Abstract

This article tells an intellectual history of Mammaṭa Bhaṭṭa’s Kāvyaprakāśa in the Benares-Centered Network of Sanskrit Learning from c. 1600–1750 CE. The core narrative proposed herein is that the discourse on Sanskrit Poetics reaches a bifurcated state by the 1400s and 1500s: the Kāvyaprakāśa commentarial tradition constitutes a distinct domain, wherein commentators debate exclusively among themselves on lower-order issues. This period of normalcy is ruptured by Appayya Dīkṣita, who effectively destabilizes the discourse, overhauling the conventional wisdom via his empiricist polemics and via the importation of a new doxographical methodology from Vedānta in his magnum opus on Sanskrit Poetics, the Citramīmāṃsā. Shortly thereafter, Jayarāma Nyāyapañcānana, the Benares-based Naiyāyika from the East, substantially defends Mammaṭa’s system of poetic ornaments against Appayya’s polemics within his Kāvyaprakāśa commentary, marking the beginning of the bifurcation’s erosion. The tension of how to resolve Appayya’s system with Mammaṭa’s dominates the literature for the ensuing century, and commentators such as Kamalākara Bhaṭṭa, Bhīmasena Dīkṣita, and Nāgeśa Bhaṭṭa all champion defenses of the Kāvyaprakāśa’s authoritative and conservative system against Appayya. This tension culminates in the discourse’s last major treatise, the Alaṅkārakaustubha of Viśveśvara Paṇḍita, wherein Viśveśvara situates himself on a continuum with Jayarāma and defends the core contours of Mammaṭa’s system against Appayya and Jagannātha Paṇḍitarāja. Viśveśvara systematically utilizes the most up-to-date frameworks and positions of Nyāya, entailing radical transformations for the core terminology, standards of debate, and philosophical underpinnings in Sanskrit Poetics. The article concludes by way of contextualizing Jagannātha Paṇḍitarāja within this new narrative.