Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v2.c79.14

v2.c79.14

tion of most of these is assigned in later Poetics to *alaṃkāras* or *guṇas*. Daṇḍin mentions them summarily (ii 366) under *alaṃkāras* in the wider sense, along with *saṃdhyanga* and *vṛttyanga* which belong properly to the drama, and refers to *āgamāntara* (interpreted by Taruṇavācaspati as alluding to Bharata) for their treatment. So does Dhanañjaya (ed. N. S. P., iv 84); while Viśvanātha (ed. Durgāprasāda, vi 171-211, pp. 316-332) takes them in connexion with the drama, calling some of them *nāṭyālaṃkāra* (dramatic embellishment), and is at the same time of opinion that although some of them are properly included under *guṇa*, *alaṃkāra*, *bhāva* and *sandhi*, they require a particular mention inasmuch as in the drama they are to be accomplished with some care (p. 332). In later literature, the *lakṣaṇas*, which linger conventionally in Dramaturgy, entirely disappear from Poetics proper. This phenomenon would probably indicate not only the fact that the *lakṣaṇas* were strictly proper to the drama, but also the conclusion that what were in the infancy of Poetics, considered so important as to deserve separate treatment and to be differentiated from the *guṇas* and the *alaṃkāras*, were with the growth of critical insight, assigned to the *guṇas* and *alaṃkāras* themselves, to whose sphere in ultimate analysis they were thought properly to belong⁸.