Mapping out a World: The construction of literary landscapes in Sanskrit messenger poetry (dūtakāvya)

Presentation by Lidia Szczepanik-Wojtczak (J. Gonda Fund Fellow at the IIAS).

Sanskrit messenger poetry (dūtakāvya) revolves around the estrangement felt by separated lovers. The protagonist becomes so love-mad that he or she decides to send an unlikely messenger to the faraway beloved. The more far-fetched these messengers, the better – they can be anything from the moon, a cloud or a bird to a footprint, tobacco leaf or even a language. A description of the route the messenger takes while delivering the missive usually takes up the body of the poem. This, in turn, encourages the readers to draw maps of the journeys in their imaginations.

There is more to these maps than simple geographical charts as the poets plotted out the course of the messenger through areas of various social, religious, cultural and political properties and the resulting literary landscapes express the creative re-imagination of real space. Dūtakāvya presents that rare opportunity in the study of Indian belles lettres to explore the matter of the arrangement and classification of space in the pre-modern Indian imagination, to link these findings to a chronology and geography, as well as to investigate how the individual and group identity was created and presented in relation to space.

Over the course of her lecture, Dr Szczepanik-Wojtczak will present how the area of what is modern-day Kerala, was mapped out in this way in two medieval Sanskrit messenger-poems, Lakṣmidāsa’s Śukasandeśa (“Parrot-Messenger” – 14CE) and Uddaṇḍa Śāstrī’s Kokilasandeśa (“Koel-Messenger” – 15CE). These two poems, which complement each other in charting out a northern and southern routes respectively from Kañcīpūram to central Kerala, are striking on account of their regional and historical specificity. The messengers pass through areas teeming with distinct individuals and observe activities of import for the local history of the area, such as the Mamankam festival in the Vaiṣṇava Thirunavaya temple on the banks of the Bharathappuzha River. The messengers’ journeys are also undoubtedly representations of pilgrimage routes and the parrot and koel are asked to participate in precisely described temple worship and observe the religious practices taking place in the temples they pass along the way.

Inline image: Kalidasa writing The Cloud Messenger (Meghaduta). 

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Every month, an IIAS researcher or visiting scholar will present his or her work-in-progress in an informal setting to colleagues and other interested attendees. IIAS organises these lunch lectures to give the research community the opportunity to freely discuss ongoing research and exchange thoughts and ideas.