Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v2.c83.64

v2.c83.64

The Dhvanikāra’s idea was probably to make his conception of poetry wide enough to cover those varieties of poetry which develop no *rasa*, or, which develop it imperfectly, although his real leaning to *rasa* possibly betrayed itself in a different end, from which theorists like Viśvanātha drew the inevitable logical conclusion. Nevertheless, we have here an honest attempt to do justice to facts; not only to set forth what poetry ought to be but to establish the actual facts of poetry as they appeared to these theorists. They could not ignore the fact that the matter or the imagination played an important part in some kinds of poetry, although they were alive to the consideration that the emotion was in most cases the important criterion. This attitude towards empirical analysis is also exemplified by the anxiety which made them never spare themselves the trouble of going so far as to classify the cases of the unexpressed into more than five thousand different aspects, taking into consideration all conceivable facts and circumstances, which can be made out by a careful analysis of poetic speech. This fidelity to facts did not also allow them to ignore the aesthetic ideas of earlier speculation, for though these were found insufficient for explaining the whole problem, the concepts of *rasa*, *rīti*, *guṇa*, *doṣa* and *alaṃkāra* had to be examined and their place properly defined in the new system before it could be established as a complete scheme. One of the triumphs of this school was, no doubt, the admission of the old idea of *rasa* to its full importance in the art of poetry, as in the cognate art of the drama; but the school did not forget at the same time to harmonise the other important elements into its comprehensive theory.