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CONCLUSION:
A Critical Review of Hemachandra's Achievement
It has indeed been a very rewarding experience going through the three-layered text of the remarkable theoretical work on Sahityaśāstra by Hemachandra. We mean the Kāvyānuśāsana, of course. Though the theoretical, critical and illustrative material provided by Hemachandra in this single volume on Sanskrit poetics and dramaturgy is extremely extensive in range and the presentation at three different levels that of the Sutras, that of the Commentary or gloss and that of the Viveka Vyakhyā - is challenging to our powers of comprehension and correlation, yet our enthusiasm to overcome the hurdles of extent and complexity of treatment is sustained- nay, enhanced by the logical, graded, organized and systematic method of treatment adopted by the author. As it is, the title of the work suggests that it is a scientific manual of poetics meant to present a systematic body of knowledge not only on Kavya but also on Nataka and on other topics, types and forms of literature. It is in view of this nature of the work that we find herein treated almost all topics and herein represented almost all shades of opinion on poetics uptill that day. To name only the most salient aspects of Poetics, Hemachandra has either fully discussed or mentioned in passing the differentia of literary language; the ends of poetry; the ground and the aids of poetry; the
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