Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v2.c85.41

v2.c85.41

Ruyyaka does not elaborate a doctrine on this point but he accepts Kuntala's analysis implicitly and applies it to the detailed examination of individual poetic figures, a procedure which is followed by Viśvanātha, Appayya Dīkṣita and Jagan-nātha. That he derived this idea from Kuntala is indicated by Jayaratha in a passage in which the commentator, while rejecting on this ground the claim of the *yathāsaṃkhya* to be counted as a poetic figure, says : *etac ca vakroktijīvita-kṛtā saprapañcam uktam ityasmābhir nāyastam* (p. 149). In the *Alaṃkāra-sarvasva* Ruyyaka does not define the term *vicchitti*, but in the commentary on the *Vyakti-viveka* attributed to him, he says (p. 44) : *tathā ca śabdarthayor vicchittir alaṃkāraḥ, vicchittiś ca kavi-pratibhóllāsa-rūpatvāt kavi-pratibhóllāsasya ānantyād anantatvaṃ bhajamāno na paricchettum śakyate* ('Then again, an *alaṃkāra* consists of the charm or *vicchitti* of sound and sense; and it is not possible to define *vicchitti* exactly, inasmuch as it is of infinite variety, being identical with the play of the poetic imagination, which itself is infinite in its scope¹), the boundlessness or infinite scope of poetic conception having been already admitted by Ānandavardhana himself (ch. iv), as well as by Kuntala.