Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v2.c85.43

v2.c85.43

Ruyyaka, however, takes this *vicchitti*, brought out by the productive imagination of the poet, to be the test of a poetic figure; or, in other words, a form of expression or a mere speech-figure (if the phrase is allowable) becomes a poetic figure when a certain charm is lent to it by the peculiar conception of the poet. Thus, a form of expression involving the logical *anumāna* would not *prima facie* constitute the figure *anumāna*, unless it involved this special charm; or, the doubt involved in the figure *saṃdeha* must be brought into being by the imagination of the poet, for it should not be an ordinary doubt but a ‘poetic’ doubt. Jayaratha makes this doctrine more explicit than his author in many places in his commentary. He lays down repeatedly that a special charm (*vicchitti-viśeṣa*) depending on the conception of the poet (*kavikarma* or *pratibhā*) is to be taken without question as the essential factor of an *alaṃkāra* (pp. 144, 149-50, 183), and all so-called figures are to be accepted or rejected accordingly¹².