Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v1.c17.25

v1.c17.25

Taking the works themselves, Rudraṭa’s text covers a much larger ground than Rudra’s, and presents a distinctly different outlook. Rudraṭa puts a greater emphasis on the kāvyālaṃkāras or poetic figures, which supply, as Nami-sādhu points out, the name of the work itself, and which absorb its eleven chapters, leaving only four concluding chapters for a brief supplementary treatment of rasa, the cognate topic of nāyaka-nāyikā and the general problems of poetry. The key-stone of Rudra’s system, on the other hand, is the idea of rasa, having special reference to śṛṅgāra, with just a summary description of the other rasas; and the chief value of his work consists in his minute poetical treatment of the theme of śṛṅgāra-rasa and nāyaka-nāyikā. It will appear, therefore, that while Rudraṭa’s scope and method are more ambitiously theoretical and comprehensive, Rudrabhaṭṭa merely singles out a part of the whole subject, and not troubling himself about definitions and rules (which appear almost word for word as in Rudraṭa) gives us, in his apt and finely composed illustrative verses, a practical poetical manual on the subject of love and other sentiments. Jacobi, therefore, rightly remarks that “Rudraṭa appears as an original teacher of poetics, while Rudra, at his best an original poet, follows, as an expounder of his śāstra, the common herd.”