Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v2.c85.22

v2.c85.22

Some of these and other arguments appear, no doubt, fastidious and pedantic, and have been met with equal ingenuity by the commentators and followers of Mammaṭa; but the whole controversy indicates the futility of arriving at a precise logical definition of poetry and the difficulty of combining all the conventional elements in such a definition. The earlier theorists probably realised this and carefully avoided the task, for even the Dhvanikāra contents himself with describing its general nature and its divisions, an omission on which Mahimabhatta ridicules him by saying : *kiṃ ca kāvyasya svarūpaṃ vyutpādayitukāmena matimatā tallakṣaṇam eva sāmānyenākhyātavyam.*