A Fresh Reference to Bhartṛmitras View on Lakshana
Summary
The subject of this article is the well-known view of Bhartṛmitra regarding the fivefold relationship that lakṣaṇā bears to vācyārtha, a perspective upheld as authoritative by many early and medieval Alankārikas. The main argument is to present a fresh finding of an anonymous quotation of Bhartṛmitra's verse by Narahari Sarasvatī in his commentary, the Vilā-citta-nūrāñjana, on the Kāvyaprakāśa. The author notes that while Bhartṛmitra has been cited by name in a few cases, his verse has frequently been quoted anonymously across various texts. For instance, he is cited by name by Mukula-Bhatta in the Abhidhāvṛttimatrīkā, and by Someśvara and Manikyacandra in their commentaries on Mammata-Bhatta’s Kāvyaprakāśa. Conversely, the same verse appears anonymously in Abhinavagupta’s Locana on Ānandavardhana’s Dhvanyāloka, in Mammata-Bhatta’s Sabdavyāpāra, and in commentaries by Śrīdhara, Guṇaratnaga, and Kamalīkara-Bhatta on the Kāvyaprakāśa. It is also found in King Gopeśvarīśvara-pūrṇa-haṃsa’s Kāvyālaṅkāra-sūtra-vṛtti on Bhāmaṇa’s Kāvyālaṅkārasūtra-vṛtti, and in Mallavādi Lakṣmaṇa-śāstri’s Mandāra on Dharmaśāstri’s Sāhityaratnākara. The relevant verse also occurs in the Agni-Purāṇa, with minor variants, and Nārāyaṇaprabha-śāstri seems to have advised the same verse in his Alankāramahodadhi. The author supports this argument by providing the specific Sanskrit verse quoted by Narahari Sarasvatī: "vaiparityād api lakṣaṇa pravartate/ tathācoktam (coktam......sic.) / abhidheyena saṃyogitaḥ samīpyāt sāmānadhikaraṇyataḥ / / yādṛśyam kriya-yogal lakṣaṇa pañcadhā matāḥ / / [m/] 2 / śrī-guru-caraṇa-samarpaṇam astu //*". The author references their own prior research papers on Bhartṛmitra the Mīmāṃsaka and on the fresh data of Bhartṛmitra’s view on lakṣaṇā, as well as the edition of Mammata's Kāvyaprakāśa with the Śāradāpīkā of Guṇaratna edited by Dr. T. S. Nandi, to contextualize this new discovery.
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Conclusion
This study identifies a previously undocumented anonymous quotation of Bhartṛmitra’s foundational verse on the fivefold relationship of lakṣaṇa to the vācya by Narahari Sarasvati in his commentary on the *Kāvyaprakāśa*. While Bhartṛmitra’s doctrine was frequently cited by name or anonymously by prominent early and medieval Ālaṅkārikas, this specific attribution by Narahari Sarasvati expands the textual history of this influential theory. The finding demonstrates the extensive transmission and enduring authority of Bhartṛmitra’s aesthetic framework across different regional and temporal traditions in Indian poetics. It highlights the need for continued critical examination of commentaries to recover missing attributions. Ultimately, this discovery enriches the scholarly understanding of the reception history of classical Sanskrit literary theory and underscores the value of meticulous philological research in mapping the intellectual lineage of Indian aesthetics.