Yāśobhūṣaṇa-kāvya as a literary genre: Typologies of praise in Alaṅkāra-śāstra

Yāśobhūṣaṇa-kāvya, a distinctive Sanskrit rhetorical genre in which systematic exposition of alaṅkāra-śāstra is woven into elaborate panegyric of a royal patron, deity, or guru, emerges as a major literary and intellectual achievement of the 13th-19th centuries. Beginning with Vidyānātha's “Pratāparudra-yāśobhūṣaṇa” (13th century), this genre undergoes significant transformations in the post-Jagannātha period (18th-19th centuries), particularly in South India. This paper proposes a functional typology of yāśobhūṣaṇa-kāvya based on its object of praise-divine, royal/bureaucratic, and ascetic-and examines key exemplars across these categories. Through close analysis of selected verses from Narasiṃha kavi's “Śrī Śarabhoji rājā Guṇaratnākara” (Tanjore, 18th century), we demonstrate how alaṅkāra definitions become inseparable from the historical praise of King Śarabhoji. Finally, we note regional analogues such as the “Māraṉ-alaṅkāram” indicating that the yāśobhūṣaṇa impulse transcends Sanskrit and manifests across Indian literary cultures.