A History of Sanskrit Literature c28.s2.1

c28.s2.1

As usual in India the older works were obscured by the later, and we have only names and odd citations of important writers, such as Kātyāyana, to whom a *Nāmamālā* is ascribed, Vācaspati and Vikramāditya, authors of a *Çabdārṇava* and a *Saṃsārāvarta*, and Vyāḍi, whose *Utpalinī* is often cited, and included Buddhist terms. The fragments of a dictionary exist in the Weber manuscript found in Kashgar.¹ But one of the earliest texts preserved for us is the *Nāmaliṅgānuçāsana*² of Amarasiṅha, called usually the *Amarakoça*. Its author is also known as a poet, and was certainly a Buddhist who knew the Mahāyāna and used Kālidāsa. His lower limit of date is dubious, he is not certainly known to the *Nyāsa* of Jinendrabuddhi (A. D. 700), but the decline of Buddhism in India renders it improbable that he lived after the eighth century; his ascription to the sixth, however, rests on nothing better than the assertion that he was a jewel of Vikramāditya’s court.³ The work is synonymous, arranged in three books by subjects, with an appendix in the last on homonyms, indeclinables, and genders. Of its many commentators, special merit attaches to the works of Kṣīrasvāmin (11th cent.), Vandyaghaṭīya Sarvānanda (1159), and Rāyamukuṭamaṇi (1431) who used sixteen earlier writers. An important supplement of rare words is afforded by the *Trikāṇḍaçeṣa* of Puruṣottamadeva, who wrote also, after twelve years’ work, the shorter *Hārāvalī*, including synonyms and homonyms; these give a rich store of very rare terms, many from Buddhist texts.¹ Perhaps as old as Amara is Çāçvata, whose *Anekārthasamuccaya*² betrays age by its arrangement of its homonyms according as the explanation takes a whole verse, a half verse, a quarter verse; indeclinables conclude the work.