North Indian Inscriptions

LITERARY HISTORY

artificial poetry was then in a highly developed condition. This is quite in keeping with the fact that Patañjali in one place speaks of Vāraruchaṁ kāvyam, that is, ‘a Poem composed by Vararuchi’, and reminds us of the Raghuvaṁśa and Kumārasaṁbhava of Kālidāsa, the Kirāt- ārjunīya of Bhāravi, the Śiśupālavadha of Māgha and the Naishadhacharita of Śrīharsha-the traditional kāvyas of the later period. If further evidence is required in support of this conclusion it is furnished by the fragments of verses culled together by the late Kielhorn from the Mahābhāshya which “appear to be quotations from poetical works composed from classical Sanskrit”.¹ Many of these exhibit “the ornate metres of the late Kāvya style” such as the Mālatī, Praharshiṇī, Pramitāksharā and Vasantatilakā. These, again, “agree, in point of contents as well as the mode of expression, not with epic works but with the court kāvyas”; compare, for example, vara-tanu saṁpravadanti kukkuṭāḥ,² “Oh fair-limbed one, the cocks are crowing”, which evidently has an erotic flavor about it. The evidence set forth above is enough to convince an impartial mind that Kāvya or Artificial Poetry prospered in the age of Patañjali.

        Now, one of the chief constituents of Kāvya is Alaṁkāra or Figure of Speech. It is this feature which makes poetry artificial and distinguishes principally an epic composition from a Kāvya par excellence. If we take our stand upon the occurrence of a Figure of Speech in a composition, we have to trace Artificial Poetry to the Vedic period itself. Thus, there is a well-known text beginning dvā suparṇā sayujā sakhāya which occurs not only in the Śvētāśvatara Upanishad (IV. 6) and the Muṇḍaka (III. 1.1) but also in the Ṛigvēda (I. 164. 20). Anybody who has studied the tenth Ullāsa of Mammaṭa’s Kāvyaprakāśa will at once be able to say that the text in question is an instance of Atiśayōkti, representing the first variety of it described in the words nigīry=ādhyavasānaṁ tu prakṛitasya parēṇa yat. Another Upanishadic text is apāṇi-pādō Javanō grahītā which is found in the Śvētāśvatara III. 19. This is a clear instance of the Figure of Speech called Vibhāvanā. Similarly, in the Ṛigvēda we have a philosophical hymn devoted to Jñāna. It comprises a text commencing with uta tvaḥ paśyan na dadarśa Vācham (Ṛigvēda X. 71. 4). There can hardly be any doubt as to this being an apt illustration of the Viśēshōkti alaṁkāra. Or we may take the well-known stanza opening with chatvāri śṛiṅgā trayō asya pādāḥ. It occurs not only in the Mahānārāyaṇa-Upanishad (X. 1), Taittirīya-Āraṇyaka (X. 10. 2) and Gōpatha-Brāhmaṇa (I. 2. 16) but also in the Kāṭhaka-Saṁhitā (XL. 7), Maitrāyaṇī-Saṁhitā (XVII. 91) and, above all, the Ṛigvēda (IV. 58. 3). Two traditional but different interpretations of this stanza have been adduced, one by Yāska in his Nirukta (XIII. 8) and the other by Patañjali about the beginning of his Mahābhāshya. In both these interpretations the Figure of Speech is evidently Atiśayōkti of the first variety, such as that noted above. Or, we may take another philosophical stanza Indraṁ Mitraṁ Varuṇam=Agnim=āhuḥ which is to be found not only in the Atharva (IX. 10. 28) but also in the Ṛigvēda (I. 164. 46). This obviously is an illustration of Ullēkha which, though it is not noticed by Mammaṭa, has been taken cognisance of by Viśvanātha in his Sāhityadarpaṇa (X. 37). It may now be remarked that there are so many varieties of Upamā, simple and complicated, noticed in Sanskrit treatises on Rhetoric, and it may, therefore, be asked whether any instance can be cited from the Ṛigvēda of any fully developed Upamā. We can draw upon the same philosophical hymn upon which we drew for an instance of Viśēshōkti Figure of Speech. The text in question runs as follows: saktum=iva titaünā punantō yatra dhīrā manasā vācham=akrata (Ṛigvēda, X. 71. 2). Evidently this aptly illustrates what is known as Pūrṇa-śrautī vākyagā Upamā, where the upamāna is denoted by saktum, upamēya by vācham, ‘the conveying comparison’ by iva, and ‘the common property’ by punantō. The instances collected here of Alaṁkāras occurring in Vedic literature are just a few out of many that are
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¹ Ind. Ant., Vol. XIV, pp. 326-27.
² This may be compared to Chakkavāka-vahue āmantehi sahaäram / uvaṭṭhiā raäṇī which occurs in the third Act of the Abhijñāna-Śākuntalam.