Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v1.c23.7

v1.c23.7

There can be hardly any doubt that the *Kāvya-mīmāṃsā* should be ascribed to the dramatist Rājaśekhara, although it is not mentioned in these enumerations of Rājaśekhara’s works³. Our author gives his own name at the end of the first chapter as yāyāvarīya Rājaśekhara, which agrees with the description given in the dramas and which makes the later writers cite our author simply as *yāyāvara*¹ The opinions of this *yāyāvara* family, to which he belonged and in which were born poets and scholars like Surānanda², Akālajalada³, Tarala⁴ and Kavirāja, are cited frequently by him under the general designation *yāyāvarīya*⁵, as well as under the individual names of these famous members who are enumerated in the *Bāla-rāmāyaṇa* i 13 and elsewhere. He also quotes with respect the views of his wife Avantisundarī (pp. 20, 46, 57), for whose pleasure, we know, he wrote his *Karpūra-mañjarī* (i 11) and who seems to have been an accomplished authoress. The present work does not also omit a display the author's love for Prakrit dialects, as well as his knowledge of geography (ch. xvii), of which he gives ample evidence in Act x of the *Bāla-rāmāyaṇa*. These and other details, on which we need not dwell any further, show that our Rājaśekhara is no other than the well-known dramatist.