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29
Vol. XXIV, 2001
TĀTPARYA' IN BHOJA Now we will be able to explain the other observations of Bhoja in a more satisfactory fashion. He says,
"yad abhiprāya-sarvasvam vaktur vākyāt pratīyate, tātparyam; artha-dharmos tat,
śabda-dharmaḥ punah, dhvanih” We may add ‘kāvya' before 'vākyāt to mean "kāvya-vākyāt.' The essence (abhiprāya-sarvasva) which is understood from a poetic statement, that we may add 'tat before tātparya) is tātparya, which is artha-dharma and also sabdadharma, and is termed 'dhvani' (śabdadharmah punah, sa dhvanih iti ucyate).
Then Bhoja further observes that this (poetic) tātparya (which is 'dhvani) is like the quality of saubhāgya (of a beloved person, vallabhasya'), an internal, quality (of poetry). It is like the lāvanya' or abstract beauty of the goddess of speech "like lāvanya' of a beautiful lady. This is an external quality-bāhya guna. It is something manifested at external level like 'having beantiful eyes''sulocanatva' of a lady, we may add.
The fact is that this poetic tātparya i.e. dhvani is beauty both internal and external, for Bhoja. Both, observes Bhoja, are explained by both -'dvayena dvayam ucyate.' The idea is that if we dig deeper we will realise that poetry or kāvya itself being an abstract-amūrta-entity, there is hardly anything which can be stamped as 'external' or 'internal in the literal sense. Actually both are both, for both are beyond physicality. Just as caitra and vaišakha are also termed madhu and mādhava, similarly the artha-dharma and śabda-dharma both make for the supreme beauty of poetry.
So, this, we feel, explains Bhoja's concept of tātparya satisfactorily and had he been alive, perhaps Dr. Raghavan would have accepted this explanation.
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