Srngaramanjari Katha

Author(s): Bhojdev, Kalpalata K Munshi
Publisher: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan

Page 50

CHAPTER IV
A CRITICAL APPRECIATION OF THE SMK
The Literary Genre to which the SMK Belongs
A summary of the SMK has already been given. It will enable us to examine the work, determine its nature and evaluate its merits.
The first important question to consider is the literary genre to which the SMK belongs. Examined in the light of Bhoja's own statements, as will be shown later, the SMK can be described broadly as a Kathā written in Sanskrit prose having some of the peculiari. ties of the Akhyāyikā form of composition. In the colophon the work is called a Kathā. Katha is one of the two main divisions of the gadya-kavyas or prose compositions, the other being Akhyiyikā.?
Rhetoricians have made general distinctions between the Katha and the Akhyāyikā thus:
1. The Akhyāyikā gives the description of the poet's family in prose, while the Kathā gives the same in verse.
2. The Akhyāyikā gives the description of topics like the abduction of girls, battles etc., while the Kathā is silent about it.
3. The Akhyāyikā gives facts of actual happenings, the hero narrating about himself, while in the Kathā the subject-matter is imaginary and is narrated by a third person, and not the hero.
4. The chapters of the Akhyāyikī are called Ucchvāsas while the Kathā may be optionally divided into Lambakas and it may have emboxment of stories.
5. In the Akhyāyikā there are verses in the Vaktra and the Aparavaktra metres, while they are absent in the Kathā.
In this connection Dandin takes quite an independent standpoint. He of course notices these two formal divisions, but does not consider them exclusive. The distinctive characteristics, he says, cannot be fixed, and therefore the Kath, and the Akhyāyikā are 1. Dandin, KA, I, 23
अपाद: पदसन्तानो गद्यमाख्यायिकाकथे। 2. Bhāmaha. K-AL. I, 25-29.
प्रकृतानाकुलश्रव्यशब्दार्थपदवृत्तिना। गद्यनयुक्तोदात्तार्था सोच्छ्वासाख्यायिका मता। वत्तमाख्यायते तस्यां नायकेन स्वचेष्टितम्। वक्रं चापरवकं च काले भाव्यर्थशंसि च ।। कवेरभिप्रायकृतैः कथा (थ? )नैः कैश्चिदङिकता। कन्याहरणसङग्रामविप्रलम्भोदयान्विता।। न वापरवाभ्यां युक्ता नोच्छ्वासवत्यपि। संस्कृतं संस्कृता चेष्टा कथापन शभाक् तथा । अन्यैः स्वचरितं तस्यां नायकेन तु नोच्यते। स्वगुणाविष्कृति कुर्यादभिजातः कथं जनः ।। Vide also Agni Purana, 337, 13-17.