Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v1.c14.1

v1.c14.1

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.