Makaranda Madhukar Anand Mahendale Festshrift

Author(s): M A Dhaky, Jitendra B Shah
Publisher: Shardaben Chimanbhai Educational Research Centre

Page 177

C. Panduranga Bhatta
For the first time in Indian literary criticism Ananda propounded the fundamental principle of aesthetic judgement namely "चारुत्वोत्कर्षनिबन्धना हि aag: fan." In all poetry, there will be two elements: the plainly stated and the suggested. The literary critic's judgment is involved in deciding which is relatively more prominent. The criterion for such judgment is provided only by his aesthetic impression of the two. That which strikes him as more beautiful will decide his characterizing it as Dhvanikavya or Gunibhūta-vyangya. Inspite of so much discussion of the nature of poetry by language philosophers, theoreticians, and rhetoricians, there is very little of practical criticism in Sanskrit poetics. Such applied criticism is available to some extent for the first time in the work of Ananda.
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According to Ananda, it is not consistent with propriety to describe love in its vulgar form, in the case of divine characters. Though Ananda criticises this in his Dhvanyaloka he is moderate in his remarks on this literary flaw. According to him, this poetic blemish does not become patent in Kālidāsa as it is submerged by the artistic beauty of the description; महाकवीनामव्युत्पत्तिकृतमप्युत्तमदेवताविषयप्रतिषिद्धसंभोगशृङ्गार निबन्धनाद्यनौचित्यं शक्तितिरस्कृतत्वात् ग्राम्यत्वेन न प्रतिभासेत यथा कुमारसंभवे देवीसम्भोगवर्णनम् ॥
Thus the adverse criticism raised by Ananda against Kālidāsa paves the way for a glowing tribute to his extraordinary genius. This appears revolutionary in the light of the dogmatic approach of other poeticians who, following the traditional method, ignore or decry such tendencies in the literature of the period9.
Ananda says that, in the Mahabharata, Mokṣa is depicted as the foremost of human values and Santa as the predominant sentiment1o. At the end of the war, Yudhisthira was in the dejected mood, and, being unable to derive any pleasure in victory, hankered after quietude and final emancipation. The self-realization on the part of Yudhisthira, the vibhāva of Santarasa in the epic, is testified by the following verse. He says, fie on the usages of Ksatriya, fie on might and valour, fie on wrath, since through these such a calamity has overtaken us;
धिगस्तु क्षत्रमाचारं धिगस्तु बलमौरसम् । धिगस्त्वमर्षं येनेमामापदं गमिता वयम् ॥