This book is an attempt at resolving an important tangle, that of the utility of Figurative Poetry in Sanskrit Literature. In the shape of Sabdacitra and Ubhayacitra, connoting verbal juggleries and intellectual riddles this literature amuses vast shades of people, even today. Arthacitra is the real imagist poetry. Even old Sanskrit rhetoricians, Ananda, Abhinava and Panditaraja had a flash of its imagist appeal. The book is divided into seven chapters. Ch. I is introductory. It re-defines poetry and assesses the place of figurative poetry in that context. Ch. II deals with the historicity of different divisions and subdivisions of this branch of poetry as also with some new concepts either co-ordinate with them or contributory to their development. Chs. III & IV discuss the various divisions of Sabdacitra and Ubhayacitra with apt illustrations from copious sources. Chs. V & VI deal with Arthacitra and the development of Citrakavya right from the Vedic age. Ch. VII affirms and establishes the conviction of the concept treated in the previous chapters. The book is documented with Preface, Abbreviations, Appendices, Bibliography and Index.

The work presents a complete history of Sanskrit literature in a condensed and succinct form. It embodies a general study of the Vedic, Epic, Puranic, classical and philosophical literature. It sheds light on the life and thought of Ancient and Medieval India as reflected in the literary productions of those periods. Through the brief epitome given in the Appendix on Technical Literature including Law, Science and Arts it provides information both interesting and instructive. The bibliographical notes and index appended at the end add to the value and render the work most useful to the reader. Even in this age of advanced historiography when even the outstanding researches of eminent antiquarians have become outdated, the utility of this small work has not diminished by the passing away of the three quarters of a century.

The present work is an analytical account of classical Sanskrit literature in its historical perspective. It is divided into six books, containing several chapters, each dealing with a particular branch of Sanskrit learning. The work is full of references; the footnotes refer to a variety of sources, legendary, inscriptional, numismatic, architectural and literary. The writer has exploited all the relevant material of the journals, catalogues, annals, reports and other documents in discussing the vexed problems of the date, place, genealogy of the authors and the literary tendencies of their compositions. His methodology of literary criticism is rationalistic and bears the stamp of the modern scientific age. The elaborate index, the critical introduction, the exhaustive bibliography, the list of abbreviations, the table of transliteration and a supplement are the most useful additions to this interesting and instructive work of literary history.

From tenth-century South India to twenty-first-century cultural events, from the court assemblies to the public space: Attentive Minds takes you on a journey through the fascinating world of avadhāna, a complex and long-living performative art of India whose practitioners showcase highly developed cognitive skills (like attention, ability to multitask, memory) and specialized knowledge. With the help of epigraphic and literary sources and field research, Hermina Cielas reconstructs avadhāna’s history in its socio-cultural context and provides a detailed systematization of the art. Her multifaceted study investigates the cultural phenomenon scarcely known outside of India. It explores avadhāna’s multiple forms, from games and puzzles, through a display of mnemonic or motor skills, to multilingual literary feasts.

Study on Saundarānanda of Aśvaghoṣa, narrative poem on the teachings of Gautama Buddha to his disciple Ananda.

This little work has been done on the aesthetics of wonder; the writers on Sanskrit poetics have had little to say about this most attractive sensation. This work examines, in great depth, the excitants of the sense of wonder and the various purposes for which poets harness it and presents the concepts, for the first time in the history of Sanskrit aesthetics, embellished with ddlectable examples drawn from the whole of Sanskrit literature. The crowning achievement of the author is the startlingly new discovery about the nature and the role played by wonder which will revolutionize the existing concept of the sensation. The most attractive and unusual feature of the book is the high readability achieved through a scintillating style of presentation distinguished by sparkling wit and humour. An epoch-making book which scholars and lay lovers of literature alike would love to read.

This book is intended to serve as an introduction to the elephant-lore of Hindus. It consists primarily of a translation of the Elephant-Sport (Matanga-Lila) of Nilakantha, with notes, introduction, and glossary. The Matanga-Lila is without doubt the best available Sanskrit work on elephantology. It is a brief and succinct treatise in 263 stanzas, divided into twelve chapters of uneven length. Nothing is known of the Nilakantha who is mentioned as its author. According to the editor, Ganapati Sastri, the three manuscripts he used are about two hundred years old. But the work is probably very much older. For aught we know it may go back a thousand years or even to a much earlier date. This, however, is purely conjectural; all we can say is that there is no positive trace of modernity in the work. The elephant-lore of our text is based on a genuine traditional knowledge which grew up among those whose business it was to deal with elephants, and that this tradition has persisted to modern times.