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justify this in terms of the actual good it has done to the present work.
There is no doubt that Hemachandra had before him the entire tradition of Sanskrit Dramaturgy and Poetics, and he had the benefit of a hindsight while writing this present work. And he has utilized earlier works without hesitation or moral compunction. But this he has done with a view to make his work a comprehensive, representative and reliable text-book on Alamkaraśāstra as recognized by the new school of Dhvani theorists. Keeping in view this aim, Hemachandracary has freely utilized the works of Bharata, Dandin, Vamana, Rudrata, Rajasekhara (K.M.), Kuntaka, Abhinavagupta, Dhananjaya and Dhanika, Mahimabhatta, Bhoja, Kṣemendra, Mammata and Rucaka (or Ruyyaka i.e., the author of the Sanketaṭikā). And the impact of such a versatile and extensive reference material is there for everyone to see. Prof. S. P. Bhattacharya recognizes this fact, after a critical study of five chapters of Hemachandra's work "as those directly associated with citations from the eleventh century Kashmir writers". Let me quote him : Hemachandra's Perspective
"In the department of poetics, where as an early Nibandha writer he (Hemachandra) made his name, constructive work had given place to systematizing and coordination by the end of the tenth century and it had become the fashion to formulate, elucidate or tabulate whatever was taught by great masters By the end of the eleventh century, the epochmaking Kavyaprakāśa appeared. It was nothing but a terse and compact treatise, incorporating whatever its author thought noteworthy in the field of poetics from the view point of a practical and inquisitive student. It has explored the labours of Anandavardhana and of his expositor, the philosopherpoeticist Abhinavaqupta, the two great masters whose teachings and examples have been marked, presented and recorded almost in every page of Hemachandra's Kāvyānuśāsana
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