Handbook of Classical Sanskrit Rhetoric /13

Introduction
 

 
Bharat
 
hāratavarṣa, that is India, the central peninsula of the southern

Asia, is the ancient country where Sanskrit language and litera-

ture flourished and enjoyed an uninterrupted continuity for more

than three thousand years. Indian culture is highly estimated for its

heritage of the treasures of art, aesthetics, philosophy, law and lit-

erature. Of all classical traditions of language and literature

Sanskrit is the most unparalleled in richness, beauty and grandeur

and the most unique in variety—sacred and profane, poetic and

scientific, technical and canonical. This ancient Indian language,

linguistically known as Old Indo-Aryan, belonging to the Indo-

European family of languages, was the spoken as well as literary

idiom for the entire land up to 500 BC and thenceforth cultivated

for academic and literary purposes for more than two millenniums

as the lingua franca for the elite. Besides the Vedic Sanskrit, classi-

cal or the post-Vedic Sanskrit has preserved for us a long-drawn
tradition of a highly sophisticated system of grammar, philosophy

tradition of a highly sophisticated system of grammar, philosophy
of language, poetics and dramaturgy and a vast treasure of litera-

ture.
 

 
In Sanskrit, kavya and sāhitya are the most common terms to
denote poetry or literature in general. The derivative meaning of
kāvya and sāhitya are the most common terms to
denote poetry or literature in general. The derivative meaning of
kāvya is what is composed by a poet (ie kaāvya derived from √ku or

kaurvṛ meaning to compose, to describe, to write, to paint, to draw

with colour). In Vedic and classical literary tradition, the term kavi

(ie poet) is most significant; thus it is said that poet's creative fac-

ulty is threefold - smrṛti, mati and prajñā ie intelligence, intellect

and wisdom. Ancient Indian critics as well as their counterparts in

ancient Greece and medieval European masters have fancifully

dwelt upon the uncommon or extra-ordinary quality of poetic

genius: his imagination, fancy, muse, divine madness and frenzy.
 

 
In the domain of Sanskrit literary criticism, the oldest and the
most common term for poetics is alam
most common term for poetics is alaṃkāra-śāstra or the Science of

Literary Criticism. The word alamṃkāra as a technical term is not

found in early Sanskrit literature. Though poetics was already in
 

 
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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN