Kavyanushasana Critical Study

Author(s): A N Upadhye
Publisher: A N Upadhye

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PREFACE This publication of 'The Kāvyānušāsana of Achärya Hemachandra : A Critical Study' represents, for me, the fulfilment of a fond dream of supplying the commonly felt need for a comprehensive, analytical, critical and comparative study of the entire three-tier text of Āchārya Hemachandra's Kävyänuśāsana. This work is a thoroughly revised and considerably improved version of my Ph.D. thesis which was submitted to the Gujarat University in 1985.
The Study presented here represents a fresh look at the three -tier text of the Kavyānusāsana and its manifold conceptual and theoretic facets. In view of the fact that a proper theoretic basis of this work was not sufficiently realised, it was adjudged a mere text book modelled on the Kävyaprakāśa. But, from a theoretical standpoint, the Kavyānusāsana constitutes a very p work in the Kashmirian tradition of Sanskrit poetics as also in the realm of Rasadhvani theory. The present Study concentrates on the doctrinaire as well as the eclectic aspects of the Kavyänušāsana, and I am glad to say that a novel approach of study has been brought to bear upon this study so as to highlight the fact that the Kävyānusasana is written in the best tradition of the Dhvani School, and it deserves to be rated very highly as a standard treatise on Indian Poetics and Dramaturgy. In fact, its theoretical affiliations make it a milestone in the early history of the Dhvani doctrine and, by any yardstick, it is an authoritative spokesman of the aesthetics of Anandavardhana and Abhinavagupta in the same way as Mammața's Kavyaprakasa is an authoritative work of the Rasadhvani School.
I am grateful to Dr. V. M. Kulkarni for his illuminating foreword to this volume, which, I believe, will serve as an authoritative introduction to my work. I also thank Dr. T. S. Nandi, my esteemed guide, for his Words of Welcome.'
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