Glories of India (Culture and Civilization)
by Prasanna Kumar Acharya | 1952 | 182,042 words
This book, 鈥淕lories of India on Indian Culture and Civilization鈥�, emphasizes the importance of recognizing distinct cultural traits across different societies. The historical narrative of Indian civilization highlights advancements in agriculture, medicine, science, and arts, tracing back to ancient times. The author argues for the need to understa...
Introduction to Kavyas (poems)
Poems in Sanskrit are composition of high beauty of language and thought in verse or prose. The art consists in expressing in melodious words and metres or styles the thoughts which are the creations of feeling and imagination. Thus in such compositions, long or short, the 'form' is the primary object, 'matter' being secondary interest. For the exhibition of a garment, for instance, a bust of a male or female is necessary but the chief object is to demonstrate the beauty of the dress. In Sanskrit poetry in particular there is an internal or objective beauty also which is known as the sentiment (rasa) produced in the reader. The external or subjective beauty consists in melodious words (pada-lalitya), gravity of sense (artha-gaurava), metre (chhandas), and figure of speech (alankara). These qualities are variously demonstrated in the 1 It is, however, true that following the method of the Epics and Puranas, the ancient historical works excepting the Harshacharita were written in metrical verses mostly in the form of eulogy. Kalhana was, however, critical enough. But the defect lies in their desire to embellish 'form' in subjects concerned with 'matter.' Another defect is the carelessness in exaggerating or suppressing facts as the modern historians more ingeniously do. The number and variety of historical treatises and a number of facts do certainly "attest a degree of sense for history" among the ancient Hindus. There were no historians of the Sanskrit literature although Kalhana and some inscriptions made casual mention of a few Sanskrit poets and their works, before the Western scholars made a historical survey of our vast literature bringing order in the chaos. 2 All other qualities remain in prose composition also excepting metre which is substituted by style (riti). 44
big poems (mahakavya), small poems (khanda-kavya) or lyric (giti-kavy), anthologies (samgraha), maxims (gnomics), didactic poetry; and in prose fables (hitopadesa), romantic and instructive tales (katha), great romance (upanyasa) and mixed compositions (champu), and dramas (rupaka).