Kavyanushasana Part 2

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

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In the preparation of these special works Hemachandra 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 “Kávyamîmāmsā", "Kavyaprakasa ", "Dhvanyaloka ” and “Locana”. But an impartial study of his work would show that Hemacandra wants the Jainas to know all that the Brahmaņas 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 "Kávyånušāsana": "Kávyamīmāmsā 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 "Kāvyaprakāśa" or the "Kāvyānusāsana". The author of the "Kāvyaprakāśa" tries to work out a synthesis-it is at least a syncretism-of all the theories of Poetry from Bhâmaha 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 Hema
candra duly supplies, and does what Visvanátha does in the "Sahityadarpaņa" in a later age. The “Dhvanyā. loka" and the. "Locana” deal with only a certain aspect or type of Poetry and their scope is more limited than that of the Kávyaprakāśa and à fortiori than that of the "Kāvyānušāsana". • In justification of the wide range of their Introduction the editors remark that "the cultural life of