Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v2.c79.10

v2.c79.10

Bharata opens this chapter on Poetics with the discussion of what he calls the lakṣaṇas (lit. characteristics), which appear to be partly formal, partly material elements of poetry⁶. But these elements appear so important to Bharata that he devotes a considerable part of this chapter to their definition, and the whole discipline appears to have received from them the designation of Kāvya-lakṣaṇa referred to in xvi 17⁷. It is not very clear from Bharata’s treatment as to what position these lakṣaṇas should occupy in a formal scheme of Poetics; but the func-