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80
the materials already elaborated by the figurationists, but it does propose
an important redefinition of principle whereby the distinction between
literary and dramatic poetics is annulled.
It is our view that this marriage of two distinct traditions would not
have been possible, even as a theoretical exercise, if the genres to which
they referred had not in fact largely lost their respective identities. Poetics,
in India as anywhere else, follows poetry, despite the attempts of unsym-
pathic critics to argue that it was in essence a normative discipline which
saw its ultimate justification in the education of the poet-an effort to
prescribe rules to aspiring poets." 177 There was no genre in early classical
times which exactly corresponded to that implied by the dhvani theory.
Both kavya and nāṭya can quite successfully be reinterpreted in terms of
the dhvani-rasa (in fact this has been so successfully done that the rasa
is today often considered the timeless standard for all Indian poetry,
from Kālidāsa to the present).178
The poetic form properly corresponding to the dhvani theory is a
genre which developed slowly in the late classical period and later became
the only really viable literary art in India, the renascent lyric (older
stotras, as those of Bāņa or Mayūra, are definitely within the classical
kävya style). The lyric devotional poem is best epitomized in the marvel-
ous Gitagovinda of Jayadeva, but is more voluminously represented
in the several vernacular literatures. This genre is in fact dramatic poetry;
poetry with a narrative basis in the divine event and intended to convey
the emotional fervor of the bhakta. It is not surprising therefore that we
meet overtones of theology in the poetics, as expressed by the third
great dhvani theorist, Abhinavagupta. The poetry itself begins and ends
in the service of an increasingly religious ideal: devotion to a personal
God. The primordinate rasa, śṛngāra 'love', needs only to be redeployed
(the subject matter of poetry has always been considered a mere condition-
ing factor, never an independent principle in criticism) from its earlier
evidently secular emphasis to a less mundane application. The poetics
of devotional poetry has never been more profoundly explored than in
the dhvani school which continues today to dominate Indian thinking on
poetics. Even De, so profoundly affected by Western theories of poetics,
and still finding many inadequacies in the dhvani theory, tends to think of
it as the typical, most characteristic Indian poetic.¹7
179
INTRODUCTION
177 De, SPSA, pp. 3, 76.
178 Cf. "Sanskrit Poetry and Sanskrit Poetics", a part of Ingalls' Introduction to his
translation of the Subhasitaratnakosa.
170 In Dasgupta and Dey [De], HSL, p. 581.
the materials already elaborated by the figurationists, but it does propose
an important redefinition of principle whereby the distinction between
literary and dramatic poetics is annulled.
It is our view that this marriage of two distinct traditions would not
have been possible, even as a theoretical exercise, if the genres to which
they referred had not in fact largely lost their respective identities. Poetics,
in India as anywhere else, follows poetry, despite the attempts of unsym-
pathic critics to argue that it was in essence a normative discipline which
saw its ultimate justification in the education of the poet-an effort to
prescribe rules to aspiring poets." 177 There was no genre in early classical
times which exactly corresponded to that implied by the dhvani theory.
Both kavya and nāṭya can quite successfully be reinterpreted in terms of
the dhvani-rasa (in fact this has been so successfully done that the rasa
is today often considered the timeless standard for all Indian poetry,
from Kālidāsa to the present).178
The poetic form properly corresponding to the dhvani theory is a
genre which developed slowly in the late classical period and later became
the only really viable literary art in India, the renascent lyric (older
stotras, as those of Bāņa or Mayūra, are definitely within the classical
kävya style). The lyric devotional poem is best epitomized in the marvel-
ous Gitagovinda of Jayadeva, but is more voluminously represented
in the several vernacular literatures. This genre is in fact dramatic poetry;
poetry with a narrative basis in the divine event and intended to convey
the emotional fervor of the bhakta. It is not surprising therefore that we
meet overtones of theology in the poetics, as expressed by the third
great dhvani theorist, Abhinavagupta. The poetry itself begins and ends
in the service of an increasingly religious ideal: devotion to a personal
God. The primordinate rasa, śṛngāra 'love', needs only to be redeployed
(the subject matter of poetry has always been considered a mere condition-
ing factor, never an independent principle in criticism) from its earlier
evidently secular emphasis to a less mundane application. The poetics
of devotional poetry has never been more profoundly explored than in
the dhvani school which continues today to dominate Indian thinking on
poetics. Even De, so profoundly affected by Western theories of poetics,
and still finding many inadequacies in the dhvani theory, tends to think of
it as the typical, most characteristic Indian poetic.¹7
179
INTRODUCTION
177 De, SPSA, pp. 3, 76.
178 Cf. "Sanskrit Poetry and Sanskrit Poetics", a part of Ingalls' Introduction to his
translation of the Subhasitaratnakosa.
170 In Dasgupta and Dey [De], HSL, p. 581.