Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v1.c21.22

v1.c21.22

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.