kaarikaa

[aklujkar at unixg.ubc.ca]

Some aspects of Steven E. Lindquist's inquiry of 18 Apr have been
adequately addressed by the responses of Prof. Cardona and others. 

The appellation  kaarikaa does not ever seem to have been used to speak of
a verse intended to be poetic.  The proper domain for its use, as far as I
know, is ;saastra vaa:nmaya, as distinct from kaavya vaa:nmaya. A Sanskrit
poet would in all likelihood be offended if his verses were referred to as
kaarikaas. This does not mean that the kaarikaas cannot occasionally be
very charming as they are, for example, in Bhaskaraacaarya's mathematical
works. 

The kaarikaas appear predominantly in the ;sloka/anu.s.tubh and aaryaa
metres. Employment of the former is far more frequent than of the latter
and is undoubtedly older, probably by several centuries. 

In the earlier ;saastra works, one almost invariably finds ;sloka employed
for those compositions for which one may later use kaarikaa. 

The word kaarikaa as used in the context under consideration could be a
shorter form of something like smara.na-kaarikaa, saara-kaarikaa,
sa.mk.sepa-kaarikaa, bodha-kaarikaa. If anyone has come across early
occurrences which throw light on what the kaarikaa was thought to be a
'maker, fashioner' of, I would be grateful to learn about them. 

Initially, one would expect a noun to be understood with kaarikaa or
sm.rti-/smara.na-kaarikaa etc. What could that feminine noun have been?
k.rti (in the sense of 'composition')?  pa:nkti? .tiikaa/vyaakhyaa/v.rtti
etc.? padyaavali? ;sabdaavali?

The title Gau.da-paada kaarikaa must have come into existence at a date
later than the title Aagama-;saastra. 

Mr. Lindquist wrote: < 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).<

This is not as rare a phenomenon as it might seem. Sure;svara wrote
kaarikaas on important sections of ; a.mkara's bhaa;syas on the
B.rhadaara.nyaka and Taittiriiya Upani;sads. There are also works
commenting on the Nirukta and the A.s.taadhyaayii or their v.rttis in verse
form. Early vaartttikas seem to consist of what we would now call
kaarikaas.

ashok aklujkar
Professor, Dept. of Asian Studies, University of British Columbia,
Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6T 1Z2
ashok aklujkar
Professor, Dept. of Asian Studies, University of British Columbia,
Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6T 1Z2