A History of Sanskrit Literature c25.s3.9

c25.s3.9

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.