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DR. N. M. KANSARA
SAMBODHI
personality which commands both respect and adoration. It can be asserted that Bhāmaha is the originator of Indian stylistics.
The present book aims at examining the three salient feastures of Bhämaha's Kavyalamkara, viz., his culture and politeness, his thoughtfulness and his reearchminded worship of knowledge. Further, it also endeavours to analyse and evaluate his work from two additional viewpoints mentione below:
(1) To analyze and test his work in the light of the devices of the composition and interpretation of ancient theoratico-scientific treatises of Pānini, Kautalya, Caraka, Suśruta, Vägbhata, Nīlamegha and others, who have conceived about one hundred and twenty-five devices of writing and expounding theoratical works. No one so far, except Lele, has subjected any work on Indian poetics, to such an analysis.
(2) To compare Bhāmaha's views to those of the Western stylisticians, and make clear the subtleties and acceptability of his views in certain respects vis-avis western thinking.
For the first time Lele has presented a critical study of Bhamaha's Sanskrit text from various angles before the English-knowing readers, and it deserves due attentiion. Over and above the Preface (pp.11-13), the work is divided into seven chapters: (i) The Founder of Indian Poetics (pp.14 -26); (ii) The Beginning odf Indian Stylistics (pp. 27-46); (iii) Vakrokti - The Natural Language of Literature (47-58); (iv) Kavyadosas -Poetic Defects (pp.59-75); (v) Poetry - Logic and Truth (76-90); (vi) Forms of Imaginative Litrature (91-100); and (vii) Methodological Analysis of the Kavyalamkāra.
At the conclusion of his last chapter Lele has observed that Bhāmaha placed before the later writers model of a scientific treatise to emulate. As a result, they more or less followed him with regard to the conception of the subject matter of their works, compilation of data, their division into sections and sub-sections and the actual presentation. They were undoubtedly influenced my his methodology, the contents and the general outline of his work. But more than that, they were profoundly influenced by his theoratical views and therein lies Bhămaha's real and lasting accomplishment. His followers based their own doctrines on the various conceptual aspects which Bhāmaha either expressly stated or indirectly suggested. For instance, Bhāmaha established an inseparable limk between the science of grammar an the poetic creation coupled with the science of poetics. Rudrata, Kșemendra and Hemacandra upheld this line of thinking of Bhāmaha.
