362. 400 CHAPTER VII

400 CHAPTER VII

æsthetic configuration, to be the most1 essential element of poetry. OTHER CONCEPTIONS OF VAKROKTI.

Dandin, however, uses the word Vakrokti as a class- name for a set of poetic embellishments. According to him, the poetic embellishments are of two kinds, (i) natural (Svabhavokti) and (ii) artistic (Vakrokti). After him this word is used in a limited sense. It is the name of a poetic figure. The earliest writer to do so was Vamana. He uses it as the name of that poetic embellishment, in which a word isi used in the secondary sense, because of the similarity2 of the meaning, ascribed to it by the poet, with the one, which is associated with it through convention. But Bhoja, in his Sarasvatī Kanthābharana, uses the word for one of the sub-divisions of that class of poetic embellishments which represents a conversation of two or more individuals who intentionally misunderstand each other3. Ruyyaka and other writers follow Bhoja. Kuntaka is the only writer who again uses the word in almost the same sense as that in which Bhämaha used it.

HIS SCANTY TREATMENT. He is, according to his own statement, concerned with what is essential for all kinds of composition, which he brings under Kavya. According to him, a treatise on any one of the arts as well as the one dealing with4 any Sāstraic matter is Kāvya. And Mahākāvya is no less a Kavya than stray verses or stories are. The last two he calls Anibaddha5. He does not say which of the Kavyas is superior or inferior to any one of those, mentioned in his list. What he says is that the common distinctive

1. K. A., 17. 2. K. S., 129. 3. S. K., 296. 4. K. A., 2. 5. K. A., 4.