काव्यप्रकाश (आचार्य मम्मट - सम्पूर्ण १० उल्लास सटीक)

KĀVYAPRAKĀSHA 'Light of Poesy' PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION It was in a fit of juvenile enthusiasm that I permitted the first edition of my translation of the Kāvyaprakāsha to appear in the ‘Pandit’ of Benares ; otherwise, under ordinary circumstances, it would be sheer audacity on the part of a boy of eighteen to put himself forward as the interpreter of a book which, apart from its subject-matter, is regarded, in point of style and expression, as one of the tersest, and hence the most difficult, in the Sanskrit language. The boy of eighteen, however, had his justification; he had written out a rough translation of the work in course of his preparation for the M A. Examination ; and when, on passing that examination, he had his ambition for authorship aroused by the example and precept of his late lamented tutor, Dr. Arthur Venis of Benares, he sent his aforesaid translation to him and asked him if he thought it fit for publication. Apparently with a view to encouraging his pupil, the doctor wrote to him—" room could be found in the Pandit for your translation of the Kāvyaprakāsha", and the work was allowed to go forth to the public. The boy of eighteen has since grown to be an old man of fifty, and numerous have been the volumes with which he has thrust himself before an indulgent public ; and after all these years, when he came to look into his earlier work, he felt that he owed it to the public to revise at least such of his works as had secured a number of readers. Foremost among these appeared to be the Kāvyaprakāsha, the translation of which, imperfect as it is, has had to be read, more or less, by numerous candidates for the M. A. degree, for whom the original is prescribed by almost every University in India Thus it is in the spirit of repaying a debt long over-due that I am setting my hand to doing what is practically the rewriting of the translation of the work which, during all the centuries that have elapsed since it was written in far-off Kāshmīr, has held the supreme position in the world of Sanskrit rhetorical literature.