Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v2.c84.37

v2.c84.37

Regarding *rasa-dhvani* which comes under *asaṃlakṣya-krama-vyaṅgya* (i. e., suggestion of an imperceptible process), it is clear that Kuntala who admits not the essentiality of *rasa* but that of *vakrokti*, can comprehend *rasa* only as an element in some aspects of *vakrokti*. In the third chapter of his work, dealing with *vākya-vakratā*, he discusses how poetry may be made charming by delineating appropriate *rasas*. In this connexion he examines in some detail such figures as *rasavat*, *preyas* etc., in which the *rasa* was admitted as an element by early theorists, whose system, maintaining the importance of *alaṃkāra* in poetry, could not otherwise recognise *rasa* independently. The special poetic figures like *rasavat* etc., constituted the back-gate, as it were, for the admission of the idea of *rasa* in the *alaṃkāra*-systems. When, however, the theory of *rasa* assumed its proper importance in the schools, the necessity naturally arose of explaining how the *rasa*, which is essential and therefore fit to be embellished (*alaṃkārya* or *upakārya*) can itself be regarded as a means of embellishment (*alaṃkāra* or *upakāraka*) in figures like *rasavat*. We find accordingly in the Dhvanikāra and Ānandavardhana an attempt to comprehend the *rasavat* etc., under the class of poetry called by them *guṇībhūta-vyaṅgya*, in which the suggested sense (in this case the suggested *rasa*) is subordinated to the expressed sense. The theory was put into shape by distinguishing the sphere of *asaṃlakṣya-krama dhvani* from that of figures like *rasavat*.