Details

Subjects:

Hindu goddesses.
India -- Andhra Pradesh.
Aesthetics, Indic.
Sanskrit language -- Rhetoric.
Women in literature.
Eroticism in literature.
Sex -- Religious aspects -- Hinduism.
Hindu goddesses -- India -- Andhra Pradesh.

Form/Genre:

Poems.
Treatises.
Watermarks.
Manuscripts, Sanskrit.
Manuscripts.

Language:

In Sanskrit (Devanāgarī)

Biography/History:

Lived in northern Bihar; member of the Maithili brahman community; son of a poet named Gaṇeśvara.

Summary:

Manuscript used for recitation and contemplation, is a poetic treatment of Sanskrit poetics, literary aesthetics, and rhetoric (alaṃkāraśāstra); title translates as Bouquet of rasa, a reference to a nectar-like flavor or essence correlating to a heightened aesthetic awareness for the hearer of the poem; text uses sexual imagery such as different types of illicit women referred to as nāyikās. Text praises the Hindu goddess Jagadaṃba, a regional deity from Andhra Pradesh.

Notes:

Title from colophon (f. 23v).
Written in 8-11 lines per leaf.
23 leaves foliated 1-23, upper left and lower right verso.
Colophon: iti rasamaṃjarīsamāptā // śrījagadaṃba // rasamaṃjaryāḥ pustakam idaṃ // (f. 23v).
Dated after 1834 based on a watermark (f. 21); date written at the end of manuscript has only śaka 17-- without providing the decade or year, but which could correspond to the watermark (i.e., after śaka 1756).
Mistakes blacked out; some corrections and additions in margins; significant syllables, words, or phrases highlighted in red throughout.
Watermark on one leaf with the year 1834 and a word including the letter R (f. 21).

Cited in:

Listed in H.I. Poleman, Census of Indic Manuscripts in the United States and Canada (New Haven, Conn.: American Oriental Society, 1938), Poleman 2380 (UP 1487).

Cited as:

UPenn Ms. Coll. 390, Item 1487.

OCLC:

913796441