Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v1.c6.19

v1.c6.19

From the facts adduced above, we are confronted with the problem of the inter-relation of these apparent survivals in our text, which contains vestiges of (1) independent prose-fragments (2) anuvamśya ślokas in āryā and anuṣṭup metres and (3) sūtra-bhāṣya style, as well as ( 4 ) the present systematic kārikās. We have no room to dilate upon this point, but an examination of these passages will reveal that these different styles do not belong to the same period, but they probably indicate several stages in the growth of particular forms of composition of dramaturgic works in general, each stage betraying its own partiality towards a particular form. Taking the present kārikā-text as the starting point, we find in it traces of an earlier sūtra-bhāṣya style, of which it is presumably a recast. In the sūtra-bhāṣya, again, there are fragments of metrical quotations, which indicate, in their turn, another and still earlier *kārikā*-stage; while the independent prose-fragments perhaps represent the earliest form taken by such technical treatises. We can, therefore, distinguish in their order of development (1) a stage of prose-treatises (2) a tentative period of *kārikā*-writing (3) the *sūtra-bhāṣya* stage and (4) the final period of compilation of compendiums, which reverts again to the *kārikā*-form.¹ This conclusion perhaps finds some support in the repetition, more or less, of a similar phenomenon in the sphere of the Dharma-śāstra, the Artha-śāstra, the Vaidya-śāstra and probably the Kāma-śāstra. The loss of earlier tentative treatises makes it difficult to dogmatise; but if this conclusion is correct generally, then our text may be supposed to contain remnants of all these styles and forms. It is not argued here that Bharata's work itself passed through all these stages or forms, from a rudimentary prose-version into a systematic metrical manual; but our text contains enough to betray the existence of previous speculations in prose and in verse, as well as indicate the fact that it might have itself been once written in the *sūtra-bhāṣya* form, which was recast, with considerable additions from other sources, into a convenient metrical compendium.