In Hinduism

Kavya (poetry)

Source: academia.edu: Bhoja’s Mechanical Garden

Lokapaññati (“description of the world”) is a Pali text from Burma.—This text, something between a cosmology and a storybook, draws on a large variety of sources and may be dated, according to K. R. Norman, to the eleventh or twelfth century, although we can only say with certainty that it formed a source for the fourteenth-century Thai text the Traibhūmikathā. [...] While it surely drew on the rich store of “legends” of Asoka recorded in the quasi-didactic avadāna literature (which, like parallel genres in the Jain tradition, bears some similarities to the kathā literature in Sanskrit), the Lokapaññati and a close relative (and possible source, depending on their respective dating), the Pāli Thūpavaṃsa of Sri Lanka, introduce something new: they record the use of “mechanical devices” to protect the Buddha’s relics.

The Lokapaññati’s rendition of the story begins as a tale of two kingdoms: that of Pāṭaliputta (Sanskrit: Pātaliputra ) and the distant land of “Roma”. Roma, according to the story, was filled with makers of automata—what the text calls literally “machines that were the vehicles of spirits,” bhūtavāhanayanta, or mechanical beings animated by a kind of life force.

context information

Kavya (काव्य, kavya) refers to Sanskrit poetry, a popular ancient Indian tradition of literature. There have been many Sanskrit poets over the ages, hailing from ancient India and beyond. This topic includes mahakavya, or ‘epic poetry’ and natya, or ‘dramatic poetry’.

See also (Relevant definitions)

Partial matches: Loka, Pannata.

Full-text: Traibhumikatha, Roman, Yantakara, Bhutavahanayantra, Bhutavahana, Kanthaka.

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