Kavyamimamsa of Rajasekhara (Study)
by Debabrata Barai | 2014 | 105,667 words
This page relates ‘Rajashekhara’s Province and Religion’ of the English study on the Kavyamimamsa of Rajasekhara: a poetical encyclopedia from the 9th century dealing with the ancient Indian science of poetics and rhetoric (also know as alankara-shastra). The Kavya-mimamsa is written in eighteen chapters representing an educational framework for the poet (kavi) and instructs him in the science of applied poetics for the sake of making literature and poetry (kavya).
Part 5 - Rājaśekhara’s Province and Religion
There like another poets of Sanskrit literature Rājaśekhara doesn’t given any information about his place where he born and lived in. But it is certain that he was the Upādhāya of Mahendrapāla and his son and successor Mahipāla of Kannauj (Kānyakubja). He also spends some time at the Tripurī (Jabalpur) in the Kalācurī country.
A. B. Keith[1], Sten Konow[2], Narayana Diksita[3] and Shayam Varma[4] refer him as the Mahārāṣṭriya. But in other side, P. V. Kane[5] and A. M. Sastri[6], thinks that his ancestors also lived in the Mahāraṣṭra. Therefore V. S. Apte[7], posits Rājaśekhara as the south-western part of country. In this way, there are so many controversies about the Rājaśekhara place where he is born or lived in.
Indeed, Rājaśekhara’s ancestor lived in the Mahāraṣṭra and he was Madhyadeśa[8]. There is no confusion that Rājaśekhara lived in Madhyadeśa, because in the tenth chapter of Kāvyamīmāṃsā Rājaśekhara says that the poets of Madhyadeśa are ‘sarvabhāṣāniṣṇāta’ C.f .
“āvantāḥ pāriyātrāḥ saha daśapurajairbhūtabhāṣāṃ bhajante
yo madhyemadhyedeśaṃ nivasanti sa kaviḥ sarvabhāṣāniṣṇaḥ || ”- Kāvyamīmāṃsā of Rājaśekhara, Ch-X, Pp-51
In the fifth chapter of Kāvyamīmāṃsā discusses about the matter of Kavirāja[9] and call him as a kavirāja[10]. Thus, it can be seem that he was lived in the Madhyadeśa.
Therefore in the Aucityavicāracarcā, Kṣemendra says that:
“karṇāṭīdaśanāṅkitaḥ śitamahārāṣṭrīkaṭākṣāhataḥ
prauḍhāndhrīstanapīḍitaḥ praṇayinībhrūbhaṅgavitrāsitaḥ |
lāṭībāhuviveṣṭitaśca malayastrītarjanītarjitaḥ
soyaṃ samprati rājaśekharakaviḥ vārāṇasīṃ vācchati || ”- Aucityavicāracarcā of Kṣemendra - 27
Rājaśekhara born in the Mahārāṣṭra, in the younger time he lived in the court of Mahendrapāla and Mahīpāla and in the end if life he lived in Benārasa. Rājaśekhara also have been seems to Śaiva sects. Because among the four Plays, the introductory verse of the two dramas are praise of Lord Śiva and Pārvatī[11] .
Footnotes and references:
[2]:
Introduction of Karpūramañjarī, Harvard University Press, 1901, Pp-180
[3]:
Introduction of Viddhaśālabhañjikā.
[5]:
Kane, P. V. History of Sanskrit Poetics. MLBD, Delhi, 1971, Pp-214
[7]:
Introduction of Karpūrmañjarī, Delhi, 1901, Pp-181
[8]:
Bālarāmāyaṇa of Rājaśekhar: I/ 13
[9]:
“yastu tatra tatra bhāṣāviśeṣe teṣu teṣu prabandheṣu tasmiṃstasmiśca rase svatantraḥ sa kavirājaḥ | Kāvyamīmāṃsā: Ch-5, Pp- 19
[10]:
“bālakaī kairāo ṇibbhaarāassa taha abajjhāo |
itti assa paraṃ parae appā māhattamārūḍho |” — Karpūramañjarī: I/ 9.
[11]:
Viddhaśālabhañjikā: I/3 and Bālabhārata: I/ 2