Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v2.c82.s1.7

v2.c82.s1.7

The same remarks with regard to the recognition of rasa apply more or less to Daṇḍin; but Daṇḍin seems to have been more alive to its importance than Bhāmaha. Like Bhāmaha, Daṇḍin allows the rasas to be included in figures like rasavat, which appear to have been the only means by which they could permit the rasa to play even an unimportant role in their systems. It may be contended⁴ that Daṇḍin gives prominence to rasa by including it in one of the essential excellences (*guṇas*) of the diction (*rīti*), viz., in *mādhurya*, which is defined as the establishment of the *rasa* in the word and in the object (*vāci vastunyapi rasa-sthitiḥ*, i 51); but from ii 292 it appears that Daṇḍin means by the term *rasa* in the *mādhurya-guṇa* to connote absence of vulgarity (*agrāmyatva*⁵), and does not contemplate the inclusion of *rasa* in the technical sense⁶. The *mādhurya-guṇa*, according to Daṇḍin (i 51-7), may appear in two different aspects, in so far as it creates *vāg-rasa* and *vastu-rasa*, the former consisting of repetition of similar sounds (*śrutyanuprāsa*⁷) and the latter connoting absence of vulgarity (*agrāmyatva*). Thus Hemacandra explains (p 198) the *rasa* in Daṇḍin’s *mādhurya*, according as it resides in the *vāk* or *vastu*, in this way : *śruti-varṇānuprāsābhyāṃ vāgrasaḥ...... agrāmyābhidheyatayā tu vastu-rasaḥ*⁸. Thus the rasa in Daṇḍin's *mādhurya* has a distinct connotation which separates it from the technical dramatic *rasa* of the Rasa school⁹.