Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v2.c80.4

v2.c80.4

The general doctrine of this alaṃkāra-system is almost coextensive with what appears to have been the original standpoint of the Alaṃkāra-śāstra itself as an objective, empirical, and more or less mechanical discipline; for, despite the previous or synchronous existence of a system which elaborated the idea of rasa in the service of the drama, there is nothing to contradict the hypothesis, which we have already indicated ² and which is confirmed by the very early existence of the *alaṃkāra*-system itself, that Sanskrit Poetics started apparently from some theory of embellishment (*alaṃkāra*) which took into consideration the whole domain of poetic figures and confined its energies to the elaboration of more or less mechanical formulas with reference to the technique of expression. Just as there may be a theory supplied the original motive-force which brought the study of Poetics into existence. The word "Alaṃkāra" (lit. embellishment), applied to the discipline itself, as well as to the poetic figure, which forms the main topic of discussion in the earliest extant works from Bhāmaha to Rudraṭa, would indicate that Sanskrit Poetics had probably grown out of a theory and practice of embellishment, which included and threw into prominence the whole domain of verbal and ideal figures of speech, those decorative devices by which poetic expression may be rendered attractive. It seems that originally *Ars Poetica* in India, as Jacobi suggests, did not go further than being a series of advice to the poet in his profession, and consisted more or less in formulating prescriptions for the practical working out of poetry. It pointed out the faults to be avoided and the excellences to be attained, and described the poetical embellishments which should enhance the beauty of expression, insomuch as the whole study came to receive the designation of Alaṃkāra-śāstra, or the Science of Poetical Embellishment. This theme of the "education" of the poet became in later literature a separate study when the theoretical aspects of the problems involved began to occupy an important place in the discipline, and we find a group of writers devoting themselves entirely to the subject of *kavi-śikṣā* which, having the practical and somewhat mechanical training of the poet in his art for its object, really represents the original standpoint of Poetics. Poetics was probably raised to the rank of an independent discipline almost about the time when of painting consisting of a collection of information regarding the techniques of tempera, of oil-painting, of water-colour, of pastel, on the proportion of the human body and on the laws of perspective, the art of poetry was supposed to comprise a collection of precepts relating to the forms of expression, its structural beauty, its damaging faults and its rhetorical ornaments, without going further into the speculative aspects of the problems involved. The whole aesthetic judgment was directed to these means of externalisation, and aesthetic pleasure was regarded objectively from the standpoint of extraneous facts which contributed to it. It cannot indeed be dogmatically stated that the necessity and inevitability of postulating an ultimate principle did not trouble these older writers; but the study must have begun with a method which resulted in the establishment of a series of more or less rigid definitions and categories elaborated to a degree of fineness. The question as to what constitutes poetry or poetic charm, the aesthetic fact, does not arise until Vāmana and the Dhvanikāra come into the field; for earlier authors like Bhāmaha (i 23) and Daṇḍin (i 10) propose to confine themselves chiefly to what they call the *kāvya-śarīra*³ or the 'body of