Glimpses of Ancient Indian Poetics

The present volume contains twenty-two papers on various aspects of Indian Poetics written by prominent specialists in the field. These papers were presented and discussed in the National Seminar on Indian Poetics organized by the Department of English, University of Poona. Some have adopted interdisciplinary approach and have tried to com-pare and contrast some of the ancient Indian concepts of Poetics with those of the western ones, while some other articles aim at presenting an authentic picture of some of the aspects of Alankarasastra while some author have tried to highlight the main issues, other have tried to suggest their relevance to modern literary criticism and some have laid down the actual underlying philosophical frame-work on which the entire edifice of Indian poetics is built. On the one hand there are articles on some of the components such as guna, dosa, and alankara, on the other there are papers on theories of poetic communication. While some articles deal with peculiar functions of poetic language like laksana and Vyanjana, others deal with the process of aesthetic experience of beauty. The development of Indian poet-ics has made use of the framework of Indian Philosophy and this too has beeit presented in one article. That an art experience is neither a preception of actual silver nor an illusion like the perception of silver in a conchshell, rather it is an experience of the painting of actual silver has also been discussed in one article.

The present Volume contains 22 papers on various aspects of Indian Poetics written by prominent specialists in the field. These papers were presented and discussed in the National Seminar on Indian Poetics organized by the Department of English, University of Poona, during 6-8 March, 1986. Of these 22 research articles, some have adopted interdisciplinary approach and have tried to compare and contrast some of the ancient Indian concepts of Poetics with those of the western ones, while some other articles aim at presenting an authentic picture of some of the aspects of Alankargastra While some authors have tried to highlight the main issues, others have tried to suggest their relevance to modern literary criticism and some have laid down the actual underlying philosophical frame-work on which the entire edifice of Indian poetics is built. On the one hand there are articles on some of the components such as guna, dosa, and a/ankara, on the other there are papers on theories of poetic communication. While some articles deal with peculiar functions of poetic language like laksaoa and Vyarijana, others deal with the process of aesthetic experience of Beauty. The development of Indian poetics has made use of the framework of Indian Philosophy and this too has been presented in one article. That an art-experience is neither a perception of actual silver nor an illusion like the perception of silver in a conch-shell, rather it is an experience of the painting of actual silver has also been discussed in one article.

Thus, the Volume contains a variety of issues which, we are sure, will definitely delight the readers.

The very aim of the Seminar was to present glimpses of Indian Poetics in order to create a curiosity in the minds of scholars and students of language and literature who did not have direct access to reading Indian Poetics in original, i.e. in Sanskrit.

We are confident that the present Volume has, at least, partially fulfilled that aim.

We are thankful to the authors of these articles, who include some of the very senior authorities in the field like Prof. Patwardhan, Prof. Krishnamoorthy, Prof. Patankar and others. We are thankful to Dr. Ujjwala Panse, Dr. Nirmala Kulkarni, Dr. Subhash Chandra Dash, Mr. Kashinath Hota and Dr. Sanjay Deodikar for helping us in correcting the proofs. We are also thankful to the Indian Books Centre for having come forward to publish this Volume.