Definitional Verses (kārikā), Elaborations (vṛtti), and Numeration

In almost all classical works on Sanskrit poetical rhetoric, the methodology used by the author is to write definitions in verse form. Such a verse is called a kārikā (definitional verse). In Vedānta philosophy, however, the word kārikā means an explanatory verse.^[1] Further, in poetics, the term sūtra (poetics) refers to any definition of a poetical concept: A sūtra can take the form of one kārikā, of two kārikās, of one portion of a kārikā, and so on.

The term vṛtti (elaboration) denotes the author’s commentary on a sūtra or on an example. In Sāhitya-kaumudī, all the definitions of ornaments and so on are exactly the same as those in Kāvya-prakāśa, but Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa rewrote Mammaṭa’s vṛtti. This means he paraphrased the vṛtti, by writing in a clear style, and cut lengthy digressions. Whenever an element of Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa’s vṛtti differs from Mammaṭa’s vṛtti, it is pointed out in the Commentary. In the poetical theory itself, however, the term vṛtti means “function”, as in lakṣaṇā-vṛtti (the function called figurative usage).

The number on the right side of a sūtra denotes the number of that sūtra in Kāvya-prakāśa. The four lines of a kārikā are represented by the letters a, b, c, and d respectively. The number above the verse, however, is the number in this book: Those numbers were added by the present writer. In all the editions of Sāhitya-kaumudī, the kārikā numbers start from number 1 at the beginning of each chapter, whereas in modern editions of Kāvya-prakāśa (from circa 1950 CE), the numbers for the kārikās follow an uninterrupted sequence from beginning to end. To facilitate the sourcing of references in Kāvya-prakāśa, in this edition only the kārikā numbers in Kāvya-prakāśa are used. On occasion Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa omitted to number Mammaṭa’s kārikā and only mentioned it under the format of a vṛtti (4.97); sometimes Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa created a sūtra by changing the wording of Mammaṭa’s vṛtti (10.19); and elsewhere he created a sūtra by inserting theory from Viśvanātha Kavirāja’s Sāhitya-darpaṇa (10.25). Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa is the author of the kārikās in the eleventh chapter.

In this book, whenever a number is given in parentheses as a reference, that number always refers to the number above a verse of Sāhitya-kaumudī, not to the kārikā number.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Laghu-bhāgavatāmṛta 1.5.219.