Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v1.c69.1

v1.c69.1

This is followed by a comparatively brief but important period of extraordinary fertility and creative genius, beginning with Bhāmaha and ending with Ānandavardhana, in which we find most of the fundamental problems of Sanskrit Poetics discussed and settled in their general outlines. We have, on the one hand, Bhāmaha, Udbhaṭa and Rudraṭa, devoting themselves to the consideration of those decorative devices of poetic expression known as *alaṃkāras* (poetic figures), and confining themselves chiefly to an external art or theory of adornment, from which the science itself takes its name and its original tradition. Daṇḍin and Vāmana, on the other hand, emphasise in poetry the objective beauty of representation realised by means of what they call *mārga* or *rīti* (roughly 'diction') and its constituent excellences, the ten *guṇas*. Both these systems, which emphasise respectively the elements of *alaṃkāra* and *rīti* in poetry, content themselves with the working out of the outward forms of expression, the advantages of which were considered sufficient for poetry. They point out the faults to be avoided and the excellences to be attained, and describe the poetical embellishments which should enhance its beauty, insomuch so that the whole discipline came to receive the significant designation of Alaṃkāra-śāstra or the Science of Poetical Embellishment.