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INTRODUCTION
essential to the style, not to poetry as such.55 Furthermore, it is hard to
understand what real difference can be found between 'beauty and
"heightening of beauty", particularly if the distinction between 'bodily
ornaments' and 'spiritual qualities' (courage, etc.) is analogically intended.
In the poem, the beauty of the gunas, being essential and inherent, should
not require heightening; if it does, then it is not in itself adequate and
should not be described as nitya, primordinate. That two entirely different
kinds of beauty are meant seems improbable on the basis of Vamana's
first two sutras: "kāvyam grāhyam alamkārāt" and "saundaryam alam-
kāraḥ"58 He generalizes the notion of 'ornament' (anticipating the dis-
tinction between guņas and alamkāras) to mean beauty itself-a term
broad enough to include the gunas, too.
As an aspect of his general theory of subordination, Vāmana was also
the first to try to generalize about the figures of speech. In Vamana we
find not only attempts to order the aspects of poetry, but, within the one
aspect of figuration, to suggest an architectonic. In fact, Vāmana attempts
to reduce all the arthālamkāras to varieties of simile,57 a project disas-
trously one sided, but showing a clear awareness of how basic comparison
is to a large part of the figurative universe.
Difficulties of interpretation vitiate Vāmana's ambitious program of
ordering poetry and in part explain why the guna/riti theory was simply
abandoned by later writers or reduced to a place in the discussion of
alliteration (Mammața).58 Nevertheless, Vāmana must be accorded an
important role in the histor of poetics, for he was the first to explore
explicitly the problem of arrangement, pattern, and relations of subordin-
ation in the different aspects of poetry. His effort to show that all
arthālamkāras were types of simile was at least the first attempt to demon-
strate coherence in the figures.
It is widely held that Vāmana represents a step forward in the develop-
ment of Indian poetic thought because he considered for the first time
It is possible to see Vamana's preference for one of the styles, the vaidarbhi, as an
anticipation of this objection. According to Kävyālamkārasūtrāṇi, 1.2.14 the vaidarbh!
demonstrates all the gunas, the other two, pañcāli and gaudīyā, only some, and this
is taken to show the relative excellence of the vaidarbhi. But if the collocation of
qualities suffices to define the best poetry, then the vaidarbhi is, in a word, poetry, the
others, defective poetry. The equivocation in the word "quality" is drawn out to its
limit: on this view Vamana is no longer discussing style, but the normative conditions
of composition. For reasons we have indicated most of Vamana's colleagues found
it more congenial to discuss this problem in terms of the alamkāra theory.
5* *Poetry is perceptible through ornament' and 'Ornament is beauty".
57 Kävyälamkārasūtrāṇi, 4.2.1 ff.
58 Kävyaprakāśa, chap. 8.
INTRODUCTION
essential to the style, not to poetry as such.55 Furthermore, it is hard to
understand what real difference can be found between 'beauty and
"heightening of beauty", particularly if the distinction between 'bodily
ornaments' and 'spiritual qualities' (courage, etc.) is analogically intended.
In the poem, the beauty of the gunas, being essential and inherent, should
not require heightening; if it does, then it is not in itself adequate and
should not be described as nitya, primordinate. That two entirely different
kinds of beauty are meant seems improbable on the basis of Vamana's
first two sutras: "kāvyam grāhyam alamkārāt" and "saundaryam alam-
kāraḥ"58 He generalizes the notion of 'ornament' (anticipating the dis-
tinction between guņas and alamkāras) to mean beauty itself-a term
broad enough to include the gunas, too.
As an aspect of his general theory of subordination, Vāmana was also
the first to try to generalize about the figures of speech. In Vamana we
find not only attempts to order the aspects of poetry, but, within the one
aspect of figuration, to suggest an architectonic. In fact, Vāmana attempts
to reduce all the arthālamkāras to varieties of simile,57 a project disas-
trously one sided, but showing a clear awareness of how basic comparison
is to a large part of the figurative universe.
Difficulties of interpretation vitiate Vāmana's ambitious program of
ordering poetry and in part explain why the guna/riti theory was simply
abandoned by later writers or reduced to a place in the discussion of
alliteration (Mammața).58 Nevertheless, Vāmana must be accorded an
important role in the histor of poetics, for he was the first to explore
explicitly the problem of arrangement, pattern, and relations of subordin-
ation in the different aspects of poetry. His effort to show that all
arthālamkāras were types of simile was at least the first attempt to demon-
strate coherence in the figures.
It is widely held that Vāmana represents a step forward in the develop-
ment of Indian poetic thought because he considered for the first time
It is possible to see Vamana's preference for one of the styles, the vaidarbhi, as an
anticipation of this objection. According to Kävyālamkārasūtrāṇi, 1.2.14 the vaidarbh!
demonstrates all the gunas, the other two, pañcāli and gaudīyā, only some, and this
is taken to show the relative excellence of the vaidarbhi. But if the collocation of
qualities suffices to define the best poetry, then the vaidarbhi is, in a word, poetry, the
others, defective poetry. The equivocation in the word "quality" is drawn out to its
limit: on this view Vamana is no longer discussing style, but the normative conditions
of composition. For reasons we have indicated most of Vamana's colleagues found
it more congenial to discuss this problem in terms of the alamkāra theory.
5* *Poetry is perceptible through ornament' and 'Ornament is beauty".
57 Kävyälamkārasūtrāṇi, 4.2.1 ff.
58 Kävyaprakāśa, chap. 8.