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granted the divorce of drama and alamkāra and concentrate on topics
of more immediate dramatic interest: characters, moods, kinds of drama,
and the like. The alamkāra tradition similarly recognizes the rasa as the
basis for certain figures, particularly the one called simply rasavat
('having a rasa"). This figure has provoked much speculation by the
dhvani writers, for it presages their own doctrine of the dhvani in the
figure.¹72 The original, figurative, expressionistic sense of rasavat is
doubtless to be seen in the context of the triad of figures of which it is
one: preyas, rasavat, ürjasvi. All three are expressions of certain kinds of
subjective excess and are probably to be thought of as special types of
hyperbole, distinguished because of their currency, if not for reasons of
form. Preyas signifies an expression overburdened with good intentions
and friendliness; rasavat, distinguished by one of the eight canonical
rasas (love, pity, etc.), and ūrjasvi, an expression of impertinence, an
excess of egoism. All three evidently differ in force from ordinary
language. The Indian philosophic emphasis on stability of temperament
would doubtless sufficiently distinguish language so emotionally loaded.
But, as we say, these evidences of interpenetration are superficial and
do not affect the basic divergence in point of view of the two poetics.
They represent areas of overlap, and are not proof of a single, constantly
developing and more profound aesthetic.
INTRODUCTION
(c) The Religious Lyric
With the advent of the dhvani theory, perhaps in the ninth century, we do
find an elaborate attempt to reconcile and unify the two divergent poetics
of kavya and nätya." 173 The dhvani school (dhvani 'tone, suggestion')
retains the leading ideas of both anterior poetics: the dhvani is the rasa,
the transcendent emotional significance of the work, recast and redefined
(in terms of a literary poetic) as the most essential form of vakrokti, that
function whereby language conveys (a) a further sense, or (b) a sense not
inferable from its component elements, words, logical forms, and the like.
The dhvani turns out to be a more general statement of the expressionist
17 Some more figures were elaborated after the dhvani-rasa theory became popular;
they are based on categories borrowed from that theory (cf. Ruyyaka, Alamkārasar-
vasva, pp. 232ff.). Here we discuss only the early evidence for interrelation. Rudrața,
in the last six chapters of Kavyalamkāra, sums up an entire dramatic theory. But this
is clearly an addendum; it occupies only about one quarter of the whole work.
References to rasa are found re some šabdālamkāras: ef. Daṇḍin, 1.52.
173 See the material on poetics in Introduction to Indian Literature, eds. van Buitenen
and Dimock (Asia Society, New York, 196?).
granted the divorce of drama and alamkāra and concentrate on topics
of more immediate dramatic interest: characters, moods, kinds of drama,
and the like. The alamkāra tradition similarly recognizes the rasa as the
basis for certain figures, particularly the one called simply rasavat
('having a rasa"). This figure has provoked much speculation by the
dhvani writers, for it presages their own doctrine of the dhvani in the
figure.¹72 The original, figurative, expressionistic sense of rasavat is
doubtless to be seen in the context of the triad of figures of which it is
one: preyas, rasavat, ürjasvi. All three are expressions of certain kinds of
subjective excess and are probably to be thought of as special types of
hyperbole, distinguished because of their currency, if not for reasons of
form. Preyas signifies an expression overburdened with good intentions
and friendliness; rasavat, distinguished by one of the eight canonical
rasas (love, pity, etc.), and ūrjasvi, an expression of impertinence, an
excess of egoism. All three evidently differ in force from ordinary
language. The Indian philosophic emphasis on stability of temperament
would doubtless sufficiently distinguish language so emotionally loaded.
But, as we say, these evidences of interpenetration are superficial and
do not affect the basic divergence in point of view of the two poetics.
They represent areas of overlap, and are not proof of a single, constantly
developing and more profound aesthetic.
INTRODUCTION
(c) The Religious Lyric
With the advent of the dhvani theory, perhaps in the ninth century, we do
find an elaborate attempt to reconcile and unify the two divergent poetics
of kavya and nätya." 173 The dhvani school (dhvani 'tone, suggestion')
retains the leading ideas of both anterior poetics: the dhvani is the rasa,
the transcendent emotional significance of the work, recast and redefined
(in terms of a literary poetic) as the most essential form of vakrokti, that
function whereby language conveys (a) a further sense, or (b) a sense not
inferable from its component elements, words, logical forms, and the like.
The dhvani turns out to be a more general statement of the expressionist
17 Some more figures were elaborated after the dhvani-rasa theory became popular;
they are based on categories borrowed from that theory (cf. Ruyyaka, Alamkārasar-
vasva, pp. 232ff.). Here we discuss only the early evidence for interrelation. Rudrața,
in the last six chapters of Kavyalamkāra, sums up an entire dramatic theory. But this
is clearly an addendum; it occupies only about one quarter of the whole work.
References to rasa are found re some šabdālamkāras: ef. Daṇḍin, 1.52.
173 See the material on poetics in Introduction to Indian Literature, eds. van Buitenen
and Dimock (Asia Society, New York, 196?).