Sanskrit Poetics as a Study of Aesthetic

S. K. De’s classic study offers the first synoptic, rigorously argued account in English of how Sanskrit thinkers conceived poetry—as craft, as meaning, and as aesthetic experience. Ranging from the early alamkārikas through Daṇḍin and Vāmana to Ānandavardhana and Abhinavagupta, De traces the discipline’s formative alliance with grammar and its gradual turn from cataloging “ornaments” to theorizing rasa, poetic “relish.” Along the way he clarifies foundational debates over śabda and artha, ...