Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v1.c6.3

v1.c6.3

There are several passages in the present-day text which probably throw some light on this process of gradual interpolation and recasting. The curious colophon at the end in the Kāvyamālā edition, which appears to have puzzled its editor, designates the latter portion of the work as Nandi-bharata.¹ Rice mentions² a work called Nandi-bharata on music; while a chapter, apparently from a work on dramatic gesture, is referred to as nandibharatōkta-saṃkara-hastādhyāya in a manuscript of a treatise on music and abhinaya, noticed in Madras Catalogue no. 13009. These works, probably late compilations, refer to Nandi or Nandikeśvara, whom tradition acknowledges as an ancient authority on music and histrionic art³. This designation, therefore, of the latter part of Bharata's text, a part of which deals, among other things, with music, probably implies that it was compiled or recast at some later period in accordance with the views of Nandikeśvara. The last chapter, to which this colophon is appended, also contains a prediction that the rest of the topic will be treated in detail by Kohala¹ (who apparently belonged to the same school²), plainly showing that the rewriting of the portion in question was done some time after Kohala, as well as Nandikeśvara, had spoken on the subject. Nandikeśvara's date is unknown; but Kohala, side by side with Bharata, is recognised as an ancient authority, as early as the end of the 8th century A. D., in Dāmodaragupta's *Kuṭṭinī-mata* (*śl.* 81). It is interesting to note in this connexion that Abhinavagupta, commenting on Bharata vi 10, says³ that although *nāṭya* is usually said to consist of five aṅgas, the enumeration of eleven aṅgas in the text is in accordance with the view of Kohala and others, to whose opinions the commentator makes many other incidental references. It is likely, therefore, that between Bharata’s original work and its existing version, there came “Kohala and others” whose views found their way into the compendium, which goes by the name of Bharata and which indiscriminating posterity took as genuine and unquestionable.