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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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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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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
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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.).
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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.
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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.
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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
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THE COSMOPOLITAN VERNACULAR 13
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.
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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.
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THE COSMOPOLITAN VERNACULAR 15
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.
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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.
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THE COSMOPOLITAN VERNACULAR 17
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.
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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).
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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
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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).
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THE COSMOPOLITAN VERNACULAR 21
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.
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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
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19/33
THE COSMOPOLITAN VERNACULAR 23
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
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