Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v2.c85.8

v2.c85.8

characterised by the very modest ambition of producing nothing more than a popular text-book. But the majority of the writers of this period, which covers more than five or six centuries, accepts, with some reservations, the *dhvani*-theory and the scheme of Poetics as finally determined by Mammaṭa. There are small groups of writers who devote themselves to special topics, like *kavi-śikṣā* or the subject of *rasa* (especially *śṛṅgāra-rasa*), but this apparent branching off from the main stem of the finally authoritative Dhvani system, is to be explained as due rather to the following of older traditions, or perhaps to the refining or analytic spirit of the times, than to any real split in the domain of general theory. With regard to matters of general theory and the main problems, the decadent Post-*dhvani* writers as a rule thought that that there was nothing new to set forth; they consequently fell back on matters of detail which helped to satisfy their growing speculative passion for fine distinctions and their scholastic bent for controversy. It would be tedious, as well as useless, therefore, to treat them here at any great length, for they repeat more or less the same idea in their own way, sometimes in the same stock manner and phraseology, and differ from each other only in matters of no great theoretic importance. The only subject worth studying in them is their minute analysis and elaboration of numberless poetic figures, which are not treated, as not coming perhaps within the scope of their general exposition, by the Dhvanikāra and Ānandavardhana, but which occupy a very considerable position in later literature. Here was room enough to supplement, as Ruyyaka expressly states, the treatment of their predecessors; and this portion of their work is beaten out with such extreme nicety and elaborateness that the Alaṃkāra-śāstra, judging from these works alone, would be, as it often has been, designated as a study of Rhetoric merely. But even from Ruyyaka’s time, the scope and nature of most of the individual figures appear to have been fairly fixed, only to be criticised and improved upon here and there by such later writers as Jagannātha.