Vaishali Institute Research Bulletin 2

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

Page 44

OUR ANCIENT RHETORICIANS ON PLAGIARISM
IN POETRY
DR. R. P. PODDAR Plagiarism in poetry essentially involves lifting without acknowledgement the individual imaginative creation of some former poet.
Vămana touches this subject in course of his treatment of Ideas (Artha) for poetry. He puts the Ideas in two categories (1) having no previous source (Ayoniḥ) and (ii) inspired by previous source (Anyachāya Yonib). A poet making poetry with an Idea imbibed from some previous source cannot be condemned if he brings into play his creative imagination and is not altogether out to deck himself in borrowed feathers. Literature of the past is a legitimate source of Ideas for all poets.
Anandavardhana's reflections upon the subject are precise and thorough. He not only approves but also pleads for the new ways of expressing the expressed Ideas. No poet can claim to be entirely independent in the matter of Ideas He is inevitably engrafted to the literary traditions of the past. Hence it is natural that he should be frequently inspired by the imaginative perceptions of his predecessors and often tempted to adopt them with certain modifications.
Thus there may be similarities in poetry but the wise should not always treat the similar as identicall for a good poet seldom fails to give a new turn to his borrowings. Anandavardhana put these similarities into three categories :
(1) reflection-like (pratibimbavat), (II) portrait-like (alekhyā kāravat) and (III) like two similar individuals (tulyadehivat). A new poetic creation may be simply a mirrored reflection of some old one or it may be an imitation like a portrait or it may be similar to the latter just as two individuals of the same genus are similar. The mirrored reflection has no individuality of its own. Its soul lies in the object of which it is a reflection and in itself it is lifeless. The portrait also has very little individuality. But each of the two individuals belonging to the same genus has a separate soul and distinguished individuality in
१. सम्वादास्तु भवन्त्येव बाहुल्येन सुमेधसाम् । नैकरूपतया सर्वे ते मन्तव्या विपश्चिता ॥
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