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dramaturgy in his purview though his accounts, even including that in the Viveka, are only scrappy.... Hemachandra's citation in this chapter from Bhaṭṭa Tauta, who had a pronounced leaning towards Dṛśyakāvyas, brings into relief the thinness of the veil separating Dṛśya .. from Sravya Kāvyas, a point hinted at by earlier authorities including Vamana. His affiliation to the Kashmir line of thought is apparent in his echoing the view of Anandavardhana on the place of lyrics in literature" (Dhv. Al. III). 296
Evaluation
Hemachandra's dependence on and indebtedness to different prominent authorities in regard to different aspects of Sanskrit Literary Theory confirms the inevitable impact of great works of theory on later Nibandhas and speaks volumes about the weight of tradition in technical and scientific theoretical works. It is, therefore, not fair to dismiss the Kavyānuśāsana as an unoriginal work. For, "was, for the matter of that, any of the Alaṁkāra Nibandha writers, including the great Mammaṭa, original in the strict sense of the term ?", asks Prof. S. P. Bhattacharya. In view of this, it is not quite correct to describe the Kavyanusāsana as a compilation lacking in originality of a result of plagiarism. In fact, it redounds to the credit of the author of our work that he never loses sight of his theoretical affiliations and supports his stand by means of origins citations from his illustrious predecessors too wellknown to be specified by name. Besides, we should not forget that Hemachandra was writing a scientific work on Poetics and Dramaturgy and as such his citations and assimilations are there on purpose and are quite justified. And Hemachandra has made appropriate use of the masters' works which he considered as universal sources for authoritative writings on the subject of poetics. We should therefore assess the worth of the present work on the basis of Hemachandra's marvellous power of organization of his material as well as his genius for assimilaand selection of relevant thoughts, and
examples
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