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Dhvani in Kuntaka, Bhoja and others, and Gunībhūta-vyangya and Citra-Kävya. 1053 poet. Poetic beauty is inharent in poetry, and the 'whole' is born and enjoyed. But when you analyse the poetic beauty, you must have a scheme to support your observations, and the whole analogy of 'śarīra' or 'body', and 'soul or 'ātman' of poetry walks in. For Ā., it is easy to explain when he regards ‘dhvani' - particularly 'rasa-dhvani'-as the soul of poetry, and 'word and sense' - i.e. 'śabdárthau', forming its body. At Dhv. III. 33, 7. discusses this “jīva-śarīra-vyavahāra”. And, in a way, this scheme is very helpful in understanding poetic beauty, which in itself is only 'a-murta' i.e. abstract or conceptual. For K., the position becomes rather difficult when, at this stage, if a question is raised as to the exact position of 'rasa' in his scheme. True, he has, as we will go to observe, tried to incorporate the innumerable shades of rasa and bhāva in his different types of vakratā, but then these vakratās seem to get mixed up with one another, rather then shine out independently as clear sub-varieties. And once again, if 'sabdárthau' are 'alamkāryau', should we call him a dehā"tma-vādin'? We may not grudge it, and it is surely not a bad name either!
One more question. If only 'vakrokti' is an alamkāra, of course inherently connected with a poem, then what about 'svabhāvokti'? Is not 'svabhāvokti', if taken in the normal connotation of the term given to it by practically all the alamkārikas, in itself a variety of K.'s vakrókti ? K.'s own concept of svabhāvokti seems to refer to the basic subject-matter as it is, i.e. to a local normal fact or expression. But the 'svabhāvokti' as devined by others is not a bare statement, the 'vārtā of Bhāmaha, but a poetic expression of an object or its very normal activities. Actually no bare statement of fact has ever earned any entry in the realm of genuine poetry. And, a poetic expression, say charged with K.'s vakrókti, concerning such objects as an activity of a child and the like, could as much be taken as an alamkāra in the limited sense of the term; e.g. the limited sense in which an expression describing similarity or upamā is designated an alamkāra. So, it seems that the whole criticism of K. against 'svabhāvokti' being taken as an alamkara is misdirected. If for the sake of an argument we accept either 'samkara or 'samsrsti' (VJ. I. 14, 15, pp. 22, ibid) as argued by K., even then the case for 'svabhāvokti' is not ruled out. Any other alamkāra can also find an entry in a 'samkara' or a 'samsrsti' without losing its independent status as an alamkāra. This patters out only in an effort by K. to look smart in the eyes of others.
Under VJ. I. 16, K. takes great pains to carve out the exact nature of 'sāhitya', which is not just the mere coming together of word and sense, which is found to be even in the ordinary walk of life. Says he, : (vștti, VJ. I. 16, pp. 23, ibid) : satyam
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