Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v2.c81.s1.71

v2.c81.s1.71

It will be clear from the above, as well as from Hemacandra’s (pp. 195-200) and Māṇikyacandra’s (pp. 191f) elaborate review of the *guṇa*-doctrine. that the writers of the Rīti school, especially the followers of Daṇḍin and Vāmana, differ widely in their attempts at defining and classifying the guṇas, and that such attempts are open to criticism. Some of Bharata's definitions, on the other hand, do not always agree with those either of Daṇḍin or Vāmana. For instance, Bharata's ojas, which consists in the use of high-sounding compound words of varied strikingness, may correspond to Daṇḍin's ojas, but Hemacandra states that the essence of this guṇa consists in imparting loftiness to an object which is low or treated with contempt. Again, Bharata's prasāda, corresponding to Daṇḍin's samādhi, is a metaphorical mode of expression, which Vāmana would include in his peculiar definition of the vakrokti-figure, and which comes generally under lakṣaṇā or upacāra of later theorists. Bharata's udāra differs considerably from Vāmana's udāratā which does not comprehend, as Bharata's udāra does, the rasas and bhāvas in its scope; but it corresponds partially to Vāmana's artha-guṇa kānti. At the same time, it would seem that, in spite of such minor discrepancies, Bharata's scheme of the guṇas as a whole is developed to its furthest possibilities by Vāmana. That there are inevitable differences in the definition of particular guṇas in the earlier writers on the subject, and that the whole doctrine, despite the care of its exponents, is still unsatisfactory, only indicate the fruitlessness of the efforts of early theorists in comprehending all the literary excellences of a composition within the hard-and-fast limits of a few categories, on the interpretation of which they spend so much ingenuity but on which they cannot in the nature of things arrive at any absolute agreement.