2023-03-29 18:09:50 by ambuda-bot
This page has not been fully proofread.
THE ADEQUACY OF THE "ĀLAMKĀRIKA" POETIC
To the question "How is the rasa expressed?", the dramatic theorists
starting from the famous rasa sutra of Bharata proposed various and
increasingly subtle explanations involving a minute examination of the
range of conditions, effective causes, manner of comprehension, and
ultimate status of the rasa. Similarly, the alamkārikas, having situated
their discussion in reference to the question "How is the distinctiveness of
poetic speech realized, that is, understood?", spoke to issues focussing on
the capacity of language (both verbal and expressive) to convey more or a
different sense than the strict employment of its forms would permit.
The rasa was realized as an affective, not an intellective, unity-a mode
of feeling generated by and transcending the discrete conditions and
causes manifested on the stage. The language of the drama played no
more important a role, inherently, than did, let us say, the gestures, the
portrayal of the characters, the overtones which could be expected from
the realization by the audience that this character was indeed Rāma.
Abhinavagupta, the most brilliant in the long line of Bharata's commen-
tators, carries the view of his predecessor, Bhaṭṭa Nāyaka, one step farther
and boldly makes an analogy between the rasa experience and that of
final salvation: both transcend the limited, temporal character of finite
existence (here, the play) and realize the one central unifying theme of
that existence (the rasa); they differ, of course, in that the finite existence
to which the rasa corresponds is itself only a fiction, and the rasa therefore
ceases as soon as the play ceases. The older writers of the alamkāra
tradition showed a similar dependence on a theoretical framework bor-
rowed from another discipline, but instead of theology, it was logic and
to some extent grammar.
77
The two partly complimentary poetics were not of course pursued in
conditions of total separation; there is evidence for the effect of one upon
the other. Nevertheless, the striking fact about late classical criticism is
the continued development of two largely independent theories, addressed
to significantly divergent problems. 171
The dramatic criticism acknowledges the alamkāra doctrines in
Bharata's chapter on the figures, testimony to the fact that the set verses
of the drama have an important role to play in the generation of the
total effect of the play. Later treatises, such as the Dasarūpaka, take for
171 A striking, though incidental, corroboration of this divorce of poetry and drama
is provided by an investigation of characteristic metres in use by the two genres.
See Subhāşitaratnakoşa, Ingalls' Introduction (= Harvard Oriental Studies, 44),
p. 35; the alamkārikas sometimes refer to the "other sästra", as Dandin, Kävyādarśa,
2.366.
To the question "How is the rasa expressed?", the dramatic theorists
starting from the famous rasa sutra of Bharata proposed various and
increasingly subtle explanations involving a minute examination of the
range of conditions, effective causes, manner of comprehension, and
ultimate status of the rasa. Similarly, the alamkārikas, having situated
their discussion in reference to the question "How is the distinctiveness of
poetic speech realized, that is, understood?", spoke to issues focussing on
the capacity of language (both verbal and expressive) to convey more or a
different sense than the strict employment of its forms would permit.
The rasa was realized as an affective, not an intellective, unity-a mode
of feeling generated by and transcending the discrete conditions and
causes manifested on the stage. The language of the drama played no
more important a role, inherently, than did, let us say, the gestures, the
portrayal of the characters, the overtones which could be expected from
the realization by the audience that this character was indeed Rāma.
Abhinavagupta, the most brilliant in the long line of Bharata's commen-
tators, carries the view of his predecessor, Bhaṭṭa Nāyaka, one step farther
and boldly makes an analogy between the rasa experience and that of
final salvation: both transcend the limited, temporal character of finite
existence (here, the play) and realize the one central unifying theme of
that existence (the rasa); they differ, of course, in that the finite existence
to which the rasa corresponds is itself only a fiction, and the rasa therefore
ceases as soon as the play ceases. The older writers of the alamkāra
tradition showed a similar dependence on a theoretical framework bor-
rowed from another discipline, but instead of theology, it was logic and
to some extent grammar.
77
The two partly complimentary poetics were not of course pursued in
conditions of total separation; there is evidence for the effect of one upon
the other. Nevertheless, the striking fact about late classical criticism is
the continued development of two largely independent theories, addressed
to significantly divergent problems. 171
The dramatic criticism acknowledges the alamkāra doctrines in
Bharata's chapter on the figures, testimony to the fact that the set verses
of the drama have an important role to play in the generation of the
total effect of the play. Later treatises, such as the Dasarūpaka, take for
171 A striking, though incidental, corroboration of this divorce of poetry and drama
is provided by an investigation of characteristic metres in use by the two genres.
See Subhāşitaratnakoşa, Ingalls' Introduction (= Harvard Oriental Studies, 44),
p. 35; the alamkārikas sometimes refer to the "other sästra", as Dandin, Kävyādarśa,
2.366.