Ethics, Erotics and Aesthetics

About the Book

The Book Ethics, Erotics and Aesthetics are three important aspects of literature, which are interconnected. The balance of erotic descriptions can only become aesthetic when ethics are adhered to. This volume is a collection of papers on these three aspects separately and taken together. Some of the very important aspects of literary criticism are selected in this book for the reference of scholars in those fields.

About the Author

Prafulla K. Mishra (b. 1954-Puri) A well-known scholar and a poet of our time. A prolific writer in Sanskrit, English, and Oriya; his mystic poems search a new way of creating a modern taste for Sanskrit Poetry. He writes on Indian Aesthetics, Vedic studies, and Sri Aurobindo studies. As the pioneer of Prachi valley Cultural Academic and Historical Research Society, his exploration of Orissan Cultural History is note-worthy.

Preface

When my revered guru, Prof Krishna Chandra Acharya, proposed me to work on poetics of Orissa, I did my best to justify the contribution of Orissa to Sanskrit Poetics. It was probably God’s desire that I should work on the principles of literary criticism. I was pondering over the importance of poetics through ages and was always in search of the contemporary relevance of it. What should be the present status of literary criticism especially of Sanskrit? They are again searched out in a deeper sense in my later work Post-Mamma tan Sanskrit Poetics from Kashmir to Kalinga. The poets used to write observing the heavenly beauty of the Himalayan range and authors like Utpaladeva, Bhatta Tauta, Lolita, Sankuka and Abhinavagupta -could think of the principle of literature in a different perspective of Kashmiri Saivism, the cognizance of Gold in oneself. I was beholden by the tradition and found its continuity in eastern seacoast after the devastation of the Kashmir Empire. The principles of literary criticism are also an important aspect of human knowledge in the western part of the world that starts from no less than Aristotle. The principles have witnessed enough changes. But the core of literature remains unchanged. The new jargon is coined, became obsolete and replaced by a new one. Since the task of the rhetoricians is to find out a scientific explanation for the literature, every time they try to revise their earlier view. The nature of literature is subjective, volatile and delicate. To put them under any four quarters of principles doesn’t hold good. But the critics always run after the literature and becomes nearer to him. Most probably it is the appreciator who can only understand the poet but not the poet. Abhinavagupta holds this view of connoisseur being the nearest one of the poet. As a poet sees the entire world as his own, similarly the connoisseur sees, like a Kalidasian dictum, kamisvatam yati. Finally, they after a lot of searches, find it comfortable to follow the footprints of their forefathers, because they find them everywhere. Be it eastern or the western, it has the same spirit. For which they search for new jargon. But while searching they add new dimensions to the principles of literary criticism. Scholars are tired of the ever-changing definition of poetry and the coinage of new terminology. Sanskrit rhetoricians are quite conservative in using new words but very carefully, they move forward with the works of the predecessors. For this reason, commentaries are many times more than the text. Needless to say, the commentators only open new vistas on the theory of rasa. Similar is the case with the other important topics of poetry. There is no end to the development of the domain of knowledge. Time and again scholars used to come and point out new ways of thinking. I hope this would cater to some of the needs of the hour in unfolding the Truth, for, that is the end of the quest.