काव्यप्रकाश (आचार्य मम्मट - सम्पूर्ण १० उल्लास सटीक)

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वाक्यं रसादिमत् काव्यम्—(utterance embodying emotion is poetry), accord- ing to a quotation in Alaṁkāra Shekhara. It is only a matter of con- jecture whether he belonged to the genuine Sūtra period of Sanskrit literature—the period immediately following Vyāsa, the great or- ganiser of Sanskrit learning The outlines and the elementary principles of Sāhitya are given in the Agni Purāna also as now extant, but as to the authorship, authenticity and antiquity of the work grave doubts are entertained by those learned in these matters. As regards Bharata, a tradition says that the Kārikās (memorial verses), of the Kāvya-Prakāça, themselves are the work of Bharata, and that Mammata wrote only the prose portion of the text in the form of a commentary. But another tradition, as also the fact that Mammata refers to Bharata in one place, in the fourth Chapter of the work, in support of the doctrine stated in the Kārikā, goes against this. The truth, as usual, probably lies between, and Mammata seems to have made large use of the Sūtras of Bharata in fashioning his verses, and has perhaps incorporated therein large pieces of them bodily, thus giving rise to the first mentioned tradition. Mammata himself was undoubtedly a Brāhmana of Kashmir and lived and wrote his famous work certainly before the 12th century A. C., about the time when English literature was just beginning to be born. The earliest commentary on his work now available and apparently the earliest in fact also, is, that of Mānikya-Chandra, and that is expressedly dated by Mānikya-Chandra himself, in the colophon, with the Saṁvat year 1216, corresponding with 1159 A. C. At the same time there is no reason to believe that the author of the Kāvya- Prakāsha lived earlier than the eleventh century A. C.; for he quotes a verse in his 10th Chapter from Bhoja, who reigned in the earlier half of that century, for a tradition has it that his younger brother Uvvata attended the court of this very Bhoja at his capital Avanti for some time; and he was probably the medium of the quotation. It is easy to understand that the Court-Pandit should have gladly seized on the first opportunity that offered of paying an elegant com- pliment to the literary merits of his really deserving master, by securing for a production of his a gratifying reference and quotation in the masterpiece of his famous brother, and of, at the same time, and by the same stroke of policy, obtaining for that masterpiece an introdu-