Book Reviews

Author(s): J W De Jong
Publisher: J W De Jong

Page 13

REVIEWS
127
Robert A. Hueckstedt, The Style of Bāna. An Introduction to Sanskrit Prose Poetry. Lanham-New York-London, University Press of America, 1986. XVI, 212 pp. Bound $26.00; Paper $12.75.
In 1853 Albrecht Weber compared Bana's prose to a jungle ("ein wahrer indischer Wald”). In the introduction to her translation of the Kadambari, C. M. Ridding wrote that in Bāņa's work the sense of proportion, the very foundation of style as we know it, is entirely absent.2 V. Raghavan remarked that Bāna often forgot proportion and sometimes indulged endlessly in utprekşā.It is one of the main purposes of Hueckstedt's work to prove that these opinions are entirely unjustified. According to him Bāņa's style must not be judged by Western standards. He pays particular attention to the different ways in which Bāņa varies the length of the sentence and the number of figures of speech according to the subject, the context and the effect he intends to achieve.
In the first chapter Hueckstedt examines the beginnings of stories and shows that the length of the first sentence is proportional to the length of the story. Moreover, a long story usually begins with an elaborate description but in a short story the storyteller is not allowed to delay the action. In the next chapter Hueckstedt has collected all sentences which begin with a verb and concludes that they are used in two basic contexts: to express swift or continuous action or to depict desired or feared action. The third chapter is devoted mainly to an analysis of one very long sentence in the second chapter of the Harşacarita in which Bāņa describes the royal gateway. Hueckstedt divides this sentence into ten sections and shows that they are arranged according to a logical plan and suggest Harsa's heroism in different ways, the rasa of vira being the one predominant throughout the Harşacarita. He analyses the clauses which constitute the sections and the figures of speech which Bāņa uses.
In the following chapter, Hueckstedt surveys the various types of character descriptions in Bāņa's works. In some instances a character is described limb-bylimb from head to toe or from toe to head, in others descriptions are very brief.
Hueckstedt formulates seven rules which Bāņa seems to have followed (pp. 104–105). The most important one is probably the second: "The length of a sentence describing a character is equivalent to the size of a character in a painting or sculpture. Characters should be described at a length appropriate to their relative importance in the particular scene.” The arrangement of clauses and words is the subject of Chapter Six. Hueckstedt remarks that Bāņa knows how to organise groups of clauses, and the words within clauses, in order to get the maximum amount of suggestion from them. The two following chapters deal with yamaka and anuprāsa and with rhythm respectively. The last two chapters examine the style of Bhūṣaṇabhatta, the author of the Uttarabhāga of the Kādambarī, and
Indo-Iranian Journal 30 (1987).