Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v2.c82.s1.67

v2.c82.s1.67

Now the unexpressed, through the suggestive power of sound or sense, may be an unexpressed thought or matter (*vastu*), or an unexpressed figure of speech (*alaṃkāra*), but in most cases it is a mood or feeling (*rasa*) which is directly inexpressible. The Dhvani school, therefore, took up the moods and feelings as an element of the unexpressed and tried to harmonise the idea of *rasa* with the theory of *dhvani*. It was realised that poetry was not, as Daṇḍin thought, the mere clothing of agreeable ideas in agreeable language; the feelings and moods play an important part in it. But the feelings and moods are in themselves inexpressible. We can give a name to them, but naming a mood or feeling is not equivalent to expressing or developing it. At best, therefore, we can suggest it. What the poet can directly express or describe are the *vibhāvas* etc.; but with the help of these expressed elements which must be generalised and conceived, not as they appear in the natural (*laukika*) world, but as they may be imagined in the world of poetry, the poet can awaken in us, through the power of suggestion inherent in words and their meanings, a particular *alaukika* condition of the soul in which the relish of the feeling is possible. It is true that the poet cannot rouse the same mood or feeling as, for instance, Rāma, whom he describes, felt, but he can call up a reflection of it, which is similar in some respects; and the condition of the reader's soul in the enjoyment of such feeling is in poetry and drama the relish of *rasa*, which can be brought into consciousness only by the power of suggestion inherent in words or ideas.