I sincerely thank the editors and Publishers of the journals and of compilations where many of the articles of the present collection were published and circulated.
I thank my daughters Richa Ritambhara and Saumya Srividya who helped me in preparing the press copy of this book.
My wife Dr. Geetanjali Dash, Head, Department of Social Sciences, F.M., University, Balasore (Odisha) has always been catalytic to my endeavour in completing some of the long and arduous articles as she shoulders the household responsibilities unhesitatingly.
Constant inspirations of my friend Dr. Narottam Senapati, the senior most Professor in the Department of Sanskrit, Pali and Prakrit, Visva Bharati, Santiniketan, have goaded me to the publication of this work.
My friend Dr. Radheshyam Shukla, Pratibha Prakashan, New Delhi, always tolerates my slow pace in the matter of writing. I sincerely thank him for having published this collection as my third book under his banner.
In our present endeavour we have broadly taken up two untouched or rarely touched frontiers of Indian poetics.
(1) Exploration of its nuances in the texts which are not really of poetics and (2) Looking at the Indian poetics in the prizm of modern thoughts and approach. We here prepare some sample essays and try to open up discussions for future. Essays relating to the norms of Indian poetics in the Vedas and Puranas are of the frontier first mentioned. And the essays on the elements of beauty and on the poetic intentions are from the second frontier.
I am often haunted by a thought as to why there is a big gap (temporal and ideological) between Bharata and Bhamaha in which no poetician is available and where we witness a vast difference of attitudes to poetry. I have a desire to investigate into the minds of the Indians of the pre-Christian era so as to make out the concrete reason for the above said gap. The problem demands a long time work on it. Here I present only two essays in this direction by making deliberations over the attitude of the people of the times of Bharata, Kautilya and of Vätsyayana towards the performing art and over the attitude of the poeticians of other schools towards the concept of rasa over and above their own theories. I felt I could get some clues on the reason for the aforesaid gap and have been successful to many extent although scholars would feel rightly that much more work has to be done on this frontier.
Bharata is the only available poetician before Bhāsa. All other available poeticians are later to the latter. Therefore the works of Bhasa must have influenced the whole clan of post-Bharata poeticians especially dramaturgists. It would therefore be very useful a research to be done at this site of Indology or poetics. In a specimen essay, I have tried to investigate into how Bhasa has influenced the later dramaturgists for recasting the Bharatan norm of Vyayoga.
Bharata's rasasutra still attracts people for more and deeper deliberation. It would be nice if all the interpretations done by traditional scholars upon rasasutra are put together and are seen in the new hue they exude when put closer. In a novice attempt I have clubbed together Abhinavagupta and Mammata and also have tried to put my thoughts on their interpretations.
We believe that making studies on the origin and development of each of the small or big aspect or concept of the Indian dramaturgy on historical principle shall be fruitful in understanding the intricacies of the traditional Indian drama and also in enriching the technicalities and conceptual depth of the modern drama. Trying my hand in this direction I have also prepared an essay on the origin and development of the concept of nataka.
When we open the modern books on any aspect of Indian poetics, we find that scholars in general are much interested in rasa, alamkara and dhvani etc., and neglect the very concept of poet in Indian thought process. Right from the period of the Vedas to that of the classical Sanskrit we find many Indian ideas about poet. The pages of Indian poetics and especially of the treatises on Kaviśikṣā say much about the Indian image of poet. As I give a name to the study of the concept of poet as 'poetology' and have been in a long process of study on this, I have included here an essay like the 'Poetology of Bharata'.
There are some other essays on different aspects of Indian poetics in the present work. However, we feel that an ideal conglomeration of Indian and Western poetics is still at an infant stage and is not regularly taken up by scholars.
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