Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v1.c68.2

v1.c68.2

Although our history covers a period of more than a thousand years, it is yet marked by several well-defined stages. With the date of Ānandavardhana, we arrive for the first time at a distinct landmark in its chronology as well as its history; and we may take it as the central point from which we may proceed backwards and forwards, although the system of Ānandavardhana itself was raised to almost exclusive recognition by the classical work of Mammaṭa. The mutual relation of this system to the other systems flourishing before and after Ānandavardhana furnishes the best and safest criterion for the orientation of the divergent streams of thoughts and tendencies, which gather together in one clear, dominant and finally authoritative doctrine in Mammaṭa. Indeed, one of the obvious objects of Ānandavardhana’s work was not only to fix the new principle of dhvani in poetry, but also to work up and rationalise into a synthetic and comprehensive system the already accumulated ideas, elaborated by previous thinkers but flowing through different channels in the respective systems of Bhāmaha, Vāmana and the post-Bharata dramaturgic rasa-writers ; while Mammaṭa gathered the results up and uttered them in the convenient and concise form of a systematic text-book.