230. ABHINAVAGUPTA'S THEORY OF MEANING 255

ABHINAVAGUPTA'S THEORY OF MEANING 255

1. Vastudhvani is the suggestive power, which operates to arouse the suggested idea, which refers to all that goes by the name of Vibhava and Anubhava, according to the broad division of the poetic world, which stimulates mental states. This power (a) may arouse a negative meaning when1 the statement, in strict conventional language, is positive or vice versa. (b) It may give rise to a meaning, which is neither positive nor negative, when the statement is clearly positive or negative.2 (c) Or when the statement is meant for not the one, to whom it is addressed, but for the other, to whom the situation, in which the person addressed is involved, has to be explained in order that the latter may spare the former : it may give rise to a meaning quite different from that which the statement has for the addressed.3

Thus, according to the situation, the skill of the speaker and the powers of understanding and visualisation of the hearer, the suggestive power gives rise to innumerable kinds of suggested meaning referring to Vastu. The consti. tuents of the aesthetic configuration can be divided into two classes, the objective and the subjective. By the objec- tive we mean those which represent something that exists outside the mind. And by subjective we mean mental states. The objective is divided into two classes according as it stimulates an emotion or indicates some mental states by gestures and grimaces. The former is called Vibhava and the latter Anubhava- A suggested meaning that refers to what is objective of either kind is included in the Vastudhvani." (2) Alankara Dhvani is that suggestive power of word, the suggested idea aroused by which, is a poetic embellish-

1. Dh. L. 20 2. Dh. L., 21-2. 3. Dh. L., 23. 4. Dh. L., 66.