नाट्यशास्त्रम् (प्रथम भाग - अभिनवभारती एवं हिन्दी टीका सहित)

LXXVII

'four kinds of musical instruments'²⁹ and next as 'a group of singers and players of musical instruments'³⁰ and then again as 'four of musical instruments',³¹ while explaining the mattavāraṇī he gives four different views³² and does not give special support to his own preference. Besides this, his explanation in some cases seem to be fanciful. For example, he explains khaṇḍana as (meaning) 'also fanning by means of a fan made of palmleaf'.³³ This evidently is wrong, for in the same context vyajanakam 'fanning' has been mentioned, and khaṇḍana may better be interpreted as 'drawing patterns or designs'.³⁴ But such instances are not many. That Abhinava had as the basis of his commentary a defective text of the Nāṭyaśāstra, is apparent from its published portion, and his text was in places to some extent different from any of the versions that have reached us. It is due to this latter fact that sometimes particular passages of the commentary cannot be connected with any portion of the text (given above the commentary) in the Baroda edition. For example, once Abhinava writes "here are four ca-kāras",³⁵ but in the text indicated by the pratīka two cā-kāras only are available. And curiously enough a part of this text quoted elsewhere³⁶ in the commentary corroborates the available reading of the text. In another place of Abhinava's commentary we have the word ālambhana explained, but we look in vain for it in the text.³⁷ The same is the case with avyatireka and āgama occuring in the commentary later on.⁴⁸ And some responsibility for its reduced usefulness must be ascribed to the fact that Abhinava had his commentary based on an imperfect text of the Nāṭyaśāstra.

There is still another reason due to which Abhinava's work does not prove to be quite adequate for our need. It is probably because he wrote the commentary with a view to help scholars of his time, whose knowledge on many things relating to the Indian drama, theatre and general literature he could easily assume, his commentary sometimes falls short of our needs.

But in spite of these limitations Abhinava's work has its value. Whenever he has to explain any theory or problem concerning the dramatic art or general aesthetics, he does it very exhaustively by quoting all possible views on the same and often cites examples from a vast number of dramatic and other works some of which have perished. Often he sums up the discussion in a masterly fashion. That he was a voluminous writer on the abstruse philosophical topics gave him some facility in handling such matters. But, for the purpose of reconstructing the theory and practice of the ancient Indian drama, such scholastic discussions are often not of much value, though students of Indian poetics and aesthetics will surely

²⁹ Ag. I. p. 73.	³⁰ Ag. I. p. 65.	³¹ Ag. I. p. 186.
³² Ag. I. pp. 64-65.	³³ Ag. I. p. 41.	³⁴ See note 2 on IX 61-64
³⁵ Ag. II. p. 34.	³⁶ Ag. I. p. 203.	³⁷ Ag. II. p 34.
³⁸ Ag. II. pp. 97, 225.