Ratnākara

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Ratnākara was a Sanskrit poet active in 9th-century India. His greatest work, Haravijaya, is a long epic-poem consisting of 4,351 verses in fifty cantos. It is the longest surviving mahākāvya and praises Śiva, recounting his victory over the demon Andhaka, describing Śiva’s iconography and Shaivite philosophy. The poem has been highly regarded in Sanskrit literary and rhetoric traditions.

Very little is known about Ratnākara’s life. In the Haravijaya’s colophons he is described as a dependent of Bālabṛhaspati, a title generally thought to refer to Cippaṭajayāpīḍa. He calls himself the son of Amṛtabhānu, a descendant of Durgadatta from Gangāhrada in the Himalayas. Kalhaṇa’s Rājataraṅgiṇī places him among the poets at the court of Avantivarman (reigned around 855–883 CE).

Haravijaya, Ratnākara’s major work, features 4,351 verses across 50 cantos. It narrates Śiva’s victory over Andhaka and provides descriptions of Śiva’s forms and philosophical ideas related to Śaivism. Three commentaries on the poem are known: Viṣamapadoddyotā by Alaka, Laghupañcikā by Ratnakaṇṭha, and Haravijayasāravivaraṇa by Utpala. An edition of Haravijaya was published in 1890 by Durgaprasad and Kasinath Pandurang Parab for the Kāvyamālā series, and another edition by Dr. Goparaju Rama appeared in two volumes in 1982 for the Ganganatha Jha Kendriya Sanskrit Vidyapithā Text Series.

Ratnākara is also connected with several other works. Vakroktipañcāśikā, possibly his only other surviving work, contains fifty verses of dialogue between Śiva and Parvatī that use vakrokti (verbal distortion). Some scholars credit Ratnākara with inventing this device. An edition with Vallabhadeva’s commentary was published in 1886 as part of the Kāvyamālā Anthology.

The Ratnākarapurāṇa, attributed to Ratnākara, is a now-lost Kashmir chronicle that would fill two gaps in Kalhaṇā’s Rājataraṅginī. Dhvanigāthāpañcikā, a text on Prakrit verses in Ānandavardhana’s Dhvanyāloka, is sometimes attributed to him, though most scholars consider it an abridged version of Abhinavagupta’s Locana and not by the same author as Haravijaya.

Ratnākara’s work has been praised in many Sanskrit anthologies and treatises on rhetoric, and modern scholars also hold Haravijaya in high esteem. The poet is celebrated in traditional verse, such as a famous praise by Rājaśekhara in Sūktimuktāvalī, which extols Ratnākara as a poet who created “another ocean” beyond the four oceans.