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Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v1.c14: V Udbhata

Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v1.c14

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English

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V Udbhata

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Udbhaṭa, who wrote a commentary on Bhāmaha as well as utilised the latter's work in his *Kāvyālaṃkāra-saṃgraha*, certainly lived before the final exposition of the *dhvani*-theory by Ānandavardhana¹ who, in the middle of the 9th century, actually cites Bhaṭṭa Udbhaṭa twice at pp. 96, 108. Udbhaṭa's name indicates that he was probably a Kashmīrian. Kalhaṇa (iv 495) mentions a certain Bhaṭṭa Udbhaṭa who was a *sabhāpati* of king Jayāpīḍa of Kashmir (about 779-813 A.D.); and Bühler,² to whom we owe the discovery of Udbhaṭa's work in Kashmir, identifies him with the author of the *Kāvyālaṃkāra-saṃgraha*. Accepting this identification, we should, however, place the most flourishing period of Udbhaṭa's activity, as Jacobi points out, in the first part of Jayāpīḍa's rather long reign; because this sovereign in the latter part of his career appears to have alienated the Brahmans by his oppression of the people. Udbhaṭa, therefore, should be assigned to the end of the 8th century, and he may have lived into the beginning of the 9th.

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¹ Cf the opinions of Pratīhārendurāja ( p. 79, l.18f ), Ruyyaka and Jayaratha (p. 3) and Jagannātha (pp. 414-5).

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² *Kashmir Rep.* p. 65.

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Besides a lost *Bhāmaha-vivaraṇa*, Pratīhārendu tells us (p. 15) that Udbhaṭa wrote a poem, called *Kumāra-sambhava*, from which are taken most of the illustrations in the text.

Mukula And Pratīhārenduraja.

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Pratīhārendurāja Udbhaṭa's commetator, was, as he himself tells us, a native of Koṅkaṇa and a pupil of Mukula. Mukula is known to us as the author of *Abhidhā-vṛtti-mātṛkā*, a work on the grammatico-rhetorical question of *abhidhā*. From the last verse of this work we learn that the author's father was Bhaṭṭa Kallaṭa who lived, according to Kalhaṇa v 66, in the reign of Avantivarman of Kashmir (855-884 A.D.)¹, and was therefore a contemporary of Ratnākara and Ānandavardhana. Accepting Kalhaṇa's statement, Mukula should be placed roughly towards the end of the 9th century and the beginning of the 10th. His pupil Pratīhārendurāja, therefore, belongs approximately to the first half of the 10th century.² In his commentary on Udbhaṭa, called *Laghuvṛtti*, Pratīhārendu quotes from Bhāmaha, Daṇḍin, Vāmana, the *Dhvanyāloka* and Rudraṭa, actually naming the first three, and appears to be fairly familiar with the *dhvani*-theory, as explained by Ānandavardhana, to which, however, he does not subscribe.

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¹ Bühler *op. cit.* pp. 66, 78.

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² Cf Pischel, Pref. to *Śṛṅg.til.* p. 12.

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Peterson appears to suggest¹ the identification of Pratīhārendurāja with Bhaṭṭendurāja, whom Abhinavagupta refers to as *asmad-upādhyāya* in his *Locana* (pp. 25, 43, 116, 207, 213) as well as in his commentary on Bharata, where this teacher is quoted sometimes simply as *upādhyāya*. At the commencement and close of his *Locana*², Abhinavagupta indicates his immense indebtedness to this teacher, and in one place (p. 160), we find in his praise the somewhat grandiloquent epithet *vidvat-kavi-sahṛdaya-cakravartin*; which together with the fact that Abhinava also indicates that he learnt *kāvya* from Bhaṭṭendurāja will go to support the conjecture that this preceptor was apparently well-versed in both the theory and practice of poetry. Although chronology does not stand in the way, there are several reasons which might induce one to distinguish the two Indurājas. From Abhinava's commentary on the *Bhagavadgītā*³, we learn that Bhaṭṭendu was the son of Śrībhūtirāja and grandson of Saucuka of the Kātyāyana-gotra; but of Pratīhārendu's genealogy or personal history we know nothing, except that he was a Kauṅkaṇa and a pupil of Mukula⁴. Bhaṭṭendu appears chiefly as a poet, who wrote, as Abhinava’s quotations show, in Sanskrit and Prakrit, and whose verses apparently supplied a ready source of apt poetic illustrations to his pupil’s works, probably inspired by himself. If some of his opinions on *rasa* and allied topics are quoted by Abhinava in his commentary on Bharata, they bear no kinship to Pratihārendu’s views, as expressed in the latter’s commentary on Udbhaṭa. Although the prefixes Bhaṭṭa and Pratihāra, being mere honorific titles, need not make any serious difference, Abhinava’s citation of his teacher always as Bhaṭṭendurāja (and never as Pratihārendurāja) is somewhat remarkable; and in view of the fact that these two Indurājas were probably contemporaries, might this not indicate that Abhinava meant to imply a difference? The two writers are never confused even in later anthologies, for the poet is always designated as Indurāja or Bhaṭṭendurāja. The conjecture, therefore, is not unlikely that Abhinava’s teacher may have been the poet Bhaṭṭendurāja, who is quoted under this designation in Kṣemendra’s two works¹ as well as in the poetical anthologies² of Śārṅgadhara, Vallabhadeva and

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¹ Introd. to *Subhāṣ*°, p. 11; but *contra* in Aufrecht i 59a.

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² ed. Kāvyamālā p. 1; and ch. iv (p. 42) in the *Journal of the Dept. of Letters*, Calcutta University, 1923.

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³ Bühler *op. cit.* pp. 80 and cxlvii-viii.

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⁴ It is curious that Abhinava, who takes care to refer to most of his teachers and "teacher of teachers" (*parama-guru*), should have omitted a reference to Mukula, whose work, if he was a *parama-guru*, should have been important

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¹ *Aucit. vic.* under *śl.* 20, 31; *Suvṛtta-til* under *śl.* 2, 24, 29, 30.

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² The verse *parārthe vaḥ pīḍām*, ascribed to Indurāja in the *Paddhati* of Śārṅgadhara (1052) is quoted anonymously twice by Ānandavardhana (pp. 53, 218). a fact which, however, is not decisive; because Abhinava’s commentary is

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to him, inasmuch as it is deals with the quasi-rhetorical question of the functions of word and its sense.

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Jalhaṇa. The commentator Pratīhārendurāja, on the other hand, was never known for his poetical pretensions, and was chiefly a writer on Poetics, who obviously belonged in his views to the older system of Udbhaṭa, and did not, like Abhinava, believe in the newly established doctrine of *dhvani*, with which, however, he appears to be fully conversant. Referring to this new theory of Ānandavardhana, Pratīhārendu states in one place (p. 79) that what is known as *dhvani* and taken to be "the soul" of Poesy by some thinkers is included implicitly by his author Udbhaṭa, in the treatment of some of the poetic figures under discussion, and therefore need not be separately considered. The standpoints of Pratīhārendurāja and Abhinava are so divergent that it is difficult to admit any spiritual relationship between the two; for the former was in no way an adherent of the *dhvani*-theory, of which Abhinava was a recognised advocate.

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