Kāvyādarśa

Kāvyādarśa (T. snyan ngag me long ma; "The Mirror of Poetics"). A classic treatment of Indian poetic theory, composed by the Indian scholar Dandin (7th–8th century).

The Kavyadarsha is the earliest surviving treatment of poetics in Sanskrit. In ancient times, the text was translated into Kannada, Sinhala, Pali, Tamil and Tibetan, and perhaps even influenced Chinese regulated verse.

The Kavyadarsha was highly influential in Tibetan Sanskrit scholarship. The fist translation of the text into the Tibetan language was made by Sakya Pandita Kunga Gyeltsen (1182-1251), who translated major portions of its first and second chapters of this text in his treatise on the principles of learned discourse, The Entrance Gate for the Wise (Khenjuk). This was followed by six additional translations of the text by later Tibetan scholars. The text was also the subject of numerous commentaries by Tibetan scholars.

The Kavyadarsha was also widely quoted by premodern Indian scholars of Sanskrit, including Appayya Dīkṣita (1520–1592); it was included almost in its entirety in the poetic treatises by King Bhoja of Dhār (r. 1011–1055).

Contents

The text of the Kāvyādarśa is divided into three chapters, the first of which delineates the general characteristics of ornate poetry and the features that distinguish the so-called southern from the eastern schools of literary composition. The second chapter catalogues and discusses those poetic figures that are based on the semantic relationships within a verse, and the third does the same for the poetic figures that have their origin in the phonological relations within a verse.

Most of the printed editions have 660 verses, except one, which has 663.

In Kāvyādarśa, Daṇḍin argued that a poem's beauty derived from its use of rhetorical devices – of which he distinguished thirty-six types. He was the main proponent of gunaprasthana, the view that poetry needed qualities or virtues such as shleshha (punning), prasaada (favour), samataa (sameness), maadhurya (beauty), arthavyakti (interpretation), and ojah (vigour). Poetry consisted in the presence of one of these qualities or a combination of them.

Text

English language translations

• Kāvyādarśa of Daṇḍin: Sanskrit Text and English Translation. Ed. and trans. S. K. Belvalkar. Poona: Oriental Book-Supplying Agency, 1924. Archive version.

Sanskrit editions

The Sanskrit text for Daṇḍin's Kavyadarsha was first printed in 1863, and has often been re-edited since.

• Kāvyādarśa of Daṇḍin, with the commentary of Taruṇavācaspati and the anonymous Hṛdayaṅgama. Ed. M. Rangacharya. Madras: Brahmavadin Press, 1910.
• Kāvyādarśa of Daṇḍin, with the commentaries of Vādijaṅghāladeva and Taruṇavācaspati and an anonymous gloss. Ed. D. T. Tatacharya. Tirupati: Shrinivas Press, 1936.
• Kāvyādarśa [Kāvyalakṣaṇa] of Daṇḍin, with the commentary of Ratnaśrījñāna. Ed. Anantalal Thakur and Upendra Jha. Darbhanga: Mithila Institute of Post Graduate Studies, 1957.
• Dharmendra Gupta (1973), kāvyādarśaḥ. ācāryadaṇḍiviracitaḥ. suvarṇaṇākhyayā saṃskṛtahindivyākhyāyā sametaḥ, Delhi: Meharcand Lacchmandas  (with Hindi exposition). Review
• Kāvyādarśa of Daṇḍin, with commentaries by Ratnaśrījñāna, Jīvānanda Vidyāsāgara Bhaṭṭācārya, Raṅgācārya Reḍḍi, and Taruṇavācaspati. 4 vols. Delhi: NAG Publishers, 1999.
• Kāvyādarśa, A SARIT edition, prepared for SARIT by Andrew Ollett, The National Endowment for the Humanities, 2013-2017

German language editions and translations

• Daṇḍin's Poetik (Kâvyâdarça): Sanskrit und Deutsch. Ed. and trans. O. Böhtlingk. Leipzig: Haessel, 1890 (with German translation).
• Mārgavibhāga – Die Unterscheidung der Stilarten. Kritische Ausgabe des ersten Kapitels von Daṇḍins Poetik Kāvyādarśa und der tibetischen Übertragung Sñan ṅag me loṅ nebst einer deutschen Übersetzung des Sanskrittextes. Herausgegeben nach nepalesischen Handschriften des Sanskrittextes und der kanonischen und außerkanonischen tibetischen Überlieferung unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der älteren Kommentarliteratur, samt Glossaren, ausführlichen Bibliographien, Konkordanzen und Indizes. Von Dragomir Dimitrov. Marburg 2002. (Indica et Tibetica, 40)

  Translation: Mārgavibhāga – The distinction of styles. Critical edition of the first chapter of Daṇḍin's Poetics Kāvyādarśa and the Tibetan translation Sñan ṅag me loṅ along with a German translation of the Sanskrit text. Edited according to Nepalese manuscripts of the Sanskrit text and the canonical and extra-canonical Tibetan tradition with special consideration of the older commentary literature, including glossaries, detailed bibliographies, concordances and indexes. By Dragomir Dimitrov. Marburg 2002. (Indica et Tibetica, 40)

• Śabdālaṃkāradoṣavibhāga – Die Unterscheidung der Lautfiguren und der Fehler. Kritische Ausgabe des dritten Kapitels von Daṇḍins Poetik Kāvyādarśa und der tibetischen Übertragung Sñan ṅag me loṅ samt dem Sanskrit-Kommentar des Ratnaśrījñāna, dem tibetischen Kommentar des Dpaṅ Blo gros brtan pa und einer deutschen Übersetzung des Sanskrit-Grundtextes. Von Dragomir Dimitrov. Wiesbaden 2011. (Veröffentlichungen der Helmuth von Glasenapp-Stiftung, Monographien 2)

  Translation: Śabdālaṃkāradoṣavibhāga – The Distinction of Sound Figures and Errors. Critical edition of the third chapter of Daṇḍin's poetics Kāvyādarśa and the Tibetan translation Sñan ṅag me loṅ, including the Sanskrit commentary of Ratnaśrījñāna, the Tibetan commentary of the Dpaṅ Blo gros brtan pa and a German translation of the Sanskrit basic text. By Dragomir Dimitrov. Wiesbaden 2011 (Publications of the Helmuth von Glasenapp Foundation, Monographs 2)

Further reading

Print publications:

• Yigal Bronner (2007), "This is no Lotus, it is a Face: Poetics as Grammar in Daṇḍin's Investigation of the Simile", in Sergio La Porta; David Shulman, The Poetics of Grammar and the Metaphysics of Sound and Sign, Brill 
• Edwin Gerow, "Indian poetics" in History of Indian Literature ed. Jan Gonda
• S. K. De, History of Sanskrit Poetics
• P. V. Kane, History of Sanskrit Poetics

Web publications:

• Kāvyādarśa, Wikipedia