Haravijaya and Kapphiṇābhyudaya: The Two Surviving Mahākāvyas from 9th-Century Kashmir

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Ratnākara’s Haravijaya and Śivasvāmin’s Kapphiṇābhyudaya are the two mahākāvyas or epic court poems surviving from 9th-century Kashmir. They represent high points in the development of their genre, marked by the use of a highly refined language and a rich repertoire of poetic devices, as well as by their authors’ display of all-round learning. Apart from being unique pieces of art, they are, together with their commentaries, important witnesses of the development of Indian thought and society.I have already worked extensively on the Haravijaya, producing critical editions of text and commentaries for three of its fifty cantos, which are proposed to be published as monographs, after the inclusion of further material and due revision. Furthermore, the important manuscript material gained access to has for its remaining major part still not been studied, thus the second aim of the proposed project is the production of full diplomatic transcripts of its most important witnesses.On the Kapphiṇābhyudaya so far no commentary has been available. This lacuna is particularly felt for those parts of it which are among the most complex pieces of Indian ornate poetry ever written. This January, the only manuscript of a commentary on the Kapphiṇābhyudaya, preserved for an unknown number of centuries in Tibet, has become accessible to me. The production of a critical edition of significant parts of this commentary will be the third and mostimportant contribution of the project.