Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v2.c84.60

v2.c84.60

dent treatment of the larger problems of Poetics. This is perhaps one of the reasons why even his logical acumen and his erudition failed to keep the interest of his work alive; but the chief reason why his book was forgotten in later times and was cited only to be condemned—a fate which it shared with the *Vakrokti-jīvita* of Kuntala—was that it pitted itself against the more formidable theory of the Dhvanikāra and Ānandavardhana which was destined to supersede it by attracting away the best thinkers of later times. The *anumāna*-theory of Mahimabhatta, like the *vakrokti*-theory of Kuntala, appears to have never received any liberal recognition in the hands of later theorists, nearly all of whom, since Mammaṭa's time, accepted without question the system of the *Dhvanyāloka*; and in attempting to explain away the new theory in terms of the already recognised idea of *anumāna*, or reviving Bhāmaha's old position in the face of the more widely received theory of the new aesthetic school, Mahimabhatta and Kuntala were apparently fighting on behalf of a cause already doomed.