Kohala in the Sanskrit textual tradition (Study)
by Padma Sugavanam | 2011 | 95,782 words
This page relates ‘Citations of Kohala in the Sangitasamayasara� of the thesis dealing with Kohala’s contribution to the Sanskrit textual tradition of ancient Indian performing arts. The study focuses specifically on music (Gita), dance (Nritya), and drama (Natya). Although Kohala’s original works have not been found, numerous references to him across Lakshana-Granthas (treatises) and works by modern scholars indicate his significance.
Part 11 - Citations of Kohala in the Saṅgītasamayasāra
There are four references to Kohala in Pārśvadeva’s Saṅgītasamayasāra (13th century C.E.). The first reference is in the śǰ첹 venerating many ū峦ⲹ. The other three references occur in the portion about svara where Pārśvadeva quotes Kohala on the definition of svara and the nature of svara. The very same śǰ첹s appear in Ѳٲṅg’s ṛhś. It is interesting to note that Pārśvadeva does not quote Kohala on the subject of the number of śܳپ or ūԲ (which have been cited in ṛhśī). On comparison of the references to Kohala in this work and those in Բī, there are no matching entries found. It is strange that Pārśvadeva followed what was written in ṛhśī which was nearly five centuries prior to his time rather that what was said by Abhinavagupta, who was just two centuries his predecessor. This is also a reflection on which authors had access to Բī. Բⲹ𱹲, Śāradātanaya, ⲹ, Śṅg𱹲 and Kumbha seem to be only ones. It could mean that Pārśvadeva had access to that work of Kohala which was used by Ѳٲṅg, or that he merely used ṛhśī as source material from which he obtained references of Kohala. In either case it would appear that the sources for the views of Kohala that Abhinavagupta and Pārśvadeva had were not the same.
ṃgīٲ-samayasāra has yet another connection with Kohala. There is an unpublished work called Kohalamatam, attributed to Kohala which has a lot of material that can be found verbatim in Saṅgītasamayasāra. The subjects include the anatomical origin of svaras, reason for naming svaras, 岵, prabandha, laya, list of and their ṣaṇa, , ṅg, , ṇi첹 ṣaṇam, ṭy, nartaka ṣaṇam, 貹پ, and ṣaṇam (ref. para 4.1.5). Though there is much material in common, the order of presentation of topics in each of these works is quite different. It is also quite clear (as will be discussed in detail in chap 4) that Kohalamatam is a much later work and could not possibly have been written in the time of Bharata. This appears to be a post-14th century C.E. work which was perhaps written by an author who was also incidentally called Kohala or the work of some other author who tried to gain some attention for his work by attributing it to a famous authority such as Kohala.