Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v2.c84.71

v2.c84.71

From this brief outline, it will be clear enough that the *Agni-purāṇa* follows, in its general standpoint, none of the orthodox schools of Poetics, so far as they are known to us, although with regard to its material, it attempts to cull, in its encyclopaedic spirit, notions, expressions, and even whole verses from the authors of the different schools, without, however, connecting them with a central theory, It borrows, for instance, Daṇḍin’s definition of the *kāvya-śarīra* (*iṣṭārtha-vyavacchinnā padāvalī*), but the attempt to supplement it by adding *kāvyam sphuṭad-alaṃkāram guṇavad doṣa-varjitam* (336, 6-7), is merely eclectic and hardly constitutes an improvement. The same remarks apply to its definitions of fundamental notions like *guṇa* or *alaṃkāra*, which are merely copied or paraphrased uncritically from earlier writers. At the same time, mere eclecticism is not enough to explain certain features of this work, the peculiar treatment and arrangement, for instance, of the *guṇas* and *alaṃkāras* which depart very strikingly from orthodox views of the matter. In order to explain this novelty, we should, having regard to the essentially derivative nature of the work itself, admit the probable existence of an altogether different line of speculation, of which, unfortunately, no other early traces are preserved.