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A suitable girl : Daṇḍin and a meal on the banks of the Kāverī
No full textIn the sixth ucchvāsa of the Daśakumāracarita, Daṇḍin narrates a short story in which a young man coming from Kāñcī is in search for a bride. He finds the suitable girl in a town on the banks of the Kāverī; her beauty is a sign of auspiciousness, and she proves to be able to cook a full meal only with the aid of a limited amount of rice. As for the meal, the passage is extremely interesting from a documentary point of view, because it describes its preparation in full detail. As well known, Daṇḍin is a Pallava poet, who writes around 700 CE; Kāñcī was the Pallava capital at that time, and the full story appears to take place in Pallava territory. The author must know the recipes he is describing quite well. But, besides providing a pleasant short novel, he almost surely had other aims as well. Daṇḍin is always very precise in locating the adventures of his characters, who quite often are of dubious morality. It is most probable that this perfect wife, and the ‘pure’ meal proposed, are also to be read as a way to extol the virtuous women and the Brahmanic customs of the Pallava country, and thus of the Dravidian South
Kuttanimata, Manuale della perfetta cortigiana : un classico della letteratura erotica sanscrita, a cura di Genevienne Pecunia, Cairo, Milano 2011, pp. 174, ISBN 978-88-6052-366-2
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Landscapes of Feelings: Descriptions of Forests in the Ramayana
No full textThis paper investigates the depictions of the forest in the Rāmāyaṇa in connection with the representations of the moods of the characters, and as a way of arousing emotional states (rasas) in the audience. For this purpose, Books II-IV of the poem have been examined. Here, the forest never appears to be described neutrally. Some distinct forms of presentation can be recognised: through the depiction of the natural environment, the poet prepares the audience for a disquieting episode or, on the other hand, for a peaceful situation; nature can contrast with or reflect the feelings of the characters; at times, a sort of direct emotional relationship is shown between the human protagonists and wild nature
Some Indian Myths on the Origin of Painting
No full textThe Citrasūtra of the Viṣṇudharmottarapurāṇa and the Citralakṣaṇa of Nagnajit recount some intriguing myths on the origin of painting. In the Citrasūtra, the first painting gives birth to the famous nymph Urvaśī; in the Citralakṣaṇa painting appears on earth as the medium for restoring the dead son of a Brahman to life, while in another myth this art begins with images of the gods depicted to be worshipped. Many aspects of the ancient Indian attitude towards visual arts emerge from these texts: the reputed divine origin of the arts itself; the way nature is imitated; religious purposes; the crucial role of the eyes in connoting life; and especially, the magic or creative powers ascribed to the artist. This last belief, the origins of which have to be seen in the most remote antiquity, is attested in many cultures, besides having an extremely long, important and variegate history in the West
Landscapes of Feelings: Addressing Nature in Search of the Beloved (Nalopākhyāna, Rāmāyana, Vikramorvaśīya)
No full textFrom the Itihāsas up to classical kāvya, the depictions of the natural environment seem to be formulated according to a definite series of literary patterns, strictly connected with the emotional and sentimental states that the poets mean to represent and evoke. In one typology of these “landscapes of feelings” (as we may call them), the character, in despair at having lost his (or her) beloved, directly addresses the natural elements of the forest, asking them for help. From the Nalopākhyāna of the Mahābhārata to Book III of the Rāmāyaṇa, and to its classical kāvya formulation in Act IV of the Vikramorvaśīya of Kālidāsa, this topos goes through a long literary process, but it retains some of its basic features, which are developed and enriched along the way
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