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454
Amrita
Only if the author has only one book to his credit and nothing else, as in the case of Bhāravi's Kirātārjunīya or Māgha's śiśupālavadha, it becomes immaterial which name is chosen for reference. The name of the book is preferred for the sake of uniformity.
We can examine a few current abbreviations and see how far they are compact and immediately suggestive of the book. The following ones from MONIER-WILLIAMS are typical :
Alamkāras 1 (arvasva, by Ruyyaka) Alamkāras 2 (arvasva, by Mankhaka) Alamkāras (ekhara, by Keśava-miśra) Dhanamj (aya-vijaya) Dhūrtan (artaka) Dhūrtas (amāgama) Gathāsamgr (aha) Katharn (ava) Kathās (aritsāgara) Krishnakarn (āmrita) Kuttanīm (ata) Mālatīm (ādhava) Suvarnapr (abhāsa) Vedāntas (āra) Vrisabhān (ujā nātikā, by Mathurā-dāsa)
This type of abbreviations is not economical and maximally compact. A more systematic approach to this problem has to be made and the following procedure is suggested.
Most of the names of Sanskrit books are compounds of two or three words, names having a simple word being rare. In the compound names, the first word is usually more significant than the second and the second more significant than the third. The last member of the name is either a term of generic nature indicating the genre of literature like kāvya, nātaka, campū, śataka, astaka or a word expressing the scope or nature of the work like saṁgraha, sāra, sūtra, candrikā, pradīpa, prakāśa, bhāsya, vrtti, tikā, etc. Naturally the maximum information is carried by the first, and less and less by the second and the third word. Hence some general rules of abbreviations
