A History of Sanskrit Literature c25.s2.6

c25.s2.6

Of special interest is the new presentation of the doctrine of qualities. It is clear that before Daṇḍin there had developed the doctrine of schools or paths, Mārga, of poetry, and Bāṇa refers to four of them, as we have seen. Daṇḍin declares for the existence of two types, holding that subvarieties are incalculable, and he sets them against each other as the Vaidarbha and Gauḍa, the former the southern, the latter the eastern, the distinguishing marks being the presence in the former of ten qualities which the other does not usually accept. Daṇḍin shows clearly that these distinctions are not his own, and his descriptions are here and there suggestive of doubt on his own part as to what is meant, a doubt increased by divergences of view among the commentators. One quality, indeed, is admitted to be liked even by the Gauḍas, perspicuity of sense; if the ocean is referred to as red, that requires the addition of the words ‘through the blood of the serpents.’ But the merit of clearness, Prasāda, applicable to the use of words in a natural way, is not attractive to the Gauḍas; they like a phrase such as *anatyarjunābjanmasadṛkṣāṅko balakṣaguḥ*, ‘the white-beamed (moon) has a spot similar to the not-very-white water-born (lotuses)’, where the rare expressions are excused in the Gauḍa view by their being etymologically derivable. Udāratva signifies the presence in a sentence of a distinguished quality, thus giving elevation of style, as in: