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Classification of Poetry
781 kings or gods of the purāņas. (b) 'utpădya vastu' - i.e. poetry dealing with imaginative theme as against the historical or paurāņika or mythical theme. This variety has imaginatively created stories as its descriptive stuff. (c) poetry dealing with various kalās or fine arts as its subject-matter and (d) poetry having topics of various disciplines as its subject matter i.e. śāstrā"śraya-kāvya. Bhāmaha does not provide illustrations but we can imagine that the śāstrā”śraya variety could have included such works as are later illustrated by Bhatti-kāvya dealing with vyākaranaśāstra and Dvyāśraya-kāvyas of Ācārya Hemacandra. These are types of poetry dealing with various disciplines and systems of philosophy. We do not know whether technical and scientific treatises were included under this variety for we have vast literature in form of law-book or smrtis, works on metres, pingala-śāstra, and works on vāstu-silpa etc. all composed in metre. Even works on alamkāra, drama, and even grammar were composed in metres and sūtra-style. Whether all this scientific literature was brought under the banner of śāstra-kāvya or not is not known but at least Bhoja in his very very wide concept of literature as word and sense of twelve types, brings everything under the banner of kavya. But we do not know the limits of Bhāmaha. The variety of poetry dealing with various fine arts or kalās is also not illustrated by Bhāmaha, But in general Bhāmaha's observation viz. “kalā-śāstra”śrayam ceti” could be taken as referring to poetic compositions such as Bhatçikāvya, Dvyāśrayakāvya, or Vidagdha-mukha-mandana etc. The poetic. compositions such as Vidagdhamukha-mandana can be taken as such which are viewed as citra-kāvyas which illustrate sabda-citras, prahelikās etc. This variety is termed citra-kavya from a different angle of classification which may be taken as criticism-oriented variety. It may be observed, that literary feats as prahelikā, are mentioned among the 64 kalās enumerated by Vātsyāyana in his kāma-sūtra 1. 111. 16. The (iv) fourth classification also is based on outward form, both prose and verse and includes such five types as sargabandha i.e. mahākāvya, abhineyártha i.e. drama, ākhyāyikā and kathā, the prose-romances, and a-nibaddha i.e. muktaka or stray verses. (pp. 202, 609)
Bhāmaha explains the sargabandha as a mahākāvya. The definition or description of this variety proceeds as -
“sargabandho mahākāvyam mahatām ca mahac ca yat, a-grāmya-sabdam arthyam ca sálamkāram sadāśrayam - (I. 19)
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