Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v1.c8.s1.4

v1.c8.s1.4

reference to the controversy about the function of *abhidhā*: for he is said to have maintained that the primary function of Denotation of a word is so far-reaching that it is competent in itself to express all other implied or suggested sense. The Mīmāṃsakas and grammarians had already discussed the question of *abhidhā*; but it must not be forgotten that several attempts to explain the fact of suggested sense (*dhvani*) obtained before the Dhvanikāra himself. It is probable that Lollaṭa was one of those who offered one of the several early solutions to the question, alluded to in the first verse of the *Dhvanyāloka*.