Ishvara Pratyabhijna Vimarshini Part 1 (KSTS 22)

people and the appreciation and respect which they have for his learned art, even to this day. Even now the Sanskrit the classical language of India scholars here have continued the same practice of teaching Mahākāvyas as was in vogue in the time of our author, and they very seldom deviate from the path trodden during the last decade of centuries.

It is a matter for regret that in the absence of the commentaries written by other authors who flourished before Vallabha, we cannot lay our hands on any material for comparison or contrast of the present work; yet from the humble statement which Vallabha makes in the beginning of his commentary we are led to believe that he has done his best to utilize the material at his disposal, accepting as a matter of fact the better explanations and rejecting the ambiguous and controversial meanings from his predecessors' writings. More than half a dozen commentaries have since succeeded that of Vallabha, last among them being the famous fourteenth-century commentary of Mallinātha. His commentary on this Mahākāvya and other poems is widely read in India as it is the latest and therefore an improvement upon the older commentaries; but when compared