Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v2.c84.31

v2.c84.31

Thus a new turn was given to the alaṃkāra-system of Bhāmaha; or rather, what was implicit or naively expressed in it was developed to its logical consequence by Kuntala’s systematic analysis of its implications¹⁴. In spite of the obviously extreme nature of his central theory and his somewhat quaint nomenclature, his work is of great value as presenting a unique system, or rather as systematising the alaṃkāra-theory of earlier writers in a refreshingly original way. The dhvani-theorists had either dismissed the poetic figures (alaṃkāras) as mere vāg-vikalpas, or considered them only as heightening the charm of the unexpressed element in poetry. They speak of the relation of the alaṃkāra to the principal suggested element of poetry (e. g., in the shape of rasa); but there might arise cases where the poet’s obvious intention is not to awaken the rasa or anything else unexpressed, but simply to produce a strikingness in the form of an expressed poetic figure. In these cases, the authors of the Dhvanyāloka think that all such figures which, in connexion with an involved unexpressed element, possess a peculiar charm, belong to the class of poetry called by them guṇībhūta-vyaṅgya; if there is no such unexpressed element involved, they have a pictorial effect merely, and may be included in the lowest class of poetry, called by them *citra* and described by them as no poetry but an imitation thereof. In other words, they take such poetic figures as being connected with the unexpressed possess a peculiar charm, and and thus justify their position in poetry; the figures unaccompanied by the unexpressed or in no way connected with it are condemned to the level of no-poetry, as phases of speech which is of infinite variety (*anantā hi vāg-vikalpās tat-prakārā eva cālaṃkārāḥ*). Kuntala, on the other hand, justifies the significance of such figures in poetry as *figures*, and shews that this significance is independent of all considerations of their connexion with the unexpressed, as it consists in the very *vaicitrya* or strikingness involved in in them, which is sufficient in itself, and does not borrow its power of appeal from elsewhere.