________________
The Role of a Sahrdaya
Ānandavardhana extols the role of the Sahrdaya, the connoisseur or the responsive critic, who is described as that person who has by a process of incessant application to standard poetical works so enlarged his mind that he can easily identify himself with the particular aspect of the person or the thing described and merge his individuality in the universal element of the poem, or the universal element in him in the individual element of the poem. And it is in the context of this responsive reader that Ānandavardhana proceeds to point out the nature of the pleasure that the critic realises. This delight is of the nature of aesthetic enjoyment, and as such those only are real Kavyas which are capable of suggestively bringing about this aesthetic delight. 2 4 5 The Grounds of Poetry
Hemachandra follows Anandavardhana as interpreted by Abhinavagupta completely. Anandavardhana makes this aesthetic delight the chief criterion of poetic creation and connects it with the concept of Pratibhā or poetic imagination. This Pratibhā or poetic genius is none other than that quality which enables the poet to create 'a thing of beauty'. It is a capacity that gives to 'airy nothings a form and shape'. In Dhvanyaloka 1.6, Anandavardhana declares that the goddess of learning herself yields that real essence of suggestion and manifests the extraordinary and sparkling genius of the great poets, who among a host of poets, are only two or three, or five or six, like Kālidāsa etc. Just as the delight referred to above belongs to both the poet and the connoisseur so also does the Pratibhā belong to both (described as the creative and the appreciative aspects of Pratibhā by Rājasekhara).
According to Prof. Gopinath Kaviraj, the word Pratibhā, which literally means a flash of light or revelation, is usually found in literature in the sense of wisdon characterised by immediacy and freshness. 246 In Hemachandra's poetics, poetic
453
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
