7. III

III

Now to a modern mind many doubts may occur as to the necessity of all the conditions mentioned in the definition of the Mahakavya. Why should it have only those twenty six elements and not others like descrptions of villages etc. ? Are greatness and nobility the monopoly of monarchs and princes? Why cannot the poem begin directly with the theme proper? Does a poem cease to be a Mahākāvya simply because it consists of less than eight cantos, and every canto contains vanous metres ? Finally, why should one of the three rasas only be the main and not the others ? Is not the Ramayana in which the principal rasa is karuna, a Mahakavya ? When exammned in the light of these questions, do not the characterstics mentioned by the Ālankārikās appear arbritrary, and dependent on tradition rather than on the intrinsic necessity of aesthetic experience or artistic creation? An answer to these questions in minute detail requires a separate treatise. However, as an examination of the 8 Kalāpūrnodayam as a Mahākāvya is relevant to the main object of this essay, it is necessary to answer them. To begin with, a Mahakâvya is a poem which gives us not merely a single bhava, a single situation, or a particular aspect of life, or a character, or an idea or mood, but also a comprehensive experence that is self-sufficient and selfevident. Then only can it be great both in quantity and quality. As a matter of fact, this is explicitly brought out by Bhamaha when he uses the epithets, 'mahatam mahacca'. This can be achieved only when 'srngära or vira or karuna or santa is the main rasa but not the others. On this issue, Dr K.C. Pändey says :- "These rasas are principal which are due to basic mental states, which lead to any one of the four recognised aims of human life. Thus śrgara has rati as its basic mental state, which leads to the attainment of kama and consequently to dharma and artha; raudra springs from kroodha and leads to artha, vira is based upon utsaha and leads to dharma and artha, santa is based upon tattvajnana and leads to moksa. These four, therefore, are the principal rasas Though occasionally they may be found to occupy a subordinate position, yet it is an undeniable fact that there are dramas in which each of them is separately found to be the principal. As rasa etc. do not independently lead to any purusartha, but do so only as parts of rati etc., they are recognised to be subordinate."17

Studies in Kalapurnodayam

This view is based upon the authonty of Abhinavagupta's commentary on the Natyasastra. 18 Indian Alankarka tradition certainly supports it inasmuch as the aesthetic expenence is con- ducive to the attainment of the fourfold value of human life.19 But the inclusion of raudra instead of karuna in the list of the main rasäs appears to be rather strange. Even admitting that the ex- perience derived from a kävya leads to the attainment of the four- fold aim of human life, why should karuna be removed from the rank of the principal rasas? How does karuna fail where 'śmgara, vira, raudra and 'santa succeed? It is an histoncal fact that all the greatest epics of the world have only karuna as the principal rasa Ifits is contended that they do not help to attain the aims of human life, then the Ramayana also should be debarred from the class of the Mahakavyas. Since such a position is obviously untenable, karuna also has to be considered one of the principal rasas. Now the question arises - why should Visvanatha explicitly 9 ordain that only one of the three, 'srngara uira and santa, be the principal rasa ? Everything must have a cause, however ura- tional it may apper to be. It is not very difficult to find it out. Bhamaha and Dandin specifically mentioned that the story of a Mahakavya should be one of happy and prosperous ending. Tak- ing this tip, Visvanatha might have excluded karuna from the principal rasas. The reason for the omission of raudra may be that particular expenence will not be so comprehensive as those of the other principal rasas The next question why one rasa should be the main and the others its subordinates, can be easily answered. As the poem is to be an organic whole, various rasās are also to be harmonised; otherwise it will either read like a number of episodes or become utterly ineffective. As regards the twenty-six elements to be described, Alankarikas themselves have admitted that they are not invanable conditions which a Mahakavya has to satisfy. Rājasekhara in hıs Kāvyamīmāmsa quotes Aparajiti's opinion which says that the effort the poet puts in to describe rvers, mountains, seas, cities, horses, elephants etc. suggests only the power and fame of the poet but bears no

G. V. Knshna Rao

other frut, and hence it is not very pieasing to the widely cul- tured2c. Another point to be noted in this connection is that a Mahakavya should give as comprehensive an expenence as is possible without jeopardising the unity and the total effect, and that the prose of those times was not yet cut off from the moor- ings of word-music which plays a very important role in poetry. To present a comprehensive expenence of feudal times naturally means the presentation of the ways of cities, diplomacies, trav- els, wars, glories of the princes, etc. And, sınce a Mahakāvya is mainly a narrative poem, and realistic prose of modern times was still in a germinal stage, it had in those times probably no other alternative than to depend upon descrptions of the objects men- tioned by the Alankarikas. That is perphaps why any Mahakavya of feudal ages worth the name invariably dealt, though not with all, at least with a majorty of those items. What appears to be at the back of their minds is that a Mahakavya should convey a wider and more effective experience. If that is there, even a poem 10 which does not deal with any of the items mentioned above, can be a Mahākāvya. The next question which requires attention is the hero. The Alankarkas, as it has been observed, insist upon selecting either a divine person or a progeny of the princely class endowed with the qualities of dhirodatta as the hero of the Mahakavya When literally understood, this rule will appear to be inappropriate. When strictly followed, it imphes that there cannot be great men born in familes of average or below average means. History, es- pecially of modern times, cres itself hoarse against it. The sec- ond point that the hero must be a dhirodatta, cannot be easily ignored or refuted, because, the prncipal rasa is either śrigāra, or uira, or karuna, or santa Even if one should deny this, one cannot gainsay that, whatever may be the actual theme, the sug- gested experience must be of profound significance. When this is lacking, the kavya, though it fulfils all the other conditions or- dained by the Alankarikas, cannot be a Mahakavya Why then did the Alankarikas definitely insist on the hero of a Mahakavya being one of the princely class? The answer seems to rest on their belief in the life of Varnasrama dharma based upon Indian Phi- losophy.

Studies in Kalapurnodayam

On the next question regarding the magnitude of the poem, Visvanatha was the only Alankarika to maintain that it should have more than eight cantos. On what basis he fixed this number, one has no information. Granting that all the five Sandhis have to be incorporated, the Mahakavya may be finished in five or even in three cantos. To exclude such a poem from the class ofMahakavya simply on the basis of the number of cantos in it is perhaps ndiculous. In this connection it may be noted that the lower limit fixed for the Nataka is five Acts Sınce a Mahākāvya is nothing but a Nätaka m narrative form with descriptions strewn here and there, and since these descriptions naturally require more length, did Visvanatha fix the lower limit of the latter as nine? Even then, it cannot be disproved that this lımit is arb1- trary. Speaking on the same point of magnitude, Arstotle in his Poetics wrtes :- "To be beautiful, a living creature, and every whole made up of parts, must not only present a certain order in its arrangement of parts, but also be of a certain definite magnitude. Beauty is a matter of size and order, and therefore impossible either (1) in a very minute creature since our perception becomes indistinct as it approaches instantaneity, or (2) in a creature of vast size - one, say, 1000 miles long - as in that case, instead of the object being seen all at once, the unity and wholeness of it 1s lost to the beholder. Just in the same way, then, as a beautiful whole made up of parts, or a beautiful living creature, must be of some size, a size to be taken in by the eye, so a story or a plot must be of some length, but of a length to be taken in by the memory. As for the limit of its length, so far as that is relative to public performances and spectacles, it does not fall within the theory of poetry."22 That the canto of a Mahakavya must be com- posed in one single metre except at the end, and that there may be one canto in different metres, perhaps refer more to the tradi- tion prevalent with the Sansknt poets than to aesthetic neces- sity. It may be argued here that changing metres so often in one and the same context, mood and situation will not be conducive to the realisation of the peculiar expenence, and as examples, the great epics of the English and the Greeks may be cited23. Even Arstotle's discussions on the appropriate metre for the epic

G V Knshna Rao

may be quoted at length from the Poetics. "As for its (epic) metre, the heroic has been assigned it from expenence; were any one to attempt a narrative poem in some one or in several, of the other metres, the incongruity of the thing would be apparent. The he- roic in fact is the gravest and weightiest of metres - which is what makes it more tolerant than the rest of strange words and meta- phors, that also being a point in which the narratve form of po- etry goes beyond all others. The iambic and trochaic, on the other hand, are the metres of moment, the one representing that of life and action, the other, that of the dance. Still more unnatural would it appear, if one were to write an epic in a medley of me- tres, as Chaeremon did. Hence it is that no one has ever written a long story in any but heroic verse; nature herself, as we have sad, teaches us to select the metre appropriate to such a story."24 In fact, one has to admit the intrinsic value of the metre in suggesting a tone, feeling, emotion, etc; but this does not rule out 12 the efficacy of other media in carrying out the same function. If the latter is denied, there cannot be a Mahakavya in prose, or as a matter of fact, there cannot be even plurality of Fine Arts. This sort of argument is presumably as fallacious as that of the mod- ern critics who advocate complete exclusion of metre of any kind from drama. So the rule mentioned by Visvanatha might be taken as referrng to the tradition followed by the Sansknt poets, but not perhaps as a universal principle to be strictly followed. The last point that the story to be continued in the succeeding canto should be indicated towards the close of the preceding is impor- tant, and needs no further elucidation because a Mahakavya 1s an organic whole, and, as such, the preceding part must natu- rally anticipate the succeeding. Now with these principles of a Mahakavya in view, one has to examine the Kalpurnodayam and see whether it has any unique qualities. Before this question is taken up, it is not alto- gether unimportant for one to know the story first and then settle the problems connected with the theme of the Kalapurnodayam in so far as they have immediate bearing on the subject of this essay.

Studies in Kalapurnodayam