Book Title: Kavyanushasana Critical Study
Author(s): A N Upadhye
Publisher: A N Upadhye

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Page 484
________________ schooled; they practiced assiduously, like Stevenson. They appealed to an instructed audience; and they were competitive. Hence we must not judge from a modern point of view their adherence to old themes, their conventionality in ideas and expressions...... undoubtedly they made ample use of their notebooks and collectanea.... This is the poetical convention (Sangati) which naturally was the stock-in-trade of the poor poet (Kukavi), who belonged only to the genus; when the great. ..... or creative .....poet makes use of such things we must think of his audience which knew them very well and concentrated its attention upon the new turns given to them. .....His work is, as he says, 'a special free creation from the laws of destiny' (K.P, 1,1); and so it is not life'; but...... literature." 26 2 Belles-Lettres While defining Kavya, Hemachandra steers clear of all controversies and compartments of the earlier "schools' and 'theories' and mentions Word, Sense, Dosa, Guņa and Alamkāra in his definition in a spirit of synthesis and accommodation. Obviously, here he follows the lead provided by Mammata, who did much not only to fix the new principle of Dhvani in poetry, but also to work up and rationalise into a synthetic and comprehensive system the already accumulated ideas, elaborated by previous thinkers but flowing through different channels in the respective systems of Bhāmaha, Vāmana and the post-Bharata dramatic Rasa-writers and put them in the convenient and concise form of systematic text-book.263 Visvanatha subjects Mammața's definition of poetry to severe criticism because it is considered by him as a half-hearted attempt to appease earlier conservative views on poetry and also because it fails to include Rasa or Dhvani in it more openly as the most important poetic principle. This criticism applies to Hemachandra's definition with equal force. However, Hemachandra devotes the immediately succeeding Sūtras (1.12 etc.) to clarify his pro-Dhvani stand and brings Doşa, 459 Jain Education International For Private & Personal Use Only www.jainelibrary.org

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