Glimpses of Ancient Indian Poetics

The present volume contains twenty two papers on various aspects of Indian Poetics written by prominent specialists in the field. These papers were presented and discussed in the National Seminar in Indian Poetics organized by the Department of English, University of Poona. Some have adopted interdisciplinary approach and have tried to compare and contrast some of the ancient Indian concepts of Poetics with those of the western ones, while some other articles aim at presenting an authentic picture of some of the aspects of Alankarasastra while some author have tried to highlight the main issues, other have tried to suggest their relevance to modern literary criticism and some have laid down the actual underlying philosophical frame-work on which the entire edifice of Indian poetics is built. On the one hand there are articles on some of the components such as guna, dosa, and alankara, on the other there are papers on theories of poetic communication, while some articles deal with peculiar functions of poetic language like laksana and Vyanjana, others deal with the process of aesthetic experience of beauty. The development of Indian poetics has made use of the framework of Indian Philosophy and this too has been presented in one article. That an art experience is neither a perception of actual silver nor an illusion like the perception of silver in a conchshell, rather it is an experience of the painting of actual silver has also been discussed in one article.