A History of Classical Poetry: Sanskrit - Pali - Prakrit. Siegfried Lienhard. Otto Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1984. viii + 307 pp. DM 128.

The primary function of Sanskrit kāvya was always to please the readers. Literary theoreticians like Abhinavagupta often considered esthetic experience as a supramundane (alaukika) experience where the readers transcend their mundane attachments. Viśvanatha compared it to the experience of knowing brahman, the ultimate truth. But this does not mean that Sanskrit kāvya was devoid of any pragmatic concerns and was exclusively concerned with esthetic bliss. This paper examines how the purvamīmāmsā theory of bhāvanā was effectively employed by (...) class='Hi'>Sanskrit literary theoreticians in Early India to make the readers of Sanskrit kāvya self-fashion themselves according to the existing notions about the practice of puruṣārtha-s. This mechanism, which literary critics from Kuntaka onwards explicitly mentioned, capacitated kāvya with a symbolic power to influence the worldview of readers and to make them conform to the existing dharmavidhi (legal injunction with respect to the four aims of human life). How did the idea of bhāvanā function in the composition of Sanskrit kāvya to self-fashion the readers? And how did the writers of kāvya precondition their texts so that readers should self-fashion themselves? The present paper explores these two crucial questions which shed light on the pragmatic use of Sanskrit kāvya. (shrink)

The eleventh century poet Bilhaṇa’s magnum opus, his Vikramāṅkadevacarita, quickly became one of the most admired and quoted examplars of a newly emergent genre in second millennium Sanskrit poetry, the patron-centered court epic—an extended verse composition dedicated to relating the deeds and celebrating the virtues of the pet’s own patron. But Bilhaṇa’s verse biography of his patron, the Cālukya monarch Vikramāditya VI, while ostensibly singing his praises, is colored throughout by darker suggestions that Vikramāditya may be less than (...) the moral paragon it proclaims him to be, and that the power of poetry lies precisely in its ability to fabricate royal virtue where none exists, and to wash clean the reputation of any king, regardless of his actual deeds. He makes these insinuatons through a variety of formal and narrative techniques, most strikingly by his persistent suggestions that Vikramāditya has perhaps less in common with Rāma, the archetypal paragon of royal virtue, than with his demonic antagonist Rāvaṇa, and, even more corrosively, that Rāma’s own reputation may owe more to his panegyrist’s skill than to his own virtue. (shrink)

Rasa, Dhvani and Rasa-Dhvani are the major critical terms in Sanskrit poetics that developed during the post-Vedic classical period. Rasa is used by a sage named Bharata to denote the aesthetic experience of a theatrical audience. But Anandavardhana and Abhinavagupta intermedialize this experience by extending it to a reader of poetry. They argue that rasa is also generated by a linguistic potency called dhvani. Some critics like Bhoja also proposed generation of rasa by pictorial art, and further, some (...) modern critics propose to trace dhvani property in non-verbal arts such as dance and music pleading thereby that these non-verbal arts also generate rasa. The present essay examines these arguments and concludes that generation of rasa is confined to only the audio-visual and verbal arts such as the theatre and poetry, and, dhvani as a specific linguistic potency, is strictly confined to the verbal arts. Its intermedialization is a contradiction in terms. (shrink)

To approach the Hindu poetic art -- On Indian music -- Concerning Uday Shankar -- The origin of the theatre of Bharata -- Oriental book reviews -- The hymn of man -- To the liquid -- Knowledge of the self -- Some Sanskrit texts on poetry.

On aestietics in Hindu philosophy and Sanskrit poetry.

The Bhagavata Purana is one of the most important, central and popular scriptures of Hinduism. A medieval Sanskrit text, its influence as a religious book has been comparable only to that of the great Hindu epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Ithamar Theodor here offers the first analysis for twenty years of the Bhagavata Purana often called the (Fifth Veda) and its different layers of meaning. He addresses its lyrical meditations on the activities of Krishna (avatar of Lord Vishnu), (...) the central place it affords to the doctrine of bhakti religious devotion and its treatment of older Vedic traditions of knowledge. At the same time he places this subtle, poetical book within the context of the wider Hindu scriptures and the other Puranas, including the similar but less grand and significant Vishnu Purana. The author argues that the Bhagavata Purana is a unique work which represents the meeting place of two great orthodox Hindu traditions, the Vedic Upanishadic and the Aesthetic. As such, it is one of India's greatest theological treatises. This book illuminates its character and continuing significance. (shrink)

Prof Dr. Vaman Mahadev Kulkarni is a well-known Scholar, Teacher and Researcher in the field of Sanskrit and Prakrit Studies, especially, Poetics, Jainism and Manuscript-studies. This publicity-shy gentleman-scholar contributed his mite to the research fields from various angles. A Felicitation Volume in his honours was a long felt desideratum, in view of his solid and outstanding contributions, distinguishing him from other scholars in ways more than one.

“Separation/disassociation from what is dear is suffering . . . ” declares the first noble truth of suffering, in a statement that is overwhelming in its decisiveness and scope, encompassing both the severance of ties to loved ones and the discontinuity of any attempt to hold on to what is pleasant or liked. However, in first-millennium Indian Sanskrit classical lore, Buddhist not excepted, separation comes to mean and convey much more—in terms of emotional phenomena—than just suffering. It is understood (...) in terms of diverse and sometimes excluding emotional phenomena, which are experienced under different (and sometimes contrastive) contexts. In Sanskrit belletristic literature and aesthetics, where lovers’ experience of “love in separation” is listed under the rubric of the erotic emotion, separation comes with its own particular sub-moods, typical landscapes, and associated practices, all of which are extended also under virahabhakti to the religious realm and the highly aestheticized relations with the divine. And in the case of philosophical texts and themes connected with Śramaṇic ideology, Buddhist and non-Buddhist alike, a sense of doom regarding one’s impending demise and the inevitable separation from all that is dear becomes a dominant mood, and carries with it normative and moral prescriptions, a theorization of action, and a particular kind of perceptual salience. These various outlooks on separation, however, are not unrelated, and often both come into play within the confines of a single work. This is especially true in the case of the Buddhist belletristic poetical works (mahākāvya) of Aśvaghoṣa (second century CE ), Life of the Buddha (Buddhacarita, BC) and Beautiful Nanda (Saundarananda, SN), in which separation—and here I refer primarily to the term viprayoga in both its concrete sense as the separation from loved ones and its broader existential sense—features as a central theme. Exploring the range of meanings and dynamic use of the term within Aśvaghoṣa’s SN, the first part of this article provides a brief theoretical framework with which to approach Aśvaghoṣa’s understanding of separation and its relation to the emotions. In this regard, I argue that separation, more than just an umbrella term for a cluster of associated feelings and emotions, serves as a unique emotional context—prescribing specific kinds of perceptual and moral saliency, practices and regimes of the self—under which emotional phenomena become meaningful. As such, its analysis may also contribute to the ongoing scholarly discussion about the adequacy of using the very category of emotion in the context of Buddhist literature. Drawing on this framework and focusing on Aśvaghoṣa’s BC, the second part of the article turns to deal specifically with the role he allocates in the work to philosophical moral arguments regarding separation. Through analysis of the workings of a particular recurrent argument that I will call “the argument from separation,” I argue that, in addition to its role in justifying Buddhist ideology, it functions in Aśvaghoṣa’s BC primarily as a self-therapy of the emotions. (shrink)

Contributed research papers on various aspects of Hindu philosophy, Sanskrit grammar and poetics.

Critical study of Indian aesthetics with reference to Sanskrit poetics.

The prominence and the importance of Aśvaghoṣa’s works and persona—to the understanding of the history of Sanskrit poetry, to the understanding of Indian Buddhism in a transitional stage and to its introduction to other parts of Asia—is well acknowledged in contemporary scholarship. But with few exceptions the existing scholarship on Aśvaghoṣa has tended to be highly specialized and focused, inviting further reading that builds on this in-depth research to offer an integrated treatment of the variegated aspects and contexts (...) of his works. This special issue of the Journal of Indian Philosophy is intended as a modest step toward a holistic exploration of Aśvaghoṣa works, which reads them across disciplinary as well as regional and temporal boundaries. This introduction is designed to highlight, very schematically, some points of interest and recurring concerns with respect to Aśvaghoṣa works; to point out how the set of articles address these concerns, and to suggest a particular order in which they can be profitably read. (shrink)

Through a study of Abhinavagupta’s deployment of the metaphor of a bee in search of nectar, this article reconstructs a model of religious education implicit in Abhinavagupta’s representation of his own career as a student and guru. Based on a brief examination of the symbolism of the bee in classical Sanskrit poetry, the article elucidates how Abhinavagupta creatively implements prominent themes in this trope. Abhinavagupta’s use of the bee motif powerfully evokes his own liberal engagement with the intellectual (...) culture and religious worlds of medieval Kashmir, and this educational ideal arguably carries prescriptive force for a qualified and sensitive audience. In considering the bee imagery across Abhinavagupta’s corpus, one encounters a vision of revelation that invites students to relish an all-encompassing truth present in all traditions as their essence, like a fragrance permeating a flower. (shrink)

Critical study of sementics (philosophy) and metaphor in Indic philosophy, Sanskit grammar and Sanskrit poetics.

Study of sementics with reference to Mimamsa philosophy and Sanskrit poetics.

Study of sementics with reference to Mimamsa philosophy and Sanskrit poetics.

Philosophical poetry has had a long and distinguished history in different cultural traditions. These traditions have always interacted to some extent, but today the barriers between them have largely broken down. Savitri, an epic in English by the early twentieth-century Indian philosopher and poet Sri Aurobindo, is a notable outcome of the confluence of Eastern and Western civilisations. Based on a creative reworking of a legend from the Sanskrit epic, the Mahābhārata, it incorporates in its neo-Vedantic vision aspects (...) of the worldviews represented by the great philosophical poems of ancient, medieval and modern Europe. As vast in scope as any of these works, Savitri took shape over much of the poet’s life in a way comparable to Goethe’s Faust. A study of the stages of its composition reveals much about the author’s artistic, intellectual and spiritual development and gives insight into the poem’s autobiographical dimension. (shrink)

Formalized by the tenth century, the expansive Bhāgavata Purāṇa resists easy categorization. While the narrative holds together as a coherent literary work, its language and expression compete with the best of Sanskrit poetry. The text's theological message focuses on devotion to Krishna or Vishnu, and its philosophical outlook is grounded in the classical traditions of Vedānta and Sāmkhya. This translation and detailed analysis of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa includes endnotes that explain unfamiliar concepts and essays that elucidate the rich (...) debates found in the Sanskrit commentaries. The book makes a central Hindu masterpiece more accessible to English-speaking audiences and more meaningful to scholars of Indian literature, philosophy, and religion. (shrink)

Research papers on Vaiśeṣika philosophy, Sanskrit grammar and Poetics.

Sanskrit poeticians make the visionary faculty of pratibhā a necessary part of the professional poet’s make-up. The term has a pre-history in Bhartṛhari’s linguistic metaphysics, where it is used to explain the unitary perception of meaning. This essay examines the relation between pratibhā and possible theories of the imagination, with a focus on three unusual theoreticians—Rājaśekhara, Kuntaka, and Jagannātha Paṇḍita. Rājaśekhara offers an analysis of pratibhā that is heavily interactive, requiring the discerning presence of the bhāvaka listener or critic; (...) he also positions pratibhā in relation to Bildung (vyutpatti) and practice. For Kuntaka, pratibhā, never an ex nihilo creation by a poet, serves as the basis for the peculiar forms of intensified insight and experience that constitute poetry; these may also involve the creative scrambling and re-articulation of the object in terms of its systemic composition. At times, Kuntaka’s pratibhā comes close to a strong notion of imaginative process. But the full-fledged thematization of the imagination, and of pratibhā as its support and mechanism, is best seen in the seventeenth-century debates preserved for us by Jagannātha. A link is suggested between the discourse of poetic imagination in Jagannātha and similar themes that turn up in Indo-Persian poets such as Bedil. (shrink)

This paper will examine the sanskrit short-poem Āta ṅkavādaśataka written in 1988 by the famous indian pandit Vagish Shastri. Although composed in a language that is 2500 year old, the Century deals with one of the most dramatic events in contemporary indian history: sikh nationalist terrorism. The poet provides both a socio-political interpretation as well as a mythological-theological one, managing to combine a traditional approach with a pronounced ideological awareness. We will both supply information on the social and historical (...) background of the phenomenon, and discuss the poetic qualities of the work. Special attention will be given to linguistic, metrical and rhetorical features, which link this contemporary composition to classical kāvya poetry. (shrink)

Moving beyond poetry’s affective and semantic powers, south Indian rubrics of poetic analysis often examined poetry’s metaphysical dimensions. The poeticians of the Telugu country developed an especially rich body of work in this field, elaborating an analysis of auspiciousness in poetry and classifying minor genres of praise poetry called cāṭuprabandha wherein auspiciousness was particularly important. This article focuses on one witness to that tradition, the Lakṣaṇadīpikā of Gaurana. Previous scholars have cited the Lakṣaṇadīpikā as exemplifying this (...) particular strand of thinking in poetics in Andhra and contiguous regions. This paper concentrates on the metaphysical evaluation of poetry offered in the Lakṣaṇadīpikā as a way of detailing its sources and its place in the history of Sanskrit poetics more generally. Gaurana’s work is shown here to constitute an attempt at revising and reinforcing this analytical method by linking it to wider Sanskritic traditions of scholarship and ritual, specifically tantra and astrology. Ultimately, the paper argues that Gaurana’s project was meant to support a larger social argument for brahmanical prerogatives in the domain of poetic work. (shrink)

The heart of this book is a dramatic love poem, the Rasa Lila, which is the ultimate focal point of one of the most treasured Sanskrit texts of India, the Bhagavata Purana. Judged a literary masterpiece by Indian and Western scholars alike, this work of poetic genius and soaring religious vision is one of the world's greatest sacred love stories and, as Graham Schweig clearly demonstrates, should be regarded as India's Song of Songs. The story presents the supreme deity (...) as the youthful and amorous cowherd, Krishna, who joins his beloved maidens in an enchanting and celebratory "dance of divine love." Schweig introduces this work of exquisite poetry and profound theology to the Western world in the form of a luminous translation and erudite scholarly treatment. His book explores the historical context and literary genre of the work and elucidates the aesthetic and emotional richness of the composition, highlighting poignant details of this drama of divine love. Schweig illuminates the religious dimensions and ethical nuances of the drama, drawing widely from the commentaries and esoteric vision of masters of the Caitanya school of Vaishnavism, a prominent devotional Hindu tradition. Themes such as transcendence of death through love, the yoga of devotion, the contrast between worldly love and passionate love for God, and the dialectical tension between ethical boundaries and boundless love are presented. The final event of the Rasa dance, the author concludes, presents a dynamic symbol of supreme love that provides the basis for a theological vision of genuine religious pluralism. (shrink)

The poem elucidates the universal Self, indestructible, immortal and free from the duality of bondage and attachment, knowledge and ignorance. Readers of philosophy and poetry will appreciate the deep, meditative exploration in this 9th-century Advaita Vedanta text. The comprehensive Sanskrit-English word-for-word translation is an invaluable resource for scholars and students of Sanskrit literature.

The authors of the numerous medieval and early modern Sanskrit-medium commentaries on the various recensions and sub-recensions of the Vālmīkirāmāyaṇa frequently found themselves in a somewhat awkward hermeneutical position. The epic itself, like many Indic texts, is highly revered both as a religious text, one of the earliest and most influential Vaiṣṇava texts, and as a literary work that is not only a great poem but indeed the very first poem and the fons et origo of all subsequent (...) class='Hi'>poetry. Moreover, like Vyāsa, the author of the Rāmāyaṇa’s sister epic, the Mahābhārata, Vālmīki was regarded not merely as an inspired poet and sage, but as a ṛṣi, that is to say an inerrant seer whose speech, in his case inspired directly by the creator divinity Brahmā and the god’s gift of a divine vision, must therefore be accepted as absolutely true and authoritative. The problem facing the work’s commentators is that Vālmīki’s text portrays its hero, Rāma, as not only a god in the form of a man, but as one who, ignorant of his own divinity, suffers all of the mental, emotional, and physical pain to which ordinary mortals are prey. In this Rāma differs sharply from the subsequent Vaiṣṇava avatāra and central figure of the Mahābhārata, Kṛṣṇa, who, fully aware of his godhood, rarely suffers in any way mentally or physically. But the Rāmāyaṇa’s commentators are living and writing in a world in which the development of the medieval bhakti movements has led poets and theologians to conceive of and write about Rāma as an omnipotent and omniscient figure very much like Kṛṣṇa. The present essay discusses the lexical, grammatical, and hermaneutical strategies the commentors adopted to negotiate the tension between Vālmīki’s apparent depiction of the suffering of his hero and a proposed deeper meaning in which the avatāra conforms more fully to what became the medieval and modern theology of god on earth. (shrink)

A thematically organized, annotated collection of translations from the Sanskrit, Tamil, and Maharastri Prakrit poetry of medieval South Indian Srivaisnava philosopher and saint-poet Venkatesa. Each translated poem forms a chapter in itself, along with an Afterword and detailed notes, with commentary.

Vedāntadeśika is one of many Sanskrit intellectuals who wrote prolifically in both poetic and philosophical genres. This essay considers how his poetry is related to his philosophical concerns. Scholars have understood the relationship between his poetry and philosophy in a number of ways, some arguing that his poetry permitted a freer exploration of his philosophical ideas, others wishing to discuss his poems independently of his philosophy. My paper will propose a distinct way of understanding this relationship (...) by focusing specifically on a strain of Vedāntadeśika’s poetry inspired by Kālidāsa. Examining selections from his poetry alongside his theological writing on the nature of devotional attention, I will argue that the poetic practice Vedāntadeśika learns by reading Kālidāsa activates the same mental faculty involved in bhakti-yoga, or the devotional contemplation of god. This strain of Vedāntadeśika’s poetry thus amounts to a performance of the devotional practice he describes in his philosophical writings. (shrink)

"Featuring a carefully selected collection of source documents, this tome includes traditional teaching tools from the Zen Buddhist traditions of China, Korea, and Japan, including texts created by women. The selections provide both a good feel for the varieties of Zen and an experience of its common core.... The texts are experiential teachings and include storytelling, poetry, autobiographies, catechisms, calligraphy, paintings, and koans. Contextual commentary prefaces each text. Wade-Giles transliteration is used, although Pinyin, Korean, Japanese, and Sanskrit terms (...) are linked in appendixes. An insightful introduction by Arai contributes a religious studies perspective. The bibliography references full translations of the selections. A thought-provoking discussion about the problems of translation is included.... Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels." --_Choice_. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 22 (2002) 63-76 [Access article in PDF] Formal Practice: Buddhist or Christian Robert Aitken Diamond Sangha In this paper, I write from a Mahayana perspective and take up seven Buddhist practices and the views that bring them into being, together with Christian practices that may be analogous, in turn with their inspiration. The Buddhist practices sometimes tend to blend and take on another's attributes and functions. I (...) name them according to their usage in Western Buddhism.The Nembutsu (Ch. Nien-fo, "Recalling Buddha") is the pronouncement of veneration to Amida Butsu (Ch. A-mi-to-fo, Skt. Amitabha Buddha), an appeal to his salvific power, and sometimes an endeavor to unify with him.The ekomon (Ch. hui-hsiang-men, Skt. parinamana) is a verse that transfers merit back to Buddhas, bodhisattvas, and past teachers for their further empowerment to bring beings to the way of the Buddha.Zazen (Ch. tsao-ch'an, Skt. dhyana) is focused meditation intended to enable the student to personalize the realization and way of the Buddha.The vow or expression of aspiration (J. gan, Ch. yuan,Skt. pranidhana) pronounces a determination to make realization possible for the self and others.Sange, or zange (Ch. chang-hui, Skt. kshamayati), is the confession of personal responsibility for bad karma in the past and repentance for it.Mudra(J. in, Ch. yin) and dharani(J. darani or ju, Ch. chou) are ritualized presentations of realizations and their dharma. They can be gestures, hand positions, or postures; dharaniare esoteric formulas or texts.Sutras and sutra services, from the Sanskrit (J. kyo,Ch. ching), traditional Buddhist chants and texts. The Nembutsu The Nembutsu invokes Amida, the Buddha of Infinite Light and Life and the Lord of the Pure Land, a powerful savior by dint of vows he took while still in his Bodhisattva Dharmakara incarnation. He is venerated across Asia—in Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and the Chinese diaspora. The Nembutsu formula, "Namu amida butsu," or the equivalent in the other languages ("Veneration to 'Amida Butsu'"), is repeated devotionally, bringing promise of a joyous afterlife, and for some, intimacy with Amida, [End Page 63] the spiritual oyasama, or parent, an effect not unlike that of Christian mysticism. 1 The Myokonin (Pure and Happy People), the Pure Land movement of Japanese who take it upon themselves to practice the Nembutsu moment-to-moment, set forth their experience in artless poetry that is poignant and metaphysically clear: I thought it was all due to my self-power, That [the Nembutsu] was uttered; But it was not so, it all came from the power of Oya. What I was imagining to be the other power Was no other than the self-power itself. Wishing to shun the evil path And ever hoping for the Pure land— The very thought was no other than the self-power. I have been designing all the time, Saying, "Is this the way, or that?" But there was no designing after all, All was given fully, and freely How grateful I am! Namu amida butsu! 2Interior repetition of the Nembutsu hundreds of times a day brings the fulfilling gift of spiritual intimacy with the oya, and the Christian analoy is clearly the Jesus Prayer, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner," or its shortened version, "Lord have mercy" ("Kyrie eleison"). 3 Yet there is more than a shade of difference between devotion to a savior empowered by his original vows for his all-embracing compassion, and devotion to the one who inherits the power of an omnipotent God. In the words of Saint Teresa of Avila, "God is almighty. His power has equaled His will; and so He can do everything that pleases him. The less I understand this, the more I believe it and the greater the devotion it arouses in me. Blessed is He forever! Amen." 4 The EkomonIn contrast to the Nembutsu, the ekomon is not an appeal for redemption but a return of the "auspicious power" (J. fukutoku, Ch. fu-tu, Skt. punya) of the sutra or sutras just recited to... (shrink)

A tension between cosmopolitanism and nationalism characterizes the career of the poetckert. The German orientalist and mentor to Paul de Lagarde translated remarkable quantities of Sanskrit, Farsi, and Arabic verse, while earning popular acclaim for his Biedermeier celebrations of the German Heimat. The contradiction in these scholarly pursuits can be reconciled by examining the intersection of the local, national, and global in Rckert expected to transform German into a universal language of spiritual reconciliation, thereby transcending Babel and distinguishing the (...) German nation as a chosen people. This article investigates the process of cultural translation through which Rworld poetry” intelligible to a German audience, arguing that cosmopolitanism underlay a German claim to cultural dominance in post-Napoleonic Europe. (shrink)