Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v1.c30.6

v1.c30.6

1 Jhalakikara maintains, on the authority of Paramānanda Cakravartin and Nāgoji on Mammaṭa, that Mammaṭa in several places criticises Ruyyaka, who therefore must be placed earlier than Mammaṭa. But the passages he cites do not support his contention. Thus the verse *rājati taṭīyam* (*Kāv. prak.* p. 758) is supposed to be directed against Ruyyaka p. 199, where the same verse is quoted in the same context. It appears, however, that Mammaṭa gives this verse as an instance of *śabdālaṃkāra-saṃkara* without any comment but with the simple statement that here we have a commixture of *yamaka* and *anuloma-pratiloma-citra* dependent on one another. Ruyyaka, on the other hand, citing the same verse and referring to the opinions of “other authors” comments on it at some length. He remarks that though the verse is given by some as an example of *śabdālaṃkāra-saṃkara*, such commixture of *śabdālaṃkāras*, in his opinion, is not possible, and the example is faulty. The verse itself occurs in Ratnākara’s *Hara-vijaya* (v 137). Jayaratha and Samudrabandha also remark in this connexion that the anonymous authors, referred to by Ruyyaka in his criticism, allude to “Mammaṭa and others.” Besides, Ruyyaka himself quotes (p. 102) Mammaṭa’s *kārikā* iv 15-16. Jayaratha expressly says that Ruyyaka wrote a commentary on Mammaṭa called *Kāvyaprakāśa-saṃketa* (p. 102). In several other places, both Jayaratha and Samudra- The other limit cannot be settled so satisfactorily. It has been maintained that Mammaṭa in one verse (*bhoja-nṛpates tat-tyāga-līlāyitam* x ad 29b ; B. S. S. ed. 1917, p. 684) eulogises Bhoja with whom he should be presumed to have been contemporaneous. This is sought to be supported by the story, related by a very late commentator Bhīmasena¹, that Mammaṭa was the son of Jayyaṭa and had two brothers Kayyaṭa and Uvvaṭa, of whom Uvvaṭa is taken to be the well-known commentator on the Vedic works, some of which, as he himself tells us, were composed in Avantī while Bhoja was still reigning. It is suggested on this ground that Uvvaṭa was probably the medium of the quotation referred to above relating to his royal patron; or, assuming it to have been composed by Mammaṭa himself, it might have obtained for its author an introduction into the munificent court of Bhoja². But this theory is untenable; for Uvvaṭa tells us that his father's name was Vajraṭa and not Jayyaṭa; and it is not clear that the stanza in question, given anonymously as an instance of the figure *udātta* (which consists in a description of the wealth and prosperity of an exalted personage) was composed by Mammaṭa himself, who certainly borrows similar illustrative verses from