Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v2.c81.s1.13

v2.c81.s1.13

But in respect of the attention which Daṇḍin pays to the elaboration of poetic figures, his sympathy obviously allies him with the standpoint of the Alaṃkāra school. He shares the views of this school in his general opinion that a good *kāvya* should be embellished by those decorative devices which go by the name of *alaṃkāra*. At the same time, it is important to note that while Daṇḍin believes, with all early writers, in the theory of embellishment, he differs in his view as to the means by which this embellishment should be realised; for he apparently holds that it is not the poetic figures only but the several literary excellences, the *guṇas* (which are also designated *alaṃkāras* by him), that constitute the essence of the poetic manners (*mārgas*) or poetic diction, in the realisation of which alone the secret of poetry lies. Indeed, the marked emphasis laid on the *mārga*, which is almost equivalent to Vāmana's *rīti*⁶, and on its constituent excellences, known as *guṇas*, to which the Alaṃkāra school is apparently indifferent, is a distinct feature of Daṇḍin's work, and places Daṇḍin in his fundamental theoretic attitude in the Rīti school. Although he does not go so far as Vāmana in setting up the *rīti* as the essence of poetry, there can be no doubt that he attaches special importance to its literary value. It is true that Daṇḍin never uses the term *rīti* throughout his work, but his employment of the term *mārga* (i 9, 40, 42, 67, 75, 101) or *vartman* (i 42, 92), implying 'mode', 'manner', or style in the objective sense, may be taken as almost synonymous. His general definition of poetry, or rather its 'body' or frame-work, as *iṣṭārtha-vyavac-chinnā padāvalī* (i 10)—a series of words characterised by an agreeable sense or idea—naturally leads him to consider, first of all, the question of appropriate expression of appropriate ideas, or in other words, to discuss the suitable arrangement of sound and sense for the purpose of producing poetic effect, which is technically denoted by the term *mārga* or *rīti*. Speech, he says, is diversified in its mode of expression (*vicitra-mārga*, i 9), and he is aware of the fine distinctions which mark off one mode from another (i 40) and result in a multifarious variety of modes. All these he broadly divides into two clearly distinguishable types, called the *vaidarbha* and the *gauḍa*, to the critical study of which his whole work is avowedly devoted. This classification is probably not Daṇḍin's own but derived from some recognised tradition (i 40), although Bharata, who mentions the *kāvya-guṇas*, does not refer to *mārga* or *rīti*, and Bhāmaha's analysis of the two types 7 (as well as of the *guṇas*) is somewhat different. Of the two types, Daṇḍin gives preference to the *vaidarbha mārga*, which, in his opinion, results from a harmonious unification of the ten *guṇas* or excellences of composition, the *gauḍa* being the exactly opposite type.