Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v2.c84.9

v2.c84.9

It is unfortunate that Bhaṭṭa Nāyaka’s *Hṛdaya-darpaṇa* is now lost. From the citations of Abhinavagupta and others, the conjecture is likely that it was not a commentary on Bharata’s *Nāṭya-śāstra*³ but an independent work written in prose and verse (i.e., with verse-*kārikā* and prose-*vṛtti*) and resembling Mahimabhaṭṭa’s later *Vyakti-viveka* written in the same style and with the same object. Like the latter work, it was composed, if not for establishing a new theory of Poetics, at least for controverting the position of the *Dhvanyāloka* and formulating a different explanation of *dhvani*, especially of *rasa-dhvani*. When Mahimabhaṭṭa later on took upon himself the task of “demolishing” the *dhvani*-theory, he boasted at the outset of this elaborate attack that he had composed his *Vyakti-viveka* without looking into the *Darpaṇa*⁴ (presumably *Hṛdaya-darpaṇa*, as explained by his commentator), which was therefore obviously written with the same object of *dhvani-dhvaṃśa*. No doubt, Bhaṭṭa Nāyaka was one of the four writers (mentioned by Abhinava, Mammaṭa and others) who formulated explanations of Bharata’s *sūtra* on *rasa*; but this in itself is no reason to take him as a commentator on Bharata’s text⁵. On the other hand, Abhinava’s references in *Locana* make it reasonably clear that the *Hṛdaya-darpaṇa*, like the *Vyakti-viveka*, had the special object of criticising in detail the text of the *Dhvanyāloka* as well as its theory; and its discussion of *rasa* might have come in topically in connexion with Bhaṭṭa Nāyaka’s general views regarding poetry and poetic expression.