Indological Studies

Author(s): H C Bhayani
Publisher: Parshva Prakashan

Page 16

Literary and Performing Arts
Now prior to Anandavardhana we do not get any treatment of the Paryāyabandha as a literary genre9. Instead we find a very similar type called Samghāta. But this point requires to be discussed separately.
2. The Paryāyabandha and the Sanghāta
Under the Anibaddha class of literary compositions, the authorities on Sanskrit poetics generally mention Muktaka, Saṁdānitaka (=Yugalaka), Višeşaka, Kalāpaka, Kulaka, Koša, Samghāta and/or Paryāyabandha, besides a few others. 10 Daņdin and Bhoja do not mention the Paryāyabandha. Similarly Anandavardhana is silent about the Samghāta. Hemacandra and Viśvanātha have both, the Paryāyabandha and the Samghāta. Some difficulty seems to have been felt about formulating the principles of distinction for a few of these literary types and there was probably some confusion and uncertainty about classifying the middle-length compositions as can be seen from their conflicting treatments. Abhinavagupta defines the Paryāyabandha as follows:
avāntara-kriya-samāptāv api vasanta-varṇanādy-ekavarṇaniyoddeśyena pravsttah paryāyabandhaḥ.
(Locana on Dhvanyāloka, III 7)
This means that the verse composition called Paryāyabandha consisted not of one but several self-contained syntactic-semantic units and it aimed at describing one single subject like the spring season. Compare with this what Bhoja has to say about the Samghāta :
eka-praghattopanibaddhānām subhāṣitānām samūha! Sanghätaḥ. Aneka-praghattakopanibaddhānām tu kośaḥ.
(Raghavan, Bhoja's Srngäraprakāśa, p. 630) This means that the Samghāta is a collection of independent verses on one single theme, while the Kośa is a collection of verses on various themes.