The genre combines the themes of love and separation with descriptions of the landscapes of the natural world.
The Ramayana features Rama sending Hanuman as a messenger to Sita, which has also been speculated to be the earliest example of this genre.
[8] The Mālatīmādhava by Bhavabhuti uses this form in act IX 25-26, in which an abandoned Mādhava searches for a cloud to take his message to Mālatī.
The Unnuneeli Sandesham, one of the oldest literary works in the Malayalam language, was composed as a sandesha kavya.
The messenger can be anyone – a person, a bird, a bee or a cloud or wind, and that messenger provides very interesting descriptions of cities en route with palaces and temples, pubs and parks, theatres, mansions and streets; the country parts and forests, hills and rivers, animals and birds, trees, creepers and flowers, cultivated fields and peasant girls, artisans.