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16
Kāvyakalpalatāvsitti
can widen the sphere of his knowledge, get thorough training and make his effort at poetic composition fruitful. Again, when a poet accepts that he can improve upon his own work by revision, these works are all the more useful to him. Similar topics are those of metre, subjects to be described, lists of different types of words and so on. But the work of Amara Candra, especially with his 'Parimala', is far wider in scope, more detailed, more analytical, more exhaustive.23 His lists of words have greater variety; they are more scientific, more detailed and are longer. His treatment of the powers of words, spheres of knowledge that a poet should conquer, Alankaras, Adbhuta etc., are his own contribution. The works differ in their methodology also. Amara Candra only casually deals with some conventional topics and writes hardly anything on Rasa. Dr. Shastri is therefore right when he states —
"काव्यशिक्षा by Acarya Vinayacandra bears close proximity to कविशिक्षा by Amaracandrasūri in time and space, but the two works widely differ from each other in the selection, sequence and treatment of their topics. The former seems to have inherited the bearing of Bappa Bhatti and Acārya Hemacandra through a different line of preceptors"24.
It can safely and as a matter of fact, be accepted that Amara Candra's work is the widest, most scholarly and most important in the sphere of faft. Kalpalatāviveka
A work with a similar title may here be referred to casually and in brief. It is 'Kalpalatāviveka' by an anonymous author. As the Preface to the published edition of the work tells us -
"This Viveka' is a super-coinmentary on the 'Pallava' which is a commentary on the 'Kalpalatā”. Though the author of the 'Kalpalatā' and 'Pallava' is certainly Ambāprasāda—the chief minister of Siddharāja Jaisimha (1094-1143 A. D.) of Patan, we are not in a position to say definitely as to who composed the 'Viveka'. It is really a misfortune that the first two works are lost to us"25.
The lost works are, again, very near in time to the work of Amara Candra. Prof. Vora, in his learned Introduction to the publication 25, gives detailed evidences about the title of the work and its author. The conclusion is that the work, together with the Vrtti are by the same author.
Here, however, we are concerned mainly with the contents of the work so
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