Ghanaśyāma was a prolific author of the early eighteenth century. He wrote a large number of poems and plays, and turned to writing commentaries later in life. He was the minister of Tukkoji I (1729–1734) of Tanjore. Even more than for his vast literary output, he is notable for his extreme vanity and self-conceit.

Life

According to his commentary on the Uttararāmacarita he was born in 1700. He had two elder siblings, Īśa and Śākambharī. His first wife was Sundarī, and he married his second wife, Kamalā when he was close to 30 (the Caṇḍānurañjana is the earliest work in which her name is mentioned), and she was 13. He became the minister of Tukkoji I of Tanjore at the beginning of his rule, in 1729.

He held various titles:

Āryaka, first used in his Ḍamaruka.
Kaṇṭhīrava, first used in his Saṃskṛtabhāṣāmañjarī.
Sarvajña.
Vaśyavacas.
Works

Ghanaśyāma provides a curriculum vitae in almost every one of his works which allows his literary activity to be worked out with some confidence. The basic categories of writing that Ghanaśyāma himself used are linguistic ones: he claims in his Nīlakaṇṭhacampū to have written 64 Sanskrit works, 20 Prakrit works, and 25 works in regional languages. A more or less complete curriciulum appears in his wives' commentary to the Viddhaśālabhañjika, the Camatkārataraṅgiṇī. Here is a list of his independent works:

Dhātukośa, composed when he was a boy.
Yuddhakāṇḍa, a campū version of this book of the Rāmāyaṇa, written when he was 18 years old.
Anyāpadeśa, a śataka. Supposedly his fourth work.
Madanasañjīvana, a bhāṇa, written when he was 20.
Kumāravijaya, a nāṭaka, written when he was 20.
Ṣaṇmaṇimaṇḍaṇa, composed before the Ḍamaruka.
Ḍamaruka, a series of topical dialogues, written when he was 22. Supposedly his eighth work.
Ānandasundarī, a saṭṭaka, written when he was 22.
Saṃskṛtabhāṣāmañjarī, written when he was 22. His tenth work.
Navagrahacarita, written when he was 22. His eleventh work.
Caṇḍānurañjana, a prahasana, written before he was 29.
Bhāratīcamatkārakāvya.
Later in his life, he mostly wrote commentaries. They are:

Bhāratacampūsaṃjīvanī, a commentary on the Bhāratacampū. He claims that it is his fifty-third work.
Prāṇapratiṣṭhā, a commentary on the Viddhaśālabhañjika. His fifty-fourth work, composed after he was fifty years old.
Abhijñānaśākuntalasaṃjīvana, his sixty-third work.
Prabodhacandrodayasaṃjīvanī, his sixty-fourth work.
Uttararāmacaritaṭīkā, his sixty-fifth work.
Nīlakaṇṭhacampūvyākhyā, written after Tukkoji's death.


(This description largely based on Chaudhuri 1943, of which Rāvaḷa and Bhaṭṭa 1997: 5–18 is basically a Hindi translation.).