Amaru (poet)

Amaru is famous in Indian intellectual history, but still largely unknown except for the literary legacy he left behind. In using the name Amaru, we cannot be certain of designating a specific individual who is the author of the poems included in the collection bearing his name. Biography in India is hagiography, and in this case, the hagiographical embellishments become important components in later interpretations (by commentators) of his poems.
Two implications flow from this. First, we can only really speak about the Amaru collection as a collection of poems that have been assembled into anthologies usually by medieval commentators. Of the commentators’ own sources we can never be certain. Second, we are required to disentangle and classify the later hagiographical elements in order to see whether they do provide a useful hermeneutical guide favouring a particular motivated reading of the poems.
Even to anchor Amaru in a chronological frame is difficult. Then consensus of scholarly opinion is that Amaru is possibly dated in the middle of the seventh century. [S. Lienhard, A History of Classical Poetry, Sanskrit-Pāli-Prakrit (Otto Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden, 1984), pp90-92]
But even if this date could be confirmed with certainty they would not especially help us in understanding the way the poems should be read. In one respect, this kind of stanzaic poetry, where each poem stands independently of the others (as opposed to epic literature, where the content often crosses verse boundaries), makes a virtue of ellipsis, it forces the reader to draw out the implication and suggestion in order to impose a meaning. But even so, the clearly defined themes that mark the poems distill aspects of to a set of specifics – sensuality and love, economic and social power, and rejection of society and culture – which is explored in a range of restricted variations, while omitting everything else. Even further restricting the possibilities of an Amaru was the necessity to confirm tightly to a set of conventions about poetic composition to which the sophisticated poet was increasingly adhering – while simultaneously exploiting the possibilities for variation within scholarly sanctioned strictures. The latter two points in particular affirm the elite status of this poetry and prevent its use as a source of history for all but a very narrow range of intellectuals and sophisticates. That such a group existed is, of course, a social fact of importance in its own right.
Amaru worked within the narrow social and cultural sphere of Sanskrit poetry, and may have had connection to kingship in one form or another. The "Amaruśataka" is a collection of poems as much about the social aspects of courting, betrayal, feminine indignance and masculine self-pity as it is about sensuality. Amaru is elliptical and makes great use of temporal disjunctions by the frequent employment of the locative absolute and gerunds. And, as Sheldon Pollock [S. Pollock, Aspects of Versification in Sanskrit Lyric Poetry (American Oriental Society, New Haven, 1977)] has shown, he demonstrates a development in the use of metre, utilising a technique of controlled disjunction between syntactical and metrical units.

English Translations

*"Erotic Love Poems from India", A Translation of the Amarushataka translated by Andrew Schelling, Shambala Library, 2004.
* The Amaruśataka was also translated as the part of the "Love Lyrics" volume by Greg Bailey in the Clay Sanskrit Library.

References

Notes

1. S. Lienhard, "A History of Classical Poetry, Sanskrit-Pāli-Prakrit" (Otto Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden, 1984), pp. 90-92
2. S. Pollock, "Aspects of Versification in Sanskrit Lyric Poetry" (American Oriental Society, New Haven, 1977)