Kavyamimamsa of Rajasekhara (Study)
by Debabrata Barai | 2014 | 105,667 words
This page relates ‘Personalities of Rajashekhara’ of the 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 7 - Personalities of Rājaśekhara
Rājaśekhara born in a learned and cultured family and receive good education, where he received different branches of contemporary Hindu learning. His poetical work Kāvyamīmāṃsā display about this great versatility. His enumeration about the equipment of a poet and various arts and sciences provided us an idea to the liberal education of his time. Rājaśekhara calls himself not a Mahākavi but a Kavirāja[1], which assume that he he himself came up to the standard and set up for the poets’ acquaintance with different branches of knowledge beside literature, which he also masters.
Now time is coming to identify that in the History of Sanskrit poetics in which place Rājaśekhara is places. However he also famous for a poet and a dramatist, but what is the position to him in the Sanskrit ālaṃkārikas. According to P. V. Kane[2], Rājaśekhara gives some striking historical and literary information in numerous matters. Now we can see the some important feature of Rājaśekhara among the other rhetoricians:
In the first chapter of Kāvyamīmāṃsā he says that this voluminous work was composed into eighteen Adhikaraṇas. Which all are dealing with the topic of Alaṃkāraśāstra.
But now we can found only first adhikaraṇa, if all the composed work can found thus Sanskrit poetics will be more prosperous.
This part of Kāvyamīmāṃsā was very much influenced on the later rhetoricians and they also cited more time in this work i.e. Kṣmendra, Bhoja, Hemacandra and Bhāgbhaṭṭa etc.
In the eleventh maricī of Alaṃkāraśekhara cited a verse from the Kāvyamīmāṃsā viz.
“alaṅkāraśiroratnaṃ sarvasvaṃ kāvyasampadām |
upamā kavivaṃśasya bhātaiveti matirmama || ”
- Alaṃkāraśekhara, 11 mārichi
It is not found in present adhikaraṇas. Thus we can also seems that he was also well known about Rājaśekhara’s another adhikaraṇas. Therefore, Hemachandra in his Kāvyānuśāsana (of Hemacandra) copied whole of the chapter of VIII, IX and XIII-XVIII of Rājaśekhara’s Kāvyamīmāṃsā Thus it is another important aspect of Rājaśekhara.
The concepts of Kāvyapuruṣaḥ described in the third chapter which is based on the Veda-puruṣaḥ, aspects citation of various ancient ācāryas in the whole of Kāvyamīmāṃsā, description of custom and language of various parts of country is give the Rājaśekhara paramount position in the history of Sanskrit Poetics.