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'Alamkara is Beauty."
V. M. Kulkarni
सौन्दर्यमलङ्कारः ।
- १.१.२
So, Sanskrit Alaṁkāra-fästra (Sanskrit Poetics) in a sense-in a very limited sense-would correspond to the Western name Aesthetics-which embraces the critical appreciation of literature and other fine arts including sculpture, painting and music.
The words for beauty are saundarya, camatkara, cărutva, fobha, ra maṇyată. The words vicchitti, vaicitrya and vakrata finally mean beauty.
Anandavardhana uses very often the word caru for the beautiful and Abhinavagupta frequently uses the words caru, sundara, and saundarya with reference to poetry in his commentary Locana on Anandavardhana's Dhvanyaloka. Anandavardhana and Abhinavagupta say explicitly that what makes a poem is 'beauty' and not merely dhvani (although dhvani is called the essence, the soul of poetry). In the course of his Vṛtti on III.33 Anandavardhana says that the suggestiveness intended by him, namely that which is a real source of beauty-that which can afford aesthetic repose (to the reader) is not present in such examples as gangāyām ghosaḥ agnir māṇavakaḥ and 'mañicaḥ krosanti' (Cots cry) because they do not possess sufficient beauty-they are not sources of beauty.
Thus what is essential to poetry is the creation of beauty. Abhinavagupta fully agrees with Anandavardhana when he says:
ननु व्यञ्जकत्वेन कथं शून्या गुणवृत्तिर्भवति यतः पूर्वमेवोक्तम्- " मुख्यां वृद्धिं परित्यज्य " ( १.९७, पृ. १४८) इति ।
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न हि प्रयोजनशून्य उपचारः प्रयोजनांशनिवेशी च व्यजनव्यापार इति भवद्भिरेवाभ्यघायीत्याशङक्वाभिमतं व्यञ्जकत्वं विश्रान्तिस्थानरूपं तत्र नास्तीत्याह
-Locana p. 432
'Objection: How can there be a secondary use of words without suggestion, for earlier you yourself said 'mukhyām vettim parityajya' etc. There is no secondary usage of words without a purpose, and you yourself have said that the function of vyanjand is always responsible for conveying the element in the form of the purpose (of the secondary usage). In order to answer this objection, Anandavardhana says that the suggestiveness intended by him, namely that which can afford aesthetic repose (to the
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