23: Alaṃkāra-śāstra according to Appayya Dīkṣita (16th Century)

Appayya Dīkṣīta probably flourished between the last half of the 16th century and the beginning of the 17th century. He is famous in Sanskrit Poetics for his three works—the ‘Kuvalayānanda’, the ‘Citramīmāṃsā’ and the ‘Vṛttiratnakara’. The Kuvalayānanda is directly based on the alaṃkāra portion of Jayadeva’s ‘Candrāloka’^[1] . The aim of this work as mentioned by the author himself is to create a lucid manual of the characteristics and definitions of alaṃkāras for the beginners of Poetics^[2] . Though following Jayadeva, Appayya has mostly rewritten many of the definitions and examples of the Candrāloka. He has also illustrated some additional figures to Candrāloka in his work taking the total number of figures to one hundred and seventeen (117) excluding saṃsṛṣṭi and saṃkara. This is perhaps the largest number of figures illustrated in any work of Sanskrit Poetics.

The Citramīmāṃsā of the author is also a manual of Sanskrit figures but it has a more independent nature. Both the Kuvalayānanda and the Citramīmāṃsā have been fairly criticised by the later rhetoricians and commentators. Jagannātha has criticised Appayya in Citramīmāṃsākhaṇḍana and Rasagaṅgādhara while the commentator Bhīmasena has also slammed Appayya’s point of view in his Kuvalayānandakhaṇḍana.