Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v2.c87.6

v2.c87.6

underlying the relish of *rasa*. The *alaṃkāras* and *guṇas* in poetry are justified by and receive their respective significance from this element, which may, therefore, be fittingly regarded as the ‘soul’ of poetry⁴. That which is suitable or conformable to another is called *ucita* in its relation to that object⁵. This *aucitya* may have application with reference to various points in a poem, such as a word (*pada*), a sentence (*vākya*), the sense of the composition as a whole (*prabandhārtha*), its literary excellences (*guṇas*) its poetic figures (*alaṃkāras*), the *rasa* or the sentiment in a poem, the employment of the verb (*kriyā*), the use of the case (*kāraka*), of the gender (*liṅga*), of the number (*vacana*), of preposition, adjective, particles (*upasarga*), or considerations of time and place (*deśa* and *kāla*) etc. ; and the cases of application are dogmatically summarised as twenty-seven in number (*śl.* 8-10). The treatment of each of these cases is accompanied by profuse illustrations of every point from the works of various poets, the favourite method being first to cite examples of verses which comply with a rule and then adduce one or two examples of verses which do not do so. There is hardly anything original in the theory itself; for though it rightly insists upon a standard of propriety in poetic expression, it ultimately resolves itself into assuming a more or less variable criterion of taste or personal appreciation, which Ānandavardhana and others admit as *sahṛdayatva*, but which is bound to be, as it is, rather vaguely defined and therefore incapable of exhaustive formal treatment. It is really the province of taste or criticism, rather than of Poetics proper.