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A History of Sanskrit Literature c25.s3: 3. The Doctrine of Dhvani

A History of Sanskrit Literature c25.s3

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English

3. The Doctrine of Dhvani

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Rājaçekhara lived at a time when a new doctrine, that of Dhvani, tone, had been steadily winning its way to power. It is represented for us by the metrical Kārikās preserved in the *Dhvanyāloka*³ of Ānandavardhana of Kashmir (*c.* 850) with its super-commentary by Abhinavagupta, *Locana*.¹ The Kārikās assert that the doctrine is old, but if so we must assume that it had not won much success, and it may be that the author referred really to some not distant predecessor, justifying himself by the view that the doctrine was implicit in the older writers. His name was possibly but not certainly Sahṛdaya, which at best is merely an epithet, and he must have written early in the ninth century. At any rate by the ability of his commentators and by the adoption by Mammaṭa of the doctrine the new view won on the whole a dominant position in Indian poetics.

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³ Ed. KM. 25, 1911; trans. H. Jacobi, ZDMG. lvi and lvii.

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¹ Ed. KM. 25 (i–iii); Dé, Calcutta, 1923 (iv).

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The theory finds its origin in the analysis of language and meaning. The phrase, a herdsmen's station on the Ganges, is obviously as it stands absurd; the denotation (*abhidhā*) gives no sense, and we are obliged to find a transferred sense (*lakṣaṇā*) which gives us the sense of a station on the bank of the Ganges. This shows the incompatibility of the literal sense as one factor, and the possibility of giving an allied meaning as another. But this is not all; there is brought to us by such a phrase deliberately used in poetry a sense of the holy calm of such a station situated on the sacred stream with all its associations of piety. This, it is contended, is not given by implication, but by the power of suggestion which is derived from the poet's purpose (*prayojana*) in applying the phrase. This doctrine of suggestion which the grammarians did not accept could be based on a philosophical opinion of the grammarians themselves. They recognized the Sphoṭa,² a mysterious entity, a sort of hypostatization of sound, of which action sounds were manifestations, and the same idea of the revelation of something inherent (*vyañjanā*) is found in the Vedānta, where all is a manifestation of the underlying reality, the Brahman or absolute. There were common-sense people³ who held that all could be put down to denotation; a word might be regarded like an arrow which could pierce armour and slay the foe in a single movement, without inventing new phases of operation, while yet others⁴ claimed that the signification, Tātparya, resulting from the taking of words together in a sentence explained all that was required, and others¹ again held that even this idea of Tātparya was needless, because the words had the power *per se* of conveying their relations with other words to make up a whole. A further school, which became more insistent later, declared that suggestion was not real, and that what was explained by suggestion ought to be accounted for by inference. From the mention of the station on the Ganges one at once inferred the intention of the speaker to convey the ideas of purity, &c.

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² E. Abegg, *Festschrift Windisch*, pp. 188 ff.; ZDMG. lxxvii. 207ff.

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³ Dīrghavyāpāravādin school, dubiously ascribed to Lollaṭa (Dé, *Sanskrit Poetics*, ii. 192, n. 16).

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⁴ Abhihitānvayavādin school of Mīmāṁsā.

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¹ Anvitābhidhānavādin school.

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But the holders of the doctrine of Dhvani remained unconvinced, and on the basis of their theory they declared that the soul of poetry was not style nor sentiment, but tone, Dhvani, by which they meant that an implied sense was the essence of poetry. What was suggested might be threefold, either a subject, or a figure, or a sentiment and, while these three possibilities are admitted by the more orthodox members of the school, including Ānandavardhana and Mammaṭa, Abhinavagupta went much further and declared that in reality all suggestion must be of sentiment, holding that in the long run suggestion of subject and figure reduced themselves to this. Viçvanātha, author of the *Sāhityadarpaṇa*, followed his lead, but this never became the accepted doctrine, for the writers realized that, by attempting thus to limit suggestion, they would cut out a good deal of admitted poetry. Suggestion, however, can be expressed in two ways, for it may rest on the metaphorical sense of words, in which case we have the species of Dhvanikāvya where the literal meaning is not intended at all (*avivakṣita-vācya*), thus making provision for the ordinary view which attached great importance to metaphor or simile as the base of poetry. Or, again, the literal sense may be intended, but a deeper suggestion implied, in which case we have the type where the literal sense is meant but ultimately comes to something deeper (*vivakṣitānyapara-vācya*). Here, again, we have two different cases, for the process of apprehension may be instantaneous (*asaṁlakṣya-krama*), which is the rule in respect of suggestion of sentiment, or due to a perceptible process (*saṁlakṣya-krama*), as in the suggestion of subject and figure. The process of apprehension of sentiment is comparable to the piercing of a hundred lotus leaves with one needle; there is a process by which the factors induce the sentiment, but it is so rapid as to seem instantaneous. It is clear also that the rising up of sentiment is not the result of inference; it can come into being only in a person who has had in previous lives experience which gives him aesthetic susceptibilities, makes him a feeling heart or connoisseur (*sahṛdaya*), and in him it arises as a perfectly unique emotional experience, comparable only to the bliss of cognition of the absolute,¹ a transcendental (*alaukika*) joy. He who sees on the stage, or reads in poetry, the factors which are connected with sentiment presented, does not regard them as external to himself, whether as the property of the actor or of the hero of the play or poem, nor does he appropriate them to himself; he sees them under the aspect of universality, and this causes the sentiment to be unique and pleasurable, whatever the corresponding emotion, as a personal possession, would be. What in real life would be horror, thus as a sentiment is exquisite joy. We have, it is clear, a real effect to explain the nature of disinterested aesthetic pleasure arising from literature.

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¹ This is, we must remember, identic with the bliss which is part of the absolute as one, being, thought, and joy.

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But the system does not deny the right to rank as poetry of poetry which contains only in a secondary degree suggestion (*guṇībhūta-vyaṅgya*). This head helped them to find a place for the doctrines of the older writers who accepted in certain figures the expression of sentiment, as in the Preyas, Rasavat, and Ūrjasvin of Daṇḍin. Moreover, it served to include cases in which these writers found that one figure lay at the base of others, as when Vāmana found simile in all, and Bhāmaha held that in all figures there lay hyperbole, a view mentioned by Daṇḍin also. Finally the system, though not its sterner advocates, confessed that they must permit the kind of poetry called Citra, picture, in which there was mere beauty without any suggested sense at all. The beauty may be of sense or sound.

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It remained to seek some way of dealing with the qualities and figures and the styles or manners of the earlier writers, so as to find them a just place. One great simplification was effected by reducing the number of qualities, restricting their extension to sound effects, and by merging in them both the Rītis of Vāmana and the Vṛttis of Udbhaṭa, which were at the same time practically identified. This became possible through the adoption of a new doctrine as to the relation of qualities to the poem; the sentiment being regarded as the vital element, the qualities are related to it as the soul of the poem, in the same way as heroism is an attribute of the soul of man. This fact, however, precludes us from regarding qualities as stereotyped in the old fashion; everything depends on the sentiment, and what relatively to sentiment would be a quality might in the abstract be a defect. If, then, we admit qualities, they must be such as are never defects, and they must be positive in nature, not mere lack of defects, and distinct in character. On this score we can dismiss Vāmana's Çleṣa, Samādhi, and Udāratā as merely forms of Ojas, strength; Saukumārya and Kānti are no more than the absence of the faults of harshness and vulgarity; and Samatā, evenness, is in some cases positively a blemish. We have thus left just three qualities, and these of sound only, there being no need in the views of the school, which Mammaṭa in special develops very clearly, to allow of qualities of sense. These are strength, which is regarded as causing, or as Viçvanātha insists, coincident with an expansion (*vistara*) of the mind, and which has its proper place in the sentiments of heroism, horror, and disgust; sweetness, which stands in a like relation to a melting (*druti*) of the mind, and is normally present in the sentiment of love-in-union, but appears also, rising in degree in order, in pathos, love-in-separation, and calm; and clearness, including the older Arthavyakti, which corresponds to an extension or pervasion (*vikāsa*) of the mind. The idea of these psychological equations was probably borrowed from Bhaṭṭa Nāyaka who in his theory of the enjoyment (*bhoga*) of sentiment spoke of these three conditions of the mind. In concrete terms the characteristics of the three qualities of sound are given by Mammaṭa as depending on arrangement of letters, compounds, and style of composition; thus sweetness depends on the use of all the mutes (save linguals) with the corresponding nasals; *r* and *ṇ* with short vowels; and no compounds or short compounds; strength arises from the use of double consonants, or consonants followed by the corresponding aspirate; conjuncts of which *r* forms part; lingual letters save *ṇ*; the palatal and lingual sibilants; long compounds; and a formidable, loaded, composition; no special rules are given for clearness. It is obvious that Mammaṭa is here incorporating much of what Udbhaṭa taught regarding his Vṛttis, the characteristics of the Upanāgarikā and Paruṣā forms being closely similar, and thus it is possible for Mammaṭa to bring the Vṛttis under qualities. Nor, as he includes the use of compounds in his treatment, does he find it difficult to include the styles of Vāmana, as brought into close relation to compounds by Rudraṭa. It is, of course, all rather artificial, and very much of an effort to harmonize without real care for the facts, but it is normal and plausible enough.

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In the case of the figures a definite line is drawn between them and the qualities. The figures are only of importance in so far as they seek to enhance the sentiment; they do not, however, act directly on the sentiment, but they aid it by decorating the body, sound and sense, just as the soul of a man has as attributes the qualities, while ornaments such as a necklace affect his body directly. If figures do not aid the sentiment, then they are merely forms of speech, and their place is in poetry of the third type, Citra, pictorial poetry which Viçvanātha denies outright the name of poetry.

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Ānandavardhana give much else of great interest, and his remarks on compounds are sensible and just; he allows them freely in Ākhyāyikās, but he points out that even there where pathetic, or love-sorrow effects are aimed at such compounds are not suitable, and in the Kathā they should be employed in moderation. The doctrine of Doṣas, defects, is treated from the same point of view as that of qualities; tautology, for instance, may become an excellence if the suggested sense is made more effectively felt by means of it. But as with qualities, there may be real faults which are always such; the Dhvanikāra insists that in love there is always a defect in using unmelodious (*çrutiduṣṭa*) expressions, though such are in good taste in the heroic or the horrible sentiments.

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