Rajasekhara, the author of the Kavyamimamsa holds the view that literature is of two types viz. sastra and kavya. While the former is a product of prajna the latter is of Pratibha. Both are like two paths of Sarasvati, the goddess of learning. While sastra is for hard-brained people, kavya is for sukumarmatis as rightly said by Visvanatha in his Sahityadarpana. The distinctive feature of kavya is niyatikrtaniyamarahita, alhadaikamayi ananyaparatantra, navarasarucira as specified by Mammata in his Kavyaprakasa.
The Kavya is therefore flowing like the river Ganges regularly from time immemorial. The Rgveda is the earliest kavya in the Sanskrit language. It contains some specimens of fine poetry. Most of the hymns are invocations of gods and goddesses who are personified natural phenomena with anthropomorphic traits. The Yajurveda contains sacrificial formula relating to various sacrificial rites in prose. The Samaveda is meant for chanting mantras in sacrifices. The Atharvaveda contains matters relating to magic. The Brahmanas are theological treatises dealing elaborately with the niceties of rites and rituals. Upanisads are philosophical treatises.
K.Kunjuni Raja rightly states: "As poetry, the Rgveda reveals certain features that are not seen in the recorded remnants of other ancient civilizations. Love of nature is one such feather that is very prominent in the poetry of the Rgveda. There is no ancient nation that has developed poetic literature comparable to the poetry of the Rgveda. No nation in the ancient world that has developed rich poetry, like the Greeks, has developed any nature poetry. The Rgveda is essentially natural poetry, dealing with allusions to the familiar objects of nature like rivers, animals, and birds. Among the objects, they attracted the attention of the poets of those days.”
He further remarks: "The authors of the Rgveda were great poets of deep vision, who could see far below the surface which alone the ordinary men see, who could vision some lusters in such depths beyond the sight of men and who could have direct communication with such powers. They sang of those illuminations in languages that were mown to the ordinary men and that could be seen in pictures and understood by ordinary men. They were the founders of the civilization of India, they developed and propagated the culture, and they guided the nation. Since they saw and realized and truth that ordinary men cannot see and understand, they understood some eternal factors in the world, and the- nation guided by such leaders developed a certain spirit that enabled the nation to survive various vicissitudes that ruined other nations. The great poets never led the nation along paths supposed to lead to certain goals beyond, promised and tempting, but at the same time unattainable in truth, abandoning the facts of the world, they also guided them clear of aimless materialism, making life noble and purposive. That is the great value of Rgvedic poetry. Here we find a balanced life, a life with a high purpose, and at the same time a life that did not look for unreal and unattainable goals.
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