Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v1.c6.10

v1.c6.10

The process of incorporation must have occurred very early and was apparently complete by the end of the 8th century, when the work assumed more or less its present shape. Udbhaṭa, about this time, actually appropriates (iv 4) the first-half of the verse vi 15 of the Nāṭya-śāstra, and makes only enough verbal change in its second-half to admit śānta as the ninth rasa in the category of eight recognised by Bharata.¹ Abhinavagupta, who commented on the existing text at the end of the 10th century, himself mentions several other previous commentators, of whom Lollaṭa and Śaṅkuka in all probability belonged to the 8th and the 9th centuries. These indications will make it clear at any rate that the text existed in its present form in the 8th century A. D., if not earlier.