363. ÆSTHETIC CURRENTS IN POETICS 401

ÆSTHETIC CURRENTS IN POETICS 401

feature of all these is a certain crookedness in Śabda and Artha. He simply mentions other types of composition without stating any distinctive features of them, excepting what is most apparent. Of Rasa he talks in connection with Mahakavya only. On Națaka he does not say anything at all. For, according to his own statement, others have exhaustively dealt with it. By "others" he apparently means Bharata and his followers. His position, therefore, seems to be that, leaving aside the consideration of superiority or inferiority of different types of composition to one another, a composition can, and rightly too, be called Kavya, provided there is Vakrokti in it. This is surely a very comprehensive definition of Kavya and its correctness has not been questioned by any subsequent writer, including Abhi- nava himself, who is the greatest exponent of the Rasa and the Dhvani theories, on which the latest definitions such as "Kavyam rasatmakam vakyam" are based. What the later writers have done is simply this that they have classi- fied the different types of Kavya according to their supe- riority, inferiority or unfitness to be called Kāvya, according as the spiritual meaning, the Dhvani, occupies the predominant or the subordinate position or is totally absent. They are technically called (i) Dhvani (ii) Guņībhūtavyangya and (iii) Citra Kāvyas.

DANDIN'S CONCEPTION OF POETRY

Next after Bhamaha, from the point of view of both, the chronology and the evolution of the conception of poetry, comes Dandin. His conception of the body of poetry is the same as that of Bhamaha, though he words it more precisely than his predecessor. He, however, differs from Bhamaha on the following points :- 1. His study of the regional poetry is very much 51