Dandin

Dandin (flourished late 6th and early 7th centuries, Kanchipuram, India) was an Indian Sanskrit writer of prose romances and expounder on poetics. Scholars attribute to him with certainty only two works: the Dashakumaracharita, translated in 2005 by Isabelle Onians as What Ten Young Men Did, and the Kavyadarsha (“The Mirror of Poetry”).

The Dashakumaracharita is a coming-of-age narrative that relates stories of each of the 10 princes in their pursuit of love and their desire to reunite with their friends. The work is imbued both with realistic portrayals of human vice and with supernatural magic, including the intervention of deities in human affairs.

The Kavyadarsha is a work of literary criticism defining the ideals of style and sentiment appropriate to each genre of kavya (courtly poetry). It was a highly influential work and was translated into several languages, including Tibetan. Sanskrit scholar Sheldon Pollock wrote in this regard that “Dandin’s…[work] can safely be adjudged the most important work on literary theory and practice in Asian history, and, in world history, a close second to Aristotle’s Poetics.”