Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v2.c83.53

v2.c83.53

By the side of the *dhvani-kāvya*, the true poetry, in which the suggested sense is predo-minant, we have poetry of second-rate excellence, designated *guṇībhūta-vyaṅgya kāvya*, in which the unexpressed plays a subordinate part, in so far as it serves to emphasise or adorn the expressed. Here was an opportunity of including some of the results of earlier investigations of the Alaṃkāra and Rīti schools, which indirectly recognised a suggested sense but comprehended it, consciously or unconsciously, in some expressed poetic figures. Thus, in *samāsokti* was admitted the apprehension of a suggested matter, in *dīpaka* of another suggested figure, in *rasavat* of suggested *rasa*. But in all these cases the expressed sense is meant to predo-minate and constitute the charm of the particular figure, the suggested sense being there only to emphasise or embellish it. Thus, in the much discussed figure *rasavat*, which was recognised by old Poetics and which helped to smuggle in, as it were, the idea of *rasa* into their systems, the moods and feelings were supposed to have been roused, not for their own sake, but only to embellish the expressed thought. But this was not doing full justice to the fundamental significance of *rasa*, and the point was bound to be re-examined. The *dhvani*-theorists did not reject but justified this kind of poetry, in which the *rasa* is suggested not directly but secondarily, and included it in their second class of poetry. The other important case of this kind, known to earlier writers, in which something remains unexpressed but is understood, occurs in very many poetic figures which depend for their charm upon another analogous figure involved in themselves. Thus, Vāmana thought that the *upamā* or comparison was involved in all figures, and Bhāmaha stated (in which Daṇḍin substantially concurred) that all figures, in order to be charming, presupposed an *atiśayokti*, which he took as being involved necessarily in *vakrokti*. Udbhaṭa assigned an apparently similar function to *śleṣa* involved in some figures. Since the *upamā*, *atiśayokti* and *śleṣa*²⁶ are themselves independent figures, they can be involved in other figures as something unexpressed or suggested by the latter. But as the expressed figure is here in each case prominent, and the unexpressed merely helps to bring out its charm, these cases, in the opinion of the *dhvani*-theorists, may also be fittingly relegated to this second class of poetry. In the third class are included those cases where there is no borrowed charm of a suggested sense at all, and where the appeal consists in some striking mode of direct expression, as in those figure of speech, for example, which delight us by their turns of expression alone.