Vakrokti Jivita Of Kuntaka

SR No.: 269528
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: K Krishnamoorthy
Publisher: K Krishnamoorthy
Total Pages: 29
Language: English
Classification: Article
File Size: 2 MB

Page 11

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(f)
K should definitely receive credit for tracing the sources of some of
Kuntaka's passages and for identifying some of Kuntaka's sentences
quoted in later works. However, he carries out both these activities
in a haphazard manner. For example, in the vrtti of 1.20, akhyatan savyaya-kāraka-visesanan vakyam has not even been suspected to be a quotation from the Varttika section of the Mahabhasya. Likewise, there
is no systematic attempt at collecting as many of Kuntaka's statements
quoted by later authors as was possible. The Kalpa-lata-viveka, some
subhasita anthologies and Narendra-prabha-suri's Alankāra-mahodadhi are
explored for this purpose for the first time, which marks an advance
over De's edition. However, the exploration is partial and not compre
hensively recorded. Moreover, K makes no significant attempt to identify
Kuntaka quotations in works like the Sahitya-mimansa which De mentions
as indebted to Kuntaka (cf. K, p. XXVIII). There is also no system in presenting the information on explicit and implicit references to Kuntaka.
It is partly presented in the Introduction and partly in the footnotes.
The same lack of consistency characterises the record of quotations made
by Kuntak. In commenting on them, many valuable details available in De's footnotes have been dropped. For example, De traces illustration 1.23 (tad-vak trendu ---) to the play Tapasa-vatsa-raja-carita despite
the fact that the play was then known only in manuscript form and was
not accessible to him. He also notes that the same illustration occurs
in Abhinava-gupta's Locana and Hema-candra's Kavyanusasana. K does not even refer to the source of the illustration until it is partially quoted again under karikās 1.49-51 (p. 65), and there too he does not specify the source with De's exactitude. One should also compare K's (p. 27) note on the verse ramo 'sau with De's on the same. The latter is much