Handbook of Classical Sanskrit Rhetoric /32

XX
 
A Handbook of Classical Sanskrit Rhetoric
 
power or fancy) create speech (vācam ie poetry). and then his

friends (sakhāyaḥ ie the readers well-qualified like the poet) under-

stand the proper meaning; blessed dignity (bhadrā lakṣmīḥ) is

enshrined in their speech. (RV.X. 71.2)
 

 
In his Kaāvyamīmāmṃsā, Rajasśekhara fascinatingly idealises the

origin of poetics as a special branch for the sutdy of literature from
<error>sutdy</error><fix>study</fix>of literature from
the Vedic studies and fondly seeks its divine origin from the

supreme Godhead SŚiva. According to his opinion, Śiva, the master

of all arts taught sāhityavidyā or critique of literature to Brahmā,

the divine creator, from whom it was handed down to others

through oral tradition and ultimately all such deliberations were

documented in later period.
 

 
Yaāska's Nirukta (cir 700-500 BC) (ie the lexicon of the Vedic

language as well as linguistic study of the Vedic words) is perhaps

the oldest extant work which used the word alamṃkāra in the sense

of figure of speech. The earliest definition of upamā (simile) is to

be found here, and a few illustrations of some varieties of upamā

are also quoted from Vedic hymns. The famous Sanskrit grammar

Aṣṭādhyāyiī of Pāṇini (cir 700-400 BC) uses the three words upamā

(similitude), upamāna (the standard of comparison) and upamita

(the subject of description) which are closely connected with the

figures based on similitude.
 

 
All the difinitions of alamṃkāras as quoted in this work have

been taken from twenty seven standard texts of Sanskrit poetics
wirtten
<error>wirtten</error> <fix>written</fix> over a period of about two thousand years (ie 100-1800

AD). Therefore, it is necessary to give a brief account of such texts

in a chronological order. It should be mentioned here that these

texts are not uniform in structure and treatment. Some works per-

vade the entire field of poetics along with dramaturgy, others deal

with general and particular topics of literary criticism and a few of

them propound individual theories of literary criticism like dhvani

or vyanñjanā (ie extra-ordinary implication of Art) or aucitya (ie pro-

priety as the overall criterion of artistic expression) or vakrokti (ie

artful diction as the essence of poetic language) or rasa (ie aes-

thetic contemplation offering uninhibited delight free from all

objective relations -- which, in other words, is conceived in the
 
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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN