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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 October 2021
This essay argues that the rise and circulation of large numbers of Sanskrit literary anthologies as well as story traditions about poets in the second millennium together index important changes in the ‘author-function’ within the Sanskrit literary tradition. While modern ‘empirical authorship’ and external referentiality in Sanskrit has long been deemed ‘elusive'by Western scholarship, the new forms of literary production in the second millennium suggest a distinct new interest in authorship among wider literary communities. This new ‘author-function’ indexed a shift in the perceptions of literary production and the literary tradition itself. Focusing on the famous sixteenth-century work known as the Bhojaprabandha as both an anthology as well as a storybook about poets, this essay further argues that the paradigmatic courts of kings like Vikramāditya and Bhoja (but particularly the latter), placed not in historical time but in an archaic temporality, became the mise en scène for the figure of the poet in the second-millennium literary imagination. They were courts where the finest poets of the tradition appeared and where their virtuosity could be savored and reflected upon by generations of readers.
1 See the key interventions of Pollock, Sheldon, ‘The Death of Sanskrit’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 43, 2 (2001), pp. 392–426CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Jesse Knutson, Into the Twilight of Sanskrit Court Poetry: The Sena Salon of Bengal and Beyond (Berkeley, 2014), who both present nuanced accounts of the transformation of Sanskrit usage that accompanied the rise of vernacular literatures. For a critique of Pollock's position, see Bronner, Yigal and Shulman, David, ‘“A Cloud Turned Goose”: Sanskrit in the Vernacular Millenium,’ Indian Economic and Social History Review 43, 1 (2006), pp. 1–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
2 See the remarks of its translator, Gray, Louis, The Narrative of Bhoja (Bhojaprabandha) (New Haven Conneticut, 1950) p. 2Google Scholar.
3 See the comments of Lienhard, Siegfried, ‘A History of Classical Poetry: Sanskrit, Pali, Prakrit’, Gonda, Jan, (ed.), A History of Indian Literature, vol. 3, Fasc. 1 (Wiesbaden, 1984), pp. 51–52Google Scholar.
4 Lienhard, A History of Classical Poetry, p. 51; Pollock, Sheldon, ‘The Sanskrit Cosmopolis, 300-1300 ce: Transculturation, Vernacularization, and the Question of Ideology’, in Houben, Jan E. M. (ed.), Ideology and Status of Sanskrit: Contributions to the History of the Sanskrit Language (New York, 1996), pp. 197–249Google Scholar.
5 For a summary discussion of these geographical styles, prominent in Bhāmaha, Daṇḍin and Vāmana, see A. K. Warder, Indian Kāvya Literature (New Delhi, 1989, 2nd edition), vol. 1, pp. 93–97, and more comprehensively, Sheldon Pollock, The Language of the Gods in the World of Men (Berkeley, 2006), pp. 204–222.
6 The imagination of regions in these styles was more notional and conceptual than empirical, a kind of spatialism within a cosmopolitan framework. On this point, see Pollock, Language of the Gods, pp. 221–222.
7 Mālavikāgnimitram, (ed.) S. P. Pandit (Bombay, 1869), 1.2. Other authors like Murāri and Rājaśekhara introduce themselves in their prologues through praise verses put into the mouths of actors and/or directors in the preliminary conversations that precede the action of the plays. See Murāri's Anārgharāghava, (eds.), Durgaprasad Shastri and Wasudeve Laxman Pansikar (Bombay, 1937) 1.7+; and Rājaśekhara's Karpūramañjarī, (edited and translated) Sten Konow and Charles Lanman, (Cambridge, Mass., 1901) 1.10.
8 Bāṇa's Harṣacarita, (ed.) P. V. Kane, (Delhi, 1986 repr.) Prologue, vv. 3-20.
9 Aihole inscription see Epigraphia Indica 6 (1900-01), no. 1, p. 7. See Gadyakarṇāmṛta of Sakalavidyācakravartin, (ed.) S. S. Janaki, (Madras, 1981), p. 87.
10 See the now famous essays of Barthes, Roland, ‘The Death of the Author’, in Barthes, Image, Music, Text, translated by Heath, Stephen (London, 1970) 1977 reprint, pp. 142–148Google Scholar; Foucault, Michel, ‘What is an Author?’, in Faubion, James, (ed.) Michel Foucault: Aesthetics, Method and Epistemology, The Essential Works of Michel Foucault, vol. 2 (New York, 1969) reprint 1998, pp. 205–222Google Scholar.
11 Barthes, p. 147.
12 Foucault, p. 211.
13 Beecroft, Alexander, Authorship and Cultural Identity in Early Greece and China: Patterns of Literary Circulation (Cambridge, 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
14 Beecroft, Authorship and Cultural Identity, pp. 1. 18–20.
15 On the gāthā and anthology in Prakrit see Ollett, Andrew, The Language of the Snakes: Sanskrit Prakrit and the Language Order of Premodern India (Berkeley, 2017), pp. 102–110CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the composition and chronology of the Tamil anthologies, see Wilden, Eva, ‘Towards an Internal Chronology of the Old Caṅkam Literature or How to Trace the Laws of a Poetic Universe’, Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens 46 (2002), p. 127Google Scholar and Wilden, Manuscript, Print and Memory: Relics of the Caṅkam in Tamilnadu (Berlin, 2014) p. 10, n20.
16 For his general overviews of this literature, see Ludwik Sternbach, ‘Subhāṣita, Gnomic and Didactic Literature’, Jan Gonda, (ed.) A History of Indian Literature, vol. 4, fasc. 1, (Wiesbaden, 1974).
17 Sternbach, Gnomic and Didactic Literature, p. 1.
18 Rao, Velcheru Narayana and Shulman, David, A Poem at the Right Moment: Remembered Verses from Premodern South India (Berkeley, 1998)Google Scholar.
19 Narayana Rao and Shulman, Poem at the Right Moment, p. 9.
20 On the ethical aspects of subhāṣita anthologies, see Daud Ali ‘The Subhāṣita as an Ethical Artifact’, in Daud Ali and Anand Pandian, (eds.), Ethical Life in South Asia (Bloomington, 2010), pp. 21–42.
21 For further outline of this line of criticism, see Ali, Daud, ‘Review of Velcheru Narayana Rao and David Shulman, A Poem at the Right Moment: Remembered Verses from Premodern South India,’ in Journal of Asian Studies 58, 1 (1999), pp. 246–247CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
22 Sternbach shows that different recensions of the same kathā texts differed not only in their narrative arrangement but also were vastly divergent in their stanzaic portions. Moreover, later versions and recensions contain greater numbers of accreted subhāṣitas, obviously included by generations of compilers, copyists and scribes. See Sternbach, Ludwik, The Kāvya Portions of the Kathā Literature—An Analysis (Delhi, 1971), vol. 1, p. 27Google Scholar, et passim.
23 See the discussion in Ollett, Language of Snakes pp. 103–104.
24 For a general review, see Sternbach, Ludwik, ‘Subhāṣita-Saṃgraha-s: ‘A Forgotten Chapter in the Histories of Sanskrit Literature,’ Indologica Taurinensia 1 (1973), pp. 169–255Google Scholar. More critically, see Andrew Ollett, Language of the Snakes, pp. 102–110, and Jesse Knutson, ‘Embedded Poets: The Birth of the Anthology and the Social Life of Sanskrit Kāvya’, Biblio (March-April 2006), pp. 22–23.
25 Sternbach, Subhāṣita, Gnomic and Didactic Literature, p. 6.
26 Sternbach, Subhāṣita, Gnomic and Didactic Literature, pp. 16–18.
27 Ludwik Sternbach, A Descriptive Catalogue of Poets Quoted in Sanskrit Anthologies and Inscriptions, 2 vols. (Wiesbaden, 1978).
28 In addition to Sternbach's Descriptive Catalogue, see the early cross-listing of authors in several anthologies, by Sharma, Har Dutt, ‘An Analysis of the Authorities Cited in the Śārṅgadharapaddhati,’ Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute 18, 1 (1936–37), pp. 77–84Google Scholar. For studies of single authors cited in the anthologies, see Banerji, S. C., Kālidāsa Apocrypha (Varanasi, 1989), pp. 125–144Google Scholar and L. Sternbach, Unknown Verses Attributed to Kṣemendra (Lucknow, 1979).
29 Sternbach, Subhāṣita, Gnomic and Didactic Literature, pp. 8–9.
30 Neither Daṇḍin's Kāvyādarśa nor Bhāmaha's Kāvyālaṅkāra, both of which provide numerous dṛṣtānta, offer any authorial ascriptions. Scholars have identified a verse of Bhavabhūti in Vāmana's auto commentary, but it also lacks any ascription.
31 For a review of the evidence of early commentaries on belletristic writing, see Goodall and Isaacson, ‘Introduction,’ The Raghupañcikā of Vallabhadeva, being the Earliest Commentary on the Raghuvaṃśa of Kālidāsa (Groningen, 2003), pp. xv-xix.
32 See the remarks of Pollock, Language of the Gods, p. 83.
33 Some have characterised this literary culture as ‘philological’ in nature, but a ‘philology’ that operated by compositional, citational and authorial principles so different from those that came to characterise modern textual criticism and philology of the nineteenth century that any comparison would seem more instructive by contrast than similarity. For a thoughtful attempt at mobilising the term to discuss medieval Indian textual cultures, see Cox, Whitney, Modes of Philology in Medeival South India (Leiden, 2017) especially pp. 1–10; 40–43; 157–169CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
34 Anthologists like Vidyākara, Jalhaṇa and Śārṅgadhara include topics like subhāṣitapraśaṃsā, sāmānyakavikāvyapraśaṃsā, viśeṣakavikāvyapraśaṃsā, and kukavi[nindā].
35 Sūktimuktāvalī 4.104: vīṇākvaṇitena kim madhukarījhaṃkāritenāpi kim, kandarpāyudhaśiñjitena taruṇīhuṃkāritenāpi kim / śīmacchittpasatkaver yadi vaco herambakumbhasthalīmuktāmbhassubhagaṃ sudhāsahacaraṃ karṇodaraṃ gahate //.
36 See, for example, Bāṇa's praise of various poets in the prologue to his Harṣacarita. Also note the remarks of Ingalls, Sanskrit Poetry from Vidyākara's “Treasury”, pp. 312–313.
37 Beecroft has called this approach, the ‘biographical fallacy’. See Beecroft, Authorship and Cultural Identity in Early Greece and China, p. 2.
38 Beecroft, Authorship and Cultural Identity in Early Greece and China, p. 1n.2, pp. 2–4.
39 Patel, Deven, Text to Tradition: The Naiṣadhīya and Literary Community in South Asia (New York, 2014), pp. 155–158CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
40 For Kālidāsa, see note 57 below.
41 Prabhāvakacarita, (ed.) Jina Vijaya Muni, (Ahmedabad, 1940) 12.41-120; 17.1ff.
42 Śrīharṣa is included in the Rajaśekharasūri's Prabandhakośa, while Māgha in the manuscript known as the Āśarājādiprabandha (ms. BR), of uncertain date, collected in the Purātanaprabandhasaṅgraha. Many of the other poets appear in the Bhoja and Bhīma prabandhas.
43 See Granoff, Phyllis, ‘Sarasvatī's Sons: Biographies of Poets in Medieval India,’ Asiatische Studien 49 (1995), pp. 351–376Google Scholar.
44 Granoff, ‘Sarasvatī's Sons,’ p. 353.
45 Granoff, ‘Sarasvatī's Sons,’ p. 354.
46 Patel, Text to Tradition, p. 172. See also P. Sandesera, Literary Circle of Mahāmātya Vāstupāla and its Contribution to Sanskrit Literature (Bombay, 1953), and Narayana Rao, ‘Mulitple Literary Cultures in Telugu: Court, Temple and Public,’ in Sheldon Pollock, (ed.), Literary Cultures in History (Berkeley, 2003), pp. 383–436.
47 See Patel, Text to Tradition, pp. 59–60.
48 See Alam, Muzaffar, ‘The Culture and Politics of Persian in Precolonial Hindustan’, in Pollock, Sheldon, (ed.), Literary Cultures in History: Reconstructions from South Asia (Berkeley, 2003) p. 139 ffGoogle Scholar.
49 Bhoja's life and court has been a perennial theme among nationalist era Indologists, historians, and intellectuals, but has seldom been subjected to scrutiny. An exception to this is the excellent article by Willis, Michael, ‘Dhār, Bhoja and Sarasvatī: from Indology to Political Mythology and Back,’ Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 22, 1 (2012), pp. 129–153Google Scholar. This article forms part of a special issue on ‘Medieval India and the Paramāras’ to which the current author also contributed.
50 The earliest external reference to Bhoja's notoriety as a patron of scholars occurs in the Banghar praśasti, issued in eastern India during the reign of the Pāla king Nayapāla (1027-43), in which a Śaiva ascetic by the name of Rūpaśiva is said to have been honoured by king Bhoja after his success in religious disputations. See Sircar, D. C. ‘Mūrtiśiva's Bangarh Praśasti’ Journal of Ancient Indian History 13 (1980–84): pp. 34–56Google Scholar. The Kashmiri poet Bilhaṇa notes that he was unable to visit the court of Bhoja before the king's death, implying its notoriety. See Vikramāṅkadevacarita, (ed.) G. Bühler (Bombay 1875) 28.96.
51 See the review of this complex problem in Sircar, D. C., Ancient Malwa and the Vikramāditya Tradition (Delhi, 1969), pp. 106–168Google Scholar. The Vikramāditya stories may have been part of the original Bṛhatkathā. See G. V. Tagare, ‘The Vikramāditya Tradition in Prakrit’ in R. K. Mookerji, (ed.), The Vikrama Volume (Ujjain, 1948), pp. 587–596.
52 See H. D. Velankar, ‘Vikramāditya in Jain Tradition,’ in R. K. Mookerji, (ed.), The Vikrama Volume (Ujjain 1948) pp. 637–670.
53 See the remarks of Hemcandra Rayachaudhuri, ‘Vikrmāditya in History and Legend,’ in R. K. Mookerji, (ed.), The Vikrama Volume, pp. 491–492.
54 Navasāhasāṅkacarita, (ed.) V. Islampurkar (Bombay, 1895) 11.102.
55 Navasāhasāṅkacarita 11.93.
56 Bhoja did not enjoy this status during his own life-time. The Paramāra kingdom, after being conquered by the Cāḷukyas of Gujarat in c. 1142-43, and then ruled by their governors, was restored by king Vindhyavarman (r. 1175-94) and his sons. It is only in the geneaologies of these later Paramāra kings that Bhoja begins to take a more pivotal role in the family's history.
57 See Bhoja's Śṛṅgāraprakāśa, (ed.) V. Raghavan (Cambridge, Mass, 1998) p. 423, and Kṣemendra's Aucityavicāracarcā, (ed.) Srinarayana Mishra (Varanasi, 1982), p. 99. It is notable that some of these same verses had been cited by Rājaśekhara a century earlier but without benefit of either authorial ascription or narrative context. See Rājaśekhara's Kāvyamīmāṃsa, (ed.) C. D. Dalal, R. A. Sastry and enlarged by K. S. Ramaswami Sastri (Baroda, 1934) pp. 60–61.
58 See the remarks of K. S. Ramaswami Sastri in his notes to the expanded edition of Rājaśekhara's Kāvyamīmāṃsa, pp. 214–218 and Raghavan, V., Bhoja's Sṛṅgāraprakāśa (Madras, 1978), pp. 765–771Google Scholar. For a critique, see S. C. Banerji, Kālidāsa Apocrypha, pp. 25–29.
59 On the earlier traditions associating Kālidāsa with Vikramāditya, see Sircar, Ancient Malwa and the Vikramāditya Tradition, p. 123.
60 See the essays on the navaratna in Radha K. Mookerji, (ed.) Vikrama Volume.
61 The first reference to the navaratna appears in an astronomy text, the Jyotirvidābhāraṇa that claims to be authored by Kālidāsa himself and dated at the commencement of the Vikrama Era at Vikramāditya's court. Some scholars have dated this text to the thirteenth century, though it is likely to be much later. The manuscript was copied in the seventeenth century. See Sircar, Ancient Malwa and the Vikramāditya Tradition, p. 120 and note; David Pingree, ‘Jyotiḥśāstra: Astral and Mathematical Literature’, A History of Indian Literature, vol. VI, fasc. 4 (Wiesbaden, 1981), p. 103.
62 Is it possible that the idea of the nine jewels of Vikramāditya's court was derived or inspired by the image of Bhoja's court.
63 To these Merutuṅga adds several other, less well-known poets like Kulacandra.The Purātanaprabandhasaṅgraha includes references to the poet Chittapa, mentioned above, as Bhoja's emissary in the Bhoja-Gaṅgeya Prabandha.
64 The text has received remarkably scholarly little attention considering its importance in Sanskrit scholastic culture. Beyond Luwig Oster's Die Rezensionen des Bhojaprabandha (Darmstadt, 1911) and Gray's The Narrative of Bhoja, I have been able to find only one scholarly article, Pazucha, Katarzyna ‘King Bhoja of Dhāra and his Court as Described in Ballāla's Bhojaprabandha,’ in Stasik, Danuta and Trynkowska, Anna, (eds.), The City and Forest in Indian Literature and Art (Warsaw, 2010), pp. 69–77Google Scholar.
65 On influences, see Gray, Narrative of Bhoja, pp. 4–5 and Pazucha, ‘King Bhoja of Dhāra’, p. 71. In addition to published works like fifteenth-century Bhojacaritram of the Jain monk Rājavallabha, there are in addition a substantial number of unpublished and probably lost texts with the title of Bhojaprabandha ascribed to other authors, including Merutuṅga, Vatsarāja, Śubhaśīlagaṇi, and Padmagupta. See Gray, Narrative of Bhoja, p. 8.
66 Bhojaprabandha, (ed.) Shyam Sundarlal Tripathi, (Bombay, 1952) pp. 39–44.
67 A comparative study of the narratives depicting the social roles of poet and patron, in light of the earlier traditions of the Sanskrit viḍūṣaka and Perso-Arabic nadīm would be a fruitful way forward in the study of the relationship of Sanskrit literary culture in an Indo-Persian world.
68 See Gray, Narrative of Bhoja, pp. 98–104.
69 Knutson, ‘Embedded Poets’, p. 22; Pollock, Language of the Gods, p. 184.
70 Bhojaprabandha, p. 223. The verses inquestion are nearly identical in Sanskrit, with Kalidāsa being able to change just a few syllables to alter the meaning completely, once again revealing his poetic virtuosity: adya dhārā nirādhārā nirālambā sarasvatī / panditāḥ khaṇḍitāḥ sarve bhojarāje divam gate // and adya dhārā sadādhārā sadālambā sarasvatī / paṇḍitā maṇḍitāḥ sarve bhojarāje bhuvaṃ gate //.