Kavyanushasana Critical Study

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

Page 30

Hemachandra's Style of Composition
The Kavyānušāsana has been composed in the sutra style so far as the main topics are concerned, but the author has supplemented it with a gloss called the "Alamkāracūdāmaņi" for explaining the views presented in the Sūtras. This gioss consists of a prose exposition as well as illustrations to
rehension of the topics dealt with in the body of the Sūtra text. Thus the Sūtras, numbering 208, together with the gloss and the illustrations cited to bring home the various concepts under explanation, constitute the text of this work, the Kavyānušāsana. And this text of the Kāvyānuśāsana provides a fairly complete, systematic and lucid exposition of and information on the subject of Sahityaśāstra with the express purpose of imparting proficiency to the general student of this Šāstra. However, from the point of view of the advanced student, it was necessary to achieve completeness of information and fullness of treatment in regard to the several complex and intricate aspectis of poetics and Dramaturgy. Hence, to achieve that goal, Hemachandra composed another commentary, a kind of super-commentary or Tikā, in which he incorporated "all the available discussions of the previous writers on the subject treated". Hemachandrachārya calls this super-commentary by the name of "Viveka". Thus, when we speak of the Kāryānuśāsana, we not only mean the Sūtras, the Vștti or gloss with illustrations, but also the Viveka Tikā - especially when we are critically looking at it as a comprehensive, authoritative and useful text-book on Indian Literary Criticism. And it is, actually, due to the three-tier method adopted by the author of Kavyānuśāsana that the work has been considered dependable for the study of Sāhityaśāstra, and it has retained its currency as a text-book during the past several centuries. The Nature and the Division of the Contents
The Kavyānušāsana is divided into eight chapters and, on an analysis of the contents of these chapters, it is