Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v1.c26.6

v1.c26.6

Peterson proposed¹, against the opinion of Bühler, who appears to have left the question open, the identification of Kṣemendra with Kṣemarāja, the Śaiva philosopher of Kashmir, who was a pupil of Abhinavagupta, and who wrote, among numerous other works, a commentary on the *Śivasūtra* and on Abhinava's *Paramārthasāra*. Stein supports this identification, but Peterson himself appears to admit later on² that his own theory is doubtful. In his *Aucitya-vicāra*, Kṣemendra pays homage to Acyuta or Viṣṇu; but we know that he was, like his father, a Śaiva in his youth but was converted afterwards into Vaiṣṇavism, as he himself indicates, by Somācārya. This fact, as well as chronology, does not stand in the way of the proposed indentification, but there is no direct evidence to support it. Kṣemendra describes himself as the son of Prakāśendra and grandson of