Design and Rhetoric in a Sanskrit Court Epic: The Kiratarjuniya of Bharavi

Indira Viswanathan Peterson provides an introduction to the Sanskrit court epic (mahakavya), an important genre in classical Indian poetry, and the first study of a celebrated sixth-century poem, the Kiratarjuniya (Arjuna and the Hunter) of Bharavi. Sanskrit court epics are shown to be characterized both by formalism and a deep engagement with enduring Indian values.

The Kiratarjuniya is the earliest literary treatment of the narrative of the Pandava hero Arjuna's combat with the great god Siva, a seminal episode in the war epic Mahabharata. Through a close analysis of the structural strategies of Bharavi's poem, the author illuminates the aesthetic of the mahakavya genre. Peterson demonstrates that the classical poet uses figurative language, rhetorical devices, and structural design as the primary instruments for advancing his argument, the reconciliation of heroic action, ascetic self-control, social duty, and devotion to God. Her discussion of the Kiratarjuniya in relation to its historical setting and to renderings of this epic episode in literary texts and temple sculpture of later periods reveals the existence of complex transactions in Indian civilization between the discourses of heroic epic and court poetry, political ideologies and devotional religion, Sanskrit and the regional languages, and classical and folk traditions. Selections from the Kiratarjuniya are presented in poetic translation.

Indira Viswanathan Peterson is Professor of Asian Studies at Mount Holyoke College. She is the author of Poems to Siva: The Hymns of the Tamil Saints and editor of Indian literature for The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces, Expanded Edition.