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SAHRDAYĀLOKA sense in general and 'rasa' in particular in poetry. Again, the predecessors of Ananda-vardhana such as Bhāmaha and the like, have also discussed all topics such as guna, dosa, alamkāra, rīti etc. Thus all these literary critics beginning with Bhāmaha and down to Jagannātha and post-Jagannātha, are all "kāvyā'lamkāravādins', i.e. 'kāvya-saundarya-vādins', i.e. those who investigated into the nature of "beauty" in poetry, or aesthetics of poetry. Of course, it is a different story that the word 'alamkāra', used in the general sense of poetic beauty got restricted to a limited sense of 'figures of word and sense' only in the Kashmir tradition of critics who were post-Anandavardhana. But the point to be noted is that none of these critics, has rejected a single topic or thought-current out-right, but has accepted in his own way all these concepts and has accomodated them in his theory of literary criticism. Thus the term 'alamkāra' originally made current to connote poetic beauty in general, was instrumental in the very designation of this discipline as 'alamkāra-śāstra', and also in naming of the works of literary criticism as 'kāvyā'lamkāra-grantha', i.e. a treatise on beauty in poetry. .
As observed earlier, the beginning of literary criticism is even prior to Bharata, though of course such written documents, containing principles of literary criticism, prior to Bharata, can not be traced to-day. Works, available to us to-day, that discuss the nature of those forms of poetry that are not to be staged, are all post-Bharata. The oldest available among these, is "Kāvyā'lamkāra" of Bhāmaha (end of 7th Cen. A.D. and beginning of 8th A.D.). After this, we have 'Kāvyādarśa' of Dandin (first half of 8th Cen. A.D.), followed by "Kāvyā'lamkāra-sūtra-vștti' of Vāmana (middle of 8th Cen. A.D. to advent of 9th Cen. A.D.), "Kāvyā'lamkāra' of Udbhata (end of 8th Cen. - to beginning of 9th Cen. A.D.), and Kāvyā'lamkāra of Rudrata (first quarter of 9th Cen. to end of 9th Cen. A.D.), to be followed by 'Dhvanyaloka' of the great Anandavardhana (9th, Cen. A.D.) and works of Abhinavaguptapāda (Cir. 10th Cen. A.D., last quarter to beginning of 11th Cen. A.D.) in form of commentaries on Dhvanyaloka of Anandavardhana and N.S. of Bharata Brilliant authors such as those beginning with Mammata dow Jagannātha who firmly backed and established the schools of literary criticism as introduced by Ananandavardhana and supported by Abhinavagupta, capture our attention. These authors belong to what we may loosely term as the Kashmir tradition in literary criticism. Almost parallel to that runs a second flow of literary criticism seeking perhaps its original inspiration in Dandir, Sankuka etc., and yet not completely turning away from Anandavardhana and Abhinavagupta, which we may term as Mālava tradition of literary criticism, when juxtaposed with the
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