काव्यमीमांसा (महाकवि राजशेखर - कवि-रहस्य एवं देश-विभाग सटीक)

FOURTH ADHYĀYA 151 Page. 12. *[l. 1. मेधाविरुद्र was a rhetorician too. cf. ननु दण्डिमेधाविरुद्रभामहादि- कृतानि सन्त्येवालङ्कारशास्त्राणि। नमिसाधु's commentary on Rudraṭālaṅkāra p. 2. His name occurs in भामह too.] l. 1. Both Medhāvirudra and Kumāradāsa were born blind but became great poets. Kumāradāsa is well known as the author of the Jānakīharaṇa, an excellent but long Kāvya work comprising 20 Sargas. He is said to have ruled over Ceylon and is believed to be a contemporary of Kālidāsa. Two incomplete editions of the Jānakīharaṇa have been published, one from Jaypore in 1893 and the other from Bombay in 1907. The undernoted verse also occurs in the Sūktimuktāvali regarding the poetic skill of this blind author : जानकीहरणं कर्तुं रघुवंशे स्थिते सति । कविः कुमारदासश्च रावणश्च यदि क्षमः ॥ Medhāvirudra is known from the references of Namisādhu and Bhāmaha, but more as a rhetorician than as a poet. It is also doubtful whether Medhāvirudra is the name of a single person or of two, namely Medhāvi and Rudra. The single name of Medhāvi is mentioned by Bhāmaha, while that of Rudra appears as the name of the author of the S'ṛṅgaratilaka where the author exhibits his skill as a poet. l. 2. In this sentence, the meaning of किञ्चन is doubtful because of the two constructions किंच न and किंचन. In fact, the author here makes an attempt to prove his contention with two arguments. He seeks to prove that poets endowed with प्रतिभा can mentally conceive everything that they want to describe without ever actually perceiving them. To prove this, he first points out that even those who were born blind have become excellent poets. If we take two words as किञ्च and न, the second argument will be in the form of a question: Do the poets not visualize and describe the customs and manners of the people belonging to other countries and islands without the personal knowledge of those things ?. The obvious answer is : they do so describe with the faculty of their प्रतिभा. This fact is stressed upon in the following verses taken at random from the works of Kālidāsa. If the word किंचन is taken as one word, it should be construed as an adjective to the word व्यवहृतिम्.