Indian Antiquary Vol 42

SR No.: 032534
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 400
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 16 MB

Page 255

SEPTEMBER, 1913.] INDIAN INSCRIPTIONS AND THE KAVYA
THE INDIAN INSCRIPTIONS AND THE ANTIQUITY OF INDIAN ARTIFICIAL POETRY. BY G. BÜHLER.
[Translated by Prof. V. S. Ghate, M. A.; Poona.]
(Continued from p. 234.)
VI. The conclusions and their bearing on the theory of Renaissance of Sanskrit Literature.
243
Now we proceed to sum up the results following from the detailed examination carried on so far. In the second century of our era, there existed a Gadyam kávyam which resembled the classical samples of the same, not only in respect of the fundamental principles, but in many details also. Like the rhetoricians and writers of the fourth and the following centuries, the poets of the second century regarded the essence of the Gadyam Kávyam as consisting in the frequent use of Sesquipedalia verba. Like the later authors, they were fond of constructing very long sentences, a thing which depended, for the most part, on the length and number of compound words. However, they permitted to the reciter and the hearer, resting pauses between long compounds, by inserting shorter words or phrases made up of shorter words, some of which are not unlike those inserted for the same purpose in the classical samples of works written in high prose. Of the Alankaras the poets make use of Alliteration, Upamú, Utpreksha, and Rupaka, and at any rate, an attempt at Slesha. As compared with what we find in the classical works, the figures of speech are, in the first place, used much more rarely, and, in the second place, are executed with much less care and skill. Sometimes these rise not at all or only very little, above the level of what is found in the epics. So also we are reminded of the language of the epics by the several grammatical forms which are used by the author of the prasasti of the Sudarsana lake. On the other hand, the arbitrary intermixture of history with mythology found in the Nâsik prasasti just corresponds to a tendency which, in much later kávyas, comes to view very strongly.76
Side by side with works written in high prose, there existed, as is to be expected, and as is distinctly shown by the Girnâr prasasti, metrical works whose form essentially agreed with the rules laid down, in the oldest available manuals, for the Vaidarbha style. Further, this accordance with rules naturally points to the existence of an Alamkára-sastra or some theory of the poetic art. Both these kinds of composition were equally esteзmel with the Brahmanic sciences, at the courts of Indian princes, and in spite of the lacunæ in the Girnâr inscriptions, it is hardly to be doubted that a personal occupation with poesy is ascribed to the king and great Satrap Rudradâman, the grandson of a non-Aryan governor of an Indo-Scythian ruler. Be this right or not, it is in any case quite evident that the poesy resembling the classical Karya in essential features, enjoyed the royal favour in the second century, as it did in later times, and that it was cultivated at the Indian courts. In no case can it be said that the Brahmanic science and literature was extinguished by the invasions and the rule of the barbarian foreigners (as an Indian would say). If we suppose that the prasasti informs us of pure historical truth, then its contents clearly show that the life of literature in the second century must have attained to such a richness and strength as to win over to itself even the descendants of barbarians. Thus it naturally follows that the Kavya could not have been a new discovery in the 2nd century, but it must have had a long previous history which went back to the times when Aryan princes were the exclusive rulers of India. For this reason, it would not be certainly going too far to assert that the Girnâr prasasti makes probable the existence of the Kavya style, even in the first century.
A very large number of prasastis go to prove that in the fourth, fifth and sixth centuries, the Karya literature was in its full bloom and that the kavyas did not at all differ from those handed down to us. The second, independent Gupta king whose reign, no doubt, covered the greatest
70 According to my view, what the two inscriptions present, must be looked upon as the minimum of the development of Poesy at that time, and not as the maximum. It appears to me very probable that in the second century, there had been many superior and more elaborate compositions; because the author of the Girnår insoription was only an obscure provincial writer, and the author of the Nasik inscription was only a Court poet of the Andhra king. It is, however, very questionable whether the poetic art had reached, in southern India, that degree of development which it had reached at the special centres of intellectual life, in northern India. It would be a strange chance, indeed, if the two inscriptions presented to us a completely accurate picture of the stage of development in which Indian Poesy was at that time.