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Mahākāvya
Mahākāvya (lit. great kāvya, court epic), also known as ''sargabandha'', is a genre of Indian epic poetry in Classical Sanskrit. The genre is characterised by ornate and elaborate descriptions of scenery, love, battles and so on — in short, everything that tests a poet's skill at description. Typical examples of ''mahākāvya'' are the ''Kumarasambhava'' and the '' Kiratarjuniya.'' It is considered the most prestigious form in the Sanskrit literature. The genre evolved from the earlier epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. Despite the length of ''mahākāvya''s (15-30 cantos, a total of about 1500-3000 verses), they are still much shorter than the Ramayana (500 cantos, 24000 verses) and the Mahabharata (about 100000 verses). Classical examples The Buddhist poet and philosopher Aśvaghoṣa (c. 80 – c. 150 CE) is one of the earliest Sanskrit poets with surviving Kāvya literature. His ''Buddhacarita'' (''Acts of the Buddha'') calls itself a ''mahākāvya'' and wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sanskrit Literature
Sanskrit literature broadly comprises all literature in the Sanskrit language. This includes texts composed in the earliest attested descendant of the Proto-Indo-Aryan language known as Vedic Sanskrit, texts in Classical Sanskrit as well as some mixed and non-standard forms of Sanskrit. Literature in the older language begins with the composition of the Ṛg·veda between about 1500 and 1000 BCE, followed by other Vedic works right up to the time of the grammarian Pāṇini around 6th or 4th century BCE (after which Classical Sanskrit texts gradually became the norm). Vedic Sanskrit is the language of the extensive liturgical works of the Vedic religion, while Classical Sanskrit is the language of many of the prominent texts associated with the major Indian religions, especially Hinduism, but also Buddhism, and Jainism. Some Sanskrit Buddhist texts are also composed in a version of Sanskrit often called Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit or Buddhistic Sanskrit, which contains ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
