Vaishali Institute Research Bulletin 2

Author(s): G C Chaudhary
Publisher: Research Institute of Prakrit Jainology & Ahimsa Mujjaffarpur

Page 326

OPINIONS OF RAJASEKHARA AS A CRITIC
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picking flowers in a garden, evening dusk, moon rise etc. are helpful in the delineation of the sentiments while others like rivers, mountains, seas and cities etc. are not so, cannot find favour with Rajasekhara. Granted that amorous sport in a swimming pool is a suitable atmosphere for the sentiment of love but in worthy hands the same sentiment may be aroused very suitably even in the context of describing a river, or a mountain or a sea. On the other hand a third rate poet may fail to suggest any sentiment at all even in describing the hero and the heroine in separation. So Rajasekhara concludes that it is the poet's way of presentation that does or does not suggest the sentiments; the Arthas in themselves are passive'.
Rajasekhara permits a poet to adjust in his composition phrases borrowed from other pocts; a poet may also borrow ideas from previous poets; but his borrowing is justified only when he manages to give some appealing individual stamp to it. Rajasekhara treats in detail the established poetical conventions and says that there is little harm in adhering to these: though they may be against Loka and Sastra yet they are the established conventions of a literary tradition and so they are as good as the confirmed facts of Loka and Sastra.
In all these Rajasekhara shows
a keen awareness towards 'historical sense'. No poet of any language can exist isolated from the rest of the poets of that language. He will have to find a place among them. In other words, he will have to link himself with the literary tradition of that language. All critics prescribe for an entrant in the field of poetry that he should peruse the works of his predecessors but Rajasekhara works out in detail all the possible links between a poet and the past literature of the language he belongs to.
As regards likes and dislikes of the reading public Rajasekhara advises the poet to strike a balance between his own individuality and the general will of the reading public but he warns that at no cost the poet should conceal his self for fear of the rabble*.
1. विप्रलम्भ
2. काव्ये तु कविवचनानि रसयन्ति विरसयन्ति च नार्थाः । KāvyaM. Ch. IX.
3.
4.
fag-Ibid Ch. XIV-XVI.
जानीयाल्लोक साम्मत्यं कविः कुत्र भमेति च । असम्मतं परिहरेत्मतेऽभिनिवेशेत च ॥
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जनापवादमात्रेण न जुगुप्सेत चात्मनि । जानीयात्स्वयमात्मानं यतो लोको निरंकुशः ॥
Ibid ch. X.