काव्यप्रकाश (आचार्य मम्मट - सम्पूर्ण १० उल्लास सटीक)

.Preface to the First Edition
This is the second Sanskrit work on the Science of Poetry that .
is being offered to the English-reading public in an English garb—
if we do not count the Bhāshā-Bhūshana, a Hindī work on the same
subject, which was rendered into English and published in the pages
of the Indian Antiquary in 1894, by Dr. Grierson, whose labours
in the cause of Hindī literature rival those of the late Mr. Growse.
The first was the Sāhitya-Darpana of Vishwanātha Kavirāja, which
was placed over twenty years ago before the public by Rai Bahadur
Pramadā Dāsa Mittra, in an English form, that still remains a model
of scholarly and excellent translation. It is time that another work
on the subject, expounding more or less different views on impor-
tant points, should be published. Indeed it is surprising that so little
attention should have been directed to this department of Sanskrit
learning by Oriental Scholars. For, as it seems to the present writer,
the Sāhitya literature of India is remarkably full and complete, and
contains perhaps as many useful ideas worth the acceptance of
foreign scholars as the literature of philosophy.
With the growth of interest and study in metaphysics and psy-
chology there has undoubtedly grown on parallel lines, in Europe,
interest in and study of the philosophy of other sciences. And we
see excellent books issued from the press day after day, which seek
to clear up the fundamental ideas of Law, of History, of Politics, of
the Physical Sciences and of the various branches of Art. In short
there has been a general growth of introspective “Intelligence” on
all matters, and an effort is perceptible everywhere to locate every
portion of knowledge in its proper place in a universal scheme.
There has been no philosopher worthy of the name, who has left an
impress other than merely ephemeral on subsequent literature, and
has not endeavoured so to organise the whole of human knowledge
into one complete whole, or not matured ideas on all matters interest-
ing to humanity. But it must be confessed that the literature on the
science and philosophy of poetry is not excessively rich in English.
Works on poets, dramatists, novelists, and on the history of literature
abound; and naturally many of such works, principally biographical,