Sahrdayaloka Part 01

SR No.: 006908
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Tapasvi Nandi
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad
Publication Year: 2005
Total Pages: 602
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 14 MB

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SAHRDAYĀLOKA head of 'alamkāra' i.e. a figure of speech, as also guņa i.e. poetic excellence. We should carefully note that by subsuming under 'alamkāra' both Bhāmaha and Dandin have not under-rated the emotive stuff in poetry, on the other hand, they have elevated a figure of speech as a real source of beauty, which is not externally grafted on poetry, but is an inborn quality of poetry, as Kuntaka will make it clear. Actually it is in Anandavardhana and his successors that we read the word 'alamkāra' in its narrower or limited sense of a figure of speech only and there too Anandavardhana is absolutely clear that if this element is seen rightly utilized i.e. in conformity with the prevailing sentiment, it is as much an integral portion of poetry as any other element : "násti bahirangatvam etesām rasábhivyaktau" - The alamkāras, if 'samyak prayojita' i.e. used with discretion, - are not external to poetry so far as rasa is to be suggested. Again, when they are themselves principally suggested, i.e. when it is a case of 'alamkāra-dhvani', they are as much the 'soul of poetry as vastu-dhvani or rasā"di-dhvani. We will discuss this in greater details later. But, for the present, it should be clear that the earlier alamkārikas never underrated the value of emotive stuff in poetry, nor were they mad after figures of speech at the expressed level only and thus created, what people under delusion call, the so-called 'alamkāra-school of poetics. For Dandin 'alamkāra' in its most catholic sense is a 'source of poetic beauty' - "kāvya-bobhākara-dharma' and this covers up everything that goes under the names of rasa, bhāva, samdhi, samdhyanga, vrtti, všttyangas, guņa, lakṣaṇa, etc. i.e. everything. Dandin observes :
"yac ca samdhyanga-vịttyanga-laksaņā”dy āgamā’ntare |
vyāvarņitam idam cestam alamkāratayaiva naḥ ||” (Dandin, II. 367) "That in other scriptures is discussed under the titles of samdhyangas i.e. parts of junctures or vịttyangas i.e. divisions of modes etc. and also as natural marks, is taken as ‘alamkāra' - the source of poetic beauty - by us." By ‘āgamántaraḥ' i.e. other scriptures, works on dramaturgy are meant.
Thus Dandin also discusses all sources of poetic beauty and this is brought out by discussing the nature and scope of poetry by the ancients.
Vāmana : In both Bhāmaha and Dandin, we noticed the metaphorical use of language such as, '(kavya)śarira'. Vāmana drags it still further. Without revelling in hair-splitting concerning what exactly forms the body of poetry, i.e. whether it is sabda - word, or artha - meaning, which is the diffentia of poetry, Vamana straight away points at some other subtlty, taking for granted the equal weight of both word and sense. Equal importance of both word and sense is acceptable to