Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v2.c84.41

v2.c84.41

figures as *upamā*, is applied to the *rasavat* by an extension of the sense (*bhakti*), and this usage has the sanction of ancient and respectable authority to which we must bow. But this explanation is rejected by others as being too fine. The difference between *alaṃkāras* like *upamā*, on the one hand, and the *rasavat*, on the other, which is supposed to be due to the fact of direct and and indirect embellishment, is admitted to be true, but is explained away as purely accidental and immaterial; and, strictly speaking, we should designate both as *alaṃkāras* instead of indulging in fine distinctions. A third view, which altogether rejects this distinction between direct and indirect embellishment, maintains that the general definition of *alaṃkāra* as that which embellishes the *rasa* through word and sense, is applicable as much to *rasavat* as to regular figures like *upamā*.