Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v1.c69.5

v1.c69.5

These considerations, which will become clearer as we proceed in our study of details in the next volume, will enable us to fix the rough outlines of the history of Sanskrit Poetics and divide it, for convenience of treatment, into several periods in conformity to chronology and the stages of development through which its doctrines passed. The dim beginnings of the science, like the beginnings of most other departments of Indian speculation, are hidden from us, until it issues forth in the works of Bharata and Bhāmaha in a more or less self-conscious form. Then starts a period, ending with Ānandavardhana, which may be characterised as the most creative stage in its history, a stage in which the dogmas and doctrines of the different systems were formulated and settled in their general outlines, giving us at least four different systems which emphasise respectively the theories of *rasa*, of *alaṃkāra*, of *rīti* and of *dhvani* in poetry. To this period belong Bhāmaha, Udbhaṭa and Rudraṭa, Daṇḍin and Vāmana, the commentators on Bharata (Lollaṭa, Śaṅkuka and others), the *Agni-purāṇa*, and lastly, the Dhvanikāra and Ānandavardhana. Between Ānandavardhana and Mammaṭa, we have a third definitive period which ends with the ultimate standardisation of a complete scheme of Poetics, with the *dhvani*-theory in its centre, in which the divergent gleams of earlier speculations are harmonised into a focus, and which finds itself finally set forth in a well-defined and precise form in the text-book of Mammaṭa. To this period also belong the reactionary theorists, like Kuntala and Mahimabhatta, as well as Bhoja who carries on the tradition of the *Agni-purāṇa*, and Dhanañjaya who writes on Dramaturgy. The period which follows this is necessarily a scholastic period of critical elaboration, the chief work of which consists in summarising and setting forth in a systematic form (generally after Mammaṭa) the results of these final speculations, and also in indulging in fine distinctions and hair-splitting refinements on minute questions. This stage, therefore, is marked by great scholastic acumen, if not by remarkable originality or creative genius; but at the same time it denotes a progressive deterioration of the study itself. The branching-off of some specialised and practical groups of writers from the main stem is to be explained as due rather to this degenerate spirit of the times than to any real split in the domain of poetic theory or to any desire for independent thinking. It is also the age of numberless commentators, and commentators on commentators, who busied themselves with the hardly inspiring task of explanation, of expansion or restriction of the already established rules. We have also now a number of popular writers who wanted to simplify the science for general enlightenment, the lowest stage being reached when we come to the manuals and school-books of quite recent times.