ' c a u s e ' is war. Clearly this m e t h o d of exciting aesthetic experience is not the result of speculation, b u t of practice: the w a y the a c t o r s got d e s i r e d results. In six c a s e s the staying emotion is called the ' e s s e n c e ' of the c o r r e s p o n d i n g aesthetic experience, which cannot m e a n they a r e the s a m e b u t only that they a r e similar. The brilliant h a s an essence, b u t t h a t is not the staying emotion, or any emotion, being 'brilliant d r e s s ' (which might b e an effect of emotion). The brilliant and the c o m p a s s i o n a t e h a v e the staying emotion instead a s ' s o u r c e ' . The furious b e s i d e s its e s s e n c e h a s d e m o n s and h a u g h t y h u m a n s a s ' s o u r c e ' and w a r a s ' c a u s e ' ; the brilliant h a s w o m e n and men a s ' c a u s e ' . Only thebrilliantand the furious h a v e all three components, b u t they are in no w a y parallel. The Natyasastra gives many other details u n d e r e a c h aesthetic experience, mostly on c a u s e s and effects of emotion to be acted or described and the a p p r o p r i a t e transient emotions to b e acted with each. It s e e m s to h a v e been an afterthought, w h e n the p r e s e n t first

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chapter was added to the Natyasastra, that the gods asked Brahma to give them something playful (kridaniyaka, 'making sport'), i.e., enjoyable, to replace the old Vedas, no longer adequate in an unhappy age. He then created drama (natya) for them, which would be essentially playful (lalita, 18), but as it would contain matter from all branches of knowledge it would also be instructive (and so replace the Vedas).9 As opposed to the practice of the actors, outlined in the Natyasastra, later critics, who were scholars and philosophers, set out theories about what happened in the theatre. Thus Dandin (late seventh century AD), Udbhata (late eighth century) and Lollata (early ninth century) thought that the rasa was simply the staying emotion increased. This seems a simplification rather than a theory, though Udbhata's and Lollata's 10 commentaries on the Natyasastra, where one would expect a full explanation, are lost. It may appear to agree with Tolkappiyanar's commentators. But how docs grief increase to the compassionate? Sarikuka (mid-ninth century), followed by Mahiman (eleventh century), seeing the inadequacy of this 'increase' theory, proposed that the staying emotions were inferred by the audience from their causes and effects shown (they were not directly sensed, not being present). The aesthetic experience is then an 'imitation' oi the staying emotion.11 Nayaka (lateninth century) objected that if the theories of Lollata or Sarikuka were true the audience would actually experience the unpleasant emotions (such as disgust, fear and presumably grief). But on the contrary the aesthetic experience was always enjoyable, therefore something quite different from the emotion, a generalised experience, detached, like meditation. 1 2 The Jaina a u t h o r s Ramacandra and Gunacandra (twelfth century) similarly held that all aesthetic experiences, including those one might think are unpleasant, delight audiences. 13 The Buddhist writer (in Pali) Sahgharakkhita (twelfth century) likewise observed that the compassionate and other experiences which appear to be unhappy do in fact delight audiences, as in the case of the Vessantara Jdtaka (the hero's grief).14 Abhinavagupta (c. AD 1000) stressed the universalisation and transcendence in aesthetic experience: the individual emotions of the specta tors are not excited but, being detached, they perceive the emotionsofothers. 15 Thisis thehighest happiness. He statesclearly

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that the emotion p e r c e i v e d (in the play) is not experienced: rasa is tasted, d o e s not go beyond tasting. 1 6 Bhoja (first half of the eleventh century) offers w h a t a p p e a r s t o b e a totally o p p o s e d theory to explain the s a m e fact of enjoyment. 17 Instead of u n i v e r s a l i s a t i o n h e d e s c r i b e s the aesthetic experience a s s u p r e m e self-assertion (abhimdna) or e g o i s m (ahamkara). Ultimately there is only one a e s t h e t i c experience, t h e brilliant. The emotion love c e a s e s to b e an emotion but a b s o r b s all the other emotions into itself a s love of t h e s e and so b e c o m e s the aesthetic experience ' e g o i s m ' . This is b e c a u s e e a c h emotion is a type of love, for e x a m p l e , one loves mirth or even being indignant (a transient). Each emotion, if d e v e l o p e d in the theatre or other literature, e n d s in 'love' (preman, a synonym). Self-assertion, which is joy, or the brilliant is once called a quality of this egoism, b u t usually they a r e said t o b e the s a m e (but w e h a v e learned t o b e c a u t i o u s a b o u t things in s o m e s e n s e the s a m e ) . By w a y of explanation Bhoja s a y s that originally (at the ' u l t i m a t e ' or 'former point') rasa is simply itself, the original e g o i s m of a living being, ' m a d e of p r i d e ' (not art b u t nature). On the b a s i s of this, e m o t i o n s a re possible, which is the 'intermediate s t a t e ' , with m a n y e m o t i o n s and m a n y aesthetic experiences developing (the u s u a l eight p l u s a few more). Lastly, at the 'highest point' or ' u t m o s t limit', love, the ' q u e e n ' {rati is feminine) of t h e emotions, h a v i n g a b s o r b e d all the o t h e r s into herself a n d c e a s e d to b e an emotion, b e c o m e s ' e g o i s m ' (this time not n a t u r e but aesthetic experience arisen from art). The 'self h a s a s s e r t e d itself, ' r e a l i s e d ' itself, instead of (with A b h i n a v a g u p t a ) forgetting itself in a universalised experience which is d e t a c h e d . At this point the difference b e t w e e n A b h i n a v a g u p t a and Bhoja s e e m s to d e p e n d in p a r t on their conceptions of a 'soul' ('self'), which are s p e c u l a t i v e a n d h a r d l y open to scientific investigation (certainly not in the eleventh century). So the d e v e l o p m e n t of the science of aesthetics r e a c h e s a limit beyond which it t e n d s to speculation or subjectivity or criteria other than art. N a r a y a n a a n d D h a r m a d a t t a (fourteenth c e n t u r y ) p r o p o s e d the m a r v e l l o u s a s the utmost experience in place ofBhoja's brilliant. 18 R u p a G o s v a m i n substituted religious devotion, K a v i k a r n a p u r a returned to speculation a b o u t 'delight'. 1 9 The a e s t h e t i c experience h a d long been seen a s the goal of all (art-) literature (kavya), of which d r a m a is the s u p r e m e form. 20 T h e Natyasastra itself s h o w s that m u s i c (singing, instrumental m u s i c

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a n d dancing) p r o d u c e s a e s t h e t i c experience a n d e x p o u n d s m u s i c in detail a s p a r t of t h e a t r e . Later w o r k s on m u s i c d e v e l o p rasa t h e o r y in relation to it.21 W r i t e r s on painting s t a t e t h a t k n o w l e d g e of p a i n t i n g d e p e n d s on k n o w l e d g e of d a n c i n g , i.e., of g e s t u r e s , m o v e m e n t s a n d e x p r e s s i o n s , in fact of the w h o l e m e t h o d of t h e Natyasastra, leading to the aesthetic experience. 2 2 Paintings m a y p r o d u c e nine rasas, in t e m p l e s , p a l a c e s and h o u s e s . 2 3 Sculpture 2 4 and architecture 2 5 can then b e u n d e r s t o o d , evidently a s d e p e n d e n t on p a i n t i n g and p r o d u c i n g the s a m e a e s t h e t i c e x p e r i e n c e s . In o t h e r w o r d s all art is fundamentally one a n d excites the s a m e kind of enjoyment. Bhoja c o m p o s e d a b o o k on architecture a n d engineering, the Samardriganasiitradliara, w h e r e h e s a y s for e x a m p l e that a beautiful h o u s e excites a s t o n i s h m e n t or w o n d e r , implying t h e m a r v e l l o u s experience, a s well a s love (rati),2b implying the brilliant (as h i s h i g h e s t experience). H e d o c s not d e v e l o p this d i s c u s s i o n far, b u t v a r i o u s t y p e s of building will excite different experiences, a s fortifications the heroic and p e r h a p s the furious. Bhoja m e n t i o n s eleven rasas in painting. 2 7 In writing on a e s t h e t i c s in literature, Bhoja s h o w s that the description of a l a n d s c a p e (in a play) m a y p r o d u c e the 'affectionate' (preyas; one of his additional aesthetic experiences), w h e r e t h e s o u n d s of roaring m o u n t a i n rivers a r e d e s c r i b e d to Rama: 2 8 T h e s e a r e the S o u t h e r n Mountains, their h i g h e s t blue p e a k s s u p p o r t e d by clouds, the gurgling roaring of the w a t e r s of the G o d a v a r l in their gorges; T h e s e are the s a c r e d confluences of rivers with d e e p w a t e r s , wild with the c l a m o u r i n g s of turbulent w a v e s confused by r e p u l s i n g one another. Uttararamacarita

II. 30

This s u g g e s t s l a n d s c a p e painting working in the s a m e w a y . The conclusion on a e s t h e t i c s in India is that art is enjoyable not b e c a u s e it excites p e o p l e ' s e m o t i o n s b u t b e c a u s e it t r a n s m u t e s e m o t i o n s into aesthetic experience. The Natyasastra, being a concise h a n d b o o k for a c t o r s and originating in oral tradition, gives no illustrations. A b h i n a v a g u p t a , Bhoja and m a n y other later w r i t e r s on d r a m a illustrate all its details from p l a y s , t h u s d e v e l o p i n g literary criticism b y a p p l y i n g a e s t h e t i c s in their analysis.

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The Natyasastra treats m a n y a s p e c t s of d r a m a t i c language, speech being one of the k i n d s of acting. It h a s (dramatic) 'characteristics' including figures s u c h a s simile, 'qualities' s u c h a s clarity, m e t r e s , dialects, intonation, t y p e s of p l a y a n d the construction of plots out of stories. T h e s e topics also a r c illustrated b y m a n y later writers. S o m e of t h e s e a s p e c t s a r e the subjects of s e p a r a t e treatises on 'ornament* (alarikara, not superficial o r n a m e n t s , however, but the intrinsic b e a u t i e s of literature), including all beauties of expression and meaning, t h o u g h later w r i t e r s s o m e t i m e s restrict it to figures of speech. T h e s e are copiously illustrated from the literature a n d further extend the s c o p e of criticism, but a few late writers t a k e a p e r verse p r i d e in manufacturing their own examples, t h u s excluding t h e m s e l v e s from the field of criticism. The earliest known examination of figures is by the lexicographer Yaska 2 9 (fourth century BC or earlier), a s linguistic p h e n o m e n a . Qualities s u c h a s clarity and s w e e t n e s s are required by Kautalya (fourth century BC) in the composition of royal edicts. 3 0 T h e s e m a y b e s o u g h t in t h e inscriptions of A s o k a M a u r y a in the third century BC.31 A m u c h m o r e elaborate p r o s e style, with long c o m p o u n d s and very long sentences, is found in the edict of R u d r a d a m a n (I, c. AD 150) inscribed at Girinagara, w h e r e the scribe h a s p r a i s e d the royal a u t h o r for the qualities of being clear, sweet, c h a r m i n g (kdnta), etc. 32 B h a m a h a ' s (fifth century) Kavyalarikdra33 is the earliest text, other than the Natyasastra, on the b e a u t y {alarikara) of literature known to b e extant. H e s a y s first (1.2) tha t litera ture (kavya) p r o d u c e s joy (priti) and expertise in the e n d s of life, in a g r e e m e n t with the Natyasastra, a d d i n g 'fame' (for the author). The Natyasastra h a s in view the s u c c e s s of the actors and d e v o t e s a c h a p t e r (XXVII) to this. B h a m a h a s a y s (1.4-5) that to p r o d u c e a good kavya the a u t h o r m u s t h a v e genius (pmtibha), it cannot b e learned from a teacher. A good epic (sa?'gabitii.1ha) wil\ p r o d u c e all eight aesthetic experiences (1.21) and B h a m a h a clearly u n d e r s t a n d s that good literature in all forms will do this. But he refers to ' o t h e r s ' (i.e., the Natyasastra) for the details of d r a m a (1.24), which includes those of aesthetic experience, which need not be repeated. Even a science (sastra) can b e enjoyed if mixed with the rasa of s w e e t kavya (V.3). The eight rasas, w h e n they e m e r g e especially powerfully, a r e called the b e a u t y 'having aesthetic experience' (rasavant) (III.6). Kuntaka 3 4 (eleventh century) s a y s rasavant should p e r v a d e all the other b e a u t i e s (which B h a m a h a

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surely would agree with), but is itself part of the subject-matter (III. 11,15), since he restricts 'figures' to the expression (not the meaning). Bhamaha excludes this, his figures being 'beauties' of the meaning and his 'expression' restricted to grammar, whose modes may be varied to give it beauty (chapter VI). Wliere other 'beauties' of meaning are absent, Bhamaha would clearly accept aesthetic experience as giving beauty, which would be rasavant. Saiigharakkhita 14 (twelfth century), who generally follows Bhamaha, explains rasavanta, his last 'beauty of meaning' (atthdlankdra) (IV, verse 335), by setting out the Natyasdstra doctrine of the aesthetic experience, emotion, causes of emotion, effects of emotion, etc. as his chapter V. Kavya, says Bhamaha (1.16), is expression (sabda) and meaning (artha) combined. But both must be beautiful (alankdra), which means they are 'curved' (vakra), i.e., figurative, varied, indirect (1.36, V.66). 'Curvedness' (vakra td) is a test for acceptable 'beauties' o( meaning (11.85), such as exaggeration (with a pretext, II. 81 ff.) or fancy (11.91); mere statement of a cause, or of news, is rejected (11.8687). As in the case of rasavant, the selection of beautiful details satisfies the principle of curvedness. Kavya is based on the world (V.33), but must be rasavant (V.62). Arguments, inference, should be logical, but the middle terms and examples must be beautiful in literature (chapter V). A 'proposition' tobeproved (pratijna)hccomQ$ a 'vow' tobe carried out. As for the 'qualities' and 'styles', these are merely pleasant to the ears if there is no developed meaning or curved expression (1.34). But clarity and sweetness are desirable everywhere. Bhamaha bases his exposition on actual examples from literature, mostly no longer available to us, as well as on earlier works on alankdra. The beauties in these examples consist in surprise and in theprojection of other emotions, such as love, mirth, pride, courage, doubt, dissimulation, etc.; reflection also is an emotion in the Natyasdstra list of transients and gives scope for philosophising, real or ironical, in a 'corroboration'. Stressing not theory but observation, Bhamaha's examples are fresh, showing the specificity and immediacy of good authorship, where universal truths shine through sharp, instant detail, not at the end of long argument. These examples, often paralleled in the surviving early literature, and critical observations bearing on Asvaghosa (a cacophonous verb form), Bhasa, Sudraka, Mentha and Kalidasa, are the effective

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beginning, a s far a s w e are able to see, of literary criticism in India, of detailed a n a l y s i s of individual w o r k s and a u t h o r s . A m o n g later critics the m o s t significant are A n a n d a v a r d h a n a 3 5 (ninth century), w h o revised B h a m a h a ' s indirectness a s ' r e v e a l e d ' {vyangya) or ' i m p l i e d ' (pratiyamana) m e a n i n g s , rasa h a r m o n i s i n g with t h i s b e c a u s e it is a l w a y s indirect; Kuntaka 3 4 (eleventh century?) w h o illustrated six linguistic levels of c u r v e d n e s s or indirectness (vakratd): phonetic, lexical, g r a m m a t i c a l , sentential, contextual and (entire) compositional; w h e r e the three higher levels also s u p p o r t the m e a n i n g , especially rasa; of c o u r s e A b h i n a v a g u p t a ; and Bhoja, 17 w h o h a s three levels: w o r d , sentence and composition, but twelve a s p e c t s of combination of expression and meaning, w h e r e the four highest a s p e c t s a p p l y to both sentences and compositions: there are forty-eight g e n r e s of composition h a v i n g rasa, which is never absent from good literature. If w e collect references to a given kavya by the critics, a s h a s been done in Indian Kazn/a Literature vols. II-VI but w h i c h w e h a v e no s p a c e to illustrate here, w e can s e c the w o r k s of Bhara vi, Matraraja, Bhavabhuti and o t h e r s a s w h o l e s in relation to their s o u r c e s and in their p a r t s fitting together to p r o d u c e aesthetic experience. Their subject-matter is h u m a n n a t u r e , h u m a n emotions, their aesthetics i s b a s e d on the Natyasdstra and literary criticism in India r e a c h e s i t s highest point in the eleventh century with Kuntaka and Bhoja. References 1. Cf. A.K. Warder, Indian Kavya Literature, vol. IV, Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass, 1983 (reprinted 1994), Preface, p. vii. 2. Tolkappiyanar, Tolkappiyarn, Part 111 (Porulatikaram) ed. with English explanations by P.S. Subrahmanya, Madras, Kuppuswami Institute, 194956. 3. * Bhara ta \ Natyasastra 'ed .by Batukanathasarrnan and Baladcvopadhyaya, Benares, Kashi Sanskrit Series (Chowkhamba), 1929. 4. Warder, Indian Kavya Literature, vol. 1 pp. 20-21 and Appendix to 2nd cdn. (1989) pp. 286-87. 5. Warder, 'The Origins of the Technical Senses of the Word Rasa', in The Adyar Library Bulletin, 1980-81, pp. 614-34. 6. p. 71 (see ref. 3 above). 7. K. Cnoli, The Aesthetic Experience According to Abhinavagupta, Rome, Serie Orientale Roma, 1956. 8. pp. 73-78 (see ref. 3 above). 9. Adhyava 1 verses 8ff. (see ref. 3 above).

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10. Discussed by Abhinavagupta in his Abhinavabharati Commentary on the Ndtyasastra, ed. M. R. Kavi, K. S. Ramasvamin and J.S. Pade, Baroda, G a e k w a d ' s Oriental Series, vol. I, 2nd edn. (1956) p . 272. 11. I, pp. 272-73 and 284 (see ref. 10 above). 12. I, pp. 276ff. (see ref. 10 above). 13. Ramacandra and Gunacandra, Ndtyadarpana, ed. by Shrigondekar and Gandhi, Baroda, G a e k w a d ' s Oriental Series, 2nd edn. (1959) III. 7, etc. 14. Sahgharakkhita, Subodhalankdra. ed. I.Katayama in Buddhist Studies vol. VI, Hamamatsu, 1977, verse 355 (The Colombo edn. is more correct, by Ebraham and Appuhami, Vidyaprabodha, 1932). 15. I, pp. 36 and 278ff. (see ref. 10 above). 16. I, p. 284 (see ref. 10 above). 17. Bhoja, Sarasvatikanthdbharana, ed. by K e d a r a n a t h a s a r m a n and Vasudcvasarman, Bombay, Kavyamala, 2nd. edn. (1934) pp. 704-5, and Srngdraprakdsa, ed. by Josycr, Mysore, Coronation Press, 1955-75, vol. II (1963) pp. 429ff. 18. See Visvanatha, Sdhityadarpana, ed. by Durgaprasada, Bombay, Nirnaya Sagara Press, 3rd edn. (1915) p. 73. 19. Kavikarnapura, Alahkarakaustubha, ed. by Sivaprasad Bhattacharya, Rajshahi, Varcndra Research Society, 1926 and 1934, Chapter V. 20. Vamana, Kdvydlankdrasutras and Vrtti, ed. by Narayana Rama Acarya, Bombay, Nirnaya Sagara Press, 4th edn. (1953) I. 3.30-31. 21. E.g. Sarrigadeva, Sarigitaratndkara, ed. by S. Subrahmanya, Madras, The Adyar Library, 1943-53, udhydya VII verses 1351ff. 22. Visnudharmottara III, ed. by P. Shah with a study, baroda, G a e k w a d ' s Oriental Scries, 1958-61, adhydya 2. 23. Ill, adhydyas 41-43 (sec ref. 22 above). 24. Ill, adhydyas 44ff. (sec ref. 22 above). 25. Ill, adhydyas 86ff. (see ref. 22 above). 26. Bhoja, Sarnardnganasutradhdra, ed. by Ganapati and revised by V.S. Agra wala, Baroda, G a e k w a d ' s Oriental Series, 1966, XXXI. 18-19. 27. LXXXII (see ref. 26 above). 28. Srhgdraprakdsa (see ref. 17 above), vol. II p. 560. 29. Yaska, Nirukta, ed. by L. Sarup, Lahore, 1927; re-edited and translated by him with the Nighantu, London, Oxford University Press, 1920-21, reprinted Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass, 1967, see Nighantu III. 13 and Nirukta III. 13-38 on the simile. 30. Kautalya, Arthasdstra, ed.by Ganapati, Trivandrum (Sanskrit Series), 192425 and Kangle, Bombay (University), 1960. 11.10.6-12. 31. Asoka, Les inscriptions d' Asoka, ed. and translated by Bloch, Paris, Institute de Civilisation Indienne, 1950, a sample translated by Warder in Indian Kdvya Literature, vol. II in the Appendix to the 2nd edn. (1990), pp. 396-403. 32. Rudradaman I, inscription ed., by G. Biihler in his Die indischen Inschriften unddasAlterdcrindischenKunstpocsie, Vienna, AkademiederWissenschaften, Sitzungsberichtc (Philos.-Hist.), 1890, pp. 86ff.

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33. Bhamaha, Kavyulankdra, cd. by Batukanathasarman and Baladevop.idhyax a, VaranasI, Kashi Sanskrit Series, 1928; cd. by D.T.Tatacarya with his own commentary Udydnavrtti, Tanjore, Trivedi, 1934. 34. Kuntaka, Vakroktijivita, ed. by K. Krishnamoorthv, Dharwad, Karnatak University, 1977. 35. Anandavardhana,D//z'«ni/fl/o^, cd.by Pattabhirama with Abhinavagupta's commentary Locana, Benares, Kashi Sanskrit Series, 1940.

11 Anthologies, Gnomic Verses and Aphorisms Sukumari Bhattacharji

The different genres discussed in this article are not mutually exclusive; they overlap and coalesce with one another to a considerable extent. Yet the separate strands can be somehow disentangled substantially and treated as largely independent genres. Mainstream classical Sanskrit poetry with true creative power came to a virtual end about the close of the eighth century. A little earlier, in the seventh century Banabhatta and Mayurabhatta composed the Ciwdlsatukn and the Sun/iisatuku respectively. Despite profuse use of periphrasis, hyperbole, double, entendre, and several other artificial devices, these two centuries of verses, the first addressed to the goddess Candi, the second to the sun-god, have a thematic cohesion and both display occasional sparks of imagination. As kluindakavi/as, short poems, they are in a direct line with Kalidasa whosejuvenile Rlusamlulra and the mature MegliadQla of superb poetic beauty ushered in this new genre. The khandnkavya came into its own when, after the erudite but aesthetically unsatisfactory Sisupalavndlm of Magha, poets realized that composing long derivative epics with subjects culled from the two primary epics and the Purduos had come to a dead end. So they turned to the khandakilvya which offered them a yet untrodden avenue.

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G h a t a k a r p a r a , traditionally r e g a r d e d a s a c o n t e m p o r a r y of K a l i d a s a , c o m p o s e d t w o collections of v e r s e s : the Nitisara, didactic i n n a t u r e , a n d the other n a m e l e s s o n e k n o w n a s the Ghatakarparakavya in w h i c h a wife, s e p a r a t e d from h e r h u s b a n d s e n d s h e r m e s s a g e of love a n d l a n g u i s h m c n t t h r o u g h a cloud. Clearly, the poet e m p l o y s K a l i d a s a ' s device. Poetically the w o r k is of indifferent value, especially b e c a u s e the double entendre in all its 22 v e r s e s b e t r a y s a s e r i o u s l a p s e in taste. Khandakdvyas by one a u t h o r can b e on a single or different classified t h e m e s . K a l i d a s a ' s t w o short p o e m s , and B a n a ' s and M a y u r a ' s p i e c e s a r c e x a m p l e s of t h e first c a t e g o r y , w h i l e B h a r t r h a r f s Satakatraya, three centuries of v e r s e s on three different t h e m e s , belong to the second. The Nilisataka d e a l s with ethical m a x i m s b a s e d mainly on the worldly m a n ' s observation of social a n d familial life seen from a d i s t a n c e , which gives the poet the n e c e s s a r y d e t a c h m e n t for generalizing on its v a r i o u s a s p e c t s . S o m e of t h e s e a r e quite effective a s poetry: "the p l a c e oi the p r o u d a n d w o r t h y m a n , a s of the flower, is either on the h e a d s of men (as g a r l a n d s ) or in the forest w h e r e h e l a n g u i s h e s in s o l i t u d e / ' (st. 26). "The p a t i e n t m a n ' s p o i s e is never ruffled; even if the fire is bent d o w n w a r d s , its flame ever p o i n t s u p w a r d s . " (st. 77). The Vairagyasataka, h o w e v e r , strikes an altogether different note; its v e r s e s are inspired by genuine d e t a c h m e n t , even a b h o r r e n c e of life in society. T h e s e v e r s e s p r a i s e an ascetic life, t h e life of a roving m e n d i c a n t . H i s sole c o m p a n i o n is nature. "1 live on one t a s t e l e s s h a s h of a b e g g a r ' s m e a l a d a y , the e a r t h is my b e d s t e a d , m y only kin is my own b o d y , a m i s e r a b l e tattered coverlet is my sole g a r m e n t — ah m e , even n o w , D e s i r e d o e s not l e a v e m e alone." (st. 15). A beautiful and d e s e r v e d l y p o p u l a r stanza r e a d s , " W h a t if you h a v e gained all y o u r objects of desire, h a v e p l a c e d your foot on the h e a d s of your a d v e r s a r i e s , h a v e gained friends t h r o u g h your r i c h e s , w h a t if you m a n a g e to live for a g e s on end — w h a t then, oh w h a t then, w h a t then? (st. 67). T h e extremely poignant refrain; ' t a t a h kirn' v i b r a t e s disturbingly. About Bhartrhari J.J. Meyer m a d e the p e r c e p t i v e c o m m e n t "one right characteristic brain of old India." A l t h o u g h the Srngarasataka literally p r o f e s s e s t o b c on love, yet a t least t w o - t h i r d s of its contents d o not deal with love directly, b u t w a r n m a n a g a i n s t w o m e n , their c h a r m s and wiles; they s e d u c e innocent m e n a n d a r e b u t the veritable g a t e w a y to hell. Part of this

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sataka deals with the seasons and other allied subjects. A small section, however, deals directly with love, and this section has quite a few unforgettable verses. "When present, she verily is ambrosia itself, out of sight, she is pure venom." (st. 44). The 'gate of hell* perspective is mitigated by verses like. "Life! to go through your expanse would be an impossibly difficult task, if there were not these women with wine in their eyes" (st. 33). Another verse says, "in this world there is the shame and stigma of having to serve a tyrannical ruler for the sake of livelihood; how could a self-respecting gentleman preserve his pride and fortitude without these lotuseyed ones whose frames store the beams of the rising moon, who dangle lovely waistbands and have shapely breasts and waists" (st. 31). To this category of collections of verses by the same author belongs Sundara-pandya's Nitisatika of 115-120 verses in the arya metre, possibly composed in south India in the middle of the seventh century. It is a didactic work without any literary distinction. One Amuru Veda vyasa composed a century of didactic verses, the Nitisataka. Here moral precepts are illustrated with epic references but even this fails to redeem its utter mediocrity. While Bhartrhari treats three different moods in three separate centuries of verses, each held together by the unity of the theme — the eighth century poet Amaru, the author of the Amaru SA takn treats different phases and aspects of love in about a hundred verses. 1 Here each stanza is in a different metre. Bhartrhari and Amaru usher in the second phase of anthological literature: each of the three satakas of Bhartrhari has a common theme but the stanzas arc in diverse metres just as they arc in Amaru: each stanza is a separate and complete poem. This, then, is the beginning of the later category of anthology which came to stay. Amaru is a superb artist; his treatment of the different moods of the lover and the beloved lady has a true ring. Not only does he depict the textbook moods of expectation, waiting, tryst, passionate union, dejection languishing and injured pride, but he is one of the very few Sanskrit poets who actually describe the death of love. One such unusual stanza says, "Where a mere frown expressed anger, where silence was torture, where a smile at each other was a conciliatory gesture, a mere glance a favour, behold the death of that love now: you roll at my feet and, I, the cruel one cannot relent even now." Amaru depicts the entire gamut of the lover's experiences, and depicts each mood authentically.

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A m a r u w a s followed by N a g a r a j a w h o s e Blwvasataka s e e k s to p o r t r a y l o v e ' s m o o d s b u t the v e r s e s arc wholly lifeless and without any poetic merit. H e relies on b o u n d l e s s h y p e r b o l e s and slavish a d h e r e n c e to the textbook r u l e s of poetics. The result is a century of b a r r e n v e r s e s . The futility is further e n h a n c e d by h i s pretentious h a n d l i n g of h i s t h e m e , for, h e p o s i t s the v a r i o u s m o o d s a s c o n u n d r u m s a n d a c t s a s h i s own c o m m e n t a t o r by applying the solutions to t h e r i d d l e s in the last sections of the v e r s e s . A n a n d a v a r d h a n a , a f a m o u s ninth-century writer on poetics c o m p o s e d h i s Devisataka, a doxology on the Prima Dea in a h u n d r e d v e r s e s . H e r e t h e r e is uniformity of t h e m e and p r o s o d i c structure. To S a i i k a r a c a r y a of the s a m e century is ascribed the Satslokl, a century of V e d a n t i c v e r s e s in the sragdhara m e t r e . To this period also belongs a collection of five h u n d r e d v e r s e s p r a i s i n g the g o d d e s s : this is k n o w n a s the Milkapancasatl Also in the ninth century the poet Lilasuka 2 c o m p o s e d h i s Krsnakamdmrta. T h e s e v e r s e s b e c a m e very p o p u l a r ; they blended the devotional and the erotic sentiments. Silhana, the K a s h m i r i poet working in Bengal w r o t e h i s Santisalaka, a century of v e r s e s mainly in the d e t a c h e d t e m p e r of renunciation. The first a t t e m p t s at compilation of other p o e t s ' v e r s e s possibly g o e s b a c k to the beginning of the Christian e r a b u t those w o r k s h a v e not c o m e d o w n to u s . S u c h collections of v e r s e s by f a m o u s p o e t s w e r e p r o b a b l y a u g m e n t e d with s t a n z a s of inferior, unknown p o e t s attributed to g r e a t m a s t e r s in majorem gloriam; this w a s possibly their only c h a n c e for survival. Such p h e n o m e n a b e c a m e quite c o m m o n and w e r e m e m b e r h o w h o p e l e s s l y 4 bad' poetry w a s p a s s e d off a s K a l i d a s a ' s . T h e tenth century s a w A m i t a g a t i ' s Subliasitaratnasaridoha, a collection of 922 m e m o r a b l e v e r s e s in 32 sections expressing the D i g a m b a r a J a i n ' s ethical v a l u e s . It d e a l s w i t h anger, g r e e d , a r r o g a n c e , truth, w i s d o m , old age, d e a t h , the good m a n and the villain, the defects and vices of w o m e n . The Sublia sit amukt avail by Srrigaralapa 3 is a collection of erotic v e r s e s between the end of the tenth and t h e beginning of eleventh centuries. The later anthologies are mostly collections of stray v e r s e s of m a n y a u t h o r s on d i v e r s e t h e m e s compiled by later p o e t s . Such collections begin to a p p e a r by the eleventh century. About the earliest one is G o v a r d h n n a ' s famous, Arydsaptasati seven h u n d r e d s t a n z a s in the arya metre. T h e subject is love in its v a r i o u s manifestations. This Lnilk of seven h u n d r e d v e r s e s m u s t h a v e

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b e c o m e a fashion, for P a r a m a n a n d a also compiled seven h u n d r e d v e r s e s in hi s Srngarasaptasatika,4 and seven h u n d r e d v e r s e s on erotic subjects h a v e little c h a n c e of attracting s u s t a i n e d attention of r e a d e r s u n l e s s there is real inspiration which t h e s e w o r k s s a d l y lack. Possibly one of the m o s t f a m o u s of the later anthologies is V i d y a k a r a ' s Kav'indravacanasamuccaya, better known as Sublulsitamtnakjsa, a tenth-century compilation. 5 The n u m b e r of its v e r s e s v a r i e s from 525 a n d 1000 to 1728 in the different palm-leaf m a n u s c r i p t s . The edited text a s w e h a v e it n o w h a s 1739 v e r s e s divided into fifty vrajyas, sections. Of t h e s e the first six are on different g o d s , the seventh on the sun-god, sections 8-13 on the s e a s o n s , 14-26 describe the different erotic m o o d s and 32-50 a r e on m i s c e l l a n e o u s subjects. The editor, LudvvikSternbach, c o m m e n t i n g on this kind of poetic anthologies s a y s / ' p r o b a b l y no other literature in the world can b e c o m p a r e d with Sanskrit literature a s far a s the variety of subjects dealt with in short e p i g r a m s is concerned. Sanskrit p o e t s cultivate p o e t r y to such an extent that e v e r y work, w h e t h e r on love or h a t e , life or death, and even on law, p h i l o s o p h y , logic, h o r s e s and m a n u r e w a s written in verse. The condensation of thought in a short v e r s e w a s m a s t e r l y performed and e p i g r a m s on d i ff eren t s u bject s of 1 i fe a re foun d in a I m o s t all poet ica I w o r k s . They w e r e c o m p o s e d in verse b e c a u s e their s h o r t n e s s and c o n d e n s e d n a t u r e m a d e it easier for a c o m m o n r e a d e r to commit t h e m to memory." A c o u p l e of centuries later, the Kashmiri poet S a m b h u c o m p i l e d the Anyoklimuktalalasalaka, a collection of other poets* v e r s e s which t h e c o m p i l e r r e g a r d e d a s p r e c i o u s a s 6 ka c h a i n of p e a r l s ' . S r i d h a r a d a s a ' s famous w o r k the Saduklikarndmrta compiled in 1205 AD in Bengal is divided into 5 pravdhas, each of which s u b d i v i d e d into vlcis (billows) of five v e r s e s . Altogether there are 2380 v e r s e s . S r i d h a r a d a s a includes 485 a u t h o r s w h o a r e not k n o w n from other sources. BhogadatlaJalhana'sSzV/r/zVm^frliw.// (1258 AD) is also another f a m o u s collection of 2710 v e r s e s divided into 133 paddhatis or sections. The w o r k is known in a shorter and a longer version a n d q u o t e s 240 a u t h o r s , line first seventeen sections dwell on p o e t s and poetry, the rest on charity, joy, fate, w i s d o m , w i c k e d n e s s a n d s u n d r y other ethical and social subjects. In the next century w e h a v e the f a m o u s Sdrfigadharapaddhati by S a r r i g a d h a r a (compiled in 1363 AD). Divided into 163 paddhatis, it

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has a total of 4689 verses, didactic and descriptive in nature. There is a possibility of there being 6300 verses in the original version; selection and rejection reduced the number. The subject-matter is quite mundane, for, we are also treated to practical advice on gardening, horses, omens, portents, swords, etc. One is faintly reminded ofHesiod's Wor/cs^n^ Days but that had more compactness and coherence in its subject. There w a s an earlier inflated version, the Brlwcclianigadliarapaddliati containing 7586 verses in 588paddliatis. Suryakalingaraja'sSu/rtzrflrrzfl/Mrais another insignificant collection of 2377 verses in 4 parvans. Sayana's Subhdsitaratnanidhi7 may have been the same as the Silktiratanahdra although the printed text is somewhat different. Both belong to the earlier half of the fourteenth century and in both the verses are arrranged in the same way. The 4 parvans deal with the 4 vargas, viz., dharma (righteousness), artlia (mundane pursuits), kama (love) and moksa (liberation). The poet pontificates and the result is a dry and fatiguing anthology. One Vyasa's Subhdsitasamgraha lifts most of its 98 sententious verses bodily from the Suktiratnaliara. Anthologists frequently took recourse to overt plagiarism. During the fifteenth century we have several anthologies. Kusumadeva's Drstdntasalaka is a century of saws, Daksinamurti collects 96 verses on devotion in his Lokoktimuktavali. Both are deplorably devoid of any literary merit. Among the anonymous anthologies two short pieces, the Purvacatakdstaka and the llttaracdtkastaka, are beautiful love poems of 8 verses each. Dyad viveda's Nitimanjarihas about 165 gnomic and d idactic verses. He illustrates his maxims with legends from the Vedas, quoting Vedic verses and evenexegetical texts from Say ana, passages from Yajnavalkya, Manu and the epics. A new variety is ushered in the Puranarthasatngndia xvhichprcscnis a dialouge between Laksmi and Narayana in 30 chapters and 136 verses. The first part of each verse is an epigram, the rest oi the verse is the explication. Among other collections of dialogue verses may be mentioned dialogues between men and women, and gods and g o d d e s s e s , male and female animals and birds. Thus Ramacandragamin's Siddhantasudhatatini is a dialogue between a man and a woman, while the Srngdrajnananirnayabetween Suka and Rambha, the Madanamukhacandrapctikd is between a young woman and a mendicant and Ghatakarpara's Nitisara is between a hog and a lion. The anonymous Vdndrastaka and Vanarydstaka are dialogues between a male and a female monkey.

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V a l l a b h a d e v a ' s Subhdsitdvali is an anthology of v e r s e s b y 360 p o e t s , quite insignificant a s far a s literary merit goes. Between the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century w a s c o m p o s e d the f a m o u s Bengali V a i s n a v a a u t h o r R u p a G o s v a m i n ' s Padyavail containing 387 v e r s e s of 129 different p o e t s ; it is of d e v o t i o n a l c h a r a c t e r . H a r i h a r a from M i t h i l a c o m p i l e d t h e Suktimuktavali a n d the Subhdsitahdr avail in the s e v e n t e e t h century. A different Subhasitaharavali is by a Deccan poet, H a r i k a v i , w h o p r e p a r e d the text t o w a r d s the later p a r t of the s e v e n t e e n t h century. A n o t h e r s e v e n t e e n t h c e n t u r y c o m p i l a t i o n is J a g a n n a t h a ' s Blwmimvildsa8 which s h a r e s s o m e c o m m o n features with Bhartrharf s Satakatraya; it p r a i s e s K r s n a . J a g a n n a t h a a l s o c o m p o s e d t h e Asvadhdti, 70 s t r a y v e r s e s of gnomic a n d devotional c h a r a c t e r . L a k s m a n a b h a t t a ' s Padyaracand, G a d a d h a r a b h a t t a ' s Rasikajwana.9 V e n i d a t t a ' s Padyaveni C o v i n d a j i t ' s Sabhy alamkarana . 10 H a r i b h a s k a r a ' s Padydmrtatarangini.u S u n d a r a d a t t a ' s Suktisundara12 (which p r a i s e s earlier and contemporary Muslim rulers), V r a j a n a t h a ' s Padyatarangini13 or V i d y a k a r a m i s r a ' s Vidydkarasahasraka, a collection of one t h o u s a n d stanzas 1 4 —all t h e s e a r e wholly non-descript w o r k s a s far a s literary m e r i t s go. And this is by no m e a n s an e x h a u s t i v e catalogue. Later compilation of anthologies include SublidsitaratnabMnddgdra15 w h i c h c o n t a i n s 7613 m o r a l p r e c e p t s . A n d f i n a l l y t h e Mahdsubhdsitasamgraha h a s fifty to sixty t h o u s a n d m a x i m s and descriptive verses. P e r h a p s the latest of s u c h m o d e m c o m p e n d i u m s w a s D.D. K o s a m b f s edition of the Satakatrayddisubhasitasamgrha. Based on 377 m s s of B h a r t r h a r f s three satakas and other allied w o r k s , it is a selection of the better v e r s e s with s o m e claim to literary merit a n d artistic finish. K o s a m b i ' s edition, a l s o collects other p o e t s ' inferior v e r s e s bearing s o m e affinity to B h a r t r h a r i ' s three centuries of v e r s e s . A m o n g a u t h o r s of satirical p i e c e s K s e m e n d r a r a t h e r s t a n d s out, for, d e s p i t e s o m e crudities and occasional l a p s e s in t a s t e h e took upon himself the t a s k o f e x p o s i n g t h e s h a m , and the institutionalized fraud and deception in h i s Kaldvilasa, Desopadesa, Narmamdld, Darpadalaria and Samayamatrkd. H e is generally elegant a n d h i s satire is polished, u s e d a s a w e a p o n a n d a social corrective. In this h e is quite successful. M u c h later N i l a k a n t h a Diksita c o m p o s e d the Anyddcsasataka, and Kalividambana in the s a m e vein b u t w i t h m u c h less s u c c e s s . V e d a n t a d e s i k a 1 6 w r o t e h i s Subhdsitanivi w i t h the aim

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of e x p o s i n g p r i d e , w i c k e d n e s s a n d other social vices, b u t the work a l s o i n c l u d e s v e r s e s on p e a c e a n d nobility; it is a mixed fare with s o m e satirical elements. A p a r t from s a t i r e s w e h a v e a short literature of v a r i o u s k i n d s of r i d d l e s . In t h e Brahmodyas of the Upanisads w e h a v e the r u d i m e n t s of r i d d l e s ; there the riddle form reflected the majestic a n d a r c a n e na t u r e of the subject of t h o s e s y m p o s i u m s . Later, in the Mahablwrata w e h a v e the riddle form revived in the d i a l o g u e b e t w e e n D h a r m a d i s g u i s e d a s a c r a n e a n d Y u d h i s t h i r a ; here, too, the serious n a t u r e of the subject d e t e r m i n e s the a p p a r e n t l y cryptic form of the dialogue. In t h e B u d d h i s t Samyutta Nikdya or the Jain B h a v a d e v a S u r f s Parsvanathacaritra this form is a d o p t e d . In the sixth century D a n d i n in t h e Kavyadarsa defines sixteen varieties of riddles, including c o n u n d r u m s , logogriphs, a n a g r a m s , etc. T h e riddle a s a genre is not strictly a literary form b u t p o p u l a r interest h a s given it a long life; it flourished parallelly with the literary genres. Without emotional, a e s t h e t i c or intellectual content, it is also of an inferior order; yet it s u r v i v e d a s a p o p u l a r p a s t i m e . M a n y r i d d l e s a r e collected in anthologies and d i v i d e d into categories according to the n a t u r e of their content. But the compilation of r i d d l e s into anthologies is a r a t h e r late p h e n o m e n o n . It b e g a n in the thirteenth century w h e n D h a r m a d a s a compiled h i s f a m o u s Vidagdhamukhaniandarw divided into 4 c h a p t e r s with a total of 220 v e r s e s in Sanskrit and Prakrt. The prahdikas (conundrums) are so difficult to unravel that c o m m e n t a t o r s h a v e c o m e forward to h e l p solve them. The w o r k is intelligible only to the erudite. So t h e s e r i d d l e s a r e not p o p u l a r , b u t a cultivated p a s t i m e of the elite. Nagaraja 1 7 collected 101 (or 102) p u z z l e s in his Bhavasataku. The text e m p l o y s both Sanskrit and Prakrt a s well a s m a n y different m e t r e s . The work is erotic in content. The Samasyddipa a n d Sitdvinoda Kdvya a r e b o t h a n o n y m o u s . The first is in 175 v e r s e s of w h i c h 76 a p p e a r a s n o n s e n s e b u t a r e really c o n u n d r u m s solved by explicatory v e r s e s supplied by the a u t h o r himself. The second c o m p o s e s r i d d l e s on Sita languishing for R a m a . The very subject s h o u l d h a v e p r e c l u d e d the u s e of cryptic l a n g u a g e , but such good literary t a s t e a n d s e n s e of a e s t h e t i c propriety is too m u c h to expect from r i d d l e - m a k e r s . A p h o r i s m s , a p a r t from t h o s e in collections of gnomic and didactic v e r s e s generally denoted sutras, any formulaic composition of u t m o s t b r e v i t y — a p r e - p r i n t i n g m n e m o n i c device. A p h o r i s t i c literature is found in t h e Veddhga sutras, and in philosophical a n d

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grammatical sutras of all schools. A significant area of Buddhist doctrines is in the sutra16 form; sometimes these refer to some classes of gods, demons, sometimes even men of some moral excellence are the speaker or the hero. The Jain Gunabhadra's Uttarapurdna and Atrndnusdsana are examp\csof aphoristicliterature as is Amitagati's Dharmaparlksd which is dogmatic and polemical in character and yet aims at amusing or entertaining readers at the cost of reducing his targets to butts of ridicules. Another short genre of aphoristic literature clusters around Canakya, 19 the renowned author of the famous treatise on polity, the Arthasastra. While this major text is composed in short formulas which require hermencutic assistance for comprehension, a short literature grew up around him. The Cdnakyamti collects epigrams and maxims on polity. It, however, covers a number of allied topics; some of these rise above exigency and advocate high ethical values; many of the maxims arecu lied from the epics, Puranas, DJiarmasdstras and literature. Regarding the identity of the author, it must be admitted that there is little concrete evidence of his personality and achievements. Texts composed on similar themes or in similar forms are passed on to this famous name, presumably for the preservation of such texts. An ornate version is called Vrddhacanakya or Canakyanitidarpana; it has 342 verses divided into 17 chapters. Another textus simplicior is also regarded as composed by Canakya. It however, has fewer verses, only 109-173 in 8 chapters. The more familiar Canakyanlti sura or simply Canakyasloka has 108 maxims with some supplementary verses, clearly appended to the main text by later authors passed off as the eponymous author's. These maxims teach social and political conduct to the man about the world. The Cdnakyasdrasamgraha\sa collection of 300 verses divided into three centuries. The Uighucdnakya which never gained the popularity of the above works has 3 introductory verses and a short text of 83-97 verses divided into 8 short chapters. And finally, the Cdnakyardjanitisdstra is a less known but bulky text; apart from 5 introductory and a concluding verse, its main body had 258-658 verses in the different mss. These verses are better chiselled and have a greater literary finish than the rest of this literature. It borrows stanzas from other Sanskrit literature—the epics, Puranas, Dharmasdstras and even from the the floating oral literature. No wonder, then, that the text travelled beyond the boundaries of the country to Tibet, Mongolia, Manchuria, Sri Lanka, Burma, Laos, Cambodia and even to some countries in the Middle East.

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Gnomic, didactic and aphoristic verses were composed by poets of different ages and places; sometimes these were collected by the poets themselves, while at other times they found a place in anthologies compiled by later authors. These verses cover almost the entire gamut of human experience—from devotion, love, greed, hate, revenge, deceit to kindness, charity, self-sacrifice and magnanimity. Anthologies incorporate verses from epic-Puranic and literary sources. Since many gnomic and didactic verses are anonymous, they often find fictitious names and pseudonyms for forgotten authors. Satirical verses frequently ridicule depraved human nature and conduct. Erotic and devotional mysticism is sometimes expressed in poems of abiding beauty. Riddles and aphorisms on polity, however, are insignificant as genres but, as in every country, the first is a favourite popular pastime while the second is a necessary manual for administration. Innumerable authors tried their hands at composing, plagiarizing, collecting and arranging other poets' verses as also from floating oral literature; the resultant bulk is stupendous. And what is truly remarkable is that not all the authors are poetasters, some had a genuine poetic temperament and these have left us a sizeable number of aesthetically finished and emotionally moving poems as also thought-provoking aphorisms, dependable guidelines for social conduct. Indian wisdom is truly impressive not only because of its bulkbut because of its width, depth and scope of human experience. It has an authentic claim to immortality. The bulk of this literature was produced by and for a parasitic section of society in an age of social decadence. Most authors lacked genuine poetic inspiration, yet had thepoctasters' aspiration to turn out clever (sometimes not so clever) verses on all conceivable subjects under the sun. Thus grew up a vast literature with a very limited raison d'etre, except for occasional sparkling stanzas of real beauty, wisdom and authentic experiences of life which redeems much of the deplorable mediocrity of the rest. References 1. 127 in S.K. De's edition of which Dc regards only 72 as authentically Amaru's. 2. Or Bilvamarigala. 3. Presumably a pseudonym.

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4. As also did Hala in his Prakrit Gdhasatsai and Biharilal in his Satsai. 5. Possibly completed in the eleventh century. 6. Subhasita, Gnomic and Didactic Literature, Part of Vol. IV, Pt. 1 of A History of Indian Literature, Otto 1 larrassowitz, Wiesbaden, 1974, p. 3. 7. Published by U.D. Krishnamurthy in 1968. 8. This is the same Jagannatha who wrote the famous Rasagangadliara on poetics. 9. Of 1478 verses by 935 anonymous poets! 10. 1953 moral maxims by 101 authors. 11. 301 descriptive verses. 12. Between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. 13. Mid-eighteenth century. 14. Ibid. 15. Which Otto Bohtlingk brought out in 1927. 16. Or Vedantacarya or Vcrikatanatha Desika. 17. OrNaganatha. 18. Sutra. 19. Or Kautilya or Mallanaga.

Select

Bibliography

S.K. Dc: 1947, History of Sanskrit Literature, University of Calcutta. H.M. Ingalls: 1974, An Anthology of Sanskrit Court Poetry. A.B. Keith: 1918, A History of Sanskrit Literature, Oxford University Press. D.D.Kosambi & V.V. Gokhalc (cd.) 1967, Subhusitaratnakosa, Harvard University Press. Lud wik Sternbach: 1974, Subhasita, Gnomic and Didactic Literature (Part of Vol. IV, Pt. I of A History of Indian Literature, General Editor J. Gonda). A. K. Warder: 1974-1988, Indian Kavya Literature Vols I-V, Motilal Banarsidass, New Delhi. M. Winternitz: 1959, A History of Indian Literature. Univesity of Calcutta.

12 Give and Take: Sanskrit Poetry in Context Fricdhclm Hardy

To say that classical authors, such as Plato and Lao-tzu, Voltaire and Goethe, Shakespeare and Tlafiz thought and wrote in their respective mother-tongues, would hardly cause a sensation. Yet when we look at India, the situation has been very different and much more complicated. No doubt it is legitimate to state that Sanskrit, the 'classical' language of India, has had an unbroken history oi over three thousand years, and that for a considerable period in that history it has been the major means of cultural expression. But such a statement has to be seen in the wider context oi an extraordinary phenomenon: for over more than the last two millennia, Sanskrit has been nobody's mother-tongue! It is clear both from inscriptions and from the religious literature of the Buddhists and the Jainas, that by the third or fourth century HO:, people in northern India were actually speaking different languages, thePrakrts (which include Pali and Maharastri), which relate to Sanskrit in a manner similar to that of Italian or Spanish to Latin. In addition, from almost the same date onwards, begins the documentationin southern India of theDravidian languages (Tamil, etc.) which bear no historical relation with Sanskrit. (Moreover, the early centuries of the second millennium CH witnessed the emergence of many of the'modern'Indian languages, such as Marathi, Bengali

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and Hindi, but these languages lie outside the scope of the present study.) All this means that for more than two millennia, Sanskrit was a language that had to be learned and studied (and that only by a relatively small percentage of the total population of India) and thus functioned parallel to a person's mother-tongue. The Indian drama preserves this situation in a stylized manner: a variety of Prakrts arc spoken by different characters and Sanskrit is used by only a small number of, socially elevated, characters. But the second extraordinary feature of Sanskrit is the fact that, from an even later date (second century CE) onwards, it developed into the pan-Indian language of learning that w a s cultivated not only by the representatives of the Brahmanical traditions, but also by other groups, such as the Jainas and Buddhists. Apabhramsa, another 'dead' language of literature, that derived from a Prakrt, never succeeded in challenging or replacing Sanskrit in that role and flourished for less than half a millennium (till, say the fourteenth or fifteenth ct;). All this means that we are dealinghere with a dynamic relationship between a pan-Indian 'dead' language of learning and culture whose name itself alludes to samskrti, 'culture'—and an increasing number of different, spoken mother-tongues which often developed their own distinctive cultural and literary identity alongside Sanskrit. This dynamic interaction could be regarded as a unique feature of classical Indian civilization. This situation allows for a variety of questions to be asked: how was the distinctive nature of Sanskrit perceived, in what sense did it act as a model for the other languages, and to what extent was it able to remain 'alive' by developing and enriching itself and by having recourse to new areas of observation? The present explorations, which restrict themselves to poetry (an area least likely to be a ssociated with a 'dead' language), aim at tracing some of the parameters of possible answers to such questions.

The religion of ordinary people has been strongly influenced by the belief in dcv'is, female divinities who play an important role in preserving or restoring health, prosperity, and h a p p i n e s s . Ambivalent in their own nature, they can nevertheless be induced, through gifts and sacrifices, including those of animals, to provide those desirable aspects of life. Such ideas are also expressed

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t h r o u g h mythical narrative, of which the Devi-malwtmya, the 'Glories of D e v i \ in s i m p l e Sanskrit, is one of the bcsl known early e x a m p l e s . In the central e p i s o d e , Devi h a d manifested herself to fight a d e m o n w h o h a d taken on the a p p e a r a n c e of a mighty buffalo. Bound by her n o o s e , h e c h a n g e d into a lion ( w h o s e h e a d she cut off), then a w a r r i o r ( w h o m h e r a r r o w s cut to pieces), then an elephant (at w h o m s h e s l a s h e d with h e r s w o r d ) , and finally changed b a c k into a buffalo. Drinking a g e n e r o u s a m o u n t of alcohol, Devi ridiculed him, h e r e y e s all red and h e r c h e e k s flushed, and then j u m p e d on to him, forcing h e r s p e a r into h i m time and again. A s his true form w a s e m e r g i n g from t h e buffalo b o d y , s h e cut off his head with her s w o r d : c o s m i c h a r m o n y w a s restored and h u m a n prosperity once again m a d e possible. 1 This e p i s o d e , with its references to alcohol, blood, and violence, and its r a t h e r rough depiction of femininity, is typical of the w h o l e text and of the mythical n a r r a t i v e s generally a s s o c i a t e d with devis. But let u s explore w h a t the Sanskrit poet can d o with this r a w material and h o w his skill can a d d cultured sophistication to it. Surprisingly p e r h a p s , this allows u s to trace the p r o c e s s of 'deification' of the Sanskrit l a n g u a g e itself. T h e first e x a m p l e c o m e s from Bana (c. 600 en); he is focusing on t h e s a m e e p i s o d e , on the m o m e n t when Devi kills the buffalod e m o n . (A h u n d r e d such p o e m s a r e found in h i s Candi-satakam.) humkdre nyak-krtodanvati mahati jite sinjitair nupurasya slisyac-chrriga-ksate 'pi ksarad-asrji nijdlaktaka-bhranti-bhaji l skandhe Vindhyddri-buddhyd nikasati mahisasyahiio 'sun ahrirsid ajnanad eva yasyds carana iti sivam sd Siva vah karotu 11211 ' M a y t h e g o d d e s s Siva bring about your prosperity, w h o s e foot, p l a c e d on the buffalo's twitching shoulder, took a w a y h i s life, being quite oblivious [to w h a t it w a s doing]. For [the buffalo's] bellowing, [previously] so loud t h a t it p u t the ocean to s h a m e , w a s d r o w n e d out by t h e tinkling of h e r anklet; a l s o the blood flowing from the scratch that his horn had m a d e a s [writhing in pain] it h a d c o m e in contact with it, w a s m i s t a k e n for her own lac; a n d [his twitching b o d y itself] w a s wrongly thought to be the V i n d h y a m o u n t a i n s . '

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H e r e now Devi h a s a c q u i r e d d ignity a n d elegance: poetic h y p e r b o l e m a k e s it look a s i f t h e killing of the buffalo d e m o n h a s b e e n no m o r e than an unintentional act, the accidental result of a beautiful w o m a n w a l k i n g about. On the relative scale the p o e t i m a g i n e s , the tinkling of h e r anklet is louder than the d e m o n ' s roar, and the w o u n d h e is able to inflict d o c s no m o r e than a d d a bit of red to the lac u n d e r h e r foot. H a v i n g her h o m e in the V i n d h y a m o u n t a i n s ( w h o a c c o r d i n g to m y t h h a d originally w i n g s and w a n t e d to fly, and w h o even a fter the w i n g s h a d b e e n cut off, r e m a i n restive), s h e is also u s e d to the l a r g e black and t r e m u l o u s b u l k over w h i c h s h e w a l k s . T h e b l o o d and gore of p o p u l a r imagination is t r a n s c e n d e d by envisaging m i n u t e c a m e o s ofexquisitbeauty and sophisticated m a n n e r s . The g o d d c s s b e c o m e s an inhabitant of the l a n d s c a p e of elegant court poetry, a n d samskrti ' c u l t u r e ' , h a s transformed the p o p u l a r r a w material. But a p a r t from the characterization of the heroine, another factor is at w o r k here, probably m o r e obvious w h e n reading the translation, and that is stylistic complexity. Highly concentrated l a n g u a g e m a k e s u s e of involved figures of s p e e c h , s u c h a s (in our example) h y p e r b o l e , m e t a p h o r , artificial causality, t h e imposition of r e a s o n and intcntionality on an i n a n i m a t e object (the foot), a n d allusion. This style (that w a s to b e c o m e codified in great detail by the poeticians) g o e s h a n d in h a n d with the imaginary l a n d s c a p e and its a c t o r s , a n d together they constitute the Sanskrit kavya. The second e x a m p l e is taken from A n a n d a v a r d h a n a , a K a s h m i r i p o e t of t h e ninth century CK. H e too w r o t e a h u n d r e d p o e m s in h o n o u r of the G o d d e s s (the Dev'isatakam). But his interest d o e s not lie in transforming mythical n a r r a t i v e a s such; only in one sentence d o e s h e refer to 4 her w h o on the battlefield killed the buffalo w h o m h e r foot struck d o w n ' (v.12). 2 Instead, h e e n d e a v o u r s to p u s h the possibilities of the Sanskrit l a n g u a g e itself to their limits. In his c a s e it is not so m u c h a question oi figures of speech, but of the very r a w material of l a n g u a g e , its s o u n d s and the m y s t e r i o u s w a y s in which s o u n d - s e q u e n c e s p r o d u c e meaning. The following illustration will m a k e it i m m e d i a t e l y o b v i o u s w h a t is m e a n t by this. yayayayayyaya yuyam yo yo'yam yeyayaiya yam I yayuyayiyaycyaya yaye'yaydya yayayuk 11 TThis G o d d e s s m a y protect you always!] It is s h e w h o brings you into existence a n d [then] m a k e s you

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reach eternity. Whoever has taken his refuge with her, has been able to obtain salvation by a safe road. She is wisdom, and she grants all prosperity.* 3 The formal task that the poet set himself is apparent: write a poem, viz., by following the structure of the sloka metre, in which all vowels, but only the one consonant y, are used. (One might assume that such a constraint would be impossible for any living language, yet as we shall see, this is not necessarily the case.) However, the very idea of manipulating language to such an extent appears to be stimulated by the 'dead' nature of the language, by the fact that every sentence constructed in Sanskrit willbc the result of applying hundreds of codified grammatical rules. Thus, instead of asking whether a sentence sounds right, the test will always be whether it can be shown to fulfil all the rules. The present stanza does, just as all the other poems in the Devisatakam do, whatever other formal tasks they set out to fulfil.4 No doubt such manipulation oflanguagehas a playful character, and yet in the present example, it is far from arbitrary in relation to the theme we are tracing here. The whole work is in praise of Devi, and the present poem, with its concentrated theology, presents her very much as 'God\ But historically more is involved than the transcendentalization of the devl concept of popular religion. The latter joins with concepts of 'speech', 'language' —and that means exclusively Sanskrit — and the scriptures of the Vcdas* and the result of this fusion is presented in the Devisatakam as the hypostatization of Sanskrit, wisdom, and culture in the figure of Devi. Inspired by her, the poet receives the gift to create new, imaginative and linguistic, worlds. Thus in a poem (No. 103), far too complex to translate or analyze here, he offers linguistic raw material which must be analysed in four different ways (yielding four different poems in the process, involving four concrete Godfigures). Thereby he illustrates the emanation of 'material' reality from the abstract 'word-principle', the Goddess, its underlying ground. The fact that 'Bharatf is one of her names 5 allows for the inevitable a ssociation with 'Bharata', the mythical name for ancient India. What has this particular line of investigation yielded? Firstly, we have seen how in the hands of the Sanskrit literati elements of p o p u l a r culture arc transformed into figures of elegance,

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sophistication and abstract significance. This included the 'deification* of the Sanskrit language itself, as Goddess. Secondly, we have encountered the endeavour to render the Sanskrit language into an increasingly pliable means of expression; this involves the usage of figures of speech, and the imposition of constraints on to its sound. Thirdly, we noticed, more incidentally, the development of a poetic landscape with its stereotyped actors. Once again all this might suggest that 'dead language* inevitably means remoteness from ordinary reality. The following observations which, by means of a single, representative example, trace another line of development, demonstrate that it was possible for Sanskrit poets to remain in contact with the realities of ordinary life, if they chose to do so. The kurabaka tree will guide us along.

One of the major sources in the development of Indian love poetry were the lyrics composed in the Deccan, from perhaps the second century BCH onwards, in a vernacular language (Maharastri Prakrt). A substantial amount of these has been collected and handed down in the Seven-Hundred (Sattasai) attributed to the anthologistHala. In content, they explore the amatory relationships between ordinary people, in concrete and real settings, and in form, they use the aryd metre (of vernacular origin) and copy the oblique speech (hints, allusions, double-entendres) of a society in which emotions are covered by conventions. A light-hearted note pervades the whole. For instance, nohaliam appano kim na maggase maggase kuravaassa I earn khu tuha hasai suhaa valia-muha-pamkaam jaa 11611 4

"Why are you so interested in the blossoming of the kurabaka tree, but not in your own?'' In this way, dear boy, your wife, her face turned sideways, is laughing at you . . .' According to folklore, the kurabaka tree (red amaranth) would flower in spring only when it has been embraced by a young woman. A young and innocent husband was making efforts for this custom to be followed, while his young, and wiser, wife watches him in amusement. It needs the explanation by a witness to the scene to tell the man about the cause of her mirth, but this is done merely by

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suggestion, u s i n g other m e a n i n g s of the w o r d nohalia (translated so far a s 'blossoming'). First of all, nohalia can also m e a n 'young woman*. S o w e could translate: ' w h y d o you look for a young w o m a n for t h e kurabaka, b u t not for yourself?' — which m e a n s , w h y ignore the obvious: your wife standing there? Then nohalia can also m e a n 'fresh fruits', and this w o u l d s e e m to imply a reminder of his husbandly duties. Continuing with the kurabaka tree, another stanza tells us: saccam bhanami valaa na tthi asakkam vasamta-masassa I gamdhena kuravaanarn manam pi asaittanam na gad 11 21911 'I a m telling you the truth, my boy. Nothing is impossible for the m o n t h s of spring! [Even] the fragrance of the kurabaka trees h a s not enticed her to b e unfaithful to you, not even a b i t . . .' A y o u n g a n d inexperienced lover a p p e a r s to h a v e e x p r e s s e d doubt a b o u t the faithfulness of his beloved, a s s u m i n g that nobody can w i t h s t a n d the stirrings of spring with its seductive fragrance of the kurabaka. Yet the w o m a n ' s confidante seeks to p u t his mind at rest. 'Yes, nothing is i m p o s s i b l e for spring — it can even succeed in letting your beloved remain faithful . . . ' (The c o m m e n t a r i e s on the v e r s e , n e v e r t h e l e s s , r e m a i n unconvinced.) The influence of this v e r n a c u l a r arya poetry on the d e v e l o p m e n t of Sanskrit lyrics w a s e n o r m o u s . For e x a m p l e , in the three d r a m a s o f K a l i d a s a , the arya m e t r e is e m p l o y e d in m o r e than a quarter of all v e r s e s . But a l m o s t all of t h e m a r c n o w in Sanskrit and a r e spoken b y kings; from its rustic origins, the arya p o e m h a s moved u p and acquired 'refinement' (samskrti). Let u s consider the following example. vodhd kurabaka-rajasdm kisalaya-puta-bheda-sikardnugatah I animittam utkantham api janayati malaya-vdto 'yam I \b T h i s southern breeze, which carries kurabaka pollen and is a c c o m p a n i e d b y the m o i s t u r e [issuing] from the unfoldings p e t a l s of tender b u d s , c a u s e s a longing that need not h a v e a specific object.' A u n i v e r s a l i s e d and a b s t r a c t influence of the fragrant kurabaka tree on the e m o t i o n s r e p l a c e s the specifie and overtly erotic a ssociations

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e x p r e s s e d in the P r a k r t s t a n z a s ; an a l m o s t g n o m i c c o m m e n t is m a d e , instead of a reproduction of real-life conversation. To a c o n s i d e r a b l e extent, Sanskrit court p o e t r y (kdvya) d e v e l o p s along s u c h lines. But not necessarily, a s the next e x a m p l e will illustrate. nakha-likhita-stani kurabaka-maya-prsthe bliiimi-lulita-virasdngi 11 hrdaya-vidarana-nihsrta-Kusumdstra-sareva harasi manah 117 4

You, w h o s e b r e a s t s were s c r a t c h e d b y finger-nails! You w i t h your b a c k covered withlairabaka p e t a l s ! You w h o s e limbs h a v e lost their lustre from rolling a b o u t on the ground! You c a p t i v a t e t h e mind a s if an a r r o w of K a m a h a d pierced t h r o u g h your h e a r t and c o m e out (through your b a c k ) / H e r e now, a l m o s t a t h o u s a n d y e a r s after H a l a , w e a r e b a c k in a rural and real l a n d s c a p e , in which the kurabaka tree invites secretive dalliance. It is the world of ordinary p e o p l e of north-eastern India described by G o v a r d h a n a (c. 1200 ct:). H i s r e c o u r s e to H a l a is explicit: all his p o e m s u s e the dryd metre, and h i s collection is, once again, called Seven-Hundred. Once again s n a t c h e s of witty conversation, full of d o u b l e m e a n i n g s , are r e p r o d u c e d . Yet he w r i t e s in Sanskrit, and m a k e s u s e of m u c h of the arsenal of figures of s p e e c h a n d linguistic m a n i p u l a t i o n d e v e l o p e d by the court-poets, a s o u r e x a m p l e m a k e s clear. A s translated so far, t h e p o e m tells u s s o m e t h i n g a b o u t the a p p e a r a n c e of t h e girl after meeting her lover u n d e r the kurabaka tree and a b o u t t h e attractive i m p r e s s i o n this m a k e s on s o m e b o d y s u p r i s i n g her. Moreover, this attraction is explained by reference to K a m a , the god of Love, w h o s h o o t s flowers a s h i s a r r o w s from h i s s u g a r c a n e b o w into the h e a r t s of p e o p l e . But s o m e t h i n g is still missing: a definitive and satisfactory logical connection b e t w e e n the girl a n d K a m a ' s a r r o w , w h i c h overtly is stated to h a v e pierced the girl, b u t not t h e observer. For this m i s s i n g link w e h a v e to read the w h o l e p o e m again, b u t this time with a second meaning. You c a p t i v a t e ImyJ mind, a s if you w e r e a (female) a r r o w of K a m a that h a s pierced t h r o u g h [myj h e a r t a n d h a s c o m e out of it: its front p a r t [ s h a r p e n e d ] by scratching it with finger-nails, its b a c k consisting of a kurabaka flower, and i t s j u i c e p r e s s e d out from c r u s h i n g it on the ground.

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A c o m p l i m e n t is p a i d : a l t h o u g h you look e x h a u s t e d , you are still very attractive! This is a fine illustration of h o w all the technicalities of S a n s k r i t p o e t r y can b e utilized to explore facets of concrete, real life. But G o v a r d h a n a ' s b a c k g r o u n d is not only H a l a and Sanskrit court p o e t r y . S o m e centuries before him, in the s a m e p a r t of India, a very specific and unique genre of Sanskrit poetry flourished w h i c h m a d e r e a l i s m its p r i m a r y objective. A w h o l e g r o u p of p o e t s is involved in this, b u t w e k n o w nothing about them, other than tha t they lived p r o b a b l y b e t w e e n 800 and 1000 en and belonged to northe a s t e r n India; D. Ingalls (who h a s identified the genre) h a s called t h e m t h e T a l a p o e t s ' . 8 R u r a l life forms t h e s u b j e c t - m a t t e r , p a r t i c u l a r l y its a n i m a l s and people, but outside any a m o r o u s contexts. Seemingly totally insignificant e p i s o d e s of e v e r y d a y life a r e d e s c r i b e d in m i n u t e detail. But a b o v e all, poverty — a most u n u s u a l t h e m e in Sanskrit poetry — is dealt with in a m o s t moving manner. Here are two examples: Beckoned by the farmer, the farm-hand p r e t e n d s not to h e a r his call. Shivering in the cold and eager to rest for a while longer, he d r a g s himself a w a y from the tree that h a s sheltered him against t h e wind, a n d folding his a r m s a c r o s s the chest and hissing t h r o u g h h i s p o u t e d , trembling and cracked lips, he slinks off to t h e field, slowly, taking small steps. 9 S u r p r i s i n g a s this choice of topic m a y be, particularly for a p o e m in S a n s k r i t , t h e t o t a l a b s e n c e of any formal m e a n s of p o e t i c ornamentation is equally u n u s u a l . The following example illustrates the t h e m e of p o v e r t y , but, r a r e for the genre, with a touch of wry humour. "Get u p just for a while, m y friend, and carry the b u r d e n of m y p o v e r t y ! E x h a u s t e d a s I h a v e been for a long time, let m e enjoy y o u r h a p p i n e s s that c o m e s frombeing d e a d . " Although entreated t h u s in m a n y w a y s by t h e p o o r man, w h o h a d gone to the c r e m a t i o n g r o u n d , the c o r p s e remained still, a s if he thought that d e a t h is g r e a t e r h a p p i n e s s than being [alive but) poor. 1 0

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So far we have explored the position of Sanskrit poetry mainly in relation to particular milieux represented by it and the themes described in them, and in relation to stylistic means. Merely accidentally the relationship of Sanskrit to other Indian languages has been touched upon. But this is a topic that deserves further exploration. On the one hand, the vernacular poetsbecome inspired to try and imitate many of the conventions and the stylistic possibilities of Sanskrit poetry. On the other hand, Sanskrit poets may well utilize the opportunities offered by the multi-linguistic situation of Indian society and play their own games with it. One of the best-known poets of Apabhramsa literature is Puspadanta who lived in the tenth century CK and wrote in the Deccan. Here is a brief extract from his massive epic which, among many other things, narrates the adventures of prince Vasudeva. ettahe sundaru main viharantau /Vijaya-nayaru saliasa sarnpattau // ditthau nandana-vanu talii kehau / malm blidvai ramayanu jehau // jalu caranli bhiyara rayamyara /cau-disu ucchalanti lakkhana-sara // siya-virahe samkamai nah' ant am / gholira-pucchu sa-rarnau vanam / nilakanthu naccai romanciu /ajjunu jaln doncm samsinciu// naulcm so jji niraniu seviu... // iya sdhai uvavanu nam Bharahu /vclli-samchannafi ravi-bha-rahu //u To begin with, the text is easy to translate: Meanwhile, the handsome prince, walking through the land, speedily reached the town of Victory. There he saw a forest of such a kind that it reminds me of the Ramayana. (forest)

(Ramayana)

[It w a s so dense that] inside it birds of the night moved about, and the four quarters reverberated with the sound of cranes. Since it had become warm, the monkeys with their female mates, waving their tails about, jumped across the sky.'

'In it terrifying ogres [are depicted asl moving about, and the four quarters are filled with Laksmana's arrows, The monkey [Sugriva], in the company of Kama, waving his tail about, moves through the sky, in consequence of the abduction of Sita.

This strange comparison of a forest with an epic forces one to pause: what could its rationale possibly be? The poet explains it himself in

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t h e following t w o lines, w h i c h can either be read about the forest, or, using s o m e of the w o r d s in different m e a n i n g s , about the epic: (forest) 'in which the creepers covered up the intensity of the sun's rays. In it the peacocks danced, spreading out their feathers, and the arjuna trees were sprinkled from vessels (or: clouds); the same [trees] must have been frequented by the mongoose.'

(Mahablidrata) 'in which [we hear about] the powerful lightof thesunbeingobscured by the swords [used in thcbattlc]. Where Sikhandin danced with great thrill, and w h e r e Arjuna w a s covered Iwith arrows] by Drona. Where the same [ArjunaJ was affectionately served by Nakula.'

Then the poet adds: 'And in this way that forest resembled the Mahabharata\ and once again ambivalent phrases either describe the forest further, or allude to episodes in the second grand Sanskrit epic: There are a number of ways the poet can produce ambivalent phrases; in the present example, it is achieved by using the same words in different meanings. But this is done in a twofold12 manner. Some of the ambivalence is also present in the corresponding Sanskrit words (and thus could be reproduced directly in that language). But our passage goes further: it utilizes also words which only in the Apabhramsa language sound the same, but correspond to two different Sanskrit words (e.g. sara-corresponds to Sanskrit sara—, 'arrow', or svara-, 'sound'). This is more than a random play with words, or an arbitrary association. The prince enters the forest, at the beginning of his selfimposed exile, just as the heroes of both the great Sanskrit epics, the Raniuyana and the Mahabharata, spent time in the forests during their own exiles. The hint at the two epics not only elevates the prince to epic status, but also suggests a successful conclusion to his own exile. Although the passage is in Apabhramsa, the poetic technique it uses, the comparison it makes, and the linguistic ambivalence exploited for this comparison, all refer back to ihe Sanskrit language. The following example wants to illustratehow, under theinfluence of Sanskrit poetics (and with the help of Sanskrit loan-words), even a living language can achieve the seemingly impossible, viz., a poem that uses but one consonant. (And it may not be too farfetched to infer a sense of pride, on the part of the poet and his audience, in the powers of their own language.)

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tititta tatitu tataitu titattotta tetittitte tutitta tattatta tutaitutu tattuttat tottatitat tutitta tutaittatl tata tatitatat totattatta tatitta tutittatot tittuttit tattatta tatititte13 'OGodryisnulwholasKrsnaJatcthecurdsthathadbeenhidden and [then] were most appropriate for the proclamation of the message of salvation [viz., the Bhagavadgita]\ You grant boons and are [therefore] praised with well-sounding words. You arc the transcendental reality, and you recline on the ocean, your mighty chest smudged with the pollen [from Laksml's flowergarland]. Everything receives meaning from you. [As Krsna] you danced on the spotted [hoods of the serpent Kaliya], in the rhythm 'tatitta tutittatu'. Great fear is overpowering my body that is filled with pain: may your steps kick this fear far away and save me, your dog, who is loyal to you!' The language used is Tamil, though in a rather literary form: nearly half the words found here are genuine loan-words from Sanskrit that arc used more or less commonly in the language. This is not the place to unravel the many allusions in the poem. But attention may be drawn to the fact that form and content are intrinsically connected. The central image is that of Krsna 'dancing' on the hoods of the vicious serpent, and the prayer asks for him to repeat this, as it were, by stamping on the poet* s fears and pains, to destroy them. From the mnemonic syllables indicating Krsna's 'dancing', the prayer receives its very sound, as if the poet were imagining and anticipating how the god will 'dance' on his fears and pains. Similar examples could be quoted from the literature of most other Indian 'living' languages. The Sanskrit poet too is not oblivious to the existence of many other languages is his society. Anandavardhana's Devlsatakam has some extreme examples of interplay between Sanskrit and other languages. Thus the following drya stanza can be analysed as written in Maharastri Prakrt and then produces this translation: maha desu rasam dhamme tama-vasam asam gamdgama hara new hara-vahu saranam tarn citta-niolwm avasarau me sahasd\\76a n 'O wife of Siva! Grant me delight in what is righteous and take

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a w a y from u s t h e c r a v i n g s that a r e controlled by d a r k n e s s (tamoguna) on account of the coming-and-going (of transmigration). You a r e m y refuge. Let t h e delusion of m y mind vanish speedily.' Yet b y organizing t h e syllables differently, the s a m e stanza can be r e a d in S a n s k r i t a n d yields a different translation: maha-de sura-sandham me tarn ava samasangam aganidharane\ hara bahu-saranam tarn citta-moham avasara Ume sa-hasa\\7Go\\ 4

0 you w h o grant g r e a t n e s s ! Protect this my attachment, which is s h a r e d b y t h e g o d s , to the acquisition of sacred scriptures. U m a ! T a k e a w a y , at your p l e a s u r e and at the a p p r o p r i a t e m o m e n t , t h i s delusion of m y mind which is so full of adversity.' Further e x a m p l e s achieve similar ambivalence for other Prakrt l a n g u a g e s and A p a b h r a m s a , b u t the culmination is a stanza which, r e a d in six different l a n g u a g e s (including Sanskrit, M a h a r a s t n and A p a b h r a m s a ) yields the s a m e meaning: alola-kamale citta-lalama-kamaldlaye 1 pahi candi maha-moha-bhamga-bhima-balamale

117411

' C a n d i you faithful g o d d e s s of prosperity! You w h o abide in the lotus of t h e perfected m i n d s , and you w h o s e terrifying p o w e r to d e s t r o y [even] e x t r e m e delusion never fails, protect [me]! T h e s e h a v e been a few illustrations of h o w Sanskrit, l a n g u a g e a n d ' g o d d e s s ' , h a s interacted with other l a n g u a g e s of India, how it h a s enriched itself by d r a w i n g on other traditions, h o w it can transform the rustic and give rise to sophistication and culture, and h o w it h a s s t i m u l a t e d other l a n g u a g e s to follow its example. All this r e v e a l s a p r o c e s s of give and take, a d y n a m i c interaction that h a s been far from ' d e a d ' . References 1. Paraphrased from the Devlmdhdtmya, chapter 3 (Mdrkandcya Purdm, chapter 83), vv. 28-44. 2. Carandghdta-nihata-kdsard ca randjire.

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3. Stanza 22; the sentence in bracket appears in the following v. 23, on which 22 depends syntactically. 4. The Devisatakam includes many poems that can be arranged in visual patterns; most striking among these is the great discus which involves 21 stanzas (vv. 80-100). Certain syllables, read sequentially on the spokes, produce a new stanza (v. 101) in which the poet tells us his own name and that of the work, and informs us that the Goddess inspired him to write it. 5. Devisatakam stanza 63, and quite common in Sanskrit generally. 6. Stanza 9 of Act III of Malavikdgnimitra. 7. Govardhana's Arya-Saptasati, v. 324. 8. See his article in the journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 74 (1954), pp. 119-31. 9. Quoted anonymously in the Saduktikarnamrta, v. 1339, in the section on 'the farmer in winter': ahuto hdlikendsrutam iva vacanam tasya krtvd ksanaikam tisthasuh stabdha-roma katliarn api vitapam nihsamiram vihdya i dorbhyam dvrtya vaksah-sthalam alasa-gatir dina-pdda-pracarah sUkdrotkampa-bhinna-sphutad-adhara-putah pdmarah ksetram etiw 10. Quoted in the Saduktikarnamrta, v. 2237, in the section on 'thepoor householder', and ascribed to Vasukalpa: uttistha ksana-mdtrarn udvalia sakhe daridrya-blmram mama srdntaa tdvad aham cirdn marana-jam seve tvadiyam sukriam i ity ukto dhana-varjitena bahudha gatvd smasanam savo dandrydn maranam varum sukham iti dhyatveva tusnhn sthitahw 11. Puspadanta's Mahapurdnam 83, 8, 1-7 (quoted from L. Alsdorf, Harivamsapurdna, Hamburg, 1936, pp. 22f; I have corrected his nirariu.) 12. A third manner is not illustrated in the present example: where the soundform of a word can either be related to a Sanskrit word or a word found only in the vernacular (desi)'. see nohalia in Hala's verse No. 6 quoted above. 13. Quoted from Tirucvvlur-antdti, v. 38, (in Antati-kkotiu, edited by T. Chandrasekharan, Madras, vol. 1, 1956, p. 94); the work is ascribed to a Narayana-tacan, about whom nothing appears to be known.

13 The Contribution of Kashmir to Sanskrit Literature Vcd Kumari

Ghai

The Sanskrit literatu re of India is not a product of any one part of the country. Sanskrit w a s the link languageof the country for centuries and h a s renin ined a vehicle of lea rn ing for more than three thousand y e a r s . The e n o r m o u s Sanskrit li terature which vvc h a v e now in print or in m a n u s c r i p t form is the result of literary activities in all p a r t s of India, from Kashmir in the north to Kanyakumari in the south. But it is very r e m a r k a b l e to find that this northern corner of the country h a s p r o d u c e d , in quantity a s well a s quality, a volume of Sanskrit literature which is simply amazing in its width and depth of knowledge. K a s h m i r h a s contributed extensively to Sanskrit poetry, poetics, g r a m m a r , medicine, history and philosophy. All the six schools of Sanskrit poetics, namely, Alamkara, Rlti, Rasa, Dhvani, Vakrokli and Aucitya o r i g i n a t e d and d e v e l o p e d in K a s h m i r . The f a m o u s c o m m e n t a r y Kdshika on Vanim s Astadhyayi and the commentaries on Patanjali's Malulbhasya were also composed here. It is believed that the great s a g e Caraka, associated with the Ayurveda, hailed from K a s h m i r and D r d h a b a l a , w h o revised C a r a k a ' s work, w a s also a Kashmiri. The Candra and t h c K a t a n t r a schools of g r a m m a r flourished in K a s h m i r . A s r e g a r d s p h i l o s o p h i c a l literature, K a s h m i r ' s contribution in developing the Pratyabhijna system of

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Saiva philosophy based on idealistic monism is widely recognised. Kashmir has produced voluminous Sanskrit literature of great merit in the form ofPwraras, historical poems, court epics, devotional poems, anthologies, dramas, works on poetics and dramaturgy, didactic poems, satirical poems, and other miscellaneous works. Pur anas

Nilamata Parana has been referred to by Kalhana as a work of great antiquity. Its date seems tobe about sixth century AD. According to Biihlcr, hJilamata's great value lies in that it is a mine of information regarding the sacred places of Kashmir and their legends which are required to explain the Rajatarariginl, and that it shows how Kalhana used his sources. But the Nilamataalso contains a lot of information about the Kashmiri way of life. The life of the common people, the food and drink they took,the amusements they resorted to, the currents of religious thoughts they followed and the rites and ceremonies they performed are described therein. These rites and festivals are mostly similar to those observed in other parts of India. In the field of geography it is interesting to know the similarity of the nomenclature of Kashmir as found in this work with that of other parts of India. The holy confluence of Vitasta and Sindhu is described as Praydga. Names like Sarasvati, Rsikulya, Ramahrda, Bhriguturiga, Citrakuta, Bharatagiri etc. which are names of various tlrthas of Kashmir are also names of various tlrthas in other parts of India. Visnudliarmottara Parana, which was compiled in the southern part of Kashmir, that is nearjammu, also belongs to the sixth or fifth century AD. It is an encyclopaedic work dealing with various subjects like mythology, cosmogony, cosmology, astronomy and astrology, omens and portents,polity, sociology, religion, medicine, agriculture, animal husbandry, art and architecture. Divided in three kliandas and 87 chapters, the work begins with the request of king Vajra, son of Aniruddha and great grandson of Krsna, to the sages to narrate the various Vaisnava dharmas. They request the sage Markandeya to perform the arduous task. Accordingly, Markandeya narrates the legend of uplifting the earth out of primeval waters by the Boar form of Visnu. There follows the narration of different aspects correlated with the creation of the world, the various cosmic cycles, the creation of gods, demons and human beings. Various Puranic stories arc also, incorporated. In the

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d e s c r i p t i o n s of B h a r a t a ' s m a r c h against Sailusa, the king of G a n d h a r v a s , m a n y tlrthas and rivers of this region, namely, Devika, C a n d r a b h a g a , Vitasta etc. h a v e been eulogised. The second p a r t d e a l s mainly with polity. The duties of the kings, the queens, the ministers, the army, the judiciary ha vebeen discussed in detail. T h e d u t i e s of the public in accordance with four Vanias, Asramas and Purusarthas h a v e also been described. In the third part, w e find d e t a i l s of v a r i o u s t y p e s of art, music, dancing, acting, painting, i c o n o g r a p h y and v a r i o u s t y p e s of architecture. One h u n d r e d and one varieties of t e m p l e s h a v e been mentioned. Hamsaglta a n d SdnkaragHa also form p a r t of this Purana, which is highly i m p o r t a n t from the point of view of the cultural history of the southern p a r t of Kashmir. T h e third Purana is Vasukipurdna which w a s c o m p i l e d in B h a d r a v a h a and d e s c r i b e s the religious cults and ethnic moorings of that hilly area. In 501 v e r s e s it describes through a dialogue between Siva and Parvati, various sacred places, rivers and hills of B h a d r a v a h a w h i c h is c a l l e d B h a d r a s r a m a . T h e s t o r y o( J i m u t a v a h a n a and Sarikhacuda s e e m s to h a v e been taken from H a r s a ' s p l a y Naganamla, hence this w o r k should be dated after seventh century AD. The N a g a cult h a s been very p o p u l a r in this area a s is clear from the great religious importance given to V a s u k i k u n d a a n d various other tlrthas of Vasukimandala mentioned in this work. It is interesting to find m a n y rivers of this area n a m e d after the Gaiiga such a s BhagirathiJahnavi,Mandakini,Svetaganga, Ksiragariga, Atulagariga, etc. Poetry The w o r k s of many p o e t s referred toby Kalhana inhis Kdjatarangini h a v e not survived, but w h a t e v e r h a s survived is sufficient to establish t h a t the Sanskrit p o e t s of K a s h m i r did not limit their poetry within the p e r i p h e r i e s of royal courts but also depicted the joys and w o e s of the c o m m o n m a n . In the period of the Karkota king Jayapida (AD 779-813) there flourished D a m o d a r a g u p t a , M a n o r a t h a , S a r i k h a d a t t a , C a t a k a a n d S a n d h i m a t . Of t h e s e o n l y D a m o d a r a g u p t a ' s work Kuttanimata h a s come down to us. It is a unique w o r k with a curious mixture of romantic, satiric and didactic elements. Within the main siory of a young courtesan seeking a d v i c e from an old p r o c u r e s s are woven many interesting stories depicting h o w luxury and moral laxity had corrupted the rich social s t r a t u m of that perio I.

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A s far a s satiric and didactic poetry is concerned, the earliest w o r k is Bliallata Sataka consisting of one h u n d r e d and eight v e r s e s in the anydpadesa style. The p o e t belonged to the t i m e s of king S a r i k a r a v a r m a n (AD 883-902) son and s u c c e s s o r of the benevolent k i n g A v a n t i v a r m a n . K a l h a n a w r i t e s in Rajatarangini that S a n k a r v a r m a n h a d turned out to be a tyrant a n d levied h e a v y taxes on the villagers. In his reign, great p o e t s like Bhallata h a d to live w i t h o u t any m e a n s of 1 i velihood while L a v a t a , w h o w a s a m e r e loa d bearer, got a rich s a l a r y of 2000 dinars. Bhallata gives vent to h i s feelings of d i s p l e a s u r e at this injustice by scolding the w i n d t h u s : W h a t a w r o n g b e h a v i o u r this, O wind! The d u s t which d e s e r v e s to b e c r u s h e d by the feet of the p e o p l e i s being taken by you to the high sky, a p l a c e for the g r o u p of luminaries. You m a y not c a r e for obstructions in the sight of the p e o p l e , b u t w h a t about the dirt you h a v e p u t on your o w n b o d y . H o w is that to b e r e m o v e d ? (v.99). Hinting at the d a r k future of the country d u e to the cruel policies of the tyrant ruler, Bhallata p r e s e n t s an anyokti about a h u n t e r and a forest thus: This b o w is w i d e like the y a w n i n g m o u t h s of Death. The a r r o w s are like the quick poison. His skill excels that of Arjuna, agility is perceptible in every p a r t of the body. Alas! this fowler, a r o g u e h a s cruelty at h e a r t and a sweet song on his lips. I think t h e forest will b e bereft of all animals. K s e m e n d r a ' s n a m e c o m e s at the top in the field of satire. A v e r s a t i l e genius, h e w r o t e m o r e than forty w o r k s of w h i c h only nineteen h a v e survived. Besides p r o v i d i n g u s with a b s t r a c t s of Rdmayana, Mahabhdrata, G u n a d h y a ' s Brhatkathd, B a n a ' s Kadambari andBaudha avadanas, and treatises on rhetorics, erotics and p r o s o d y , he h a s written a large n u m b e r of didactic a n d satiric p o e m s dealing with the h a r d realities of rural and u r b a n life in K a s h m i r . H i s Samayamatrka, modelled o n D a m o d a r a g u p t a ' s Kuttanlmata, describes the trickeries of a harlot, Karikali. S h e relates to a y o u n g c o u r t e s a n , Kalavati, her o w n exploits in younger d a y s w h e n s h e w a n d e r e d t h r o u g h the length and b r e a d t h of K a s h m i r and s e d u c e d t h e p e o p l e

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in v a r i o u s g u i s e s a s a flower girl, s a l e s girl, cake-seller, b e g g a r w o m a n , w o m a n m a g i c i a n a n d holy saint. A n o t h e r w o r k , Darpadalana, is a didactic-satiric work denouncing in seven sections vanity arising out of high family, wealth, learning, b e a u t y , valour, charity a n d p e n a n c e . K s c m e n d r a ' s view is that it is the p e r s o n a l m e r i t of an individual which counts and not the family in w h i c h h e is born. The w e a l t h of a m i s e r is like the d i s e a s e of the h e a r t wThich c a u s e s e n d l e s s misery, while W a c k m o n e y is u s e l e s s a s one c a n n o t s p e n d it openly d u e to fear. That type of learning is w o r t h l e s s w h i c h is devoid of good character and which c h a n g e s justice into injustice and injustice into justice. The poet s p e a k s a g a i n s t the vanity of b e a u t y a s it lasts only for a short time and is robbed of c h a r m by old age; and the vanity of valour which is used for killing and not for protection of life. Similarly only that gilt is p r a i s e w o r t h y which r e m o v e s the misery of others and the best kind of p e n a n c e c o n s i s t s in doing good to others. K s e m e n d r a ' s Scvyascvakopudcsa is a s h r c w e d study of the relation b e t w e e n the m a s t e r and the servant. The poet c o n s i d e r s them lucky w h o h a v e no need to s e r v e the rich. In Kalavilasa, K s e m e n d r a d e s c r i b e s in ten c a n t o s the v a r i o u s m o d e s of deceit practised by the p e o p l e . T h e w i c k e d clerk skilled in crooked writing, the w a n d e r i n g singers a n d a c t o r s a d e p t in snatching money from the p e o p l e , the q u a c k s q u e e z i n g m o n e y from p a t i e n t s , the crooked astrologer,the tricky g o l d s m i t h stealing gold under the very nose of the customer, all a r e taken from the real life of K a s h m i r of those d a y s . In Desopadesa a n d Narmamilla he depicts in the s a m e style and spirit, t h e c o r r u p t b u r e a u c r a c y and evil elements of the society of his times. T h e m i s d e e d s of officers in the administration are described with o u t s p o k e n frankness. K s e m e n d r a d o e s not s p a r e the antisocial t y p e s like the h o a r d e r w h o h o a r d s grain for half a century and p r a y s for famine so that he m a y sell it at a cut-lhroat price. Even s t u d e n t s w h o c a r e m o r e for eating than for studies do not e s c a p e his attention. H e a t t a c k s corruption strongly at all levels, from that of a minister to that of a clerk, but he realises like a m o d e r n journalist that satire is a far m o r e powerful w e a p o n than sermonising and so s e e k s to m e n d affairs by taunting people. H i s aim is to warn the p e o p l e aga inst the corruption of t h e b u r e a u c r a c y and the roguery of the other anti-social e l e m e n t s . H i s work Caturvargasarngraha d e a l s with four e n d s of life—Dharma (virtue), Artha (wealth), Kama (love)

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and Moksa (salvation) and the Nitikalpataru can be called an cncylopaedia of worldly wisdom and polity. The essential qualities of princes, kings, ministers, ambassadors, spies etc. have been described and illustrated with interesting stories. His Cdrucaryd is also a didactic work of hundred verses. Similar to Bhallata Sataka is another work Anyoktimuktalatd of Sambhu who was a court-poet of king Harsadeva (AD 1089-1101). In one hundred and eight detached verses in varied metres, the poet h a s p r e s e n t e d many soft and h a r d facts of h u m a n life. Vakroktipancasika of Ratnakara is a collection of fifty verses about the dialogue of Siva and Parvati, each verse illustrating the figure of speech called vakrokti. Silhana's Sdnti Sataka is a didactic poem divided into four chapters called Paritapopasama, Vivekodaya, Kartavyopadcsa, and Brahmaprdpli. The poem tries,to prove the utter worthlessness of worldly pleasures and the great importance of renunciation for attainment of salvation. Of the court epics of Kashmir, we have Kiipphindbhyudaya of Sivasvamin, Haravijaya of Ratnakara, Ravanarjuniya of Bhima, SrikanlJiacarita of Mahkha and Kathakautakam of Srivara. Sivasvamin, the author of Kapphindbhyudaya. was a court-poet of Avantivarman. This court epic of 20 cantos deals with the story of the South Indian king Kapphina's war with king Prasenajit of Sravasti and the former*s conversion to Buddhism. Following the typical style of a mahdkavya the poet has embellished the small narratives with descriptions of seasons, mountains, sunrise, sunset, moonlit night, water sports etc. Ratnakara has given us a stupendous mahdkavya of fifty cantos dealing with the defeat of the demon Andhaka by Ilara. It seems that the poet wanted to excel Bharavi and Magha through his knowledge of rhetorics and polity. About eight cantos deal with Ratnakara' s views on polity and ten cantos describe eroticpractices like plucking of flowers, sporting in water, drinking and enjoying the sunset etc. Ravanarjuniya of Bhatta Bhima is an epic poem of twenty-seven cantos dealing with the war of Kartavirya Arjuna with Ravana. Along with poetic descriptions, the poem provides illustrations for all sections of Panini's grammar. The work can be well compared with Bhatti's Rdvanavadha. Srlkanthacarita by Marikha of the reign of king Jayasimha (AD 1127-56) is based on a Pauranic story of the killing of the demon Tripura by Siva. There are beautiful descriptions of nature in poetic

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style. Seeing the sunset and the moon-rise together the poet compares the redness of the sunset with fire, the sky with an earthen stove and the moon with a frying pan which has some black spots. Kamadeva has created this to make the hearts of the separated lovers boil in the frying pan. The twenty-fifth canto of Srikanthacarita gives us very important information about the literary circles of those days in Kashmir. The poet refers to a meeting of twenty-seven scholars in various fields of literature, grammar, Veda, Ayurveda and philosophy who had gathered at the house of his brother Alamkara. Two ambassadors, Tejakantha sent by king Aparaditya of Korikana, and Suhala sent by king Govinda Candra of Kannauja, were also present in that literary meet. The majority of scholars mentioned by Mankha were from the field of literature. Thus Kalyana, Garga, Govinda, Jalhana, Patu, Bhudda, Yogaraja, Lostadeva, Srikantha, Srigarbha, Srivatsa, Saththa were men of literature while Janakaraja, Laksmideva, and Ramyadeva were well versed in the Vedas. Ananda, Jinduka, Trailokva, Nandana, Prakata and Sriguna were scholars of philosophy while Ruyyaka and Naga had specialised in rhetorics. Mandana was a scholar. Mankha presented his poem before all these scholars for literary criticism and the work got due approval. All this gives us a very pleasant picture of the literary life of ancient Kashmir. Kathdkautaka composed by Srivara, who lived during the time of four Sultans of Kashmir, Zainulabdin, Haidarshah, Hasanshah and Muhammad Shah, is based on the story of Yusuf and Zulaikha as narrated by Mulla Jami. Zulaikha, a beautiful princess dreams of a young man and falls in love with him. With great difficulty she finds him but he does not give her a proper response. Yusuf is put into prison while Zulaikha is thrown into the ocean of grief. At the end the lovers are united by the grace of Lord Siva. Delardmakathasdra of Rajanaka Bhatta Ahladaka is another Sanskrit kavya based on a Muslim story of the son of a Sultan and a courtesan. Kashmir has also produced some famous epitomes like Kathasaritasagara of Somadcva and Kadambarikuthasclra of Abhinanda besides the Marljarlkavyas of Ksemendra referred to earlier. Historical Poems Kashmir ranks the highest as far as historical poems in Sanskrit are concerned. Kalhana' s Rajatararigini alone is sufficient to challenge

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the view that Indian writers were devoid of historical sense. There arc, however, other poems with historical themes and also three continuations of Rajatarariginiby]onara\a, Srivara andPrajyabhatta and his pupil Suka. Some historical poems like Somapalavildsa, which g a v e a life history of king S o m a p a l a of Rajouri, /flyflszmMb/zywdflyawhichwasbasedonthehistoryofkingJayasirnha of Kashmir, and Bhuvandbhyudaya of Sarikuka which described the battle between Mamma and Utpala of Kashmir are lost to us. The earliest historical poem available is Vikramdnkadevacarita of Bilhana. Bilhana was born at Khonamusa near Pravarapura in Kashmir but, after completing his education, he went out and travelled in various parts of India in quest of fame and fortune. He visited Mathura, Kanyakubja, Prayaga, Varanasi, Bundclkhand, Dhara, Anhilwad, and finally settled at Kalyan where he wrote his kdvya describing the exploits of his patron, king Tribhuvanamalla Vikramaditya VI. Composed ineighteen cantos, the poem describes the history of the Calukya dynasty of Kalyan from its mythical origin up to the reign of Vikramaditya VI. Vikrama's marriage with the Silahara princess Candralekha and the love sports of the couple occupy more than seven cantos which indicates that Bilhana was interested more in poetical descriptions than in giving historical accounts. The historicity of many events of Vikramaditya's time are also borne out by epigraphical evidence. Another historical kavya, Rdjendrakarnapura by Sambhu, is just a panegyric eulogising the conquests of his patron, king Harsa. It is a small poem of seventy-five verses. Prthvirdjavijaya which is available incomplete from canto first to canto twelfth, gives an authentic genealogy and history of ancestors of Prthviraja. In the twelfth canot there is mention of a poet Jayanaka who has come from Kashmir to serve in the court of Prthviraja. It is probable that here the author refers to his own self. The poem is available only up to this point but there must have been some more sargas as the title indicates the victory of Prthviraja over Ghauri. Kalhana's Rajataranginl is the most important work in Sanskrit which has been planned and executed as history. Though son of Campaka, a faithful minister of king Harsa of Kashmir (1089-1100), Kalhana was not drawn directly into the whirlpool of the political life of his land and had the good fortune of watching from near the sad and dreary state of his country. With his keen sense of observation, and inherited understanding of political affairs,

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a p p r e c i a b l e catholicity of mind to respect other religious creeds, and a d m i r a b l e literary gifts, h e w a s justified in his ambition of writing a s y s t e m a t i c history of h i s motherland. H e knew the duties and obligations of a true historian a s h e himself says: "That meritorious p o e t alone d e s e r v e s prai sc w h o s e word like the sentence of a j u d g e k e e p s a w a y from love or h a t r e d in recording the past". K a l h a n a h a s b a s e d the first three cantos of his work on Purdnas and l e g e n d s and is not p r e c i s e in giving account of fifty-two kings. F r o m t h e fourth c a n t o o n w a r d s h e s t a n d s on the solid ground of h i s t o r y w i t h the account of D u r l a b h a v a r d h a n a , founder of the K a r k o t a d y n a s t y . T h e sixth canto gives the history of the Utpala d y n a s t y starting from A v a n t i v a r m a , and describes the reign period of ten kings u p to queen D i d d a . The seventh canto gives account of six k i n g s of L o h a r a d y n a s t y and the eighth canto gives detailed accounts of Uccala, Sussala, Bhiksacara and Jayasimha as personally o b s e r v e d by the poet. H i s presentation of c o n t e m p o r a r y history is p r e c i s e a n d c o m m e n d a b l e . H i s p o w e r of c h a r a c t e r i s a t i o n is m a r v e l l o u s . With a critical eye h e h a s observed the intrigues of the royal c o u r t s a n d d e s c r i b e d t h e m vividly. As a poet too he m u s t b e a p p r e c i a t e d for h i s vivid and g r a p h i c imagery. His description of t h e tragic end of several kings in w o r d s of inexpressible p a t h o s m a k e s an indelible i m p r e s s i o n on the r e a d e r s ' h e a r t s . T h e first continuation of Rajatarariginl is by Jonaraja w h o h a s p i c k e d u p the t h r e a d w h e r e Kalhana left it and h a s b r o u g h t the history d o w n to t h e time of Sultan Zain-ul-abdin. An account of 23 kings h a s b e e n given in this w o r k . The H i n d u rule ended in Ka shmir with the i m p r i s o n m e n t o f q u c e n K o t a d e v i b y S h a m s u d d i n . Jonaraja p r a i s e s t h e fourth Sultan, S h a h a b u d d i n , a s a good a d m i n i s t r a t o r and criticises Sultan S i k a n d a r a for his m i s d e e d s . Sultan Zain-ul abdin h a s b e e n p o r t r a y e d a s a benevolent king w h o loved his subjects. The second continuation is Jain-Rajatarahgini by Srivara which d e s c r i b e s the reign of Zain-ul-abdin, H a i d e r s h a h , H a s a n s h a h a n d M u h a m m a d S h a h in 2241 v e r s e s . Zain-ul-abdin used to listen to the texts of Valmiki Ramayana and Yogavasistha and got s o m e S a n s k r i t w o r k s t r a n s l a t e d into Persian, and Persian w o r k s into Sanskrit. The third continuation is Rajavalipataka by Prajyabhatta w h i c h is not p u b l i s h e d and the fourth one is by his student Suka w h i c h c o v e r s the p e r i o d u p to AD 1538. All these historical p o e m s arc importantforthepolitical and culturalhistory of ancient Kashmir.

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Other Poetry In the field of devotional p o e m s , t h e r e a r e m a n y w o r k s of w h i c h the well-known a r e Devisataka of A n a n d a v a r d h a n a , Stutikusumanjali of J a g a d d h a r a containing p r a y e r h y m n s to Siva, Ardhanarlsvara stotra of K a l h a n a p r a i s i n g Siva and P a r v a t i together, Sragdhard sfofraof Sarvajnamitra eulogising t h e B u d d h i s t g o d d e s s s T a r a in 37 v e r s e s in t h e Sragdhara m e t r e , Isvarasataka of A v a t a r a a n d Devindmavilasa of S a h i b Kaul. M a n y devotional p o e m s a r e still u n p u b l i s h e d . O n e of t h e s e , Ratnasataka by R a t n a k a n t h a beautifully d e s c r i b e s the v a r i o u s a s p e c t s of the sun god at d a w n , m i d d a y and dusk. A n t h o l o g i c a l l i t e r a t u r e of K a s h m i r is a l s o n o t e w o r t h y . V a l l a b h a d c v a ' s Subhasitavall contains 3527 v e r s e s of a b o u t 360 p o e t s . J a l h a n a ' s Suktimuktavali contains 2790 v e r s e s of m o r e than 240 a u t h o r s . Poetry of m a n y writers w h o s e w o r k s h a v e b e e n lost h a s c o m e d o w n to u s only t h r o u g h t h e s e anthologies. Drama M a n y Sanskrit p l a y s m u s t h a v e been written in K a s h m i r a s the Nilamata Purdna p r e s c r i b e s d r a m a t i c p e r f o r m a n c e at social a n d religious functions. K a l h a n a also refers to the a u t h o r C a n d r a k a w h o h a d written s o m c p l a y s t o b c s t a g c d b e f o r e t h e p u b l i c . l t is h o w e v e r , s a d that only t h r e e s p e c i m e n s , n a m e l y , Padatdditaka, a bhana written by S y a m i l a k a , Agamadambara—a four-act p l a y by Jayanta Bhatta a n d Karnasundari—a natikaby Bilhana, h a v e s u r v i v e d . Padataditaka gives a vivid description of the c o m m o n life of the p e o p l e in a lively l a n g u a g e full of satire. Agamadambara is a p h i l o s o p h i c a l p l a y describing v a r i o u s cults p o p u l a r in K a s h m i r such a s the V a i d i k a s , B a u d d h a s , K s a p a n a k a s , Tantrikas, S a i v a s a n d C a r v a k a s . Q u e e n S u g a n d h a , in o r d e r to resolve differences a m o n g the v a r i o u s cults, a r r a n g e s an a c a d e m i c conference w h e r e the f a m o u s scholar Bhatta S a h a t a is n o m i n a t e d a s judge. After listening to all the v i e w s h e s o l v e s the p r o b l e m of a p p a r e n t contradiction in v a r i o u s Agamas by saying that all t h e s e a r e like different d o o r s to a single h o u s e or a single city. The p a t h s m a y differ b u t the goal is one and the s a m e , n a m e l y , salvation. A s t h e r e is only one God, h e by h i s o w n will a p p e a r s a s B u d d h a and M a n u to teach various Agamas. Karnasundari is a romantic play depicting the love of the Calukya prince K a r n a d e v a a n d t h e V i d y a d h a r i K a r n a s u n d a r i . l t s h o w s the influence of H a r s a ' s p l a y Ratnavali.

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Poetics T h e contribution of K a s h m i r is unique in the field of poetics a s all the six s c h o o l s of Indian poetics h a d their origin in Kashmir. The history of Sanskrit poetics can b e divided mainly into three stages. The first s t a g e w a s of B h a r a t a ' s Ndtyasastra when poetics w a s c o n s i d e r e d a s a p a r t of d r a m a t u r g y ; in the second stage the two c l a i m e d i n d e p e n d e n t and s e p a r a t e considerations; and in the third d r a m a t u r g y c a m e to b e c o n s i d e r e d under poetics. The first stage is r e p r e s e n t e d b y B h a r a t a ' s w o r k only, b u t a s r e g a r d s the next two s t a g e s of the d e v e l o p m e n t of this branch of literature, K a s h m i r ' s contribution is the largest. The Kashmiri scholar Bhamaha of early eighth century AD is the earliest after Bharata. It w a s B h a m a h a w h o first of all dealt with the problem of definition of kavya and g a v e it a s sabdliarthau sahitau kavyani ( t o g e t h e r n e s s of w o r d and meaning is Kavya). It w a s he w h o first of all r e d u c e d the n u m b e r of gunas from ten to three (niadhurya, oj:i, prasdda) and it w a s h e w h o first of all pointed out the importance oi vakrokti w h i c h w a s later on used by Kuntaka to found a new school by c o m p o s i n g Vakrokti'fwilam. U d b h a t t a of thecourtof kingjayapida of K a s h m i r w r o t e a c o m m e n t a r y on B h a m a h a ' s work and also in i n d e p e n d e n t w o r k Alankara Sangraha which defines 41 types oi figures of s p e e c h . U d b h a t t a ' s contemporary V a m a n a w h o wrote Kavyalankara Sutra is the foremost representative of the school w h i c h r e g a r d e d riti or style a s the soul of poetry. Of Lollata and Sarikuka of the time of Ajitapida no work h a s s u r v i v e d b u t w e k n o w from quotations that Lollata had o p p o s e d the v i e w s of U d b h a t t a and h a d written a c o m m e n t a r y on Bharata. Sarikuka criticized his theory on rasa. Both these belonged to the rasa s c h o o l , t h e former believing in utpattwdda and latter in anumitivada. A v a n t i v a r m a n ' s reign period brought to light four rhetoricians n a m e d A n a n d a v a r d h a n a , R u d r a t a , Mukula and Induraja. lnduraja b e l o n g e d to the A l a n k a r a school of B h a m a h a . Mukula put forth the t h e o r y of i m p o r t a n c e of abhidha in h i s Abhidliavrttimatrkd. A n a n d h a v a r d h a n a ' s great work Dhvanydloka is a c o m m e n t a r y on certain kilrikas by him or s o m e p r e d e c e s s o r . 1 le r e g a r d s dlivam or suggestion a s the soul of poetry. His proposition is that just a s the loveliness of a lady is s o m e t h i n g over and above her limbs, so in the w o r d s of great p o e t s w e find an exquisite c h a r m which is over and a b o v e t h e w o r d s and their meaning and this is dhvani.

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The theory oidhvani was further developed by Ananda vardhana' s commentator Abhinavagupta and was brought to perfection by Acarya Mammata of this very land. The question as to what is the soul of poetry was well discussed and answered by these epochmakers in the field of poetics. With the establishment of thr» sense and function of suggestion in poetry which are named Vyangydrtha and Vyanjand, these Acaryas put forth the theory that all good poetry m u s t h a v e a sense implicitin it. D/iram w a s regarded of three types: suggestion of matter (vastudhvani), suggestion of figure {alankara dhvani), and suggestion of emotional mood {rasadhvani). Anandavardhana and his followers laid special stress on rasadhvani. Rasa w a s already mentioned by Bharata, but it was this school which developed a clear-cut system out of it with the theory of rasa also being suggested by dhvani. The poet can at best directly express the three factors, vibhdva, anubhdva and sancaribhava which bring about the rasa but not the rasa itself which is inexpressible in its nature. He can only suggest the rasa witii the help of these factors. Bhatta Nayaka, who lived after Anandhavardhana and before the time of Abhinavagupta, and Mahimabhatta, who lived after Abhinavagupta and before Mammata, controverted the dhvani theory but failed to do so as all the later writers quote them only to refute their theories. Kuntaka, the founder of a Vakrokti school who lived Lefore Mahimabhatta, has tried to include all ideas of dhvani and rasa into vakrokti which, according to him, is a striking or charming mode of expression. But just like the anumdna theory of Mahimabhatta his vakrokti theory also did not receive liberal recognition at the hands of later theorists nearly all of whom since Mamma ta' s time accepted the dhvani theory of Anandavardhana. Ksemendra also entered this field aspropounder of aucitya. The idea of propriety was mentioned by Anandavardhana and some other writers but Ksemendra developed it to its extreme and regarded aucitya as the essence of rasa, and as the soul of poetry. The last great Kashmiri Acarya in the field of poetics is Mammata. No less than 75 Sanskrit commentaries have been written on his Kavyaprakasa which is a complete manual of poetics. Thus we find that leaving aside Dandin, Rajasekhara and Bhojaraja almost all eminent writers in the field of poetics belonged to Kashmir. Kashmir has produced many Sanskrit works in other fields like philosophy, grammar, lexicography and medical sciencesbut these are outside the scope of this paper.

14 Some Peripheral Literature: Lexicography and Medicine Satya Vrat

Shastri

It is not only in poetry, d r a m a , fiction and philosophy that Sanskrit literature exhibits its richness: it does so in technical sciences as well. There h a v e been thinkers in India w h o have contributed substantially to different technical disciplines a brief assessment of two of which is given here. Lexicography The oldest w o r k s in this discipline are the Niglumtus, collections of Vedic t e r m s w h i c h h a v e been explained by Yaska in his etymological treatise, the Nirukta. These collections differ in many r e s p e c t s from the dictionaries, the Kosas, of the later period. The first p e r t a i n s to the p u r p o s e for which the two types of collections w e r e m a d e . In the c a s e of the Nigliaritus, it w a s the interpretation of the s a c r e d texts. In the c a s e of the Kosas, it w a s to supply w o r d s to p o e t s a n d w r i t e r s and to acquaint them w ith their precise meanings and gender. The second pertains to their being restricted to any particular subject or otherwise. In the case of the Nighantub, they a re limited to a particular text, in the c a s e of the Kosas, they do not h a v e any s u c h restriction, d r a w i n g w o r d s a s they do from all types oi w o r k s . The third pertains to their form. While the Nigliantus are in p r o s e , the Kosas are in verse, mostly in the anustubh and sometimes also in the aryd metre.

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The p u r p o s e of the Kosas being written in v e r s e p r o b a b l y w a s to h e l p in their being c o m m i t t e d to m e m o r y . The traditional s y s t e m of Sanskrit e d u c a t i o n e m p h a s i z e s at a very early s t a g e itself the storing in m e m o r y by the learner of the Astddhydyi of Panini a n d the Amarakosa of A m a r a s i m h a , t h u s e q u i p p i n g h i m with v o c a b u l a r y a n d g r a m m a t i c a l k n o w l e d g e that a r c to s t a n d h i m in good s t e a d in h i s going over to any discipline. W e r e h e to c h o o s e writing for selfe x p r e s s i o n , t h e v a l u e of b o t h need no e m p h a t i c assertion. It w a s t h e p r i m e m o t i v e of p l a c i n g sufficient v o c a b u l a r y at the d i s p o s a l of a p r o s p e c t i v e writer t h a t p o s s i b l y a c c o u n t s for t h e attribution of dictionaries to s u c h celebrated w r i t e r s a s Bana, M a y u r a , M u r a r i a n d Sri H a r s a , t h e last of w h o m is credited with h a v i n g compiled the lists of w o r d s with d o u b l e m e a n i n g s : Slesarthapadasamgraha. Tine S a n s k r i t Kosas, a s available at present, can b r o a d l y b e d i v i d e d into t w o t y p e s . There a r e s o m e w h i c h a r e s y n o n y m o u s , listing w o r d s with t h e s a m e m e a n i n g a n d o t h e r s w h i c h a r e h o m o n y m o u s , listing w o r d s w i t h different m e a n i n g s (anckarlha, nandrtha) t h o u g h i m p o r t a n t s y n o n y m o u s d i c t i o n a r i e s h a v e a h o m o n y m o u s section a l s o in them. In neither of the t w o is followed the a l p h a b e t i c a l order, t h a t n o t b e i n g felt essential for the fact of the Kosas h a v i n g to b e c o m m i t t e d to m e m o r y any w a y . That d o e s not m e a n that the a r r a n g e m e n t of the w o r d s in t h e m is arbitrary. It follows other principles. The longer articles c o m e first and the shorter o n e s later. The c o m m o n final e n d i n g s or beginnings m a y d e c i d e their grouping. So m a y the c o m m o n gender. T h e w o r d s generally a p p e a r in the nominative, singly or in a c o m p o u n d a s p e r the exigencies of the m e t r e , a s a l s o t h e m e a n i n g s , except in h o m o n y m o u s dictionaries w h e r e they a p p e a r in the loca tive. W h e r e t h e g e n d e r is specially mentioned, it is in the locative again. W h e r e it is not mentioned, it is indicated by t h e u s e of t h e w o r d in t h a t gender. S o m e dictionaries h a v e a section on g e n d e r at the end. O c c a s i o n a l l y t h e c o m p i l e r s of d i c t i o n a r i e s g i v e r a t h e r long e x p l a n a t i o n s of w o r d s . N o r m a l l y the m e a n i n g is indicated by clubbing an unfamilir w o r d with a familiar one. Just a s in Vydkararia Panini h a s stolen the limelight, so h a s a m o n g l e x i c o g r a p h e r s A m a r a s i r h h a , t h e c o m p i l e r of t h e c e l e b r a t e d Namaliriganusasana w h i c h is k n o w n m u c h m o r e a s the Amarakosa after h i s n a m e . T h e r e did p r e c e d e h i m l e x i c o g r a p h e r s like K a t y a y a n a , w h o is credited with the compilation of the Namamdld, V a c a s p a t i and V i k r m a d i t y a , the c o m p i l e r s of the Sabdarnava a n d

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t h e Sarhsaravarta, a n d V y a d i w h o s e Iftpa/zmincorpora ting Buddhist t e r m s is often cited. Traditionally being associated with king V i k r a m a d i t y a a s o n e o f h i s n i n e j e w e l s , A m a r a s i r h h a c a n b e assigned to t h e sixth c e n t u r y AD , t h o u g h there is no other ground to s u p p o r t this. H i s work, w h i c h is s y n o n y m o u s , is divided into three b o o k s or kdndas w i t h an a p p e n d i x on h o m o n y m s , indeclinables and genders a n d is c o m m e n t e d u p o n w i d e l y , t h e m o r e i m p o r t a n t of h i s commentators being Ksirasvamin, Sarvananda, Rayamukuta a n d B h a n u j i d i k s i t a . A s u p p l e m e n t to it w a s p r o v i d e d by P u r u s o t t a m a d e v a u n d e r the title Trikdndasesa. H e also compiled the s h o r t i n d e p e n d e n t w o r k , the Hdrdvali. P e r h a p s a s old a s A m a r a is S a s v a t a w h o s e h o m o n y m o u s work, the Aiiekdrthasamuccaya devotes s o m e t i m e s a w h o l e v e r s e or a p a r t thereof to the explanation of a term. A m o n g other dictionaries could be mentioned the Abhidhananulld of ?Talayudha, c. AD 950 and the Vaijayanti of Y a d a v a p r a k a s a , c. AD 1050 , the latter r a t h e r voluminous. There is a good crop of lexical w o r k s in t h e twelfth century AD. The m o r e prominent of these a r e t h e Abhidhdnacintdmanl, a dictionary of s y n o n y m o u s w o r d s in six sections a n d the Anckdr t ha sari graha, a dictionary of h o m o n y m o u s w o r d s in six sections again beginning with one-syllable w o r d s and ending with six-syllable ones and the Nighantusesa by the prolific Jain w r i t e r H e m a c a n d r a . A n o t h e r Jain c o m p i l e r Dhananjaya compiled b e t w e e n AD 1113-1140 his Ndmamdld. In AD 1111 M a h e s v a r a c o m p i l e d h i s Visvaprakdsa followed a little later by Mankha w h o c o m p i l e d the AnekdrtJiakosa to which he also a d d e d a c o m m e n t a r y of h i s o w n . To AD 1200 b e l o n g s K e s a v a s v a m i n ' s Nandrtliarnavasanksepa. In the fourteenth century Medinikara wrote his Anekdrthasabdakosa w h i c h like the Amarkosa c a m e i o b e known alter h i s n a m e a s the Medinlkosa. T h e r e a r e certain minor w o r k s also in the field of Sanskrit l e x i c o g r a p h y an account of which m a y not out of place here. They a r e Ekdksarakosa, w o r d s of one syllable, the Dvirupa or Trirupakosa, w o r d s of t w o or three forms and the dictionaries of certain specific disciplines like, medicine, astronomy and astrology. The Vedic tradition of Nighantus w a s revived by the B u d d h i s t s w h o p r o d u c e d w o r k s s u c h a s the Mahdvyutpatti for interpreting the Buddhi st t e r m s in p r o s e . In the field of Sanskrit lexicography a rather interesting work is the Pdrasiprakdsa, a Persian-Sanskrit Dictionary compiled in the

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time of Akbar. In 1693 V e d a r i g a r a y a u s e d the s a m e title for his dictionary of astronomical and astrological t e r m s . In 972 D h a n a p a l a c o m p i l e d for h i s sister S u n d a r i Paiyalacchi, a P r a k r t d i c t i o n a r y w h i c h w a s u s e d b y H e m a c a n d r a for h i s Desinamamala, a compilation of Dcsi w o r d s , w o r d s w h i c h a r e neither of Sanskrit, tatsama, nor derived from it, tadbliava. This brief s u r v e y will enable the r e a d e r to form a general idea of the l a r g e c o r p u s of Sanskrit lexicographical literature w h i c h h a s listed an e n o r m o u s n u m b e r of w o r d s in their i m m e n s e variety of m e a n i n g s . A s the Sanskrit l a n g u a g e g r e w with the incorporation of n e w w o r d s , w h e t h e r of Indian or foreign origin—there a r e d e e p imprints of foreign influence in disciplines like astronomy, astrology, medicine and n a t u r a l and p h y s i c a l sciences—and a s m e a n i n g s u n d e r w e n t c h a n g e d u e to natural p r o c e s s e s , the need w a s felt to compile n e w e r and n e w e r dictionaries to incorporate all the new material in addition to retaining the old one. H e n c e the a p p e a r a n c e of a big crop of dictionaries and lexica over the centuries. T h e s e dictionaries and the lexica a r e a standing testimony to the r i c h n e s s of the S a n s k r i t l a n g u a g e and its minute e x p r e s s i v e n e s s . Medicine The origin of the science of medicine or Ayurveda can b e t r a c e d in India, like the origin of the m a n y other k i n d s of sciences, to the Veda, particularly the Atharvaveda which h a s h y m n s in it for curing d i s e a s e s , bhaisajydni, and for increasing the life-span, dyusyani. There is mention of the twin divine p h y s i c i a n s , A s v i n a u with w o n d e r f u l h e a l i n g p o w e r s . l n o n e o f t h e h y m n s t h e y are said t o h a v e s u p p l i e d a leg to one Vispala: Vispaldyai jangham adattam, the earliest reference in Sanskrit literature to the transplantation of limbs. The s i m p l e folk in early p e r i o d s , a s the p e o p l e e l s e w h e r e , h a d n u r t u r e d a belief that d i s e a s e s are the h a n d i w o r k of d e m o n s or evil spirits and that their c u r e is p o s s i b l e by w a r d i n g t h e m off by recitation of mantras or p e r f o r m a n c e of m a g i c rites. This belief continued long after the period of the Veda for w e h a v e even in the well-developed treatises on Ayurveda a section on t r e a t m e n t of d i s e a s e s c a u s e d by d e m o n s . Tradition recognizes Ai/H7TJedfl, also called Vaidyasastra, the science of the doctor, a s an updnga, a sub-auxiliary of the Atharvaveda w h i c h p r e s e r v e s in it the ancients k n o w l e d g e of e m b r y o l o g y a n d hygiene.

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There is a legend in India of the Ocean of Milk having been churned by gods and demons. For medical science the importance of the legend lies in the appearance from the said Ocean, along with others, of Dhanvantari, the mythical physician, typifying the yearning of the ancient Indians for a physician with extraordinary healing powers. Tradition also associates a Dhanvantari with Vikramaditya as one of his nine jewels. Whether the two are identical is open to question. The Ayurveda is called astangay or eight limbs or topics, which are major surgery, minor surgery, healing of disease, children's diseases, toxicology, elixirs and aphrodisiacs. Patanjali in his Mahabhasya, in the context of the scope of the use of word, mentions it along with Parana, Itihdsa and Vdkovakya thus attesting to its antiquity. It appears that treatises on specific topics called Tantras or Kalpas were composed first. Later comprehensive treatises called Samhitas, which dealt with all the eight topics referred to above, made their appearance. The Sage Atreya is usually mentioned as the founder of the Ayurveda. The Buddhist tradition records the name of one Jivaka, a pupil of Atreya who specialized in children's diseases. The Vinaya Pitaka and other Buddhist texts show a wide knowledge of elementary medical science, surgical instruments and hot baths, etc. The earliest of the treatises on medical science in India is the Caraka Samhita, the compendium of Caraka, a court physician of Kaniska whose wife he helped in a critical case. The work, as it is available now, is not the work of Caraka alone, for it wa s revised by one Drdhabala who added the last two chapters to it besides contributing seventeen out of twenty-eight or thirty chapters of its Book VI. A native of Kashmir, Drdhabala, ascribed to the eighth century AD, was the son of Kapilabala and apart from carrying out the revision of the Caraka Samhita as mentioned above, is credited with the revision of a number of Tantras of Agnivesa, a pupil of Punarvasu Atreya, a fellow student of Bheda or Bhcla whose Samhita on that score is taken by some to be older than that of Caraka. The Caraka Samhita \s divided into various sections, called Stlumas each dealing with certain specific topics: the Sutrasthana with remedies, diet and the duties of a doctor; Nidanasthana with eight chief diseases; Vimanasthdna with general pathology and medical studies; Sarirasthdna with anatomy and embryology;

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IndriyastMna with diagnosis and prognosis; Cikitsaslhana with special t h e r a p y a n d the Kalpa- and the Siddhisthanas with general t h e r a p y . The next great n a m e in the field of Indian m e d i c a l science is that of S u s r u t a , d e s c r i b e d in the Mahabhdrata a s the son of V i s v a m i t r a . The f a m o u s Nagarjuna is said to h a v e w o r k e d on h i s text. H i s fame h a d s p r e a d even beyond the confines of India, to C a m b o d i a in the East and A r a b i a in the W e s t in the ninth and the tenth centuries AD a s evidenced by the literary tradition of t h o s e countries. H e w a s c o m m e n t e d u p o n by Jaiyata, G a y a d a s a a n d C a k r a p a n i d a t t a w h o h a d a l s o c o m m e n t e d u p o n t h e Caraka Samhita a n d w h o s e c o m m e n t a r y on S u s r u t a w a s s u p p l e m e n t e d by Dallana in the thirteenth century AD. O n e C a n d r a t a h a d revised h i s text on t h e b a s i s of the c o m m e n t a r y of Jaiyata. H i s work h a s six sections w h i c h , except the last one, the Uttaratantra, clearly a later addition, c a r r y the s a m e titles a s d o e s the w o r k of C a r a k a . Its Siltrasthana d e a l s with general questions, i m p a r t i n g a l s o the information that the a u t h o r (Susruta) w a s the pupil of King D i v o d a s a of V a r a n a s i w h o is d e s c r i b e d a s t h e e m b o d i m e n t of D h a n v a n t a r i . T h e Nidanastliana concerns itself with p a t h o l o g y , Sarlrasthana with a n a t o m y and embryology, the Cikitsasthana with t h e r a p e u t i c s and the Kalpasthana with toxicology. The next i m p o r t a n t work is the Bhelasariihita which c a r r i e s the s a m e divisions a s d o e s the Caraka Samhita. A s r e g a r d s osteology, a third version of the s y s t e m of Atreya in addition to those of C a r a k a and Bhela is found in the Yajnavalkya and Visnu Smrtis and the Visnudharmottara and the Agni Puranas. V a g b h a t a , another great n a m e in Indian m e d i c a l tradition, is recognised to b e posterior to S u s r u t a . Interestingly, t h e r e a r e t w o w r i t e r s of this n a m e , both claiming the s a m e p a r e n t a g e in their w o r k s , the Astarigasarigraha and the AstatigaJirdayasamhita. From the fact that one of the t w o is called V r d d h a V a g b h a t a , the Elder V a g b h a t a , it w o u l d a p p e a r t h a t b o t h w e r e different p e o p l e and it is the c o m m o n n e s s of the n a m e that led to the confusion. It is p o s s i b l e that they might h a v e s h a r e d the s a m e descent. The Elder V a g b h a t a or V r d d h a V a g b h a t a w a s the son of S i m h a g u p t a and the pupil of the B u d d h i s t Avalokita. The younger V a g b h a t a a p p e a r s to h a v e m a d e u s e of the w o r k of his elder n a m e s a k e in a mixture of v e r s e and p r o s e while that of the former is in verse. Other w o r k s on medical science include the Kugviniscaya of M a d h a v a k a r a , an important text on p a t h o l o g y , the Siddhiyoga or

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Vmdamadhava of Vrnda, a text giving prescriptions for a number of ailments from fever to poisoning, the Cikitsasclrasangraha of Cakrapanidatta, a text on therapeutics, and the Cikitsdmrta of Malhana, a work on general medicine. The Samhita of Sarrigadhara is commented upon by Vopadcva, son of the physician Kesava and a protege of Hemadri (c. AD 1300) who also wrote a Sataslokl, a work on powders, pills and the use of the pulse in diagnosis. Numerous other works on medicine came to be written in later centuries, the more noteworthy of them being the Gkitsakalika of Tisata (fourteenth century), the Blwvprakasa of Bha vamisra (sixteenth century) and the VaidyajlvanaotLolimbaraja (seventeenth century). There also appeared large numbers of monographs on different d isea ses including the one on the diseases of plants, the Vrksilyurveda of Surapala. Apart from herbs, the kasthaut,adhas< prescribed as medicines, the texts on Ayurveda record a number of other preparations with effective curative properties. They are the hliasnias of various metals especially of gold and silver. The treatment extended itself even to the use of quick-silver (parada) in its various formulations, and sulphur and other acids for treating malignant diseases. The effectiveness of the medication is ensured with its accompaniment, the anupanihmilk, butter milk, curd, the decoction (kvatha) and so on. The treatment also rests on certain types of diets to be partaken for certain periods, the kalpas, to subsist on milk alone or curd alone for twenty-one days or forty days and so on. The ancient Indians had achieved a high degree of accuracy in diagnosing the ailment by feeling the pulse, a tradition that has come down to the present-day. They had evolved a theory of the three humours, the Vata (wind), Pitta (bile) and Kapha (phlegm) the disturbance of which is the cause of the disease. Efforts have therefore to be made to keep them on an even keel which can be done by proper health care. Ayurveda is the science of good health and not only the curing of diseases.

15 Contemporary Sanskrit Writing Radha Vallabh

Tripathi

Sanskrit h a s remained a potent vehicle of thought and literary activity through the centuries in India. It continues to be a m e d i u m of creative writingand a c a d e m i c p u r s u i t s c v e n today. Thetendency to present the p a s t in terms of the present and to interpret the present in terms of the past still p e r m e a t e s the new Sanskrit writing. The onslaught of British rule posed new challenges before Sanskrit authors. They tried to interpret the cultural invasion and political turmoil in the light of the value system and ethos which they had imbibed. 1 Creative writing in Sanskrit w a s immensely influenced by the revolutionary spirit and the s t r u g g l e for independence in our country during this and the last century. N o doubt, Sanskrit is no longer a language of the m a s s e s in India. But it is studied and is being adopted as a medium for writing in each and every part of this vast peninsula. Added to this, the richness of the language, its classical grandeur and familiarity with its idioms, p h r a s e s and w o r d s h a v e attracted eminent authors in other Indian languages to c o m p o s e in Sanskrit also. Sri Aurobindo, the author of the great epic Savitrl in English; Kumaran Asan, one of the greatest of Malayalam poets; Vishranath Satyanarayan, an eminent Telugu author; Nagarjuna and Janakivallabh Shastri, t w o renowned poets of Hindi—these arc only a few n a m e s of wellknown litterateurs, who also created substantial poetry in Sanskrit. 2

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Continuous publication of periodicals in Sanskrit, 3 including dailies, weeklies, monthlies and quarterlies have helped the authors in this language to reach the people. A research on Sanskrit journalism shows that more than 400 periodicals were brought out in Sanskrit between 1860 to I960.4 Some of them, like Sanskrit Candrikd (1893) and Sunrtavadini (1906) were banned by the British Government, for their support to the freedom movement and staunch opposition of the Raj. Contemporary creative writing in Sanskrit is marked by d i versity, variety in form, diction as well as style, and richness in content. We find many Sanskrit authors waiting in the vein of classical Sanskrit poetry. The texture of their compositions unmistakably reveals the overpowering impact of the great poets of yore, like Kalidasa, Magha or Sri Harsa. Sometimes their poetry appears to be a mere reproduction. And yet, their concern for the contemporary scene and involvement with the present can be detected even when they wrrite on Puranic themes. For example, Anandacarana, a traditional pandit of Kashi, composed a mahdkdzn/a or epic poem, Svargarohanam, on the theme of the final journey of the five Panda vas and Draupadi to the Himalayas. He has captured the trauma and the agony of our age on the great canvas of this poem, Prabhudatta Brahmacan, again a very traditional scholar, hints upon the idea of democratic republic in his Ganapatisambhava mahdkavya on the legend of Lord Ganesha. There is an exuberance of mahakavyas in Sanskrit. 5 A research work on the maJidkdvyas written during our seventh decade notes 52 published and unpublished mahakavyas composed during 1960-70 alone/' Many of the contemporary Sanskrit poets have turned to new forms. Bhatta Mathuranath (1890-1960) was a pioneer in this respect. He composed ghazals, radio plays, fine essays and also adopted the metres of Brijbhasa, kavitta, savaiya, soratha, gJianaksarl etc. for his Sanskrit compositions. 7 Jagannath Pathak, Rajendra Mishra, Vindhyeshvari Prasad and many others have successfully experimented with the form of ghazal in Sanskrit. The neo-lyric was found tobc more suitable for the spirit of romanticism, individuality and expression of inner conflicts. In the lyrics of Janakivallabh Shastri, Ramanath Pathak, Prabhat Shastri and Rajendra Mishra these tendencies get the upper hand.

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W e t h u s find the continuity of the traditionalform in c o n t e m p o r a r y Sanskrit writing a s well a s an inclination t o w a r d s n e w forms a n d n e w t h e m e s . It w a s again Bhatta M a t h u r a n a t h w h o w r o t e on t h e innovations, inventions and new tendencies of h i s era. M a n y a u t h o r s following h i m w r o t e on c o n t e m p o r a r y situations, and r e v e a l e d their e x p e r i e n c e s of m o d e r n society. S o m e t i m e s their reactions a r e p e r m e a t e d with over-simplification. E n t h u s i a s m to w r i t e on t h e latest t h e m e s also m a r s the quality of the writing. The S a n s k r i t p o e t h a s t h u s interpreted the milieu and the tendencies of the a g e in his o w n w a y . The multipl icity of epic p o e m s on mythological or P u r a n i c t h e m e s indicated his a t t a c h m e n t to the p a s t and conformity to tradition. Along with that, a s e n s e of history and c o n t e m p o r a n e i t y h a s also been introduced in m o d e r n Sanskrit literature. During the nineteenth a n d twentieth centuries n u m e r o u s w o r k s on ancient, m e d i e v a l or m o d e r n history h a v e been p r o d u c e d by Sanskrit writers. 8 Most of t h e m a r e in v e r s e form. An a w a r e n e s s of political situations and d e m o c r a t i c rights is particularly reflected in the literature p r o d u c e d after the revolution of 1857. Epic p o e m s like Angarcja Candrikd (1807), Rajdnglamahodyadyanam (1894), Dehalimaholsavam (1902) and Anglasamrajya-mahakdvyam (1916) t a k e into account the British rule in India. A p p a s h a s t r i h a d written an article "Cakravartinyah Ghosanapatram" in Sunrtavddinl (No. 1.15) on the declaration of reforms by Queen Victoria. S h r e e s h w a r V i d y a l a n k a r c o m p o s e d "Prinsapancasat" to felicitate the arrival of the Prince of W a l e s in India. B h a r a t e n d u p r e s e n t e d an anthology of S a n s k r i t p o e m s Sumanonjalih w h e n the D u k e of Edinburgh c a m e to Kashi in 1870. Renowned p a n d i t s of K a s h i h a d contributed to the selection. Most of the p o e m s of Sumanonjalih w e r e simply v e r s e s in p r a i s e of the guest of honour, b u t s o m e of the p i e c e s hinted upon the p o v e r t y a n d the p a t h e t i c conditions of t h e lower m i d d l e c l a s s . In the last d e c a d e s of the nineteenth century, there w e r e m a n y p o e m s in p r a i s e of the British Raj. The scene h o w e v e r c h a n g e d a s t h e century d r o v e t o w a r d s a close. In 1899, A p p a s h a s t r i declined to publish a p o e m Vikloriyd-mdhahnyam a n d then he printed it with a very h a r s h c o m m e n t on the p o e t ' s devotion to the British rulers (Sanskrit Candrikd N o . VI 1.8). Wilh the beginning of the p r e s e n t century, the Sanskrit p o e t s , d i s e n c h a n t e d with the Raj turned t o w a r d s their national heroes. Pandit S h r i p a d a Sastri H a s u r k a r , (1888-1974) a great scholar and a prolific author, c o m p o s e d a series of b i o g r a p h i e s on them.

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K. S. N a g a r a j a n followed h i s e x a m p l e in Blulratlya-desabhakta Caritam (1952). M a h a m a h o p a d h y a y a R a m a v a t a r S h a r m a wrote Bharatlyam Itivrltam (History of India) and Dcsantariyam Itivrtlimi (History of O t h e r Countries). 9 The r i c h n e s s and rhetoric of Sanskrit combined with t h e p i q u a n c y of satire and the spirit of alienation h a s p r o d u c e d very interesting r e s u l t s . R a m a v a t a r S h a r m a c r e a t e d a p a r o d y on K a l i d a s a ' s Meghadutam in h i s Mudgardutam.10 The i d i o m s and e x p r e s s i o n s of the g r e a t classic h a v e been r e m o u l d e d h e r e to bring out a fool's character. Mudgardutam w a s a trendsetter. Later a u t h o r s even m a d e the r a d i o , a shoe, a d o g or a crow into m e s s e n g e r s , replacing the solemnity and intensity of K a l i d a s a ' s p o e m by h u m o u r and a light m o o d . During recent d e c a d e s Sanskrit p o e t s also a p p e a r t o b e influenced by the socialist ideology, a w a r e n e s s of the class-struggle and even M a r x i s t thought. G a n d h i a n p h i l o s o p h y , h o w e v e r h a s m a d e an everlasting i m p a c t on c o n t e m p o r a r y Sanskrit writing. G a n d h i figures a s a h e r o in m o r e than dozen mafiukavyas and h u n d r e d s of short p o e m s , including salakas and khandakdvyas. Grdniagitamrtani and Sramgitd (1984) by S r i d h a r B h a s k a r Varnekar, c o m p o s e d in a lucid style, p r e s e n t G a n d h i a n p h i l o s o p h y in the Git a form. The spirit of d e m o c r a c y and the struggle of the Indian p e o p l e are visualised in ]anavijaya mahdkdvya of P a r a m a n a n d Shastri, and in s o m e oi the Lahari-kdvyas by the p r e s e n t a u t h o r (Janatalahari a n d Rotikalahari. Lcninamrtam (life of Lenin) by P a d m a Shastri t a k e s the Bolshevik Revolution into account. Svdlantryasambhava-niahakavya (1990) of Reva P r a s a d D w i v e d i n a r r a t e s the history oi the freedom struggle. E s s a y writing could not a t t r a c t m a n y a u t h o r s . H r i s h i k e s h B h a t t a c h a r y a w r o t e a few very good e s s a y s , e x p r e s s i n g 'a loose sally of m i n d ' for the first time in Sanskrit p r o s e . 1 lis e s s a y s a r e collected in Prabandhamanjarl (1929). Bhatta M a t h u r a n a t h also contributed several e s s a y s to the Sanskrit R a t n a k a r monthly. The form of t r a v e l o g u e also r e m a i n s neglected in Sanskrit. K s h a m a R a o ' s p o e m Vicitraparisadydtrd (1938) i s n o t c w o r t h y for itssimplicity and p o r t r a y a l of experiences of a lady attending a big conference. Ydtrdvildsali of Naray an Shastri Kankar describes journeys to various p l a c e s in India in a very artificial p r o s e . Radio-plays a r e being wri tten in la rger n u m b e r s to meet professional d e m a n d s. Krsakdrulm Ndgapdsah (Serpent-noose for the farmers, 1968)byBhagirath P r a s a d S h a s t r i and Panditarajlyam (1984) by R a m a k a n t Shukla a r e good specimens.

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Autobiographies are still rare. Korad Ramachandra Kavi (18161900) had written a Svodaya-Kdvya and very recently Madhusudan Mishra has presented an account of his life and struggles in Svetam. Bhatta Mathuranath had also made a beginning in waiting short stories in Sanskrit on the modern pattern. His short stories follow the craft of O. Henry and some of them can be treated at par with the best stories of contemporary Indian literature. Pandita Kshama Rao published a collection of her 15 short stories in Katha Muktdvali (1915) adopting a highly embellished and poetic prose. She is more at case in her short stories written in verse form. Kshama Devi wrote on social problems, rural life and inner conflicts. Rajendra Mishra has presented some of the finest subtle pieces in his two collections of short stories Iksugaridha (1986) and Rangda (1992). Ichcha Ram Dwivcdi has followed him in Ekadasi (1995). Pandit Ambikadatta Vyasa had created a magnum opus in the field of the Sanskrit novel with Swarajavijaya, a historical romance based on the life of Shi vaji.Medhavrta wove a fascinating tale in his Kumudimcandra (1935). Ramkaran Sharma in Seema (1987) and Raisah (1994), Ramji Upadhyaya and Satya Prakash Singh in Guhavasi (1993) and Dim Suparna have interpreted the Indian view of life. Kcshav Chandra Dash h a s brought in existentialist philosophy, dichotomy of modern life and the ''Stream of Consciousness" style in his novels. He has a dozen of them to his credit. Shyam Vimal has come out with Sharadacandra-like sensitivity and pathos in his Vyamohah (1991). However, good prose with an accent on realism docs not appear to be the forte of contemporary Sanskrit authors. They are better at ease and more eloquent with versification. Sanskrit drama has continued with a diversity of forms and richness of aesthetic experience. In the last century, hundreds of plays on Puranic themes were written. Sundararajakavi however produced a remarkable comedy on Indian family life in Snusavijaya (Victory of the Daughter-in-law). In this play, the reign of tyranny unleashed by the mother-in-law is finally overthrown by the pcrserverance and courage of the daughter-in-law. Some play-' wrights turned to historical themes. The plays of Shankarlal and Haridas Siddhantavagisha reflect the classical grandeur of our dramatic tradition with an authentic historical perspective. Mahalinga Shastri wrote plays on the epic themes as well as good social comedies. V. Raghavan created some of the finest specimens

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of r o m a n t i c p l a y s . H e also v i s u a l i s e d philosophical speculations and cultural sensibility. J a t i n d r a B i m a l C h a u d h u r y , a prolific writer, w r o t e a s m a n y a s 18 p l a y s in Sanskrit. Each of them is focused on the life a n d d e e d s of s o m e saint or a national hero. Many of the Sanskrit d r a m a t i s t s are influenced b y current t r e n d s in m o d e r n t h e a t r e . S i d d h c s h w a r C h a t t o p a d h y a y a even went to the extent of introducing a b s u r d t h e a t r e in h i s Sanskrit p l a y s . The p l a y s of Vircndra K u m a r B h a t t a c h a r y a and Rajendra Mishra are r e m a r k a b l e for their h u m o u r , wit, social satire and portrayal of current situations. T o d a y t h e scene of c o n t e m p o r a r y Sanskrit writing is vibrating with i m m e n s e possibilities of creativity. With the continuity of traditions, it r e v e a l s an o p e n n e s s and receptivity for innovations and e x p e r i m e n t a t i o n s . T. G. M a i n e k a r introduced the form of elegy in h i s t o u c h i n g p o e m Smrtitarangam (1975). Birendra K u m a r B h a t t a c h a r y a h a s c r e a t e d sonnets in h i s Kalapika (1972), and M a i n e k a r again a d o p t e d the form of sonnet in his r o m a n t i c p o e m Gayika-Silpakaram (1980). P o e m s of K e s h a b C h a n d r a D a s h reveal the i m p a c t of existential p h i l o s o p h y and dichotomy of m o d e r n life with r a r e imagination and sensitiveness. H a r s h a d e v M a d h a v h a s a d o p t e d the H a i k u , Tanka and Cizo and also Baul s o n g s for his p o e m s . The feelings of individuality and alienation h a v e surfaced in Mancikd (1993) collection of p o e m s by Rajendra N a n a v a t i . References 1. For details sec Dr. V. Raghavan's article in Contemporary Indian Literature, Sahitya Akadcmi, New Delhi. 2. For further details see preface to Sodas:—An anthology of contemporary Sanskrit poetry edited by the present author, Sahitya Akadcmi, New Delhi, 1992. 3. The best literary periodicals of Sanskrit published during the past 130 years are: Kashwidyasudhanidhi or Pandita (monthly, 1866-1877) Vidyodaya (monthly 1870-1914) Sansknt-Candrikd (monthly 1813-1909) Vidyarthi(fortnightly, 18781908) Sahndayd (monthly, 1895) Manjubhdsini (weekly, 1906-9) Sanskntam (1930) Manjusa (weekly, 1936) Manjusd (monthly, 1935-61) llhavitvyam(1951) Sharada (1959) SanskritRahwkar {1901) Mitra- goshthi (1904) Suryodaya (monthly, 1925) Sdgankd (quarterly, 1962) Madhuravdni (1936) jyotishmati (1936) Vallari (1935) Malavamayurah (1946) Sanskrit Pratibhd (half-yearly, 1959). Thclitcrary journals started during the last decade have catered to the need of promoting new Sanskrit writing. They arc Durva (Bhopal) Bhdratodaya (Purukuttunada, Kerala) and Sanskrit Manjari (Delhi). 4. Sanskrit patrakarita kd vikas (Ph. D. Thesis) by Ramgopal Mishra, Delhi, 1986.

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5. Some of the well-known epic-poets of the preceding and the present century and their poems are: Mahcsh Chandra Tarka Chudamani (Bhudcvacaritarn), Haridasa Siddhantavagisha (Rukminiliaranam) Pandita Kshama Rao (Trilogy of epics of freedom struggleand onGandhi'slifc) ShridharBhaskarVarnekar {Sivarajyodayam 1972) Umashankar Tripathi (Ksatrapaticaritam) and V. Raghavan (Muttusvami Caritam) Risika Vahari Joshi {Mohabhangam) Puramanand Shastri (Jana vijay am) Revaprasad Dwivcdi (Sita Caritam and Svalantryasambhavarn). Dr. Rahas Vihari Dwivcdi has noted 126 mahdkavyas composed in Sanskrit after independence. Sec his article in Dcvavanisuvasah (Commemorative Volume of Ramakant Shukla). 6. Arvacina Samskrta Mahakavyanusilanam (in Sanskrit): Rahas Vihari Dwivcdi, Sagarika Samiti, Saugar University, Sagar, 1981. 7. Three voluminous collections of his poems were published— SahityaVaib\iavam (1938), jayapuravaibhavum (1947) and Govindavaibliavum (1957). 8. For details see Rennaissancc in Modern Sanskrit Literature by H.L. Shukla, Raipur(1976). 9. Collected in Vrakirna Prabandhah Vol. 1, Darbhanga, 1956. 10. Collected in the Vol. I. As above. 11. They arc collected in Katlidpancakam (Bombay, 1933) and Grarnajyotih (Calcutta, 1954).

16 Sanskrit Studies Abroad Arvind Sharma

The present article consists of two distinct parts. They are not entirely unrelated but sufficiently different to merit indicating their distinct features at the very outset. The first part is essentially a factual survey of Sanskrit studies abroad at present within the limits of our knowledge. The reader familiar with the details is apt to find it tedious and is advised to skip it in favour of part two, although those not familiar with the data might wish to peruse it. Part two consists of a reflection on Sanskrit studies abroad at present from a history of ideas perspective. I Ever since the "discovery" of Sanskrit by the West toward s the end of the eigthteenth century, its study in the rest of the world has become a part, though a modest one, of the global academic enterprise. This impressionistic survey will attempt to modestly cover this admittedly modest role, about which more detailed information could be obtained from the International Association of Sanskrit Studies by writing to its Secretary General, Professor Siegfried Lienhard, Korsovagen 11, S-18245 Enebyberg, Sweden. (Tel. 08-7583775) In the United Kingdom this imperial legacy continues to flourish in its universities. At Oxford (Richard Gombrich, Alexis Sanderson

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[TantraJ, J. Benson [Paninian Grammar]) at Cambridge (Julius Lipner [Visistadvaita]); at Edinburgh (J.L. Brockington [Ramayana]) and at London, specially at its School of Oriental and African Studies. Learned bodies, such as the Royal Asiatic Society, with their regular publications, provide other fora for the cultivation of Sanskrit. It is difficult to pass over in silence the deep sense of loss in the field, felt not only in the UK but wherever Sanskrit is studied, by the passing away of Professor B.K. Matilal. In France, the tradition of Sanskrit scholarship, once quintessential^ represented by Louis Renou, continues to flourish at the Sorbonne in both its sramana and brahmana orientations: both in connection with Jainism (ColeteCaillat, Nalini Balbir) and Hinduism (Madeleine Biardeau, Gerard Colas). Other well-known Sanskritists in France include Laksmi K a p p a n i , Katherine Ojha and KamaleshwarBhattacharya of I.N.R.S., Paris, while Andre Padoux's studies in the nature of language are well known. Professor Gerard Fussman of College de France must also be mentioned here for his studies in Indian civilization. In Belgium, Louvain continues tobe a centre of Sanskrit studies as demonstrated by the works of Winand Callewaert. In the Netherlands a strong general tradition of linguistic studies also manifests its vitality in the study of Sanskrit. The contributions of J.C. Hecsterman (Vedic Sacrifice), F.B.J. Kuiper (Indo-European Culture) and others from the Insitute at Leiden are well known. The prolific pen of J. Gonda once kept the University of Utrecht in the limelight, where George Chemparathy and others continue the tradition. In Austria the Institute for Indology at Vienna, associated with Professor Gerhard Oberhammer, engages several dimensions of Sanskrit studies. Germany continues to be a major centre of Sanskrit studies where it is represented at the Universities of Hamburg, Heidelberg, Tubingen, Munich and elsewhere, with a distinctive flavour at each location. Rahul Peter Das at Hamburg provides a useful critical perspective while geographical and cultural studies associated with Sanskrit, pioneered at Heidelberg by Gunther Sontheimcr (who passed away a few years ago) provide a foil to the textual studies per se, as represented by the Purdna project supervised by H.V. Stietencron at Tubingen. Hiltrud Riistau (Bhagavadgitd), Michael Hahn (German Indology), Paul Thieme (Vedic Studies) and Fried rich Wilhelm (Arthasastra) have also contributed to Sanskrit studies. The names of Hans Bakker and Herman Kulke should also be mentioned, along

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with Dietmar Rothermund although their interests are more contemporary. In Italy the legacy of G. Tucci and R. Gnoli is maintained by such institutions as the Oriental Institute at Naples, the Indological Institute at Turin, and the Oriental School of the University of Rome, and by such scholars as G.R. Franci at the University of Bologna. Enrica Garzilli, currently at Harvard, continues to write on Kashmir Shaivism and Women in Hinduism. Mention must also be made of Gian Giuseppe Filippi (Indology) and Giuliano Boccali (classical kdin/a). The regular appearance of Asiatischc Studicn from Bern, Switzerland testifies to the presence of Sanskrit studies in that country, as also in the person of scholars like Dr. Mariola WiithrichSa mow ska who studies Polish translations of the Bhagavcuigltil. Furthermore, in the former Eastern Bloc countries the Archiv Orientcilini from Prague, Czech Republic, includespapers on Sanskrit studies, as also the Acta Orientalia which appears from Budapest, Hungary. Sanskrit studies are also not unknown in the Scandinavian countries. A. Parpola is known for his work on the Indus script and Vedic culture. Chr. Lindtncr at Kobenhavns focuses on Buddhism while the Scandinavian Institute for Asian Studies at Copenhagen also actively promotes Sanskrit studies, like the Oriental Society of Finland which publishes the works of local scholars in Studia Orientalia. Notwithstanding the transitional conditions in the former USSR Sanskrit studies continue to flourish both at Moscow and in St. Petersburg, Some portions of the Rgvcda are now available in Russian translation by T. Ya. Elizarenkova while S.D. Serebriany continues to work on the Gita and Natalia lsayeva on Sarikara. The American continent now possesses several centres of Sanskrit learning, the Northern part predictably more than its Central or Southern parts. Nevertheless in South America F. Tola continues to work on Hindu and Buddhist Philosophical material while in Central America, in Mexico, David Lorenzcn pursueshis studies on Shaivism (and Saiikara). The name of Professor Graciela de la Lama is closely associated with Sanskrit studies in Latin America. In North America, Sanskrit studies continue to flourish in the universities traditionally associated with such studies. In the USA Harvard, Yale, Brown, Columbia,Pennsylvania and Cornell continue to provide opportunities for such studies. At Harvard, Vedic studies

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h a v e received increased focus t h r o u g h the w o r k of Michael Witzel and S t e p h a n i e W. Jamison, a tradition a l r e a d y in p l a c e at Yale under Stanley Insler. David Pingree continues to explore H i n d u a s t r o n o m y and astrology at Brown while the recent a p p o i n t m e n t of Gary Tubb at Columbia a u g u r s well for the s t u d y of Sanskrit belleslettres. The University of Pennsylvania h a s long been a major centre of Sanskrit s t u d i e s w h e r e currently George C a r d o n a (Paninian G r a m m a r ) , Wilhelm H a l b f a s s (Philosophy) and L u d o and R o s a n n e Rocher (Hindu Law), a m o n g others, are active in Sanskrit s t u d i e s . C h r i s t o p h e r Minkowski continues his Epic s t u d i e s at Cornell. At the University of Chicago, a p a r t from Ed D i m o c k and David Gitomer, Wendy Doniger continues to translate Vedic and classical texts. Sanskrit s t u d i e s there s e e m to h a v e recovered from the setback c a u s e d by the untimely d e a t h of J.A.B. van Buitenen. While the fate of the interrupted translation of the MahabluTrata is not entirely clear, Sheldon Pollock h a s translated sizeable sections of the Ramayana a s p a r t of a larger project under the e d i t o r s h i p of Robert G o l d m a n and Sally Sutherland G o l d m a n w h o teach and r e s e a r c h at the University of California at Berkeley, from w h e r e P.S. Jaini m a d e his sterling contributions to the field. Sanskrit s t u d i e s also continue to flourish at the University of Washington at Seattle through the continuing w o r k of Karl II. Potter (Philosophy) and Richard S a l o m o n (Linguistics, Epigraphy). A recent centre of Sanskrit s t u d i e s h a s e m e r g e d with the formation of the Center of Asian S t u d i e s at the University of Texas, Austin with Richard Lariviere and Patrick Olivelle a m o n g its m e m b e r s . Stephen H. Phillips also t e a c h e s in the D e p a r t m e n t of Philosophy at the s a m e university. A p a r t from t h e s e centres of Sanskrit s t u d i e s , a n u m b e r of individual s c h o l a r s h a v e distinguished t h e m s e l v e s in Sanskrit s t u d i e s in North America. Such a listing, h o w s o e v e r inclusive, can never b e e x h a u s t i v e , and one m u s t begin by apologizing for the n a m e s overlooked which should h a v e been included. It s e e m s only a p p r o p r i a t e to c o m m e n c e the list with Ed win G e r o w (Reed College), editor of the Journal of the American Oriental Society and then to go on to include Alf Hiltebeitel of George W a s h i n g t o n University (Epic a n d I n d o - E u r o p e a n S t u d i e s ) ; M a d h a v M. D e s h p a n d e of the University of Michigan (Linguistics); Eliot D e u t s c h a n d Lee Segal of the University of H a w a i i (Philosophy, Literature); Kennet G. Z y s k of State University of N e w York (Indian Medicine); Francis

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Clooney of Boston College (Mimarhsa); Frederick Smith of the University of Iowa (Vedic Studies); James L. Fitzgerald of the University of Tennessee (Epic Studies); Bruce M. Sullivan of Northern Arizona University (Mahiiblulrata); Thomas Coburn of the University of St. Lawrence (Devi Mahatmya); Cheever Brown (Puranas) of Trinity University; Guy Beck (Sonic Theology) of Louisiana State University; A. Rambachan (Admita) of St. Olaf College; Walter H. Maurer of the University of Hawaii (Rgvcda); EricA. Huberman of Vassar College (Classical Studies); Christopher Chappie of Loyola Mary mount University (Philosophy); Daniel Sheridan of Loyola University (Vedanta) etc. Two Indian women scholars who have distinguished themselves equally in Sanskrit and Tamil are Vasudha Narayanan of the University of Florida and Indira V. Peterson of Mount Holyoke College. V. Narayana Rao and David Knipe, to mention only two, are Sanskrit scholars at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, a major centre of South Asian Studies, with Joseph W. Elder focusing on modern India, and Andre Wink on the Indo-Islamics while A. L. Herman (Philosophy) and T.W. Organ (Hinduism) may be reckoned as institutions in themselves for their sustained work. Other notable scholars include Brian K. Smith (Vedic Studies) of the University of California, Riverside and KessBolle, now retired, of the University of California at Los Angeles, J.B. Carman (Visistadvaita) at Flarvard; while the pioneering efforts of Seshagiri Rao (University of Virginia) in launching an Encyclopedia of 1 linduism must be applauded. Moving closer home to Canada, Sanskrit studies are pursued at several Universities—by Ashok Aklujkar (Grammar) at the University of British Columbia; by Phyllis Granoff (editor, journal of Indian Philosophy), Paul Younger (Tamil and Sanskrit studies), Wades Wheelockand FrancisWhillier (VedicStudies) atMcMaster; by Clifford Hospital at Queens University; by MaheshMehta at the University of Windsor; by Klaus K. Klostermaier at the University of Manitoba; by R. Singh at the University of Montreal; by Braj Sinha at the University of Saskatchewan;by Leona Anderson at the University of Regina (Campu Literature) and by Richard Hayes, Katharine K. Young and Arvind Sharma at McGill University. Similarly Andre Couture (Harivarhsa) at the University of Laval and John Grimes (Advaita) at the University of Lethbridge and Roy Amore (Buddhism) at Windsor have distinguished themselves in their respective fields. At Carleton University K.S.A. Chari is

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known for his work in aesthetics while S. Subramaniam has earned an international reputation through his dance-dramas. Sanskrit studies outside India are also pursued in such places as Israel (David Shulman); Australia (Greg Bailey, R. G. Tanner and Purusottama Bilimoria). TheNational Centre for South Asian Studies (Director: Marika Vicziany) at Melbourne also deserves mention, although its orientation is more modem. Sanskrit studies are also represented in South Africa (Rukmini, Pratap Kumar). Sanskrit studies also continue to flourish in the Far East. Hajime Nakamura (Vedfinta) and SangekuMayeda (Sarikara) are well known names in the field; the work of Tsugunari Kubo on New Buddhist Movements is also significant. In China Bangwei Wang (Beijing) and Mmc. Geng Yinzeng continue to focus on the accounts of Chinese travellers to India, among whom Xuanzang's request for a verse from the Rgveda from his colleagues in India remains a memorable episode. II What are the intellectual consequences of Sanskrit studies abroad at present? I shall present them through four concepts: (1) "the t h r e s h o l d r e s p o n s e " ; (2) "deficit of m e a n i n g " ; (3) "paternaorientalism" and (4) the need for counterfactual scholarship. People of Indian origin, who once had a reputation of never leaving their country, are now found all over the globe, and what is even more significant, in increasing numbers. For a long time it was possible to pursue Sanskrit studies outside India in isolation from Indians. This has already become implausible and will perhaps soon become impossible. At this point it must be recognized that Sanskrit, like English or French (or perhaps any language with deep cultural resonances) is not merely a language, it is the badge of a culture, or even more, a civilization. It was possible in the past, when Sanskrit was being taught outside India, to make such statements about the culture it represents which would not have been acceptable within India and perhaps even make others snicker. But now, with Indians themselves increasingly constituting an element in that universe of discourse itself outside India, this may no longer be possible. In other words, the response threshold is now at one's door. The handwriting on the wall is already painfully legible. Some chairs in Sanskrit studies, endowed with thehelp of overseas Indians, remain unfilled for fear that those who

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o c c u p y t h e m will d i s r e g a r d the sentiments of those very people w h o r a i s e d the money, in the n a m e of objectivity in an a g e w h e n the n a m e of the g a m e is sensitivity. It is not our intention to j u d g e this situation, only to d e s c r i b e it, a s it could no longer b e overlooked. In fact it is quite visible, for w e h a v e seen it. S o m e solution will h a v e to b e found to adjust the s o m e t i m e s rival claims of 'objectivity' and 'sensitivity'. T h e d e m o g r a p h i c p r e s s u r e is on. O u t of U S A ' s a p p r o x i m a t e l y 256 million p e o p l e a l m o s t a million now are of Indian origin and, b y s o m e e s t i m a t e s , four million h a v e e m b r a c e d Buddhism. I n a s m u c h a s Sanskrit s t u d i e s e m b o d y the s t u d y of culture, in one r e s p e c t t h e o u t s i d e r will a l w a y s suffer from a "deficit of meaning". For the o u t s i d e r it is a s t u d y about a culture; for the insider it is a s t u d v of a culture: his or her own. O n e m u s t distinguish h e r e b e t w e e n "sensibility" and "sensitivity". H o w s o e v e r refined an o u t s i d e r ' s sensibility, it can never always m a t c h an i n s i d e r ' s "sensitivity". Although I u s e the expression "deficit" o{ meaning w h a t I imply is that it will either not rise u p to or it will exceed the i n s i d e r ' s meaning and that excess also implies a deficit of meaning. (In other w o r d s , an e x c e s s of m e a n i n g d o e s not constitute a s u r p l u s of m e a n i n g in s u c h a context.) For an insider to any culture at any point in time p o s s e s s e s a sensitivity about it w h i c h , b y theoutsider,eveniffleetingly m a t c h e d , m a y be lost soon. It will remain elusive even if occasionally it c o m e s within o n e ' s g r a s p — like a p r e c i o u s g e m one might say, g r a s p e d m o m e n t a r i l y only to b e lost irretrievably. Given this fact, which a p p l i e s not just to Sanskrit but to all cross-cultural s t u d i e s , should not m e n and w o m e n of goodwill get together to prevent this deficit from b e c o m i n g s o m e t h i n g p e r m a n e n t , like a feature of the American b u d g e t ? Is a b a l a n c e d - b u d g e t a p p r o a c h to meaning called for? One m a y never b e able to m a k e both e n d s meet either in life or logic but could they at lea st not b e kept within striking r a n g e of e a c h other — forever? The term " p a t e r n a o r i e n t a l i s m " is a combination of p a t e r n a l i s m a n d orientalism. W h y this neologism? Is not orientalism by itself enough a la S a i d ? N o , b e c a u s e the 'orient' falls into t w o p a r t s — that p a r t of it w h i c h w a s colonized and that w h i c h w a s not. Asia in g e n e r a l w a s colonized by the W e s t b u t Afghanistan, Thailand and Japan m o r e or less e s c a p e d the fate. T h u s the s t u d y of Japan by the W e s t m a y constitute an e x a m p l e of orientalism, say in the nineteen

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thirties, and so would that of India —but as India was colonized by Britain in the case of India it had to be more than orientalism. It was imperial paternalism in the field combined with orientali sm in theory, which was not the case with Japan. Sanskrit studies have to emerge from the shadow of both. James Mill could say of the Hindu that he excels in all the qualities of a slave in a way he could not of the Japanese. The claim that Sanskrit was a language forged by the brahmanas in imitation of Greek perhaps crosses the border of orientalism over into that of paternalism. The danger these studies represent is an enhanced form of the dangers of orientalism. To use Paul Ricoeur's phraseology it might leave one with 'sense without reference'. That is to say, the hermeneutical circle is not completed because it stops short at explanation with no bridge to understanding. When will the arch of meaning reach the port and when will it reach London or Bombay — the home, port? Paternaorientalism has a tendency to swing the global arc to a Western port. The fourth point raised by Sanskrit studies abroad at present is one ofcounterfactual scholarship. To introduce the concept one must begin by pointing out that in the USA and Canada an attempt was made in the past to put up the children of natives for adoption in white homes with the perhaps noble goal of inducting them among the rank of the civilized. The contrast I wish to set up is between a child growing up with its natural parents and a child growing up with its adoptive parents. In modern times the study of a culture and its major language or languages has largely been conducted by people of that group — so the history and culture which the British boy or girl reads is the work of British scholars. This is the natural growth model. The case of Sanskrit and Indian studies, however, does not fit into this virtually universal and natural scheme. The history and culture which an Indian student studies and learns is the work — its basic framework that is — of Western scholars. This is the adoptive growth model. One does not wish to accuse the West oi lndological cradle-snatching or anything like that. Nor might growing up with an adoptive rather than a natural family need be a bad thing — it might even be an improvement, but the question to ask is: what would the history of France written by Britishers read like? Would it not differ in significant ways in perspective and selection oi facts than one written by French scholars? The stage is thus set to ask the counterfactual question: what would have

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Sanskrit s t u d i e s a b r o a d looked like if they h a d originated in India and gone a b r o a d , instead of originating abroad and then being a d o p t e d by the Indians? It is a l m o s t like making an a d o p t e e of a natural offspring. H a s the time c o m e for factual, that is a s they are at present, as well as counterfactual Sanskrit scholarship? Conclusion Both the positive and negative c h a r g e s which surround Sanskrit s t u d i e s a b r o a d at present can finally be traced to this electricity: Its historical origins w h i c h are tied u p with imperialism. It was for it and of\t. I think W e s t e r n e r s need to forget it w a s "for" it and Indians that it w a s "of" it. Then a tradition of authentic global Sanskrit s t u d i e s will e m e r g e to replace merely Sanskrit studies abroad. This will b e c o m e p o s s i b l e once the four c o n c e p t s e m b o d y i n g the intellectual consequences of Sanskrit studies abroad are adequately dealt with. Accuracy can never be a substitute for a d e q u a c y in humanistic studies. 1 Endnote 1. I would likcto thank Dr. ShrirtivasTilakofConcordia University forhishelp in preparing this paper.

17 A Treasury of Translations Excerpts from: Rgveda Katha Upanisad Ramayana of Valmiki Bhagavadgita K a r n a b h a r a m of Bhasa Sakuntalam of Kalidasa Various Kavyas Rtusamhara of Kalidasa Epigrams of Bhartrhari Panchatantra of Visnu Sarma Love Poems of Amaru and Bilhana The Anthology of Vidyakara Gita Govinda of Jayadeva Verses in Nine R a s a s

197 198 199 200 2Q3 210 224 228 230 232 235 237 239 241

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To the Dawn Of all the lights the lightest, this light h a s come, This radiance, conceived in a great dazzle of colour, Rushing a h e a d of the imminent rise of the sun; And night h a s now given over her place to the Dawn. She c o m e s up shining, leading a shining calf. The Dark One h a s given over her mansions to Dawn, For they are undying kin and follow each other— Night and Dawn, exchanging hue for hue. They are sisters w h o s e endless road is the very same road, And they take it as surely as if they were guided by gods; No clashing there, no halting for Night or Dawn, Unlike, yet lovely, and in their thoughts as one. Her colours flash out as she leads her exultant dance; She h a s opened her gates for us, and opened them wide; Revealing the world, she s h o w s us how rich w e are. All of the living open their eyes to the Dawn. Translated from the Rgvcda, I. 7 73 by Vidya Nivvas Misra, Leonard Nathan and Sachchidanand a Va tsy ayan

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The One Essential As the one air, entering into this world, Becomes the form of what it houses in, The one Essential, housed in all things born, Also takes that thing's external form. As the one sun, the single eye of all, Is not darkened by flaws in things it sees, The one Essential, housed in all things born, And past all grief, is not darkened by grief. The only Lord, housed in all things born, He who makes from one a swarm of shapes, The wise who see Him in themselves, His self, Their joy is joy that lasts, no other joy. It is this, the Absolute Joy, they think, and can't be said, How is it otherwise known, if it shines or does not shine? In Him no sun, no moon, not one star, No lightning, how much less these common fires. But when He blazes up, then all must show; Then everything flares up immense with him. Translated from the Katha Upanisad, II by Vidya Niwas Misra, Leonard Nathan and Sachchidananda Vatsyayan

Ramayana

199

City in Mourning Ayodhya, great city, seems Like the night itself, in the pitch of dark Where only cats arc awake and owls. Where men and monkeys keep to cover. It looks like a ruined army, warriors Fallen everywhere, armour Broken, elephants fallen, horses And chariots fallen, banners thrown down. It looks like the tide at ebb, brushed back By a calm breeze, utterly quiet, After its hour of foam and roar, After its highest lifting wave. It looks like a weapon shrivelled up, Blackened by forest fire, a creeper That in late spring, a mass o( flowers, Had addled all the hovering bees. It looks like a densely clouded sky. Cutting off the moon and stars, The marketplace and shops are all Shut up, the towns men deep in gloom. It looks like a drunken party, all The drinkers departed, having left Behind their refuse, a carpeting Of broken cups, voided of wine. It looks like a young mare, unsaddled, Standing forlorn and riderless; Its rider was a daring man And will not mount the saddle now. Translated from the Riiniamria rfVulmikl, II. 10h by Vidya N i w a s Misra, Leonard Nathan and Sachchidananda Vatsvavan

200

The Sorrow of Arjuna Krishna, Krishna, Now as I look on These my kinsmen Arrayed for battle, My limbs are weakened, My mouth is parching, My body trembles, My hair stands upright, My skin seems burning, The bow Gandiva Slips from my hand, My brain is whirling Round and round, I can stand no longer: Krishna, 1 see such Omens of evil ! What can we hope from This killing of kinsmen? What do I want with Victory, empire, Or their enjoyment? 0 Govinda, How can I care for Power or pleasure, My own life, even, When all these others, Teachers, fathers. Grandfathers, uncles, Sons and brothers, Husbands of sisters. Grandsons and cousins, For whose sake only 1 could enjoy them Stand here ready To risk blood and wealth In war against us?

A Treasury of Translations

Bhagavadgita

201

Knower of all things, Though they should slay mc How could I harm them? I cannot wish it: Never, never, Not though it won me The throne of the three worlds; How much the less for Earthly lordship! Translated from the Bhaguvadgitd, I. 28->14 in the Mahdbharata by Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Ishcrwood

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The Vision Then, O King! the God, so saying, Stood, to Pritha's Son displaying All the splendor, wonder, dread Of His vast Almighty-head. Out of countless eyes beholding, Out of countless mouths commanding, Countless mystic forms enfolding In one Form: supremely standing Countless radiant glories wearing. Countless heavenly weapons bearing, Crowned with garlands of star-clusters, Robed in garb of woven lustres, Breathing from His perfect Presence Breaths of all delicious essence Of all sweetest odors; shedding Blinding brilliance, overspreading— Boundless, beautiful—all spaces From Mis all-regarding faces; So Tie showed! Tf there should rise Suddenly within the skies Sunburst of a thousand suns Flooding earth with rays undeemed of, Then might be that Holy One's Majesty and glory dreamed of.

Translated from the Bhagavadgita, XL 9-12 in the Mahdbhdrata by Sir Edwin Arnold

Bhasa

203

Karnabharam Cast in order of appearance Producer A soldier Kama Shalya hidra Angel

in the Probgue of the Kaurava army in the war against the Pandavas King ofAnga, commander of the Kaurava army A king and Kaurava commander, charioteer of Kama King of the gods, partisan of the Pandavas messenger of hidra

Other characters mentioned in the play Duryodhana Arjuna Kunti Radha

chief of the Kauravas the middle Pandava, rival and eventual slayer of Kama mother of the Pandavas, and illegitimately of Kama Kama's adoptive mother

Prologue [After the benediction, enter the Producer] Producer: May H e bless you all, that destroyer of demons at whose form, half-man half-lion, the whole world marvelled, even as he pierced the demon king's breast with his sharp adamantine claws. And now, distinguished spectators, 1 have to announce that—but what is that? There seems to be a sound just as 1 w a s about to start. Well, let me sec.

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Voice: H o there! Let it be known! Let it b e known to I lis Majesty the lord of Anga.... Producer: Ah, I see. The t u m u l t of b a t t l e h a s c o m m e n c e d and, on the instructions of D u r y o d h a n a , a soldier informs K a m a a b o u t it excitedly, with h a n d s joined in salute. [ExitJ Act I [Enter a Soldier] Soldier: H o there! Let it be known! Let it b e known to H i s Majesty the lord of Anga t h a t t h c b a t t l e i s a t h a n d . Exultant p r i n c e s on their e l e p h a n t s , h o r s e s and c h a r i o t s roar like lions u n d e r A r j u n a ' s banner. And, in r e s p o n s e , the irresistible e l e p h a n t - s t a n d a r d of the K a u r a v a king swiftly m o v e s into the battlefield. (Moves about and looks) Ah! There is the king of Anga, attired for battle, e m e r g i n g from h i s p a l a c e with King S h a l y a . But w h a t is that s h a d o w on h i s face, u n p r e c e d e n t e d in one w h o s e v a l o u r is known to all, one w h o h a s a l w a y s b e e n the l e a d e r in the festival of w a r ? This w i s e and powerful w a r r i o r s e e m s o v e r t a k e n by s o m e s a d n e s s . It is a s if the n a t u r a l brilliance of the mids u m m e r sun w e r e to b e d i m m e d by u n s e a s o n a l c l o u d s . Well, let m e go. (Exit). \Enter Kama, as described, with Shalya] Kama: The w a r r i o r s on w h o m I aim m y a r r o w s h a v e never e s c a p e d . I w o u l d fulfil the K a u r a v a s ' d e s i r e if I could m e e t Arjuna in the battlefield. King S h a l y a , drive m y chariot t o w a r d s Arjuna. Shalya: Very well. Kama: W h y d o I feel bereft at this time of battle? I, w h o a m like an angry god of d e a t h in c o m b a t , s m a s h i n g e n e m i e s in the c l a s h of a r m s ? Is it b e c a u s e l a m the firstborn of Kunti, b u t k n o w n a s the son of R a d h a ? Is it b e c a u s e Y u d h i s h t h i r a and t h e other P a n d a v a s a r e m y younger b r o t h e r s ? This d a y of r e c k o n i n g h a s at last arrived. But m y skill with w e a p o n s s e e m s w o r t h l e s s , a n d I a m a l s o restrained by m y m o t h e r . O King S h a l y a , h e a r the story of m y w e a p o n s .

Blmsa

205

Shalya: I a m i n d e e d c u r i o u s to h e a r this tale. Kama: In the beginning 1 h a d gone to P a r a s h u R a m a . Shalya: A n d then? Kama: T h a t s a g e h a d d e s t r o y e d the w a r r i o r caste. H i s hair w a s the colour of a lightning flash. H i s battleaxe shone with a halo of light. I s a l u t e d h i m and stood still. Shalya: And then? Kama: Then P a r a s h u R a m a b l e s s e d m c . And h e a s k e d me: " W h o a r e you, w h y h a v e you c o m e . " Shalya: And then? Kama: 1 said: "Lord, I w i s h to learn all the skills of w e a p o n s . " Shalya: And then? Kama: Then h e replied: "I teach s c h o l a r s ; 1 do not teach those of the w a r r i o r caste." Shalya: Of c o u r s e h e h a d an old enmity with the w a r r i o r s . And then? Kama: Then I said 1 am not of the warrior c a s t e ; and 1 b e g a n to learn the skills of w e a p o n s from him. Shalya: And then? Kama: After s o m e time h a d p a s s e d , I once went wilh the s a g e to collect fruit and flowers and firewood. Shalya: And then? Kama: The s a g e got tired from w a n d e r i n g in the forest. He reclined in m y l a p a n d fell a s l e e p . Shalya: And then? Kama: Then by c h a n c e the insect called T h u n d e r m o u t h bit m e in the thighs. I did not w a n t to d i s t u r b my t e a c h e r ' s sleep, s o l quietly bore t h a t excruciating pain. But m y bleeding wet him also, and h e w o k e u p . Recognizing m e for w h a t 1 w a s , he s u d d e n l y flared with a n g e r a n d c u r s e d that m y w e a p o n s m a y fail me in time of need. Shalya: O that w a s a dreadful thing to say. Kama: So, let u s test this talc of the w e a p o n s . (Docs so) T h e s e w e a p o n s s e e m a s if they h a v e lost their force. And so d o t h e s e h o r s e s , with their d o w n c a s t e y e s and d e s p e r a t e , faltering gait. And t h o s e rutting e l e p h a n t s with their forest smells seem to a s k that w e turn b a c k frombattle. The d r u m s and b u g l e s of w a r h a v e a l s o b e c o m e silent. Shalya: O this is terrible indeed. Kama: But e n o u g h of d e s p o n d e n c y , King Shalya. I f w e d i e , w e attain

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h e a v e n . If w c win, w e obtain fame. Both a r e w o r t h w h i l e . W a r is not w o r t h l e s s . And t h e s e fine Kabul h o r s e s , swift, a s e a g l e s and ever r e a d y for battle, m a y they p r o t e c t m e , a s I protect t h e m . Long live t h e holy p r i e s t s and c o w s . Long live the v i r t u o u s w o m e n . Long live the b r a v e soldiers. And long live I, w h o s e m o m e n t h a s c o m e . N o w I a m content. I will enter this difficult b a t t l e with t h e P a n d a v a s . C a p t u r i n g Yudhishthira, f a m o u s for h i s virtues, and felling Arjuna with the force of m y excellent a r r o w s , I will m a k e this battlefield a s tranquil a s a forest w h e n t h e lion is killed. King S h a l y a , let u s m o u n t t h e chariot. Shalya: Very well. (Both mount the chariot). Kama: King S h a l y a , drive m y chariot t o w a r d s Arjuna. [Voice off-stage] Voice: O K a m a , give m e s o m e t h i n g big! Kama: (Listening) That is a powerful voice! Its d e e p tone h a s s u d d e n l y brought t h e s e h o r s e s of mine to a d e a d halt. They stand transfixed a s if in a picture, e a r s cocked, n e c k s a r c h e d , e y e s unblinking. That is not just a priest. H e h a s majesty. Call him. N o , no. I will call him myself. This w a y , sir, this w a y . {Enter hnira in the guise of a priest ] lndra:Q cloud s, you m a y g o b a c k together with the sun. (Approaching Kama) O K a m a , give m e s o m e t h i n g big! Kama: I a m very p l e a s e d , sir. M a n y c r o w n e d h e a d s h a v e b o w e d at m y feet. But t o d a y I consider my self fortunate to b e able to b o w at the feet of an l n d r a a m o n g p r i e s t s . Sir, K a m a s a l u t e s you. Indra: (To himself) N o w , w h a t s h o u l d I say in return? If I say the c u s t o m a r y "May you live long," h e will h a v e a long life. If 1 s a y nothing, h e will consider m e a churl. T h e s e a s i d e , w h a t shall I do? (7b Kama) O K a m a ! M a y thy fame live long, like the sun, like the moon, like t h e m o u n t a i n s , like the sea. Kama: Sir, s h o u l d n ' t you say "live long?" But this a l s o is befitting. P o w e r flits like t h e s e r p e n t ' s tongue. Virtue alone is w o r t h striving for. Kings live on through their v i r t u e s w h e n they die. W h a t d o you w a n t , sir? W h a t should I give?

BJtasa

207

Indra: Give m e s o m e t h i n g big. Kama: I will give you s o m e t h i n g big indeed. H e a r w h a t I h a v e , priest. I will give you a t h o u s a n d c o w s , young, desirable, with milk like n e c t a r and s t u r d y c a l v e s , with h o r n s t r i m m e d in p u r e gold. Indra: A t h o u s a n d c o w s ? To drink a bit of milk? N o , K a m a , I d o n ' t want them. Kama: You d o n ' t w a n t t h e m ? Listen again. I will give you this very m o m e n t a t h o u s a n d Kabul h o r s e s , swift a s the wind, tested in w a r , excellent like the s u n ' s own stallions. Indra: H o r s e s ? To ride for a m o m e n t ? N o , K a m a , I d o n ' t w a n t them. Kama: You d o n ' t w a n t t h e m ? Well, listen once more. I will give you a h e r d of rutting w a r - e l e p h a n t s , splendid like m o u n t a i n s , with w h i t e t u s k s and voices like thunder. Indtr:: E l e p h a n t s ? To ride for a m o m e n t ? N o , K a m a , 1 d o n ' t want them. Kama: You d o n ' t w a n t t h e m either? Then I will give you all the gold you can want. Indra: Til t a k e it and go. (Goes some distance) N o , K a m a , I d o n ' t want it. Kama: Then I will c o n q u e r the earth and give it to you. Indra: W h a t will 1 d o with the earth? Kama: Then I will give you the fruit of the holy sacrifice. Indra: W h a t ' s the u s e of the sacrificial fruit? Kama: Then t a k e m y h e a d ! Indra: H e a v e n protect me! Kama: D o n ' t b e frightened, d o n ' t be frightened p l e a s e , sir. Listen again. I w a s born with this protective a r m o u r . It is a p a r t of my b o d y . It is i m p e n e t r a b l e by god or d e m o n . If it p l e a s e s you, 1 will gladly give it to you. Indra: (Happily) Give it! Give it! Kama: (To himself) So this w a s his p u r p o s e . This m u s t be a s t r a t a g e m of that cunning Krishna. So b e it. But I should not think t h u s . T h e r e is no c a u s e for doubt. (To Indra) Take it. Shalya: King of Anga, d o not give it, d o not give it. Kama: Do not s t o p m e , King S h a l y a . Look, in the c o u r s e of time strong trees fall d o w n and l a k e s go dry, even k n o w l e d g e p e r i s h e s . W h a t r e m a i n s for ever is the merit of sacrifice and of giving. So, t a k e it. (Takes off and gives the armour). Indra: (Taking it, to himself) So, I h a v e it. I h a v e a l r e a d y done w h a t I

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had promised before all the gods for Arjuna's victory. Now I will mount my elephant and watch the duel between Kama and Arjuna. (Exit). Shalya: O king of Anga! Your Majesty has been tricked. Kama: By whom? Shalya: By Indra. Kama: No, indeed. Indra has been tricked by me. Because that wearer of the crown and receiver of holy sacrifices, that destroyer of demons and rider of celestial elephants, has now become mv debtor. [Enter an Angel disguised as a priest] Angel: O! Kama, you have been rewarded by Indra who feels remorse at having taken your armour. Take this irresistible weapon called Vimala for slaying any one among the Pandava brothers. Kama: Shame! I do not accept anything in return for my gift. Angel: Please accept the request of a priest. Kama: The request of a priest? I have never refused one. When will 1 get it? Angel: Call for it in your mind, and you will have the weapon. Kama: Very well. I am grateful. You may return, sir. Angel: Very well. (Exit). Kama: King Shalya, let us mount the chariot. Shalya: Very well. [Both mount the chariot] Kama: O what is that sound? It is the blast of a conch-shell, deep as the ocean's roar in the final deluge. Perhaps by Krishna or by Arjuna. Angry at Yudhishthira's defeat, Arjuna will certainly fight at his best today. King Shalya, drive my chariot towards Arjuna. Shalya: Very well.

Bhasa

209

Epilogue May May May Rule

there be prosperity everywhere. all difficulties disappear. a king with kingly virtues. us on this land united. [Exit all]

Translation of the Karnabharam of Bhasa by A.N.D. Haksar

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Shakuntala ACT THE FOURTH Cast in order of

appearance

Pupil

of the hermit Kanwa

Anasiiyd

companion of Shakimtala

Priyamvadd

companion of Shakimtala

Shakuntala

foster daughter of Kanwa

Women

of Kanwa's

Gautami

matron of the hermitage

Kanwa

the chief hermit

S drug a ra va

a 11 cm da n t of Ka n u ni

Herm its

of I he herm itage Mentioned

Dushyanta

hermitage

in the Act a king who Jiad earlier visited the hermitage, fallen in love with Shakuntala and married her.

Kalidasn

211

Scene—The neighborhood of the hermitage Enter one o/Kanwa's pupils, just arisen from Jiis couch at the dawn of day. Pupil: My m a s t e r , the venerable K a n w a , w h o is but lately returned from his p i l g r i m a g e , h a s o r d e r e d m e to ascertain h o w the time goes. I h a v e therefore c o m e into the open air to see if it be still d a r k . [Walking and looking about]. Oh! the d a w n h a s already broken. Lo! in one q u a r t e r of the sky, the Moon, Lord of the h e r b s and night-expanding flowers. Sinks t o w a r d s his b e d behind the western hills; While in the east, p r e c e d e d by the D a w n , His b l u s h i n g charioteer, the glorious Sun Begins his c o u r s e , and far into the gloom C a s t s the first r a d i a n c e of his orient b e a m s . 1 Tail! co-eternal orbs, that rise to set, And set to rise again; s y m b o l s divine Of m a n ' s r e v e r s e s , life's vicissitudes. And now, While the round Moon w i t h d r a w s his looming disc Beneath the w e s t e r n sky, the full-blown (lower Of the night-loving lotus s h e d s her leaves In s o r r o w for his loss, bequeathing nought But the s w e e t m e m o r y of her loveliness To my b e r e a v e d sight: e'en a s the b r i d e Disconsolately m o u r n s her a b s e n t lord, And y i e l d s her h e a r t a prey to anxious griel. Anasuya [entering abrupt/i/|: Little a s I k n o w of the w a y s of the world, I c a n n o t h e l p t h i n k i n g t h a t King D u s h y a n t a is treating S h a k u n t a k i very improperly. Pupil: Well, I m u s t let my revered p r e c e p t o r know that it is time to offer the burnt oblation. I I<xd \ Anasiiyd: I a m b r o a d a w a k e , but w h a t shall I do? I h a v e no energy to go about my u s u a l occupations. My h a n d s and feet seem to h a v e lost their p o w e r . Well, Love h a s gained his object; and Love only is to b l a m e for h a v i n g induced our d e a r friend, in the innocence of her heart, to confide in such a perfidious m a n . Possibly, h o w e v e r , the imprecation of D u r v a s a s may be a l r e a d y taking effect. Indeed, I cannot otherwise account for

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the King's strange conduct, in allowing so long a time to elapse without even a letter; and that, too, after so many promises and protestations. I cannot think what to do, unless we send him the ring which was to be the token of recognition. But which of these austere hermits could we ask to be the bearer of it? Then, again, Father Kanwa has just returned from his pilgrimage: and how am I to inform him of Shakuntala's marriage to King Dushyanta, and her expectation of being soon a mother? I never could bring my self to tell him, even if I felt that Shakuntala had been in fault, which she certainly has not. What is to be done? Priyamvadd [entering; joyfully]: Quick! quick! Anasiiya! come and assist in the joyful preparations for Shakuntala's departure to her husband's palace. Anasiiya: My dear girl, what can you mean? Priyamvadd: Listen, now, and I will tell you all about it. I went just now to Shakuntala, to inquire whether she had slept comfortably— Anasiiya: Well, well; go on. Priyamvadd: She was sitting with her face bowed down to the very ground with shame, when Father Kanwa entered and, e m b r a c i n g her, of his own accord offered her h i s congratulations. "I give thee joy, my child," he said, "we have had an auspicious omen. The priest who offered the oblation dropped it into the very center of the sacred fire, though thick smoke obstructed his vision. Henceforth thou wilt cease to be an object of compassion. This very day Iproposc sending thee, under the charge of certain trusty hermits, to the King's palace; and shal I del i ver thee into the hands of thy husband, as I would commit knowledge to the keeping of a wise and faithful student." Anasiiya: Who, then, informed the holy Father of what passed in his absence? Priyamvadd: As he was entering the sanctuary of the consecrated fire, an invisible being chanted a verse in celestial strains. Anasiiya [with astonishment |: Indeed! pray repeat it. Priyamvadd [repeats the verse]:

Kalidasa

213

G l o w s in thy d a u g h t e r King D u s h y a n t a ' s glory, A s in the s a c r e d tree the mystic fire. Let w o r l d s rejoice to h e a r the w e l c o m e story; And m a y the son immortalize the sire. Anasuyd [embracing Priyamvada]: Oh, m y d e a r P r i y a m v a d a , w h a t delightful n e w s ! I a m p l e a s e d beyond m e a s u r e ; yet when 1 think t h a t w e a r e to lose our d e a r S h a k u n t a l a this very day, a feeling of m e l a n c h o l y mingles with my joy. Priyamvada: W e shall find m e a n s o( consoling ourselves after her d e p a r t u r e . Let the d e a r c r e a t u r e only be m a d e h a p p y , at any cost. Anasuyd: Yes, y e s , P r i y a m v a d a , it shall be so; and now to p r e p a r e our bridal a r r a y . 1 h a v e a l w a y s looked forward to this occasion, and s o m e time since, 1 deposited a beautiful garland of Kesara flowers in a cocoa-nut box, and s u s p e n d e d it on a b o u g h o( y o n d e r mango-tree. Be good enough to stretch out your hand and t a k e it d o w n , while T c o m p o u n d u n g u e n t s and p e r f u m e s with this consecrated p a s t e and these b l a d e s o( sacred g r a s s . Priyamvada': Very well. [Exit Anasuyd. Priyamvada takes down the flower^] A voice [behind the scenes]: G a u t a i r u , b i d S a r n g a r a v a and the others hold t h e m s e l v e s in r e a d i n e s s to escort Shakuntala. Priyamvada [listening]: Quick, quick, A n a s u y a ! They are calling the h e r m i t s w h o are to go with S h a k u n t a l a to Tlastinapur. Anasuyd [re-entering, with the perfumed unguents in her hand]: C o m e along then, P r i y a m v a d a ; I am r e a d y to go with you. [They walk away\ Priyamvada [looking]: See! there sits S h a k u n t a l a , her locks arranged even at this early h o u r o( the morning. The holy women ot the h e r m i t a g e a r c congratulating her, and invoking blessings on her h e a d , w h i l e they present her with wedding-gifts and offerings of consecrated wild-rice. Let u s join them. [They approach] Shakuntala is seen seated, witli women surrounding her, occupied in the manner described. First woman [to Shakuntala]: My child, m a y ' s t thou receive the title of "Chief-queen," and m a y thy h u s b a n d delight to honour thee a b o v e all others!

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Second woman: My child, m a y ' s t thou b e the m o t h e r of a h e r o ! Third woman: My child, m a y ' s t thou be highly h o n o u r e d by thy lord! [Exeunt all the women, excepting GautamJ, after blessing

Shakuntala]

Priijamvadd and Anasuyd [approaching]: D e a r S h a k u n t a l a w e a r e c o m e to a s s i s t you at your toilet, and m a y a b l e s s i n g attend it! Shakuntala: W e l c o m e , d e a r friends, w e l c o m e . Sit d o w n here. Priyamvadd and Anasuyd [taking the baskets containing the bridal decorations, and sitting down]: N o w , then, d e a r e s t , p r e p a r e to let u s d r e s s you. W e m u s t first rub your limbs with t h e s e perfumed unguents. Shakuntala: I ought indeed to b e grateful for your kind offices, now that 1 a m so soon to b e d e p r i v e d of them. Dear, d e a r friends, p e r h a p s I shall never b e d r e s s e d by you again. [Bursts into tears]. Priya)nvadd and Anasuyd: W e e p not, d e a r e s t , t e a r s a r e out of s e a s o n on s u c h a h a p p y occasion. [They wipe away her tears and begin to dress her] Priyamvadd: Alas! t h e s e s i m p l e flowers and r u d e o r n a m e n t s which our h e r m i t a g e offers in a b u n d a n c e , d o not set off your b e a u t y a s it d e s e r v e s . [Enter two young Hermits bearing costly

presents]

Both Hermits: I Iere a r e o r n a m e n t s suitable for a queen. [The women look at tliem in astonisIimcnt\ Gaulami: W h y , N a r a d a , my son, w h e n c e c a m e these? First Hermit: You o w e t h e m to the devotion of Father Kanvva. Gaulami: Did h e c r e a t e them by the p o w e r of his own mind? Second Hermit: Certain! v not; but you shal 1 hear. The venerable s a g e ordered u s to collect flowers for S h a k u n t a l a from the foresttrees; and w e went to the w o o d for that p u r p o s e , w h e n S t r a i g h t w a y d e p e n d i n g from a neighboring tree A p p e a r e d a robe of linen tissue, p u r e

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And s p o t l e s s a s a m o o n - b e a m — m y s t i c p l e d g e Of b r i d a l h a p p i n e s s ; another tree Distilled a r o s e a t e d y e w h e r e w i t h to stain The l a d y ' s feet; and other b r a n c h e s near Glistened with r a r e and costly o r n a m e n t s . While, ' m i d s t the l e a v e s , the h a n d s of forest-nymphs, Vying in b e a u t y with the opening b u d s . P r e s e n t e d u s with sylvan offerings. Priyamvada [looking at Sliakuntald]: The w o o d - n y m p h s h a v e done you honour, indeed. This favour d o u b t l e s s signifies that you a r e soon to b e received a s a h a p p y wife into your h u s b a n d ' s h o u s e , and a r e from this forward to b e c o m e the p a r t n e r of his royal fortunes. [ Sliakuntald appears confused | First Hermit: C o m e , G a u t a m i ; Father Kanvva h a s finished his ablutions. Let u s go and inform him of the favour w e h a v e received from the deities w h o p r e s i d e over our trees. Second Hermit: By all m e a n s . \Excunt \ Priyamvada and Anasuyd: Alas! w h a t are w e to do? W e are u n u s e d to s u c h splendid d e c o r a t i o n s , and are at a loss how to a r r a n g e t h e m . O u r k n o w l e d g e of painting m u s t be our guide. W e will d i s p o s e the o r n a m e n t s a s w e h a v e seen them in pictures. Sliakuntald: W h a t e v e r p l e a s e s you, d e a r girls, will p l e a s e me. 1 h a v e perfect confidence in y o u r taste. [They commence dressing her] [Enter Kanum having just finished his ablutions] Kanwa: This d a y my loved one l e a v e s me, and my heart Is h e a v y with its grief: the s t r e a m s of sorrow C h o k e d at the source, r e p r e s s m y faltering voice. 1 h a v e no w o r d s to s p e a k ; mine e y e s are d i m m e d By the d a r k s h a d o w s of the t h o u g h t s that rise Within my soul. If s u c h the force of grief In an old h e r m i t p a r t e d from his nursling, W h a t a n g u i s h m u s t the stricken p a r e n t feel— Bereft forever of an only d a u g h t e r ? [Advances towards Shakuntala]

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Priyamvadd and Anasuyd: N o w , d e a r e s t S h a k u n t a l a , w e h a v e finished d e c o r a t i n g you. You h a v e only to p u t on the t w o linen m a n t l e s . [Shakuntala rises and puts them on] Gautami: D a u g h t e r , sec, h e r e c o m e s thy foster-father; he is e a g e r to fold thee in his a r m s ; his e y e s s w i m with t e a r s of joy. H a s t e n to d o him reverence. Shakuntala [reverently]: My father, I s a l u t e you. Kanwa: My d a u g h t e r , M a y ' s t thou be highly h o n o u r e d by thy lord, E'en a s Yayati S a r m i s h t h a a d o r e d ! And, a s s h e b o r e him Puru, so m a y ' s t thou Bring forth a son to w h o m the world shall b o w ! Gautami: Most venerable father, s h e a c c e p t s your benediction a s if s h e a l r e a d y p o s s e s s e d the boon it confers. Kaniva: N o w c o m e this w a y , m y child, and w a l k reverently r o u n d these sacrificial fires. {They all walk round}. Kanwa [repeats a prayer in the metre of the Rig-veda]: Holy flames, that g l e a m a r o u n d Every a l t a r ' s h a l l o w e d ground; Holy flames, w h o s e frequent food Is the c o n s e c r a t e d w o o d , And for w h o s e encircling bed, S a c r e d K u s a - g r a s s is s p r e a d ; Holy flames, that waft to h e a v e n S w e e t oblations daily given, Mortal guilt to p u r g e a w a y ; — H e a r , oh h e a r m e , w h e n T p r a y — Purify m y child this day! N o w then, m y d a u g h t e r , set out on t h e journey. [Looking on one side. ] W h e r e are thy a t t e n d a n t s , S a r n g a r a v a and the others? Young Hermit [entering]: H e r e w e are, m o s t venerable father. Kanwa: Lead the w a y for thy sister. Sdrngarava: C o m e , S h a k u n t a l a , let u s p r o c e e d . [All move away] Kanwa: H e a r m e , ye t r e e s that s u r r o u n d our h e r m i t a g e ! S h a k u n t a l a n e ' e r moistened in the s t r e a m H e r own p a r c h e d lips, till s h e h a d fondly p o u r e d Its p u r e s t w a t e r on your thirsty roots; And oft, w h e n s h e w o u l d fain h a v e d e c k e d h e r h a i r With y o u r thick-clustering b l o s s o m s , in h e r love

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S h e robbed you not e'en of a single flower. H e r h i g h e s t joy w a s ever to behold T h e early glory of your opening b u d s : O h , then, d i s m i s s h e r with a kind farewell! This v e r y d a y s h e quits her father's h o m e . To seek the p a l a c e of h e r w e d d e d lord. [the note of a Kdil is heard] H a r k ! h e a r d ' s t thou not the a n s w e r of the trees, O u r sylvan sisters, w a r b l e d in the note Of the m e l o d i o u s Koil? They d i s m i s s Their d e a r S h a k u n t a l d with loving w i s h e s . Voices [in the air]: Fare thee well, journey pleasantly on amid s t r e a m s W h e r e the l o t u s e s bloom, and the s u n ' s glowing b e a m s N e v e r p i e r c e the d e e p s h a d e of the w i d e - s p r e a d i n g trees, While gently a r o u n d thee shall sport the cool breeze; Then light b e thy footsteps and e a s y thy tread, Beneath thee shall c a r p e t s of lilies be s p r e a d . Journey on to thy lord, let thy spirit be gay, For the smiles of all N a t u r e shall g l a d d e n thy w a y . [All listen with astonishment] Gautami: D a u g h t e r ! the n y m p h s of the w o o d , w h o love thee with the affection of a sister, d i s m i s s thee with kind w i s h e s for thy h a p p i n e s s , l a k e thou leave of t h e m reverentially. Shakuntald [bowing respectfully and walking on. Aside to her friend]: E a g e r a s I a m , d e a r P r i y a m v a d a , to see my h u s b a n d once m o r e , yet my feet refuse to move, now that 1 am quitting forever t h e h o m e of m y girlhood. Priyamvadd: You a r e not t h e only one, dearest, to feel the bitterness of p a r t i n g . A s the time of separation a p p r o a c h e s , the whole g r o v e s e e m s to s h a r e your anguish. In s o r r o w for thy loss, the herd of deer Forget to b r o w s e ; the p e a c o c k on the lawn C e a s e s its d a n c e ; the very t r e e s around u s S h e d their p a l e l e a v e s , like tears, upon the ground. Shakuntald [recollecting herself]: My father, let me, before I go, bid a d i e u to m y p e t j a s m i n e , the Moonlight of the Grove. 1 love the p l a n t a l m o s t a s a sister. Kanwa: Yes, y e s , m y child, I r e m e m b e r thy sisterly affection for the c r e e p e r . H e r e it is on the right.

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Shakuntald [approaching the jasmine]: My b e l o v e d j a s m i n e , m o s t brilliant of climbing p l a n t s , h o w s w e e t it is to s e e t h e e cling t h u s fondly to thy h u s b a n d , the m a n g o - t r e e ; yet, p r i t h e e , turn thy twining a r m s for a m o m e n t in this direction to e m b r a c e thy sister; s h e is going far a w a y , a n d m a y never sec thee again. Kanwa: D a u g h t e r , t h e c h e r i s h e d p u r p o s e of m y h e a r t H a s ever been to w e d thee to a s p o u s e That should b e w o r t h y of thee; s u c h a s p o u s e H a s t thou thyself, by thine own m e r i t s , won. To h i m thou goest, and a b o u t h i s neck Soon shalt thou cling confidingly, a s now Thy favorite j a s m i n e t w i n e s its loving a r m s Around the s t u r d y m a n g o . L e a v e thou it To its p r o t e c t o r — e ' e n a s 1 consign T h e e to thy lord, and henceforth from m y mind Banish all anxious t h o u g h t on thy behalf. Proceed on thy journey, my child. Shakimtald\lo PriyamvaddandAnasuya]: To y o u , m y sweet c o m p a n i o n s , I leave it a s a k e e p s a k e . T a k e c h a r g e of it w h e n I a m gone. Prix/amvadd and Ana siii/d [bursting into tears]: And to w h o s e c h a r g e d o you leave u s , d e a r e s t ? W h o will c a r e for u s w h e n you a r e gone? Kanwa: For s h a m e , Anasiiya! d r y your t e a r s . Is this the w a y to c h e e r your friend at a time w h e n s h e n e e d s your s u p p o r t a n d consolation? [All move on] Sliakuntald: My father, s e e you there m y p e t deer, g r a z i n g close to t h e h e r m i t a g e ? S h e e x p e c t s soon to fawn, a n d even n o w t h e weight of the little one s h e carries h i n d e r s her m o v e m e n t s . D o not forget to send m e w o r d w h e n s h e b e c o m e s a mother. Kanwa: I will not forget it. Shakuntald [feeling herself drawn back]: W h a t can this b e fastened to my dress? [Turns round] Kanwa: My d a u g h t e r , It is the little fawn, thy foster-child. Poor h e l p l e s s orphan! it r e m e m b e r s well H o w with a m o t h e r ' s t e n d e r n e s s and love T h o u d i d s t protect it, a n d with grains of rice From thine own h a n d d i d s t daily n o u r i s h it; And, ever and anon, w h e n s o m e s h a r p thorn H a d pierced its m o u t h , h o w gently thou d i d s t tend The bleeding w o u n d , and p o u r in healing, b a l m .

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The grateful nursling clings to its protectress, Mutely imploring leave to follow her. Shakuntuld: My p o o r little fawn, dost thou a s k to follow an u n h a p p y w o m a n w h o h e s i t a t e s not to desert her companions? When thy m o t h e r died, soon after thy birth, I supplied her place, and r e a r e d thee with m y own hand; and now that thy second m o t h e r is a b o u t to leave thee, w h o will ca re for thee? My fathcr, b e thou a m o t h e r to her. My child, go back, and be a d a u g h t e r to m y father. [Moirs on, weeping] Kanwa\ W e e p not, my d a u g h t e r , check the gathering tear That l u r k s beneath thine eyelid, ere it flow And w e a k e n thy resolve; b e firm and true— True to thyself and m e ; the p a t h oi life Will lead o'er hill and plain, o'er rough and smooth. And all m u s t feel the s t e e p n e s s oi the way; T h o u g h r u g g e d b e thy course, p r e s s boldly on. Srirri$arava:Vcncrab\c sire! the sacred precept is—"Accompany thy friend a s far a s the margin of the first stream." 1 Iere then, w e a r e arrived at the b o r d e r of a lake. It is time for you to give us your final instructions and return. Kanwa: Be it so; let u s tarry for a m o m e n t under the s h a d e of this 1 igtree [Tiny do so] Kanwa: [aside]: I m u s t think of s o m e a p p r o p r i a t e m e s s a g e to send to h i s majesty King D u s h y a n t a . [Reflect s\ Shakunlaia [aside to Anasuya]: See, see, dear A n a s u y a , the poor female C h a k r a v a k a - b i r d , w h o m cruel fate d o o m s to nightly s e p a r a t i o n from her mate, calls to him in mournful notes from the other side of the s t r e a m , though he is only hidden from her view by the s p r e a d i n g leaves of the water-lily. Her crv is so piteous that I could almost fancy she w a s lamenting her hard lot in intelligible w o r d s . Auasih/d: Say not so, d e a r e s t . Fond bird! t h o u g h sorrow lengthen out her night Of w i d o w h o o d , yet with a cry oi joy S h e hails the morning light that brings her m a t e Back to h e r side. T h e agony oi parting Would w o u n d us like a s w o r d , but that its edge Is blunted b y the h o p e of future meeting. Kanwa: S a r n g a r a v a , w h e n you h a v e introduced Shakuntaia into the p r e s e n c e of the King, you m u s t g i v e h i m this m e s s a g e f rom me.

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Sdmgarava: Let me hear it, venerable father. Kamva: This is it— Most puissant prince! we here present before thee One thou art bound to cherish and receive As thine own wife; yea, even to enthrone As thine own queen—worthy of equal love With thine imperial consorts. So much, Sire, We claim of thee as justice due to us, In virtue of our holy character— In virtue of thine honourable rank— In virtue of the pure spontaneous love That secretly grew up' twixt thee and her, Without consent or privity of us. We ask no more—the rest we freely leave To thy just feeling and to destiny. Sdrngarava: A most suitable message. I will take care to deliver it correctly. Kamva: And now, my child, a few words of advice for thee. We hermits, though we live secluded from the world, are not ignorant of worldly matters. Sdrngarava: No, indeed. Wise men arc conversant with all subjects. Kamva: Listen, then, my daughter. When thou readiest thy husband * s palace, and art admitted into his family, Honour thy betters; ever be respectful To those above thee; and, should others share Thy husband's love, ne'er yield thyself a prey To jealousy; but ever be a friend, A loving friend, to those who rival thee In his affections. Should thy wedded lord Treat thee with harshness, thou must never be Ilarsh in return, but patient and submissive. Be to thy menials courteous, and to all Placed under thee, considerate and kind. Be never self-indulgent, but avoid Excess in pleasure; and, when fortune smiles, Be not puffed up. Thus to thy husband's house Wilt thou a blessing prove, and not a curse. What thinks Gautami of this advice? Gautami: An excellent compendium, truly, of every wife's duties! Lay it well to heart, my daughter.

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Kanwa: C o m e , m y b e l o v e d child, one parting e m b r a c e for me and for thy c o m p a n i o n s , a n d then w e leave thee. Shakimtald: My father, m u s t Priyam v a d a and A n a s u y a really return w i t h you? T h e y a r e very d e a r to m e . Kanwa: Yes, m y child; they, too, in good time, will b e given in m a r r i a g e to suitable h u s b a n d s . It would not be p r o p e r for them to a c c o m p a n y t h e e to s u c h a public place. But Gautamf shall b e thy c o m p a n i o n . Shakimtald [embracing him\: R e m o v e d from thy bosom, m y beloved father, like a y o u n g tendril of the sandal-tree torn from its h o m e in t h e w e s t e r n m o u n t a i n s , h o w shall The able to s u p p o r t life in a foreign soil? Kanwa: D a u g h t e r , thy fears a r e g r o u n d l e s s : — Soon shall thy lord prefer thee to the rank Of h i s o w n consort; and u n n u m b e r e d c a r e s Befitting h i s imperial dignity Shall constantly e n g r o s s thee Then the bliss Of b e a r i n g h i m a son—a noble boy, Bright a s the d a y - s t a r — s h a l l t r a n s p o r t thy soul With n e w delights, and little shalt thou reck Of the light s o r r o w t h a t afflicts thee now At p a r t i n g from thy father and thy friends. [Shakuntald throws herself at her foster-father's

feet \

Kanwa: Blessings on thee, m y child! M a y all my h o p e s oi thee be realized! Shakuntald\approaching//(7/;//7e/zJs): C o m e , my t w o loved companions, e m b r a c e m e — b o t h oi you together. PriyamvaddandAnasuyd\embracingher\:DcarSh^ if the King should by any c h a n c e be slow in recognizing you, you h a v e only to s h o w him this ring, on which his own n a m e is e n g r a v e d . Shakimtald: The b a r e t h o u g h t of it p u t s m e in a tremor. Priyamvadd and Anasuya: There is no real c a u s e for fear, dearest. Excessive affection is too apt to s u s p e c t evil w h e r e none exists. Sdrngarava: C o m e , l a d y , w e m u s t h a s t e n on. The sun is rising in the heavens. Shakimtald [looking towards the hermitage]: Dear father, when shall I ever s e e this h a l l o w e d g r o v e again?

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Kanwa: I will tell thee; listen— W h e n thou h a s t p a s s e d a long and blissful life A s King D u s h y a n t a ' s queen, and jointly s h a r e d With all the earth h i s ever-watchful care; And h a s t beheld thine o w n heroic son, M a t c h l e s s in a r m s , united to a s p o u s e In h a p p y w e d l o c k ; w h e n h i s a g e d sire, Thy faithful h u s b a n d , h a t h to h i m resigned The helm of state; then, w e a r y of the w o r l d . Together with D u s h y a n t a thou shalt seek The c a l m seclusion of thy former h o m e : — There amid holy scenes to be at p e a c e , Till thy p u r e spirit gain its last release. Gautanii: C o m e , m y child, the favorable time for our journey is fast p a s s i n g . Let thy father return. Venerable Sire, be thou the first to m o v e h o m e w a r d s , or t h e s e last w o r d s will never end. Kanwa: D a u g h t e r , detain m e no longer. My religious d u t i e s m u s t not be interrupted. Shakuntahi [again embracing her foster-father]: Beloved father, thy frame is m u c h enfeebled by penitential exercises. Do not, oh! d o not, allow thyself to sorrow too m u c h on m y account. Kanwa \sighing]; H o w , O m y child, shall m y b e r e a v e d h e a r t Forget its bitterness, w h e n , day by d a y , Full in my sight shall grow the tender p l a n t s Reared by thy care, or s p r u n g from h a l l o w e d grain Which thy loved h a n d s h a v e strewn around the door— A frequent offering to our h o u s e h o l d gods? Go, my d a u g h t e r , and may thy journey be p r o s p e r o u s . [Exit Shakuntahi ivilli her escort] Priyamvadd and Anasuyd [gazing after Shakuntald\: Alas! alas! s h e is gone, and n o w the trees h i d e our darling from our view. Kanwa [sighing]: Well, Anasiiya, Your sister h a s d e p a r t e d . M o d e r a t e your grief, both of you, and follow m e . 1 go b a c k to the hermitage. Pru/amvadd and Anasuyd: Holy father, the sacred grove wrill b e a d e s e r t without S h a k u n t a l a . H o w can w e ever return to it? Kanwa: It is natural enough that your affection should make* you view it in this light. [ Walking pensively on. \ As for m e , T am quite s u r p r i s e d at myself. N o w that T h a v e fairly d i s m i s s e d her to her h u s b a n d ' s h o u s e , my mind is easy: for indeed,

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A d a u g h t e r is a loan—a precious jewel Lent to a parent till her h u s b a n d claim her. And now that to her rightful lord and master I h a v e delivered her, my burdened soul Is lightened, and I seem to breathe more freely. \Excunt}. From the translation of Abhijndnasakuntalam ot Kalidasa by Sir M. Monier-Williams.

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P e n P i c t u r e s from t h e K a v y a s The Bride S t e p p e d from her bath, g o w n e d in the whitest silk, S h e w a s r e a d y to b e a b r i d e a s the land is r e a d y Just after rain h a s w a s h e d it and, freshened, it b e a r s A million b l o s s o m s of Kasa for a raiment of white. H e r lips a little p a r t e d , stain on the lower, Leavings of wine, a s m e a r of red and trembling To s p e a k of desire, a filling fruit, not quite In its d e e p e s t h u e , but splitting with so m u c h sweet. Putting her bridal o r n a m e n t s right, she s e e m e d A young vine just now coming to b l o s s o m , s e e m e d A young night filling its sky with s t a r s , or a river Of a u t u m n bearing a rush of migrant birds. The mirror g a v e b a c k her white silk d r e s s ; But also g a v e b a c k the foaming shore Of the milky sea, an exultant tide; G a v e back the a u t u m n full of the moon. From Kumarasarhbhava of Kalidasa, VII The Deer Hunt There! There! That deer lunging a w a y , Its foreparts stretched a h e a d , its rear D r a w n in a s if to catch its chest; Its e y e s a r e set a s stones, its neck Is w r e n c h e d a r o u n d — a poignant curve — Back t o w a r d s the car that c o m e s on fast. Its m o u t h at every gasping breath Scatters a s h o w e r of half-chewed g r a s s Behind to m a r k its h e a d l o n g track. It m o v e s in long elegant b o u n d s , And so it l e a p s m o r e than it runs, And s e e m s to fly m o r e than it leaps. From Abhijnanasakuntalama of Kalidasa, I. 7

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225

The Beloved Separated There you will see her, in the spring time of youth, slender, her teeth jasmine-buds, her lips ripe bimba-fruit, slim-waistcd, with deep navel and the tremulous eyes of a startled doe, moving languidly from the weight of her hips, her body bowed down a little by her breasts —Ah! The Creator's master-work among women. Know her to be my second life, alone, speaking little, mourning like a cakravaki her companion far away. With the passing of these long days, racked by intense longing, the young girl would appear so changed I think, like a lotus-plant struck by the chilling hoar-frost. from Meghadutam of Kalidasa, /J. 22-23 The Water Sport The colour washed from their cheeks, the lac from their lips, Collyrium gone, and still they shone, most lovely, And seeing them shine, their lovers lucidly knew That beauty lent the gauds it wore all their beauty. Swaying lotus matched with glowing face, Shifting line of foam with swinging necklace, Bright water with the skin this water rinsed— The waves strove with their beauty, strove and lost. Their half-closed eyes send out a long look To lovers, who hold them trembling, very close; Their breasts lift in the water; they're breathing deep— From weariness, or a high tide of desire?

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The water, broken by the slow a d v a n c e Of b r e a s t s , of h i p s , of thighs, like stately p r o w s S c a m p e r e d a h e a d , in ripples, to the s h o r e — Crying that the p l a y of g o d d e s s e s is done. Its b l u e stained by s a n d a l w o o d w a s h e d off And s p r e a d i n g ; its surface streaked with tangled g a r l a n d s , Its sinking w a v e s a r u m p l e d s h e e t — w i t h the w o m e n gone The river s e e m e d a beautifully tousled m a r r i a g e bed. from Kiratdrjuniyam of Bharavi, VIII The Carousal Netting d o w n s h y n e s s with their w a r m attentions, Rousing by their d e s i r e s the girls' desires, The young men m a d e t h e m forget all s h a m e and drink Their very love, deeply d i s g u i s e d a s wine. A mirror for the l o v e r ' s lovely face, And p e r f u m e d with freshly g a t h e r e d m a n g o - b u d s , And sweet, and h u m m e d over by b e e s , and cool, The wine left all the s e a s o n s satisfied. The d r u n k e n b e e h o v e r e d , confused between The w i d e - e y e d faces of t h e s e girls w h o b r e a t h e d out The sweet b o u q u e t of wine they d r a n k and the c u p s They held figured with lotuses c a r v e d like life. The wine, t a s t e d by the lips of w o m e n So lovely, surely acquired a richer taste, For though their lovers h a d tasted the s a m e before, This w a s new, m o r e sweet, till now untasted. From Sisupalavadha of M a g h a , X 77/i* Storm The sky, flung with piling c l o u d s w o r k e d by the wind To wild and shifty s h a p e s , s e e m s like frescoed wall; N o w they a r c herons pairing, now a flight of s w a n s , N o w fish and crocodiles rolled by the sea, now t o w e r e d castles.

The Kavyas

227

Clouds, dark as wet leaves, have soaked up the sun; Anthills, collapsed by rain, go down like elephants showered with arrows; Lightning flares like a lamp that someone bears up and down in a mansion; The moonlight w a s carried off like the wife of a helpless man. from Mrcchakatikiim of Sudraka, V All translated by Vidya N i w a s Misra, Leonard Nathan, and Sachchidananda Vatsvayan, except the Excerpt from Meghadutam which is translated by Chandra Rajan

228

A Treasury of Translations

T h e P a g e a n t of t h e S e a s o n s Summer The furious sun is ablaze, O n e longs for the moon, The p o o l s of limpid w a t e r s Invite a d i p e v e r m o r e . The twilight h o u r s are c h a r m i n g W h e n the d a y d i e s d o w n , And C u p i d , c h u r n e r of the mind, is w e a r y , This, m y love, is the a d v e n t of full S u m m e r .

1.1

The a p p r o a c h i n g s e a s o n of Rain, d e a r love, C o m e s like a king in p r i d e of p o w e r , The rain-laden c l o u d s are its rutting w a r - e l e p h a n t s ; The l a m b e n t s flashes of lightning S e r v e for its s t r e a m i n g p e n n o n s , And the r e v e r b e r a t i n g t h u n d e r Is the rattle of its b a t t l e - d r u m s ; It is hailed by a h o s t of lovers A s the royal c a v a l c a d e is acclaimed By c r o w d s of s u p p l i a n t s .

2.1

Behold! the L a d y A u t u m n c o m e s Clad in the silver k a s a b l o s s o m s , H e r fair v i s a g e is the w h i t e lotus bloom, The tinkling of the her anklet bells is h e a r d In the tuneful cry of wild g e e s e on high; The h a r v e s t of rice with ripening s h e a v e s , Bending in billows in the fresh y o u n g b r e e z e , Is h e r graceful figure and s u p p l e b o d y ; S h e e m u l a t e s the c h a r m i n g b r i d e With w h i t e bridal v e s t u r e and lily-white face, The jingling anklets a n d slender figure, And the s h o u l d e r s b o w e d with d e c o r o u s m o d e s t y And w o m a n ' s gentle grace.

3.1

Rains

Autumn

Kalidasa

229

Early Winter Behold! the young maid, mirror in hand, Making up her lotus face In the sidelong morning sun; Pouting her mouth she scans her lips Whose essence w a s sucked by the lover.

4.73

May this winter time Rich in dainties, sweets and lucent syrups, Charming with the fields of rice, And cloying with the juice of the sugarcane, Warm with love's awakening and happy fulfilment, But painful to pining lovers Tend to your bliss for ever!

5.1b

Winter

Spring The trees a flower are crowned with glory, The waters are strewn with lotus and lily, The balmy breeze liberates fragrance, And maidens are filled with dreams of love; The languid perfection of the day Wanes to a quivering twilight, And all that breathes, or moves, or blossoms Is sweeter, my love, in Spring.

b.Z

From the Rituaarhhara of Kalidasa, translated by I\. S. Pandit

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T h e E p i g r a m s of Bhartrhari I N o single p l a n t in this w o r l d ' s g a r d e n plot Bears s u c h s w e e t fruit, s u c h bitter fruit a s she: A m b r o s i a l a r c the a p p l e s on her tree W h e n s h e ' s in love, and poison w h e n s h e ' s not. If t h e forest of her hair Calls you to explore the land, And h e r b r e a s t s , t h o s e m o u n t a i n s fair, T e m p t that m o u n t a i n e e r , your h a n d — Stop! before it is too late: Love, t h e b r i g a n d , lies in wait. S h e n e e d e t h no instruction in the art Of using w o m a n ' s w i l e s to win m a n ' s heart: The lily's scarlet s t a m e n s g r e w u n t a u g h t , The b e e c a m e freely, w i s h i n g to b e caught.

91

104

82

II Patience, better than a r m o u r , g u a r d s from h a r m . And w h y seek e n e m i e s , if you h a v e anger? With friends, you need no m e d i c i n e for d a n g e r . With k i n s m e n , w h y a s k fire to k e e p you w a r m ? W h a t u s e a r e s n a k e s w h e n s l a n d e r s h a r p e r stings? W h a t u s e is w e a l t h w h e r e w i s d o m b r i n g s content? With m o d e s t y , w h a t need for o r n a m e n t ? With p o e t r y ' s M u s e , w h y s h o u l d w e envy kings? Prince, w o u l d you milk this b o u n t e o u s cow, the State? First, you m u s t let the p e o p l e drink their s h a r e : Only w h e n c a l v e s a r e fed, will E a r t h ' s tree b e a r Fruit, like a cornucopia, for your plate. The ignorant a r e quickly satisfied, And a r g u m e n t will soon convince t h e w i s e ; But H e a v e n ' s own w i s d o m scarcely will suffice To contradict a half-baked s c h o l a r ' s p r i d e .

237

58

8

Bhartrhari

231 III

For one short act, a child; next act, a boy In love; then poor; a short act to enjoy Status and wealth: till in the last act, Man, Painted with wrinkles, body bent with age. Ending the comedy which birth began. Withdraws behind the curtain of life's stage.

235

She who is always in my thoughts prefers Another man, and does not think of me. Yet he seeks for another's love, not hers; And some poor girl is grieving for my sake. Why then, the devil take Both her and him; and love; and her; and me.

311

Earth, my own mother; father Air; and Fire, My friend; and Water, wcll-bcloved cousin; And Ether, brother mine: to all of you This is my last farewell. 1 give you thanks For all the benefits you have conferred During my sojourn with you. Now my soul H a s won clear, certain knowledge, and returns To the great absolute from whence it came.

M)l

Tr.insl.ik-J from the Satakatruyam of Bhxrlrkan hyJohn Ikough

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A Treasury of Translations

Panchatantra The Prologue Salutation to the makers Of precepts on policy, To Manu and Vachaspati, To Shukra and Parashara with his son, And to Chanakya the wise. Having well considered The essence of all the precepts Vishnu Sharma did contrive This charming work with chapters five. Thus has it been said: There is a city called Mahilaropya in the southern country. In it there reigned a king named Amara Shakti. He w a s like a wish-fulfilling tree to the multitudes of supplicants, and his feet shone with rays of light reflected from the jewelled crowns of other kings he had subdued. He was also an adept in all the sciences; but his three sons, named respectively Vasu Shakti, Ugra Shakti and Aneka Shakti, were supreme dunderheads. Observing his sons' aversion to learning, the king called his ministers and said: "Gentlemen, it is known to you that these three sons of mine are averse to knowledge and devoid of discrimination. Seeing them thus, even this vast kingdom gives me no pleasure. As has been well said. Better than a foolish son Is one deceased or never born, The pain that gives at least is brief But the fool gives cause for lifelong grief. Better abortion or no cohabitation, Better stillborn or even a daughter, Better a barren wife, but not a foolish son, Even if a rich or handsome one.

Visnu Sarma

233

What can one do with a cow which gives Neither calves nor milk What's the point of having a son Who's neither devoted nor learned? "So, a way shouldbc found for enlightening their minds. Here there are five hundred professors who enjoy stipends given by me. Something should be arranged so that my wishes are fulfilled." "Majesty", said one of the ministers, "it is heard that grammar takes twelve years. Then come Manu and other works on Dharma, Chanakya and those on Artha, and Vatsyayana and others on Kama. Thus are the branches of learning taught. Then comes enlightenment." Then a minister among them named Sumati spoke: "Temporary is the condition of life. All this learning needs a long time to master. One should think of a summary method for their enlightenment. As has been observed: Endless is learning and brief is life, There are many obstacles in the way. So, grasp the essence and leave the rest As with milk and water do swans, they say. "There is a Brahmin here, by name Vishnu Sharma, adept in all the sciences and famous in student communities. These princes should be entrusted to him. He will enlighten them quickly". Hearing this, the king summoned Vishnu Sharma and said: "Sir, favour meby doing what is necessary, and quickly make these sons of mine well-versed in the rules of conduct. 1 will arrange a hundred stipends for you". Then said Vishnu Sharma to the king: "Majesty, listen to my candid comment. I do not sell learning, even for a hundred stipends. But if T do not make these sons of yours adept in the rules of conduct within six months, my name is not Vishnu Sharma. What is more, listen to my declaration, like a lion's roar. T am not interested in money. I am eighty-year old, turned off from worldly pleasures, and have no need for wealth. But I will sport with the Goddess of Learning to fulfil your request. So write down today's date. If 1 do not make your sons experts in the rules of conduct within six months, may God not show me the way to heaven."

234

A Treasury of

Translations

The king was amazed and delighted on hearing the Brahmin's extraordinary vow. So were his ministers. With great relief and respect, he handed over the princes to the Brahmin. Vishnu Sharma on his part composed for those princes and taught them the five chapters: Splitting Friendship; Making Friends; The Crow and the Owl; The Loss of what was Gained; and Rash Deeds. Having studied them, within six months, they became as he had promised. From that time on the treatise known as the Panchatantra has been current on this earth for the enlightenment of the young. What more is there to say: He who heeds and oft peruses This work on conduct proven Never the course of success loses, Even to the king of heaven. Translated from Panchatantra of Visnu Sarma by A N D . Haksar

Amaru

235

Love Poems The day is surely better than the night? Or is the night not better than the day? How can I tell? But this I know is right: Both are worth nothing when my love's away. Amaru I burn with anguish when we are apart, When he returns, with jealous fear; And when I see him, he assaults my heart; I faint when he is near. No single moment can I capture bliss, When he is gone, or when he's here. What in this world can be more strange than this? And yet, he is my dear. Amaru When the pet parrot in the morning starts To chatter rather much of what he heard Of last night's talk between the young sweethearts, The young wife does her best to check the bird, Embarrassed that the older folk should hear, And quickly stops his beak, trying to feed The creature with a ruby from her ear, Pretending it's a pomegranate seed. Amaru Well, but you surely do not mean to spend Your whole life pining? Show some proper spirit. Are there no other men? What is the merit Of faithfulness to one? But when her friend Gave this advice, she answered, pale with fear, 'Speak soft. My love lives in my heart, and he will hear.' Amaru

236

A Treasury of Translations

Even now, T remember her in love— her body weak with fatigue, swarms of curling hair falling on pale cheeks, trying to hide the secret of her guilt. Her soft arms clung like vines on my neck. Bilhana Even now, I remember her: deep eyes' glittering pupils dancing wildly in love's vigil, a wild goose in our lotus bed of passion— her face bowed low with shame at dawn. Bilhana Even now, 1 remember the wine-smeared lips She innocently licked in love, her frail form, her wanton long eyes, her body rubbed golden with saffron paste and musk, her mouth spiced with camphor and betel-nut. Bilhana T r a n s l a t e d from Amarusatakam of A m a r u b y John B r o u g h a n d from Chaurapanchasikd of Bilhana

Vidyakara

9~7

by Barbara Stollcr Miller

A Seasonal Anthology Spring Bright c h a i n s of a m a r a n t h about their h i p s , fresh m a n g o b l o s s o m s at their e a r s , the red asoka on their b r e a s t s and madhavi within their hair, their b o d i e s r o u g e d all over w i t h yellow pollen of the bakula: S u c h is our l a s s e s ' c o s t u m e ; m a y its advent bring joy to lusty l a d s . Savarni Summer T h e w a t e r of the p o n d is hot a b o v e b u t s h a r p l y cold beneath. W h e n w a y s i d e w e l l s run dry the tavellers c o m e at noon, a n d , c o v e r e d t h o u g h it is with floating m o s s a n d m u d d y from the wallowing of buffaloes not yet h a r n e s s e d to the plough, t h e y stir it w i t h their a r m s and drink. Yogesvara Rains N o w c o m e the d a y s of changing b e a u t y , of s u m m e r ' s p a r t i n g a s the monsoon c o m e s , w h e n the e a s t e r n gales c o m e driving in, p e r f u m e d with b l o s s o m i n g arjuna and sal trees, tossing t h e c l o u d s a s smooth and d a r k a s s a p p h i r e s : d a y s that a r e s w e e t with the smell of rain-soaked earth. Ehavabhuti Autumn T h e skies, g r o w i n g g r a d u a l l y peaceful, flow like long rivers a c r o s s heaven, w i t h s a n d b a n k s formed of the w h i t e clouds

238

A Trca su ry of Tra n s la tions

and scattered flights of softly crying cranes; rivers which fill at night with water-lily stars. Visakhadatta Early Winter The round villages are charming now at day's end with threshing circles scattered on the common for treading of the heaped up rice; the dung fires cast a ring of smoke that hangs low overhead from weight of frost. Abhinanda Later Winter The heavy snow is falling, not easy to distinguish among the smoke-grey damanaka trees, but for the fire of dung it forms a tent of beauty. At dawn it hides the rising sun, and clinging to the travellers' furs, shows them all white of every limb. anon. Translated from the anthology Subhashitaratnako£a of V1 dyakara by Daniel H. lngalls

Jayadeva

239

A Song Sweet notes from his alluring flute echo nectar from his lips. His restless eyes glance, his head sways, earrings play at his cheeks. My heart recalls Hari here in his love dance, Playing seductively, laughing, mocking me. A circle of peacock plumes caressed by moonlight crowns his hair. A rainbow colors the fine cloth on his cloud-dark body. My heart recalls Hari here in his love dance, Playing seductively, laughing, mocking me. Kissing mouths of round-hipped cowherd girls whets his lust. Brilliant smiles flash from the rubv-red buds of his sweet lips. My heart recalls Hari here in his love dance, Playing seductively, laughing, mocking me. Vines of his great throbbing arms circle a thousand cowherdesses. jewel rays from his hands and feet and chest break the dark night. My heart recalls I Iari here in his love dance, Playing seductively, laughing, mocking me. His sandalpastebrowmark outshines the moon in a mass of clouds. His cruel heart is a hard door bruising circles of swelling breasts. My heart recalls Hari here in his love dance, Playing seductively, laughing, mocking me. Jeweled earrings in sea-serpent form adorn his sublime cheeks. His trailing yellow cloth is a retinue of sages, gods, and spirits. My heart recalls Hari here in his love dance, Playing seductively, laughing, mocking me. Meeting me under a flowering tree, he calms my fear of dark time, Delighting me deeply by quickly glancing looks at my heart. My heart recalls Hari here in his love dance, Playing seductively, laughing, mocking me.

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A Treasury of Translations

Jayadeva's song evokes an image of Madhu's beautiful foe Fit for worthy men who keep the memory of Harf s feet. My heart recalls Hari here in his love dance, Playing seductively, laughing, mocking me. Translated from Cita Govinda of Jayadcva, //.5 by Barbara Stolcr Miller

The Nine Rasas T h e N i n e Rasas

241 or F l a v o u r s 1

Srngdra or the Erotic U p w a r d s , thick cloud-tresses, and below them t h e m o u n t a i n - s l o p e s w h e r e the p e a c o c k p l a y s ; Sec, on t h e ground s n o w flower-petal whiteness; w h e r e shall the traveller rest his gaze? from Satakatrayam of Bhartrhari

Hasyu or the Comic H e held her face, and w o u l d not let her go: S h e tried to say, k Oh no! N o , no! Oh, m\ N o , no\ Hut t h r o u g h the kiss no sound would c o m e Except 'llmm-hmm-hmm Inn hm limm hmmmm! from Srfnigtidlumi Pmidhnti 3 Vira or the Heroic T h e lion looked with lazy-eyed disdain u p o n the force of h u n t e r s and then turned back to sleep. H i s lioness, all fear dispelled by her l o r d ' s valour, deigned not to look. Mentha in SubluishitanitmikoM

Raudra or the Furious H e w h o d r a g g e d the d a u g h t e r of Panchala, w e e p i n g , b y the hair; w h o tore a w a y h e r robe before the kings and e l d e r s ; h e from w h o s e b r e a s t I s w o r e to drink the blood like wine

242

A Treasury of Translations h a s fallen in my h a n d s , O K a u r a v a s . C o m e s a v e him if you can. from Venisamhara of Bhatta N a r a y a n a

Bhaydnaka or the Apprehensive A man can also m a k e a living from d e a t h — Tf h e w o r k s at it h a r d . Look at u s killers of spies, living by d e a t h Which m u r d e r s us all from Mudraraksasam of V i s a k h a d a t t a

Karuna or the Compassionate Such bitter grief a s this h a s c r a c k e d my heart, Which still h a s not b u r s t apart; And from m y b o d y , fainting from the smart, The s e n s e s do not d e p a r t . Interna] fires within m y b o d y blaze, And yet 1 am not c o n s u m e d : Fortune h a s left m e with a mortal w o u n d Yet still 1 live out my d a y s . From Uttara Rama Charita of B h a v a b h u t i

Blbhatsa or the Horrific The v u l t u r e s beating b a c k the flames with strokes of their flapping w i n g s and each competing with fierce b e a k s against the rest, h a v e d r a g g e d from the blazing p y r e a c o r p s e and gorged t h e m s e l v e s on its freshly r o a s t e d , almost flaming flesh. See t h e m with burning c r a w s now h e a d i n g for the river. Panini in

Subhashitaratnakosa

243

The Nine Rasas

8 Adbhuta or the Marvellous No man, they say, has ever found the place Where lotus-flowers within a lotus rise. Yet I have seen two dark blue lotus eyes Set in the fair white-lotus of your face. from Subhashitavali of Vallabhadeva

Santa or the Peaceful Rich are they whrj can fulfill the hope of suppliants, do kindness to their enemies, master the scriptures, and retire to the forest Silhana in Subhasliitaratnakosa 1.2.6 and 8 translated by John Brough; 3.4.7 and 9 by Daniel H. Ingalls; and 5 by V.N. Misra, L. Nathan and S. Vatsyayan.

Appendices

Appendix 1 Some Sanskrit Educational Institutions in India

Sampoornanand Sanskrit University Varanasi-2211002 Shri Kameshwar Singh Darbhanga Sanskrit University Darbhanga, Bihar Shri Jagannath Sanskrit University Puri, Orissa-752002 Shri Lai Bahadur Shastri Rashtriya Sanskrit Vidyapeeth (Deemed University) Katwaria Sarai, New Delhi Rashtriya Sanskrit Vidyapeeth (Deemed University) Tirupati-517007 Shri Ranbir Sanskrit Vidyapeetha Shastri Nagar Jammu Kendriya Sanskrit Vidyapeeth Jaipur Rajasthan

248

Kcndriya Sanskrit Vidyapecth Aliganj, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh Sri Sada Shiv Kcndriya Sanskrit Vidyapecth Puri, Onssa Shri Jagannath Jha Kcndriya Sanskrit Vidyapecth Azad Park, Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh Sri Guruvayur Kcndriya Sanskrit Vidyapecth Trichur, Kerala Rajiv Gandhi Kcndriya Sanskrit Vidyapecth Singcri Shri Rang Laxmi Adarsh Sanskrit Mahavidyalaya Vrindaban (Mathura) 281121, Uttar Pradesh jagdish Narayan Brahmchari Ashram Sanskrit Mahavidyalaya Lagma, Via Lohna Road Rambhadharpur, Dt. Darbhanga Bihar-846004. Bhagwan Das Sanskrit Mahavidyalaya P.O. Gurukul Kangri, Haridwar, Distt. Saharanpur-249401 Dewan Krishan Kishore S.D. Adarsh Sanskrit College Ambala Cantt-133001 Haryana Shri Ekarasanand Sanskrit Mahavidyalaya Manipur-205001 The Madras Sanskrit College 84, Royapeetha High Road Mylaporc, Madras-600004

Appendices

Appendices

249

Mumbadevi Sanskrit Mahavidyalaya C / o Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan K.M. Munshi Marg Bombay-400007 Haryana Sanskrit Vidyapectha P.O. Bhagola (Palwal) Distt. Faridabad Haryana Calicut Adarsh Sanskrit Vidyapeetha Balussery P.O. Balussery, Distt. Calicut (Kerala) 673612 Himachal Adarsh Sanskrit Mahavidyalaya Jangla (Rohru) Distt. Shimla(H.P.) 171207 Lakshmi Devi Shroff Adarsh Sanskrit Mahavidyalaya, Kali Rakha Distt. Deogarh-814112 (Bihar) Rajkumari Gancsh Sharma Adarsh Sanskrit Vidyapeetha Kolhanta, Patori Distt. Darbhanga (Bihar)-846003 Swami Parankushacharya Adarsh Sanskrit Mahavidyalaya Hulasganj, Distt. Gaya Bihar-804407 The above is not an exhaustive list*. The listing order is random. In addition most leading Indian Universities h a v e Sanskrit Departments for post graduate study and research; some of them haveprovided distinguished contributors for thepresent publication.

Appendix 2 Some Indian Publishers

of Sanskrit

Books

Balaji P u b l i s h e r s 81, Bazar Street, Tirupati Hindu Dharmashastra Granthanilayam Kapileswarapuram Distt. E. G o d a v a r i D e p a r t m e n t of P u b l i c a t i o n s , U n i v e r s i t y of G u w a h a t i Guwahati, A s s a m National Supply Agency Golaghat Distt. S i b s a g a r , A s s a m K.S.D.S. University D a r b h a n g a , Bihar Bharti B h a w a n Exhibition R o a d Patna-1, Bihar K.P. J a y a s w a l R e s e a r c h Institute M u s e u m Buildings B u d h Marg, Patna-1, Bihar Motilal B a n a r a s i d a s s Bunglow Road, Jawahar N a g a r Delhi-110007

Appendices Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers 54, Rani Jhansi Road New Dclhi-5 Mcharchand Lachmandas, Kucha Chellan, Daryaganj, Delhi Chowkhamba Orientalia 9, Bunglow Road, Jawahar Nagar Delhi-110007 Bharatiya Vidya Prakashan I.U.B. Jawahar Nagar Delhi-110007 Indian Book Centre 40/5, Shakti Nagar Delhi-110007 Gujarat Vidyapith Ashram Road Ahmedabad-14 Usha Institute of Religious Studies, Opp. Telephone Exchange, Sirsa (Hissar) Kurukshetra University Publication Department, Kurukshctra, Haryana University Publishers, 65 R Model Town, Rohtak J & K Academy of Art, Culture & Language, Exchange Road Jammu Radhakrishan Anand and Co. Pacca Danga Jammu Tawi

251

252

Appendices

Bangalore Printing & Publishing Co. Ltd. 86/87 Mysore Road P.O. No. 1807, Bangalore-18 Oriental Research Institute Mysore (Kamataka) Central Institute of Indian Languages Manasgangotari Mysore-6 R.S. Wadhyar & sons Kalpathi, Palghat Kerala Department of Publication University of Kerala Trivandrum-1 Nagpur University Publication Department Nagpur Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute Pune Deccan College Pune The above is not an exhaustive list*, and the listing order is random. *Source: Department of Education, Ministry of Human Resources Development, Shastri Bhavan, New Delhi.

Contributors N.P. Unni is Professor and Head of the Department of Sanskrit at the University of Kerala since the last sixteen years. His numerous publications include a book on the problem of the authorship of Bhasa, and an English translation of the Ndfi/a Sastra which is under print. Robert P. Goldman is Professor of Sanskrit and Chairman of the Center for South Asia Studies and the Department of South and Southeast Asian Studies at the University of California at Berkeley. Author of many books and articles on Sanskrit literature, he is also the General Editor of the Princeton University Press' seven volume translation of the Valmiki Rdmdyana.

Satya Pal Narang is Professor of Sanskrit, University of Delhi. Author of numerous books and articles, he is currently working on 'A Concordance of Classical Sanskrit Poetry' and the second volume of a 'Kalidasa Bibliography'. Pierre-Sylvain Filliozat teaches Sanskrit in Paris, and conducts researches in various fields of Indology. He has published books and articles in French, English and Sanskrit on Panini, Patarijali, the Saivagamas and temple architecture among other subjects. Shriniwas Rath was Professor and Head, School of Sanskrit Studies, Vikram University, Ujjain. Currently he is the Director of the Kalidasa Akademi in the same city. His writings in Sanskrit and Hindi include poems, plays and radio features. Herman Tieken is a Lecturer on Sanskrit at the Kern Institute, the Indological Department of the University of Leiden, The Netherlands. His main fields of interest are Sanskrit Kai/va literature, and Middle Indie, or Prakrit, literature, including Jain texts.

254

Contributors

Saroja V. Bhate is Professor and H e a d of t h e D e p a r t m e n t of Sanskrit, Pali and Prakrit L a n g u a g e s , University of Pune, a n d a u t h o r of ten b o o k s one of w h i c h h a s also been printed in Braille. Specialized in Panini' s g r a m m a r , s h e recently received the Best Teacher A w a r d from the P u n e Municipal Corporation. Sheldon Pollock is George V. Bobrinskoy Professor of Sanskrit and Indie S t u d i e s , a n d C h a i r m a n of the D e p a r t m e n t of S o u t h Asian L a n g u a g e s and Civilizations at the University of Chicago. H i s b o o k s include A spects of Versification in Sanskrit Lyric Poetry (1977), Rdmdyana of Vdlmiki: Ayodhyakdnda (1988) a n d the' forthcoming The Language of the Gods in the World of Man: Sanskrit Culture in History. R a j e n d r a P r a s a d Mishra is Professor and H e a d of the Sanskrit D e p a r t m e n t , H i m a c h a l P r a d e s h University, Shimla. H e h a s a u t h o r e d a n u m b e r of kdvyas, p l a y s , and p o e m s in S a n s k r i t a n d Hindi. H e r e c e i v c d the Sahitya A k a d e m i A w a r d iorlkshugandlia, short stories in Sanskrit in 1988, a n d the K a l i d a s a S a m m a n P u r a s k a r in 1992. A.K. Warder is Professor E m e r i t u s of Sanskrit in the University of Toronto, and the a u t h o r of several b o o k s including the multiv o l u m e Indian Kdvya Literature, V o l u m e VI of w h i c h w a s p u b l i s h e d in 1992, and v o l u m e s VII and VIII are respectively a b o u t to go to p r e s s and u n d e r p r e p a r a t i o n . Sukumari Bhattacharji took m a s t e r ' s d e g r e e e s in English and Sanskrit a p a r t from a Ph.D. She h a s t a u g h t English literature for ten and Sanskrit for twenty-nine y e a r s , a s also C o m p a r a t i v e Literature at J a d a v p u r University. H e r publications include eight b o o k s on m y t h o l o g y and a s p e c t s of ancient Indian life. Friedhelm Hardy took a D.Phil, in Sanskrit and Tamil m a t e r i a l s from t h e University of Oxford in 1976. H e is R e a d e r in Indian Religions at K i n g ' s College, U n i v e r s i t y of L o n d o n . H i s publications include Viraha-bhakti: The Early History of Krishna Devotion in South India. V e d Kumari Ghai w a s Professor and H e a d of the D e p a r t m e n t of Sanskrit, University of J a m m u . S h e h a s r e s e a r c h e d on the Nilamatapuranam and her n u m e r o u s p a p e r s include one on K a l i d a s a in D e n m a r k . Satya Vrat Shastri, Professor of Sanskrit at the University of Delhi, and former Vice-Chancellor of the Shri J a g a n n a t h S a n s k r i t University at Puri, O r i s s a , is t h e recipient of a w a r d s from t h e

Contributors

255

President of India and the Sahitya Akademi, as also a D.Litt. h. c. from Bangkok. Radha Vallabh Tripathi is Professor and H e a d , Sanskrit Department, Dr. Hari Singh Gaur University, Sagar (M.P.) He h a s published numerous books and articles, and his honours include the Sahitya Akademi Award of 1994 for Creative Writing in Sanskrit. Arvind Sharma holds a Ph.D. in Sanskrit and Indian Studies from Harvard University and is currently Birks Professor of Comparative Religion in the Faculty of Religious Studies at McGill University, Canada.

Index Abhidhanacintdmanu 175 Abhidhdnamdla, 175 Abhidhdvrttimdtrkd, 171 Abhijndnasdkuntalam, 7 Abhinanda, 167 Abhinavabharati', 115 Abhinavagupta, 23,34,100,115,127-30, 133, 172 A bh isarikdvanch itakam , 1 1 5 A bhtsekandtaka, 109 Acta Orientalia, 189 Adhydtma Rdmdyana, 19, 26 Adishura, 118 Aesthetics, and literary criticism in India, 124-32 Agamadarnbara, 170 Agni Purana, 4, 178 Agnivarna, 5 Agnivesa, 177 Ahladaka, 167 Ajitapida, 171 Akala-Jadada, 122 Akbar, 176 Aklujkar, Ashok, 191 Alarhkara, 167 Alankara Sarigraha, 171 Amarakosa, 174-75 Amarasimha, 174-75 Amaru, 6, 100, 138-39 Amarusataka, 6, 138 Amitagati, 139, 144 Amore, Roy, 191 Ananda, 167 Anandacarana, 181 Anandaramayana, 19 Anandavardhana, 23, 34, 40, 133, 139, 149, 158, 170-72

Anderson, Leona, 191 Anekarthakosa, 175 Anekarthasabdakosa, 175 A nekarthasamuccaya, 175 Anekarthasangraha, 175 Angareja Candrika, 182 Ahgiras, 31 A nglasamrajya-mahakaiyyam, 182 Ariguttara, 125 A) lyadesasa taka, 142 Anyoktimuktdlata, 166 A nyoktimuktalatasataka, 140 Aparaditya, 167 Apastamba, 45 Appashastri, 182 Aranya Kdnda, 12 Archiv Orientdlini, 189 Ardhandrlsvara stotra, 170 Arthasdstra, 55, 144 Aryabhatta, 2, 40 Aryasaptasati, 139 A rya sura, 74 Asan, Kumaran, 180 Asiatische Studicn. 189 Asoka, 86 Astadhydyi, 161, 174 Astdngahrdayasamhitd, 178 A stdngasatigraha, 178 Asvadhati, 142 Asvaghosa, 5, 119, 132 Asvinau, 176 Atharvaveda* 2, 176 A tmanusasana, 144 Atreya, 177-78 Atrcya, Punarvasu, 177 Atri, 31 Aurobindo, Sri, 180

258 A v a l o k i t a , 178 A v a n t i s u n d a r i , 122 A v a n t i v a r m a n , 164, 166, 169, 171 A v a t a r a , 170 Avunaraka, 109 Ayurveda,!, 161, 176-77, 179 Baijuka,98 Bailey, G r e g , 192 Bakker, H a n s , 188 Bdlabharata, 8 BalabLaratarn, 122 Bdlacharita, 109 Balachantam, 54-55, 58 Bdlaramdyana, 8 Billaramaxianam, 122 Balbir, Nalini, 188 Ballala, 80 Bana, 5-6, 8, 30, 78-80, 84, 97, 149, 164, 174 B a n a b h a t t a , 51,76-80,108-9,115-16,13637 B a n g w c i W a n g , 192 B a u d h a y a n a , 45-49 Beck, G u y . 191 Benson, J., 188 Bha^avad^Ua, 4, 158, 189 Bhdgavala, 34 Bhd^avata Pur ana, 4 Bhimarathi, 74 Bhallata, 164 Bhallata Sataka, 164, 166 B h a m a h a , 131-33, 171 Bhaminivildsa, 142 Bhanujidiksita, 175 B h a r a t a , 21, 2 3 , 5 8 , 171-72 Bhdratacanipu, 81 Bharatakadvdtrimsatikd, 82 Bharatiya-desabliakta Caritam, 183 Bhdratiyam Itwrttam, 183 B h a r a v i , 5, 133 B h a r t e n d u , 182 B h a r t r h a r i , 5-6, 100, 137-38, 142 B h a s a , 37, 51-59, 100-10, 113, 132 a n d K a l i d a s a , 51-59 BlulsanatakacJiakram, 108 B h a s k a r a d a t t a , 115

Index Bhate, Saroja, 72 Bhatta, C i n t a m a n i , 82 Bhattacharji, S a k u m a r i , 136 B h a t t a c h a r y a , Birendra K u m a r i , 185 B h a t t a c h a r y a . H r i s h i k e s h , 183 B h a t t a c h a r y a , K a m a l e s h w a r , 188 B h a t t a c h a r y a , V i r e n d r a K u m a r , 185 B h a t t a n a r a y a n a , 8, 118 Bhatti, 166 Bhatlikdvya, 5 B h a v a b h u t i , 22-23, 108, 118-21, 133 B h a v a m i s r a , 179 Bhdvdsataka, 139, 143 Bhavisya Purana, 4 Bhdvprakasa, 179 B h c d a , 177 Bhela. 177-78 Bhclasaihhitd, 178 B h i k s a c a r a , 169 B h i m a , 166 Bhoja, 96, 129-30, 133 Bhojaprabandha, 80 Bhojaraja. 172 Bhrgus, 31 B h u s a n a , 77 Bhuvandbhyudaya, 168 B i a r d e a u , M a d e l e i n e , 188 Bilhana, 6, 168, 170 Bilimoria, P u r u s o t h a m a , 192 B i n d u s a r a , 50, 58 Boccali, Giuliano, 189 Bolli, K e s s , 191 Brhacchdrrigadharapaddliati, 141 Brhajjdtaka, 113 Brahma Parana, 4 B r a h m a c a r i , P r a b h u d a t t a , 181 Brahmanda Parana, 4 Bralnnavaivarta Parana, 4 Brhatkalhd, 8, 73-75, 81, 164 Brliatakatliamarijari, 8, 75 Brockington, J.L., 12, 188 Brown C h e e v e r , 191 Budda,167 Buddhacarita, 5 B u d d h a , 170 Biihler, 162 Buitenen, J.A.B. V a n , 190

Index Caillat, Colete, 188 C a k r a p a n i d a t t a , 178-79 C a l l e w a e r t , W i n a n d , 188 C a m p a k a , 168 C a n a k y a , 54-56, 58, 115-16, 144 Canakyaniti, 144 Canakyanitidarpana, 144 Cdnakyamtisdra, 144 Cdnakyasdrasamgraha, 144 Cdnakyasloka, 144 Candisataka, 136, 149-51, 158 C a n d r a k a , 170 C a r a k a , 161, 177-78 Caraka Sarnhttd, 177-78 C a r d o n a , G e o r g e , 190 Cariyapitaka, 74 C a r m a n , J.B., 191 Carucarya, 166 C a r a k a ! 163 Caturvargasrhgralm, 165 Caurapaiicdsikd, 6 Chdndogya Upanisad, 74 C h a p p i e , C h r i s t o p h e r , 191 C h a r i , K.S.A., 191 C h a t t o p a d h v a y a , S i d d h c s h w a r , 185 C h a u d h u r y , Jatindra Bimal, 185 C h e m p a r t h y , G e o r g e , 188 Cikitsdknlika, 179 Cikitsdmrla, 179 Cikitsdsdrasangraha, 179 C i t t a p a , 98 Clooney, Francis, 190-91 C o b u r n , T h o m a s , 191 C o l a s , G e r a r d , 188 Corpus hiscriptionum Indicarum, 89 C o u t u r e , A n d r e , 191 Daksinariulrti, 141 Dallana, 178 D a m o d a r a g u p t a , 117, 163-64 D a n d i , 51 D a n d i n , 5-6, 8, 74, 76, 79-80, 113, 128, 143,172 Daridrachdrudatla, 109 Darpadalana, 142, 165 D a s , R a h u l Peter, 188 Dasakumdracarita, 6, 79-80, 83

259 D a s h , K e s h a v C h a n d r a , 184-85 Dchalimahotsavam, 182 Delaramakathasam, 167 Desantariyani Itiz>rtlam, 183 D e s h p a n d e , M a d h a v M. 190 DesTndmdld, 176 Dcsopadesa, 142, 165 D e u t s c h , Eliot, 190 Devichandraguptam, 115 Devindmdznldsa, 170 Dcvisataka, 139, 170 D h a n a n j a y a , 37, 175 D h a n a p a l a , 80, 176 Dhanurveda, 2 D h a n v a n t a r i , 177-78 Dharmadasa, 143 D h a r m a d a t t a , 129 D h a r m a d e v a , 104 Dharmaparlksd, 144 D h r u v a s w a m i n i , Devi, 115 D h v a n i , theory of, 172 Dlwanydloka, \7\ Diksita, N i l a k a n t h a , 142 Dimock, Ed. 190 Diversity of a Narrative Tradition in South As/77/12 D i v o d a s a , 178 Divydvaddua, 74 D i w a k a r a , M a t a n g a , 116 Doniger, W e n d y , 190 D r d h a b a l a , 161,177 Drstdntasataka, 141 D u r l a b h a v a r d h a n a , 169 Duta Ghatotkacha, 109 Dutavakya, 109 Diltavdkyam, 54, 58 Dva Suparna, 184 D w i v e d i , Ichcha R a m , 184 D w i v e d i , \
Index

260 Filippi, Gian Giuseppe, 189 Filliozat, Pierre-Sylvain, 39 Fitzgerald, James L., 191 Franci, G. R., 189 Fussman, Gerard, 188 Gadadharabhatta, 142 Ganapatisambhavamahakdvya, 181 Gandharvaveda, 2 Gandhi, M.K., 183 Gorga, 167 Garuda Purana, 4 Garzilli, Enrica, 189 Gaudavaho, 70 Gayadasa, 178 Gayika-Silpakaram, 185 Gerow, Edwin, 190 Ghai, Ved Kumari, 161 Ghatakarpara, 137, 141 Ghatakarparakain/a, 6, 137 Gitagovinda, 6 Gitomer, David, 190 Gnoli, R., 125, 189 Gods on Earth, 12 Goethe, 147 Goldman, R. P., 11 Goldman, Robert, 190 Goldman, Sally Sutherland, 190 Gombrich, Richard, 187 Gonda, J., 188 Gopala, Bhatta, 118 Gosvamin, Rupa, 129, 142 Govardhana, 139, 154-55 Govinda Candra, 167 Govindajit, 142 Grahavarma, 116 Gramagltamrtam, 183 Grano'ff, Phyllis, 191 Grimes, John, 191 Guhavasi, 184 Gunabhadra, 144 Gunacandra, 128 Gunadhya, 8, 74-75, 164 Hafiz, 147 Hahn, Michael 188 Haidarshah, 167, 169

Hala, 61-70, 117, 152, 154-55 Halayudha, 175 Halbfass, Wilhclm, 190 Haravali, 175 Haravijaya, 166 Hardy, Friedhelm, 147 Haribhaskara, 142 Harihara, 142 Harikavi, 142 Harisena, 98-99 Harwariisa, 3-4 Harsa, 163, 168, 170, 181 Harsacanta, 6, 77-78, 80 Harsacaritam, 108, 115-16 Harsa deva, 166 Harsavardhana, 108, 116-18 Hart, 12 Hasanshah, 167, 169 Hasurkar, Shastri, 182 Hayes, Richard, 191 Heesterman, J. C., 188 Heifetz, 12 Hemacandra, 37, 175-76 Henry, O., 184 Herman, A. L., 191 Hcrtel, 75 Hesiod, 141 Hilterbeitel, Alf, 190 Hitopadesa, 8 Hopkins, 31-36 Huberman, Eric A., 191 Iksugaridlia, 184 Induraya, 171 Ingalls', D., 35, 155 Indian aesthetics, and criticism, 124-33 Indian Kavya Literature, 133 Indraraja III, 102 Insler, Stanley, 190 International Association of Sanskrit Studies, 187 Iramavataram, 12 lsvarasataka, 170 Using, 117 Jacobi, 25 Jagaddhara, 170

Index Jagannatha, 142 Jain-Rajatararigini, 169 Jaini, P. S., 190 Jaiyata, 178 Jalhana, Bogadatta, 140, 167, 170 Jambhaladatta, 8, 81 Jami, Mulla, 167 Jamison, Stephanie W., 190 Janakaraja, 167 Janamejaya, 30 Janatalahari, 183 Janavijaya Mahakdvya, 183 Jatakamala, 74 Jatukarni, 118 Jayadeva, 6, 108-9, 122 Jayanta Bhatta, 170 Jayapida, 113, 163, 171 Jayasimha, 166, 168-69 jayasimhdbhyudaya, 168 Jtmutavahana, 117 Jinduka, 167 Jonaraja, 168-69 Jones, William, 9 Journal of Indian Philosophy, 191 journal of the American Oriental Society, 190 Joyanaka, 168 Kadambari, 6, 77-78, 80, 83-84, 164 Kadambari Kalhasara, 167 Kadarbani Rama, 122 Kalapika, 185 Kalavilasa, 142, 165 Kale, M. R., 77 Kalhana, 5, 113, 162-64, 167-70 Kalidasa, 5-7, 16, 37, 51-59, 61, 73, 77, 108-13, 132, 136, 139, 153, 181 as dramatist, 111-13 Bhasa and, 51-59, 121 Kalividambana, 142 Kalyana, 167 Kamasutra, 62 Kampan, 12-13 Kaniska, 5, 177 Kankar, Narayan Shastri, 183 Kapilabala, 177 Kappani, Laksmi, 188

261 Kapphina, 166 Kapphinabliyudaya, 166 Karnabhara] 109 Karnabhdram', 53 Karnadeva, 170 Karnasundari, 170 Karpuramanjari, 8 Karpuramanjari sallakii, 122 Kashika, 161 Katha Muktavali, 184 Kathdkautakarn, 166-67 Kathdsaritsagara, 8, 75, 167 Katyayana, 45, 74, 174 Kaul, Sahib, 170 Kautalya, 131 Kavi, Korad Ramachandra, 184 Kavikarnapiira, 129 Kavlndravacanasamuccaya, 140 Kaviputra, 51, 113 Kavi ray a, 122 Kavyddarsa.79, 113, 143 Kdvydlarnkdra, 99 Kdvydlanknra 131 Kdvydlahkdra Sulra, 171 Kdvyalankdra Sutravrtti, 113 Kdvyamimdmsd, 115, 122 Kdvyaprakdsa, 172 Kesava, 179 Kesavasvamin, 175 Kirdtdrjumya, 5 Klostermaier, Klaus K., 191 Knipe, David, 191 Kosambi, D. D., 142 Kotadevi, 169 Krishna III, 93 Krsnakarndmrta, 139 Kscmendra, 8, 34, 142, 164-65, 167, 172 Ksfrasvamin, 175 Kubo, Tsugunari, 192 Kuiper, F. B. J., 188 Kulke, Herman, 188 Kumar, Pratap, 192 Kinndrasambhava, 5, 9 Kumarila, 96 Kumudinicandra, 184 Kuntaka, 131,133, 171-72 Kiirma Purana. 4

262 Kusumadeva, 141 Kultanlmala, 163-64 Kuttanmiatam, 117 Laghucdnakya, 144 Laksmanabhatta, 142 Laksmideva, 167 Lama, Graciela de la, 189 Lao-tzu, 147 Lariviere, Richard, 190 Lavata, 164 Leninamrtam, 183 Lexicography, 173-76 Lienhard, Siegfried, 187 Lilasuka, 139 Lindtner, Chr., 189 Linga Purana, 4 Lipner, Julius, 188 Lokoktimukidvali, 141 Lolimbaraja, 179 Lollata, 128, 171 Lorenzen, David, 189 Lostadeva, 167 Luders, 89 Ludo, 190 Lutgendorf, 12 Madanarmikhacandrapetika, 141 Madhav, Harshadev, 185 Madhavakara. 178 Madhyamavydyoga, 7, 109 Magna, 5, 37, 136, 181 Mahdbhdrata, 3-5, 8, 25, 30-37, 54, 74, 109. 143,157,164,178,190 Mahdbhdsya, 5, 7, 87, 177 Mahadeva, 122 Mahasubhdsitasamgraha, 142 Mahdvlracarita, 7 Malunuracaritam, 118-19 Malidvyutpatti, 175 Mahendrapala, 108, 122 Mahesvara, 175 Mahesvaradasa, 16 Mahimabhatta, 172 Mahiman, 128 Mahipala, 122 Mainekar, T. G., 185

Index Malhana, 179 Malatimadhava, 7 Mdlatimddhavam, 119, 121 Malavikagnimitram, 7,51-52, 108 Mallinatha, 8 Mammata, 34, 172 Manadeva, 104 Mandana, 167 Manjarikavyas, 167 Mahkha, 166-67, 175 Manoratha, 163 Many Ramayanas, 12 Maricikd, 185 Markandeya, 162 Markundeya Purana, 4 Mathematics in ancient India, 39-50 Mathuranath, Bhatta, 181-84 Matilal, B. K., 188 Matraraja, 133 Matsya Purdna, 4 Maurer, Walter H., 191 Maurya, Asoka, 131 Maurya, Chandragupta, 54, 56, 58, 115-16 Mayeda, Sangeku, 192 Mayurabhatta, 116, 136-37, 174 Mayuraja, 122 Mayurasarman, 101 Mebon, 97 Medhavrta, 184 Medicine, Sanskrit literature on, 176-79 Medinikara, 175 Medinikosa, 175 Me$hadutam, 6, 9, 52, 136, 183 Meghavijaya, 37 Mehta, Mahesh, 191 Mentha, 132 Merutunga, 80 Meyer, J. J., 137 Mill, James, 194 Minkowski, Christopher, 190 Mishra, Kshama Devi, 184 Mishra, Madhusudan, 184 Mishra, Rajendra, 108, 181, 185 Misra, Krishna, 8 Mme. Geng Yinzeng, 192 Mrcchakatika, 7

Index Mrcchakatikam, 113-14, 119 Mudgardutam, 183 Mudrdrdksasa, 8, 61 Mudrarakshasam , 1 1 5 Mukdpaiicasati, 139 M u k u l a , 171 M u r a r i , 108, 122, 174 N a g a , 167 Nagananda, 7, 117, 163 N a g a r a j a , 139, 143 N a g a r a j a n , K. S., 183 N a g a r j u n a , 178, 180 Naisadluyacarita, 5 N a k a m u r a , H a j i m e , 192 Nalacampnl, 80 Namalingdnusasana, 174 Namdmdld, 174-75 N a m i s a d h u , 99 Ndndrtharnavasahksepa, 175 N a n a v a t i , Rajendra, 185 N a n d a n a , 167 N a n d i p o t a v a r m a n , 100 Ndradiya Parana, 4 N a r a n g , S a t y a Pal, 30 N a r a y a n a B h a t t a , 108, 129 N a r a y a n a n , V a s u d h a , 191 hlarmamdld, 142, 165 Ndtyasdstra, 2 1 , 58-59, 125-33, 171 Navasdhasdhkacarita, 5 Navasahasankacharilam, 117 N a y a k a , 128, 172 N e e l a k a n t h a , 118 Nighantus, 173, 175 Nighantuseso, 175 N i k a t o r , S e l e u k o s , 54-56 Nilamata Purana, 162, 170 Nirukta, 173 Nftikalpuitaru, 166 Nilimanjari, 141 Nltisara, 8, 137, 141 NUisataka, 137-38 O b e r h a m m c r , G e r h a r d , 188 Ojha, K a t h e r i n e , 188 Olivelle, Patrick, 190 O r g a n , T. W., 191

263 Padataditaka, 170 P a d m a g u p t a , 5, 117 P a d o u x , A n d r e , 188 Padydmrtatarangini, 142 Padyaracana, 142 Padyavali, 142 Padyaveni, 142 P a i y a l a c c h i , S u n d a r l , 176 Pancatantra, 8, 75-76, 81, 83 Panchardtra, 109 Pafichardtram, 54-56, 58 Panditardjh/am, 183 Pdndavacarita, 37 Panini, 35, 41-46, 125, 161, 166, 174 P a r a m a n a n d a , 140 Pa ra s ip rakdsa, 175 P a r p o l a , A., 189 Pdrsvaiidtlmcaritra, 143 Patdkd-Stlidnaka, 57 Patahjali, 5, 40, 42, 74, 87, 96, 177 P a t h a k j a g a n n a t h , 181 P a t h a k , R a m a n a t h , 181 Patisa n i bh iddmagga, 125 Patu, 167 Pa ulast ya z nuiha, 17 P e t e r s o n , Indira, V., 191 Phillips, S t e p h e n R . 190 Pingrec, D a v i d , 190 Plato, 147 Pollock, S h e l d o n , 25, 85, 190 Potter, Karl R , 190 Prabaiuiliacintdmani, 80 Prabandhakosa, 80 P r a b a n d h a m a h j a r i , 183 P r a b h a k a r a V a r d h a n a , 116 Prabodhacandrodaya, 8 Prachandapdndavam, 122 Prajy a b h a t t a , 168-69 Prakarana, 119 P r a k a t a , 167 P r a k r t p o e t r y , 61-70 P r a s a d , V i n d h y e s h v a r i , 181 Prasannardgliavam, 122 Prasenajit, 166 Pratijrid, 55-56 Pralijnd Yaugandhardyana. 109 Pratijndnatika, 108

264 Pratima, 55 Pratimdndtaka, 109 Pre-Rup, 97 Prinsapancasat, 182 Prinsep, James, 89 Priyadarsikd, 117 Prthvirajavijaya, 168 Public poetry in Sanskrit, 85-107 Purandrlhasamgraha, 141 Purusapariksa, 82 Purusottamadeva, 175 Pit rvacdtakdstaka ,141 Puspadanta, 156 Raghavan, V., 184 Raghuvamsa, 5, 9, 20 Raisah, 184 Rajdnglamahodyadyanam, 182 Rajasekhara, 8, 51, 108, 115, 122 Rajasekhara, 116, 172 Rajashree, 116 Rdjatarangim, 5, 113, 162-64, 167-69 Rajavalipataka, 169 Rajcndrakarnapiira, 168 Ramacandra, 128 Ramacandragamin, 141 Rdmacaritmdnas, 26, 122 Ramanujan, 13 Ramayana, 3-4, 7, 12, 33, 74, 87, 109-10, 119,156-57, 164, 169, 190 Ramayana and Rdmdyanas, 12 Ramayana Traditions in Eastern India, 12 Rdmdyancampu, 81 Rambachan, A., 191 Ramyadeva, 167 Rdngda, 184 Rao, Narayana, 14, 18 Rao, Pandita, Kshama, 183-84 Rao, Seshagiri, 191 Rao, V. Narayana, 191 Rasikajlvana, 142 Ratnakantha, 170 Ratnakara, 166 Ratnasataka, 170 Ratnavali, 7, 117, 170 Ravanarjuniya, 166 Ravanavadha, 166

Index Rayamukuta, 175 Renou, Louis, 89, 188 Reynolds, Frank, 13 Rgveda, 1,7, 189, 192 Richman, Paula, 12-14 Ricoeur, Paul, 194 Righteous Rama, 12 Rocher, Rosanne, 190 Rothermund, Dietmar, 189 Rotikalahari, 183 Royal Asiatic Society, 188 Rtusamlwra, 6, 136 Rudradaman, 73, 88-89, 91, 96,116,131 Rudrata, 77, 99, 171 Rugviniscaya, 178 Rukmini, 192 Riistau, Hiltrud, 188 Ruyyaka, 167 Sabddrrmva, 174 Sabhydlamkarana, 142 Saduktikarndmrta, 140 Sagar, Ramanand, 12 Sahara, 170 Sdhityadarpana, 99 Sdkuntala, 61 Salomon, Richard, 190 Samardnganasutradhara, 130 Sa ma syad ipa ,143 Samayamdtrkd, 142, 164 Samaveda, 1 Sambhu, 140,166, 168 Samsdravarta, 175 Samudragupta, 98-99, 115 Samyutta Nikdya, 143 Sanderson, Alexis, 187 Sandhimat, 163 Sahgharakkhita, 128, 132 Sanjaya, 96 Sahkaracarya, 139 Sahkaradeva, 104 Sahkaravarman, 164 6ahkhadatta, 163 Sahkuka, 128, 168, 171 Sanskrit Candrika, 181-82 Sanskrit linguistics in ancient India, 39-50

Index Sanskrit lierature, aesthetics and literary criticism in India, 124-33 ancient period, 2-3 anthologies, 136-43 aphorisms, 145 Campu, 80-81 classical period, 3-9, 72-84 contemporary, 180-85 drama, 6-7, 108-23, 170 dramatists, 108-23 epics and Puranas, 3-4 evolution of, 1-10 fables and fairy tales, 8-9 gnomic verses, 143-45 Kashmir contribution to, 161-72 Kaya, 5, 85-107, 147-59, 163-70 lyrics, 6-7 modem period, 9-10 narratives, 81-82 on lexicography, 173-76 on medicine, 176-79 poetics, 171-72 poetry, 85-107, 147-59, 163-70 prose, 5-6, 72-84 public poetry in, 85-107, 163-70 Puranas, 162-63 studies abroad, 187-95 Vedic period, 1-2 Sanskrit studies, outside India, 187-95 Santa Rasa, 37 Santisataka, 139, 166 Santivarman, 99, 101 Saptasat'i, sec, Sattasai Sdripmtra Prakaranam, 119 Sarrigadhara, 140, 179 Sanigadharapaddhati, 140 Sarvajnamitra, 170 Sarvananda, 175 Sasvata, 175 Satakatraya, 137, 142 Satakatrayadisubhasitasamgrha, 142 Sataslokl 179 Satavahana, 74, 117 Saththa,167 Sattasai 61-70 Satyanarayan, Vishvanath, 180

265 Saumilla,51, 113 Saundarananda, 5 Sdvitrl 186 Sayana, 141 Seema, 184 Segcl, Lee, 190 Sercbriany, S.D., 189 Setuhandha, 70 Sevyasevakopadesa, 165 Shah, Muhammad, 167, 169 Shahabuddin, 169 Shakespeare, 147 Shaktibhadra, 122 Shamsuddin, 169 Shankarlal, 184 Sharadacandra, 184 Sharma, Arvind, 187, 191 Sharma, R. K., 32-33, 35-36 Sharma, Ram Karan, 184 Sharma, Ramavatar, 183 Shastri, Bhagirath Prasad, 183 Shastri, Janakivallabh, 180-81 Shastri, M. M. T. Ganapati, 109 Shastri, Mahalinga, 184 Shastri, Padma, 183 Shastri, Paramanand, 183 Shastri, Prabhat, 181 Shastri, Satya Vrat, 173 Sheridan, Daniel, 191 Shukla, Ramakant, 183 Shulman, David, 192 Siddliantasudhatatim, 141 Siddhantavagisha, Haridas, 184 Siddhn/oga, 178 Sikandara, 169 Silhana, 139, 166 Sirhhagupta, 178 Simhasanadvatrimsikd, 8, 81 Singh, R., 191 Singh, Satya Prakash, 184 Sinha, Braj, 191 Sisupalavadha, 5, 136 Sitacarita, 17 Sitdvirwda Kavya, 143 Siva Purana, 4 Sva rdjavijaya, 184 Sivasvamin, 166

Index

266 Skanda Purana, 4 Skandagupta, 88 Slesdrthapadasamgraha, 174 Smith, Brian K., 12,191 Smith, Frederick, 191 Smith, Vincent A., 55 S mrtitaranga m, 185 Snusdvijaya, 184 Soddhala, 117 Somadeva, 8, 80, 167 Somapala, 168 Somapalavilasa, 168 Sontheimer, Gunther, 188 Sragdhardstotra, 170 Sramgitd, 183 Sri Harsa, 5, 7, 37, 174 Sridharadasa, 140 Sridharavarman, 91 Srlgarbha, 167 Sriguna, 167

Srikantha, 167 Srlkanthacarita, 166-67 Sripala, 98-99 Srivara, 166-69 Srivatsa, 116 Spigdrajfidnanipiaya ,141 Spigdrdldpa, 139 Spigdraprakdsa ,115 Spigdrasaptasatika, 140 Spigarasataka, 6, 137 Sternbach, Ludwik, 99, 140 Stietencron, H. V., 188 Studia Orientalia, 189 S tu t iku sumanja I i, 170 Subandhu, 6, 76, 78-79, 97 Subasitaharaiwli, 142 Subhasitamuktavali, 139 Subhasitanivi, 142 Subhasitaratnabhandagara, 142 Subhasitaratnakosa, 140 Subhdsitaratnanidlii, 141 Subhasitaratnasandoha, 139 Subhasitasamgraha, 141 Subhdsitdvali, 142, 170 Subramaniam, S., 192 Sudaradatta, 142 6udraka, 7. 108, 113-14, 116, 119, 132

Sugandha, Queen, 170 Suhala, 167 Suka, 168 Sukasaptati, 8, 82 Sukthankar, 25 SuktimuktdvaliMQ, 142, 170 Suktiratanahdra, 141 Suktiratnakara, 141 Suktisundara, 142 Sullivan, Bruce M., 191 Sumclnonjalih, 182 Sumanottard, 74 Sundara-Pandya, 138 Sundararajakavi, 184 Sunrtavddinl 181-82 Surananda, 122 Surapala, 179 Suri, Bhavadeva, 143 Suri, Jayamahgala, 98 Suri, M. M. Mallinatha, 113 Suri, Rajasekhara, 80 Suri, Ramachandra, 122 Suryaditya, 98 Suryakalingaraja, 141 Silryasataka, 116, 136 Suryavarman, 96, 98 Susruta, 178 Sussala, 169 Suvrttatilaka, 121 Svapnavdsavadatta, 7 Svapnaxmsavadattam, 51-52, 56-58, 109 Svargarohanam, 181 S vdtan t rya sa m bhavamahdkdvya, 183 Svetanu 184 Svodaya-Kavyas 184 Syamilaka, 170 Taittiriya Samhita, 40 Tanner, R. G. 192 Tarala, 122 Tejakantha, 167 Thiel-Horstmann, 12 Tieme, Paul, 188 Tikd Rdmdyana, 16 Tilakamanjarl, 80 Tipitaka, 125 Tisata, 179

Index Tola, P., 189 Tolkdppiyam. 125-27 Tolkappiyanar, 125, 127-28 Trailokya, 167 Trikdndasesa, 175 Tripathi, Radha Vallabh, 180 Trisastisaldkdpurusacarita, 37 Trivikramabhatta, 80, 98 Trivikramasena, 81 Trta, 31 Tubb, Gary, 190 Tucci, C , 189 Tulasidasa, Goswami, 122 Tulsidas, 26 Uccala, 169 Udayasundarikathd, 80, 117 Udbhata, 128, 171 Umapatidhara, 98 Unni, N. P., 1 Upadhyaya, 37 Upadhyaya, Pandit Baladeva, 113 Upadhyaya, Ramji, 184 Urubhanga,7, 109 Urubharigam, 54-55 UtpalmCwb Uttaracdtkdstaka, 141 Uttarapurdna, 144 Uttarardmcharitam, 119, 121 Uttarardmacanta, 7, 20, 22, 130 Vacaspati, 174 Vagbhata,178 Va idyajivana, 179 Va id i/« sa stra, 176 Vaijayantu 175 Vairagyasataka, 137 Vaisampayana, 30, 130 Vakpatiraja, 109 Vakroktijivitam, 171 Vakrokt ipancasika ,166 Vallabhadeva, 142, 170 Valmiki, 4,11-27,30,87-88,110,119,169 legacy of, 11-27 Valmiki Ramayuna, 12-13, 19, 24 Vamana, 73,113, 171 Vamana Purana, 4

267

Van der Veer, 12 Vanarastaka, 141 Vdnarydstaka, 141 Vanita, Ruth, 14-15,17 Varaha Parana, 4 Varahamihira, 113 Varma, Kulasekhara, 122 Varma, Rama, 122 Varnekar, Sridhar Bhaskar, 183 Vasavadatta, 6, 74, 78 Vasistha, 31 Vdsukipurdna, 163 Vatcshvaradatta, 115 Vedahgaraya, 176 Vedanga su tras, 143 Vedantadesika, 142 Vedavyasa, Amuru, 138 Venidatta, 142 Venisamhara, 8, 37, 118 Venkatesa, 81 Vcssantara Jataka, 128 Vetalapancainmsati, 8, 81 Vicitraparisadyatrd, 183 Victoria, Queen, 182 Vicziany, Marika, 192 Vidagdhannikhatnandana, 143 Viddhashalabhanjika, 8, 122 Vidyakara, 140 Vidyakaramisra, 142 Vidyakarasahasraka, 142 Vidyalankar, Shrccshwar, 182 Vidyapati, 82 Vijjika, 30 Vikramaditya, 8, 81-82, 116, 174, 177 Vikramaditya II, 100 Vikramaditya VI,Tribhuvanamalla, 168 Vikramankadevacarita, 168 Vikramorvasiyam, 7, 59 Vikloriyd-mdhdtmyam, 182 Vimal, Shyam, 184 Vinaya Pitaka, 177 Virakumara, 98 Virdta-Parvatu 35 Visakhadatta, 8, 61, 108-9, 115-16 Visnu-Purdna, 4 Visnu Smrtis, 178 Vismidharmottara, 178

268 Visnusarman, 8, 76 Vispala, 176 Visvaguna darsacampu, 81 Visvamitra, 178 Visvanatha, 34, 99 Visvaprakasa, 175 Voltaire, 147 Vopadeva,179 Vrddhacanakya, 144 Vrajanatha, 142 Vrksayurveda, 179 Vrnda, 179 Vrmiamadhava, 179 Vrsadeva, 104 Vyadi, 175 Vyamohah, 184 Vyasa, 16,30,33,35, 141 Vyasa, Ambikadatta, 184 Warder, Anthony K., 31, 124 Wheelock, Wades, 191 Whillier, Francis, 191 Whilhelm, Friedrich, 188 Wink, Andre, 191

Index Winternitz, 30 Witzel, Michael, 190 Woolner, A. C , 58 Wordsworth, 112 Works and Days, 141 Wuthrich-Sarnowska, Mariola, 189 Xuanzang, 192 Yadavaprakasa, 175 Yajnavalkya, 141, 178 Yajurveda, 1, 3, 73 Yasastilakacampu, 81 Yashovarma, 118 Yaska, 131 YatravilasaJi, 183 Yoga raja, 167 Yogavasistha, 169 Young, Kathcrine K., 191 Younger, Paul, 191 Yuvaryadeva, 122 Zainulabdin, 167,169 Zysk, Kennet G., 190

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