A History of Indian Literature v3.c35.s3.13

v3.c35.s3.13

The existence in the 2nd century A. D. of secular lyrics composed in artistic metres and in the style of the ornate court poetry is attested to by Patañjali, the second great grammarian, in whose Mahābhāṣya we find a number of citations from ornate poetry¹. In anthologies Patañjali too is here and there referred as the author of a number of stray stanzas². Piṅgala’s time was really not far away from that of Patañjali³. His manual of prosody would also prove the existence of an erotic ornate poetry in the 2nd century.