Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v2.c82.s1.27

v2.c82.s1.27

Rudraṭa, on the other hand, seems to be the earliest writer who explicitly includes the rasa in his treatment of Poetics, and devotes four chapters to its discussion. At the beginning of his work, he praises the poets who have won eternal fame by composing kāvyas enlivened by rasa. In ch. xii he speaks of ten rasas (adding preyas and śānta to the orthodox eight of Bharata)¹⁴, describing śṛṅgāra (love) and the characteristics of the hero and heroine in that connexion. The next two chapters take up the two kinds of śṛṅgāra (sambhoga and *vipralambha*—love in union and in separation) and questions cognate to each. This treatment is rounded off by a short chapter describing the nature and character of the styles (*rīti*) suitable to each¹⁵. It is not clear, however, as to what significance Rudraṭa attaches to *rasa* as an element of poetry, for he is entirely silent with regard to the theoretical aspects of the question. Out of the sixteen chapters into which his work is divided, only four chapters deal with *rasa*, not theoretically but descriptively, while the rest of his work is taken up with the details of the poetic figures on which obviously he puts the greater emphasis. Speaking of the necessity of making a poem *sarasa* from the standpoint of the reader, he says (xii 1) that to those, who enjoy the *rasas* but fight shy of the *śāstra*, instruction in the *caturvarga* is easier to impart through the medium of delectable writing; and this is the chief motive, in his opinion, for inspiring the sense of poetry with *rasa*. Rudraṭa starts with *śabda* and *artha* as the two constituents of poetry, and elaborates his views about poetic figures as embellishment of these elements; but he does not discuss how the *rasa* comes in into his system, a fact which may lead one to suspect that these chapters on *rasa* were probably later engraftments extraneous to, if not inconsistent with, his general standpoint. Rudraṭa, in his theoretical tendencies, has no affinity with the Rasa school, but belongs to the Alaṃkāra school, a fact which would distinguish him from Rudrabhaṭṭa, the keynote of whose system is to be found in the idea of *rasa*¹⁶. We have to this effect the testimony of Ruyyaka and Jayaratha. Ruyyaka says¹⁷ that Rudraṭa laid special stress on *alaṃkāra*, in which were comprised the three kinds of suggestion (*dhvani*), including the suggestion of *rasa*, and that in figures like *rasavat*, the *rasa* and *bhāva* implied are taken as elements which heighten the charm of the expressed idea¹⁸.