28 января 2017г.
The study of the classical Sanskrit poetry and poetic criticism in the West abounded in notable works, translations, very productive ideas and significant discoveries. Unfortunately one can not tell this about the poetry in medieval new Indian languages (Braj, Avadhi, Maithili) and especially the medieval poetics of the “Rīti” period in Braj (second half of the XVI - first half of the XIX centuries). This period in Indian literature hasn’t had yet quite an adequate estimation even among the Indian scholars. Most of them considered the “Rīti” poetic criticism to be merely a copy, a blind imitation of the Sanskrit classical treatises and their poetic patterns.
In this paper we intend to reveal one of the aspects of the development and renovation of the old poetic patterns inherited by the poets of the “Riti” period from the Sanskrit classic poetics. This aspect is concerned with the use of poetic figures (or poetic “embellishments”, sskr. alaṅkāra) in quite a new way, that is for descriptions of the real historical events. This question became crucial for the first Hindi poets at the beginning of XX century, who tended to reject the heritage of the medieval literature of the Northern India declaring it discordant and inapplicable to their goal of realistic imaging of the actual life.
According to the general periodization of the literary history of the Northern India (see for example: [4, p. 47-51]) the “Rīti” period in the end of the Middle Ages preceded the modern stage of the Indian literature when the new forms of poetry and prose began to develop. In that time (XVI-XVIII centuries) the Northern and Central India was under the rule of the Muslim Mughal Emperors. But the most part of this vast territory was divided into the small local principalities, being in allegiance to the Mughal Emperor. Some of these principalities were ruled by Muslim nawabs (governors) and shahs, but there were also local Hindu rajas, who governed small provinces and who began to form their own small courts (darbars). To attract the local nobility the rajas invited to the court artists, dancers, musicians, singers and also poets to entertain people at darbar. So that was the first opportunity for the indigenous poets to access the princely courts and even to become a court poet.
Before this time for about four centuries of the Muslim rule in India the Persian (or the Persian mixed with Turkish) remained the official language of the Muslim nobility. According to the rules of good manners at the court only the Persian literary tradition was maintained. Partly because the Persian poetry had been considered to be the superior poetic tradition, and partly because the aristocracy of that age neither knew Indian native languages nor it had any interest to the native poetic tradition. The only exception was the Mughal Emperor Akbar (ruled from 1556 till 1605) who began to invite indigenous artists and philosophers to his court. Thus the Akbar’s court became acquainted with the tradition of poetry in Braj, Avadhi and other local languages. It must be noted that the considerable part of the nobility of the Empire by this time lived in India for several generations and little by little assimilated into Indian national culture. Besides many native rajas were taken to the Akbar’s court as noblemen forming a part of the army.
It was from this time that the indigenous poetry had grown into fashion in darbars and the “Rīti” period had begun. The preceding literary tradition in the new Indian languages was mostly the tradition of bhakti religious poetry having didactic and preachy goals and addressed to populace. Generally it borrowed much not only from classical Sanskrit poetry but from the folk tradition as well.
Nevertheless the court poets brought up in the bhakti poetry tradition had some other tasks before them now. The first task was to create verses in praise of their patron and then to divert the court with light amatory poetry. Besides any poet invited to the darbar first of all should not only to demonstrate his own abilities but to compete in his skills with those poets who wrote verses in the much favored Persian tradition [8, p. 72-73].
All this induced the court poets to resort to the help of the classic Sanskrit poetical patterns, systematized and developed in the old Indian tradition of poetic criticism. The poet acquainted with one or more Sanskrit treatises on poetics had at his disposal a large number of very elaborate technical means of versification to compete with other poets and traditions. Among these means there were the poetic embellishments (for more details and bibliography see [1], [2], [3]). Here we shall confine ourselves to an example of an author of the “Rīti” period focusing on the concept of the embellishments, to make it clear what new the “Rīti” poetics could contribute to the tradition.
The specific characteristic of poetry (or the poetic speech), as compared to the ordinary, scientific, didactic and other kinds of speech, was determined in the earliest classical tradition of poetic criticism as "vakrokti" (literally, "croked speech") or the principle of indirect diction. This means that in the ordinary speech the speaker's intention mostly is expressed directly, by the appropriate words, means etc. But in poetry the sense or the intention of a poet can not be directly verbalized because of its unspeakable nature. As the poet's intention is to convey the beauty and the sublime, so in poetry there are some specific means or devices called embellishments (or figures of speech), enabling to convey such a sense indirectly. In general the function of the embellishments is to express one thing in the form or under the semblance of another thing. This "another thing" must be well known (“prasiddha”, famous) in poetical utterance in the standard contexts [11, p. 6-7]. So the poetic embellishments can be regarded as semantic devices or schemes of diction, enabling to convey the unspeakable intention of the poet. There were some relatively simple figures of speech like comparison (upamā), kinds of metaphor (utprekṣā, rūpaka etc.), hyperbole (atiśayokti), allegoric expressions (samāsokti etc.), pun, play of words (śleṣa), and also a number of complicated and exquisite ones.
It is no wonder that the court poets of the “Rīti” period, with their pragmatic approach, preferred to illustrate in their verses the most sophisticated forms of figures. Of course among these poets were those who translated from Sanskrit or imitated in Braj some famous classical treatises on poetics. This is why the whole literary period was given the name “Rīti” (“style”, “stylization”) in the sense of mannered of even artificial poetry stylized as standard treatise on poetics [6, p. 20-21]; [10, p. 295]. But there were also gifted and very skillful authors, like Keśavdās (1555-1617), who in 1601 composed his famous treatise Kavi-priyā ("The Delight of Poets"), like brothers Tripāṭhī — Matirām (second half of the XVII century) and Bhūṣaṇ (1613-1715) or like Padmākar (1753- 1833), one of the last poets of this age, and others. It should be said that the elaboration of the theory of the embellishments was beyond the tasks of these poets, so from the theoretical point of view they gave little to the development of this normative discipline. But they contributed much as regards the application of the embellishment theory in practice.
First of all they composed verses in Braj and revealed and successfully applied the rich potential inherent to this language — the language quite different from Sanskrit both lexically and grammatically. Then, many of the “Rīti” poets borrowed much from the Indian folk tradition of poetry. On this base they even found some new devices of figuration.
And thirdly, there were some poets who deliberately looked for new applications of the old forms of indirect diction. Among them the poet Bhūśan can be mentioned, who compiled a treatise on poetics "Śivbhūṣaṇ" (“The Emellishement of Śivājī”) written in heroic mood. Bhūṣaṇ was a “kavirājā”, the prince among poets at the court of the outstanding Maratha king Śivājī (1627-1680), who struggled against the Mughal rule for an independent Maratha Hindu state. Thus Bhūśaṇ was an eye-witness of many of the heroic events of this struggle, of Śivājī triumph and misfortune, and he composed verses in praise of his patron's heroism.
But the normative Sanskrit poetics never allowed any realistic description of heroic events or, for instance, of an actual military campaign as it was. Even if a poet praised a real person or event, he gave to his heroes or their actions an epic or legendary character by using traditional means of description. All these means have been elaborated and standardized in poetry as well as in poetics. Bhūṣaṇ followed this rule too, but besides he tried to violate this tradition and to tell about real battles and campaigns as they were in reality. The events of Śivājī’s struggle were well known to the audience of Bhūṣaṇ — the king’s court. This enabled the poet to base his description on the contexts that have become already famous among people like epic stories. Describing the same event many times in several manners Bhūṣaṇ could give it the form of different poetic figures. Or rather he arranged the description of an event following the scheme of one embellishment or another.
An intelligible insight of this “technics” elaborated by the poet can give the example of the illustration of the figure “vicitra” (“marvelous”) from his treatise “Śivbhūṣaṇ” [7, p. 183, verses 192, 193]. This figure of the Sanskrit poetics is based on the apparent (pretended) paralogism in an utterance due to the omission of a logical unit in the succession of causes and effects. According to its definition in one of the Sanskrit treatises — “When something is undertaken, but a contrary result is desirable…” [5, p. 220], — in this embellishment there is a discrepancy between the desired result (the cause) and the action, undertaken for its attainment, which is represented in the form of the effect. In the same Sanskrit treatise an illustration of this figure is as follows: “the pious bows down in order to obtain exaltation from on high” [Ibid.] (translation by E.Gerow [1, p.336]). Here the omission of the intermediate unit — which serves the effect for the mentioned cause (desire) and the cause for the mentioned effect (action) — is obvious: the pious in order to obtain exaltation from on high — [prays to the gods] — and bows down for the sake of it.
In “Śivbhūṣaṇ” the illustration of the figure vicitra is fully based on the description of the historical events.
After an enumeration of the battle casualties of the enemies of Śivājī the poet says: O Bhonsle King, the Son of Śāhī, the Possessor of forts, for less than two days
O the Lion, Śivarāj! You preferred to gain a hundredfold exaltation —you took thirty five forts!
and gave the forts back to the Lord of Delhi! [7, v.193] In this verse no parable is used, the real events are stated as they were, but the required structure of the utterance is observed. Another event not mentioned by Bhūṣaṇ, but very well known to his audience plays here the role of the “omitted logical unit”.
In 1665 the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb (ruled from 1658 till 1707) sent out against Śivājī his military leader Jay Sinh, who managed to persuade Śivājī into negotiations due to the siege of one of his forts. Jay Sinh on behalf of the Emperor promised to Śivājī honorable recognition of him as a king at the court of Aurangzeb in Delhi and the participation in the military campaign of the Emperor in Deccan. Śivājī agreed to this offer and passed to the Mughal authorities the control over 27 (in some sources — over 32) of his forts [9, p. 100-105, 147].
The poet most likely wrote this verse as a topical one, because one year later the flattering promises of the Mughal court proved to be only a political trick. Nevertheless the manner in which Bhūṣaṇ adapts the form of a classical poetic embellishment to his creative tasks is very interesting and remarkable: the poet considers the context of the actual events of his time to be far-famed, and this context becomes the base of the function of a poetic figure, the “suggested sense” hidden in it. From this point of view the verses of Bhūṣaṇ are very important for the researcher, because they clearly demonstrate the scope of the poetic tradition of the Northern India, in particular of the classical canon — the potential of its further development and renovation of its artistic resources while adapting them to the new subjects.
Another good example in this treatise is the figure “yukti” (“junction”, “trick”) which is obviously appropriate to the lyric poetry. The common definition of this embellishment is as follows: covering of a real thing (the feelings of a character) by means of some action [5, p. 184]. This subject was very popular in the Indian canonical lyrics and have been elaborated in several contexts — romantic scenes, when an enamored heroine tries to hide the true cause of her tears, confusion, evidence of emotion etc., accidentally manifested.
The illustration of this figure in “Śivbhūṣaṇ” is entirely based on the heroic events of 1663 when the troops of Śivājī came into encounter with the retinue of Shaista Khan appointed by the Emperor Aurangzeb as governor (nawab) of the Deccan. Shaista Khan captured the Maratha city of Pune, where the ancestral estate of Śivājī was situated. Śivājī and his men entered Pune in the night, slaughtered the guards and raided into the palace, where the governor reveled in a feast. Caught unawares by this sudden attack Shaista Khan had time only to find cover in a crowd of women, his servants and concubines, and saved his life. Finally the Marathas safely escaped the governor’s palace, taking advantage of the disturbance and bustle [9, p. 96-97, 144-145].
This event became far-famous among the Marathas and their supporters and had also response at the court of the Mughal Emperor, who promptly transferred Shaista Khan to another province [Ibid., p. 159]. Bhūṣaṇ gave detailed description of this event in many of his verses, in particular, in his illustration of the figure “yukti” [7, p. 201, verse 298]:
Once in the night in Pune in the heavenly palace nawab was taking delight in a feast. The warriors of Śivājī not afraid of the thousands of cavalry men slaughtered the guards
Bhūṣaṇ tells: there having defeated the guards the Marathas fell upon the grandees.
Than Shaista Khan to save his life sat down among the artists and raised a lamentable song. and attacked the house. (or: began to cry quarter).
In this embellishment the poet applied a subsidiary technique — a pun based on polysemy of one word (“to sing a sorrow song” and “to howl sorrowfully”, “to cry quarter”). This technique enables the author not only to achieve the main effect of the poetic figure (covering of the real intention by means of another action), but to introduce in the verse a derisive nuance. Bhūṣaṇ represents the inglorious escape of the governor in the crowd of women (perhaps singers and dancers) in satiric form. Thus the actual fact forms the base of the embellishment and the poet assigns to this fact the desired interpretation.
It should be said that the Hindi poets of the end of the 19-th and the early 20-th centuries faced the same problem — the question of how to reflect the actual events of life in the poetry. And they had to reject all the previous poetic tradition, considering it not to be able to serve the tasks of the realistic poetry. Thus they had to follow for the most part the Western poetical patterns. Nor they neither the Indian scholars adverted to their own national literary heritage in the search of new means of expression, corresponding to the Modern poetry needs. And that was a pity, because the Hindi poetry could have a good potential of its own for the further flourishing.
References
1. Gerow E. A glossary of Indian figures of speech. The Hague-Paris, 1971.
2. Gerow E. Indian Poetics. // A History of Indian Literature. / Ed. by Jan Gonda. Vol. V. Fasc. 3. Wiesbaden, 1977.
3. Grintser P.A. Osnovniye kategorii klassitcheskoy indiyskoy poetiki. M., 1987. [Grintser P.A. The Principal Categories of the Indian Classical Poetics. M., 1987].
4. Kapūr Ś. Hindī sāhitya kā itihās. Naī Dillī, 1999. [Kapur Sh. The History of Hindi Literature. New Delhi,1999.]
5. Kubalayānanda, a Treatise on Rhetoric by Appyai Dikshita. With the commentary of Veidyanātha.Calcutta, 1874.
6. Miśra, Bhagīrath. Hindī rīti-sāhitya. Dillī-Ilāhābād-Bambaī, 1956. [Mishra, Bhagirath. The Hindi Literature of Riti. Delhi-Allahabad-Bombay, 1956].
7. Miśra, Viśvanāth Prasad. Bhūśaṇ (Anusandhānātmak samīkṣā, Śivbhūśaṇ tathā prakīrṇ racnā). Banāras, 2010 (1953). [Mishra, Vishvanath Prasad. Bhushan (Research survey, Shivbhushan and separate verses). Benares, 2010 (1953).
8. Otcherky istorii literatur Indii (X-XX vv.) / Otv. red. S.O.Tcvetkova. SPb., 2014. [Studies in the History of Indian Literatures (X-XX centuries). / Executive editor S.O.Tcvetkova. SPb., 2014]
9. Patwardhan R.P., Rawlinson H.G. To the Death of Shivaji. // Source book of Maratha history. / Gen. ed. H.G.Rawlinson. Vol. I. Bombay: 1929.
10. Śarmā, Śivakumār. Hindī sāyitya: yug aur pravṛttiyā̃. Dillī, 1992. [Sharma, Shivakumar. The Hindi Literature: the Age and the Tendencies. Delhi, 1992].
11. Tavastsherna S.S., Tcvetkova S.O. Sanskritskaya poetika (Utchebnoye posobiye). SPb., 2008. [Tavastsherna S.S., Tcvetkova S.O. The Sanskrit Poetics (A manual). SPb., 2008].
