2023-11-21 15:04:07 by BigBrainMan
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Introduction
Bhāratavarṣa, 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
of language, poetics and dramaturgy and a vast treasure of litera-
ture.
In Sanskrit, 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 kāvya derived from √ku or
kavṛ 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 - smṛti, 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 alaṃkāra-śāstra or the Science of
Literary Criticism. The word alaṃkāra as a technical term is not
found in early Sanskrit literature. Though poetics was already in
Bhāratavarṣa, 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
of language, poetics and dramaturgy and a vast treasure of litera-
ture.
In Sanskrit, 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 kāvya derived from √ku or
kavṛ 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 - smṛti, 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 alaṃkāra-śāstra or the Science of
Literary Criticism. The word alaṃkāra as a technical term is not
found in early Sanskrit literature. Though poetics was already in