The subject of the work to be reviewed is the literary culture of the Sena courtly salon, which flourished in Bengal in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, particularly during the reign of Lakṣmaṇasena. Jesse Ross Knutson attempts to write a materialist history of Sanskrit literature with open subscription to the Marxist way of thinking, which distinguishes him from any other Indologist, especially those like himself trained in the US. It can be a fruitful intervention in the study of kāvya, which saw a new phase of invigoration since Sheldon Pollock's discussions on Sanskrit and vernacular literary cultures of South Asia.
The work consists of an introduction, four main chapters, conclusion and four appendices. In the introduction (pp. 1–16), Knutson explicates the methods and key concepts, of which the most important is consolidation of literary registers (pp. 6–9). He also locates the Sena courtly poetry in both the contemporary historical context of rural and local development towards regionalism (pp. 9–10) and the literary history in relation to its predecessors (Hāla's Sattasayī to the Subhā ṣitaratnakoṣa) and heirs (Baḍu Caṇḍīdās's Śrīkṛṣṇakīrttana to Bengali Vaiṣṇava literature) (pp. 11–15).
The first chapter analyses the representation of the king in the Sena courtly literature (pp. 17–46). Knutson retrieves from verses in the Saduktikar ṇāmṛta three characteristic tropes of Janus-virtue (p. 21), might-in-the-negative (p. 25) and dignity in others' degradation (pp. 40–41), all of which represent the king in a negative and displaced manner. He also discusses the geographical imagination of the kingdom expressed in bi-textual verses (śleṣa) superimposing conquest and violent sexual intercourse (pp. 31–32) and the centrality of degraded women for the king's representation in Dhoyī's Pavanadūta (pp. 34–39). The central strategies of representation in those works from the Sena court reveal their role in negotiating a crisis of the kingdom (p. 43). The Sena literature had a dialectical relationship with its world, structured immediately by the anticipated Khalji attack and broadly by the collapse of regional sovereignties (p. 44). It indicates the character of literature as a political practice, as proposed by Pollock in his theory of Sanskrit Cosmopolis (p. 46). The locality and localism represented by the Sena literature, however, shows Sanskrit's departure from cosmopolitan code and acquisition of its own life at this court (p. 45).
The second chapter deals with the Āryāsaptaśatī (pp. 47–71). Knutson interprets the author Govardhana's proclaimed application of sentiment suitable for Prakrit to Sanskrit as literary consolidation, a process in which the opposite levels of style or literary registers, socially coded spheres of literary cultural life, are made apposite. The registers reflect on each other in this process and a new critical perspective is created (p. 48). This is the essence of his concept of reality based on Della Volpe and Auerbach (pp. 48–49). Knutson reads in verses of the Āryāsaptaśatii the consolidation of high and low literary registers and the realism furnished by contradictions of the world, namely between (1) expectation and experience, a surface reality and a hidden scenario in the aristocratic household, (2) courtly urbane setting and rural outside and (3) glory of wealth/social status and absence of meritocracy (pp. 50–64). Govardhana was conscious of inventing a new poetry and the study of his work reveals that abrupt and profound artistic change, intricate reflexivity and realism are not the exclusive property of western modernity but pertain to historical conjunctures more broadly (pp. 65–70).
The third chapter is devoted to Jayadeva's Gītagovinda (pp. 72–88). Considering Jayadeva to have made Sanskrit vernacular and calling the long tradition of seeing him as a vernacular saint-poet an anachronism resultant from the later appropriation of his work by the Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava movement (p. 75), Knutson discusses the form and content of the Gītagovinda and their interrelation from the perspective of cosmopolitan and vernacular. He finds elements of contradictions and elite-popular negotiation in the form consisting of songs vernacular in metrics and aesthetics but inevitably encircled by Sanskrit verses (pp. 78–82). It makes cosmopolitan kāvya vernacular, while the content combining the theme of Kṛṣṇa as cowherd libertine and the courtly kāvya mode of love makes a rustic theme cosmopolitan and urbane (pp. 82–83). Thus the form and content balance against each other and are mutually implicative and constitutive (p. 84). In discussion on the context, he first reminds us of Jayadeva's worldliness and professional position as a court poet (p. 85). Defining the contradiction detectable in Jayadeva's works as a way to cope with the real ground, namely growing contradiction between sovereignty and its absence, he characterizes the Gītagovinda as a political poem and its elite-popular negotiation as a moment of the Sena state's cultural populism (pp. 87–88).
In the fourth chapter, Knutson picks up Baḍu Caṇḍīdās's Śrīkṛṣṇakīrttana, a Bengali work of the later period (pp. 89–114). It is a vernacular ‘vulgar kāvya’ which incorporates courtly Sanskrit into its composition (p. 89), while being thoroughly provincial (pp. 93–95). By comparing it with the Sena courtly poems, especially the Āryāsaptaśatī, in its treatment of manual labour (pp. 95–100) and contradiction between city and country (pp. 100–103), Knutson detects the poem's social origin and location in the country, which suggests a gradual social decent of Sanskrit kāvya and its migration away from the city (p. 100), and the chosen vulgarity and rusticity which indicates a new kind of life beyond the court acquired by Sanskrit and the Sanskritic register of Bengali (pp. 102–3). The intertextuality of the poem reveals the socio-cultural contradiction inherent to it and its presumed audience consisting of both elite and non-elite publics (pp. 103–10), while the narrative structure shows provincial and quasi-subaltern sensibility (pp. 110–12). Noting the contradictions inherent to the Śrīkṛṣṇakīrttana common to but different from Govardhana, Knutson concludes that the vernacular was born in Bengal in deep relation to the cosmopolitan, in this case the imperfectly cosmopolitan idiom of Sena-period Sanskrit (pp. 112–13).
The conclusion (pp. 115–24) begins with the summary of the previous chapters (pp. 115–20). After discussing the different relationships between economic life and social relations in modernity and premodernity, Knutson asserts the necessity of situating the structures of Sanskrit literature in relation to the structures of the worlds it inhabited, to understand it as a historical and aesthetic phenomenon (pp. 120–22). He concludes his discussion with remarks on the relation between reality and literary art and the possibility of literary historical materialism (pp. 123–24). The following appendices include the complete verses attributed to the Sena kings (pp. 125–31), to Govardhana except those found in the Āryāsaptaśatī (pp. 133–35), to Jayadeva except those found in the Gītagovinda (pp. 137–45) and Gītagovinda-Śrīk ṛṣṇakīrttana correspondences (pp. 147–54).
Knutson's discussion can be interpreted as an attempt to delineate two relationships surrounding Sanskrit literature. The first is the one between Sanskrit and vernacular literary cultures. While following Pollock's line, he succeeds in going beyond that, thanks to a peculiar character of the Sena courtly literature, by detecting the social descent of Sanskrit literature incorporating vernacular elements and the birth of vernacular literature from this concoction. The inclusion of Caṇḍīdās in the discussion buttresses his case by providing a link connecting the later Vaiṣṇava literature with the Sena court. It should however be pointed out that the Sena courtly literature's relation with its predecessors, both the inheritance of cosmopolitan idiom and the departure from it, could have been better highlighted by presentation and analysis of tropes of the earlier kāvya for comparison. For example, his valid remark on the depiction of the earth not as a wife but a transient lover of the king, indicating “more transitory and less secure pleasure of power, commensurate with the limits of the Sena polity in time and space” (pp. 31–32), could have been made more persuasive by citing a verse in the Pāla grants which depicts the earth and Lakṣṃī as royal co-wives.
The second is the relation between kāvya and the reality. Knutson applies literary theory for its delineation, as expected from his academic background and research trends in the US. His recourse to Marxist theory, however, enriches his discussion with perspectives and insights based on the concepts of historical conjunctures and determination. It enables him to read in the Sena courtly poems their engagement with the regional reality. It is nevertheless regrettable that the reality investigated by him is limited to the political situation and kingship and does not include the socio-economic structure and its long-term change in its ambit. As long as he aspires to a materialist history of literary culture, a discussion on this aspect should be indispensable, though the burden may not necessarily lie on his shoulders.
While making these suggestions verging on over-expectations, I highly appreciate Knutson's unique and innovative perspective that certainly contributes to our better understanding of the early medieval Sanskrit literary culture, especially in its regional manifestations. I hope that the works which follow his lead will further enlighten us about the rich and diverse cultures of Sanskrit.
