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16
SANSKRIT THINKERS ON LOGIC
IN RELATION TO POETRY
V. M. Kulkarni
Śridhara, a Commentator of Mammaṭa's Kavya Prakāśa quotes a very important verse from Bhatta Tota's KavyaKautuka which distinguishes between philosophy and poetry.
"There are two paths of (Sarasvati), the goddess of speech: One is philosophy (Śāstra) and the other is poetry (KaviKarma, i.e. Kävya). The first of these two arises from intellect (prajñā) and the second from creative or artistic imagination (pratibhā)1
The philosophers and logicians, generally speaking, have nothing but scorn for poets and their poetry. Jayantabhaṭṭa, the great logician, for instance, attacked the doctrine of dhvani, enunciated by Anandavardhana, the author of that famous prasthānagrantha, Dhvanyaloka. He dubbed him as a pedant who fancies himself to be a pandita (paṇḍitam-manya) and decla. red: "There is no point in arguing with poets.""
Jain Education International
Anandavardhana treats of the prima facie view that there is no need to postulate the new doctrine of Dhvani as it is identical with the well-known anumana (inference) of the logicians and establishes his theory of Vyañjanā-vṛtti and the doctrine of Dhvani. Bhatta Nayaka specially wrote his Hṛdaya(or Sahrdaya-)Darpana to demolish Anandavardhana's new
fangled doctrine of dhvani. This work is unfortunately not extant. Mahimabhaṭṭa, a formidable critic of Anandavardhana's new theory of Vyañjanā-vṛtti and of dhvani, wrote his Vyakti-Viveka stoutly refuting the theory of Dhvani (and vyañjanā) and vigorously defending that the so-called dhvani
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