Sanskrit Sahitya: Prose and Poetry Comprehension
What comprehension asks
The Sahitya section tests whether you can read a prescribed prose or poetry passage and explain its meaning, context, speaker, rasa and alaṃkāra. Questions often ask for the sandarbha (where the passage occurs), the character's intention, and the figure of speech.
Core rules
- Read the passage twice: first for the verb and subject, then for adjectives and compounds.
- Identify vakya-bheda: statement, question, command, blessing.
- For poetry, note rasa: śṛṅgāra, karuṇa, vīra, hāsya, adbhuta, raudra, bhayānaka, bībhatsa, śānta.
- For alaṃkāra, distinguish upamā (comparison with iva/vat/yathā), rūpaka (metaphor, no comparator), utprekṣā (as if), anuprāsa (alliteration), yamaka (repetition of same sound with different meaning).
- Prose questions reward attention to cause and effect, not paraphrase.
Worked example
A line says the moon is the lamp of the sky. The moon is the upameya; the lamp is the upamana; the implied comparison is the ground. If the line said the moon-lamp shines, with no separate comparator, it would be rūpaka, not upamā. State the type and the reason; a bare label earns less.
Traps
- Naming rūpaka whenever two nouns are placed together.
- Confusing the poet's voice with a character's speech.
- Ignoring sandarbha and giving a dictionary meaning that contradicts the episode.
- Translating literally and missing the implied praise or irony.
- Mixing rasa and bhāva; rasa is the dominant aesthetic experience, bhāva a transient emotion.