A History of Sanskrit Literature c25.s1.7

c25.s1.7

Of developments after the Çāstra we know nothing definite, and we can only guess at the stages by which new figures were found out. If we can take Bhāmaha's account as helping us historically—which is a pure assumption not suggested in any way by that author—we may hold² that the first step was to distinguish Anuprāsa, alliteration, from Yamaka, the former affecting only single letters, the latter involving the repetition of syllables. But it is much more dubious if the fact that Bhāmaha mentions after this set of five a set of six has any chronological conclusion, and the figures themselves are rather more complex than can be supposed to have been early. They are: Ākṣepa, paraleipsis, the denial of one thing to imply another; Arthāntaranyāsa, corroboration, the adduction of some instance or principle to prove an assertion; Vyatireka, contrast by dissimilitude; Vibhāvanā, abnormal causation, when something comes about by some unusual reason; Samāsokti, brevity, suggestion by metaphorical expressions; and Atiçayokti, hyperbole. Possibly to this period has been referred the figure Vārttā, which, however, was not generally accepted, though Daṇḍin perhaps,³ treats it as a sort of Hetu, cause. Our trust in the whole theory is seriously undermined when we find that to a third period of development are assigned three new figures: Yathāsaṁkhya, relative order; Utprekṣā, poetical fancy; and Svabhāvokti, description of the nature of a thing in its reality as appreciated by the poetic imagination; and that the fourth period is made to recognize the large number of figures, twenty-four more, in Bhāmaha. What is really clear is that the *Bhaṭṭikāvya*,¹ Daṇḍin, and Bhāmaha all had before them a large number of figures which they treat in slightly different ways, Bhāmaha for instance rejecting the forces of cause, Hetu, Sūkṣma, and Leça, accepted by Daṇḍin. To assert even a common source for Daṇḍin and Bhāmaha as opposed to Bhaṭṭi is beyond our means of proof, and to ascribe to Medhāvin the invention of Utprekṣā is quite invalid.