The poetics of the Sanskrit ornate epic ( mahākāvya), recognized as the most prestigious genre of Sanskrit kāvya literature, significantly rely on literary devices creating the sense of grandeur. The aim of this study is investigate the notion of atiśaya discussed by early works on Sanskrit literary theory and to identify it as a focal term within a discourse explicating the poetics of grandeur characteristic of mahākāvya genre. The here introduced distinction between atiśaya and hyperbole enables to capture the specificity of literary grandeur in mahākāvya compositions and elucidates the broader matter of ‘excess’ in the Sanskrit literature.

The pattern of collection, which characterizes the classical Indian though in general, may serve as a strongly persuasive literary device. In that role it is often employed in Sanskrit grand narratives, specifically, in Hindu epics, purāṇas, and ornate epic poems (mahākāvya). The study seeks to examine the conceptual grounds, figurative realisations and persuasive ends of this pattern in Jinasena’s (9th century CE) Ādipurāṇa, an important text of the Digambara Jain tradition. Jinasena’s work represents the genre of Jainpurāṇas, which combines and modifies the generic properties of the afore mentioned Sanskrit grand narratives.