Kavyanushasana Part 1

Author(s): Hemchandracharya, Rasiklal C Parikh
Publisher: Mahavir Jain Vidyalay

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In the preparation of these special works Hema+ chandra has been sometimes charged with 'plagiarism'. For example, in his work on Poetics with which we are here concerned, Hemacandra is accused of 'borrowing wholesale' from Kavyamîmāmsā Kavyaprakasa ", Dhvanyaloka" and Locana But an impartial study of his work would show that Hemacandra wants the Jainas to know all that the Brahmanas knew, and consequently he does not, hesitate to reproduce the wisdom of his Brāhmaṇa predecessors, while making substantial addition to the stores he has inherited. Now, to compare the works from which he is said to have "borrowed wholesale" with his "Kavyanusasana": "Kavyamīmāmsā is a brilliant miscellany on topics relating to Poetry, which, although it can claim originality in the matter of ideas and the mode of presenting them, does not pretend to be a systematic treatise like the "Kavyaprakasa" or the "Kavyanusāsana”. The author of the "Kavyaprakasa" tries to work out a synthesis-it is at least a syncretism-of all the theories of Poetry from Bhamaha downwards, and produces a comprehensive work on Poetics. Yet in so doing he leaves Dramaturgy out in the cold, except in so far as it is connected with Rasa. This omission Hemacandra duly supplies, and does what Viśvanatha does in the "Sahityadarpaṇa" in a later age. The "Dhvanyāloka" and the "Locana" deal with only a certain aspect or type of Poetry and their scope is more limited than that of the Kavyaprakasa and à fortiori than that of the "Kavyanusāsana".
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In justification of the wide range of their Introduction the editors remark that "the cultural life of
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