Daṇḍin

Daṇḍi or Daṇḍin (Sanskrit: दण्डि) () was an Indian Sanskrit grammarian and author of prose romances. He is one of the best-known writers in Asian history. Daṇḍin's account of his life in Avantisundari-katha-sara states that he was a great-grandson of Dāmodara, a court poet from Achalapura who served, among others, the Pallava king Siṃhaviṣṇu and the Ganga king Durvinīta. Avanti-sundari-katha-sara is the verse version of Avanti-sundari-katha, a prose text attributed to Daṇḍin: it is mostly faithful to the original text, but the original text states that Damodara was a distinct poet, whom Bharavi introduced to prince Vishnuvardhana. Yigal Bronner, a scholar of Sanskrit poetry, concludes that 'These details all suggest that Daṇḍin’s active career took place around 680–720 CE under the auspices of Narasiṃhavarman II. Daṇḍin was widely praised as a poet by Sanskrit commentators such as Rajashekhara (), and his works are widely studied. One shloka (hymn) that explains the strengths of different poets says: दण्डिन: पदलालित्यम् (daṇḍinaḥ padalālityaṃ: "Daṇḍin is the master of playful words"). Daṇḍin's writings are all in Sanskrit. His works are not well preserved. He composed the now incomplete Daśakumāracarita, and the even less complete Avantisundarī (The Story of the Beautiful Lady from Avanti), in prose. He is best known for composing the Kāvyādarśa ('Mirror of Poetry'), the handbook of classical Sanskrit poetics, or Kāvya, which appears to be intact. Debate continues over whether these were composed by a single person, but 'there is now a wide consensus that a single Daṇḍin authored all these works at the Pallava court in Kāñcī around the end of the seventh century'. Kavyadarsha The Kāvyādarśa is the earliest surviving systematic treatment of poetics in Sanskrit. Kāvyādarśa was strongly influenced by Bhaṭṭi's Bhaṭṭikāvya. In Kāvyādarśa, Daṇḍin argues that a poem's beauty derives from its use of rhetorical devices – of which he distinguished thirty-six.