Bhāmaha is the earliest known author of a work on the theory of the literary art in ancient India, the fact which virtually almost all scholars of ancient Indian poetics accept. But that is all we can say with certainty about Bhāmaha, his life and work. And in this respect he is not an exception in Indian culture. Ancient India left us no manuscripts, historical chronicles, or biographical works. In his well-known book Indiia v drevnosti (India in Antiquity), the Academician G. M. Bongard-Levin particularly notes this phenomenon with a remark that it still requires explanation in the context of the historical and cultural processes that took place in ancient India. Each Indologist dealing with ancient India cannot help putting the question of why India failed to produce a historical and biographical narrative. What were the reasons of this phenomenon? I allow myself to present here some observations on this question…
The 3rd International Academic Conference “The Written Heritage of the Orient” dedicated to the 140th anniversary of B.Ya. Vladimirtsov (1884–1931) will take place at the IOM RAS on April 22–24. The conference program is now available.
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