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Classification of Poetry
941 Raghavan who seems to contradict his own earlier observation as quoted above that it is not certain in case of all twelve types that they had a written text. Now, if some had, why not others ? And his further assertion that perhaps even gosthi also did not have a written text and was perhaps only a representation which was a dumb imitation of Krsna's sport, or had some composition singing the sports of Krsna which was rendered into action. But we humbly suggest that it is perhaps safer to imagine that there existed written texts of all art-forms, without which they could not evolve their individual identity and if Bhoja did not illustrate them, it was part of his style. For, we see illustrations in B.P., NLRK. and S.D. They could not have shot up all of a sudden. There did exist a living tradition of written scripts which unfortunately are lost for us. Dr. Raghavan accepts that the Nartanaka is definitely musical composition rendered through gesture. But hallisaka, rāsaka, and nātya-rāsaka contained minimum abhinaya and maximum 'nrtta' or pure rhythmic dance. Even here, we may add, we do not rule out a living written tradition. As we saw above under dombilika in the A.bh., a discussion concerning the nature of these art-forms as to whether they are only pure dance and music or also drama already caught the attention of art-critics and the general impression is that they do contain some dramatic element in them, good enough to be named as upa-rūpakas. So, even here Dr. Raghavan should accept this thing first and last and then only discuss their nature. Dr. Raghavan (pp. 569, ibid) suggests that in the rāsaka and nāțya-rāsaka, there were a few songs intended for gesture. He suggests, and it looks again not a sound suggestion, that the description of preksanaka is too megre for us to decide whether it was a mere gestureless imitation of some events like the burning of kāma, or had compositions on theme like kāmadahana which were rendered into abhinaya. Once again, when Bhoja mentions 'kāmadahana' as an illustration, there is no ground to doubt the same. The dombī he says, had songs but no word for word abhinaya. This again, is not acceptable for abhinaya has to be imagined as interwoven when a bhāva such as that of love has to be conveyed. Though of course, we agree with Dr. Raghavan's observation that the Śr. Pra. is the first oldest document treating the topic of upa-rūpakas.
We have seen that in the A.bh. (pp. 181, Vol. I G.O.S. '56; or p. 179, G.O.S. Edn. '92) there is mention in the name of Cirantanas, of some art-forms.
Some of them are not mentioned by Bhoja. They are șidgaka, rāmākrīda and prerana. Dr. Raghavan suggests that perhaps sidgaka is śrīgadita. Rāmākrīda is not
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