Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v1.c32.18

v1.c32.18

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.