Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v1.c24.11

v1.c24.11

Dhanika, also described as the son of Viṣṇu, and author of the *Avaloka* commentary on Dhanañjaya, was probably one of Dhanañjaya's numerous illustrious contemporaries; for he may be assigned to the same period. Dhanika quotes from Padmagupta (also known as Parimala)¹, who wrote about 995 A.D., as well as from Muñja, and is quoted in his turn by Bhoja in his *Sarasvatī-kaṇṭhābharaṇa* in the first half of the 11th century. He is also described in one of the MSS¹ as holding the office of *mahāsādhyapāla* under king Utpalarāja, who is apparently our Muñja-vākpati, the patron of Dhanañjaya. The suggestion that the author and commentator of the *Daśarūpaka* are one and the same person, chiefly on the ground of the apparent similarity of names and the identity of the patronymic, as well as the inadvertant attribution of a verse of Dhanañjaya’s to Dhanika in some later works like the *Sāhitya-darpaṇa* (ad vi 64a = *Daśarūpaka* iii 29), need not be seriously considered². Jacobi, however, supports this suggestion³ by pointing out that there is no seperate *maṅgalā-caraṇa* to the commentary. This hypothesis, however, cannot altogether get rid of the fact that Dhanañjaya and Dhanika are indeed distinguished by some later writers. For instance, Vidyānātha, in his numerous references to the *Daśarūpaka*, cites the the *kārikā*-verses and never from the commentary¹, although his commentator, Kumārasvāmin, falls in one place² (p. 29) into the error of attributing one of Dhanañjaya’s verses (ii 23b) to Dhanika. It may also be urged that a *mangala*-verse to the *Avaloka*, occurring in one of the MSS, is rejected by Hall as spurious, chiefly on the ground that its style is “too pedestrian for so ornate a stylist as Dhanika” (p. 4 note). This ‘pedestrian’ stanza is apparently the same as that which occurs at the outset of Aufrecht’s Bodleian MS, noticed by him in his *Bod. Cat.* 203a. On the other hand, the absence of the *mangala*-verse need not in itself be taken as decisive; for while Mammaṭa has no separate *mangala*-verse to his *vṛtti*, we find them in Vāmana and Ruyyaka. Śārṅgadhara in his anthology attributes to Dhanika several verses (3417 and 3973), which the latter gives as his own in his commentary (on iv 3a and ii 10a). If, therefore, we suppose, as it is more likely, that the author and the commentator were not identical, then Dhanika may be taken as a brother of Dhanañjaya (a supposition which explains the apparent similarity of names and the identity of patronymic), who collaborated in the production of the work¹ by writing the commentary.