Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v2.c85.25

v2.c85.25

Even the definition of Viśvanātha, who took upon himself the task of criticising Mammaṭa, is open to similar objections, and has been criticised in its turn by Govinda and Jagannātha. In declaring that poetry consists of a sentence of which the ‘soul’ is rasa (*vākyam rasātmakam kāvyam*), he is indeed betraying the unmistakable influence, of the Rasa school; but he is also putting into a shape, in a way clearer than Abhinavagupta does, the essentiality of *rasa-dhvani*, wisely left unstated but practically meant by the authors of the *Dhvanyāloka*⁴. In taking up this extreme position, Viśvanātha involves himself, however, in the somewhat clumsy subterfuge of admitting a distant touch of *rasa* in all poetry, even in what is professedly descriptive or ornamental. Even if it is ideally correct to say that a poem ought always to manifest the *rasa* alone, it does not, as a matter of fact, always do so. Jagannātha rightly objects⁵ that Viśvanātha’s definition would exclude poems in which the centre of gravity lies only in the matter (*vastu-dhvani*) or in the imaginative mood (*alaṃkāra-dhvani*). The opponent cannot reply that this is exactly his own opinion, for thereby he goes against the view of ancient authorities, as well as against the established practice of great poets, who have admitted the scope of fact and imagination, and described subjects like a flood or narrated a travel, in which there is is hardly any touch of rasa. It would not do, therefore, to accept the rasa-dhvani alone, for a complete definition must also take into account vastu-dhvani and alaṃkāra-dhvani. Viśvanātha anticipates this objection by saying that in cases other than those admitted expressly by himself there is always a semblance of rasa (rasābhāsa); and the verse given in the Dhvanyāloka as an instance of vastu-dhvani is, in his opinion, admissible only because there is such a touch of the rasa in it, and not because mere vyaṅgya vastu can constitute the essence of poetry. Jagannātha replies that nothing is gained by such a supposition of an indirect reference to rasa, because such a reference may also be construed in phrases like ‘the cow moves’ or ‘the deer leaps’. This cannot be taken as the sole criterion, because thereby any and every content of poetry would be reduced to the position of an excitant, an ensuant or an accessory of the rasa.