An Introduction to the Study of Indian Poetics

An Introduction to the Study of

Indian Poetics

An Introduction to

the Study of Indian Poetics

M.S. Kushwaha

Sanjay Kumar Misra

With a Foreword by

Kapil Kapoor

Cataloging in Publication Data – DK

[Courtesy: D.K. Agencies (P) Ltd. ]

Kushwaha, M.S. (Mahesh Singh), 1938- author.

An introduction to the study of Indian poetics / M.S.

Kushwaha, Sanjay Kumar Misra; with a foreword

by Kapil Kapoor.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 9788124609583 (HB)

ISBN 9788124609590 (PB)

. Sanskrit poetry – History and criticism. 2. Poetics.

I. Misra, Sanjay Kumar, 1972 – author. II. Title.

LCC PK2916.K87 2021 | DDC 891.2109 23

ISBN: 978-81-246-1196-8 (E-Book)

ISBN: 978-81-246-0958-0 (HB)

ISBN: 978-81-246-0959-0 (PB)

First published in India, 2021

© M.S. Kushwaha and Sanjay Kumar Misra

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, except brief quotations, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the copyright holder, indicated above, and the publishers.

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Dedicated to

The indomitable spirit of my late wife,

Kusum Singh

who was a strong pillar of support

for me

in her terrestrial life

– M.S. Kushwaha

Foreword

This book, An Introduction to the Study of Indian Poetics by Professor M.S. Kushwaha-ji and Dr Sanjay Kumar Mishra, fills an important gap in the materials available to students of English literature and language who in their undergraduate or postgraduate or research programmes opt for the study of Indian literary theories as part of their syllabuses.

Indian poetics, like most other Indian intellectual textual traditions, had for long been excluded from India’s universities and colleges for the erroneous impression to the young Indian students that the West has the monopoly of thought in literary theories and practices. In fact, as the Indian academy had over time entered into a recipient–donor relationship with, principally, the Anglo-American academy – the West became the theory and India the data, and most of the research was simply application of some Western theory or proposal to the Indian literatures. Evidently, this led to a loss of confidence in one’s own self and, because of the disjunction with the long continuous cumulative rich native textual traditions, an inability to do creative thinking and contribute anything new to any domain of knowledge. The Indian scholar became a translator and the Indian mind a translated mind.

The reaction took time to come – voices, lonely voices here and there, from the variegated public domains had been arguing for freedom of the mind that did not happen with the exit of the British. In the domain of art and literature, a number of thinkers – the short careful bibliography of this book lists them – expounded the philosophy, concepts, categories and forms of Indian art-thinking. Professors of English who were also scholars of Sanskrit took the lead in inflecting the monistic Western thinking – Ananda K. Coomaraswami’s Dance of Shiva (1957) was a major catalyst for the English studies in India. Professor S.K. De’s History of Sanskrit Poetics (1963) was the first important bridge between the Indian and Western thought. Coomaraswami’s Figures of Speech or Figures of Thought (1981) captured the imagination of Indian teachers and some in Europe as well, for example, Tzvetan Todorov, the Bulgarian scholar and professor in the University of Paris, in his influential Symbolism and Interpretation (1982) [tr. Catherine Porter], explicitly noted that for theories of symbolism one has to go to the Indian poeticians and he even names Abhinavagupta and Mammaṭa. In 1984, Professor R.S. Tiwary, a professor of English, published what proved to be a game-changer in literary studies – A Critical Approach to Classical Indian Poetics. Professor Tiwary was the first to expound the Indian theories in the concerns and the idiom of contemporary literary theory and his powerful exposition of Sanskrit poetics has not been subsequently matched in its insights and understanding. The present writer underwent a transformation on reading this book and he owes his approach to and mode of thinking about Indian poetics to the revered Professor Tiwary.

Gradually, this thought-pressure built up. Some professors of English introduced Indian poetics in the English syllabuses and also pioneered research in this area – some names of should be remembered here – late Professor T.R. Sharma of Meerut University, Professor K.G. Srivastava of University of Allahabad, Professor D.S. Mishra of Sardar Patel University, Anand and late Prof. R.S. Pathak of Sagar University, all of them at home in Sanskrit as well. In the 1980s, these teachers broke new ground in literary studies and started a trend that picked up slowly but surely and today the Departments of English of many universities have courses in Indian poetics, Indian writing in English, including classical Indian texts in translation, and are also promoting comparative theoretical as well as cross-cultural textual research.

In this tradition Professor M.S. Kushwaha published in 1988, Indian Poetics and Western Thought, a collection of essays by professors of English across India, a book that acted like a catalyst and gave a disciplinary shape to Indian poetics. From 1991 or so onwards Professor Kushwaha directed the English part of the Lucknow University Academic Staff College and for more than half a decade he organized the Refresher and Orientation Courses around Indian poetics and Indian thought in a comparative perspective. Young teachers of English from numerous colleges and universities around the country attended these courses, evinced much interest in this innovative stream of English studies and became ambassadors/carriers of Indian poetics. By the mid-1990s the discipline was well established in major universities in some form or the other. Kushwaha-ji had asked me to contribute an article to his 1988 collection which I did and later used to ask me to lecture every year in the Academic Staff College programmes of Indian literary theory and thought. This experience and my teaching Indian poetics in Jawaharlal Nehru University led to the 1998 book Literary Theory: Indian Conceptual Framework and culminated in the 2011 book on Comparative Poetics. When in 2004 late Professor C.D. Narasimhaiah, the doyen of English studies in India organized at Dhvanyaloka, Mysore, a discussion seminar on the 1998 book, the discipline of Indian poetics received its stamp of authority. As it is, at least two Departments of English put Indian Poetics and Literatures at the core of their programmes – The Department in Saurashtra University, Rajkot, under the inspiration and guidance of late Prof. Avadhesh Kumar Singh became Centre for Bhamaha Studies, and the Department in the Gurukula Kangri, Haridwar, under the inspiration and guidance of Prof. Shrawan Kumar Sharma became a Centre for Kuntaka and Vkrokti Studies. These centres with their dissemination of research and textual studies of Kāvyaśāstra have become trendsetters.

Professor Kushwaha, thus, is in a way the founder of this discipline. With his deep knowledge of the Sanskrit language – he had in late 1960s published a voluminous Hindi commentary on Sri Varadaraja’s Laghusiddhāntakaumudī into English and with his close reading of the primary texts of Sanskrit poetics, in 2008 Professor Kushwaha was requested to prepare the entries on Sanskrit poetics for the UAI (Unesco)–Sahitya Akademi-sponsored Encyclopedia of Indian Poetics. Kushwaha-ji contributed forty-four articles on texts, thinkers and concepts of Sanskrit poetics. It was then that some of us suggested that Kushwaha-ji should put together a book that should expound the different theories, categories and concepts of Sanskrit poetics on the basis of the primary texts. He agreed and this book is the product of his lifelong devotion to Sanskrit and literature. Age had caught up with him and therefore Dr Sanjay Kumar Mishra, himself a committed scholar of Indian literature and theories, joined in this effort and made the book possible. But for his help and contribution, this book could not have been completed.

The 1998 book was the first introductory text that came to be used widely – it was a critical evaluation and exposition but it did not, in its conception, seek to locate every idea in a cited text. The students therefore needed a book that would connect their general critical understanding of the subject with the primary texts to facilitate their own further investigation into the ideas. This book fills this gap and I know it will become a prescribed text for the Indian poetics programmes. The students can have no better guide in their journey through these seminal ideas than our respected Professor Kushwaha.

I close this statement by acknowledging the historical contribution of Professor Kushwaha to the discipline of Indian poetics and then summing it up with this book.

June 2020

Kapil Kapur

Chairman, Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla

Formerly Rector and Concurrent Professor of English and Sanskrit,

Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

Preface

Indian poetics has gained by now a wide recognition among professors of English, and is included in the courses of English literature in several universities. However, many students and even teachers, who have no Sanskrit background, find it a hard nut to crack. Most of the English books on Indian poetics are written by Sanskrit scholars. These works, filled with recondite scholarship, quaint phraseology and awesome details, confuse the beginners rather than enlighten them. There is yet no handy book in English which can introduce the beginners to the essentials of Indian poetics in a reader-friendly manner. The present work is intended to fill in this desideratum. Based on the original sources, it brings out the salient features of all major literary theories and concepts as well as other issues related to Indian poetics. These are presented as precisely and as clearly as possible. Necessary details are given in tables and diagrams instead of being incorporated in the main discourse. Sometimes, the resumé of a difficult subject is presented in the form of a diagram. Thus, every effort is made to facilitate a clear understanding of the subject.

Every chapter is self-contained and complete in itself with explanatory notes and a bibliography of relevant works under For Further Reading. This procedure has been adopted to ensure that the reader understands every topic thoroughly, and in its entirety.

As we feel that a student of Indian poetics should be familiar with frequently used Sanskrit literary terms, we have foregrounded them in the text. The scheme of transliteration is given at the outset to ensure proper spelling and pronunciation of these words. They are invariably explained or provided with English equivalents. Nonetheless, A Glossary of Sanskrit Literary Terms is given in Appendices for quick reference. The Appendix contains also A List of Noted Indian Poeticians (including some commentators) and Their Works