Prescribed Prose and Poetry Texts
What the prescribed texts demand
The prescribed-text section tests close reading of Maharashtri passages usually drawn from the Gaha Sattasai anthology and from narrative or dramatic works such as Kouhala's Lilavai and Rajasekhara's Karpuramanjari. You are expected to identify the speaker, the situation, the dominant rasa and the poetic figure, and to explain how a single image carries the emotion. Marks are lost by summarizing plot instead of analysing diction.
Core rules
- Establish the frame first: who speaks, to whom, and in what state of mind (union, separation, jealousy, pride).
- Treat every adjective as evidence: Maharashtri gathas compress emotion into one or two images.
- Link the figure to the rasa. An utpreksha (as if / imagined as) normally intensifies viraha or shringara.
- In prose passages, watch absolutive forms (-ia, -ūṇa) and quotative particles that mark direct speech.
- Quote the Prakrit word you are explaining; paraphrase alone does not earn the analysis mark.
Worked example
A gatha describes a woman who has drawn her lover's picture on the wall and then, when a friend enters, hides it with her palm. Reasoning: the speaker is an observer or the friend; the situation is viraha (separation); the gesture is svabhavokti (natural description) that reveals shame and longing; the picture is not a metaphor but a realistic detail made poetic by concealment. A full answer names the rasa, the figure and the psychological inference.
Traps
Do not read conventional imagery as autobiography of the poet. Do not confuse the poet's name in a colophon with a character. Do not ignore the final pada, which often carries the punch.