Sanskrit Citrakavyas and the Western Pattern Poem: A Critical Appraisal

Abstract

Until recently little was known of the striking similarity between Sanskrit citrakavyas and western pattern poems. In the category of visual poetry in Sanskrit fall akaracitras such as club, sword, wheel, lotus, umbrella, banner, trident, bow, arrow, and plogh — some of which are common to the western carmina figurata — and caticitras like all-moving, half-moving, horse-step, elephant-step, the varieties of cow-urinating design, a Sanskrit semblance of the western leonine verse. Modern letter poems in the west can be seen as parallel to letter designs of citrakavya. The present paper is an attempt to highlight the points of close convergence between the two genres and to bring home the basic unity underlying them.