Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v2.c82.s1.66

v2.c82.s1.66

The insufficiencies of the earlier theories on *rasa* are obvious and are therefore rightly criticised by Abhinavagupta ; but it was a happy idea to elaborate the theory in such a way as not only to supply these deficiencies but also to fit it well into the theory of ‘suggestion’ or *dhvani* formulated by the new school. It is not necessary for us here to enter into the details of the *dhvani*-theory, which will be treated in its proper place ; but we may for convenience and continuity of treatment indicate here generally how the idea of *rasa* was worked up into them. The Dhvani school, in its analysis of the essentials of poetry, found that the contents of a good poem may be generally distinguished into two parts. The one is that which is expressed and includes what is given in so many words ; the other content is not expressed but must be added to it by the imagination of the reader or listener. The unexpressed or suggested part, which is distinctly linked up with the expressed and which is developed by a peculiar process of suggestion (*vyañjanā*), is taken to be the ‘soul’ or essence of poetry. To the grammarians and learned writers, it perhaps seemed paradoxical to state that the very essence of poetry was that which was not even expressed. On the other hand, some form of symbolical speech, in which wisdom demands that one should express oneself more in hints and suggestions than in actual words, was always in vogue, and the poets had been more or less partial to the method of speaking in metaphor or wrapping up their ideas in transparent allegory. But suggestive poetry is something different from the merely metaphorical, which Vāmana had already amply recognised and on which the Alaṃkāra and the Rīti schools had put so much emphasis. The metaphorical or the allegoric, however veiled it may be, is still in a sense expressed and must be taken as such; but the suggestive is always unexpressed, and is therefore a source of greater charm by its capacity of concealment. This unexpressed or inexpressible is called into being by a particular function of suggestion, appertaining to words and their meanings, which this school postulates, and by which poetry becomes (in the language of Kant) an expression of the ‘aesthetic idea’