Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v2.c87.25

v2.c87.25

The origin of Poetics is attributed by Rājaśekhara to the Supreme Being and the celestials, and he claims a very high position for the discipline, which is regarded as the seventh *aṅga* without which the significance of Vedic texts cannot be grasped. The self-born Śrikaṇṭha taught this science to his sixty-four will-born disciples, among whom the most venerable was the Kāvya-puruṣa, born of Sarasvatī, and he figures as the nominal hero of this half-allegorical work. As Prajāpati set him to promulgate the science to the world, he imparted it to his seventeen divine pupils, Sahasrākṣa and others, who embodied it in eighteen separate *adhikaraṇas* on the portions learnt by each¹⁴. Our author seeks to set forth in one book, consisting of eighteen *adhikaraṇas*, the substance of these teachings, which were in his time, to some extent, lost. If we are to accept this plan of the author, only the first *adhikaraṇa* on *kavi-rahasya* exists of this ambitious work. The Kāvya-puruṣa, from whom metrical speech first began and who stands symbolically for the spirit of poetry, is the son born to the goddess of learning, Sarasvatī, as the result of her long penance on the Himālayas. In order to keep the boy company, Sarasvatī creates Sāhityavidyā as his bride who follows him and wins him over. On this slight conceit the book proceeds to set forth its peculiar doctrines, including in its desultory scope various literary remarks and dogmas, as well as topics like general geography, conventions observed by poets, a disquisition on the seasons, an account of kavi-goṣṭhī and other relevant and irrelevant subjects.