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Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v2.c83: V. The Dhvanikara & Anandavardhana

Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v2.c83

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V. The Dhvanikara & Anandavardhana

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(The Dhvani System)

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The origin of the Dhvani school, like that of other schools of Poetics, is lost in obscurity; but the first clear formulation of its theory of *dhvani* as a whole is to be found in the memorial verses of the Dhvanikāra, whose date is unknown but who could not have been very far removed from the time of his commentator Ānandavardhana.¹ It is possible, however, that the Dhvanikāra himself is following a much older tradition. The fact that he shows himself conversant with some theory of *rasa*, *alaṃkāra* and *rīti* need not be cited to the credit or discredit of this conjecture; for these systems themselves cannot be traced back to any definite period of time, and there is also no conclusive evidence that the Dhvanikāra was aware of the particular views of Bharata, Bhāmaha or Daṇḍin, with whom we begin the historic period of growth of these systems. But the very first line of the first verse of the *Dhvanyāloka* itself states that the theory that *dhvani* is the essence of poetry was traditionally maintained by earlier thinkers (*kāvyasyātmā dhvanir iti budhair yaḥ samāmnāta-pūrvaḥ*). Accepting this statement of the Dhvanikāra, it is difficult, however, to explain why the *dhvani*-theory did not in the least, as the *rasa*-theory did to a certain extent, influence such early writers on Poetics as Bhāmaha, Daṇḍin or Vāmana. It is easy to maintain, on the other hand, that the *vyañjanā* as a function must have been evolved by the school which set up a theory of *vyaṅgya artha* or *dhvani*, as this function is not traceable in philosophers or philosophical grammarians before the time of Ānandavardhana. Bhāmaha², Vāmana (iv. 3. 8) and other early theorists discuss or show themselves cognisant of such a ‘suggested sense’ in general; but they never use the terms *vyañjanā*, or *vyaṅgya artha* or *dhvani*, as they probably would have done if it had been so universally known or accepted as the Dhvanikāra’s statement would apparently imply. But this non-recognition by other schools need not be taken as a serious argument, as it admits of several reasonable explanations. It is well known that the philosophers refuse to recognise the *vyañjanā* as a *vyāpāra sui generis*³, and even after it was put forward by the Ālaṃkārikas, they would explain it by another recognised function as *anyathā-siddha*; it is not surprising, therefore, that orthodox grammarians or philosophers should entirely ignore it. The absence of any direct reference to *dhvani* in early writers on Poetics may be explained by the not unlikely supposition that probably the Dhvanikāra himself, who summed up and uttered the theory in a definite form, was contemporaneous with these writers, as we cannot put him much later if we are to leave sufficient margin between him and his commentator, as well as make room for intermediate scholastic activity evidenced by the recapitulation-stanzas cited by Ānandavardhana in his *vṛtti*⁴. Even leaving aside this conjecture, the cases of such non-recognition are actually explained by the Dhvanikāra himself, in the verse we have already cited, as constituting really cases of *half-recognition*; for he seems to indicate that these early writers were cognisant of *dhvani*, but not having understood its nature they naively and uncritically looked at it from other points of view, some comprehending it in other elements of poetry, some thinking it incomprehensible, and others (like the poet Manoratha cited by Ānandavardhana) going to the extreme of denying its existence altogether. One of the objects of the Dhvanikāra in this statement was, no doubt, to indicate that he was not putting forward something entirely new, and to find an authority for his procedure in the implied attitude (real or imaginary) of certain older writers ; but, apart from this, it is clear that although there is nothing explicit in the older writers, one can never affirm that some kind of ‘suggested sense’ was not known to them.

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¹ See Vol. I pp. 114-15. Kane (*HAL* pp. lx-lxi) sets forth ably, if not convincingly, Sovani's hypothesis (see Vol. I, p. 111) that the name of the Dhvanikāra was Sahr̥daya. Kane, however, modifies the view by suggesting that "it was due to the profuse use of the word *sahr̥daya* in the *Dhvanyāloka* and to making *sahr̥daya* the final court of appeal in all matters of taste that the founder of the *dhvani*-theory earned the epithet of *sahr̥daya par excellence*" (p. lxiv). Kane also hazards the conjecture that Ānandavardhana was possibly a pupil of the Dhvanikāra, or one closely associated with him; and this will, he thinks, explain the confusion of authorship. I am afraid that the passages that Kane cites in support of these conjectures are hardly decisive, and the question must still be regarded as an open one.

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² See above Ch. II, pp. 66-67.

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³ See Jacobi in *ZDMG*, lvi, 1902, p. 397 fn 2, and p. 398 fn 1.

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⁴ See Vol. I. p. 114, and *BSOS*, I, 4, 1920, pp. 7-8.

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It would be extraordinary indeed that a work like Dhvanikāra’s could have sprung into existence without having had a previous history, although such earlier forms of the theory as might have enabled us to trace directly its origin and growth were either not committed to writing or had disappeared in course of time ; for at its first appearance as we have it in these kārikās, we find the theory in a relatively complete shape, the outlines of which, definitely settled, may require considerable filling up but no important or substantial modification. This is probably implied by Abhinavagupta’s gloss on the word paramparā in Ānandavardhana’s explanation of the phrase samāmnāta-pūrvaḥ used by the Dhvanikāra with reference to the previous existence of the theory. Abhinava explains (p. 3) that the theory was stated in unbroken tradition by previous thinkers without its being discussed in particular books (avicchinnena pravāheṇa tair etad uktam, vināpi viśiṣṭa-pustakeṣu vivecanāt). It is true that Mukula refers (p. 21) to a theory of dhvani being newly described by some men of taste (sahṛdayair⁵ nūtanatayópavarṇitasya) as something not comprehensible by the recognised function of lakṣaṇā, and does not discuss it for its over-subtelty (etac ca vidvadbhiḥ kuśāgrīyayā buddhyā nirūpaṇīyam...ityalam atiprasaṅgena); but he may in this passage be directly referring to the Dhvanikāra, who for the first time probably summed up in his memorial verses the floating traditions, or to Ānandavardhana to whom belonged the credit of fixing the theory into a new and complete shape.

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⁵ The word sahṛdaya here cannot be taken, as Kane (HAL p. lxi) takes it here as elsewhere, as a proper name referring to the Dhvanikāra; nor is it to be taken as a title of the propounder of the dhvani-theory. As in most of the

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This conjecture about the traditional existence of the dhvani-theory in some form or other even before the Dhvanikāra receives support from the fact that the theory in its essence derived its inspiration from the works of the early grammarians and their semi-philosophical speculations on speech. Originating as a theory of expression, the theory of vyañjanā, no doubt, received no recognition from orthodox grammarians, but not choosing to appear as an entirely novel theory, it sought the protection of the grammarian's authority by pretending that it was founded on the analogy of their ancient sphoṭa-theory. We have already noted⁶ the great influence of the older science of grammar on poetics, and Ānandavardhana himself is careful in noting places that Kane cites, it refers in general to the critics or men of taste who established the new theory, or in particular to the Dhvanikāra or Ānandavardhana, and there is no need to go beyond this ordinary meaning of the term in Alaṃkāra literature. Possibly the reference is directly to Ānandavardhana who was a contemporary of Mukula's father Kallaṭa (see Vol. I p. 76).

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⁶ See Vol. I, pp. 10-11.

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that the system demonstrated by him is built on the system of the grammarians, who were the earliest theorists to apply the term *dhvani* to the spoken letter which reveals the *sphoṭa*⁷. Abhinavagupta, commenting on this passage, perhaps goes too far in following up, after the authority of the *Vākya-padīya*, all the details of the *sphoṭa*-theory, but there is hardly any doubt that the writers on Poetics had this theory before them when they elaborated their own system of *dhvani*. The *sphoṭa*, which has been likened to the neo-platonic logos, is often translated by the terms ‘expression’, ‘notion’, ‘concept’ or ‘idea’; but none of these terms brings out its essential nature. Some philosophers propounded and the grammarians took it for granted that a word has intrinsically a word-prototype corresponding to it. The *sphoṭa* is not exactly this word-prototype, but it may be explained as the sound of a word as a whole, and as conveying a meaning apart from its component letters (*varṇas*). The *sphoṭa* does not contain exactly the sounds of the word in the order peculiar to the letters, but the sounds or something corresponding to them are blended indistinguishably into a uniform whole. When a word is pronounced, its individual sounds become reflected in some degree in the order of the *sphoṭa* in which the particular sounds are comprised; and as soon as the last sound dies away, the *sphoṭa*, in which the idea corresponding to all these sounds is comprised, becomes manifest and raises to our consciousness the idea thus associated. The sounds of a word as a whole, therefore, and apart from those of the constituent letters, reveal the *sphoṭa*.

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⁷ *prathame hi vidvāṃso vaiyākaraṇāḥ, vyākaraṇa-mūlatvāt sarva-vidyānām. Te caśrūyamāṇeṣu varṇeṣu dhvanir iti vyāharanti. Tathaivânyais tan-matānusāribhiḥ sūribhiḥ kāvya-tattvārtha-darśibhir vācya-vācaka-sammiśraḥ śabdātmā kāvyam iti vyapadeśyo vyañjakatva-sāmyād dhvanir ityuktaḥ* (pp. 47-8). See *Locana* on this. Cf also: *pariniścita-nirapabhraṃśa-śabda-brahmaṇāṃ vipaścitāṃ matam āśrityaiva pravṛtto'yaṃ dhvani-vyavahāra iti taiḥ saha kiṃ virodhā-virodhau cintyete* (p. 199). In this last passage, the reference is not to Vedānta, as some would think, but to the grammatico-philosophical theory of *śabda-brahma*. See Jacobi's note on this passage in *ZDMG*, lvii, 1903, p. 56 fn 1.

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Taking their cue from this somewhat mystical conception, the Ālaṃkārikas developed the idea of *dhvani* by analogy. The several expressed parts of a poem, they held, reveal the unexpressed deeper sense, which is something singular and different from the denotative and indicative elements both in order and in essence, and which is termed the *dhvani* (lit. ‘sound’, ‘echo’, ‘tone’) or *vyaṅgya artha* (suggested sense) in poetry. The word *dhvani* itself, as Ānandavardhana pointed out, is sometimes used by the grammarians for the word or letters which reveal the *sphoṭa*. Mammaṭa’s remarks in this connexion are pertinent. In his *vṛtti* on the definition given by him of *dhvani* (i 4), he says that the *dhvani* is, according to the grammarians, that word which reveals the all-important *sphoṭa*, inasmuch as through it arises the knowledge of the word’s meaning. Others, by which he signifies the writers on the *dhvani*-theory in Poetics, carry this doctrine of the grammarians a step further and apply the term *dhvani* to the meaning, as well as to the word which is capable of suggesting a meaning superseding the one which is directly expressed. Intrinsically the two theories have scarcely any mutual connexion; but what the Ālaṃkārikas really wanted was an authority for their assumption of the power of *vyañjanā*, which the great grammarians did not acknowledge. The *sphoṭa*-theory of the grammarians, however, presupposed something similar, for the *varṇas* of a word reveal, as it were, the ideal word. Hence it afforded an analogy which could at least boast of the authority of the Vaiyākaraṇas, the *prathame vidvāṃsaḥ*, and which could therefore be seized upon by the Ālaṃkārikas as the foundation of their own theory of suggestion. It may also be pointed out that the sense of 'manifestation' which exists in the *vyañjanā* is an idea which, we have already noted⁸, is not unfamiliar to Indian philosophical speculation. The *vyañjanā* does not consist in the utterance of something new, but in the manifestation of something already existing; it is, to use a familiar illustration from Indian philosophical systems, like the revealing of the already existing jar by the lamp. Although the general concept of *dhvani* connects itself with such half-mystical currents of thought, Ānandavardhana yet takes care to point out (pp. 232-4) that this *dhvani* is not, as often supposed, something mystical but something that can be properly defined and grasped; and he has no sympathy with those schools which would dismiss it, as Kapila has dismissed the *sphoṭa* from the philosophical realm, on the ground that it is something inexplicable (*anākhyeya*).

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⁸ See Vol. I p. 12.

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Although it accepted, with some modifications, the grammarian’s analysis of the nature and function of speech as well as based its theory of *dhvani* on the analogy of the theory of *sphoṭa*, the school really started independently with a distinct theory of expression of its own, which demonstrated a function of *vyañjanā* and *vyaṅgyārtha* untraceable in earlier speculative literature. But the influence of other schools of Poetics on the composite work of the Dhvanikāra and Ānandavardhana cannot be ignored. The latter, if not the former, appears to be perfectly familiar with the views of Bharata, Bhāmaha, Udbhaṭa and Vāmana, most of whom are cited directly by name; but even the Dhvanikāra must have known the theories of the Rasa, Alaṃkāra and Rīti schools in some form or other. For, the *Dhvanyāloka* has two professed objects in view, viz., (1) the establishment of the theory of *dhvani* and demonstration that this idea cannot be comprehended by the theories of earlier or contemporaneous schools of Poetics, and (2) an examination of the existing ideas of *rasa*, *alaṃkāra*, *rīti*, *guṇa* and *doṣa* with a view to correlate them with the idea of *dhvani*, and thus by synthesis to evolve a complete and systematic scheme of Poetics. It succeeded so far in realising both these objects that not only was the concept of *dhvani* accepted implicitly by almost all later writers, but the systems, which emerged after Ānandavardhana and of which Mammaṭa may be taken as the first and foremost representative, cannot be regarded strictly as independent schools, nor can they be affiliated readily and entirely with the older Rasa, Alaṃkāra or Rīti schools. They constitute in substance a new aesthetic scheme in which the ideas of all these schools are worked and harmonised into a comprehensive doctrine, the outlines of this new adjustment being first clearly marked and the foundations firmly laid by Ānandavardhana.

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Starting as a theory of expression, the Dhvani school concerns itself, first of all, with the grammatico-philosophical problem about the function of words and their meaning, or in other words, about the relation of a word to that which is expressed by it. The grammarians, logicians and the Mīmāṃsakas had already laid down that the primary or intrinsic meaning (*mukhya* or *śakya artha*) of a word is *abhidhā*, generally translated by the term Denotation, which gives it its peculiar significance. Thus, the concept of the cow is given by the word ‘cow’ by its power of Denotation. It has been defined as that power of a word which conveys to the understanding the meaning attached to it by convention, without the intervention of any other power. This convention (*saṃketa*) consists in a particular word conveying a particular meaning (*asmāc chabdād ayam artho boddhavya ityākāraḥ śakti-grāhakaḥ samayaḥ*), which is comprehended by observing what takes place in the world (*vyavahāra*). We need not concern ourselves with the question whether this *śakti* is *īśvarēcchā* or *icchā-mātra* (divine or human will); but there are several theories as to where this convention is to be understood, held respectively by the grammarians, logicians, Saugatas and Mīmāṃsakas. The writers on Poetics maintain, after the grammarians⁹, that it has reference either to genus (*jāti*), individual (*dravya*), quality (*guṇa*) or action (*kriyā*).

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⁹ Both Mukula and Mammaṭa (*Śabda-vyāpāra*, p. 2) point out that this view of the Ālaṃkārikas is based on the dictum *catuṣṭayī śabdānām pravṛttiḥ*, occurring in the *Mahābhāṣya* (ed. Kielhorn p. 19, l. 20).

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When this *abhidhā* or the primary meaning of a word is incompatible, another power called *lakṣaṇā* or Indication (i. e. transference of sense) is communicated, whereby another meaning connected therewith is apprehended, either through usage (*rūḍhi*) or from some special motive (*prayojana*). Thus one can say 'the country rejoices', but since the country itself cannot rejoice, it is indicated that the people of the country rejoice. This power really belongs to the sense (*artha-vyāpāra*), as later analysis points out, but it is attributed to words and is thus an *āropita-śabdavyāpāra*. That is to say (as other writers explain it) we have first *śabda* or the word, then its *vācyārtha* or direct denoted meaning, after which or in connexion with which comes the *lakṣyārtha* or indicated meaning through the power of Indication. It is thus *sāntara* (and not *nirantara* like *abhidhā*), having the *vācyārtha* coming in between; for the *lakṣaṇā* is resorted to when the primary sense is incompatible (*bādhita*) and is so far *artha-niṣṭha* as based on the expressed sense¹⁰. Hence the three essential requisites of the *lakṣaṇā* are the incompatibility (or exhaustion) of the primary sense, the connexion of the indicated sense with the primary sense, and the reason or motive (*prayojana*) for resorting to it. As the Denotation is dependent on worldly convention (*vyavahārika saṃketa*), so is the Indication (as Mammaṭa points out) upon the special convention based on these three requisites; and as there can hardly be any indicated or transferred sense without the primary sense, the Indication is sometimes called the tail, as it were, of Denotation (*abhidhā-pucchabhūtā*). In fact, writers like Bhaṭṭa Nāyaka, as we have seen¹¹, would include *lakṣaṇā* under *abhidhā*, of which it is supposed to be an extension.

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¹⁰ *śakya-vyavahita-lakṣyārtha-viṣayatvāc chabde āropita eva sa vyāpāraḥ, vastuto'rtha-niṣṭha evetyarthah, tad uktam—‘sūntarūrtha-niṣṭhaḥ’ iti*, °*Pradīpa*, ed. N. S. P, 1912, p. 27.

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¹¹ See above Ch. IV p. 155.

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The *lakṣaṇā* being thus of a derivative nature, its relations to *abhidhā* have been summarised differently in different works. The *Nyāya-sūtra* gives an exhaustive list of the relations on account of which a word is used in a secondary or transferred sense for another (II. 2. 63), corresponding to the *lakṣaṇā* of the Alaṃkārikas; but Mukula quotes the authority of Bhartṛmitra¹² who summarises them in a verse into five categories, viz. *saṃbandha* (connexion), *sādṛśya* (similarity), *samavāya* (inherence), *vaiparitya* (contrariety) and *kriyā-yoga* (association through action). ‘The fat Devadatta does not eat in the daytime’ (*pīno devadatto divā na bhuṅkte*) ‘the lad is a lion’ (*siṃho māṇavakaḥ*), ‘the herd-station on the Ganges’ (*gaṅgāyāṃ ghoṣaḥ*); ‘this fool is a Bṛhaspati’ (*bṛhaspatir ayaṃ mūrkhaḥ*) and ‘in the great war thou art a Śatrughna’ (*mahati samare śatrughnas tvam*) are given as respective instances of the usage. We need not further dilate upon these niceties of analysis, nor enter into the elaborate classifications of *lakṣaṇā*, but we may note here that the *lakṣaṇā* or transferred expression lies at the root of figures like metaphor and of metaphorical mode generally, which consist in the fancied transference of the qualities or action of one object to another. It has been pointed out that the transferred expression, resolving into the metaphorical, is the source of a particular beauty, because the special motive (*prayojana*) with which the poet chooses the transferred expression becomes realised along with it, without being directly or at all expressed. When we say, for instance, ‘youth is the springtime of life’, we mean to imply at once, without directly expressing it, the beauty, vigour or enjoyments of spring-time. The *prayojana* or motive, though unexpressed, is yet apprehended. This is supposed to be one of the reasons, as we shall see, why we should admit, besides Denotation and Indication, a third function of *vyañjanā* or suggestion, by which something not expressed is revealed.

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¹² *Abhidhā-vṛtti-mātṛkā* p. 17. The verse is also quoted anonymously in Mammaṭa's *Śabda-vyāpāra*° p. 8, in *Kāmadhenu* p. 133 and in many other works. Abhinavagupta

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¹ *Locana* p. 56) alludes to it, and discusses these five categories.

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But there is a limited class of writers who postulate another function, called *tātparya* or Purport, which leads us to apprehend the connexion among the meanings of the constituent words in the form of the import of the whole sentence. This function conveys the connected meaning of the several words and therefore differs from *abhidhā* and *lakṣaṇā* which convey the meaning of a particular word, the *tātparyārtha* being manifested, not by word, but by a whole sentence, and therefore remaining distinct from the meanings denoted or indicated by individual words. The words have, according to this view, the power of denoting or indicating things and not the connexion (*anvaya*) among things, which is known not from the import of words as such, but from their relations of compatibility (*yogyatā*), proximity (*sannidhi*) and expectancy (*ākāṅkṣā*). When the logical connexion or *anvaya* is thus known, a special sense arises which is called *tātparya*. Mammaṭa explains (ii 1, *vṛtti*) the position of these Abhihitānvaya-vādins, as they are called, thus¹³: "When the meanings of the words, to be hereafter explained, are connected in accordance with expectancy, compatibility and proximity, another sense arises, called purport, which has a distinct form and which, though not constituting the sense of words is yet the sense of the sentence---this is the view of the Abhihitānvaya-vādins”. The theory of this school is rejected by another school of Mīmāṃsakas, called the Anvitābhidhāna-vādins, who deny the necessity of postulating a special function like tātparya; for they hold that words have a power to denote not only things but also their purport or connexion along with them. To put it in another way, words do not express their sense generally but connectedly. In ordinary life, for instance, we first understand meanings from sentences, and words convey ideas not absolutely but relatively, i.e., as having a connexion with another. *Mutatis mutandis*, the theory would remind one of Berkeley’s denial of abstract ideas.

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¹³ *ākāṅkṣā-yogyatā-sannidhi-vaśād vaksyamāṇa-svarūpāṇāṃ padārthānāṃ samanvaye tātparyārtho viśeṣa-vapur a-padārtho'pi vākyārthaḥ samullasatītyabhihitānvaya-vādīnām matam.*

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The formulators of the *dhvani*-theory do not enter into these minute discussions but appear to recognise them implicitly, although most writers from the time of Mammaṭa (who deals with these questions in his *Kāvya-prakāśa* as well as separately in his *Śabdavyāpāra-paricaya*) start with a preliminary analysis of word-function, and some later works like Appayya’s *Vṛtti-vārttika* are devoted specially to the subject. All writers from Ānandavardhana’s time accept as a rule the *abhidhā* and *lakṣaṇā*, but they are not unanimous with regard to the *tātparya* as a separate function, which they take as included in the *vyañjanā* *vṛtti*, this being the third and and most important function established by the Dhvani school as the theoretical foundation of *dhvani* or the ‘suggested sense’ in poetry. The *vyañjanā* or power of suggestion is generally defined as that function of a word or its sense by which a further meaning comes into being, when the other functions, viz., *abhidhā* and *lakṣaṇā*, are exhausted in their scope. Ideas or notions are what are conveyed by words through their powers of Denotation and Indication; these, put together in a sentence, convey a complete thought through the supposed power of the sentence, styled Purport. Now, another power is postulated by which a deeper sense, the *vyaṅgya artha*, is revealed, consequent upon but distinct from the simple thought¹⁴. All good poetry, called *par excellence dhvani-kāvya*¹⁵, must have such a sense implicit in it, a sense which can only be realised by the *vyañjanā-vṛtti* or power of suggestion postulated by this school.

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¹⁴ A word (or its sense), in virtue of these three powers is called respectively the expressive (*vācaka*), the indicative (*lakṣaka*) and the suggestive (*vyañjaka*), and the sense which arises is termed respectively an expressed (*vācya*), indicated (*lakṣya*) and suggested (*vyaṅgya*) sense.

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¹⁵ The word *dhvani* (lit. ‘echo’ or ‘tone’) is used almost synonymously (cf Hemacandra p. 26) with the word *vyaṅgyārtha* (suggested sense), and sometimes wrongly as co-extensive with *vyañjanā*, which term properly designates the process manifesting it. The *dhvani-kāvya* is so-called because the *vyaṅgyārtha*, which predominates in it over the *vācyārtha*, is ‘echoed’ *par excellence* in this class of poetry. Viśvanātha (p. 198) explains the term etymologically thus: *vācyād adhika-camatkāriṇi vyaṅgyārthe dhvanyate’sminn iti vyutpattyā dhvanir nāmottama-kāvyam*.

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Now the question has been hotly discussed as to whether it is necessary to postulate this separate function of *vyañjanā*, or whether it may not be comprehended in other recognised functions like *abhidhā* or *lakṣaṇā*, and in other intellectual processes like *anumāna* or inference. Jayaratha cites (p.9) a verse which enumerates twelve different ways in which the problem of Suggestion may be and perhaps was explained away; but broadly speaking, we need notice, as Ānandavardhana and his followers have done, only the principal attempted explanations. The first verse of the *Dhvanyāloka* summarises these antagonistic views into three groups. One sceptical school entirely denies the suggested sense in poetry. A second school, which is agnostic in this respect, holds that it is beyond the province of words (*kecid vācām sthitam aviṣaye tattvam ūcus tadīyam*), and can only be perceived by a man of refined discernment (*sahṛdaya-hṛdaya-saṃvedyam*, Ānanda p.10). A third school would try to trace it back to the recognised functions like *abhidhā*, *lakṣaṇā* and *tātparya*, or to some such means of knowledge as *anumāna* or syllogistic reasoning. These three schools naturally divide themselves into two distinct standpoints: the one absolutely denies or ignores the concept of *dhvani* and thus does away with the necessity of *vyañjanā*; the other, admitting the *dhvani*, attempts to explain away the necessity of *vyañjanā* as being sufficiently accounted for by the ordinary recognised functions.

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Against the attack of the systems which deny the existence of the suggested sense, the old argument that nothing can be denied which is not apprehended is applied; but apart from such purely scholastic objections, the real grounds for postulating the suggested sense are, the consideration in the first place, that being a profound verity, it can positively be established by an examination of aesthetic facts as well as facts of experience ; and in the second place, that, there are some elements of poetry (e. g. the *rasa*) which cannot be satisfactorily explained asr evealed by *abhidhā*, *lakṣaṇā*, *anumāna* or similar other means.

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This brings us to the consideration of the views of those who accept the concept of *vyaṅgya artha* but dispense with the necessity of such a separate and unauthorised *vṛtti* as *vyañjanā*, and regard it as included in other functions of sound and sense. Some Mīmāṃsakas hold, for instance, that the so-called suggested sense is conveyed by the *abhidhā-vṛtti* or the denotative power of a word. In this connexion, the *dīrgha-vyāpāra-vādins*¹⁶ are said to have maintained that as a single arrow, discharged by a strong man, destroys by a single movement, called velocity, the armour of the enemy, pierces through his body and takes away his life, so a single word, used by a good poet, brings before us by a single power, called *abhidhā*, the sense of the word, teaches us its logical connexion (*anvaya*) and makes us apprehend the suggested sense. The substance of this graphic description appears to be that such is the more and more expanding function of *abhidhā* that it is not to be measured in the balance and confined to the single business of making us understand the *saṃketita artha*, but it is competent to express whatever sense is apprehended after a word is heard. But it is urged in reply that the *abhidhā* has not the power to give us the perception of a matter (*vastu*), an imaginative fact (*alaṃkāra*) or an emotional mood (*rasa*), because it ceases, in the orthodox opinion, after conveying the conventional (i. e. literal) sense, and the *rasa* etc. are not matters of mere convention. Nor is the denoting, for instance, of component *vibhāvas*, which give rise to the *rasa*, a denotation of the *rasa* itself; for it is acknowledged that the *rasa* is not realised by a mere naming thereof but partakes of the nature of a self-manifested joy, which can at most be suggested. These facts cannot be satisfactorily explained unless we assume with the *dīrgha-vyāpāra-vādins* an all-comprehensive power for the *abhidhā*, for which there is hardly any authority. Moreover, if we assign such extensive powers to Denotation, why even admit the power of Indication, since the sense conveyed by the latter might be understood from the Denotation itself?

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¹⁶ Trivedi, in his notes to *Ekāvalī* p. 370, attributes this opinion to Lollaṭa, which we followed in our footnote 2, p. 39, Vol. I. Sovani doubts if this view is ascribed to Lollaṭa by any standard Sanskrit writer. This view is no doubt criticised by Mammaṭa (p. 225), Mahimabhatta (p. 27), Vidyādhara (p. 43) and others, but nowhere Lollaṭa is mentioned by name. Jhalakīkara and Durgāprasāda, as Sovani points out, wrongly calls the adherents of this view *bhaṭṭamatopajīvinaḥ*, but possibly they take their cue from Govinda's mistaken remark to the same effect in his *Kāvya-pradīpa*, ed. N.S.P. 1912, p.149.

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Admitting the denoted sense, therefore, strictly as that conveyed by convention, it cannot be said to be manifold, for it exhausts itself after conveying the particular conventional concept; the suggested sense, on the other hand, becomes varied in accordance with the diversity of the occasion, the speaker and similar other factors. The denoted meaning is shown to differ from the suggested (1) in point of *form*, for the suggested sense may sometimes be quite the opposite of the negative or positive (as the case may be) expressed sense, (2) in point of *location*, for the expressed sense resides in words alone, while the suggested sense may be found in the words, in their position, in their denoted meaning itself, in the affixes or suffixes, in the arrangement of letters and so forth, (3) in its *effect*, for the denoted sense brings a mere cognition, the suggested a surprise, (4) according to the nature of the speaker, the addressee, or the perceiver. The attempt to maintain that the suggested sense is conveyed by the *tātparya* or Purport, as some Naiyāyikas hold, is similarly shown to be insufficient; for the function of the Purport is exhausted by simply making us apprehend the logical connexion of the ideas in the sentence itself and cannot, therefore, take us to the *vyaṅgyārtha*, which arises after the sentence is understood.

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Nor is the *lakṣaṇā-vṛtti* sufficient to explain the subtle power of Suggestion. Those who maintain, however, that the suggested sense is no other than the *lakṣya* or indicated sense are asked (*Locana* p. 51) whether they consider the non-difference of Suggestion and Indication to mean (1) that the two functions are identical (*tādātmya* or *tādrūpya*), (2) that they consider the Indication to be the constant differentiating property (*lakṣaṇa* or *vyāvartaka-dharma*) of Suggestion, or (3) that the Indication is an occasional differentiating mark (*upalakṣaṇa* or *taṭastha lakṣaṇa*) of Suggestion in special cases. The Dhvanikāra and Ānandavardhana discuss these views generally (pp. 50-9), but Abhinavagupta deals with them somewhat elaborately.

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With regard to the first of these views, viz., the *tadrūpya* or identity of *dhvani* and *bhakti* (by which term *lakṣaṇā* is meant), the Dhvanikāra lays down that Suggestion cannot be identical with Indication, because both have properties peculiar to themselves (i 17). Indication is based upon the consideration of the barring of the expressed sense, and consists merely in *upacāra* (*upacāra-mātram tu bhaktiḥ*, Ānanda p. 51), or, as Abhinavagupta expresses it, in the secondary application of a word (*guṇa-vṛtti*). The suggested sense, on the other hand, though essentially distinct in character, does not yet cancel the expressed sense altogether. The later writers¹⁷ explain further that it is not a mere secondary application of a word through usage or special motive; for if you say that in such a sentence as ‘a herd-station on the Ganges’, the supposed motive, viz., the coolness and purity of the site, is not suggested but indicated, then the notion of ‘the bank’, which is the real indicated sense, would become the primary meaning of the word ‘Ganges’ (for the motive and the secondary sense of ‘bank’ cannot both be indicated), and consequently would be cancelled, since there can be no Indication without the primary sense being cancelled. We must therefore acknowledge another indicated motive for the indication of the first motive (for there can be no indication without the supposition of an indicated motive), and a third motive again to this second indication, and so on *ad infinitum*. In fact, as already noted before, the *prayojana* or special motive is not expressed at all; if it is left unexpressed, how is it then apprehended, unless we suppose that it is suggested? It has also been demonstrated that Suggestion is based on the peculiarity of the speaker, the addressee and various other circumstances, and there is a difference as well in location, the Indication residing in a word only, the Suggestion in a word, its parts, its sense and in the style. Mammaṭa adds that Suggestion cannot be said to be co-extensive with Indication and Denotation combined; for it is seen to come into existence from mere letters without any specific Denotation.

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¹⁷ e.g. Viśvanātha in his *Sāhitya-darpaṇa* pp.247 48.

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The second view that Indication is the *lakṣaṇa* or the constant differentiating characteristic of Suggestion is shewn by the Dhvanikāra to be vitiated by the logical fallacies of too wide (*ativyāpti*) or too narrow definition (*avyāpti*). This is more or less a scholastic objection, and is based on the characteristic notion of Suggestion defined by its champions; for both Ānandavardhana and his commentator shew that Indication sometimes covers a much wider, sometimes a much more limited field than Suggestion. The *vyañjanā*, for instance, is not accepted when the *prayojana* of the Indication is not charming; on the other hand, in cases of *vivakṣitānyapara-vācya* dhvani, there is scope for Indication, for the Suggestion here is expressly based on Indication. The third view, that Indication may be an occasional distinguishing mark (*upalakṣaṇa*) of Suggestion is not denied by the Dhvanikāra, for Suggestion may sometimes rest ultimately on Indication, e. g. those cases which are admitted by *dhvani*-theorists as based on *lakṣaṇā* (*lakṣaṇā-mūla dhvani*); but this does not prove the opponent's position that Indication is identical with Suggestion.

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Some of the oldest and most aggressive objectors to the admission of the *vyañjanā-vṛtti* are the adherents of the *anumāna*-theory, whose views are refuted at some length by Ānandavardhana himself, but who are represented to us in later literature by Mahimabhatta in his *Vyakti-viveka*, a work which was written with the avowed object of establishing that the suggested sense can be arrived at by the process of syllogistic reasoning. Most of these controversies belong to the realm of scholastic speculation and are far removed from actual Poetics. We shall deal with Mahimabhatta's theory in its proper place; it will suffice here to set forth the theory in its general outline as it obtained in Ānandavardhana's time and notice the arguments with which it is sought to be disproved.

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From Ānandavardhana's repudiation (pp. 201 f) of the views of this school, it appears that its essential position consisted in establishing that the cognition of the unexpressed or suggested sense is nothing more than the cognition of the object of a logical conclusion, so that the relation of the suggestor and the suggested is that of the syllogistic middle and major terms (*vyaṅgya-pratītir liṅga-pratītir evéti liṅga-liṅgi-bhāva eva teṣām, vyaṅgya-vyañjaka-bhāvo náparaḥ kaścit*). One of the alleged reasons for this assumption is that the Dhvani school itself admits suggestivity as depending upon the intention of the speaker, which intention is always an object of logical conclusion. Ānandavardhana, however, demonstrates that this does not affect the general position of his school. He shews that words have two different functions, the one inferrable (*anumeya*) and the other communicable (*pratipādya*). The first, consisting of intention (*vivakṣā*), may either be the wish to utter a sound or the wish to express an idea by a word; the former, being a common characteristic of all animals, does not come within the sphere of speech. The communicable is something different from this, and consists of the idea itself which forms the object of the speaker's need of communication (*pratipādyas tu prayoktur artha-pratipādana-samīhā-viṣayīkṛtaḥ*). It may be either expressed (*vācya*) or suggested (*vyaṅgya*); for the speaker sometimes wishes to communicate the idea directly by its Denotation, or sometimes he wishes to do so in such a way that it is not conveyed directly in words. This last-named inner content, Ānandavardhana maintains, cannot be recognised in the form of a syllogistic conclusion, but can be by some other artificial or natural relation; for words, in the form of a logical middle term, can convey that an unexpressed idea is the object of intention, but cannot convey the unexpressed idea itself (*vivakṣā- viṣayatvaṃ hi tasyārthasya śabdair liṅgatayā pratīyate, na tu svarūpam). If the contrary is maintained, then, as every idea could be logically established, there would be no dispute about the correctness or falsity of an idea, any more than about any other conclusion from a logical syllogism (yadi hi liṅgatayā śabdānāṃ vyavahāraḥ syāt, tac-chabdārthe samyaṅ-mithyātvādi-vivādā na pravarteran). It is only when the unexpressed takes the form of the intention of the speaker that it may be a matter of ordinary inference; but the inner content of the idea itself, when unexpressed, can be communicated only by the supposition of an artificial power like Suggestion, for the natural mode of direct expression, as well as inference, is out of the question.

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With the establishment, against such hostile views, of the suggested sense and the function of Suggestion in poetry, which is variously termed vyañjanā (revealing), dhvanana (echoing), gamana (implication) or pratyāyana (acquainting), we are introduced to the special doctrine of the system. The unexpressed or the suggested sense (vyaṅgya artha), to which the name dhvani is applied when it is predominant, is definitely posed as the ‘soul’ or essence of poetry¹⁸, and poetry is classified into three kinds in relation to the suggested sense. The best kind, specifically called *dhvani-kāvya*, is supposed to be that in which the suggested sense predominates and supersedes the expressed. It is thus defined by the Dhvanikāra (i 13) : "The learned call that particular kind of poetry *dhvani* in which the (expressed) word and sense, subordinating themselves, manifest that (other suggested) sense"¹⁹. This is *par excellence* Suggestive Poetry, and therefore pointedly called *dhvani*²⁰. The second class of poetry, in which the suggested sense is not predominant but subordinate, is called *guṇībhūta-vyaṅgya kāvya* or Poetry of Subordinated Suggestion²¹. This Sub-

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¹⁸ But the verse i 2, in which this view is set forth appears, when literally taken, to state that “the sense which is praised by men of taste and which has been established as the soul of poesy, has two subdivisions, viz., vācya or the expressed, and pratīyamāna or the suggested”, implying thereby that the artha itself is the ‘soul’ or essence of

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¹⁹ *yatrārthaḥ śabdo vā tam artham upasarjanīkṛta-svārthau | vyaṅktaḥ, kāvya-viśeṣaḥ sa dhvanir iti sūribhiḥ kathitaḥ ||*. Here *tam artham* refers to *artha* defined in one of the previous verses, e.g. in i 4.

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²⁰ For the etymology of the word, see above footnote no. 15.

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²¹ *Dhvanyāloka*. iii 35

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poetry and that it includes the *vācya* as well, as one of its varieties. The Dhvanikāra, therefore, apparently declares that the expressed sense is also the essence of poetry, although this, as Viśvanātha objects, is opposed to his own statement in the first line of his work, which speaks of the suggested sense alone as the essence of poetry in accordance with the tradition of ancient thinkers. Abhinavagupta tries to reconcile these two apparently conflicting dicta by supposing that the real object of the Dhvanikāra in i 2 is to distinguish between the *vācya* and the *pratīyamāna* sense, and not to establish both as the 'soul' of poetry. The objection is really over-fastidious; for it can be easily shown that in the elaboration of the theory, the suggested sense is throughout taken as the *ātman*.

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ordination consists in the suggested sense being either of equal or inferior prominence. It has been classified elaborately, if not logically, on the hint furnished by the *Dhvanyāloka* itself, into eight varieties, according as the suggested sense is (1) ancillary, (2) hinted by tone or gesture, (3) subservient to the completion of the expressed sense, (4) of doubtful prominence, (5) of equal prominence, (6) obscure, (7) unconcealed, or (8) not charming. That poetry, which is without any suggested element, is reckoned as the third and the lowest kind, being merely ‘pictorial in word’ or ‘pictorial in sense’, and is called *citra* or Pictorial Poetry²². In it could be included all verse which, on account of sound or magnificence of pictorial representation, or some such mechanical means, flattered the ear and was considered worthy of admiration. Under it also comes the whole body of expressed poetic figures (*alaṃkāra-nibandho yaḥ sa citra-viṣayo mataḥ*, cited p. 221), which, containing no suggestive element, appeal by their turns of expression alone (*vaicitrya*) and which are characterised by Ānandavardhana as mere *vāg-vikalpa*. Ānandavardhana makes it clear that the *citra-kāvya* is not really fit to be called poetry, it is an imitation or copy thereof (*kāvyānukāraḥ*); for, strictly speaking, there can be no poetry in which there is no suggestion. It is admitted by him, however, to the category of poetry, because the poets, who are unfettered in their mode of expression, have, as a matter of fact, been found producing poetry of this kind, in which there is no intention of developing a suggested sense, but which is wholly taken up with the object of bringing about a strikingness of sound and sense.

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²² Ānandavardhana describes *citra-kāvya* thus: *rasa-bhāvādi-tātparya-rahitaṃ vyaṅgyārtha-viśeṣa-prakāśana-śakti-śūnyaṃ ca kāvyaṃ kevala-vācya-vācaka-vaicitrya-mātrāśrayeṇopanibaddhaṃ alekhya-prakhyam yad avabhāsate tac citram* (p.220). Abhinavagupta derives the word in different ways: *vismayakṛd-vṛttādi-vaśāt...kāvyānukāritvād vā citram, alekhya-mātratvād vā, kalā-mātratvād vā* (p.34). In deference to Ānandavardhana, Mammaṭa speaks of *citra* as the third and lowest kind of poetry; but Viśvanātha altogether rejects its claim as poetry.

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These three types of poetry are then elaborated and classified with somewhat minute and subtle ingenuity. In this treatment, we find the characteristic passion for reducing everything to a formula and the scholastic delight in indulging in fastidious refinements; but at the same time there is a sincere effort to do justice to all the aesthetic facts, so far as they have been recognised, and to unify the various currents of ideas obtaining in different schools by synthesising them with the central principle of suggestion in poetry. We see throughout the speculations of this school an anxiety to protect itself from the reproach of being too theoretical, of ignoring or doing violence to facts; and this anxiety made the theorists evolve a scheme which should not overlook the inherited stock of notions but find a place for them in a comprehensive system. We need not take the *dhvani*-theory here in all its minute details, and go through the five thousand, three hundred and fifty-five subdivisions of suggestive poetry, the object of which was possibly to mark out not distinct classes, but distinct properties or circumstances; but we shall attempt to trace here briefly the effort made by this school to dispose of the already accumulated matter of Poetics, represented by the notions of the *rasa*, *rīti*, *guṇa*, *doṣa* and *alaṃkāra*, into the *dhvani*-system itself, by means of different arrangements or classification of the idea of suggestion.

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The true poetry, the *dhvani-kāvya*, is divided into two broad classes, viz., *avivakṣita-vācya* and *vivakṣitānyapara-vācya*, which two designations, clumsy as they are²³, respectively indicate their nature. In the first case, the expressed sense is not meant; in the second case, it is certainly meant but ultimately amounts to something else, viz., the unexpressed. The first is obviously based on *lakṣaṇā* or Indication, which the poet employs with the conscious purpose of bringing the unexpressed into comprehension; and the question involved is about words and expressions which are taken not in a literal but in a transferred sense. This poetic transference, as we have already noted before, is at the root of metaphorical expression generally, the importance of which both the Alaṃkāra and Rīti schools amply recognised and industriously examined, and which Daṇḍin specifically included in the *samādhi-guṇa*, and Vāmana treated under the special figure *vakrokti*. As such, therefore, it could not be very well ignored, and by including it, as the *dhvani*-theorists did, in one of the principal divisions of good poetry, they rightly assigned to it a prominent place in the new system.

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²³ Mahimabhaṭṭa criticises both these terms, holding that the former is nothing more than a case of *bhakti* or *lakṣaṇā*, and the latter contains an inherent contradiction (i.e., if a thing is *vivakṣita* or *pradhāna*, it cannot be *anyapara*).

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The second division of suggestive poetry, the *vivakṣitānyapara-vācya*, in which the expressed is meant but is made to resolve itself into the unexpressed, is obviously based on *abhidhā* or Denotation, and embraces the more important matter of *rasa*, which has already been worked out by the Rasa school in the sphere of the drama. Two possible cases of this division are enumerated, viz, (1) that in which the suggested is of imperceptible process (*asaṃlakṣya-krama*), i. e., where the expressed denotation brings the suggested sense imperceptibly into consciousness, and (2) that in which the suggested is of perceptible process (*saṃlakṣya-krama*). Under the first group comes the suggestion of *rasa* and *bhāva*, for it is made clear that these emotional states can only be suggested in this way. Under the second group are included the suggestions of matter (*vastu*) and of figure (*alaṃkāra*) by matter and figure in turns, based respectively on the power of word, or its sense, or both. Thus the unexpressed, which is raised to comprehension by the suggestive power of a word, or its sense or both, can be an unexpressed fact or matter, an unexpressed imaginative mood which may be put into the shape of a poetic figure; but in most cases—and these cases are of primary importance in poetry—it is an unexpressed emotional mood (*rasa*) or feeling (*bhāva*), which is directly inexpressible, but which can only be suggested by an expressive word or its sense. We have already seen²⁴ that the poet can at his best directly expresses the three factors which bring about the *rasa*, viz., the *vibhāva*, the *anubhāva*, and the *vyabhicāri-bhāva*, but not the *rasa* itself as a mood which is inexpressible in its nature. At the most, we can give a name to it, e.g., we can call it love, sorrow or anger, but the mere naming of the *rasa* in poetry is not capable of awakening the mood itself in the reader which consists of a self-manifested state of the mind. Therefore, with the denotation or description of these factors, the poet can only suggest the *rasa*; in other words, he can call up a reflection of the mood which the reader realises as a particular condition of his own mind²⁵. The expressed factors, the *vibhāvas* etc., are thus the suggestor or *vyañjaka* of the *rasa*, which is the suggested or *vyaṅgya*. The suggested, no doubt, depends for its manifestation on the expressed (*vācyārthāpekṣa*), which consists of a denotation of the factors which suggest it, but it is in no way produced from it as an effect and differs entirely in essence. This suggestion is said to be ‘of an imperceptible process’, because the perception of the suggested *rasa* by means of the various factors necessarily involves a process, but from its quickness the process is not perceived, like the process, as one writer graphically puts it, of the apparently simultaneous piercing of a hundred lotus-leaves placed one upon another. At the moment of relishing a poetic mood or feeling we are so absorbed in it that we do not perceive the process which suggests it, and this subtle suggestion may fittingly be described as one of ‘imperceptible process’.

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