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Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v1.c21: IX The Dhvanikara And Anandavardhana

Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v1.c21

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IX The Dhvanikara And Anandavardhana

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Ānandavardhana has been assigned by Bühler and Jacobi to the middle of the ninth century, on the strength of Rāja-taraṅgiṇī v 34, which makes him one of the ornaments of the court of Avantivarman, 855-84 A.D. We are pretty certain of the time of Abhinavagupta, Ānandavardhana’s commentator; for, as he himself states, his Bṛhatī Vṛtti on the Īśvara-pratyabhijñā was written in 1015 A.D., while his Krama-stotra was composed in 991 A.D. From Abhinavagupta’s remarks at the end of his Locana commentary on uddyotas i and iii of the Dhvanyāloka, it appears that the study of this famous work was traditional in his family, and that his own commentary was composed as a rejoinder to another, called the Candrikā (p. 60), written by one of his predecessors in the same gotra¹; and four times in his Locana (pp. 123, 174, 185, 215) he discusses or controverts the views of this earlier commentator, who is specifically referred to as the Candrikā- kāra at pp. 178 and 185.¹ This should certainly allow some generations to lie between Ānandavardhana and Abhinavagupta, and negative completely Pischel's contention that in three passages Abhinavagupta speaks of Ānandavardhana as one of his teachers. These passages occur at pp. 37, 183, and 214 of the printed text but a perusal of them with reference to their context will show that the honorific word *guru*, if it at all refers to Ānandavardhana, must refer to him, not literally but figuratively, as *paramparā-guru*, whose work was held in esteem in his family²; or (which is more likely) the reference is to one or other of Abhinavagupta's teachers, such as Bhaṭṭa Tauta, or Bhaṭṭendurāja, the former of whom is cited as *asmad-upādhyāyāḥ* or *asmad-guravaḥ* very often in Abhinava's commentary on Bharata. Again, Kayyaṭa states that he wrote his commentary on Ānandavardhana's *Devī-śataka* (ed. Kāvyamālā, pt. ix) at about 977 A.D., so that by the end of the tenth century Ānandavardhana was well enough established in fame to have two such learned commentators. Finally, Rājaśekhara, who lived about the end of the 9th and the beginning of the 10th century, mentions and cites Ānandavardhana by name in his *Kāvya-mīmāṃsā* (p. 16), and this should certainly clear up any doubt as to the authenticity of the date assigned by Kalhaṇa and accepted by Bühler and Jacobi.

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¹ candrikā-kāras tu paṭhitam...ity-alam pūrva-vaṃśyaiḥ saha vivādena bahunā, p. 185; ity-alam nija-pūrvaiḥ sagotraiḥ sākam vivādena, p. 123, etc.

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¹ This *Candrikā* is also referred to in a punning verse at the beginning of Mahimabhaṭṭa's *Vyakti-viveka* (i 5): *dhvani-vartmany-ati-gahane skhalitaṃ vāṇyāḥ pade pade sulabham | rabhasena yat pravṛttā prakāśakaṃ candrikādy-adṛṣṭaiva*, on which the commentator remarks: *candrikā jyotsnā dhvani-vicāraṇa-grantho'pi* (p. 1).

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² Jacobi, *WZKM* iv, pp. 237-38.

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The celebrated work on Poetics known as *Dhvanyāloka* (also called *Kāvyāloka*¹ or *Sahṛdayāloka*), of which or a part of which, Ānandavardhana is reputed to be the author, may be distinguished into two parts, viz. (1) the *Kārikā*, consisting of verses and treating of *dhvani*, and (2) the *Vṛtti*, or exposition, generally in prose with illustrative verses, of the above *Kārikā*. Now the question has been raised whether the *Kārikā* and the *Vṛtti* are of the same authorship or should be attributed to different authors.

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¹ The work is called *Kāvyāloka* by Abhinava.

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Abhinavagupta, who is followed in this respect by several later writers on Poetics, carefully distinguishes between the Kārikākāra and the Vṛttikāra, by directly opposing them, and also by using the term *vṛtti-grantha* in contradistinction to the *kārikā*². In three of these passages (pp. 123, 130-1 ; ch.

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² pp. 1, 59, 59-60, 60, 71, 78, 85, 104, 123, 130-1 ; ch iv pp. 25, 29, 37, 38, 39, 40 in the *Journal of the Dept. of Letters, Calcutta University*. For these passages collected together, see S. K. De in the *Bulletin of the Sch. of Orient. Stud.* i, pt. 4, p. 3, and Haricānd Śāstri *op. cit.* pp. 86-87.

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iv p. 29) Abhinavagupta expressly tries to reconcile the conflicting views expressed by the Kārikākāra and the Vṛttikāra.

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Bühler¹ first drew attention to this point: and Jacobi², relying on Abhinavagupta's testimony, put forward the suggestion that the Dhvanikāra, the supposed author of the Kārikā, was a different and older writer who should be distinguished from Ānandavardhana, the author of the Vṛtti. In support of this, it has been pointed out that one does not find complete agreement of opinion between the two parts of the work, although the one is an exposition of the other. On the other hand, it seems that the system as given in its bare outline by the Kārikākāra in his concise verses has been considerably expanded, revised, and modified by the Vṛttikāra; and many problems not discussed or even hinted at by the former are elaborately treated of by the latter. In one place, for instance (p. 123), Abhinavagupta clearly points out that the classification of dhvani according to vastu, alaṃkāra, and rasādi is not expressly taught in any kārikā; while in another place in ch. iv, Abhinavagupta states that the question as to the source of the endless variety of artha in poetry is mentioned by the Vṛttikāra but not touched upon by the Kārikākāra. Indeed, it seems that Ānandavardhana in his classical Vṛtti attempted to build up a more or less complete system of Poetics upon the loosely joined ideas and materials supplied by the brief kārikās; and his success was probably so marvellous that in course of time the Kārikākāra receded to the background, completely overshadowed by the more important figure of his formidable expounder; and people considered as the Dhvanikāra not the author of the few memorial verses but the commentator Ānandavardhana himself, who for the first time fixed the theory in its present form. The term "Dhvanikāra" itself came gradually to be used in the generic sense of "the creator of the Dhvani School", and therefore indiscriminately applied by later writers to Ānandavardhana, who, though not himself the founder of the system, came to receive that credit for having first victoriously introduced it in the struggle of the schools.

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¹ Kashmir Rep. p. 65.

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² ZDMG, 1902, p. 405f.

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It is not surprising, therefore, that in the apocryphal verse ascribed to Rājaśekhara in Jalhaṇa, Ānandavardhana is regarded as the founder of the dhvani-theory. Similarly, Samudrabandha (p. 4), passing in review the five schools of Poetics before Ruyyaka, mentions Ānandavardhana as the founder of the fifth or last Dhvani School. This would also explain the two groups of apparently puzzling citations from the Dhvanyāloka met with in the works of later writers, in which they either confuse or identify Ānandavardhana with the Dhvanikāra. On the one hand, we have several kārikās cited under the name of Ānandavardhana, while on the other, several passages which occur in the Vṛtti are given under the name of the Dhvanikāra. This confusion was so complete in later writers that even in the latter part of the eleventh century Mahimabhatta, who professed to demolish the new theory by his fierce onslaught in the *Vyakti-viveka*, quotes from the *Kārikā* and the *Vṛtti* indiscriminately under the generic appellation of the Dhvanikāra. In the same way Kṣemendra, in the last quarter of the eleventh century, and Hemacandra, in the first quarter of the twelfth, make Ānandavardhana responsible for *kārikās* iii 24 and i 4 respectively, while still later writers like Jayaratha, Viśvanātha, Govinda, and Kumārasvāmin regard Ānandavardhana himself as the Dhvanikāra, to whom the *Kārikā*, as well as the *Vṛtti*, is attributed ¹. Mammaṭa, generally a careful writer, distinguishes Ānandavardhana from the writer of the *kārikās*, whom he styles *dhvanikāra* or *dhvanikṛt* (pp. 213 and 214), but in one place (p. 445) he apparently falls into confusion and ascribes to the Dhvanikāra a verse which undoubtedly belongs to the *Vṛtti*.

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¹ Kṣemendra, *Aucitya-vicāra*, p. 134 = *Dhvanyāloka* iii 24 ; Hemacandra, Comm. p. 26 = Vallabhadeva, *Subhāṣ* 157 = *Dhvanyāloka* i 4 ; Govinda Thakkura, p. 16 = *Dhvanyāloka* p. 221 ; Viśvanātha, p. 114 = *Dhvanyāloka*, p. 130 ; Jayaratha, p. 119 = *Dhvanyāloka* p. 111 ; Kumāra-

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If the Dhvanikāra, is thus distinguished from Ānandavardhana, the question naturally arises—

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who was this Dhvanikāra, and what date should be assigned to him? Abhinavagupta does not give us any information on this point. Jacobi, in the learned introduction to his translation of the Dhvanyāloka, and following him, Haricānd Śāstrī pose the question very ably without, however, furnishing a precise solution. Sovani's hypothesis¹ that the name of the unknown Kārikākāra was Sahr̥daya, is hardly convincing, for his grounds for this identification are that (1) one of the alternative names of the work itself is Sahr̥dayāloka and that (2) the use of the words sahr̥daya and kavi-sahr̥daya at the end of chapter iv of the Dhvanyāloka and in the beginning of Abhinavagupta's commentary is significantly corroborative. It is well known, however, as Haricānd Śāstrī points out, that the word sahr̥daya (lit. a man with a heart) is used in innumerable places in Alaṃkāra literature, as in the verses in question, to designate a man of taste, a judge of literary beauty, a connoisseur of rasa. Ānandavardhana himself discusses sahr̥dayatva at some length in his Vr̥tti (p. 160), and Abhinavagupta arrives at a concise definition of a sahr̥daya thus: (p. 11) yeṣāṃ kāvyānuśīlanābhyāsa-vaśād viśadībhūte mano-mukure varṇanīya-tanmayī-bhavana-yogyatā, te hr̥daya-saṃvādabhājaḥ sahr̥dayāḥ, a definition which became so much standardized that

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¹ JRAS. 1910. pp. 164-67.

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svāmin, p. 64 = Dhvanyāloka iii 3. All the passages are collected together, and arranged in Haricānd Śāstrī pp. 84-86.

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Hemacandra does not scruple to copy it literally (Comm. p. 3)¹.

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¹ Mammaṭa begins his work (p. 10) with a reference to kavi and sahr̥daya, who are etymologically distinguished by Vidyādhara (p. 21): and both Mammaṭa and Viśvanātha declare that the sahr̥daya alone can have a true perception of rasa in poetry.

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In the absence of materials it is very difficult to decide the question finally. Jacobi maintains, on the indication of a passage in Abhinava, that this unknown Dhvanikāra was a contemporary of Manoratha, who is placed by Kalhaṇa's Rāja-taraṅgiṇī (iv 497 and 671) in the reign of Jayāpīḍa and his successor Lalitāpīḍa, i.e. in the first part of the ninth century (about 780-813 A.D.); but there are difficulties which seriously stand in the way of our arriving at a definite decision on this point. While discussing the various theories which deny the existence of dhvani, Ānandavardhana quotes a verse anonymously with the remark, tathā cānyena kṛta evātra ślokaḥ, upon which Abhinavagupta in his gloss remarks: tathā cānyena iti. granthakṛt-samāna-kāla-bhāvinā manoratha-nāmnā kavinā. If we suppose that by granthakṛt Abhinavagupta means Ānandavardhana, then Manoratha, who is thus made a contemporary of the latter, lives in middle or second part of the ninth century, i.e. somewhat later than the date assigned to him by Kalhaṇa, presuming of course that both the Manorathas are identical persons. If, on the other hand, we suppose that granthakṛt refers, as Jacobi conjectures, to the anonymous Dhvanikāra, we are confronted with the fresh difficulty that by the term *granthakṛt* Abhinavagupta invariably means Ānandavardhana (pp. 12, 37, 90, etc.). To remove this difficulty we must suppose either (1) that Kalhaṇa is wrong, as Pischel argues, in assigning Manoratha to the reign of Jayāpīḍa and Lalitāpīḍa, (2) that the two Manorathas were not identical persons, or (3) that Abhinavagupta himself has confused the Kārikākāra with the Vṛttikāra in a manner not usual with him. As there are no definite means of deciding any one of these equally plausible propositions, the conjecture that the original Dhvanikāra was a contemporary of the Manoratha of Kalhaṇa cannot be taken to have been definitely proved.

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It seems, on the other hand, that the *kārikās* date back to an earlier time than the first quarter of the ninth century, in which the Dhvanikāra is placed by Jacobi as a contemporary of Manoratha. The allusion to Manoratha and the apparent discrepancy in Kalhaṇa's statement need not trouble us, nor need we challenge the otherwise trustworthy testimony of Abhinavagupta; for it is quite reasonable to suppose that the Manoratha under discussion is perhaps a poet who was, Abhinavagupta says, contemporaneous with Ānandavardhana, and therefore quite a different person from the well-known Manoratha of Kalhaṇa. This is perhaps a much simpler explanation than straining the word *granthakṛt* to mean the Kārikākāra in the face of Abhinavagupta's own distinct indication to the contrary; and in this way we are not affected in the least by Kalhaṇa's Manoratha, with whom we have nothing to do. If, on the other hand, we place the Dhvanikāra in the time of Kalhaṇa's Manoratha, this would only leave a bare margin of two generations between the Kārikākāra and the Vṛttikāra, which does not seem to be enough to make room for a period of scholastic exposition of the former, of which undoubted traces are preserved to us inthe few memorial verses—*parikara-ślokas* (pp. 34, 130, 137, 147, 163), *saṃgraha-ślokas* (pp. 87, 223), *saṃkṣepa-ślokas* (pp. 44, 74, 243)—incorporated by Ānandavardhana in his *Vṛtti*, which itself, therefore, is not likely to be the first of its kind. These *ślokas* are a sort of recapitulation-stanzas which are adduced by the Vṛttikāra from unknown sources sometimes to explain the meaning of the kārikās, but more often to amplify and supplement them. But at the same time we need not suppose a very long intervening period between the original dogmatic formulator of a theory and its first thoughtful expounder : for it is not necessary that a system should always require a long stretch of time in forming itself. The phenomenon is not unusual that if a literary or intellectual movement is already afoot and is, at it were, in a fervescent state, a few generations, or at most a century, are enough to bring it to the inevitable culmination. or at least to some preliminary completion. If we suppose that a system of *dhvani* had been in existence at a very early period, we should expect to find, as we do find to a certain extent, in the case of the *rasa*-theory, its influence working, at least indirectly, on the earlier writers who preceded Ānandavardhana, although this argument in itself does not carry with it a decisive force. It may be admitted, on the other hand, that the Dhvanikāra apparently shows himself conversant with some theories of *rasa*, *rīti* and *alaṃkāra*. But this neither proves nor disproves his own antiquity or that of his system, for there is no evidence to show that he was aware of the particular views of Bhāmaha, Daṇḍin or Vāmana who championed these theories; nor are these writers to be taken, like the Dhvanikāra himself, as the absolute founders of the systems they individually represent. It only goes to establish that the theory, enunciated by the Dhvanikāra, may have existed side by side with these systems, as we find them in the extant works: for it could not have been much later, inasmuch as such a supposition would bring it too near the time of Ānandavardhana himself. If the Dhvanikāra was contemporaneous with Daṇḍin or Vāmana, he may be placed at most a century earlier than his commentator in the first half of the 8th century.

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If Ānandavardhana gave the final authoritative shape to the *dhvani*-theory (only the details of which were worked out by Abhinavagupta and others), the anonymous Dhvanikāra was not its absolute creator. This is made clear by the first kārikā, which tells us that the theory was already taught by earlier thinkers, and that it existed even at the time of the Dhvanikāra himself in various forms, handed down, as Ānandavardhana explains, in unbroken tradition (*paramparayā yaḥ samāmnātaḥ*), although it may not have been explained, as Abhinava adds in his gloss, in particular books (*avicchinnena pravāheṇa tair etad uktam, vināpi viśiṣṭa-pustakeṣu vivecanādityabhiprāyaḥ*, p. 3). This implies without doubt that the school existed from a very early time, but some unknown writer gathered together, summed up, and fixed the theory in a form which obtained considerable literary esteem for his work and the honoured but somewhat vague appellation of the Dhvanikāra for himself. But his name and fame, in course of time, were eclipsed by those of his great Vṛttikāra, who succeeded in establishing the theory for all time and to whom posterity began to ascribe, not altogether undeservedly, all the honours of his predecessor, so that one of the latest writers on Alaṃkāra, Kumārasvāmin (p. 288), glorifies him with the curious but significant epithet—Dhvanyācārya.

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Very little is known of Ānandavardhana’s personal history. The colophon at the end of ch. iii of his work in the India Office MS calls him *noṇopādhyāyātmaja*, while the colophon to ch. iv gives the form *joṇopādhyāya*. Of these two forms of the name of his father, the former seems to be correct, for referring to Ānandavardhana’s *Devī-śataka*, Hemacandra (Comm. p. 225) cites its author as *noṇa-sutaḥ śrīmad-ānandavardhana-nāmā*. Kayyaṭa also, commenting on the last punning verse of the same work, refers to the author as the son of Noṇa, and mentions his two works, the *Viṣamabāṇa-līlā* and *Arjuna-carita*, supposed to have been punningly alluded to in that verse. Both these works are cited in Ānandavardhana’s *Vṛtti*, and the former appears to be a Prakrit poem. Ānandavardhana himself refers to another work of his own at p. 233, on which Abhinava adds the gloss: *granthāntara iti viniścaya-ṭīkāyāṃ dharmottamāyām [dharmottamāyā?] yā vivṛtir, amunā grantha-kṛtā kṛtā*. Abhinava in *Locana* iv (p. 31) refers to another work of Ānandavardhana’s, called *Tattvāloka*, in which the latter is said to have discussed, among other things, the relation between *kāvya-naya* and *śastra-naya*.

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