1. THE SCIENCE OF CRITICISM IN INDIA A K Warder Adyar

THE SCIENCE OF

CRITICISM IN INDIA

DR. A. K. WARDER

Professor of Sanskrit, University of Toronto

THE ADYAR LIBRARY AND RESEARCH CENTRE

THE ADYAR LIBRARY

GENERAL SERIES

[7]

THE SCIENCE OF CRITICISM IN INDIA

© 1978 The Adyar Library and Research Centre

The Theosophical Society, Adyar, Madras 600 020, India

ISBN 0-8356-7532-7

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Adyar, Madras 600 020

THE SCIENCE OF

CRITICISM IN INDIA

DR. A. K. WARDER

Professor of Sanskrit, University of Toronto

THE ADYAR LIBRARY AND RESEARCH CENTRE

© 1978 The Adyar Library and Research Centre

The Theosophical Society, Adyar, Madras 600 020, India

ISBN 0-8356-7532-7

Agents

Americas and Japan:

The Theosophical Publishing House,

P. O. Box 270, Wheaton,

Illinois 60187, U.S.A.

Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia and Fiji:

The Theosophical Society in Australia

121 Walker Street,

North Sydney, New South Wales 2060,

Australia.

Europe and the United Kingdom:

The Theosophical Publishing House Ltd.,

68 Great Russell Street,

London W.C. IB 3 BU, England.

India and Other Countries:

The Theosophical Publishing House,

The Theosophical Society,

Adyar, Madras 600 020, India.

Printed in India

At The Vasanta Press, The Theosophical Society

Adyar, Madras 600 020

To

Dr. K. Kunjunni Raja

rājan yathājñāpayasi:

śreyāmsi vivrtadvārāny adya vidyāḥ svayamvarāḥ |

siddhayaḥ kāmacāriṇyas tvadājñām ko 'tivartate ||

(Kṣemiśvara)

PREFACE

India has a vast, though little known, literature.

Even in India itself few people have any idea of the

extent and interest of this heritage, being mostly

intent on material affairs and on foreign ideas which

might prove financially advantageous. They may be

dimly aware that there is a considerable religious litera-

ture, some old epics of a semi-religious character, a few

books of philosophy and a sprinkling of modern novels.

It is a rare thing to meet a person who knows anything

of the long tradition of literature in the strict sense of

poetic and dramatic works and of fiction. Outside

India, again, everyone has heard something of the

great religious tradition of Brahmanism and Buddhism,

but few have stumbled upon a work of literary art from

India, a work whose main purpose is to entertain

and not to teach.

This small volume is not intended to indicate the

extent of India's little known literature but, instead, to

discuss the enjoyment of it. Some might think such

discussion superfluous: one may simply read, at least

in translations (though India has been poorly served

by translators, compared, for example, with China), and

if one enjoys the story, or the characterizations and

viii

THE SCIENCE OF CRITICISM IN INDIA

descriptions, well and good; if not, one may try something else. But literature does not always yield its

pleasures so easily, especially when it belongs to an

unfamiliar tradition or to a past epoch. Remoteness

always brings a special charm and a safe detachment,

but it may result in difficulty of perception unless some

aid is provided. It is part of the purpose of the present

sketch to indicate the value and interest of literary

criticism itself, particularly when objective and scientific,

regardless of any special problem of remoteness in time

or in culture. The critics whose works we are to discuss were not at all remote in culture from the literature

they studied, but belonged to the Indian tradition

itself; they were also not far removed in time from

their subject, though far enough to be objective in

their appreciation of the authors they wrote about.

Thus our study is not directly of the beauties of

Indian literature but of the appreciations of Indian

literary criticism. Ultimately, however, our objective

is the same: it is the enjoyment of literature.

This volume originated as a series of six lectures

given in the University of Madras in 1977. It is a

pleasure to thank Dr. K. K. Raja, Professor of Sanskrit,

for his kind invitation and participation and interesting

comments. Since the lectures, though public, were intended primarily for students, they have been

revised here in an effort to make them more accessible

to a wider readership. However, criticism is a somewhat technical subject, and it has seemed better to

retain this technicality, though attempting to explain

PREFACE

ix

it clearly, than to water it down or even wash it out

altogether in the hope of being easy and popular. For

the same reason, references to the original sources and

the necessary bibliography are supplied.

University of Madras

1977

A. K. Warder

it clearly, than to water it down or even wash it out altogether in the hope of being easy and popular. For the same reason, references to the original sources and the necessary bibliography are supplied.

University of Madras

1977

A. K. Warder

THE SCIENCE OF CRITICISM IN INDIA

I

SOME GENERAL PRINCIPLES

Although, according to the Nāṭyaśāstra ('Treatise on Drama'), the earliest full-fledged work of criticism extant) and the later critics, literature may be instructive, it must always be enjoyable. It is the fact that literature gives pleasure or delight which is its essential characteristic, any instructiveness is merely incidental and unessential. If the function of literature were instead to teach, then it would be assimilated to learned treatises (śāstra-s), and it would be better to read a work on law and conduct, such as the Mānavadharma-śāstra, than an epic poem such as Kālidāsa's Raghuvaṃśa, or the Vedic Brāhmaṇa-s rather than Bhavabhūti's play, Uttararāmacarita. This principle has to be stressed, because under the influence of the 19th century utilitarians, who seem still to be the official philosophers of India, not to mention Victorian and missionary puritanism, intolerance and anti-secularism, many scholars in our field still adopt an apologetic attitude of seeking to justify the reading of literature only for what moral instruction or religious teaching may be reflected in it. Kālidāsa has been presented as an insufferable

moraliser and Vālmīki as a tedious theologian. But

the true function of literature, as all the old critics

agrée, is to entertain, to give joy. As Śyāmilaka has

said (Pādatāḍitaka, verse 5):

Ascetics do not attain release by weeping,

humourous stories do not obstruct a future

heaven;

Therefore a wise man should laugh with an

appreciative mind

after abandoning mean modes of life.

This is the starting point of aesthetic theory and of all

literary criticism.

In order to enjoy a literature fully we must try to

approach it from the standpoint of the tradition which

produced it, not from some other tradition. This

should be obvious, yet it has to be said here because in

recent years an alien and even hostile approach to

Indian literature has widely prevailed. European late

Romanticism, still commonly adopted in books on the

subject as the only possible approach (without any

discussion), is totally foreign to Indian literature except

for a few recent imitations of European models. Indeed

it is also alien to the European classics and has now

been generally superseded in the West itself by new

theories. It is high time to revive Indian aesthetics

and criticism, so that we can enjoy Indian literature as

it was meant to be enjoyed.

It has been suggested by a contemporary Western

critic (Professor N. Frye) that literary criticism should

be a 'science'.1 Criticism, he says, is to literature as

physics is to nature. Students can learn physics and

they can learn criticism, they cannot learn nature or

literature (in the strict sense of learning concepts and

principles, not just collecting unorganized materials).

Though this view may seem extreme and contentious,

at first, there is much to be said for it, particularly in

relation to Indian criticism (though Frye seems to be

unaware of the existence of Indian criticism). We

may note that the idea of literature, or of the 'arts'

or 'humanities', as unscientific subjects, is peculiar

to the English academic tradition and those derived

from it (including of course the 'modern' Indian

educational system). This obviously is why Frye

found the need to combat it. It is foreign to the general

European academic tradition in France, Germany,

Russia, etc., where all subjects are regarded as

'sciences'. Admittedly intuitionist and subjectivist

approaches have sometimes been advocated in Germany

and elsewhere, though in the name of science, but it is

in the English tradition that literature and the other

humanities have long been proclaimed unscientific

as a matter of high principle. It is urged that they

are non-quantitative, non-analytic, irrational, subjective,

emotional, spiritual or unsystematic and that they deal

with abstract 'values' inaccessible to scientific analysis

and incapable of clear description. It is of course a

misconception of the nature of science that it reduces

1 pp. 7ff., 11.

4

THE SCIENCE OF CRITICISM IN INDIA

all things to a mean and worldly level: is there a higher

ideal than the pursuit of truth ? But let us not embark

on a defence of science. Our objection to intuitive and

subjectivist criticism is that it leads to dogmatic asser-

tions rather than discussion and that the student is

expected to accept it and memorize it uncritically. Here

we have the further objection that Indian literary

criticism is of a different character, as we shall now

try to clarify.

As a science, Frye maintains, literary criticism

should have principles which make it general and

comprehensive, instead of subjective (and ephemeral, we

may add, a matter of changing fashions). It should be

'progressive' in the sense 'of cumulative; i.e. its

principles are developed, corrected, added to, as in

other sciences, by successive critics. It should have

definitions, beginning with a definition of 'literature'

itself, which Frye found lacking in Western criticism

(the English language has no word for 'literature' in

the precise sense of literature as an art).

Now in Indian criticism we find precisely these

things, beginning with a word for its subject matter,

namely kāvya, which means precisely literature as an art,

including drama, poetry and fiction. The definition of

kāvya has progressed through many centuries of attempts

to improve on Bhāmaha's (4th or 5th century) brief

śabdārthau sahitau kāvyam (I. 16), 'kāvya is expression

and meaning combined', which, however, is further

qualified by the statement that both are endowed with

alamkāra or beauty, the latter itself further defined as

vakra, 'curved' or 'figurative' (I. 36). Then the divisions of literature have been defined (corresponding in a very general sense to a theory of genres) and the various figures of speech, qualities of style and other identifiable characteristics of kāvya. Above all, there is the aesthetic theory of rasa concerning the enjoyment of drama or literature by an audience or readers, which was extended from the theatre to all literature and then to the other arts. Dependent on this is the analysis of dramatic plots, which again was generalized to apply to all literature (even a single lyric verse could be seen as having a plot, a movement or conflict, within its scope). The requirement that criticism should be a science seems thus to be satisfied by Indian criticism, as we shall see in more detail later. One might add that this was a very natural development in India, since from the outset literary criticism there, was closely associated with linguistics, itself a science from at least the time of Pāṇini (4th century B.C.) and probably much earlier. Literary criticism in India may be regarded as an extension of the scientific study of language into the field of the special use of language as a medium of art.

In connection with criticism being a science we may add a further characteristic of sciences, barely touched on by Frye. Criticism and its theories should follow the investigation of literature by the critic. Literature does not follow theories, as a general rule, but precedes them, though once theories are propounded later authors may be influenced by them (but this might be regarded as ultimately following the model of an

6 THE SCIENCE OF CRITICISM IN INDIA

earlier author from whose work the theory was deduced). In other words, criticism should be an empirical science, following from the investigation and analysis of literature, describing this, finding out why it is enjoyed or regarded as ‘beautiful’ and then formulating general principles. In India the main tradition is empiricist, though some relatively recent writers have to some extent deviated from this approach and tried to set up abstract or ideal systems (inventing their own examples accordingly). We shall see below how the critics worked from the literature, and from the experience of those who enjoyed it, in establishing their principles.

The discipline of literary criticism overlaps with that of textual criticism. Everything we do in this field is based on texts. It is therefore essential to know, when using any book (or manuscript), what the text contained in it is. It is absurd (which does not mean that it has not been done) to discuss an author’s style and vocabulary on the basis of a corrupt text containing things he did not write. The literary critic, consequently, must be on his guard against false texts, must be acquainted with the principles of textual criticism so that he can distinguish between a reliable text and a corrupt, apocryphal or doubtful one. Most people seem to have a blind faith in printed books and to assume that, if a title page states that a book contains a certain text, then that is the absolute and final text and there is no need to investigate its credentials. But even a text obtained from an apparently reliable source may turn out, on collation with other texts of the same work, to be

corrupt, though the corruptions may be of respectable

antiquity and may have been honoured with learned

comment. This is especially true of more popular

works, which have received wide circulation and been

frequently copied (or, in recent years, printed, which

is the same thing). Of course, it is precisely in the case of

widely circulated works that textual criticism can be

very effective, because there may be plenty of materials

available, from different places and independently

handed down, through which interpolations can be

spotted by collation. Nevertheless it can be shown

that less popular works, their manuscripts rarely touched

and copied at long intervals, have sometimes come down

to us in very authentic texts.

If one compares different editions of familiar

classics, for example the Meghasamdeśa or the Venīsamhāra

or the Mudrārākṣasa, one finds very great discrepancies

in their texts. There are many Meghasamdeśa-s (or

Meghadūta-s, the title itself varies), with different

numbers of verses and different readings within the

verses. The various commentators, whom one might

regard as authorities on the correct readings of the

text, are found to diverge widely. The 'standard'

commentator Mallinātha (15th century), whose re-

putation is assured by his dexterous command of San-

skrit grammar, follows a very corrupt text and accepts

at least twenty verses which textual criticism demon-

strates cannot have been composed by Kālidāsa. We

can show this by collating texts of the Meghasamdeśa

preserved in places as distant from one another as

8

THE SCIENCE OF CRITICISM IN INDIA

Kaśmīra (with the commentary of Vallabhadeva,

10th century) and Kerala (with the commentary

of Pūrṇasarasvatī, 14th century). These agree and

thus must contain a very old form of the text, except

that Vallabhadeva has one extra verse; neither has

the many additional verses which have got into the

text of Mallinātha (in Andhra).

The explanation for such discrepancies is firstly

that over the centuries, as a text is repeatedly copied

by scribes, numerous mistakes are made (it is humanly

impossible to make an exact copy of a text of any

length, even the best scribe will make a few mistakes).

Usually someone will try to correct the text after it

has been copied and obvious slips will be eliminated.

Fairly often, however, the would-be corrector only

makes another mistake, the difference being that his

mistaken correction makes some kind of sense, instead

of no sense, and consequently is hard to detect later.

The reader or critic of course wants to have what the

original author wrote, not the ingenious restoration

of some pandit. Such restorations commonly substi-

tute some commonplace idea or cliché, where the original

had something fresh and unexpected: the implications

for literary appreciation are obvious. Secondly quite

new passages, especially verses, get inserted in a work,

particularly if it is a popular work often read by the

owner of a manuscript. This can happen when a

reader notes in the margin of his copy a verse containing

something similar to a passage in the text, as it were

expanding or commenting on a description. It may

be a verse of the reader's. own composition,

feeling inspired to emulate Kālidāsa or some other

classical author. Eventually the manuscript becomes

old and a scribe may be employed to make a fresh

copy of it. Usually a scribe will copy into the text

any marginal notes or additions, taking them to be

corrections to the previous copy, including verses care-

lessly left out by the previous scribe. Thenceforth

they appear to be part of the text and can be detected

only by collation with other manuscripts, of course

'independent' manuscripts belonging to another line

of transmission of the text. If such independent manu-

scripts cannot be found, there will generally be no way

of proving that any part of the text is not authentic.

An edition of a text, which uses all the extant manu-

script material and collates it as very roughly indicated

above, in order to establish as far as possible what the

original author wrote, is known as a 'critical' edition.

This term unfortunately is often misused, especially

by those who do not understand it, and may be a trap

for the unwary. Sometimes the editor of the text

simply does not know what 'critical' means, in this

technical sense. Textual criticism is not a matter

of simple common sense or of picking 'out 'good'

readings (which generally means subjective choice).

Its principles, such as the methods of determining the

relationships among the manuscripts available, are

not at all obvious and it may be difficult to get even

otherwise excellent scholars to understand them or to

realize that more than a knowledge of the language

10 THE SCIENCE OF CRITICISM IN INDIA

of the text is needed. Very often an editor does not bother to place his evidence before his readers, in the form of a 'critical apparatus' giving the readings of the manuscripts, so that one cannot see how the text has been arrived at and can only fear the worst (arbitrary subjective selections). Critical editing is laborious work and editors are liable to be lazy; in certain cases they may be little better than frauds, or an unscrupulous publisher may call the work 'critical' so that libraries will buy it. For whatever reasons, critical editions of kāvya-s are rare and students of literature have to be aware of this fact if they are to avoid wasting their time on false texts. Thus for example we have no critical editions of the works of Kālidāsa, contrary to the claims of certain publishers and editors.

In literary criticism we shall be concerned with quotations from literature by critics. These quotations often differ considerably from the texts as available to us, so that we are at once in the realm of textual criticism, in effect with two manuscripts to be collated. An important contribution to textual criticism from the testimony of critics is the elimination of apocryphal additions to the works of a popular author. The critics quote profusely from cantos I-VIII of Kālidāsa's Kumārasambhava, for example. In striking contrast, they do not quote at all from the continuation of the poem which is sometimes added and which a few scholars persist in regarding as authentic Kālidāsa. As Hari Chand argues in his thesis, this evidence is quite decisive in showing that Kālidāsa wrote only

eight cantos. Such commentators as Mallinātha,

moreover, wrote on only these eight cantos, which

is further corroboration of the same point. Obviously

this apocryphal supplement is of quite recent origin

(16th century or later: a critical editor of the poem

would be able to determine the time and probably

the place of its composition, from the distribution of

manuscripts).

Textual criticism leads us to the more general

question of bibliography. It may seem a trivial remark

that one cannot study literary criticism without being

in command of the writings of the critics and of the

literature they wrote on. But unfortunately in our

field there are tremendous obstacles to this. No

library in the world has a collection adequate for the

study of Indian literary criticism. There are several

reasons for this. One is that several important works

remain unprinted, for example the second half of Kun-

taka’s Vakroktijīvita, Bahurūpamiśra’s commentary on

the Daśarūpaka and the anonymous Naṭāñkuśa. Manu-

scripts of these are available only in two or three

public libraries in India and one has to obtain trans-

scripts of them (which is not always easy) in order to

have access to their contents. These are only con-

spicuously important works in a mass of unprinted

material. But then, as indicated above, even the

printed editions of texts are in many cases unsatis-

factory, so that again recourse should be had to manu-

scripts. The attention of students should be drawn

to this state of affairs, so that they may know the

12 THE SCIENCE OF CRITICISM IN INDIA

conditions under which they are working (and not make false assumptions about our knowledge of the subject) and also see that there is much interesting research for them to carry out. Another reason is that the acquisition programmes of almost all libraries are inadequate, generally through lack of funds and low priority for our subject but all too frequently through lack of cooperation between librarians, jealous of their professional privileges, and the research scholars whose needs it is their duty to serve. As a result, most libraries have serious gaps in their collections of printed books in the field of Indian literature and criticism. It should be added that the printing of Sanskrit texts has been extraordinarily scattered, especially in India itself, making it very difficult even for experts in the field to find out everything that is available. In this situation some scholars adopt the attitude of the frog in the well, contenting themselves with a few well worn classics. The effect of this, however, is that they have little of interest to say even about these few classics, since they cannot see them in the context of related works.

II

AESTHETICS

The enjoyment of literature has many aspects and has been explained in various ways by the Indian critics, using such terms as words meaning ‘joy’ or ‘delight’ (harṣa in the Nāṭyaśāstra, prīti in Bhāmaha and so on) and “diversion” vinoda, ‘solace’ viśrāma (both in the Nāṭyaśāstra) and other related ideas. But the essential thing in this enjoyment, its essence, according to the entire Indian tradition, is what is called rasa (Nāṭyaśāstra VI, prose after verse 31, is the starting point for us). Judging from some of the discussions about rasa, one would conclude that it is a mysterious concept and that no one really knows what it means. Now there are different theories about rasa, philosophical theories, some of which are difficult to understand. But there ought not to be any mystery about what rasa means. The original meaning of the word is ‘taste’ and the Nāṭyaśāstra explains it as ‘taste’, on the analogy of tasting food. We can in fact keep the English word ‘taste’ as a translation of rasa without serious distortion or confusion. Two things should be borne in mind here. Firstly, in English aesthetics ‘taste’, a word which is used for the sense of taste as well as for its object, has been used as

14

THE SCIENCE OF CRITICISM IN INDIA

referring to judgment rather than enjoyment or variety of experience. Secondly, in aesthetics the word rasa is of course used in a metaphorical sense. We cannot ' taste ' a kāvya by eating it, or ' taste ' a play in the theatre as an object rasa of our sense of taste. Obviously this primary meaning is excluded. The reason for adopting this particular metaphor appears to be the following: in the theatre (where the term rasa was first adopted for aesthetic discussions) the audience see the actors and the play and also hear them. If one spoke of having a sight of the play, or hearing its sound, this would not express the appreciation of it as drama, as the invisible play of emotions behind the visible movements and the speeches expressing its effects. By speaking instead of ' taste ', something further is indicated, and what seems to be meant from the beginning is precisely this dramatic appreciation. The word ' taste ' belongs to the realm of sense perception, in other words, to ' aesthetics ' in its more general sense. It is used here to refer to the perception of drama, or by extension, of literature and art in general, and indicates how the audience or readers are thought to perceive the content of these. A fairly precise equivalent for rasa is therefore: ' aesthetic experience '.

We may thus describe the rasa concept as a concept, or a theory, of perception, in the special sense of aesthetic perception (in its particular sense of the appreciation of art). From the Nāṭyaśāstra's account of the method used by actors to produce rasa in an audience, we see that the object of this perception is the bhāva-s,

the states of mind or emotions, of the characters in

the play as they participate in its action. These

emotions are for the most part invisible and are under-

stood to be present only through the representation

by the actors of their causes and effects (respectively

vibhāva-s and anubhāva-s in the terminology of the

theatre), supplemented by subsidiary or transient

emotions (vyabhicāribhāva-s) as side effects of the main

emotions (sthāyibhāva-s). In fact, of course, these emo-

tions, though aesthetically ‘perceived’, are not present

at all on the stage. The actors are not experiencing

them but acting them. The characters represented

are present only in the imagination of the audience

and it is the imagined emotions of these characters

which are the object of aesthetic perception.

It was this indirectness and the element of imagina-

tion which led Śaṅkuka and others to the opinion that

the aesthetic experience is not a matter of perception

but of inference: we infer the emotions of the characters

from perceiving their effects represented (Śaṅkuka’s

work is not now available, but his ideas are discussed

by Abhinavagupta in his Abhinavabhāratī, vol. I, pp. 272-3

and 284). However, Abhinavagupta replies to this

that the aesthetic experience is immediate, not indirect.

Thus it is not ordinary perception, but it is a kind of

perception, produced by art. It is not perception as

in everyday life; it is detached, pure, not involved,

does not arouse our everyday concerns but takes us

away from them. It is universal or completely objec-

tive, not particular or subjective. Thus it does not

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arouse the emotions of the audience but is a detached

perception of the emotions of others (Abhinavagupta,

vol. I, pp. 36, 278 ff). The contrast between an

emotional reaction and an aesthetic reaction to a play

is illustrated very clearly in the scene of a play within

a play in Kṣemiśvara’s Naiṣadhānanda, Act VI. Nala,

incognito, is sitting with Ṛtuparṇa in the audience

seeing a play about the terrible experiences of Dama-

yantī, his wife. Ṛtuparṇa has an aesthetic experience,

but Nala instead reacts emotionally, though Ṛtuparṇa

keeps reminding him that it is a play and is puzzled at

his strange excitement.

According to the Nāṭyaśāstra (I), the drama

represents everything in life, but all is presented

through the emotions of human beings, through the

emotional reactions of characters experiencing life.

Even nature is presented through its effects on human

emotions and as an active cause of emotions through

the continual changes of the seasons. Alternatively,

in lyric poetry natural phenomena may be personified,

in other words imagined to experience human emotions

themselves. In this connection we may observe that

the possibilities for the appreciation of nature through

poetry, which might appear somewhat limited in the

Nāṭyaśāstra method of presentation, have been extended

in the theories of some of the later critics. Thus Bhoja

indicates that when enjoying a landscape described

in poetry we may have the preyas, the ‘affectionate’

aesthetic experience (the preyas as rasa seems to have

been introduced into the theory by Rudraṭa in the

ninth century, XIII. 3 and XV. 17 ff. of his work).

Bhoja (Śṛṅgāraprakāśa, vol. II, p. 560) gives an example

of this from Bhavabhūti:

These are the Southern Mountains, their

highest blue peaks supported by clouds,

with the gurgling roaring of the waters of the

Godāvarī in their caverns;

These are the sacred confluences of rivers with

deep waters, wild

with the clamourings of - turbulent waves

confused by repulsing one another.

Uttararāmacarita, II. 30

According to Bhoja the ‘affection’, bhṛti, here has

particular reference to the sounds described.(to Rāma

in the play, who would be imagined by the audience

to hear them).

It might be regarded as a different kind of extension

of this aesthetic theory when critics say that we may

admire the technical skill of an author in using words

and have camatkāra, ‘admiration’; this could perhaps

be regarded as included in the ‘marvellous’ adbhuta

aesthetic experience, which arises in relation to some-

thing astonishing.

Of the eight original rasa-s of the Nāṭyaśāstra,

śṛṅgāra, which arises from the perception of love, rati,

stands first. There seems to be no English equivalent

for śṛṅgāra, a fact which is not surprising in the case of a

technical term in a theory unique to India. The

commonly used stop-gap ‘erotic’ ought to be avoided

2

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as completely misleading. It is a fact that in Indian

literature as in most literatures the theme of love is

extremely popular. The use of the term 'erotic' to

describe the effect of any story of love, however, seems

to have given rise to the absurd view that almost all

Sanskrit literature is pornographic, a view shared by

puritans of various religious traditions who are afraid

to read it or allow others to read it, and by the old school

of imperialists who maintained that the inhabitants

of India were a decadent lot interested only in sex and

therefore fit only to be slaves. The whole point of

art, however, and the point made by the rasa theory,

is that it gives an aesthetic pleasure, a mental experience

which detaches one from personal concerns. The

śṛṅgāra experience, therefore, of an audience seeing

Bhavabhūti's Uttararāmacarita, or of a reader of Amaruka,

is not the emotion of love felt towards the hero or the

heroine. It may be a feeling of delight in relation

to the happiness of the characters imagined, but it is

an act of detached contemplation, joyful for the very

reason that the spectator is completely free. Having

in view only this aesthetic response to the loves of others,

this unselfish, impersonal and free delight in the emo-

tions of lovers presented in literature, we may pro-

visionally use the term 'sensitive' to represent śṛṅgāra,

hoping that some better equivalent will eventually

be found.

The other seven rasa-s appear to show some

variation in their relationships to the emotions which

give rise to them. Thus the contemplation of grief

gives rise to the compassionate, karuṇa, evidently related

to compassion, karuṇā, in real life or in Buddhist philosophy, yet still detached. Energy, utsāha, or courage

produces the heroic, vīra, experience, as in Abhinanda's

description (Rāmacarita XV. 64) of Hanumant about

to leap over the ocean:

The Sun has been circled by his tail, the

Moon has been pierced by his crest,

the clouds have been tossed by his mane, the

stars have been attacked by his teeth,

He has crossed the ocean just with a glance,

with its bright loud-laughing waves,

he has traversed in all directions the cruel

fire of the glory of the Lord of Lañkā.

Vidyākara (1552) quotes this to illustrate the heroic

rasa. The effect is heightened by the fact that Hanu-

mant has not yet begun his great leap or flight: the

intention expressed by his glance is enough and for

the reader Rāvaṇa's glory is already as good as eclipsed.

The exaggerations of the narrator are suited to this rasa,

whilst they would be quite inappropriate in the hero

himself, who is aware simply of his energy and his

determination to serve Rāma (XV. 67).

The comic again is different in that it may seem

to occur in everyday life, if not in its pure aesthetic

state (it may be contaminated with malice and worldly

interests in real life). It might be regarded, when

sufficiently pure, as a kind of intrusion of aesthetic

experience into everyday life, leading to a refreshing,

20

THE SCIENCE OF CRITICISM IN INDIA

though momentary, detachment from our usual worries. Dāmodaragupta in his Kuṭṭanīmata has presented a group of harlots discussing their work, with a good deal of humour mixed with complaints and sarcasm and perhaps a touch of malice. We assume they enjoy the humour and the comic spectacles portrayed by the speakers, whilst for the reader the comic is purified of any worldly concerns:

A stupid young brahman, not clever, cruel in his exertions, for whom a woman is a rare thing,

Set about me in the night: sudden death pretending to be a lover! (392)

Listen, friend, to the curious thing done today by a rustic lover;

When I closed my eyes in the enjoyment of lovemaking, he said: ‘She’s dead!’ and, frightened, let me go! (398)

These are quoted for the comic experience by Jalhaṇa (p. 311) and Vallabhadeva (2339 and 2338) and the second also by Śārṅgadhara (4058).

The emotions may of course be mixed, as is indicated by the mention of subsidiary emotions in the Nāṭyaśāstra's statement of the method of producing rasa referred to above: ‘The aesthetic experience arises from the conjunction of the causes of the emotion, the effects of the emotion and the subsidiary emotions’. Indeed the general impression from the critics is that the effect is best when various emotions are mixed and that a

AESTHETICS

21

kāvya is better if many emotions and aesthetic experiences are touched on. But it is also generally agreed that one emotion and one rasa should predominate. Such mixture may be illustrated from Bhavabhūti's play Mālatīmādhava and even from a single verse in it:

Snatching my beloved out of range of the knife blow of this brigand, through fate, obtaining her face grazed, like the crescent Moon by Rāhu;

How does my heart endure, weak with terror, melting with compassion, shaken with astonishment, blazing with anger, opening with joy? (V. 28)

Here we have a series of conflicting emotions, as Bhoja (Sarasvatīkanṭhābharaṇa, pp. 574-5) and others have pointed out, which even suggest a series of rasa-s (the furious in relation to the violence of the brigand or Rāhu, the marvellous in relation to obtaining Mālatī unexpectedly, the apprehensive and the compassionate). But the commentator Pūrṇasarasvatī here maintains that only their transient emotions occur (anger, astonishment, fear and grief as subsidiary transients, not as main emotions) subordinate to love as the main emotion producing the sensitive aesthetic experience. The Nātyaśāstra already indicates that the main emotions may be subordinated to one another as subsidiaries (prose after VI. 45). The causes of the emotion are Mālatī and seeing the situation she is in. The effects of the emotion are Mādhava's reactions in mind and

22 THE SCIENCE OF CRITICISM IN INDIA

speech expressed here and the appropriate bodily movements which the actor will make. This acting should show trembling, tears, paralysis, change of colour, horripilation and so on as ‘expressive’ sāttvika emotions (a subdivision of the subsidiary emotions which are shown directly), as well as the other subsidiary emotions—bewilderment, despair, doubt, ferocity and contentment. To these remarks by Pūrṇasarasvatī, Bhoja adds still other points about the dramatic technique, such as the ‘violent’ ārabhaṭī mode, vṛtti, of stage business (Sarasvatīkaṇṭhābharaṇa, p. 740). He quotes the verse again as a general illustration for the production of aesthetic experience from the causes and effects of emotions and the subsidiary emotions (Śṛṅgāraprakāśa, vol. II, pp. 445-6).

The Nāṭyaśāstra has little to say of aesthetics as a theory; it is practical and sets out a method which, presumably, produced satisfactory results in the theatre, i.e. the audience enjoyed plays so performed. The later philosophers of aesthetics tried in various ways to explain the facts of rasa. One old theory which was widely followed was that the rasa was a kind of ‘increase’ of the main emotion. Apparently this meant a qualitative change, when the sthāyibhāva imagined in the character increased to such a level that it became tastable, a taste, rasa. It seems unlikely that this was the original conception, since the Nāṭyaśāstra keeps the concepts of bhāva and rasa quite distinct and with a causal relation between them, bhāva producing rasa. It is only in the sense that it is the bhāva-s that are

tasted, or acquire taste-ness, that the text may appear

to suggest that a bhāva in some sense becomes a rasa

when developed through its causes and effects. This

may be understood as a figurative, metaphorical

expression or as equivalent to saying that the bhāva,

the emotion, becomes beautiful. The theory of

'increase' is known to have been held with variations

by Dandin (II. 279) in the seventh century and then

by Udbhata (p. 52) and Lollata (see Abhinavabhāratī,

vol. I, p. 272).

Śaṅkuka in the ninth century saw a process of

inference instead of perception, as already noted, when

the actor imitates experiencing the main emotion and

the audience infer its presence from its causes and

effects. The actual emotion of course is not present,

but according to Śaṅkuka its imitation, which is present

(through the inference), is called rasa, the taste.

Mahimabhaṭṭa in the eleventh century followed a similar

theory of inference. Śaṅkuka criticized Lollaṭa's

theory on the ground that it does not explain the essential

difference between the taste rasa and the emotion

bhāva, to say that it is simply a matter of degrees of

intensity. Bhaṭṭanāyaka (see Abhinavabhāratī, vol. I, pp.

276-7) then objected that Śaṅkuka's theory did not

explain why rasa was enjoyable, nor that it was not like

individual experience but was a generalized experience.

The audience did not have unpleasent experiences

when the emotions of the characters were unpleasant,

they always experienced enjoyment. The contempla-

tion of the audience was a kind of meditation, becoming

24 THE SCIENCE OF CRITICISM IN INDIA

free from individual existence and ignorance and attaining the highest joy.

The theory of Abhinavagupta (beginning of the eleventh century), which has been most widely accepted,

is based on that of Nāyaka, but stresses the point of universalization or transcendence of particularity

rather than that of the joy of the audience. Aesthetic experience is non-individual and transcends space,

time and particular circumstances. The individual forgets himself and thereby attains the highest happiness.

The essence of rasa is that it is tasted, does not go beyond tasting (Abhinavabhāratī, vol. I, p. 284), it is

not the experience of the corresponding emotion.

The development of aesthetic theory successively by Lollaṭa, Śaṅkuka, Nāyaka and Abhinavagupta may

be noted as a good example of literary criticism being ‘progressive’.

There are other theories about rasa which need not be taken up here. An important problem which

should at least be mentioned is whether rasa is ultimately one or many or whether one of the rasa-s is the most

important or ultimately absorbs the others into itself.

Some new rasa-s were proposed in addition to the original eight. Or it was thought that the rasa-s

were unlimited in number, corresponding to every aspect of enjoyment in the theatre (Lollaṭa, quoted

in Abhinavabhāratī, vol. I, p. 298). Dhanamjaya’s theory (IV. 43 ff.) of a continuum of rasa harmonizing

with four zones or phases in thought is interesting (and is partly anticipated by Nāyaka with only three zones),

but does not seem to have been followed up with further investigations.

After Abhinavagupta, the theory of Bhoja (eleventh century) is the most important contribution to aesthetics, providing a kind of biological and psychological basis for the science (Sarasvatīkanṭhābharaṇa V. 1, pp. 704-5; Śṛṅgāraprakāśa, ch. XI, vol. II, pp. 429ff.).

It appears to be diametrically opposed to Abhinavagupta’s theory in that, instead of universalization, it maintains form of self-assertion, abhimāna or egoism, ahaṃkāra.

This might be described as self-realization, the fullest development of the individual instead of his absorption into the universal.

However, it is another theory intended to explain the same facts of experience, of enjoyment, and is supported by numerous quotations from the literature.

Ultimately, according to Bhoja, there is only one rasa, namely the sensitive, śṛṅgāra.

At the highest point of development, the emotion ‘love,’ rati, ceases to be an emotion but absorbs all the other emotions into itself in the form of love of these and becomes the rasa, ‘egoism’.

This happens, Bhoja says, because each emotion is a kind of love, the love of a particular type of thought-activity, such as humour or mirth and even of such activities as being indignant in the case of the emotion, ‘indignation’, amarṣa.

In the Śṛṅgāraprakāśa, Bhoja describes rasa in the sense of the sensitive or ‘self-assertion’ as a kind of quality of this egoism.

Logically this is difficult to follow, but if rasa is ultimately one, then the ultimate ‘sensitive’

is the same as the ‘egoism,’ but represents it as enjoyment whereas egoism explains its occurrence. Bhoja’s theory, like Nāyaka’s from which some of its concepts are derived.stresses the enjoyment aspect of the aesthetic experience, from which the long tradition of the Nātya-śāstra had started out. The opposition between it and Abhinavagupta’s theory, however, depends on a metaphysical question of the nature of the supposed ‘soul’ in relation to which the experience (assertion or transcendence) would take place. If that question could be eliminated, the opposition could perhaps be resolved. If there is no soul, as the Buddhists and many modern philosophers have held, then a theory resembling Abhinavagupta’s would best account for the facts, though Bhoja’s contribution offers some useful explanations of what takes place at what he regards as the lower levels of experience. The effective discussion in Indian aesthetics terminates at the point where scientific investigation is replaced by metaphysical speculation.

III

THE THEORY OF COMPOSITION

The term ‘ poetics ’, often used, is not very appropriate as an equivalent for what in Sanskrit has been known as kāvyakriyākalpa or alaṃkāraśāstra and more recently as sāhityavidyā or sāhityaśāstra. Aristotle’s Poetics, from which the English term is borrowed, is mainly on the subject of dramaturgy and aesthetics.

In India, the study of composition, including such topics as figures of speech, is an extension of linguistics, of grammar and lexicography. The earliest discussion known which relates to it is in fact in Yāska’s lexicon (Nighaṇṭu III. 13 and Nirukta III. 13-8).

Here some figures of speech are treated, not, however, from the point of view of literary criticism but simply as modes of expression, as linguistic phenomena.

Apparently because of its independent origin, the study of the theory of composition continued to be to some extent separate from the tradition of the Nāṭyaśāstra, though all the critics are aware of their close relationship.

The combination of the two branches of study begins in the Nāṭyaśāstra itself, where the language of the theatre is treated in many of its aspects, including figures of speech and qualities of style.

Effective expression is obviously an important component of the

28 THE SCIENCE OF CRITICISM IN INDIA

acting of the causes and effects of emotion which produces rasa. Those on the other hand who wrote special treatises on alamkārasāstra all recognize the importance of rasa, though they may simply refer for its detailed treatment to other treatises (i.e. the Nātyaśāstra, etc.). Though the difference may be one simply of emphasis, it has tended to produce different theories. A specialist in the questions of modes of expression may tend to lose sight of the aesthetic purpose of literature. The best critics, however, kept both aspects in view and some of them wrote on both in detail.

The earliest theory known to us which seeks to give a general definition of the beauty of literature, instead of just separate descriptions of figures, is that of vakratā, ‘crookedness’ or ‘curvedness’, more freely ‘figurateness’ or ‘indirectness’. We find it in the work of Bhāmaha, though it is not certain that he was the first to propound it. His work happens to be the oldest special treatise on alamkārasāstra now available, though he had several predecessors in the field whose writings are apparently lost. Even the Nātyaśāstra places first, among its thirty-six ‘characteristics’ laksana-s of dramatic composition, ‘ornamentation’, bhūṣaṇa, stated to consist in the use of alamkāra-s, in the sense of figures of speech, and of qualities of style (ch. XVI, Baroda ed. ; four figures only, but ten qualities, are described later in the same ch.). The term alamkāra, ‘ornament’ or (specific) ‘beauty’, used for the figures of speech but often also in a wider sense,

is practically a synonym for bhūṣaṇa. Thus it is implied

that all figures (and qualities) accepted in dramatic

literature, or in literature generally, are in some sense

beautiful (ornament and ornamental are not quite

happy equivalents in English because they seem to imply

only external and dispensable accessories, whereas

the alamkāra-s for Bhāmaha are essential, include

beauties intrinsic to literature and not detachable from

it). This beauty in literature, according to Bhāmaha,

consists in a kind of deviation from ordinary everyday

expressions, an added expressiveness created by the

genius of the author. Literature follows a ‘curved’

route, so to say, instead of the shortest line, uses indirect

expressions, takes in additional meanings, as it were a

wider prospect of the country traversed. Thus the

characteristic of all beauties of literature, of all accepted

alamkāra-s, is their crookedness or curvedness, vakratā

(I. 36, II. 85).

Crooked or curved expressions include in the

first place the generally recognized figures of speech,

such as simile, upamā, bringing in a comparison and

metaphor, rūpaka, making an apparent identification

by using a word in a transferred sense. Other figures

defined by Bhāmaha (chs. II and III) and prominent

in kāvya are fancy, utprekṣā, bringing in imaginary

activities and feelings of natural phenomena, circum-

locution, paryāyokta, which may be a euphemism con-

cealing a blunt statement, contrast, vyatireka, and

exaggeration, atiśayokti. The definitions include

particular limitations, such as that, in the case of

exaggeration, there must be a suitable pretext for it,

it is not just a matter of any wild or absurd statement

(II. 84-5). Bhāmaha’s alaṅkāra-s are not all figures

of speech or of expression in any strict sense. On the

contrary, many of them have to do only with the

meaning, the subject matter, not with the expression

except in the sense that it gives effective expression to

the meaning. Thus ‘having rasa’ rasavant, in which

the sensitive and the other rasa-s appear clearly, is an

alaṅkāra (III. 6) depending on the meaning. ‘Coin-

cidence’ samāhita is simply a fortunate coincidence

brought into the story, such as a chance meeting (III.10).

Bhāmaha seems to leave open the question of ‘natura-

listic description’ svabhāvokti, which some earlier

writers had proposed as an alaṅkāra (II. 93-4). This

again relates to the subject described, where the expres-

sion may be as simple and direct as possible. It

would seem that if the subject is beautiful then its de-

scription will count as alaṅkāra; merely its selection by

the author satisfies the principle of ‘curvature’, for he

has contrived his matter in such a way as to include

it; but Bhāmaha does not explain.

Thus Bhāmaha’s alaṅkāra includes all beauties of

literature. In his preliminary discussion (I. 13 ff.)

he concludes that there are two kinds of ‘ornament’,

namely the expression śabda and the meaning artha.

The ornament or beauty of expression includes the

choice of grammatical expressions, good or béautiful

expression, sauśabdya, to which Bhāmaha devotes a

chapter (VI). The beauty of meaning includes most

of the ‘figures’, starting with metaphor, but is further

extended to cover the literary application of epistemo-

logy and logic, discussed in chapter V. The logical

middle terms, hetu-s, in literature (V. 47-55) are beautiful

things. Bhāmaha had rejected simple ‘middle term’

hetu as a figure, on the ground that there is no beauty,

no curvedness, in it, but when beautiful objects are

brought in as middle terms in literary arguments he

welcomes them. Similarly there may be logical

examples, drṣṭānta-s, in literature (V. 55 ff.), giving the

evidence for the concomitance of middle terms with

predicates, which are beautiful. Udbhata later reduced

these two to simple alamkāra-s, namely kāvyahetu and

kāvyadrṣṭānta.

Bhāmaha’s definition of literature, kāvya, is simply

that it is ‘expression and meaning combined’ śabdār-

thau sahitau (I. 16), but this has to be qualified in the

light of the discussion immediately preceding it to the

effect that both the expression and the meaning are

alamkāra, are beautiful, and further that this beauty

may be defined as vakratā, crookedness or curvedness.

It is to be noted that Bhāmaha’s approach to his

subject is empiricist: he takes up the alamkāra-s proposed

by his predecessors and either accepts or rejects them

according to whether he finds them beautiful or not.

He is not elaborating a system from speculative principles

but building on previous studies in the light of examples

from literature.

Bhāmaha has no use for the distinction of literature

into two styles: his alamkāra-s or beauties are general in

32 THE SCIENCE OF CRITICISM IN INDIA

application. As for the qualities, guṇa-s, taken by some critics to be the basis for distinguishing styles, he notes only three of the ten given in the Nāiyaśāstra, ignoring the rest. Two of these three, ‘sweetness’ and ‘clarity’, he regards as desirable in all literature. He explains them as the very general qualities that the subject matter is not too detailed and is easily understood. Thirdly he remarks that some like ‘strength’, meaning much compounding of words, but does not express any opinion on it. No doubt the two qualities he accepts would override the enjoyment of this kind of strength. Some of the qualities he ignores are partly covered by other topics in his theory, in different terms. Thus the alamkāra-s ‘condensed expression’, samāsokti and ‘exalted’, udātta may cover the qualities ‘concentration’ and ‘exaltation’, and the qualities be assimilated to the ornaments or figures instead of forming a separate category. He calls ‘developed meaning’ essential in literature and this would partly cover at least two of the traditional qualities: it is simply part of artha in general. In Bhāmaha’s theory, then, it appears everything in literature is brought under his general principles of ‘expression’, ‘meaning’, ‘beauty’ (alamkāra) and ‘curvedness’.

Ānandavardhana’s (ninth century) theory of indirectness or indirectly revealed meaning is a variation on Bhāmaha’s curvedness. He holds that in the best literature instead of direct statements (simple vācya) we find meanings ‘to be manifested’ or ‘to be revealed’, vyaṅgya, which he also calls ‘being understood’

THE THEORY OF COMPOSITION

33

pratīyamāna or ‘being implied’. Whatever meanings may appear to be stated, vācya, the reader aware of the implications of the sentence or the situation may understand something quite different. Already in the Nātyaśāstra we found that the main emotions in literature are not stated but indicated indirectly through their causes and effects. Thus Ānandavardhana holds (p. 50) that the rasa produced always results from his meaning to be revealed, not that to be stated. Then the alamkāra-s, which he takes in the restricted sense of figures of speech, are also meanings to be revealed. Thirdly the subject matter, vastu, itself may consist of meanings to be revealed, in that what the characters say may consist of indirect insinuations, equivocations and the like. In effect, Ānandavardhana has generalized the Nātyaśāstra method of presentation to apply to all the elements in literature; he has unified the theory and assimilated Bhāmaha’s curvature to the Nātyaśāstra’s indirect representation.

Kuntaka in the eleventh century revived the theory of curvedness. His analysis of literature appears to be more scientific than those of the other critics and his principles more comprehensive. He takes from linguistics the analysis of speech into a series of levels, of which he finds six: the phonetic, lexical, grammatical, sentential, contextual and compositional (pp. 14 and 29 ff.). Each level has its own specific kinds of curvedness. Thus at the phonetic level we have such effects as alliteration and rhyme (described by other critics as alamkāra-s) and other uses of sound giving beauty or

34

THE SCIENCE OF CRITICISM IN INDIA

additional expressiveness. Lexical curvedness accounts for all effects produced by choice of vocabulary. Grammatical curvedness covers variations in grammatical construction and the resulting emphasis on some aspect of the subject matter; it includes a variety of personification, when an inanimate object is made the grammatical agent in a sentence.

Under sentential curvedness we find most of the traditional alamkāra-s, to the extent that Kuntaka accepts them at all, because they are figures of complete sentences. However, Kuntaka limits the alamkāra-s to those which are strictly figures of speech, modes of expression (abhidhāprakāra, p. 174 of the edition, but not properly edited there; for a large part of Kuntaka's text we still have to go to manuscripts and quotations in other works). Therefore he rejects half the alamkāra-s accepted by Bhāmaha, mostly because they are beauties in the subject matter, not in the expression, retaining only eighteen.

Contextual curvedness is when the parts of a literary work, its 'contexts' prakarana-s, are arranged in such a way as to produce as much rasa as possible (Kuntaka everywhere emphasizes the supreme importance of rasa). For this purpose details in the source story are changed or new ones invented (for example Kālidāsa has invented the curse and Duṣyanta's loss of memory in his Abhijñānaśākuntala, which transforms the character of the hero and thereby enhances the sensitive experience). The long descriptive 'contexts' in good epics and other large kāvya-s are so

THE THEORY OF COMPOSITION

35

arranged as to develop rasa. The Nātyaśāstra method

of construction of plots, with the five conjunctions

samdhi-s, again proposes contexts capable of being

contrived to develop rasa. Likewise the acts of a play

are contexts to be arranged to suit the rasa.

Compositional curvedness considers an entire

literary work in relation to its source. Thus the main

rasa of a well-known source may be changed. A

different objective may be substituted for the hero to

attain. At this level, Kuntaka lists six dramas all on

the same story, the main story of the Rāmāyaṇa. They

are all very beautiful, yet they are quite different from

one another because, though the story appears to be

the same, they are contrived in very different ways

(presenting different scenes on the stage, changing

the characterizations, changing the significance of the

whole story and so on, by curvedness or deviation

from the source in different directions). Thus we

find the ‘beautiful expression’ vicitrā abhidhā of litera-

ture at six levels, which is everywhere ‘curved expression’

vakrokti (p. 22).

On the other side, that of the subject matter, vastu,

as opposed to the expression, Kuntaka also speaks of

curvedness (p. 134, etc.), its beauties selected by the

author or ‘imposed’ āhārya imaginatively. This is

discussed particularly in relation to the three higher

levels of expression, sentence, context and composition,

where alone complete meanings are in question. Here

also the capacity of the subject matter to produce rasa

comes in, the ‘having rasa’ of the subject matter, but

36

THE SCIENCE OF CRITICISM IN INDIA

not as an alaṁkāra. Thus all the aspects of literature

are covered.

Later in the eleventh century, Mahiman tried to

account for the same facts of literature by means of his

theory of inference, noted above in connection with

rasa. All the types of ‘to be revealed’ or ‘being

understood’ meaning discussed by Ānandavardhana

are explained by Mahiman as matters of inference in

strict logical form and he identifies the middle terms and

other necessary parts of the inference in each case.

Thus in the works of Ānandavardhana, Kuntaka and

Mahiman we find three different general theories

applied to describe the same facts, moreover often with

identical examples from literature as the evidence

which has to be explained. Thus particularly in the

case of the two eleventh century critics the theories

are elaborated to account for the facts; the examples

are not being selected to suit a preconceived theory.

For instance the following phrase is quoted by Ānanda-

vardhana from Bāṇa’s Harṣacarita:

When this great dissolution has occurred you

are now the survivor to maintain the Earth

(p. 291).

Here ‘survivor’ śeṣa is also the name of the Dragon

Śeṣa who is supposed to support the Earth. For

Ānandavardhana (pp. 297 and 528) this example

illustrates the power of a word to give a revealed meaning,

which supplants the directly stated meaning according

to his theory. Kuntaka (p. 95) takes up the same

example and describes it as lexical curvedness, the author having chosen an apt synonym among possible expressions, hinting at something other than the subject with brilliant effect. Mahiman (p. 506) instead finds in this example support for his doctrine that words have only one kind of power, śakti, to express meanings, namely simple 'expression' abhidhā (Ānandavardhana argues for three different powers, especially that of 'revealing' the 'to be revealed' meaning). Here śeṣa just expresses its meaning or meanings, directly. Anything beyond this direct expression is a matter of inference.

In the synthesis of the study of the language of literature with that of the aesthetic experience, Bhoja is the most comprehensive critic. In several ways he is the greatest Indian critic, especially for the great wealth of illustrations amassed in his works, all of which are beautiful illustrations and precisely the kind we would wish to see covered by a satisfactory theory. In a 'progressive' manner, he tries to synthesize the theories of many of his predecessors, from the Nāṭyaśāstra, Bhā-maha and Daṇḍin down to Bhatṭanāyaka, Abhinavagupta and Dhanamjaya, together with other critics whose names are not known to us. Probably he was a contemporary of Kuntaka and these two great critics did not know each other's work. In addition, Bhoja applies the linguistic science of the great grammarians, Pāṇini, Bhartṛhari and others, and the science of interpretation of the Mīmāṃsā tradition based on the Sūtra text of Jaimini.

38

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Bhoja has an analysis according to linguistic levels,

namely the word, the sentence and the composition,

prabandha. On the other hand he starts out, in his

greater work, from Bhāmaha's definition of literature

as expression and meaning combined (Śṛngāraprakāśa,

vol. I, p. 2). This combination sāhitya, he maintains,

has twelve aspects (pp. 3 and 223), which form a kind

of bridge from the study of grammar (his chs. I-VI)

to that of rasa (ch. XI).

The first four of these (ch. VII) relate to the

powers of an expression taken by itself to carry meanings.

(1) ‘Expression’ abhidhā or the basic power to express

meaning has for Bhoja three functions, vrtti-s, which

we may translate simply as primary, secondary and

tertiary (the secondary includes transfer and the like

as the basis of metaphor and so on, the tertiary is the

unexpected cases when the meaning is totally different

from the primary meaning and may even contradict

it) (pp. 223 ff.). (2) The wish of the speaker, vivakṣā,

may be clear from the intonation or in other ways

(pp. 238 ff.). (3) When the meaning of an expression

is in fact that of another expression Bhoja calls its

power ‘intention’, tātparya, under which he includes the

meaning ‘to be revealed’ of Ānandavardhana's theory

(pp. 246 ff.). (4) Analysis pravibhāga by the method of

agreement and difference has more to do with grammar

and lexicon than with literature, but it touches on

such relevant matters as synonyms (pp. 263 ff.).

The next four aspects (ch. VIII) concern expressions

when connected to other expressions. (5) The first

of these is the mutual expectancy, vyāpekṣā, between

expressions (pp. 268 ff.). (6) Capability, sāmarthya,

is the meanings of expressions having power to combine

in another meaning (pp. 284 ff.). (7) In a sentence a

series, anvaya, of expressions has a meaning (pp. 286 ff.).

(8) Unity of meaning, ekārthībhāva, includes the further

extension when a whole literary work, such as an epic,

combines into a ‘great sentence’, mahāvākya, having a

single meaning (pp. 297 ff.). As an example of this

Bhoja indicates that Kumāradāsa’s epic Jānakīharaṇa

means ‘act like Rāma, not like Rāvaṇa’.

The last four aspects (chs. IX and following) cover

the main topics of literary criticism. (9) Faults,

doṣa-s, are avoided in good literature. (10) There

are qualities, guṇa-s. (11) There are figures of speech

or ornaments, alaṃkāra-s. (12) Aesthetic experience,

rasa, is never absent. These four are applied by

Bhoja at the sentence level and again (in ch. XI) at

the level of entire compositions (the first eight aspects

variously occur at the word and sentence levels). At

the sentence level he sets out his versions of the faults,

qualities and figures mostly familiar from earlier

critics.

At the composition level Bhoja (pp. 460 ff. in

vol. II) develops his own doctrine of the avoiding of

faults in the story (p. 460), qualities of a composition

such as that it relates to the four ends of life, is contrived

with the conjunctions and other structural elements,

has appropriate metres and so on (pp. 460-1 and 470-2)

and ornaments of a composition such as descriptions

of places, times, characters, political activities and

pleasures and other special features of long kāvya-s

(pp. 461 and 471-9). These qualities and ornaments

of compositions are mostly developed from Dandin's

description of the characteristics of epic kāvya-s.

Bhoja sets out his original theory of rasa, briefly sketched

above, at the sentence level, evidently because every

sentence in a good kāvya contributes to the aesthetic

experience. At the composition level, Bhoja defines

forty-eight types or genres of literature (pp. 461-70)

in relation to rasa never being absent (p. 480) and to

the qualities and ornaments of compositions which

they may have and which serve as causes for rasa

never being absent (pp. 461, 472 and 479). Thus it is

stressed that the most important element in literary

composition is that rasa is never absent from a kāvya

and the theories of aesthetics and of composition are

unified.

In connection with kāvya being defined as expression

and meaning combined, and the various elaborations

of the definition by qualifying 'expression', 'meaning'

and 'combined' (or 'combination'), it is desirable

to add a note here on the question, sometimes raised,

whether there is anything further which might be com-

bined. There are other definitions of kāvya, some of

which might appear to propose new elements. In

the first place, Vāmana in the eighth century is the

champion of style, rīti, which Bhāmaha had dismissed

as superfluous though Kuntaka redefined the styles in

relation to his 'natural' and 'imposed' subject

matter and with an original set of qualities. Vāmana declares (p. 4) that style is the essence, ātman, of kāvya and defines style as a special arrangement of words. Is this ‘essence’ (or this ‘soul’ as some would translate ātman here) another element, with which expression and meaning might combine? Surely not, for it is defined in terms of words, pada-s, thus of expressions having meanings. Then the ‘special arrangement’ according to Vāmana is constituted by the ten qualities, redefined from those of the Nātyaśāstra. But Vāmana is so far committed to the conception of expression and meaning in kāvya that he adds the innovation of dividing each quality into two, one of expressions and one of meanings. Ānandavardhana thought that his dhvani, the ‘sound’ within kāvya which carried the ‘to be revealed’ meanings, was the essence or soul. Nevertheless he describes it in terms of the meanings revealed and it seems to inhere in the expressions used, as with the grammarians from whom the term is borrowed. Others, again, such as Rājaśekhara, have poetically and figuratively called rasa the essence or soul (of kāvya personified). But rasa is the effect of kāvya, not an element constituting it except in a metaphorical sense transferring the effect to the cause. In another sense it is part of the meaning, being produced by the subject matter effectively communicated through the expression. Thus we should beware of false analogies drawn from poetic statements. It is of course universally agreed that rasa is of the greatest importance and this, and its relationship to kāvya, have been indicated above.

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When other aspects of kāvya are called the ‘essence’ or ‘life’, such as curved expression or harmony, aucitya, it is again the expression or the meaning or their combination which is in question. We find no third element combined with expression and meaning.

IV

THE ENJOYMENT OF AN ĀKHYĀYIKA

Interesting as the general theories may be, it is the practical analysis of literary works which is the most rewarding part of criticism. We can start out from the position just reached in Bhoja’s theory, namely the forty-eight genres or divisions of literature as its highest units. From his works, supplemented by those of other critics, we could survey the whole field of kāvya as a varied collection of compositions prabandha-s which have been found beautiful.

Bhoja has first divided all prabandha-s into two classes, those to be seen, preksya, and those to be heard, śravya (p. 461). Those to be seen are further characterized as ‘ to be acted ’ abhineya, whilst those to be heard are simply ‘ not to be acted ’ anabhineya: thus we have here a proper dichotomy. Bhoja has twenty-four types in each division, introducing a slight distortion, it must be admitted, for the sake of balance. In fact rather more than twenty-four types of dramatic performance have been described, if we take all the available critical works, and Bhoja has condensed the minor types a little (in Indian Kāvya Literature, ch. V, thirty-nine types of drama were found). On the other hand

44 THE SCIENCE OF CRITICISM IN INDIA

Bhoja had some difficulty in making up a set of twenty-four types of composition not to be acted, or at least he extended the field of literature somewhat and introduced some new sub-divisions. Thus he sets up the genre parabandha for the Great Epic Mahā-bhārata (p. 470), which is generally regarded as tradition, itihāsa, rather than as kāvya, as a source of subjects for literature, though in so far as it is enjoyable and productive of rasa some of the later critics allow it to be kāvya as well. Similarly Bhoja has, as a type of kāvya, the upākhyāna, which means episodes or rather subsidiary narratives from the Mahābhārata (p. 469). Bhoja does not offer any further dichotomies but instead takes up types of composition and their characteristics as described by his predecessors as a basis. His series of types not to be acted begins with the more ‘historical’ ākhyāyikā, upākhyāna, ākhyāna, nidarśana and continues with the branches of fiction and then the divisions of poetry. He concludes by setting up a type for his own Śṛṅgāraprakāśa, as a work illuminating many branches of learning and the structure of the arts and literature in the form of a kāvya (it is also an anthology of good literature).

Taking an example from the beginning of Bhoja’s exposition, we find he mentions the Mādhavikā and Harṣacarita to illustrate the ākhyāyikā or ‘biography’ (p. 469). The first of these seems to have been lost, so we may take the second, written by Bāṇa in the seventh century. The biography, ākhyāyikā, had been described by earlier critics such as Bhāmaha

THE ENJOYMENT OF AN ĀKHYĀYIKĀ

45

(I. 25-7) and Kohala and in the Amarakośa (I. 5. 5, with

Sarvānanda's commentary, which quotes Kohala),

making clear that it narrates events which had actually

happened. Bhoja notes from his predecessors that

there is the theme of the abduction of a girl (in the

Harṣacarita this is Harṣa's sister, Rājyaśrī), then war,

reunion and the success of the hero (Harṣa rescues

his sister and the kāvya concludes by indicating his

accession to Royal Fortune). The life of the hero

is narrated either by himself or, as in this example,

by a follower of his (in his case Bāṇa, who attended

Harṣa's court). The ākhyāyikā is composed in Sanskrit

and in prose and is divided into chapters. Traditionally

it is said to contain occasional verses in the metres

vaktra and apravaktra. This is true of the Harṣacarita,

though it contains verses in other metres as well, as

Rudraṭa had noted (XVI. 24 ff.).

The style of the Harṣacarita is according to Kuntaka

the ‘beautiful’, vicitra, his redefined gauḍīya. This

agrees with Mammaṭa (end of ch. VIII) and Ruyyaka's

comments, where ākhyāyikā-s in general are found to

be ‘bold’ vikaṭa in composition and never ‘delicate’

maṣṇa even when the rasa is the sensitive. As a matter

of fact there is hardly any of the sensitive in the Harṣa-

carita: there is a certain amount of the heroic, but

the main experience appears to be the marvellous,

starting from the preliminary scene in Heaven and

hinted at in several places by the author. The history

of Harṣa is in fact extraordinary, since in his childhood

there was nothing to suggest that he was destined to

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become Emperor in another city, after the murder

of the last of the Maukhari line and of his own elder

brother. His ascetic life was dedicated to the punish-

ment of these crimes and the establishment of a rule

free from the misdeeds which history shows to be

almost inseparable from kingship. A natural, spon-

taneous style would therefore seem inappropriate.

Instead, the disciplined, studied beauties admired

here by Kuntaka are in harmony with the narrative.

Bhoja has noted (Śṛṅgāraprakāśa, vol. II. pp. 472

and 475) some of his ornaments of a composition in

this ākhyāyikā. Thus it opens with a ‘salutation’

(to Śiva). There is a fine description of Harṣa's

riding-elephant Darpaśāta. Then the youth of a

prince is described. As a matter of fact Harṣa is

extremely young in the crucial part of his life presented

in this biography and is not more than sixteen even

at the end of the narrative, but in Chapter IV there

are passages describing his childhood. What for Bhoja

is an ornament of a composition is for Kuntaka ‘con-

textual curvedness’. The latter has noted a variety

of this in the repeated but varied descriptions of sunrise,

or the end of night (Adyar transcript of the Vakrokti-

jīvita, p. 218). The Jaina critic Vinayacandra has

quoted (pp. 62 ff.) a series of brilliant descriptions from

the Harṣacarita to illustrate an author's skill in describing

the world. These include the description of Harṣa

himself in chapter II, that of the last illness of his

father in chapter V, the marvellous description of

the march of the army in chapter VII and Rājyaśrī's

THE ENJOYMENT OF AN ĀKHYĀYIKĀ

47

preparations for suicide and rescue by Harṣa in

chapter VIII.

We can best illustrate Bāṇa's style in this work,

and his powers of observation and presentation, by

quoting from some of these passages selected by Vina-

yacandra. In a single sentence the army is roused

from its sleep and in a great confusion of noisy incidents

begins its march:

Then as the drums were crying out, the

benedictory drums were sounding, the

kettle drums were roaring, the cocks were

crowing, the conches were being blown, the

hubbub of the camp was gradually

increasing, all the house-servants were

busily engaged in their customary tasks,

the directions were held in the clamour

of tent pegs meeting the blows of rapid

mallets, the companies of soldiers were

being awakened by their officers, the dark-

ness of the night was being plundered by the

light of thousands of torches which people

had lit, loving couples were being made to

get up by the prodding of the feet of the

maids of the watch, elephant drivers were

opening their eyes as their sleep was

destroyed by sharp and pungent commands

. . . . tents, screens, marquees, curtains and

awnings were being rolled up into bags by

the quartermasters, short-necked leather

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bags were being filled with bundles of pegs,

the storekeepers were loading supplies, near-

by houses were being hemmed in by treasure

jars and strings of caskets being loaded on

numerous stationary animals by the elephant

drivers, vicious elephants were being loaded

with sets of equipment put on by skilful slaves

keeping at a distance . . . stocks of fodder and

grain were being plundered by the common

local people who had run up when the

elephants and horses moved off, donkeys

with oil presses mounted on them were

moving on, the roads were being seized and

bounded by swarms of wagons noisy with the

squeaking of wheels, the oxen were charged

with supplies being unexpectedly thrown

on them, strong bullocks sent on first

lingerred from greed to get the nearby

fodder, the kitchens of the great vassals were

proceeding in front, the ways out through

the spaces between the huts were hemmed

in, being possessed by the cheers of hundreds

of friends of the banner-brigades hurrying

out in front, nearby witnesses were being

retained by elephant keepers who were

being pelted with clods by people getting

out of huts shaken by the feet of elephants,

poor families were fleeing from huts which

vicious beasts were splitting as they

crashed into them, merchants were roused as

oxen with their wealth were running away

in distress at the uproar . . . the world was

eating dust, at the time of marching . . .

(pp. 311-6).

King Prabhākaravardhana’s illness :

. . . the household staff busy preparing

reserves of medicines, the terrible thirst

of the sick man inferred from the repeated

summoning of the water carriers, watered

buttermilk being chilled in a cooler packed

in ice, a spatula being cooled in camphor

powder put in a white moistened cloth,

a mouthful of sour cream in a new box

smeared with a non-drying paste, soft lotus

stalks covered with wet and tender lotus

leaves, vessels of drinking water on the

ground with their water pervaded by

bunches of blue water-lilies on their stalks,

boiled water being made cool by pouring it

in a stream, a sharp fragrance of pink sugar

being diffused, the eyes of the sick man

resting on a cooler full of sand placed in

a trough . . . (p. 230).

Several critics have quoted sentences from the

Harṣacarita to illustrate figures of speech. Thus Kuntaka

quotes (p. 193) for ‘fancy’:

Mandākinī (the river of heaven), Chief

Queen of the King of the Seven Oceans,

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was . . . as if the casting off of the slough

of the celestial snake (p. 29).

The critic quotes this again (Adyar transcript, p. 191)

for compounding of figures, in this case fancy and .

metaphor. The fancy partakes of the nature of metaphor

because there is no actual movement to be expressed

by ‘ casting off’.

Ānandavardhana quotes (p. 245) a pun which

‘reveals’ a contradiction (one figure revealing another) :

Where the women were walking like

elephants and virtuous, pale and loving

wealth, dark and wearing rubies, their

mouths bright with white teeth and exhaling

the fragrance of wine (p. 144).

The second meaning is:

Where the women were going to the

cemetery keepers and virtuous, Gaurīs and

not loving Śiva, dark and the colour of red

lotuses, their mouths pure like excellent

brahmans and exhaling the fragrance of

wine.

With this series of contradictions revealed by puns,

Ānandavardhana contrasts (p. 246) a sentence which

has either a direct contradiction or a direct pun, not

one revealing the other:

Sarasvatī . . . is as if a combination of con-

tradictory categories, for she has nightfall

near the form of the Sun (p. 42).

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51

The pun is on the word bāla, so that instead of ‘nightfall’

we can understand ‘the darkness of her hair’.

Mahiman also quotes some of Bāṇa’s puns, for

example (p. 401):

Mighty Time, called ‘Summer’, yawned

with a loud laugh, white as blossoming

jasmines, curbing the yoke of Spring

(p. 69).

Mahākāla also means ‘Śiva’ and in the epithets

common to Time and Śiva we also have condensed

expression, samāsokti.

Bāṇa’s puns are balanced by straightforward

descriptions, as we have seen, and Mammata (p. 446,

Dvivedi’s ed.) and Mahiman (p. 454) have quoted

two verses of naturalistic description, svabhāvokti, depict-

ing a horse awakening, scratching the earth with its

hoof and rubbing its eye with it and so on (p. 136).

According to Kuntaka, in this ‘beautiful’ style

figures of speech are used in a particular way (p. 61):

So tell us which country, reduced to demerit

through his coming here, has been pervaded

by the anguish of absence and brought

to emptiness? Or where is he going? Or

who is this youth who, like another Kāma,

has carried off the egoism of Śiva’s defiance?

Or of what father, whose asceticism has

flourished, does he delight the heart, raining

ambrosia, as the kaustubha gem that of Viṣṇu?

Or who is his mother, hailed by the Three

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Worlds, like the dawn (bringing forth) a great brilliance? Or which syllables share the merit of composing his fame? (pp.38-9).

The first sentence here, equivalent to ‘Where has he come from?’, and the last, equivalent to ‘What is his name?’, have the lustre of the figure ‘praise of what is not the subject’ aprastutapraśamsā. It is really Dadhica who is being praised, although his country and the syllables are the subjects of the sentences.

Bhoja has illustrated his aspect of the combination of expression and meaning called the ‘wish of the speaker’ vivakṣā from the above context (Śṛṅgāraprakāśa, vol. I, p. 239). Dadhīca’s companion Vikukṣi when replying mentions his own name too, but very modestly:

mām api tasyaiva sugṛhītanāmno devasya bhrtyaparamāmum Vikukṣināmānam avadhārayatu bhavatī.

The apt selection of a word (śeṣa) by Bāṇa in this kāvya, discussed by Ānandavardhana, Kuntaka and Mahiman, has been noted above.

Thus to facilitate our enjoyment of this biography the critics have drawn attention to the way in which Bāṇa has composed it, from the selection of words and the manner of using figures, up through the descriptions of scenes in the narrative to its overall style, appropriate to the subject matter, and the characteristic features of the genre ākhyāyikā. Some of their more general appreciation might be added, such as that of Soddhala.

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53

This eleventh century novelist declares that Bāṇa is 'emperor ' of authors because of his Harṣacarita (p. 154; as the hero became emperor of men, so the author narrating this became emperor of writers). Soḍdhala maintains that Bāṇa combines the separate excellences of Abhinanda, Vākpatirāja and Kālidāsa, which are 'expression', 'meaning' and rasa (p. 157).

V

THE ENJOYMENT OF A PLAY

Bhoja has compiled his description of the twenty-

four types of kāvya ‘to be acted’ from the Nāṭyaśāstra

and some other old source and does not there give ex-

amples. The nāṭaka stands first and elsewhere Bhoja has

referred to and quoted from many nāṭaka-s to illustrate

all aspects of critical theory. Among the most promi-

nent of his examples of nāṭaka-s is Bhavabhūti’s Uttararāmacarita,

which he refers to particularly for the aesthetic

experience and the emotions related to it. We need

not here go through all the characteristics of a nāṭaka

taken by Bhoja from the Nāṭyaśāstra and look for them

in this play; the most essential will suffice and we can

take some help also from some of the other critics in

relation to them.

A nāṭaka is a play in from five to ten acts (meaning

from five to ten nights’ performance), with all five

conjunctions inits plot, based on a well-known prakhyāta,

story. That the story is well known does not mean

that the dramatist invents nothing, as we have seen

already from Kuntaka’s explanation of compositional

curvedness (six different plays on Rāma; in the present

instance we have a different part of Rāma’s life staged).

Bahurūpamiśra points out (on Dhanamjaya I. 15) that

THE ENJOYMENT OF A PLAY

55

in the Uttararāmacarita the story, itivrtta, is only partly well known and partly invented, utpādya. Kṣemendra (Aucityavicāracarcā, pp. 16-7) quotes from its fourth act to illustrate the appropriateness in a composition that a new fancy, not in the original Rāmāyana, has been introduced, which enhances the beauty of the aesthetic experience through Rāma's son Lava following his father's valour: this is the scene where Lava takes possession of Rāma's sacrificial horse, released for the aśvamedha, and defies the soldiers supposed to guard it, whom he then proceeds to fight and defeat. Bahu-

rūpamiśra also notes (on Dhanamjaya IV, 46 f.) that in Bhavabhūti's works we have examples of rasa produced by complete compositions, not just in single sentences. There is in other words a unity of aesthetic experience. In fact all the rasa-s are touched on in this play, but the others are subordinated to the main one. Kuntaka (pp. 238-9) states that this main rasa is the sensitive, śṛṅgāra, having been changed from the calmed, śānta, of the Rāmāyaṇa (Uttara Kāṇḍa). by compositional curvedness.

Bhoja has many comments on the sensitive and the corresponding emotion, love, rati, in this play, also on the closely related emotion, in his theory, affection, which relates especially to friendships. Thus when Rāma and Sītā look at the paintings, in Act I, they remember their happiness together even in the forest in exile. This develops the emotion of love and the consequent sensitive, in the state of union sambhoga (Śṛṅgāraprakāśa, vol. II, p. 557, etc., Dhanika, p. 105).

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After this Sītā is drowsy and Rāma makes her sleep, resting against him, thus further developing the same rasa. Rāmacandra and Gunacandra (p. 28) here make the interesting comment that the convention of not showing anything ‘disgusting’ jugupsanīya in the theatre· has been broken by Bhavabhūti. Going to bed or going to sleep, as well as embracing, are usually not shown because of this convention, but in this case the unconventional scene of Sītā and Rāma lying down together and Sītā sleeping, resting on his chest, is not a fault because it serves the plot and is delightful. Conventions, then, are not absolute in the classical Indian theatre; it is a question of what is appropriate.

Rāma reflects on his happiness and their love, ripened over a long time, and Bhoja quotes this verse (I. 39) for love absorbing all other emotions into itself and ripening into rasa (Śṛṅgāraprakāśa, vol. II, pp. 436-7). All this development prepares the audience to respond fully to the agony of the separation of Sītā and Rāma which follows immediately. Then in Act VI when Rāma sees Lava and Kuṣa, not knowing who the boys are, he is strongly affected because their faces remind him of Sītā. This prepares the way for bringing her back to him in Act. VII. Though Bhoja’s comments on ‘affection’ mostly relate to Rāma’s affection for his friends and to the affection which spontaneously arises between Lava and Lakṣmaṇa’s son Candraketu (who again do not know each other), as well as Lava’s unexpected feelings on seeing Rāma, it is also a part of Rāma’s feeling for Sītā:

THE ENJOYMENT OF A PLAY

57

She is Fortune in my house, she is a brush

of ambrosia for my eyes,

this touch of hers is an abundant sandal-

wood juice on my body,

This arm round my neck is a cool, fine string

of pearls:

what of hers is not dear? Unless it is

unbearable separation (I. 38).

This verse is quoted by Bhoja for both ‘affection’

(vol. III, p. 750) and ‘love’ (vol. II, p. 558).

Since this is essentially a play about dharma,

virtue or duty in the Brahmanical sense, Rāma always

doing his duty as king regardless of his personal feelings,

Bhoja refers to it for his special theory of varieties of

the sensitive depending on the four ends of life and

among them the sensitive in virtue, dharmasṛṅgāra. This is

found by Bhoja already in the scene of the gallery of

paintings, where Rāma finds charming aspects even

of the scenes of his exile (vol. III, p. 709), the exile

which was an effect of his virtue. Then Bhoja quotes

the verse:

Harder than a thunderbolt and softer than a

flower,

Who is worthy to know the hearts of those

who transcend the world? (II. 7)

And comments that this shows the firm and exalted

hero in the sensitive in virtue, who is not overcome by

emotions because of his deep disposition and his nobility

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(vol. III, p. 708). Rāma is capable of the dēepest love, yet he is also capable of banishing Sītā for the

sake of his duty to satisfy public opinion. In spite of this, or as a contrast which heightens it, Bhoja also

finds the sensitive in pleasure, kāmaśṛṅgāra (vol. III, p. 759), in the scene in the gallery of paintings where

Rāma is reflecting on his happiness after Sītā falls asleep (I. 35).

In subordination to the main emotion, Bhoja points out many others which occur in this play: the

transients, remembrance (vol. II, p. 583), bewilderment, moha (p. 589), depression (p. 591), reflection

(p. 571), joy, harṣa (p. 566), envy (p. 585), indifference (p. 595); also the ‘expressive’ sāttvika emotions,

paralysis, stambha (p. 574) and horripilation (p. 567).

But all the other ‘main’ emotions, sthāyibhāva-s, occur also, though of course subordinate here to love. Bhoja

points out examples of grief (p. 444), disgust (p. 594) and astonishment (p. 572). The aesthetic experiences

resulting from these emotions are all developed at times. For example, when Lava expresses his feelings

on seeing Rāma(VI.11), Bhoja (p. 451) finds a mixture of rasa-s, of the kind in which one extinguishes others,

as in a painting where strong colours extinguish weak colours. Here the rasa-s, heroic, vīra, proud, uddhata

(a new rasa peculiar to Bhoja’s theory) and independent, svātantrya (also new) are extinguished by the excess

of astonishment, vismaya (which produces the marvellous rasa). The development of disgust, jugupsā, is remark-

able in this play, because it always results from Rāma

doing his duty. Rāma himself expresses disgust when

he has given the order for Sītā’s banishment (I. 49),

as Bhoja notes (p. 594). Then similarly he expresses

his disgust at having to kill the harmless Śambūka

(II. 10). Then Vāsantī reproaches Rāma (lII. 26)

for banishing Sītā after all his previous declarations of

love and here Bhoja (p. 594) finds disgust in the

‘increasing ’ stage (where it produces the horrific

bībhatsa rasa; the Sāhityamīmāṃsā, p. 72, quotes this

verse for bībhatsa).

Despite the originality of its construction, the Uttara-

rāmacarita exemplifies the structure of a nāṭaka with the

five conjunctions, samdhi-s, their limbs or parts and

other dramatic elements. Dhanika (p. 23) points

out two limbs, aṅga-s, of the obstacle, avamarśa, conjunc-

tion in Acts V and VI, in the fight between Lava and

Candraketu. This is the decisive situation in the plot

which might have ended in disaster, leaving no possibility

of reunion between Rāma and Sītā (which of course

is the objective of the play). Instead the antagonism

is resolved in a fortunate way which leads to the restora-

tion of Sītā. Bhoja points out a number of the dramatic

characteristics, lakṣaṇa-s, including a moment of humour

parihāsa (pp. 543-4), by way of relief from the prevailing

suffering of the hero and heroine, when Tamasā teases

Sītā for praising herself (though unintentionally).

Dhanika, Śāradātanaya (p. 280), Siṃhabhūpāla (pp. 74,

211-2, etc.) and others have pointed out various other

elements of dramatic construction which are very

effective in this play.

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Turning from the dramatic structure to the more general theory of composition, we find that Bhoja has illustrated some of his ornaments of a composition from this play. A verse in the painting gallery scene describing Hanumant is said (p. 467) to be a 'sub-plot' patākā used as such an ornament. This cannot of course refer to any sub-plot in the play itself, but belongs to the previous story of Rāma's war with Rāvaṇa. Probably precisely for this reason it is here simply an 'ornament', not part of the dramatic structure. The description of the princes in Acts IV, etc., is again an ornament of the composition (p. 475). The 'sentence of the actor' bharatavākya and final benediction at the end of the play, is in addition an ornament of a composition, according to Bhoja (p. 474), one which indicates the intention of the author through expressing the wish for an object connected with virtue, dharma.

Kuntaka finds examples here of his contextual curvedness (pp. 226-7, 235). In the painting gallery scene, one painting shows Rāma receiving the divine jrmbhaka missiles from Viśvāmitra after killing Tāṭakā. Seeing this, Rāma expresses to the pregnant Sītā the wish that these divine missiles should attend on her off spring. Kuntaka points out that Lava uses these missiles in the fight in Act V. Since no one but Rāma had these missiles, as Sumantra remarks to Candraketu during the fight, they serve to identify his sons thus endowed through his wish. Thus the two contexts, in Acts I and V, are linked. The play within a play, garbhañka, in Act VII is another of Kuntaka's varieties

of contextual curvedness. Bhoja also notes it (vol. I, p. 120), as exemplifying the possibility of a composition within another composition. In this connection it may be noted that Bhoja (Sarasvatīkanṭhābharana, p. 742) finds in this play an example of a single sentence which is equivalent to a whole composition (I. 23). It summarises the story of Bhagīratha and according to Bhoja it contains all the five conjunctions of a complete plot.

At the sentence level, Bhoja notes various figures of speech, including ‘being reminded’ smaraṇa (p. 375), where Rāma in Act II recognizes the scene of his exile. As usual, even in such small details Bhoja picks examples which are significant for the play as a whole. He finds this figure again in Act III where Rāma recognizes the touch of the invisible Sītā (p. 376). Vāmana (IV. 3. 6) has quoted the verse translated above ‘She is Fortune, etc.’ (I. 38) for metaphor.

Further to his study of sentences, Bhoja has derived from the Mīmāṃsā and the Vākyapadīya a set of forty-eight principles or qualities in a sentence, vākyadharma-s. He introduces these (in Śṛṅgāraprakāśa ch. IX) as a sort of transition from his first eight aspects of the combination of expression and meaning to the last four, from the more linguistic to the purely literary. They might be regarded as features of ‘sentences less general than their aspects considered earlier but more general than the qualities, guṇa-s, and ornaments considered afterwards. Bhoja has illustrated most of these from kāvya-s, showing how literature uses the

same means of expression as the Veda, but in its own way. Thus for secondary meaning, gauna, he quotes (p. 309) the verse ‘She is Fortune, etc.’. In a sentence this principle or quality of secondary meaning forms the basis for the ornament metaphor.

For the principle or quality of a sentence, ‘implication’ vākyārthesa, where something further has to be understood to complete the sense, Bhoja quotes (p. 324) a verse we have referred to above for ‘disgust’, where Vāsantī reproaches Rāma, which we may now translate:

‘You are my life, you are my second heart, you are the moonlight of my eyes, you are the ambrosia to my body’

—And so on; after humouring the innocent girl with hundreds of endearments that very one was . . . Hush! Or rather what reply is there to this? (III. 26)

We understand that Sītā was banished, which Vāsantī considers too horrible to say. Thus again a principle of interpretation used in establishing the details of the Vedic sacrifice has been exploited in literature for a dramatic effect. Another principle of a sentence illustrated by Bhoja (p. 316) from this play is ‘induction’ ūha in its Mīmāṃsā sense. The verse IV. 20, describing the appearance of Lava as a student, is used also in the Mahāvīracarita (I. 18) to describe Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa when they were students, with only one word modified to make it refer to two persons instead

of one. In Jainini, ūha is used for the modification

of a ritual act to suit a different context.

According to Kuntaka (end of ch. I) the style of

Bhavabhūti's verses is the 'beautiful' victra. Pre-

sumably this would not apply to the prose, which is

generally simpler (and does not resemble Bāna's);

thus this style might here be regarded as a feature of

sentences (verses) rather than of the whole composition.

At the word level Bhoja illustrates (Śṛṅgāraprakāśa,

vol. I, p. 231) a variety of the secondary function of

expression, abhidhā, namely 'transfer', upacāra, from

this play. Rāma expresses his disgust at having to

kill Śambūka. Referring to his hand about to strike,

he says: 'You are a limb of Rāma, who was able to

banish Sītā' (II. 10). The word 'Rāma' here,

according to Bhoja, thus takes on the special sense of

'most pitiless'. For a variety of mutual expectancy,

vyapekṣā, between words Bhoja quotes yet again (p. 280)

the verse 'She is Fortune, etc.'. Here the normal

expectancy between some of the words is not satisfied

because their primary senses are not possible; therefore

we understand them in secondary senses.

So here again we discover from the critics how a

kāvya was enjoyed, in its details as well as as a whole.

It is not difficult, surely, to enjoy Bhavabhūti's plays,

but we can get still more enjoyment when our atten-

tion is drawn to some of the finer details of the con-

struction of a drama. The novelist Dhanapāla (tenth

century) has compared Bhavabhūti's speech with an

actress, moving with beautiful arrangements of words

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THE SCIENCE OF CRITICISM IN INDIA

(steps) and making the emotions and aesthetic experiences clear (Tilakamañjari, introd. verse 30). Thus he points to the beauty of composition and the powerful depiction of emotion by Bhavabhūti and the harmony between these two.

VI

CONCLUSION

Our sketch of criticism in India is very incomplete, selecting just a few interesting points and avoiding a mass of detail. It is an attempt at characterization from a few samples. The critics have analysed the corpus of kāvya in several ways, according to genre or type of composition, to construction (dramatic construction, which we have hardly touched on, and which was extended in principle to all literature), to emotion and aesthetic experience and to composition in the more linguistic sense of building up sentences and so on. The dichotomy of genres into ‘to be acted’ and ‘not to be acted’ is generally a strict one, though it has sometimes been infringed (is anything absolute in art?), as in the performance of campū-s as dramatic monologues. That between fictitious subject matter and non-fictitious (well-known) is only one of degree though it is convenient to distinguish historical plays as nāṭaka-s from fictitious plays as prakaraṇa-s, prose biographies, ākhyāyikā-s, from novels, kathā-s, and so on. Daṇḍin’s division into verse, prose and mixed (mixed includes especially drama, as well as campū) is obvious and apparently simple, but full of irregularities. There are rough divisions according to length, generally

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THE SCIENCE OF CRITICISM IN INDIA

observed by writers for practical reasons. Divisions by style could not be maintained by the critics, because styles kept changing, though sometimes they arise from a deeper principle akin to genre and harmonize with the Nāṭyaśāstra's division of dramas into ‘violent’ āviddha and ‘delicate’ sukumāra. The possibility of a division by rasa-s, which appears in the earliest account of drama and seems to have been an ancient tendency in the theatre, was not followed up. On the contrary the richness of mingling many rasa-s, though with one dominant, was preferred. Plays with specialized rasa-s thus continued only in a relatively minor position: heroic plays, utsṛṣṭikāṅka-s, compassionate (or tragic) plays, vyāyoga-s, comic plays, prahasana-s, furious plays, dima-s, and the nāṭikā as a sensitive play.

On the other hand the theory of composition increasingly takes rasa as its starting point, not a particular rasa but rasa in general as the aim of any literary work. The composition, prabandha, as a whole has rasa as its most essential characteristic and its qualities and ornaments are such as help to produce rasa. Similarly, compositional curvedness is the pursuit of rasa and the best authors have sought also to produce rasa in every context. These structural contexts are various. There are cantos, chapters and acts, but discussion is more often directed to somewhat smaller segments, namely the descriptive passages and the motifs used in dramatic construction, such as the supernatural missiles in the Uttararāmacarita or the ring in the Puṣpadūṣitaka. More important than any of these is the

purely dramatic construction of plots articulated into conjunctions, sandhi-s. These are not segments of text, however, like acts, but situations in the plot, though of course they can be located in the text. Each of the five conjunctions is divisible into up to a dozen or more ‘limbs’ or parts, aṅga-s, which again are not segments of text but incidents in the dramatic situation usually expressed in pieces of dialogue. Along with these, we have here also disregarded the numerous other elements of dramatic construction, including the characteristics, lakṣaṇa-s, ‘other conjunctions’, vithyaṅga-s, lāsyaṅga-s śilpakāṅga-s and several other sets on which dramatists were found to have drawn in developing their plots with appropriate and sufficient action. Even the four modes, vṛtti-s, of stage business, which are largely non-textual in that they relate to gesture, facial expression, costume and props as well as speech, are identified by implication with reference to the texts of plays and four ‘limbs’ are found for each.

Coming back to the theory of composition, at the levels of sentence, word and phoneme (also the grammatical and lexical when separately distinguished) the critics have a great variety of instruments of analysis, including qualities of style and ornaments or figures of speech. These features also, when used by authors of genius, may all be significant in contributing to the total aesthetic effect of a kāvya.

Bhoja in particular has explored thoroughly the relationship between language and literature, whereby

68 THE SCIENCE OF CRITICISM IN INDIA

literature seems to arise out of language by extension, by variation of the possibilities of combination of expression with meaning. He has elaborated this linguistic analysis further by working in the principles of interpretation of the Vedic Mīmāṃsā. One can see in all this a striving for the unification of theory. A concept which explains a wide range of phenomena would seem to be a powerful one and to go deep into the nature of language or expression, including art.

Whatever the enrichment of theory, the aim of criticism remains simply the enjoyment of literature. Though one may take pleasure in the successful development of a theory, and Bhoja himself claimed that his own illumination of many branches of learning was a kāvya, the point of a critic's work is that when applied to a particular piece of literature it facilitates our getting enjoyment from it. All the critics are agreed that the main function of literature is to give delight and that this delight comes essentially in the form of rasa.

Finally we may return to the general characterization of Indian literary criticism and the question whether it is a science. So far we seem to have found that it is a science, but we can now take the discussion a little further.

Indian literary criticism is in the main empiricist. There may be a few exceptions, but the critics we have referred to are all empiricists. As in the case of linguistics in India, the main tradition of criticism is based on the study of texts and describes what is found in them. Criticism attempts to ascertain why certain

kāvya-s are considered beautiful, how they affect an audience or a reader. The theories proposed are based on the facts of literature. They are established on the basis of quotations and references and an acceptable theory must be capable of explaining or describing whatever is generally accepted as beautiful. Thus we find the same works referred to and the same passages quoted by different critics, all of whom attempt to explain the beauty in terms of their own theories and thus to prove that their theories are general and have explanatory power. As the grammarians studied language in general, so the critics studied the special language of literature and offered descriptions of it, which could, in a broad sense, be called ‘grammars’ and which shared the characteristics of the Sanskrit grammars, namely of scientific description.

Literary criticism in India is an autonomous, independent science. It does not depend on religion or on any other extraneous authority. Incidentally it is thus also secular. The critics in fact held a variety of religious and philosophical opinions, which did not prevent them from contributing to the common field of criticism and developing each other’s views on the basis of the principles of criticism itself. Bhāmaha was a Buddhist; his commentator Udbhaṭa appears from Jaina references to have been a Lokāyatika; Kuntaka who developed Bhāmaha’s theory further was a Kāśmīra Śaiva. All this seems to have no bearing on their work as critics. Daṇḍin certainly favoured Brāhmanism and in his novel Avantisundarī, at least,

shows no sympathy at all with the ethical ideals of

Buddhism. But the best commentator on his critical

work Kāvyalaksana is the Buddhist Ratnaśrījñāna, and

the work was translated by Buddhists into Tibetan

and adapted by them in Pāli in Ceylon. The fact

that the greatest critics of Kaśmīra were Śaiva-s of

the Pratyabhijñā school peculiar to that country was

no obstacle to their appreciation outside. There is of

course an exception to all this in the Vaiṣṇava devotional

school of Rūpa Gosvāmin, but that is a secondary

movement in recent times which does not affect the

main tradition of criticism. The principles of literary

criticism in the main tradition are derived from literature

itself, from what authors do and what readers enjoy.

Indian criticism aims to set up general principles

and definitions. These are always subject to improve-

ment. This improvement represents a kind of progress

in the science, such as is characteristic of all sciences.

We see a cumulative process as successive critics add

to the analysis and the theories. The theory of com-

position develops from Yāska through the Nāṭyaśāstra

doctrine of the language of the theatre to Bhāmaha

and on to Kuntaka and Bhoja. Similarly the theory

of aesthetics develops from the Nāṭyaśāstra to Lollaṭa

and others and reaches a culminating point in Abhinava-

gupta. These two departments of theory, having

met in practice in the Nāṭyaśāstra, were increasingly

brought into organic relationship with each other,

merging into a single theory with rasa as the basic

principle underlying expression. Bhoja's entire work

is a grand synthesis of almost all previous criticism,

combined with linguistics and the theory of interpreta-

tion (Mīmāṃsā) in a more general theory and propound-

ed as an elaboration of Bhāmaha’s simple definition

of literature as beautiful expression and meaning

combined. The beauty, according to Bhoja, is that

rasa is never absent. Even this was not the end of the

development and further progress was always possible,

though recent centuries do not seem to have been as

creative in this field as the times of the critics we have

mentioned. The next step was to attempt a synthesis

of Bhoja and Kuntaka, which was done by the author

(unidentified as yet) of the Sāhityamīmāṃsā, ‘Investiga-

tion of Composition’. He adopted Bhoja’s twelve

aspects of composition but preferred Kuntaka’s method

of eliminating apparently redundant elements from

the mass of doctrines which had come down. Thus he

reduced Kuntaka’s set of figures of speech still further,

from eighteen to ten, said to include all others except

those which were not figures at all.

The study is objective, which follows from its

being empiricist but has a further positive aspect. The

aim is to be able to say that a particular piece of litera-

ture is objectively beautiful. ‘Beautiful’ may be

taken as equivalent to producing aesthetic effect,

producing rasa. This objectivity directly contradicts

one view which is quite strong in Europe, namely that

the appreciation of art and literature is essentially

subjective, that nothing is objectively beautiful and

that criticism consists only of what people say in

72 THE SCIENCE OF CRITICISM IN INDIA

reaction to art, their purely subjective reactions. In the Indian tradition, on the other hand, literature which is rasavant, 'having aesthetic experience', is objectively found to produce such experience in readers or audiences. Though tastes do vary, there is enough common ground to establish that certain kāvya-s are beautiful, objectively. Criticism in India has been not just a matter of saying 'I like this' but of finding out why people enjoy something and what it is, objectively, that they enjoy.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

(showing editions referred to)

Adhinanda: Rāmacarita, ed. Rāmasvāmin, Gaekwad's Oriental Series, Baroda, 1930.

Abhinavagupta: Abhinavabhāratī, Commentary on the Nātyaśāstra, edited with the text by M. R. Kavi and others in 4 volumes, Gaekwad's Oriental Series, Baroda, 1926-64 (using the second edition of Vol. I, 1956). See also R. Gnoli, The Aesthetic Experience According to Abhinavagupta, Serie Orientale Roma, Rome, 1956, who first proposed 'aesthetic experience' as the best equivalent for rasa.

Amarakoṣa with Sarvānanda's Commentary, ed. Ganapati, Trivandrum Sanskrit Series, Trivandrum, 1914-7.

Ānandavardhana: Dhvanyāloka, ed. Paṭṭābhirāma, Kashi Sanskrit Series, Benares, 1940.

Bahurūpamiśra: Dīpikā Commentary on Dhananjaya's Daśarūpaka, Trivandrum Manuscript, 1658 (University of Kerala).

Bhāmaha: Kāvyālankāra, ed. Baṭukanāthaśarman and Baladevopādhyāya, Kashi Sanskrit Series, Varanasi, 1928.

Bhoja: Sarasvatīkanṭhābharaṇa, ed. Kedāranāthaśarman and Vāsudevaśarman, Kāvyamālā, Bombay, second edition 1934.

Bhoja: Śṛṅgāraprakāśa, ed. Josyer in 4 volumes, Coronation Press, Mysore, 1955-75. See also V. Raghavan, Bhoja's Śṛṅgāraprakāśa, published by the author, Madras, 1963.

Dāmodaragupta: Kuṭṭanīmata, ed. M. Kaul, Bibliotheca Indica, Calcutta, 1944.

Daṇḍin: Kāvyalaksana, ed. with Ratnaśrījñāna's Commentary by A. Thakur and Upendra Jha, Mithila Institute, Darbhanga, 1957.

74 THE SCIENCE OF CRITICISM IN INDIA

Dhanamjaya: Daśarūpaka, ed. with Dhanika’s Commentary by Parab, Nirṇaya Sagara Press, Bombay, fifth edition, 1941.

Dhanapāla: Tilakamañjarī, ed. Bhavadatta and Parab, Kāvyamālā, Bombay, second edition, 1938.

Dhanika (See under Dhanamjaya).

Frye, N.: Anatomy of Criticism, rep., Atheneum, New York, 1969.

Hari Chand: Kālidāsa et l’art poètique de l’Inde, Champion, Paris, 1917.

Harṣacarita of Bāṇa, ed. Śūranāḍ Kuñjan Pillai, Trivandrum Sanskrit Series, Trivandrum, 1958.

Indian Kāvya Literature by A. K. Warder, Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, in progress, Vol. I 1972, Vol. II 1974, Vol. III 1977.

Jalhaṇa: Sūktimuktāvalī, ed. E. Krishnamachariar, Gaekwad’s Oriental Series, Baroda, 1938.

Kṣemendra: Aucityavicāracarcā, included in Minor Works of Kṣemendra, ed. Rāghavācārya and Padhye, Osmania University, Hyderabad, 1961.

Kṣemīśvara: Naiṣadhānanda, still in manuscript, an edition is being prepared in Madras.

Kuntaka: Vakroktijīvita, partly edited by S. K. De, Mukhopadhyay, Calcutta, third edition, 1961; Adyar Transcript TR 398.

Mahāvīracarita of Bhavabhūti, ed. Todar Mall, Panjab University Oriental Publications, Oxford University Press, London, 1928.

Mahīman: Vyaktiviveka, ed. Dwivedi, Kashi Sanskrit Series, Varanasi, 1964.

Mālatīmādhava of Bhavabhūti, ed. with the Commentary of Pūrṇasarasvatī by Mahādeva, Rāmasvāmin and others, Trivandrum Sanskrit Series, Trivandrum, 1953.

Mammaṭa: Kāvyaprakāśa, ed. with Ruyyaka's Commentary, etc., by R. C. Dwivedi, Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, in 2 volumes, 1966-70.

Meghasandeśa of Kālidāsa, ed. R. V. Krishnamachariar with Pūrṇasarasvatī's Commentary, Sri Vani Vilas Press, Srīrangam, 1909; ed. Hultzsch with Vallabhadeva's Commentary, Royal Asiatic Society, London, 1911; ed. M. R. Kale with Mallinātha's Commentary, Booksellers' Publishing Company, Bombay, fifth edition, no date.

Naṭāṅkuśa, anon., transcript from the Sanskrit College, Trippunithura.

Nātyaśāstra, see under Abhinavagupta.

Rājaśekhara: Kāvyamīmāṃsā, ed. Dalal and R. A. Sastry, Gaekwad's Oriental Series, Baroda, third edition, 1934.

Rāmacandra and Guṇacandra: Nāṭyadarpaṇa, ed. Shri-gondekar and Gandhi, Gaekwad's Oriental Series, Baroda, second edition, 1959.

Rudraṭa: Kāvyālaṃkāra, ed. Durgāprasāda and Vāsudevaśarman, Kāvyamālā, Bombay, third edition, 1928.

Sāgaranandin: Nāṭakalakṣaṇaratnakośa, ed. Dillon, Oxford University Press, London, 1937.

Sāhityamīmāṃsā, Trivandrum Sanskrit Series, Trivandrum, 1934.

Śāradātanaya: Bhāvaprakāśana, ed. Yadugiriyati and Ramasvamin, Gaekwad's Oriental Series, Baroda, 1930.

Śārṅgadhara: Paddhati, ed. Peterson, Bombay Sanskrit Series, 1888.

Simhabhūpāla: Rasārṇavasudhākara, ed. Gaṇapati, Trivandrum Sanskrit Series, Trivandrum, 1916.

Soḍḍhala: Udayasundarī, ed. Dalal and E. Krishnamachariar, Gaekwad's Oriental Series, Baroda, 1920.

Śyāmilaka: Pādatāḍitaka, ed. Schokker, Indo-Iranian Monographs, Mouton, The Hague/Paris, 1966.

Udbhaṭa: Kāvyalamkārasārasaṃgraha, ed. N. D. Banhatti, Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Poona, 1925.

Uttararāmacarita of Bhavabhūti, ed. N. Stchoupak, Institut de Civilisation Indienne, Paris, 1935.

Vallabhadeva: Subhāṣitāvali, ed. Peterson and Durgāprasāda, Bombay Sanskrit and Prakrit Series, Poona (1886), second edition: 1961.

Vāmana: Kāvyalamkārasūtras and Vṛtti, ed. Nārāyaṇa Rāma Ācārya, Nirnaya Sagara Press, Bombay, fourth edition, 1953.

Vidyākara: Subhāṣitaratnakoṣa, ed. Kosambi and Gokhale, Harvard Oriental Series, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1957.

Vinayacandra: Kāvyasiikṣā, ed. Hariprasād Śāstrī, Lālbhāī Dalpatbhāī Indological Institute, Ahmedabad, 1964.

Yāska: Nirukta, ed. L. Sarup with the Nighaṇṭu, Oxford University Press, London, 1920-1, reprinted Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, 1967.

(the translations given are in all cases by the present author)

APPENDIX

वादविवादितकम्

न प्राप्नुवन्ति यतयो रुद्रितेन मोक्षं

स्वर्गोयित न परिहासकथा रुद्राद्धि ।

तस्मात्प्रतीतमनसा हसितव्यमेव

वृत्ति बुद्धेन खलु कौरुकुचि विहाय ॥ ४ ॥

उत्तररामचरिते

द्वितीयोडङ्कः ।

एते ते कुहरेपु गद्गदनदद्गगोदावरिवारयो

मेघालहृतमौलिनीलशिखराः क्षोणीभृतो दाक्षिणाः ।

अन्योन्यप्रतिघातसङ्कुलचलत्कल्लोलकोलाहलै-

रुत्तालास्त इमे गभीरपयसः पुण्या सरित्सङ्गमाः ॥ ३० ॥

रामचरिते महाकाव्ये समुद्रलङ्कनोत्साहितह्नूनमस्तुतिवर्णनो नाम

पञ्चदशः सर्गः ।

लाड्गूलेन गभस्तिमान्वलयितः प्रोतः शशी मौलिना

जीमूताः विधुताः सटाभिरुडवो दण्ड्राभिरासाविताः ।

उत्तीर्योर्मिभुजङ्गवीचिविपिने विश्रान्तिगृहीतास्वोम्भिः

लड्केशस्य विलङ्ङितो दिशि दिशि कूः प्रतापानलः ॥६४॥

कुट्टनीमतं काव्यम् ।

अविदग्धः श्मशकठिनो दुलंभयोध्युचा जडो विप्रः ।

अपमृत्युरुपकान्तः कामिव्याजेन मे रातौ ॥ ३६२ ॥

शृणु सखि कौतुकमेकं ग्रामीणककामिना यदद्य कृतम् ।

सुरतरसमीलिताक्षी मृतेति भीतेन मुक्तास्मि ॥ ३६५ ॥

मालतीमाधवे

पञ्चमोऽङ्कः ।

राहोश्चन्द्रकलामिवाननचरिं दैवात्समासाद्य मे

दस्योरस्य कृपाणपातविषयादाच्छादनत: प्रेयसीम् ।

आतङ्काद्द्रुतं द्रुतं करुणया विक्षोभितं विस्मयात्

क्रोधेन ज्वलितं मुदा विकसितं चेत: कथं वर्तताम् ॥२८॥

हर्षचरिते

वृत्तेऽस्मिन् महाप्रलये धरणीधारणायाधुना त्वं शेष: ।

ततो रटतपटहे, नदद्रान्दीके, गुज्जद्गुज्जने, क्रोशत्काहले, शब्दाय-

मानशब्दे, क्रमेणोपचीरमाणकटककलकले, परिजनोचितवग्यापृतवयग्रसमग्र-

गृहव्यवहारिणि, द्रुतद्रुघणघातघटचमकानोपकाकीलकोलाहलकलित-

ककुभि, ब्लाधृतबोध्यमानपाटिकपेटके, जनज्यलितोल्कासहस्रालोक-

लुप्यमानदियामातमसि, यामचेटीचरणचालनोत्याप्यमानकामिमिथुनके,

कटुकटुकनिनदेशनश्रुतिद्रोणिमषनिपातिनि, . . . . . . गृहचिन्तकपेटक-

सर्वष्टचमापट्कुट्टकीडपेटपटमण्डपपरिवेष्टितोत्तरीयवतीनके, कालिकलाप-

पूर्वमाणचिपिटचर्मपुटे, सम्भाण्डयमानभाण्डागारिणि, भाण्डागारवहन-

बाह्यमानबहुलिवाहके, निषादिनिश्चलानेकानेकपारोप्यमानकोशकलश-

पेडापीडसकुटायमानसामन्तौकसि, दूरगतदक्षरेकक्षिप्यमानोपकरण-

संभारभारिक्रियामाणदुष्टदन्तिनि, . . . . चलितमातङ्गतुरङ्गश्रधार्षित-

प्राकृतप्रातिवेश्यलोकलुण्ठघमानननिर्झाससस्यसंचये, संचलत्तैलचक्रक्रान्त-

चक्रीवति, चक्रचीत्कारमुखरगन्थीगणगृहमाणप्रहृतवर्त्मनि, अकाण्डोड्डी-

यमानभाण्डभरितानडुहि, निकटघासलाभलुभ्यललम्वनप्रथमप्रसार्यमाण-

सारसौरभेये, प्रमुखप्रवर्तमानमहासामन्तमहानसे, परमप्रधावध्वजवाहिनी-

प्रियशतोल्लापलभ्यमानसडूटकुटीरान्तरालनि:सरणे, करिचरणचलितमठ-

कोत्थितलोकलोष्ठाहन्यमानमेठकक्रियामाणसत्रसाक्षिणि, सड्ढट्विघट्टम-

नव्यालपल्लीपलायमानक्षुद्रकुटुम्बके, कलकलोपद्रवद्रवद्रद्रविणबलोर्व-

विद्राणवणिज, . . . . रजोजगधजगति, प्रयाणसमये . . . . .

भेषजसामग्रीसंपादनव्यग्रगृहव्यवहारिणि, महुम्महुरहूयमानतोय-

कर्मान्तिकानुमितघोरातुरतृषि, तुषारपरिकरितकर्करीशिशिरीक्रियामणो-

दश्वति, श्वेताद्रकर्पटापितकर्पूरपरागशीतलीकृतशालाके, अनन्यानपदू-

लिप्यमाननवभाण्डगतगण्डूषमस्तुनि, तिमिर्यतिकोमलकमलिनोपत्तप्रादुर्भू-

मृडुमृणालके 'सनालनोल्लपलपूलीसनाथसलिलपानभाजनभुवि, धारानि-

पातनिवोप्यमाणक्वथिताम्भसि, पटुपाटलशर्करामोदमुचि, मधुरकाकाश्रित-

सिकतिलकरकोविश्रान्तातुरचक्षुषि, . . . .

निर्मोकमुक्तिमिव गगनोरगस्य

यत् च मातड्गामिन्य: शीलवत्यश्च, गौर्यो विभवरताश्च, श्यामा:

पद्मरागिण्यश्च, धवलद्रिजशुचिवदना मन्दिरामोदनि:श्वसनाश्वच, . . . . .

समवाय इव विरोधिनां पदार्थानाम् । तथाहि—सस्निहितबाला-

न्धकारा भास्वन्मूर्तिश्च, . . . .

80

THE SCIENCE OF CRITICISM IN INDIA

कुसुमसमययुगम् उपसंहरन्नूजूम्भत ग्रीष्माभिधान: फुल्लमल्लिका-

धवलाट्टहासो महाकाल: . . . . .

तत् कथय आगमनेनापुण्यभाक् कतमो देशो विजृम्भितविरहव्यथ:

शून्यतां नीत: । कव वा गन्तव्यम् । को वायमपहतहरङ्काराहङ्कारोडपर

इवानन्यजो युवा । किशाम्नो वा समृद्धतप: पितुरयम् अमृतवर्षी कौस्तुभ-

मणिरिक हरेःकेयमाल्लादयति । का वास्य विभुवनननमस्या प्रभातसन्ध्येव

महतस्त्तेजसो जननी । कानि वास्य पुण्यभाजिज भजन्त्यभिख्यामक्षराणि ।

उत्तररामचरिते

प्रथमोऽङ्क: ।

इयं गेहे लक्ष्मीरियममृतवर्तिनिर्णयनयो-

रसावस्या: स्र्पशोऽ वपुषि बहुलश्चन्दनरस: ।

अयं बाहु: कण्ठे शिशिरमसृणो मौक्तिकसर:

किमस्या न प्रेयो यदि परमसहासतु विरह: ॥ ३५ ॥

द्वितीयोऽङ्क: ।

वज्रादपि कठोराणि मृदूनि कुसुमादपि ।

लोकोत्तराणां चेतांसि को हि विज्ञातुमर्हति ॥ ७ ॥

तृतीयोऽङ्क: ।

त्वं जीवितं त्वमसि मे हृदयं द्वितीयं

त्वं कौमुदी नयनयोरमृतं त्वमङ्गे ।

इत्यादिभि: प्रियशतैरनुरुद्ध्य मुग्धां

तामेव शान्तमथवा किमिहोत्तरेण ॥ २६ ॥

INDEX

abhidhā 37 38 63

abhimāna 25

Abhinanda 19 53

Abhinavagupta 15 16 24

actors 15 22

adbhuta 17

admiration 17

aesthetic experience (s) 14-17

20 22 24 25 39 55 58

aesthetic response 18

aesthetics 13-14 25

affection 17 56 57

affectionate 16

ahamkāra 25

āhārya 35

ākhyāyikā 44-46 52

alamkāra 4 28 29 31

alamkāra-s 28 30 34 39

alamkāraśāstra 27

Amarakośa 45

Amaruka 18

analysis 43

analysis (pravibhāga) 38

Ānandavardhana 32 33 36

41 50

anger 21

anubhāva 15

anvaya 39

apprehensive 21

ārabhaṭī 22

artha 30

astonishment 21 58

ātman 41

āvidddha 66

Bahurūpamiśra 11 54 55

Bāṇa 36 44 45 47 51-53

beautiful 6 23 69 71

beautiful style 51 63

beauty 4 28 29-32 55 69 71

Bhāmaha 4 13 28-34 38 44

69 71

Bhaṭṭanāyaka 23 24

bhāva 14 22 23

Bhavabhūti 17 21 54-56 63

Bhoja 16 17 21 22 25 37-40

43-46 52 54-63 67 68 71

bhūṣaṇa 28

bībhatsa 59

bibliography 11

biography 44

camatkāra 17

characteristics 28

clarity 32

combination 38 61

comic 19 20

compassionate 19 21

composition 27 64

composition as a whole (prabandha) 35 38-40 43 55 60 61

conjunctions 59 67

construction 65

contemplation 18 23

context(s) 34 60

convention 56

'crookedness' 28

cumulative process 70

cumulative science 4

'curvature' 30

curvedness 28 29 31-35 37 55

60 61

Dāmodaragupta 20

Daṇḍin 23 40 65 69

definitions 4

delicate 66

delight 1 13 18 68

descriptions 46

detached aesthetic experience

18 19

Dhanamjaya 24

Dhanapāla 63

Dhanika 55 59

dharma 57

disgust 58 59 63

divisions of literature 43

doṣa(-s)

39

drama 1 14 16 43

egoism 25

ekārthibhāva 39

emotions 15 16 20-23 25 55

57 58 64

empiricist 6 31 68

energy 19

enjoyment 13 25 26 63 68

epic 40

exaggeration 29 30

examples, logical 31

expectancy 39 63

expression (abhidhā) 37 38 63

expression (śabda) 4 27 28

30-32 53

fancy 29

faults 39

fear 21

'figurativeness' 28

figures of speech 27-30

33 34 39 49 51 61 71

Frye, N. 2 4 5

furious 21

garbhāñka 60

gauḍīya 45

generalized experience 23

genre(-s) 40 43 44 65 66

'great sentence' 39

grief 21

guṇa(-s) 39

happiness 24

Hari Chand 10

harṣa 13 10

Harṣacarita 36 45 46 49 53

'having rasa' 30

heroic 19

horrific 59

implied meaning 33

imposed beauties 35

'increase' 23

indirectness 28 32

inference 15 23 36 37

intention 38

interpretation 37 62 68

itivṛtta 55

Jaimini 37 63

Jalhaṇa 20

joy 2 13 24

jugupsā 58

Kālidāsa 7 10 34 53

karuṇa 19

kāvya 4 31

kāvyakriyākalpa 27

Kṣemendra 55

Kṣemiśvara 16

Kumāradāsa 39

Kumārasambhava 10

Kuntaka 11 33-36 45 46 49

51 55 60 63 69 71

lakṣaṇa 28

landscape 16

language 67 68-69

levels 33 35 38

libraries 12

life 16

linguistics 5 27 33 37

literature as an art 4

logic 31

Lollaṭa 23 24

love 17 18 21 25 55 57

mahāvākya 39

Mahāviracarita 62

Mahimabhaṭṭa 23 36 37 51

Mahiman 23 36 37 51

Mālatīmādhava 21

Mallinātha 7

Mammaṭa 45 51

manuscripts 8-11

marvellous 17 21 45 58

meaning 4 30-32 38 53

meditation 23

Meghasamdeśa 7

metaphor 29 31 38 61

middle terms 31

Mīmāṃsā 37 61 62

modes of stage business 67

Naiṣadhānanda 16

nāṭaka 54 59

Naṭāṅkuśa 11

naturalistic description 30 51

nature 16

Nāṭyaśāstra 1 13 14 16 17 20-22

27 28 33 35 54 66

Nāyaka 23 24

objectively beautiful 71

ornament 29 30

ornamentation 28

ornaments of a composition 39

46 60

perception 14-17

phonetic level 33

play within a play 16 60

plots 35

'poetics' 27

prabandha level 38

prabandha(-s) 43

prakaraṇa(-s) 34

pratīyamāna 33

pravibhāga 38

preyas 16

principles 4 6 32 69 70

principles or qualities in a

sentence 61 62

prīti 13 17

'progressive' 4 24 37 70

prose 45

Pūrṇasarvasvatī 8 21 22

Puṣpadūṣitaka 66

qualities 39 41

qualities of a composition 39

Rājaśekhara 41

Rāma 39

Rāmacandra and Gunaacandra

56

rasa(-s) 5 13 14 16-25 33-35

39-41 45 53 55 56 58 66 68

71

rasavant 30

rati 17 25 55

Ratnaśrījñāna 70

revealed meaning 32 33 36 38

50

riti 40

Romanticism 2

Rudraṭa 16 45

śabda 30

sāhitya 38

Sāhityamīmāṃsā 59 71

sāhityavidyā 27

sāmarthya 39

samdhī(-s) 67

Śaṅkuka 15 23

Śāradātanaya 59

Śārṅgadhara 20

Sarvānanda 45

sāttvika emotions 22

sausabdya 30

science 3-5

84

SCIENCE OF CRITICISM IN INDIA

self-assertion 25

sensitive 18 21 25 55 57 58

sentence level 34 39 40 61 62

63

Simhabhūpāla 59

simile 29

Soddhala 52 53

śṛṅgāra 17 18 25 55

Śṛṅgāraprakāśa 44 (see Bhoja)

sthāyibhāva 15 22

story 55

' strength ' 32

structure of a nāṭaka 59

style 27 28 31 32 40 41 45

47 63 66

subject matter 33 35

sukumāra 66

svabhāvokti 30 51

' sweetness ' 32

Śyāmilaka 2

taste 13 14

tātparya 38

textual criticism 6

theatre 56

transfer 38 63

Udbhata 23 31 69

unification of theory 33 68

unity of meaning 39

universal 15

universalization 24

utsāha 19

Uttararāmacarita 17 54 55 59 66

vācya 32 33

Vākpatirāja 53

vakratā 28 29 31

vakrokti 35

vākyadharma(-s) 61

Vākyapadīya 61

Vallabhadeva 8

Vallabhadeva II 20

Vāmana 40 41 61

vastu 33 35

vibhāva 15

vicitra 45 63

Vidyākara 19

Vinayacandra 46 47

' violent ' (āviddha) drama 66

' violent ' mode 22

vīra 19

vivakṣā 38 52

vocabulary 34

vṛtti(-s) (modes of stage business)

22 67

vṛtti(-s) (functions of expression)

38

vyabhicāribhāva 15

vyañgya 32

vyāpekṣā 39 63

wish of the speaker 38

Yāska 27