Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v2.c84.22

v2.c84.22

The central idea in Kuntala is that the vakrokti is the essence (*jīvita*) of poetry; and by vakrokti he understands a certain striking or charming (*vicitra*) mode of expression (*vinyāsa-krama*), which is different from or excels the common or matter-of-fact expression of words and ideas in the *śāstras* and the like (*śāstrādi-prasiddha-śabdārthópanibandha-vyatireki*). It is therefore a deviation from the established mode of speech for the purpose of attaining a certain strikingness (*vaicitrya* or *vicchitti*), or an imaginative turn of words and ideas (*bhaṅgī-bhaṇiti* or *bhaṇiti-prakāra*) peculiar to poetry and abhorrent of common speech, in which facts are more or less simply stated. This is the vakratva or *vakra-bhāva* underlying all poetic speech. A distinction, therefore, is implied not only between the method of the sciences and the scriptures (*śāstrādi*), on the one hand, and that of poetry, on the other, but also between what may be called the "naturalistic" and the "artistic" mode of expression¹¹.