Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v2.c80.80

v2.c80.80

With the advent of the dhvani-theory, there was an elaboration of the concept of rasa as the principal suggested element not only in the drama but also in poetry; and both the guṇa and the alaṃkāra naturally came to be subservient to it. But the guṇas were supposed to reside in intimate relation to the rasa, without which they could not exist and existing with which they only served to heighten its beauty. The alaṃkāra, on the other hand, was supposed to be extraneous and artificial sources of beauty, just as ornaments are to the body. We shall have occasion to deal with these questions in greater detail in connexion with the views of the *rīti*- and the *dhvani*-theorists; it would be enough to indicate here that the later theorists, in their search for a fundamental principle, could no longer regard the discipline as coextensive with an external theory of embellishment; and necessarily the *alaṃkāra*, as well as the *guṇa*, which appertain more or less to the objective beauty of representation, came to occupy a subordinate position as an element of poetry. It was held that the term *alaṃkāra* should explain the question as to what is to be ‘embellished’, and as such must confine itself, as the early formulators of the *alaṃkāra*-system modestly yet wisely held, to the ‘body’ or frame-work of poetry; it must not attempt to explain its ‘soul’ or essence.