Inquiry re: the nature of 'kaarikaa'

[cardona at unagi.cis.upenn.edu]

>(Please pardon ITRANS mistakes, it is not something that I have ever had
>the need to learn before).  I am currently doing work with the
>Gau.dapada-kaarikaa and had a question re: the nature of the term
>'kaarikaa'.  As I understand the term, it refers to verse form (of a
>particular metre?).  I have been told that it maintains a status similar to
>that of suutra (in a sense, a verse form of suutra).  I have been unable to
>find any good scholarship that deals with such 'genre' terms.  My questions
>are these:  Does kaarikaa refer to a type of text as well or just to the
>verse form.  I am only aware of philosophical kaarikaas, though I have been
>told that there are kaarikaas on poetics that are not 'philosophical'--
>this was the other person's term.  If it is a verse form, is it just one
>type of verse or does it include more than that?  Also, any Sanskrit
>definitions of kaarikaa would be greatly welcome (please include the
>citation if possible).
>
>The reason that I ask these questions is that I am trying to come to terms
>with the relationship of the Maa.n.duukya Upani.sad with the
>Gau.dapada-kaarikaa, which strikes me as a unique and perplexing textual
>situation since I am unaware of any other kaarikaa being self-consciously
>written on another type of root text (.sruti, no less) which is also in
>verse (meaning that they are often the object of commentaries, rather than
>a sort of verse-form 'commentarial rewrite' in themselves).  I am aware of
>the argument that says that the upani.sad was written later, but that does
>not seem plausible given that .Samkara saw them as independent texts (and
>it seems implausible he would have readily accepted the upani.sad as .sruti
>in the course of one or two hundred years).
>
>Any thoughts on these matters would be greatly appreciated.
>
>-Steven
>
>
>Steven E. Lindquist
>University of Chicago

The most succinct description I know of concerninga kArikA is found in
Hemacandra's AbhidhAnacintAmaNi (2.172): kArikA tu svalpavRttau bahor
arthasya sUcinI.  This captures the essence: it is a verse that conveys a
great deal in a short compass, so that it is a verse equivalent of a sUtra
(which also can at least in part be metrical)