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85
reason) already shows this tendency to a remarkable degree. The figure
sama, first met in Mammața, may, for instance, be based on a mis-
reading of an adverb in the Agnipurāņa (see s.v.). Since we have been
interested here in the system of the figures and problems associated with
the definition of its basic categories, it appears reasonable to concentrate
on those authors for whom this too was the major problem, as opposed
to an encyclopedist's "completeness".
(c) The almost total acceptance of the dhvani (or analogous categories)
as a single constitutive principle of poetry refocussed the problems and
aims of the later poetics. Accepting the argument of the Dhvanikāra
that the figures, although manifesting the dhvani essentially, were not
necessary to its expression, later writers, of course, do not consider the
figures the central issue of poetics; their interest lies more in demonstrat-
ing the dhvani in the figure than in showing the figures as a system of
categories comprising poetic expression. The elaboration of figures based
on rasa and its categories is illustrative of this tendency. The pre-dhvani
poetics thus constitutes a discrete problem whose solution is not facilitated
by considering the various transformations that the theory underwent at
the hands of the dhvani school and the encyclopedists. Too much has
already been done along these lines, and the result has often been complete
misapprehension of the aims of the early poeticians.
(d) By restricting ourselves to a group of writers having not only an
ideological bond, but a historical unity, it is hoped that our study gains
a certain consistency which will be useful in further studies of the tangled
intellectual history of Indian poetics. The basic poetic categories, all
elaborated in these writers, are found without too much fatiguing em-
broidery; the manner of defining the figure and arranging it in the universe
of poetic figures alone retains our attention.
SCOPE OF THE GLOSSARY
(VII) METHOD OF THE GLOSSARY
We are not dealing historically with individual figures, and therefore
shall not consider those aspects or that information about each figure
which do not serve to distinguish it from other figures. There will be,
in other words, no philological account of the minute changes in defini-
tion of which the figures are capable, and which has been the chief concern
of most of the Western students of the figures. 181 The first task has been
181 Johannes Nobel, Beiträge zür älteren Geschichte des Alamkāraśāstra (Inaugural-
Dissertation, Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, Berlin, 1911). Nobel is dealing only
reason) already shows this tendency to a remarkable degree. The figure
sama, first met in Mammața, may, for instance, be based on a mis-
reading of an adverb in the Agnipurāņa (see s.v.). Since we have been
interested here in the system of the figures and problems associated with
the definition of its basic categories, it appears reasonable to concentrate
on those authors for whom this too was the major problem, as opposed
to an encyclopedist's "completeness".
(c) The almost total acceptance of the dhvani (or analogous categories)
as a single constitutive principle of poetry refocussed the problems and
aims of the later poetics. Accepting the argument of the Dhvanikāra
that the figures, although manifesting the dhvani essentially, were not
necessary to its expression, later writers, of course, do not consider the
figures the central issue of poetics; their interest lies more in demonstrat-
ing the dhvani in the figure than in showing the figures as a system of
categories comprising poetic expression. The elaboration of figures based
on rasa and its categories is illustrative of this tendency. The pre-dhvani
poetics thus constitutes a discrete problem whose solution is not facilitated
by considering the various transformations that the theory underwent at
the hands of the dhvani school and the encyclopedists. Too much has
already been done along these lines, and the result has often been complete
misapprehension of the aims of the early poeticians.
(d) By restricting ourselves to a group of writers having not only an
ideological bond, but a historical unity, it is hoped that our study gains
a certain consistency which will be useful in further studies of the tangled
intellectual history of Indian poetics. The basic poetic categories, all
elaborated in these writers, are found without too much fatiguing em-
broidery; the manner of defining the figure and arranging it in the universe
of poetic figures alone retains our attention.
SCOPE OF THE GLOSSARY
(VII) METHOD OF THE GLOSSARY
We are not dealing historically with individual figures, and therefore
shall not consider those aspects or that information about each figure
which do not serve to distinguish it from other figures. There will be,
in other words, no philological account of the minute changes in defini-
tion of which the figures are capable, and which has been the chief concern
of most of the Western students of the figures. 181 The first task has been
181 Johannes Nobel, Beiträge zür älteren Geschichte des Alamkāraśāstra (Inaugural-
Dissertation, Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, Berlin, 1911). Nobel is dealing only