the cosmopolitan vernacular - pollock, s

8/10/2019 The Cosmopolitan Vernacular - Pollock, S

1/33

The Cosmopolitan VernacularAuthor(s): Sheldon PollockSource: The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 57, No. 1 (Feb., 1998), pp. 6-37Published by: Association for Asian StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2659022.

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2/33

The CosmopolitanVernacular

SHELDON POLLOCK

THROUGHOUT SOUTHERN ASIA AT DIFFERENT TIMES startinground 000,but n

mostplacesby 1500, writers urned o theuse of ocal anguages or iteraryxpression

in preferenceo thetranslocalanguage hathad dominated iteraryxpression or he

previous housand ears. his developmentonstitutestthe evelof ulture he ingle

most ignificantransformationn theregion etween he reation f ne cosmopolitan

order t the

beginning

f the firstmillennium

nd

another

nd fardifferentne-

through olonialism

nd

globalization-at

the

end

of the

second.

The vernacularizationf southern sia is not only the most mportant ultural

change

n

the

late

medieval

world-or perhapswe should say,

n the

earlymodern

worldthat t

helps to inaugurate-but also the east studied.We have no coherent

account f the matter or ny region, et alonea connected istory or outhern sia

or for he

arger

urasiaworld

where development ery

imilar n cultural

orm if

not

n

social

or

politicalcontent) ppears o have occurred.We have no well-argued

theoretical nderstanding f many of the basic problems t issue. And, what is

especially isabling,

we lack

any reliable

ccountof the

political

transformations

n

southern sia to

which thesecultural hanges re undoubtedly

f

obscurely elated,

or

a

theory

f

power

nd culture

eforemodernity

hatwould allow us

to

make

ense

of thisrelation.

What

I

aim

to do

in

the

space

availablehere

s

try

o

sketch

ut, first,

few

of

the

larger conceptual

ssues that

impinge

on an

analysis

of

cosmopolitan

nd

vernacular

n

literary ulture,

nd

the

narrower

uestions

that

pertain

to their

historicization. he very idea of vernacularization epends upon understanding

something

f theworld

gainst

which

t defines

tself,

nd

this

provide

with

brief

account fthe historical ormationndideational haracter fwhat call theSanskrit

cosmopolis.

ortheformer look at therise

nd

spread

fSanskrit

nscriptions,

hich

serve s

a

synecdoche

or

range

f

iterary-culturaland political-cultural)ractices;

for the

latter,

consider s

paradigmatic

he

space

of culturalcirculation

s this

structures

he

iterary

nd

literary-criticalmagination.

ll

this s

preparatory

o

an

analysisof one case of the formationf vernacular iterary ulture, hatof early

Sheldon ollock s theGeorge . BobrinskoyrofessorfSanskrit

nd

ndic tudies

t

the

University

f

Chicago.

I

wish o

thank . V. Venkatachala

astryMysore), y uide

n Old Kannada. enedict

AndersonIthaca) fferedelpfulriticism hen nearlierersionf hepaperwaspresented

at the

1995 meeting

f

the

Association

or

Asian

tudies. hanks lsoto

Chicago olleagues

Arjun

Appadurai,

arol

Breckenridge,ipeshChakrabarty,

nd

Steven ollins

or heir

ug-

gestions,

nd

Homi

Bhabha,

o whose

ngoing

work n the

vernacular

osmopolitan

n

postcolonialism

he

presentapermay

e viewed s

something

f

precolonialomplement.

The

ournalf

Asian tudies

7,

no.

1

February998):6-37.

?

1998 by

theAssociation

or

Asian

tudies,

nc.

6

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3/33

THE

COSMOPOLITAN VERNACULAR 7

Kannada. Here the localization of the

globalizing literary-culturalractices nd

representations

f Sanskrit constitutes a

model instance of cosmopolitan

vernacularism.tthe ametime hopeto show, hrough ne narrow utsymptomatic

example the history f the literary-criticaliscourse n

the Way of literature,

mdrga), otonlyhow

the vernacular econfigureshecosmopolitan, ut how the

two

produce ach other

n

the course f their

nteraction. end

with

brief ccount f

the

failureof

existing historical xplanations such as they are) to account for

the

vernacular

urn,

nd

flag

ome

of the

challenges

or uture

nquiry,

most

rucially he

relationship f literary ultureto political

culture

n

the non-West nd the

very

problematic f premodern

lobalization.

HypothesizingVernacularization

The possibility fconceptualizingnd

historicizing

he

cosmopolitan/vernacular

transformation

equires workinghypothesis

with

a

number

f

componentshat,

although hey

may appear

to

attempt o

settle

hrough efinition

hat

can

only be

determined

mpirically,an

all

be demonstrated

istorically.

hese concern ultural

choice,

he

relativity

f

vernacular,

he

iterary,

hehistorical

ignificance

f

writing,

the

meaning

f

beginnings,

nd the

sociotextual

ommunity.

address hese

briefly

in

order.

Cultural Choice

A

language-for-literatures chosen rom

mong lternatives,

ot

naturally iven.

Human linguistic

diversitymay be

a

fatality,

n

Benedict

Anderson's

melancholy

formulation,ut there s

nothing ated, nselfconscious,

r

haphazard bout

iterary-

languagediversity;

t

is willed. Vernacular

iteraryanguages

husdo not

emerge

like

buds orbutterflies,hey re made.Not

many

cholars

cknowledge

his fact r

do

much

with t.

One ofthe fewwas

Bakhtin,

who saw more

learly

han

nyone

hat

the

actively

iteraryinguistic

onsciousnesst

all

times

nd

everywherethat

s,

in

all

epochs

of literature

istoricallyvailable

to

us)

comes

upon languages'

nd

not

language.Consciousness inds tselfnevitably acing he necessity f havingochoose

a

language 1981,

295).

Yet so

far

s

I

can see what neither akhtinnor

nyone

lse

has

spelled

out

n

detailedhistorical erms or

pecific

anguages

n

the

everyday

ense

(by language

Bakhtin

usually

meant

ocioideological egisters)

s what s

at

stake

in

this

choice,

what

else

in

the social and politicalworld s

being

chosen

when

a

language-for-literatures chosen. or t s

onething o recognize

hat

iterary-language

diversity

s

willed,

and

another

hing altogether

o

specify

he historical easons

informinghis

will.

Vernacular

/ 'Cosmopolitan

To define ernacular

ver

gainst osmopolitan

ppears

o

submerge

number

f

relativities.

lthough

not

all

cosmopolitananguagesmay nitially e vernaculars-

here the

history

f Sanskritwhen Sanskrit iterature

kdvya)

s invented t the

beginning

f the commonera differs

harply

rom hat

of, say,

Latin

in

the third

century

.C.

when

Latin

iteratures

abruptly

nvented-many

ernacularshemselves

do become

cosmopolitan

or heir

regional

worlds.This is

truefor

Braj,

whichwas

rendered

rootlessly cosmopolitan by

the elimination-conscious

elimination,

according o some scholars-of local dialectaldifference

n the fifteentho sixteenth



4/33


5/33

THE

COSMOPOLITAN VERNACULAR 9

features foralitywhatthe ate

scholar fOld French aul Zumthor

alled

vocalite'),3

and that the principal

mode of consumptionwas auditory, till, writing ffected

literaryommunicationnprofound ays.These awaitsystematicnalysis, utthere

is no doubt that o write

iterarilylwaysmeant enderinganguageboth earned nd

learned,

o endow it

with new norms nd constraints. istorically peaking,what

counts

n

the

history fvernaculariterary ulture,

what

makes history

ot

only

for

us byproviding istorical

bjects)but for heprimarygents hemselvesbymarking

a

break

n

the continuum f history)

s

literization,he committing

f

iterature o

writing.

Beginnings

When therefore

hrough

n act

of cultural hoice

the vernaculars

deployed

or

the iteraryndthe

iterary

ttains

nscription,

iterature

egins-that is,

at

particular

times

people begin

to

inscribe exts, r,

what comesto the same

thing

s

a

historical

issue,begin to consider exts

nscribed

n

local

languages

worth

preserving.

n

this

sense

the

history

f vernacular

iterary

ulture

s

not coextensive

ith

the

history

f

vernacular anguage. Such

literary eginnings

n

South Asia are the

object

of

ethnohistorical

epresentation

nd,despite

he

many ogical

nd

deological

ifficulties

that

beset

the

very

dea of

beginnings,re

often

usceptible

o

historicalnalysis cf.

Pollock 1995).

I

am

especiallynterested

n

vernacularnaugurations,hough f ourse

the choiceto be vernacular

as a

continuing istory.

Community

The

last,

and least

disputable

of

my contentions-though

also the least

historicized-is themutually onstitutive elationship

f

iteraturend community:

literatureddresses, ometimes

alls into being,particular ociotextual ommunities.

These define hemselves

n

significant

f

variable

ways

on the

basis

of the

iterature

they hare,

nd

they

reatenew

iteratures

n

service fnew

elf-definitions.

o

choose

a

language for

iterature,

hen-to commit to

writing xpressive

exts s defined

according

o

dominant-culture odels-is

at

the same timeto choose

community,

though tsprecisemeaning nd the nature f the dentityhat iterature onstructs

for

t need to

be

investigated,

nd

not

magined,

or

he worldbefore

modernity.

Absent his

kind

of

conceptual ramework,

t is

hard

ven to

perceive

hechoices

to be vernacular-or

cosmopolitan-let

alone

recover

heir

histories

nd

social

meanings.

The

choice to be vernacular

n

South

Asia at

the

beginning

of the second

millenniumwas

made

against

he

background

f Sanskrit nd

deeply

onditioned

y

the

literaryulture

of Sanskrit.

Without

understanding

he

history

f

the

literary

world Sanskrit reated nd the work t did

there,

t is difficult o understand ts

supersession,

hat

vernacular

iteraryanguages

were called

upon

to

do, when,

nd

why. hopeto suggest omethingf the characterfthisculture y lookingfirstn

a

perhaps nexpected uarter:

he

history

f heSanskrit

nscriptional

iscourse. here

are three

things

concentrate n here: the

history

f the

transregional

ultural

formationf

Sanskrit,

ow

t came

to be

and

what

t

consisted

f;

the roleofSanskrit

3Cf.

Zumthor1987. Relevantherefor

anskrit nd

early

Kannada

texts

re the

iterary-

linguistic henomena

gunas,

ee below) or

the

modes of recitationpdtha rpathiti) escribed

by iterary

cholars uch as

Rajasekhara

n the tenth

enturyKdvyamTmrmsd

),

and

Bhoja

in

th

eleventh ?rhgdrapraprakd?(a, pp. 379 ff.).



6/33

10 SHELDON

POLLOCK

as the vehicleof political expression; nd, related o this,

Sanskrit's ighlymarked

status s the

iteraryanguage

ver

gainst

ocal

anguages.

his real-world

ormation

provides he background or he brief ccount fgeocultural epresentationso which

I

then urn.

Historicizing the Sanskrit

Cosmopolis

As momentous

s the

vernacular ransformationt the

beginning

f the second

millenniumwas the creation,

round

he beginning f

the

first,

f the

cosmopolitan

order o which

t

was

the

response.4

wo

new,

related

evelopments

ere

undamental

to this order: he use of Sanskrit

n

inscriptions nd the invention f literature.

Sanskrit

nscriptions,ypically

ssuedfrom

oyal ourts,

recrucial

oth s

expressions

of the

political,

nd

forthe wider

trends

hey

reveal

n

literary-language

se

and

norms f iterariness, hichthe history f Sanskrit iteratureonfirms.

For its first 00 years, nscriptionalulture

n

South

Asia is

almost

exclusively

non-Sanskrit

the languages

used were instead the Middle-Indic dialects called

Prakrit), ut this ituation hanged ramatically

t

thebeginning

fthe

common ra

when we first

egin

to

find

expressive

exts

eulogizingroyal

elites

composed

n

Sanskrit

nd

nscribed

n

rock-faces,illars,monuments,

r

copper-plates,

form hat

will

later receive hegenre

name

prasati praise-poem).

he most famous f

these

texts,producedforor by the Indo-ScythianSaka) overlordRudradamanca.

A.D.

150), has been knownto scholars ormore than

a

century,

nd

nothing

has

been

discovered ince

to

alterthe

impression

hat t

marks

profound

ultural-historical

break.

Never

before

ad Sanskrit

poken

s it

does

in Rudradaman's

ext,

ut

in

the

open,

n

written

orm,

n

referenceo

a

historical

ing,

nd in

aestheticized

anguage.

Andyet lmost mmediatelyhereafter,nd for he next housand

ears,

t is

thevoice

ofSanskrit

oetry

hatwould

be

heard

n

polities

from

hemountains fPeshawar o

Prambanam

n the

plains

of

central

ava.

It is about this same time that what comes to be called kdvya

[written]

literature )

n

the emerging scholarlydiscourse of

rhetoric

ala ka-rarscastra)

s

crystallized, henthegreatgenres uch as mahdkdvyacourtly pic) andndtakaepic

drama)

come into existence

long

with the formal

echniques,

uch as the

system

f

figures

f sound and

sense and the

complex uantitative-syllabic

etrics,

hat

were

to defineSanskrit iterature

nd

have such resonance

hroughout

Asia.

Literary-

cultural

memory,

s

this

may

be discerned n

literary

riticism

r

n

the

kaviprafsamsds

(praises

of

poets)

that

conventionally

ntroduce anskrit

iterary exts,

has no

reach

beyond

hese

beginnings

n

the

early

enturies

f the common

ra,

nd it

is difficult

forhistorical

cholarship

o show

that

kdvya

s

it will

henceforthe

practiced

s much

earlier

han

this.Sanskrit

nscriptions

uch as

Rudradaman's hould not

thereforee

viewed,

s

theyusually are,

as

the latest date

forthe existence

f literary anskrit

(kdvya), ut as theearliest.Andthe twotogether, dvyandpras'ati,reevidence, ot

of

a

renaissance

or resurgence, re-assertion,

r

revival )

f

Sanskrit ulture fter

a

Mauryanhiatus,but of its inauguration s a new cultural

ormation. revious o

thisSanskrit

ulture ppears

o

have beenrestrictedothedomainof

iturgy

nd

the

knowledges equired

or ts

analysis;

t

can hardly e said tohave existed n anything

like the

form

t

was soon

to

acquire.

4This nd

thefollowing ectiondraw

on

the

detaileddiscussion

n

Pollock

1996.



7/33

THE COSMOPOLITAN VERNACULAR 11

Whether r not overdraw

his

discontinuity

etween

highly

estrictedocial

sphere of Sanskrit liturgical nd scholastic)

nd a new political use of Sanskrit

accompaniedby whollynew forms f written iterature,he subsequenthistory f

Sanskrit

n

inscriptional iscourse

s the

history f

an

unprecedented

nd

vast

diffusion. nce it came to be used for nscriptional

iterature

n

North ndia

in

the

second to third

centuries,

anskrit

was

adopted

elsewhere

with

astonishing peed.

Prakrit isappeared rom he epigraphical ecord hroughoutndia in the space of a

century, ever o be revived or nscriptions

hereafter,nd retained nlya residual

status

n

the iterary-culturalrder.

A

crucially mportant imension

o the

use of

Sanskrit n epigraphs nd the rise

of

kdvya

s

the divisionof

inguistic

abor

n

inscriptional iscourse, nd, relatedly,

the iteraryilenceof the vernacularshroughouthe cosmopolitan ormation. nce

Sanskrit ad becomethe anguagefor hepublic literary xpression f politicalwill

throughout

much of southern

Asia,

it

remained he only language used for

that

purpose. he vernacular as notprohibitedrom peaking

n the

nscriptionalomain,

but the

permission

as restricted.

typical nscription

ommences

ith

genealogy

and

praise-poem f the overlordwho issuesthe

document, ollowed ythedetailsof

the transactionhe

nscription

s meant o

recordthe boundaries

f the

gifted and,

the

conditions

f

a

templeendowment,

nd

thelike). When used at

all

vernacular

language s restricted o the second or businessportionof the grant, nd thus to

counting,measuring,

nd above

all

localizing.

The

literary unction-whereby ower

constructedor tself ts

origins, randeur, eauty,

erdurance,

nd

which

an

perhaps

thereforee characterizeds thefunction f nterpretingheworld ndsupplementing

reality-was the work xclusively f Sanskrit oetry.

he very ontrast enerated y

this

division

of

abor,

relation f

superposition

f unrelated

anguages

hat have

termedhyperglossia,erves to

enhance the

aestheticism

n which

one may locate

Sanskrit's

upreme

ttractions.

Related to the empirically bservabledivision

of labor in inscriptionss the

discourse n literaryanguage

n

the

lacgkdra

radition. rom he eventh

entury

n

it

became

a

commonplace

f this tradition

hat

kadvya

as

something

hat

could be

composedonly

n a

highly

restrictedet of

languages.

Chief

of

these

was of course

Sanskrit;

ar

behindboth

n

theory

nd in

actual

iterary roduction

ereMaharastri

PrakritndApabhrams'a,wo anguages hatunder he nfluencefSanskrit adbeen

turned ntocosmopolitan dioms,

and

which thereforeould

be

and were used

for

literaryomposition nywhere

n

the Sanskrit

osmopolis.5 dvya

was not

something

made

n

the

vernacular;

hus

range

f

regionalanguages

rom

Kannada

to

Marathi

toOriyawere iterarilyilent.

As the turn o Sanskrits

taking lace

n

the

ndian

ubcontinentor

hecreation

of

inscriptions

t

once

political, iterary,

nd

publiclydisplayed, recisely

he same

phenomenon

makes ts

appearance

n what re now thecountries f

Burma, hailand,

Cambodia,Laos, Vietnam,Malaysia,

nd

Indonesia,

nd

with

a

simultaneity

hat s

again striking.

he first anskrit

ublic poems

appear

n

Khmer

country, hampa,

Java, nd Kalimantan ll atroughlyhe ametime, heearly ifthenturytthe atest,

or notmuchmore

han

couple

or three

enerations

fter heir

widespread ppearance

5The restrictionn literaryanguagesbegins

with Bhamaha Kdvydlankdra.16, 34-36.

Only near the end of the cosmopolitan pochdo Sanskritwriters dmit

the

possibility f

producing rdmya ahdkdvya,ourtly pics in the vulgar anguage cf. the twelfth-century

Kdvydnus'asana.6,

p.

449). The linguisticallyunlocalized qualityof Apabhramsia

s

noted

by Shackle 1993, 266; cf. also Hardy 1994, 5.



8/33

12

SHELDON

POLLOCK

in India

itself.And theywill continue o be produced n

some places for enturies:

the last dated

Sanskrit nscriptionn Cambodia is around

1295, a little before he

abandonment fAngkor.

Khmer ountry,n fact, rom oughly 00-1300 provides good example fthe

politics of literary

ulture

noted

above. Here the world ofpublic poetry emained

resolutely worldofSanskrit. nscriptions

n

Khmer, o be

sure, re produced rom

virtually he same

date as inscriptionsn Sanskrit; n fact,nearly alfof the extant

inscriptionsre solely n

Khmer,while one-third re

n

Sanskrit lone, nd

a

quarter

utilize both languages.

But

one

invariablefeature f them

all

is

the

linguistic

hyperglossia

we

find

in India:

Sanskrit, nd never

Khmer,

makes

expressive

statements;

hmer

and

rarely anskrit)

makes

onstativetatements.

When

thefame

of

the king is celebrated rhis lineage or victoriesn battle

proclaimed, he writer

employs anskrit;whenthe slavesdonated oa temple reenumerated,hecatalogue

is given n Khmer.

Moreover,

he

two anguages

had a

very nequal relationship ith

each other.WhereasSanskrits, linguistically, ninfluenced

y Khmer-indeed, it

retains an

astonishinggrammatical nd orthographic egularity o the end of

Angkor-Khmer smassivelynvadedby Sanskrit rom he

arliest eriod.For lmost

a thousand

years-as

the

relationship etween political inscription

nd

literary

literization

mentioned bove would lead us to expect-literatepoetry

n

Cambodia

is

Sanskrit oetry, everOld Khmer; iterate iterary roductionn Khmer

does not,

in

fact,

eemto existbefore hefifteenth

entury,

r more

han

century

fter

ngkor

is abandoned nd

the last representativef the Sanskrit osmopolis

n

mainland

SoutheastAsia disappearsKhing 1990, 24-59). The character fKhmer anguage

usage

n

texts

hat

re

preserved

o us and the ater

historical

evelopment

f Khmer

literatureogetheruggest hat he atter ould not come nto

existence,

s

a

literized

entity or xpressive

urposes,

ntil

Sanskrit

iterary

ulturewaned.

The

spread

of

politicalSanskrit

appens

not

only

with

extraordinarypeed

over

vast

space,

but

in a

way

that

eems

quite

without

arallel

n

world

history. irst,

no

organized oliticalpower

uch

s the

Roman mperium

as nvolved.

No colonization

ofSouth ndia or

Southeast

sia can

be shown

o have

occurred;

herewere

no

military

conquests,

nd

no

demographicallymeaningfulmigrations.Nor

were

any

ties of

political ubservience,

fmaterial

ependency

r

exploitation

ver

stablished.

econd,

Sanskritwasnotdiffusedy any ingle,unified, cripture-basedeligion mpelledby

religious evolution

r

newrevelation,utby

small

numbers

f iteratiwho carried

with

them the

verydisparate,

ncanonized exts of

a wide

variety

f

competing

religiousorders

s well

as

textsof

Sanskrit iterature

aving

no

religious

ontent

whatever.

hird,

anskrit

ever unctioned

s

a

link

anguage

ike other

ransregional

codes such as

Greek,

Latin,Arabic,Persian,

Chinese.

n

fact,nothing

ndicates hat

in

this

period

Sanskrit

was

an

everyday

medium

f

communication

nywhere,

ot

n

South let

alone Southeast

Asia,

or

even functioned

s

a

chancery anguage

for

bureaucraticr

administrative

urposes.

What is created

n

the

period

that

covers

oughly

he millennium etween 00

or300 and 1300 (whenAngkors abandoned) s a globalizedcultural ormationhat

seems

nomalous

n

antiquity.

t

is

characterized

y

a

largely omogeneous olitical

language

of

poetry

n

Sanskrit

long

with

a

range

of

comparable ultural-political

practices (temple

building, city planning,

even

geographical nomenclature);

throughout

t-to extend

Oliver

Wolters'words s

they

deserve o

be,

to the whole

of this

cosmopolitan

world-elites

in different

ealms

shared

a

broadly

based

communality

f

outlook

and

could

perceive ubiquitoussigns

of

a

common,

Sanskrit, ulture Wolters 1982,

43). But it is produced nd sustained y noneof

the



9/33


forces hat

operate n the othertranslocal

ormationsf antiquity;

t is periphery

without enter,

ommunity

ithout nity.One maywell

wonderwhat hisglobalized

culturemeant

f

noneof

the familiarmaterial, overnmental,

r

religious

onditions

of coherence

ertained o it. What cultural

work, or nstance,was performed

y the

ubiquitous

anskrititeraryexts nscribed

nd displayed y ruling

lites? ince they

emerged

from he very enters f authority

hroughouthis world, t

is natural o

factor he

political nto anyexplanation,

ut it seemsto be the political

with an

obscure, nfamiliarogic

to it.

Even

as we trygraspthis ogic, the

predicamentf theorizing he

premodern

fromwithin conceptual pparatus equeathed y modernityoomsbefore s.

There

has largely revailed single

paradigm

forunderstandinghe social

foundations f

Sanskrit cosmopolitan culture,

namely, legitimationtheory

and its logic of

instrumentaleason:Elites in command f new forms f social powerdeployed he

mystifyingymbols and

codes of Sanskrit

omehowto secure consent.

But this

functionalist

xplanation

s not

onlyanachronistic,

ut really

s

a

mere

ssumption,

and

an intellectuallymechanical, ulturally

omogenizing,nd theoretically

aive

assumption

t

that.6

If

we contemplate

heSanskrit cumene

t its height, rom he middle

o the ast

few enturies

f the millennium,

t

appears

o consist f

a

limited

number

f

arge-

scale

agrarian

polities (and

their smaller-scalemitators),

military-fiscal tates

gathering ribute

rom arge

multiethnic opulations,

nd

defining

heirpolitical

aspirations

s universalist.

lthoughnotoriouslyifficult

o define

n

concrete erms,

empires -the nameusuallygivento the worlds f theGuptas,for xample, rthe

Gurjara-Pratiharas,

r Angkor-seem to

share ertain ystemic ultural

eatures. ne

mayevenpostulate

n empire-system

rempire-modelf premodernity,

field s

it

were

of thereproductionf empires

nd of thedeployment

f the

empire

form-in

this ike the

system

f

nation-statesf

modernity,

here he structure

f the

system

itself

roduces

number

fcultural ffectsBalibar

nd Wallerstein 991,91)-with

its

own distinctive ultural epertory.

In

this

system

mitation f

an

imperial

orm eemsto be

successively ecreated,

not only

n

South and Southeast

Asia but elsewhere, oth

horizontally

cross

pace,

perhaps hrough process

imilar

o what

rchaeologists

all

'peerpolity

nteraction,

and verticallyn timethrough istorical magination. ne couldplot sucha form,

on

both axes, among

a

range

of embodiments:

Achaeminid

and Sassanian,

nd

Ghaznavid),

Hellenic (and Byzantine),

Roman

(and

Carolingian,

nd

Ottonian),

Kushan andGupta,

and

perhapsAngkor) see

also

Duverger1980,

21).

In

many

f

these ases, ualifying

s

empire,

whether

mperial overnance

as

actually

xercised

or

not,

eems

to

have

required language

of

cosmopolitan

haracter

nd transethnic

attraction,ranscending

r arrestingny ethnoidentity

heruling

elites

themselves

mightpossess.

t had to

be

a

language

capable

of

making

the translocal laims-

howevermaginary

hesewere-that defined

he

political magination

f

this

world.

Moreover,

t had to

be

a

language

whose

power

derived,

ot

from acral ssociations

but from esthetic apacities, ts ability o makerealitymore real-more complex

and morebeautiful-as

evinced

by

ts

iterary

diom

and

style,

nd a

literary istory

embodying

uccessful

xemplars

f such

inguistic

lchemy.

n the Roma renovata

of

Carolingian

nd

Ottonian

Europe

this

language

was

Latin,

which, though

n

constant

eed

of

rehabilitation,

as

retained

nd

reinforced

s

a

crucial

omponent

n

6Thenotion ontinues

o shapework n state

ormationnd culture

n

South

nd

Southeast

Asia, cf.

e.g.,Kulke 1993, and contrast

ollock1996,

236ff.



10/33

14 SHELDON

POLLOCK

the politicaland cultural-politicalnderstandingf polity. n West Asia from .D.

1000 on, it was New Persian,whose first reat iterary roduction, he

Shahnama,

sought o linkthe new politicalformations ith

an imagined ranian mperial ast,

and along with otherbrilliantworksofliterary ulturemade it the language that

ruling elites from istan to Delhi adopted

perforcef theywere to participate n

imperial culturalpolitics, regardless f

what they may have spoken n private.

Similar n

its cultural-politicalogic to Latin

and

Persian,

s

in

its

temporal nd

geographic pread,was Sanskrit.

More

than

just qualifying he polity for

mperial status, however, anskrit

mediated set of complex esthetic nd moral

valuesof mperial ulture,while t the

same

time

providing code

forthe

expression f

key symbolicgoods-the

most

importantmongthesebeing fame-in

a

way

no other anguagewas apparentlyble

(orpermitted)odo. Thesource f uch apabilitiessto be located nthe ophisticated

and immenselynfluentialanskrit isciplines

fgrammar, hetoric,nd metrics.

Imperial anguage typically resupposed he dignity nd stability onferred y

standardizing rammar.Only

in

a

language constrained y such

a

grammar nd

therefore

scaping

the

danger of degeneration ould fame

and

distinction

find

enduring expression. But there

is

more to grammaticality han such quasi

functionalism

n

the Sanskrit

radition,

omething eeper

rooted.

f

the

orderof

Sanskrit

oetry

was tied

to

the orderof Sanskrit

rammar,

hat

orderwas itself

model or prototype f the moral, ocial, and politicalorder.

A

just sddhu) ingwas

one who

himself

sed and

promoted

he

use

of

correct

anguage sddhusabda). ot

onlywas Sanskrit hereforeheappropriate ehiclefor heexpression froyalwill,

but Sanskrit

earning

ecame

component

f

kingliness.

his

is

demonstrated

y

the

numerous verlordswho-from ourRudradamann

south Gujarat

in

A.D. 150 to

Siiryavarman

I

on

Tonle

Sap

a

thousand

years

ater-celebrated their Sanskrit

learning, specially rammatical earning,n

public poetry,

nd

sought to confirm

this

earning y patronizing

he

production

f almost

every mportant rammatical

work nownoUS.7

That

the tradition f Sanskrit hetoric

nd

metricswas

central

o

this

whole

process s

evidenced

y

the

nscriptional oetry

tself.

ut

the texts

f

theseforms f

knowledge lso circulated s something ike

globalized

cultural

ommodities,

nd

were ventuallyoprovide general ramework ithinwhich number fvernacular

poetries

ould themselves

e

theorized.

hus,

for

xample,

he late

seventh-century

rhetoricalreatise f

Dandin,

the Mirror fLiterature

Kdvyddars'a

KAI),

was studied

and

adaptedduring

he

period900-1300 from ri

Lanka to Tamil

country

o Tibet.

One could write

an

equally peripatetic

account of metrical

texts,

such as

Kedarabhatta's Jewel

Mine

of

SanskritMeters

Vrttaratndkara,

a.

1000). By way

of

its

twelfth-century

ali

translation

uttodaya,

t

played

a

defining

ole

in the

creation f

Thai

poetry

t the

Ayutthaya

ourt

n

the seventeenth

enturyTerwiel

1996).

It

is

instances uch

as

these hat

help

us

gauge

the

extraordinarymportance

that

he nstrumentsfSanskrit ultural

irtuosityossessed

or ntellectuals

nd their

masters hroughout

sia.

As

a

result

f

all

this,Sanskrit iterature

n

general kdvya)

nd

politicalpoetry

(pras'asti)

n

particular ossess uniformity

hat

gives

a

clear

tylistic

oherence o the

cosmopolitan

ultural

form.

For without

denying

ome

local

coloring though

for

7SeePollock 1996, 240 for eferences.

artmut charfewas the first o perceive pattern

of royal atronage 1977, 187),

but it is fardenser hanheknows nd hisexamples re easily

multiplied.



11/33


Angkor, or xample, hishas been exaggerated,f.Wolters1982, 91), to participate

in the cosmopolitan rdermeantprecisely o occlude ocal difference.he Sanskrit

poet here-this is the nsistentmplication ftheform, tyle, diom, nd even ontent

of

thousands f

nscriptional

s well as more

trictlyiteraryexts-participated

oth

by

theoretical

raining

nd

literary ractice

n a

transregional

ultural

phere

imilar

to that fhis Latin and, would guess,Chinese)peers t theother ndsofthe ncient

world.8 t

is

thisthatmakes t often irtuallympossible o localizeor datea work f

Sanskrit iterature-which, y my argument,s exactlywhat constituted ne of ts

greatest ttractions.

There s no doubt far reater omplexity o the nteractionsfpower nd culture

in the Sanskrit osmopolis han can capture n my brief ccount, r perhaps ven

know. Yet it is arguable that imperial-culturalssociations nd aesthetic tyle,

especially s these hapedpoliticalvocabularyndculture, ad at leastasmuchto do

with the

making

of the

cosmopolitan

imension f this world

nd

its attractionss

persuasion,et alone misrecognitionr mystification.anskrit ave voice to imperial

politicsnot s

an

actual,

material

orce ut

as an

aesthetic ractice,

nd

t

was especially

this

poetry

f

politics

hat

gave presence

o the Sanskrit

osmopolis.

At the ideational evel, the Sanskrit osmopolisfound xpression bove

all in

certain

epresentations

f the

space

of cultural irculation. wo of theseneed to be

introduced, iven theirrole

n the

theory

nd

practice

f

iterary ernacularization:

the epic space of political ction, bout which

will

be very rief, nd the spacesof

literarytyle,whichneed some detail to make understandable.

Political Space in Cosmopolitan Vision

It

is

an

insistent oncern f

a

wide variety fkdvya

nd

prasasti exts o project

meaningful upralocal pace of political-cultural eference. he tenth-centuryoet

Rajasekhara, or xample, ourt-poet o

the

kings of Tripura,

was

repeating long-

standing ommonplace

hen

describing

is

patrons

s

universal

ulers

in

the entire

region

fromwherethe

Gafnga mpties

nto

the

eastern

ea

to wherethe

Narmada

empties

nto

the

western,

rom he

Tamraparn.

n the south o the milk-ocean

n

the

north ViddhalabhanJika .21). So are the Kalachurikingsthemselves henthey

repeat

his

n their

pigraphs.

he

source,

r at least most articulate

orerunner,

f

thisvision

s

in

the tihdsa r

epic Mahdbhdrata,

here

lotting

he

pace

of

large

world,

a

zone within which its

political

action

was held

to be

operative

nd

meaningful,s

a

centralproject of the narrativea pure example, thus,

of

a

chronotope,

nd with the

chronotope's oliticsofspace

more

clearly isible

than

Bakhtinhimself nderstood, 981, 84-258).

This

unmappedmapping,

n

a

different

but not

unintelligible

orld fhistorical

pace,

onstitutes number

f he

mportant

narrative

unctures

n

the

text,

from

eginning

o end.

I

describe

everal o

give

a

senseof

the

practice.

Onhiswanderingsuring is elf-exilerjunahartspath romndraprasthaorth

toGafigadvara

nd nto he

astern imalayas,outheast

o

Naimisa,

ast o

KausikT,

8J

tress iterary ractice; arious anskritswere

n

use outside

the

domain of kdvya.

ut

whereas raditionalcholarship ifferentiatedwidevariety f

Prakrits

ivergent

n

phonology,

morphology,nd lexicon,no such distinctionswiththe exception f drsa or archaic,Vedic)

wereperceived or anskrit

n

thepost-Paninian eriod cf., .g.,SarasvatkanthAbharandlahkdra

2.5ff.).The comparableworld of earlyLatinity s well describedby

A.

H. M. Jones

1964,

1008.



12/33

16 SHELDON POLLOCK

southeast o

Gaya,

and further

oVanga, southdown

the

Kalifiga, verto Gokarna

on

the west

coast,north o Prabhasa nd

Dvaraka,northeast o

Puskara

nd

thence

back

to ndraprasthaMBh. 1.200-10). Before is consecrations emperor udisthira

sends out his brotherso conquerthefour irections: rjunaproceeds o the north

(Anarta,Kashmir, nd Bactria);Bhima

to

the

east Videha,Magadha,Anga,Vanga,

Tamralipi); Sahadeva to the south

(Tripura, Potana,

the

lands of the Pandyas,

Dravidas, Coladrakeralas,Andhras;

Nakula to the west (Marubhtumi,Malava,

Paficanada, s far s the and of the

Pahlavas) MBh. 2.23-29). After he war,when

the

Pandavas perform he Horse Sacrifice o affirm nd confirm heir universal

dominion,the wanderings f the

horse plot

a

map

that

runs fromTrigarta to

Pragyotisa,

Maniptura,

Magadha,

Vafiga,Cedi,

Kdsl-,

Kosala, Dravida, Andhra,

Gokarna,Prabhasa,Dvaraka, Paficanada, nd Gandhara

MBh. 15.73-85). Lastly,

when

they

renounce heir

overlordshipnd

begin

their Great

SettingForth,

he

Pandavastravel irst o the Lauhitya ivern the east, by way of the northerni.e.,

northeasternl

oastof the ocean to the

southwest uarter, hen o Dvaraka nd from

there o Himavan,Valukarfnavathe great Ocean

ofSand ) and MountMeru MBh.

17), thusperforminghe ast circumambulationf heworld-the sort

described

nd

charted

epeatedlyefore-for he control f

which

heir

amily

ad been

destroyed,

and

of

which

heyfittingly

ake eave as

they repare

o die.

Thus,

from the

opening chapters

of the

principal narrative,

nd

at

its key

points-the royal

consecration beforethe

war,

the reaffirmationf dominion after he

war,

the

ritual death-march

at

the end of the

story-the epic insists continually on

concretely placing

the

action.

It

is the

very

fact of the existence of this

spatial

imagination

in

the

Mahdbhdratahat

interests

me,

not its

precision (indeed,

it

is

marked

by uncertainty, confusion,

and

at

times

bizarre exoticism). There is

a

conceivable

geosphere,

the narrative

uggests,

where the

epic's medium,

the culture

of

Sanskrit,

and

its

message,

a

kind

of

political power,

have

application.

The

spatial imagination

that

is found

in

the Sanskrit

epics

achieves

sharper

and

more concrete focus

in the

courtly

iterature

that

arises

in

the

early

centuries of the

common

era,

as

in

the

conquest

of the

quarters

motif

appearing

in

courtly epics.

The most

influentialexample,

one

studied

as far as Khmer

country,

s

that

found

in

Kalidasa's masterpiece, the Dynasty of Raghu

(Raghuvamsfa

). Here, the reality

effects,

s

it

were,

of the judicious choice of detail are

quite apparent.

The clearer

image

of the

spatial

domain both of

power

and, implicitly,

of the

poetry

that

fillsthis

domain and

gives

voice to

power

no

doubt has

something

to do

with

the fact

that

Kalidasa

borrowed from the Allahabad

Pillar

inscription

of the

Gupta king,

Samudragupta (r. A.D. 335-76).

It

is not

that

there is

something

less

literary,

more

documentary

bout the

inscription

than

the

poem (this

would be so even

if

ts

author,

one

Harisena,

did

not

actually

name it

a

kdvya,

s

he

does)

that

somehow

serves,

as

model,

to render the account of

Kalidasa

more historical or more true.

Rather,

the

point

of

juxtaposing inscription

and text

in

their

historical

relatedness

is

simply

to

remind ourselves

that

the

literarygeography

of

power

in

Sanskrit culture sometimes

achieved

a

kind

of

symmetry

with the

living aspirations

of historical

agents.

However this

macrospace may

be defined

and

note

that it did

not

always

embrace

the

full

cosmopolitan space

as

mapped by inscriptional

and

other cultural

practices),

and whatever

may

be

the

precise

nature of

the

imperial

dominion

and form

of culture

it

was

imaginatively thought

to

comprise,

it

marks

a

wide

range

of

epic

and

postepic

texts. And

it

is

against

this

macrospace

that a

range

of vernacular

spaces

of culture

and power were to be defined.



13/33


The Space of SanskritLiterary tyle

The

Rajas'ekhara ho wrote f theuniversal overeigntyftheTripurakings lso

wrote

n

allegorical ccount f

the

origin f iterature,

he

tory

f the

Primal

Being

of

Poetry,

r

Poetry

Man, Kavyapurusa:

Brahma reated sonfor heGoddess fSpeech, is mouth

onsistingfSanskrit,

his

arm

fPrakrit,is

groin f

Apabhramsa,

is feet f

Paisaca, is chest fmixed

language.ahityavidyaPoeticsWoman)was createdo be his

companion,ndwas

told o follow avyapurusaherevereshould o. Theywent

irsto the ast, nd

as Sahityavidya

ried o enticehim Kavyapurusapoke o her n verses ullof

compounds,lliteration,nd tringsf tymologicallyomplex

ords,

hich ecame

known s the auda ath rLti). exthewent ortho the ountryfPanicala, here

he poke

n

verses ith

artial ompounds,lliteration,

nd

metaphoricalxpressions,

which

ecame

nown s

the docdla

Path.

Eventuallyhey eached

he

outhwhere

he spoke

n

verseswithmoderatelliteration,o compounds,

nd simplewords,

which

ecame nown s thevaidarbha

ath.

(Kdvyam2mcmsd

)

Rajasekhara's

llegory f iterature,rieflyummarized

ere, icksup several

themes already noted, including

the

geocultural pace present to

the

Sanskrit

imagination

nd

the

restrictions

n the

possible codes

in

which

the

literaryan be

composed. cite thispassage,however,o introduce hequestion fthetransregional

geographyf iterary

tyle.

Therewas

a

prehistory

o

Rajasekhara's ccount f

mdrga/

rTti-the

Way

or

Path

of

literary ulture-a

somewhat

onfused

nd

tangled

history

n

its first

manifestation,

ut

reasonably traightforward

n

its

development

by

the tenth

entury.

Mdrga the

dominant nd foundational

erm)

arries wo

principalmeanings.

he

first s

that

of

a

way

othershave

gone before,

nd thus connotes

custom

or

tradition f writing.Like

the

Greek odos

way ), mdrga

lso comes to

imply

something

f

a

method

or a

following

f a

way (meth-odos)

n the

creation f

literature.9 s

a

term

n the

Sanskrititerary-critical

ocabulary

t

has

a

moment f

primacy n the seventhto tenthcenturies-the Kashmiritheoretician amana

announcing

n

the

early

ninth

entury

hat

the

Path

s to literatures the soul s

[to

the

bodyl

and

though

t

was

eventually

o

cede

this

position,

t remains

crucial

term

n

the theorizationf both

cosmopolitan

nd

vernacular orms

f

writing.

And

although

his

may

eemto

be

a

narrowssue

of

philological

nquiry iven

ts

formalist

focus-for

the

Way

concerns

he

anguage

tuff f iterature-we do well to bear

n

mind how

seriously

uch

questions

were aken

by

ntellectualscross

he

greater art

of

southern

sia for

enturies.

As we see from he

account of

Rajasekhara,

he

Way

of

Sanskrit iteratures

conceptualized

s

plural

and

regional:

here s

an

eastern

way gauda, oosely,

f

Bengal), a southern way (vaidarbha, f Vidarbha),a northernway (pdigcdla,f

Paficla,

the north

Gangeticplain),

later

western

way

Idt'y-a,

f

Lata

or

southern

Gujarat),

and still

later others.What differentiateshese

nominally egionalized

procedures f literature

re

certain

ualities

of

language use

(guncas)

t

the level of

phonology e.g., phonemic

texture), yntax e.g., degree

of

nominalization),

nd

9Forthe first onnotation, f.,e.g., Manu

4.178; for he second,e.g. SRK 1729,

1733;

Vakpatiraja ca. A.D. 730), Gaidavaho 84-85.



14/33

18 SHELDON POLLOCK

lexicon e.g., the relative revalence f primary

,rfdhij

r derivative

yoga]I

ords).

Dandin in the late seventh entury efines

vaidarbha s endowed with all the

qualities, whereas audcas characterizedy

their nversion r absence

viparyaya).10

The former hus shows

a

minimaldegree of

compounding nd of complex exical

derivatives,he atter maximaldegree f both.

From hebeginning heontology f heWaysofwriting s implicitly rexplicitly

queried,

nd the

generalunderstandings

that

writers ould freely dopt the one or

theother. orVamana theregional ppellationsmeanonly hat hese tyles refound

in [thepoets

of]

thoseparticular egions; heregions hemselvesontribute othing.

One

could

and

should

chose the vaidarbha

tyle

Kdvydlakdrascstra.2.6-10; 14-18).

Although is remarkslike much fhis presentation)remore han little onfused-

for hey xplainnothing bout whyregional tyles houldbe found mongthepoets

in given regions-there s no ambiguity hat forhim regionwas not destiny, s it

was not,

few

enturiesater, or

he

critic

Kuntaka:

If

differentiationf tylewere ruly ased n

that fregion,he ormer ould e as

numberlesss the atter. ust ecausewritingxhibits

certainiti oesnotmean t

can

be classifieds

a

regionalustom,

ike ross-cousin

arriage

.

Furthermore,

t

cannot

e said

to

be

a

natural

roperty

n

the ameway

hat

ertain eautiful

sounds, imbre,tc.,

renatural

o the

inging

f

southerner.

(Vakroktijivita

.24)

For mostof Sanskrit istory riters oluntarily

ould adopt one style r another.

The eleventh-centuryoet Bilhana, for xample, notherKashmiri, ells of himself

thathe writes n vaidarbha a rainof nectar rom

clear ky

..

guarantor f iterary

beauty-vaidarbha

s

granted

o

only

the finest

oets, Vikramdigkadevacarita

s.

9).

And,

in

fact, the freedom o

choose

from

among regional styles grew into

a

requirements thedoctrine ftheWays was linked vermore losely o thediscourse

on

literary

motions

,rasa):

s the affectivetate o be

generated

n a scene

or

passage

varied, o

would the

Way.

Thus

for

he

ninth-century

riter

udrata,

he vaidarbha

and pdAcd1a aths

are

appropriate

or the moods of love, pity, fear,

nd

wonder ;

he

Ways

themselves

e

classifies

s anubhdva r the

verbal

reactions f

a

character

n

different

motional

ituations

Rudrata

Kdvydl/aikdra5.20).

On the discursiveplane what the categoryof the Ways most insistently

communicates

s

in

fact he

very osmopolitanism

f Sanskrit iterature.

Regional

differences

re

part

f

the

repertory

f

global

Sanskrit,

he

ignprecisely

fSanskrit's

transregionality:heywere ocal colorings hatwereproduced ranslocally,nd thus

were

n

indexof Sanskrit's

ervasion

f

all local

space. Eventually,

s we will

see,

t

is

precisely

his

mplicit

ense of the

Way

of

Sanskrit iterature s

a

cosmopolitan

(rather

han

trulyregional)cultural

form

hat

would be made explicit by

a new

dichotomy

entral o vernacular

oetries

hat rose n the ate medieval

eriod:

Over

against mdrga r

the

global Way

of well-traveled anskrit ulture came

to be

constructedhe

desi

r

Place,

that

whichdoes

not

travel

t

all.

The Sanskrit osmopolis, reated n Southand SoutheastAsia in a moreor less

simultaneous istorical

rocess, ossessed

marked

ultural

imilarities,

uch as

the

production

f

a

code

for

olitical xpression

nd

of

a

literature here dherence

o

a

10The valuative udgment mplicithere,

nd

the

verydistinction, ppear to havebeen

resisted s early s Bhamaha Kdvydlankdra.31ff.), hough

the eleventh-centuryannada

writerNagavarman akesBhamahato mean not thatthe

north-southistinctions meaning-

less,but that he belief hat he one s superior o the other

s mistakenKdvydvalokanam,

7tra

522).



15/33

THE

COSMOPOLITAN VERNACULAR

19

sophisticated odyofnormative

iscourses

n

grammar, hetoric,

nd

metrics nsured

a uniform haracter

hroughout he cosmopolitan ormation. he monopolization f

literary roduction n transregional odes was matched at the level of literary

representationy theprojection f supralocal rame fpolitical-culturaleferencen

epic and postepicnarrative,nd

at

the evelof iteraryheory ya doctrine f modes

of writingwhoseregionalityonnotes bove

all

Sanskrit's ranscendencefregion.

These

are

among thekey components f iterary ulture hatwill be engaged n the

vernacularization

rocess.

Producing heVernacular

Few local literary

ultures f premodernitynywhere how quite the same self-

consciousnessnd

permit s

to

follow

heir

development

ith

the

same

precision

s

we can achieve

n

the case of

Kannada,

a

languagefound

n

what

s

now

the ndian

state f

Karnataka. want

briefly

o sketch he

history

fKannada n

the nscriptional

record,beforegoing on to consider

n

more detail the intense and long-term

negotiation etween

osmopolitan

nd vernacularn Kannada

iterary roduction.

The statusof Kannada

in

the

domain

of the

publiclydisplayed nscribed exts

offers textbook ase

of

the tendencies escribed

bove.

The earliest

nown

dynasty

of northwestern

arnataka-the

locus of what was to

become

the

prestige iterary

dialect-the

Kadambas

fourth entury n),

never sed

Kannada for

public

records.

The

Gafigas,

he oldestattested

ynasty

n

southwestern

arnataka

fourth

o

ninth

centuries),

id not use Kannada for

he

documentaryortion

f

copper-plate rants

until the time of

Avinita n

the

sixth

century.

We

are

able

to follow he

literary-

cultural

politics

of Karnataka

kingdoms

more

closely,however,

with

the

Badami

Calukyas,

nd

especially

withtheir

uccessors,

he

Rastrakuitas.

hat

we

find

mong

the atter,whenwe look

at

the matter

tatistically,

s

a

slow but

stunning

ecline

n

theproduction f Sanskrit

ublic poetry ommencing

n

the

early

ninth

century.

Whenthedynastyirst egins ssuing nscriptionstartinground

.D.

750, Sanskrit

is used

in

more

han

80

percent

f

the

extant

ecords; y

ts end

200

years ater,

ess

than

5 percent

re

n

Sanskrit

Gopal 1994, 429-65).

Besides he lear vidence f

hiftinganguage reference,

ll the

arly nscriptions

in Kannada

among

the

Badami Calukyas

and

Rastrakuitas

emain

resolutely

documentary.

he

first

xpressive

r

workly nscriptions

n

Kannada

fromwithin

theroyal ourt ome

to

be

produced nly

bout the

time

of the

reign

of Krishna

II

(939,

EI

19, 289),

or

nearly

alf

millennium fter

nscribed

Kannada first

ppears

(Halmidi

ca.

450).

It

is not

many enerations efore rishna

II that

vidence or extualized

iterary

productionn the anguage s firstvailable,during hereign f theRastrakuitaing

NrpatunigaAmoghavarsaca. 814-80).

In terms of

literary ulture,

this was a

remarkable

eriod

and

place

in

manyrespects,

site of what

appears

o be

literary

experimentation

cross

anguages.

t

was

then,

or

xample,

hatJainas

urn

ecisively

to

Sanskrit

or

he

production

f

their

reatpoetic

histories

as

in

the

Adipurdna

A.D.

8371

of

Jinasena II,

the

spiritual preceptor

of

Nrpatuniga,

or

Asaga's

Vardhamdnapurdna

8531,

the first

ndependent biography

of

MahavTra),

nd

undertook

heir irst

rammatical

nalysis

f Sanskrit

n

perhaps

ive enturies

n

the



16/33

20 SHELDON POLLOCK

?abddnufsdasana

f

?Skatayana.1I

ere, too,a little ater n important ew currentn

Apabhramrsa,s we have seen the third osmopolitan iteraryanguage along with

Sanskrit nd Prakrit, inds xpression

n

the workof Puspadanta fl. 950), who was

probablythe first o write a Jaina universalhistory n the language.12 But the

historicallyrucial

nnovationn

literaryulture oncerns

annada.

No doubtattempts oproduce iteraryexts n Kannadapreceded heperiodof

Nrpatuiiga.

n the territorial

magination

fKannada

iterary

ulture

hroughouthe

medieval period, the heartland f Kannada ( the very zone (nddu-e)between

Kisuvolal

[Pattadakall,

the

renowned city of Kopana

[Koppall,

Puligere

[Lakshmeshvarl,

nd Omkunda

Okkunda

n

the

Belgaum District]

.

. is where

he

very ssence

tirull

of

Kannada

is found] KRM

1.381),

n

otherwords, heroyally

sanctioned

restige ialect,

s

placed

not

in

northeast

arnataka

whereGovinda

I

andhis son Nrpatuniga uilttheir apital,but 250 km to thesouthwest,n the core

region f the predecessor ynasty f the Calukyas. 3 et even f thiswerebecauseof

the presence f a new Kannada iteraturen Badami and Aihole, this would take us

back

only

few

generations-which,

n

fact,

s

about as

far

s the

iterary-historical

memory f Kannada poets themselves eaches, s this s embedded

n

introductory

kaviprars'amsras

the earliest uthorsmentioned re Asaga andGunavarma f the early

ninth

entury). he

first xtant ext n Kannada

describes

how

difficult task

t

is

for he author o

identifyiterary

models for he

prescriptiveroject

before

im:

he

is forced o huntfor craps f

Kannada

iteratureike

a

mendicant:

Both Sanskrit nd Prakritre available ccording o one's wish bagedante)or

composingiterature

ithrefinement

samari), or o

be surethere re

already

available oth iterary odels ndrules laksya,aksana)

n

great bundanceor ach

of

he wo.But

thediscourse

present

ere

requiresi

egging crapsirikoregozdvu)

[sc.,

ofKannada

iteraturel

o make

t

ntelligible.

t

is thus ifficultor

nyone

o

do

in

the ase f

Kannada he

way

he ncienteachers

of

anskrit

nd

Prakrit

id).

(KRM 1.41-42)

Kannada

iteraturein

the sense have been

using

the term

hroughout)

as

a

recent

nvention,

f

perhaps

he

eighth entury,

nd it is

precisely

he factof its

noveltyntheface fSanskrithatpromptedhewriter fthis ext opuzzle through,

in

a

mostdetailed

nd subtle

way,

he

complex

dialectic etween he ocal and

global

in

medieval literaryculture. This singular work

in the

history

of

literary

vernacularizations

the

Kavirdjamdrga

ca. 875),

The

Way

of the

King

of

Poets,

a

text oplace besideDante's De vulgari loquentia1307)-or, rather, eforet;

it

may

in

factbe the first ork

n

worldculture o constitute vernacularoetics

n

direct

confrontation ith

a

cosmopolitan anguage.

4

There

are considerable

ultural-

1He tyles imself

bhinavas'arvavaramn recognition fthe earliermodel

Sarvavarma's

Kdtantra),nd namestheautocommentaryn his grammar moghavrttifter is patron men-

tioned n 4.3.208). The Jaina turn o Sanskrit orkdvya-and Jinasena I clearly egards is

Adipurdna s such-needs study, specially he earlyworks f Ravisena 678) and Jinasena

(783). For a general ccount, eeDundas 1996.

12Literary

roductionn Prakrit as been thought ddly bsent cf. lreadyAltekar 960a,

412), but as noted boveithad

become residual r even archaic ultural eature,s inscrip-

tionaldiscourse rom hemid-fourth

entury n demonstrates.

See

KRM 1.37; Pa'mpaVAV 14.45.

Cf. Chidananda

Murti

1978, 256.

14TheTamil Tolkdppiyams no

doubt earlier its dating s

much

disputed;

for

ne sober

assessment ee Swamy1975), butthe dichotomy perative here s not cosmopolitan/localut

standard/nonstandard,entamil

kotuntamill

Zvelebil 1992, 134-36).



17/33


historical arallels etween heseworks, ut also some ignaldifferences.t themicro

level,unlikethe Eloquentia,heKRM aims to producenot a unified anguagefor he

polityfrom mongcompeting ialects, ut a language ualified or iterature. t the

macro evel, heKRM has a less transparentelationshiphanDante's work o political

theory nd practice, ut its social ocation nd authorshipre clear nd important.

t

was written

t the

court

f

Nrpatuniga

nd

under

his

guidance:

he

Way ofthe

King

of Poets s theWay of Nrpatungahimself.15

Despite the mportancefKRM for hecultural-politicalistoryfmiddle-period

India, there xistsno critical nalysis r even descriptiveccount f the work

n

any

language otherthan Kannada. Even Kannada-language cholarship as not always

appreciatedts largerhistorical ignificance.While Kannada in general s unjustly

ignored everywheren South Asian research,Old Kannada (Halagannada), the

language f his ndall literaturef heregion efore heVTras'aivaultural evolution

at the end of the twelfth entury,s understudied ven n Karnataka-in largepart

because

t

is

hardly

ccessiblewithout

knowledge

f Sanskrit. his

paradoxical act,

like the text's relationship o the tradition f Sanskrit oetics, speciallyDandin's

Mirror f Literature, re two mportantndicators f what vernacularntellectuals

writing

n Kannada

weretrying o do. We have seen

that

he circulation f texts n

Sanskrit oetics

was

both factor nd

a

sign ofthecreation ftheSanskrit osmopolis

in

Asia, and

at

the ame timeprovided framework ithinwhich ocal poetries ould

be

conceptualizedin Siam,

Sri

Lanka,Tibet,

and

so

on).

The same

process

ook

place

in the

subcontinent tself,first nd nowheremore profoundly

han in

Kannada

country.

Making he Global Local: theKavirajamarga

and theWays ofLiterature

The

KRM fullyrecapitulates

he

structure

f Dandin's Mirror nd in

some

important ays

even functionss our

oldestcommentaryn

the text.

t

first

efines

literature,escribesinguistic eatures

hatmar

t dosas) nd make

t

beautifulgugnas)

(chap. 1),andthen atalogues iguresf ound chap. 2) andsense chap. 3). In addition

to

similarity

n

structure,erhaps wo hundred f the illustrative erses re closely

adaptedfrom anskrit ntecedents. ut the work s not

a

translation f the Sanskrit,

as often ssumed.Not onlydoes translation s usually nderstoodmakeno cultural

sense

for his

worldwhere

iteracy

n Kannada

presupposed iteracy

n

Sanskrit,

ut

the work has a quite differentgenda from ts Sanskritmodel. What we are being

offered

n

the

KRM is

an

experiment

n the

localization f

a

universalisticanskrit

poetics

and an

analysis

of

Kannada

literary dentity.Conversely, owever,

t has

something

f nterest o reveal bout

the

creation f this

poetics,

nd

about

the real

dynamics

f

ocal-global xchange.

want to illustrate

oth

features

y

an

analysis

f

something hathas long confused tudents f theKRM: its appropriationf the

Sanskrit

iscourse n the

Way

of iterature.

The

KRM

firstntroduces he

categorymdrga

n

its broader

onnotation,iterary

method, omething

oded

in

the

very

name of the

work,

Kaviradj'amdrga,

The

Way

ofthe

King

of

Poetry. Way

becomes

covering

erm or

good literature,

s

such

(contrasting

ith

corrupt oetry, usya, .7-8,

so

Jinasena,

dipurdna

.31;

208-

'5KRM 1.44, 147, etc. The actual redactorf the workwas a poet named

SrTvijaya.



18/33

22 SHELDON POLLOCK

9); literature f the Way is the supremeuse of language, n all its formal nd

aesthetic omplexity:

Themanwho understandsanguage an communicateith thers, isclosing is

thoughtss he intended.Wiser

han

he is the

man

who can communicatearge

meaning

n

briefompass,ndwiser

till

he

man

whoknows ow omake iswords

unite

with

meter.More earned

han ll is

the

man

who

an

produce

orks fthe

greatWay mahddhvakrtigal).

(KRM 1.15-16)

This

is

a

perfectlyntelligible sage. What

has

been found uzzling s theKRM's

next move of adopting the notion of the regional Ways-whereby Sanskrit

demonstratedts

pervasion

f all

literary pace-for

a

differentiationf

Kannada

poetrytself.

It

s mpossibleullyocomprehendhe rocedures

f

heWay ndreach conclusion

about hemultiplicityf heir ptions. aving onsideredhe ules n words f he

earlier

astras,

will

ay

littlewith

espect

o Kannada

o

that

he

matter

n

general

may

e

clear

. Poets rise

n

a worldwithout

eginning

nd

thus

re nfinite

n

number,

heir

ndividualized

xpressions

re

f nfinite

inds,

nd o the

Way

xists

in

infinite

ariety

..

But to the best of

my ability

will discuss

riefly

he

distinction-theirifferences

erceivedy

he ld

Sanskritj

riters

ho onsidered

thematter-betweenhe

wo

xcellent ays, he

northernndthe

outhern,

n

the

mannerunderstand

t

..

Of

hese wo he outhern

ay

has en

arieties,ccording

to the ten anguage eatures,

unasj

.

.The

northern ayhasvarietiesifferentiated

by

he

presence

f

he

nversef hese eatures.

(KRM 2.46, 49-51, 54-55)

This

is followed

by

exhaustive

nventory

nd

illustration

f all the

language

qualities

taken over from he Sanskrit

radition,

which the author concludes s

foundational

o Kannada

poetics:

Whatever hewords

mployed

n a

poem they

will

enhance

he

virtues f

Kannada fmade

subject

o

thedifferent

sages

ssociated

with

the Ways

described

bove

2.101).

The

KRM,

in

short, ppears

o have

completely

grafted

he

discourse

hat

makes Sanskrit

osmopolitan-the universal epertory

f

styles-ontothe ocal worldof Kannada.

Modern Kannada scholarshave foundthis entire

nquiry of

which there

s a

reprise

n

the econd

mportant

edieval ext n Kannada

poetics,

he

Kdvydvalokanam

of

Nagarvarma

a.

1040,

at

the

court

f

Jayasimha

I

of

the

Kalyani Calukyas

o

be

not

only rrelevanto actual

Kannada

poetry, ut incoherent. o advancewhatever

has been made over

R.

Narasimhachar'smpatient

ismissal f

the

whole

question:

Northern

nd

southern

n

Kannada

poetics

refer

merely

o

the

schools

r

styles

in

Sanskrit,

we are

told,

for here

s

no evidence

hat

anything omparable

xisted

in

Kannada

1934, 121-22).

Such

a

judgment

fcourse

xplainsnothing

fwhat he

KRM

intends

yusing

thediscourse n the

Way

for ts

analysis

f

Kannada

iterature,

yettheredoes seem to be every eason o interprett as alien and evenmeaningless

to

a

local

literary

ulture.

Designed

to reaffirmhe real

transregionality

f Sanskrit

literature

recisely y identifyinguasi-regional

arieties he

madrgasppear

to

be

incongruously

f

not

ludicrously asted

onto

a

real

regional

world of Kannada. The

category apturesnothing

whatever

n

the local character f the literature

nd

fits

only

to the

degree

his iteraturemimics anskrit.

The

KRM

is

a

text

emerging

rom he

very

enter

f

one of the most

powerful

political formations n middle-period India (cf. Inden 1990, 228ff.), and this fact, f



19/33


no general rinciple fhermeneuticharity,hould nvite s to ponder eriously hat

it

meansbyusing he

talk

of osmopolitan anskrit o representvernacular-language

poetics. Metadiscursivelyne might argue that, facedwith exclusionfrom the

transregionalityf Sanskrit nd refusingo be caught n the brackets f the ocal, the

KRM seeks o remap he cosmopolitanWay onto the ocal world fKarnataka. here

must therefore e a northernnd a southern tyle of Kannada poetry tself-the

KannadaNadu mustbe shown o embrace north nd

a

south,

o

constitute regional

world-whetheror not

such

a

division

orrespondso any really xisting oetries.16

If Kannadais to participaten the worldof the iterarykdvya), worlddefined y

Sanskrit,

t

must how

ts characteristic

eatures.

n

a

word,

he ocal mustevince

ts

translocal apacities.

An

account f this sortmay capture omething f the cultural-politicalmpulse

atwork n theKRM, and other vidence look at below seems o corroboratet. But

there s another nd more significant,f somewhatmore complicated, ationale

underpinning

t. We

begin

to

grasp

hiswhenwe consider

ow the

KRM

differsrom

and supplements ts Sanskritmodels. First, t renames he Ways as north nd

south

the categories auda

and

vaidarbha

eing

of

course mpossible

or

Kannada),

and

therebymoderates

he

narrowly patial implications

f the

taxonomy.17

More

important s the distinction-which from he vantage point of standard anskrit

poetics

eems

odd enough

to

constitute category

rror-that the

KRM

introduces

in

distinguishing

he

Ways according

o the

two

main

divisions

fSanskrit hetorical

practice, ndirect nd direct natural ) xpressionvakrokti

nd

svabhdvokti):

TwoWays ccordingly

ame nto

rominence,

ndwith hem wodifferentormsf

expression,he ndirectvakra)

nd the direct

svabhdva).

irect

xpression

s

an

invariableharacteristicf he outhern ay. ndirectxpression,fmany arieties,

is found

n

the elebrated

orthern

ay.

(2.52-53)

For the Sanskrit radition,s we have seen, the Ways are differentiatedy the

presence r

the cosmopolitan vernacular - pollock, s

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