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Chapter 1 Definition and Scope of Poetry
(Kāvya; Literature i.e. belles lettres)
Introduction :
Sound thinking on aesthetics started in India in very early period. It was reliable and thought-provoking. It continues to be so even today in modern centext. It centred round arts such as drama, literature, music, dance, architecture, scupture etc. The aesthetics developed with reference to nātya i.e. dramatic art, and sāhitya, i.e. literary art, in particular, seems to be unparalleled even when compared to the - thinking of modern aesthetes, both in east or west. Our context, for the present, centres round only literary aestetics. It may be noted that in India, thinking
rning literary criticism originated from very very early period and this observation is supported by documentary evidences. The nātyaśāstra (= N.S.) of Bharata (4th cen. A.D.) (We have accepted the dates of all works referred to in our writing, as fixed by Dr. S. K. De; Sanskrit Poetics, History of; Calcutta, 60.) which covers critically the dramatic art in all its forms, and in which all forms of dramatic art are subsumed under the terminology viz. rūpaka, - deals with certain basic principles concerning literary criticism, such as 'guna' or literary excellence, dosa or literary blemish, alamkāra or figures of speech and laksana or distinctive mark, while treating "vāg-abhinaya" i.e. vocal acting concerming the speech, along with other three forms of acting such as 'angika abhinaya” i.e. bodily acting or gestural, āhārya i.e. extraneous, conveyed by costumes, settings, make-up etc., and 'sāttvika' i.e. internal, conveyed by the manifestation of internal feelings, which required greater concentration and subtler effort on the part of the artist. With reference to the same, the N.S. also considers the problem of 'rasa' i.e. aesthetic experience. It
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