Poverty in Sanskrit literature

[Richard Salomon]

> It is another fact of Sanskrit, Tamil and other classical Indian
> literature that poverty is rarely, if ever, glamorized or treated as
> metaphor, in the manner in which Sadhunathan has done.  Perhaps other
> INDOLOGY members might know of passages which do or don't exemplify
> this.  It seems to me that the daily contact which most writers in 
> India had with poverty probably prevented them developing a romanticized
> attitude towards it.
> 
> Dominik
> 

An interesting body of material on the portrayal of poverty in Sanskrit 
are the sections in various Subhaa.sita anthologies with titles like 
daaridrya, daridra-nindaa, 
aapat, diina, etc.  See, for example, 'Saarngadharapaddhati, 401-412; 
Suuktimuktaavalii 127; Subhaa.sitaavalii 3157-3206; 
Subhaa.sitaratnako'sa 39; Saduktkarnaam.rta 2226-2250; and 
Subhaa.sitaratnabhaa.n.daagaara pp.65-68. They do seem to agree that 
poverty is not very romantic or healthful.

 There is also an interesting interchange between Kosambi and Ingalls in 
their edition/translation, respectively, of Subhaa.sitaratnako'sa on the 
poverty issue.

-R. Salomon