サンスクリット美文詩と賛歌 : Bhāravi作Kirātārjunīya第18章第22-43詩節を中心に

The Kirātārjunīya or Arjuna's Combat with the Mountain Tribe by Bhāravi (ca. mid-sixth century C.E.) is a classical Sanskrit epic in eighteen chapters. Verses 22 to 43 of the last chapter of this work are devoted to a hymn in praise of Śiva. The most arresting feature of the hymn is that Bhāravi uses a figure of speech called yamaka or “chime” in eleven out of twenty-two verses. Although many studies have been conducted on Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain hymns, little attention has been paid to figures of speech used by hymnodists. Taking the hymns of Mātṛceṭa (before the fourth century C.E.) and that of Mayūra (mid-seventh century C.E.) into consideration, this paper has examined the features of the yamaka in the Kirātārjunīya 18.22-43.　　

The results were as follows:　　

(1) In the Kirātārjunīya 18.22-43, only three out of eleven examples of yamaka conform to the rules of yamaka as established by poetic theorists. The rest are classified into pseudo-yamaka. This is true for Mātṛceṭa’s hymns as well. It should be noted, however, that while Mātṛceṭa breaks grammatical rules in several cases, Bhāravi never does. It is thus likely that the practice of composing hymns in conformity with prescriptive grammar prevailed among hymnodists from around the fifth century C.E. onwards.　　

(2) The examples of yamaka in Mayūra’s Sūryaśataka are more elaborate and faithful to poetic rules than those in the Kirātārjunīya 18.22-43. Interestingly, however, Mayūra uses yamaka in only one out of 101 verses. This fact suggests that yamaka went out of use in hymns by the middle of the seventh century C.E.　　

It is reasonable to suppose that one of the reasons that the Kirātārjunīya gained widespread popularity among both Indian and Western critics is that Bhāravi preferred to convey clear meanings in his verses instead of constructing a faultless yamaka at the cost of meaning and grammatical rules.