Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v1.c68.1

v1.c68.1

An attempt has been made in the foregoing pages not only to indicate the diversity as well as immensity of Sanskrit Alaṃkāra literature, but also to settle its relative chronology as a workable basis for an historical treatment. If we leave aside its unknown beginnings and Bharata, the historic period of its growth covers broadly a thousand years from 800 to 1800 A.D., and is marked a speculative activity, surprising alike for its magnitude and its minuteness. This activity in its early stage centres round Kashmir, to which place belong most of the famous and original writers on Poetics. We do not indeed know the place of origin of the two earliest writers, Bharata and Bhāmaha, but immediately after them we find Vāmana, Udbhaṭa, Rudraṭa, Mukula, Ānandavardhana, Lollaṭa, Bhaṭṭa Nāyaka, Abhinavagupta, Kṣemendra, Kuntala, Mammaṭa and Ruyyaka flourishing in Kashmir. The only important exception is found in Daṇḍin who was probably a South Indian writer. Coming to later times we find the study extending itself to Central India, Guzerat, the Dekkan and even Bengal. In South India, no doubt, this study was kept alive by a succession of brilliant, if not very original, writers: but these contributions of later times, though greater in bulk and sometimes superior in a certain acuteness, never supersede the volume of original work done in Kashmir, which may be fittingly regarded as the home-land, if not the birthplace, of the Alaṃkāra-śāstra. The writers of Central India, Guzerat, the Dekkan and Bengal only carry on the tradition, as well as acknowledge the authority, of the Kashmiri originators of the science.