186. 208 CHAPTER IV

208 CHAPTER IV

like a body without the enlivening soul. This meaning and the power of language that gives rise to it, both are techni- cally called Dhvani. We shall discuss this question in detail under the following heads ;-

1. History of Dhvani.

2. Distinction of the suggestive power of language from its other two powers, namely (i) the power to convey the conventional meaning and (ii) that to convey the secondary meaning. 3. Its distinction from the expressive power of different figures of speech (Alankara). 4. Justification of its independent being. 5. The essential nature of the constituents, supplied by the suggested meaning to the æsthetic configuration. 6. The necessity of such constituents for æsthetic experience.

01 7. Its different varieties.

HISTORY OF DHVANI.

Poetics and linguistics are allied sciences, because both of them deal with linguistic expression. The difference between them is only this, that while the latter deals with the linguistic expression in general, the former confines itself to the poetic expression only. In fact, some of the problems are common to both the sciences, the problem of meaning, for instance. This problem was first studied as a purely linguistic problem. It was only about the 8th century A.D. that it was taken up as a poetic problem. Poetics is an embodiment of the discoveries of the ways and means of the linguistic expression of the ideal contents of a poetic vision, for which the conventional language is