Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v2.c80.29

v2.c80.29

While these theorists believed in *pratibhā*, they also believed in "making a poet into a poet", and maintained the importance of what Daṇḍin calls *śruta* and *abhiyoga*, but what later writers call *vyutpatti* (culture) and *abhyāsa* (practice). Rudraṭa, therefore, thinks that *pratibhā* is not only *sahajā* or inborn, but also *utpādyā* or capable of attainment by *vyutpatti* or culture. The poet is thus required to be an expert in a long list of sciences or arts. The earliest of such lists is given by Bhāmaha in i 9, where mention is made of the following studies as 'sources' of poetry ¹², viz., grammar, prosody, lexicography, stories based on *itihāsa*, ways of the world, logic and the fine arts. This substantially agrees with Rudraṭa's list (i 18), but Vāmana deals with the topic in greater detail in i. 3.21-20, and requires the poet to be conversant with grammar, lexicon, metrics, arts, morals, erotics politics, and, above all, the ways and means of the world. It it is also sometimes implied that the poet must have studied the theory of poetry and made himself proficient in poetical exercise (*abhyāsa*). He must be clever at weaving metaphors and other poetic figures, at the trick of producing a double meaning, at manipulating complicated schemes of alliteration and rhyming, at following up quick composition, at making complete strophes out of broken lines and sentences, and similar ingenious practices. When a new work is published, it is submitted to and approved by assemblies of experts, as we are told by Maṅkhuka, Rājaśekhara and others. It was obviously expected to answer all the demands of theory, although it was by no means an easy test; for style, says an Indian stylist, is like a woman's virtue which cannot bear the least reproach. The public likewise possessed or were expected to possess a certain amount of theoretical knowledge; for the rasika or sahr̥daya, the man of taste, the true appreciators of poetry, must be, according to the conception of the Sanskrit theorists, not only well read and wise, and initiated into the intricacies of theoretic requirements, but also possessed of the fine instincts of aesthetic enjoyment¹³. The poet naturally liked to produce an impression that he had observed all the rules, traditions and expectations of such an audience; for the ultimate test of poetry is laid down as consisting in the appreciation of the sahr̥daya. Thus the poet is required to be true to his natural gifts and yet conform to the rigid demands of theory. The art of poetry in this way came to flourish in a learned atmosphere, and the theory of Poetics, as we shall see, naturally assumed a scholastic and dialectic character in common with the whole scientific literature of ancient India. It is true that a certain amount of inevitable difference is always to be found between theory and practice; and, as on the one hand, we have gifted poets aspiring to untrammelled utterance, so on the other, there is a tendency to degenerate towards a slavish adherence to rules, which naturally resulted in a strong overloading of a composition by complicated or artificial expressions.