The Treatment of Suspense (Katha-Rasa) as a Conscious Narrative Skill in Dhanapala's Tilakmanjari

A successful writer of a narrative must create an illusion of reality in the mind of his listeners or readers; and a sure means to this end is to hold the audience in suspense so that it is too much interested to have any time to reason and so spoil its own enjoyment; any deviation

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कंसारा धनपाल की तिलकमंजरी को सुनियोजित कथा-शिल्प के रूप में पढ़ते हैं। उनके अनुसार कौतूहल अथवा कथारस वहाँ सचेत कौशल है: विद्याधर मुनि की भविष्यवाणी, विलम्बित पहचान, परस्पर गुँथे उपकथानक और छिपाई गई पहचानें श्रोता को अन्त तक बाँधे रखती हैं। Kansara reads Dhanapala's Tilakamanjari as a deliberately managed narrative. Suspense, he argues, is a conscious craft: the Vidyadhara monk's prophecy, delayed recognitions, interlocking sub-plots and withheld identities keep the audience held until the solution, and he counts this katha-rasa among the poet's chief skills.

Written by the archive’s cataloguers, not by the author.