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Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v1.c32: XVIII Ruyyaka

Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v1.c32

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XVIII Ruyyaka

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Ruyyaka, who also bore the name of Rucaka¹ and had the Kashmiriān title of Rājānaka prefixed to his name, was the son of Rājānaka Tilaka² who, Jayaratha informs us (pp. 115, 124, 205), wrote a commentary or critique on Udbhaṭa called *Udbhaṭa-viveka* or *Udbhaṭa-vicāra*.

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¹ *rājānaka-rucakāparanāmno'laṃkārasarvasva-kṛtaḥ* (kṛtiḥ) col. to Pischel's ed. of *Sahr̥dyalīlā*; cf ed. of the same in Kāvyamālā pt. v, reading of MS *kha*. This name is given in some of the MSS of his larger work (e. g. col. to the Kāvyamālā and Trivandrum eds. of the text; in Mitra ix. p. 117), as well as by Kumārasvāmin (pp. 393, 396, 425, 448), Appayya-Dīkṣita (*Citr.mīm.* p. 72.), Rāghavabhaṭṭa on *Śakuntalā* (pp. 161, 179, 193), Vidyā Cakravartin, one of Ruyyaka's commetators (*Madras Cat.* p. 8609). Bühler (*Kashmir Rep.* no. 247, p. xvi) and Peterson (ii p. 13f ) also found this name in connexion with Ruyyaka's *Saṃketa* comm. on Mammaṭa. That the form Ruyyaka is the more anthentic is testified to by his pupil Maṅkhaka (*Śrīkaṇṭha-c.* xxv 30 : see below).

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² *rājānaka-tilakātmaja* col. to Pischel's ed. of the *Sahr̥daya-līlā*. Ruyyaka's father was thus, like himself, a writer on poetics, and a follower of Udbhaṭa.

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The *Alaṃkāra-sarvasva*, by which Ruyyaka is chiefly known, consists of two parts, viz., *sūtra* and *vṛtti*; but the question has been raised whether the authorship of the two parts should be attributed to the same writer. The Kāvyamālā edition of the text, published under the above title, admits Ruyyaka’s authorship of both the sūtra and the vṛtti, a view which is accepted by his earliest commentator Jayaratha, who refers to the author as granthakṛt with respect to both the sūtra and vṛtti portions.¹ The invocatory verse to the vṛtti in this edition reads in the second line

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¹ pp. 19, 20, 55, 57, 67, 72, 83, 87 etc.

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nijālaṃkāra-sūtrāṇāṃ vṛttyā tātparyam ucyate,

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so that the sūtra is avowedly referred to as his own by the vṛttikāra.² Some doubt, however, has been thrown on this view by the discovery of a different reading of this line in some of the South Indian MSS, which introduce a grave variant in the phrase nijālaṃkāra-sūtrāṇāṃ by changing it into gurvalaṃkāra-sūtrāṇāṃ. There is also, at the end of the vṛtti in these MSS, an additional verse³, which gives the name of the vṛtti (and not of the text which is called Alaṃkāra-sūtra) as Alaṃkāra-sarvasva, and the name of the author of the vṛtti as Maṅkhuka or Maṅkhaka, who is described as a sāndhi-vigrahika to the king of Kashmir. This forms the reading of the text, (based on three MSS,) which is published in the Trivandrum Series, as well as of MSS noticed by Burnell¹ Winternitz² and in the Madras Catalogue³. This view is supported by Samudrabandha, a South Indian commentator, who flourished in the end of 13th century and whose text is printed in the Trivandrum edition; for the *vṛtti*, the subject of his commentary, is known to him by the name of *Alaṃkāra-sarvasva* and its author as Maṅkhaka, while the original work of Ruyyaka is called *Alaṃkāra-sūtra*.

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² Same reading in ABod 210a, where Ruppaka is a mistake or a variant (Bühler op. cit. p. 68) for Ruyyaka Mitra ix p. 117.

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³ iti maṅkhuko vitene kāśmīra-kṣitipa-sāndhivigrahikaḥ sukavi-mukhālaṃkāraṃ tad idam alaṃkārasarvasvam.

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¹ Tanjore Cat. p. 54a.

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² Cat. of South Ind. MSS in the RAS. p. 208; cf Jacob in JRAS, 1897, p. 283f.

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³ pp. 8606-7. The question is discussed at some length in Haricand Śāstri op. cit p. 105f.

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We are thus confronted with two distinct traditions, embodied in these two different views and prevailing in the North and in the South of India respectively, with regard to the authorship of the *vṛtti*, there being no dispute as to Ruyyaka’s authorship of the *sūtra*-text itself. So far as we can judge, the North Indian tradition, obtaining in Kashmir, to which place both Ruyyaka and Maṅkhaka belonged, seems to be the authentic one; for the South Indian tradition is not uniform in this respect and does not always distinguish between the author of the *sūtra* and the *vṛtti* respectively. Thus Appayya Dīkṣita, a noted South Indian writer, refers⁴ to Ruyyaka or Rucaka as the author of the work as a whole, which is called the *Alaṃkāra-sarvasva*, attributing to him both the *sūtra* and the vṛtti; and Appayya is in agreement, in this respect, with Mallinātha¹, Kumārasvāmin², and Jagannātha³. On the other hand, the testimony of Jayaratha, himself a Kashmiriau, cannot be very well superseded by what the later commentator Samudrabandha says in conformity to a tradition which itself is not unanimous. It is also significant that while Ruyyaka (and even Jayaratha) is quoted and discussed extensively by later writers on Poetics, Maṅkhaka is not cited as a writer on the subject except once by Appayya in his Citra-mīmāṃsā (p. 10).

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⁴ Citr. mīm. p. 14, 15, 54, 72, 84, 90, 94, 98; Kuvalay. p. 41, 89, 92, 96, 184.

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¹ Taralā pp. 21, 186, 187, 232, 237, 249, 261, 262, 266, 331, 332.

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² Ratnāpaṇa pp. 393(= Alam. sar. vṛtti p. 58), 425 (=ibid, p. 133), 448 (=ibid, p. 144); p. 341 (=ibid, sūtra p. 20) p. 452=(ibid, p. 156).

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³ Rasagaṅgādhara, numerous references but see pp. 163 and 200, where both the sūtra and vṛtti are quoted under the citation Alaṃkāra-sarvasva. See also Rāghavabhaṭṭa on Śakuntalā p. 161 (=Alam. sar. vṛtti p. 64), p. 179 (=ibid, p. 75), p. 193 (=ibid, p. 127).

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This tradition of Maṅkhaka’s collaboration with Ruyyaka would not perhaps have arisen, had not Maṅkhaka, as the tradition says, been in fact a pupil of Ruyyaka. Rājānaka Maṅkha or Maṅkhaka, son of Viśvāvarta and grandson of Manmatha, is well known as the Kashmiri an author of Śrīkaṇṭha-carita (ed. Kāvyamālā 3) which was written, according to Bühler¹, between 1135 and 1145 A.D. Maṅkhaka's brother Alaṅkāra (or Laṅkaka, xxv 15, 37f) was a minister (v 62, xxv 43, 61) under Sussala and Jayasiṃha of Kashmir (1129-1150 A. D.), and another brother Śṛṅgāra held a high office (bṛhat-tantra-pati) under Sussala, whom he assisted in his war against Harṣadeva. Maṅkhaka tells us how after composing his poem he submitted it, at the house of his brother Alaṅkāra, to an assembly of learned scholars and officials, among whom he describes Ruyyaka as his own preceptor (xxv 30, 135). This also explains how Ruyyaka's own work contains five verses from Maṅkhaka's poem² cited as illustrations; for it is not unlikely that the guru should in this way quote his worthy disciple. As the latest date of Maṅkhaka's poem is given as 1145 A. D., we may presume that Ruyyaka's Alaṅkāra-sarvasva, which quotes it, was composed a little later; and it will not be wrong if we fix Ruyyaka's literary career in the second and third quarters of the 12th century³.

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¹ op. cit. p. 50f ; extract App. pp. cix f. See also Rāja-taraṅgiṇī viii.

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² See Jacob in JRAS, 1897, p. 283 for these verses.

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³ Jacob (op. cit. p. 283) points out that Ruyyaka (p. 93) quotes the Rāja-taraṅgiṇī iv 441, which work was not completed till about 1150 A. D. in the reign of Jaya-

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The works of Ruyyaka are numerous, of which three only have been printed :

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(1) *Kāvyaprakāśa-saṃketa*, a commentary on Mammaṭa's text, referred to as Ruyyaka's by Jayaratha p. 102, and by Ratnakaṇṭha (Peterson ii pp. 17, 19 as *Bṛhat-saṃketa*). For MSS. see above p. 169.

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(2) *Alaṃkāra-mañjarī*, referred to by himself at p. 15.

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(3) *Sāhitya-mīmāṃsā*, referred to by himself at p 61, also by Jayaratha p. 126. It is cited without the author's name in Vidyānātha p. 11 (cf ABod 210a). Burnell's anonymous metrical *Sāhitya-mīmāṃsā* (p. 58n), with *vṛtti* in eight *prakaraṇas*, is probably this work.

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(4) *Alaṃkārānusāriṇī*, cited by Jayaratha as Ruyyaka's (p.p. 36, 57, 58 and 60). This work is supposed by Peterson¹, and following him by Aufrecht² and Jacobi³, to be a commentary on Jalhaṇa's *Somapāla-vilāsa*. As Jayaratha's citations indicate, it discussed incidentally some of the poetic figures, but there is nothing in these citations to show that it was in fact a commentary on Jalhaṇa's *Somapāla-vilāsa*. The poet Jalhaṇa is described in Maṅkhaka's *Śrīkaṇṭha-carita* (xxv 75); and Somapāla, king of Rājapurī (near Kashmir), whose life Jalhaṇa appears to have recorded, is known

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¹ ii p. 17; introd. to *Subhāṣ*. p. 106. *Actes du 6me Congrès* p. 364. It is so described by Ratnakaṇṭha.

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² *Cat. Cat.* i 32b.

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³ *ZDMG* lxii 291 : cf Haricand Śāstrī *op. cit.* pp. 105-106.

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siṃha. This verse, however, occurs as an anonymous quotation in Abhinava's Comm. on Bharata (ch. vi).

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from the *Rāja-taraṅgiṇī* (viii 621f) to have made war against the Kashmiri-an Sussala. It is clear that this poet, who must have flourished in the first half of the 12th century, should be distinguished from Bhagadatta Jalhaṇadeva, the compiler of the *Sūkti-muktāvali*, who lived in the second half of the 13th century, but to whom Aufrecht (i 203a) wrongly attributes the *Somapāla-vilāsa* itself.

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(5) A commentary on Mahimabhatta’s *Vyaktiviveka*, referred to by Jayaratha as *Vyaktiviveka-vicāra* (p. 13). This has been identified with the anonymous commentary published with Mahimabhatta’s work in the Trivandrum Series; for, although the author’s name does not appear in the published text of that commentary, which is called simply *Vyākhyāna*, the anonymous commentator refers in it to his other works, the *Sāhitya-mīmāmsā* (p. 32) and *Harṣacarita-vārttika* (p. 44, 50), which we know to be two works of Ruyyaka referred to by himself in his *Alaṃkāra-sarvasva* and mentioned by Jayaratha. He refers in this work also to the *Candrikā* (on the *Dhvanyāloka*), *Kāvya-kautuka*, *Hṛdaya-darpaṇa* (pp. 1, 13), and Kuntaka’s *Vakrókti-jīvita* (pp. 16, 32, 36, 44).

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(6) *Nāṭaka-mīmāmsā* referred to as his own in the above commentary on Mahimabhatta. (p. 32).

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(7) *Harṣacarita-vārttika* referred to as his own in *Alaṃkāra-sarvasva* p. 61 and in *Vyaktiviveka-vyākhyāna* p. 44.

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(8) *Sahṛdaya-līlā*, edited in the *Kāvyamālā*, as well as by Pischel.

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(9) *Alaṃkāra-vārttika*, cited as Ruyyaka's by Jayaratha p. 71.

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(10) *Śrīkaṇṭha-stava* cited in *Alaṃkāra-sarvasva* p. 19.

The Commentators On Ruyyaka

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ALAKA ( OR ALAṬA ? )

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This commentator is referred to by Ratnakaṇṭha in his own commentary on Mammaṭa¹, the name given being Rājānaka Alaka. We have seen that the identification of Mammaṭa's continuator Alaka, Alaṭa or Allaṭa with this commentator is open to doubt², and nothing more can be said on the subject until his commentary is recovered.

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¹ Peterson ii p. 17 and f.

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² See above p. 164.

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JAYARATHA

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His commentary is called *Alaṃkāra-vimarśinī*. He informs us that his father's name was Śṛṅgāra and his parton was king Rājarāja. From his commentary *Viveka* on the *Tantrāloka*, we learn that the full name of his father was Śṛṅgāraratha, who had two sons, named Jayaratha and Jayadratha³.

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³ The Kashmiri MSS of the *Alaṃkāra-vimarśinī* examined by Bühler vacillate between these two names as the name of our author ; and Peterson's MS of Ratnakaṇṭha's *Sāra-samuccaya* reads Jayadratha (ii p. 17), which is accepted by Aufrecht, although the published texts of the

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He also tells us that he was a pupil of Śaṅkhadhara and Śiva. Jayaratha’s pedigree is given at some length in his *Viveka*, and we learn that his great-grandfather’s brother was Śivaratha¹, who was a minister of king Ucchala of Kashmir (1101-1111 A.D.). As four generations intervene between the minister of Ucchala and Jayaratha, Bühler thinks that the latter lived in the beginning of the 13th century. Jacobi supports this conclusion and attempts to arrive at a greater precision by identifying Jayaratha’s (and father’s) patron king Rājarāja with Rājadeva who is mentioned by Jonarāja in 2 Rāja-taraṅgiṇī v 79-91, and who lived in 1203-1226 A.D.²

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¹ v. 22 ; see the extract given in Bühler *op. cit.* App. pp. cli f. This Śivaratha is mentioned in *Rāja-taraṅgiṇī* viii 111.

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² Jacob (*JRAS*, 1897, p. 283) came to the conclusion that Jayaratha must be placed later than the end of the 12th century, for he quotes from the *Pṛthvīrāja-vijaya*, a poem dealing with Pṛthvīrāja of Delhi who fell in 1193 A. D. (cf Bühler, *op. cit.* p. 62).

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The citations in Jayaratha are numerous, and include the names of Bhāmaha, Daṇḍin, Udbhaṭa Vāmana, Rudraṭa, the Dhvanikāra (=Ānandavardhana), the Vakrôkti-jīvita-kāra, Abhinavagupta, the Vyaktiviveka-kāra, Bhoja and Mammaṭa. Besides citing his own author’s other works and Rājanaka Tilaka’s work on Udbhaṭa, Jayaratha also *Vimarśinī*, as well as the *Viveka*, have Jayaratha, which Bühler himself considers (*op. cit.* p. 68) to be the correct name of the author of the two commentaries, the other being that of his brother.

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mentions two other works on Alaṃkāra unknown to us, viz. Alaṃkāra-bhāṣya (pp. 35, 83, 173) and Alaṃkāra-sāra (pp. 171, 172, 184). The Alaṃkāra-bhāṣya is also cited by Jagannātha (pp. 239, 365); while a work bearing the name Alaṃkāra-sāra is mentioned in Kielhorn's list¹, and in Peterson iii App. p. 393; but this is probably a later work attributed to Bālakṛṣṇa Pāyaguṇḍa who also wrote a commentary on Appayya's Citra-mīmāṃsā (q. v.) and was thus later than the end of the 16th century². The ºVimarśinī is, in its turn, cited extensively by Jagannātha, chiefly because Appayya, against whom Jagannātha's attacks are primarily directed, follows Ruyyaka and Jayaratha pretty slavishly.

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¹ Kielhorn's List 18; see also Aufrecht i 32b.

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² But see Pischel in GgA, 1885, p. 765, contra Jacobi in ZDMG xlii 293.

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Jayaratha appears also to have written another work on Poetics called Alaṃkārōdāharaṇa, in the concluding verse of which he refers to his ºVimarśinī. It appears from the resumé of the work given in Mitra 2442 that it was chiefly meant to adduce illustrations to Ruyyaka's text, which the limited scope of his ºVimarśinī did not allow him to do properly.

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