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'Classification of Poetry' (Criticism Oriented)
969
new school of thought called the "dhvani school", better acknowledged as "vyañjana-dhvani-rasa" school of thought. It may be observed to his credit that he was not just lucky to have these great minds on his side. But the fact is he is very, very, very sound and convincing till day in his thinking and logic. Thus, he, so to say, added a new dimension in this direction, though of course he does not claim that this thought current was originated with him. On the contrary he claims that this thought-current was as old as hills and has been handed over to him through the ingenious thinking of the ancients. His humility apart, there is more than just a grain of truth also in this.
He tries to promulgate this dhvani-oriented thought-current and classification of poetry based on this new angle, first with the establishment of the implicit or pratīyamāna sense as something different both in nature and scope from the normally accepted expressed or vācya sense, of course, including the indicated sense, i.e. laksyártha. The whole presentation has made the Dhvanyaloka, an epochmaking work in Indian Literary Aesthetics. It may be noted at the outset, and we will go into the details later that Anandavardhana has not rejected any concept prevelant in literary criticism but has attempted to give a fool-proof all embracing scheme with (rasa"di) dhvani as the 'soul' of poetry i.e. keeping 'dhvani' in the centre, he has accomodated all thought-currents such as alamkāra, guṇa, rīti, vṛtti, dosa and what not, in his scheme. We will examine this as we proceed later.
We know that Anandavardhana took notice of the implicit sense, i.e. the sense not directly expressed in poetry, and also held that this implicit sense is grasped by a separate and independent word-power, sabda-sakti, called vyañjanā or suggestion. But prior to him the ancients such as Bhamaha and the like had also noticed and recognised in their own way this element of the un-expressed or implicit sense in poetry but of course, they did not come out openly for vyañjanā as a separate and independent word-power for their own reasons. Perhaps they had incorporated the implicit sense in different gunas or excellences, or alamkāras i.e. figures of speech or turns of expression, or in rīti or style, vṛtti or diction etc. They did not realise the importance of recognising a separate sabda-śakti called vyañjanā. We have noticed in the earlier chapters how they not only subsumed the implicit or suggested sense or dhvani in various categories, but also never attempted any independent investigation in the nature of various word-powers. It is Anandavardhana, and following him the great Abhinavagupta and Mammața who try to discuss separately the topic of semantics proper as in their opinion, this implicit sense which they hold higher than the expressed sense from the point of
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