CHAPrZK x INTRODUCTION The tev Critice have variously affirmed that there 4s no standard of evaluation of peetry moro objective and reliable than an accecenant of dtc language. The nature of pootry, it 4c held, 4c doternined by the nature of the formal featuror uscd. In a recent intorview,Cleanth Brooks fag remarked: “If thore 48 such a thing as litercture to be @ictinguished from history, tha ctructure, the rhetorical onoray of the literary work dtealg, vas priority... I£ one ir intorected really in literature and tries to define dt ac 4t affectr a poem, I think, the firet thing to do ic to fimmuize into the noem.... tut df dt de poetry you are Antorerted in, you have to be interccted in forn.*? For, structure, style, ornament — all are organic featurer of a poatdc composition, The post cacke to create not a pretty forn but vhot Clive Bell calle a ‘oignificant fom’, The post tricr to exprere Idmeelf in language, and it 4s, again, dn language that he procorvee hic thoughte and feclinge, Pootry, Abercrouble remarks, ic “the translation of experiance into language", the “¢lecting, gleanding" qualities of which “elude the hold of everyday ctraightforvard language". ile aloo thinke that the “greatnocc in restry strictly belonge to form", Form, be adde, ic not “something added to the substance, a mould arbitrarily imposed on tha ctufs of Postry from without") dt is "sizply the foreordadned and ¢inally reculting whole 4mpreseion*,? Gost. regarded the Language of .oetry ac a higher, active principle of composition by which the poet reveals the inner form of hte subjoct.® when Coleridge defined postry as ‘the bect worés in the bert order',* he wae probably pointing out dtr errential, central charrcterictic, Poetry,2 according to Matthew /rnold, 1c the Lost delightful and berfect form of utterance that human words can reach— “thouglit and art 4n onoty at de “nothing lecc than the uost perfect epesch of nan*.® In poetry, form and meaning imtually cooxict: gorm embodier meaning and meaning suctains form, In fact, oxpreerive meaning in postry 4¢ enbodied in the stratun of objective meaning, Ae Wl’ace Stevens pute it, "Overy poem 4c a poem tdthin a poan: tho poom of the Afca within the poam of tho word", Lanquace holée the key to ‘social nucleation’ .7 Denold Davie views at 2t ac “above all an inctrumant of articulation, a vay of ertabliching relationchips".® Ubiquitdously,lanquove perteate every phere of our 1ife. It precedes, accompanies and follove practically all tuman endeavour, Without lenguage, ninety-nine per cent of human activity would cease. Bhartrhari, the great exponent of the Philosophy of Sanskrit Gramar, coneidore tie expression element ac of paramount importance, since, saye he, there te tho absolute weality cerving ac the substratum of the great illusion represented by the univerce.? itman life without Ate verbal activity vould be simply unthinkable, The Indian aerthotician Dandin witer that speech te divercified in ite nultigerious modes of exproceton.? tie also remarkes 1? All tho dealdnge of men in thie world are in every vay rendered poreible by virtue of language alone, be they anonget thors formated in rules by the eanec or be they othorvice, Thir entire triad-of-words would hove bocore bling-darknecs 4£ the light named Nord had not been chining all through the vorld. Of all the moder of expreerion, poctry ures language moct precisely and exploite all porcible resources of language most fully, Anandavardhana, the greatest exponent of the Giwani theory, declaror that the vays of expression are An¢inite (ananta bi vaavikaloab) and that there is no end to3 Pootic Andividuations,!? tanguage in pootry 4e not a Means to an ond like conveying information or issuing Anctructions, Yoctry carver out of language a forte pattern, and its verbal eubetructure embodies a significant aspect of human experience in the stylized Linguictic pattern, ag Rosenberg etresces, pootry 4s ‘verbal alchemy! to the poet's ‘way of experiencing’. rostry is essentially imovative, and tho post exprosces hie originality not through subjects so mich ae through their treatnent and hie language. Bhatta Tauta, abhinavagupta'’s gum, calle the Poet a seer and maintains that he lar vision (dargana) and the power of description or presentation (yampana). without the latter of which the wecr doce not become a poet, for Poctry ir not more virton, but viston ohjactitied tn poetic cast. Tho expreceive adequacy ic the minimum necessity of Poetic Language. Rajasckhara says that the things described do not delight us in postryy 4t 12 the postic expressions only vilch edther delight us or disturb us! abhinavagupta also bolfeves that poetic heauty ensues from formal and structural features of a poetic composition, ®® when the verbal expreceion 4e pootically adequate, it conveys that ‘special thrill’ which 1s the escence of poetry, and, boing ‘comething powerful and overwhelming, 4t conmunicates "a ponse of more abundant 11go'.27 paul Valery rightly maintaine that “poetry 4s an act of language*.!8 tn cact, tho creative power of language finde its completest exreceion in postry, Poetry ic the moct conscious use of language. It hee been called 'a language within a languago’ ana tan art of languago'.29 poetic language de more highly structured and novel than prose or the lenguaye of camon usage. The poet keeps on annexing new verbal doneine by making what 7.5, Elict calls ‘a reid on the inarticulate’.4 The Language of poetry ic, in other words, “tho language at full exetch",*° yiich explodtc all possible recources of cocimication, It 4s hile capability of original invention (aplicveevastuenimainekesng) thot dictinguishes the poet from other ussre of languace. Until tho prosent century, hover, the formal aspect of postry did not receive adetuate attention, It wes generally considered ercteric, unintererting and abstruse. The content of poetry var regended gar more significant than ite exprecedon, tie lattor boing treated as of secondary drvortance in a pootic comporition, Conrequently, postry qua postry rarely aroured echolarc' interert and various ulterior considerations continued to determine ite excellence or otherwce. Only occasionally did certain sensitive posts evince an awareness of the value of formal nuances in pootry. Shelley, for exaple, remarked: “Language, colour, form, and religous and civil habits of action, are all the dnctruments and materials of postry... . Dut pootry in a more restricted sence exoresces those arrangenonte of language, and ecyecially motrical languace, which are created by that amorial faculty, whoso throne is curtained within the invisible nature of man, and this epringe from the nature itcel€ of language*?+ at time Shelley ssons to have rogarded Langu: ge ar something loorely analogour to a Kantian gorm?? Language df a perpetual Orphic song, That rales wth Daedal harmony a throng Of Ehourfhte and forms, vhich elce shapelesr ani soneclese wore. Tovkine also effime thct pectry 4s cpecch given a form or pattern, ‘*Pootry*, he maintainr, “ic in fact speoch only employed to carry the incase of cpeoch for the inceape''s sake", Postry, according to hin, in 4n the form of a postic comporition, in the dnccape, and 4c an intenet¢ication or patterning of speech, flo addss “Same matter or meaning is eocontial to dt but only ac an element necessary to support5 and erploy the | formal} shape which de contemplated for dtc om coke"."3 mic conccdouener: of pootic Language jhoe become more intense in the prapent century, Net that the carlies pocts wore not covscious of tho expreceive potential of language. very age produced posts who experimented vith languago in search of a suitable means of exeression, Shakespeare, upenser and the Metapliysical Pocte, for example, were Great innovators, Sven the eightecnth century poets claimd to have given proper expression to “What oft was thought but ne'er so well expressed", The efforts of all these pocte, however, were solitary and did Net go very far to make a Profound impact on the general critical climate of their age, motivoting others to pay adequate haec to the formal aspect of poetry. During the Bnolish Romantic Movement, poetic language began to be realized aca mode of anorehenrion, an effort of conrciournecs and itc exprereion, Jacques Rividre comuente: “It ic only with Romanticiom that the literary art bovan to be conceived as a Kind of assault on the abooLute and itr result ac a revelation, (vas) bound up with magic and the search for transmuting reality through the power of vord*.*4 nie sensibility towords linguistic medium attained culmination in the present century. There hac bech a marked awareness of the language of poetry dn the recent decades of the trenticth century. Zt bas bean said that ours is “an age when nany have a talk of pootry"."5 roots ani critics have bacone, in various vaye, conscious of the croative ue of language in poetry. 8 T.5, Gliot points out, now “honect criticism and sonsitive appreciation ie directed not upon the poet but upon the postry*.26 Discucsing “The social Function of Poetry*, he emphatically remarke that the 'direct duty’ of the poet "de to le Language'.?7 he gormal mans of poetry are6 deemed to be of great significance for coruunication of the poet's meaning, I.A. Richards observes: “ly ddecs are, in a deep conse, in my langquagas — in the relations between words which quide me in their use".2° nerbort Read also holds cimilar views, ‘“ostry to hin, ir “mainly a function of lanquacre — the exploitation of a medium, a vocal and sensuous material", and “form ic the natural efSect of the poet's integrity".”? certain pronouncements from modern critics, which are representative of the more recent approach to poetry, also underscore the value of the expressive devices of its language, David Perkins, for example, holds that postry ic "an affair of Language", °° and schredber mintains that “the yoam 4 the word".3! The post expresses hinweli by using a symbolic, rather than @ conceptual, form in an organic way. As Read suggests, “we must therefore look for the peculiar virtue of poetry in itc poetic structure — in its diction, idion, and imagery", vecause without a proper a,preciation of aes @lements “the nature of poetry can never be realized*,* Bonamy Vobree Maintained: “ultimately, of course, literature hac to be judged by ite value to humanity: an appraisal of Literature muct 4n the end be an appraical of valuec*,?? Today, however, value-judgemente are not regarded as a reliable basic of asrercmemt of the worth of a poem, As Nerthro> Frye pointe out, "The stucy of literature can never be founded on value judgemente*, 34 The contanicative rerource: of pootde Language have been studied by mocorn criticr in conciderable detail. The rire of modern criticiem, ac Cleanth Brooke obtervoe, “ts part of a gencral intenci fication of tho study of language and symbolien, It de no accident, therefore, that a great deol of modern criticien has occupied iteel£ with the problem of how Language actually worke and specifically how 4t works in a place of literature*.*5 not only critics7 but Linguists and stylicticdane have also diccussed in detail whct eve been called ‘poetic deviarce', *uncerctanding contences', 'sor-sentences' and 'decrecs of gramaticalnecc'.°® the comf-gratiatical, deviant uttorancer, wiich conctitute the large core of the Language of pootry, have been paid claborate attention, and cany hitherto unouepected, but intere: ting, facte are being revealed about it. There if an element of truth in the commen caying that a poet speaks becauce be murt cyeak. and ba epocks ina language different from that of the common usage. Carlyle once eaia that through lanuage the poet subdues the claos of tho univerre. Content is, no doubt, important in postry, but dtr exprorcion de no lees important, The tro are, in fact, interrelated and interdependent, Longinue maintained that "thought and Lanquace dn literature are intergolde? each in the ether", Thic erganiemic union is emphasized Ix: verious Suropean vriters also, Schiller, vio Aneicte on ctrict reciprocity of form and content, called their union by the none of ‘living chape'. Flaubert wrote, attacking aucgder's conception of form as merely an outer gorbt “Form de the flash dtcel€ of the ddeq, and the idea ie the coul of 14f0", Idea and Sori, audelaire thought, are "tuo realities in om'. A.C, SroGley mkec the cane point nore clearly when he ronarke: "In pootry the meaning ané the sounde are ones there dc... a resonant imaning, of @ meaning resomnce".37 content ard gorm are thus AndLecolubly united ard are of equal anportance in any litorary analysic. Ranson colle pootry taecthetically organised Language’, “early a thousand years ayo Inidan acgtheticiane nade the ram point wth oven greater confidence.*° theyhave pondercd over the relationelip between content and form and have come te certain eicnisicont conclucions. Biigmaha otater that poetry reculte from a perfect commencuratenece and erganienic unton (eauhitya) between form and content.°? rajadokhara explaine "gaubitya’ ac the proper ecufpodes (yathivat-enhabhaya) betvecn word and meaning.“ phoja arave attention to the phenomenon Known ac tho just proportion of work (iabdacsomuitatva) » by hich he means the quality of cound and senee being hold dn a balances? since the tvo have parity, meaning in a pootic camorition catmot claim greater attention than cound or form, ‘untoka rightly mainteine that an idea incufciciently expresced is ‘dead’ Uurtakalpa) and an axprescion davotd of 10ea or expreceing sonetitng than the dntended 4dea ic ‘diseaced’ (ywighthhiita). relationchip between mtter and manner ie well deccribed by him ac a mutual toneion er rivalry (parasaxe-soanthitva)—a constant challenge or provocation to aach to held ite own without ylelding to the otier, 4 Borroving Coleridge's terme for shakeepoare, ono could say that in poetry expression and meaning are ‘recofneilea' and fight for articulation ‘each wth ite shield before the breast of the otier'.“4 vaicry also omphasiaes thir very escantial principle of the nechantce of rostry when be illuctreter 4t 14th hie examle of the pendulum orcillating between tvo evmwtrical pointe, ons reoresenting the meaning er content, and the other, form. Tt ds now beina widely recognized that poetry cannot be @efined by its content of caure ané that “power of imacinotion, high talente, creat echolarship, all thees and cuch other phrases are too general to give a correct icon of that necondite faculty of man which gives birth to poetry".*° In the ultimate analysis, the language of postry other 2 ate 45erergos ac the final tect of ite cualitier and ac a surer backs of dtr analysic. To «uote Culler, “Idterature offers an exetiple or Amage of tho creation of meaning, but that de only hal of ite function, ... It ... exhibite all the unhappiness and uncertainties of the eign".47 me pignigicance of a detailed ctudy of poetic languaye need not be overenphasizec. Ao Uldot poduts out, nany peonle cen appreciate tie exproredion of ciincore enotion in pootry but very Sew can really “appreciate tochnical e:cellence*, Leavis aleo fecle thet "it 1s on the technical asvect that critical attention mit in any care focus*,*? 2 Te dc remarkable thot Tnéfan aeetheticians wore really avare of com of the crucial problons of the lanquace of poetry, They called it ‘yakroktd' (Oblique epeech or ‘deviant utterance’) ,°° and defined it ac a striking mode of epoech aifcering from and transcending tha establieied or current node of specch (dictiadi-praaiddha- Sabddirtliqwand bonds vvatineli: practic iina-vwatirelcls aidlulintoeprasiddieewavabitaascani).°* Indian thinkere have made soveral exploratory, but yonetrating, contributions on many problems pertaining to postry and pootic expression that still congrent nocorn echalars. Thoma Lanro writes:5? a+, from tho earliest historic times, Oriental Dhdiosophors, rulers, priocts and eivincre yore heditating on problels imei 11ko those witch challenged iectern minc, Indian ... eager were meditating on artc and their potential values for man about the same tine that Pythagoras, Plato, and Ardetotle were doing so in the tect comparison of Zartern ané verter thought chow meny curprising resemblances. A ctudy of Sanekrit peetice fron Sharata (Sth century 5.C.) to Panditaraja Jagannath (17th covtury 2.9.) wll bear 5310 witness to the exictence of a highly developed poetics in ancient India, wth a rigorous scientific method for Geecription and analysis of the expressive resources of Janguage. Indian pectice fleuriched into eight schools (Sipradiivas)— alaikira (Subellichment), riti (Style), Sane (attribute), vakrokti (obliquity), anumina (Inference), aucitva (Propriety), dhvand (Sugsestion) and rosa (Sentiment) 54 ‘The principles upheld by thena diggerent echoole wore fornmloted independently of each other, but, later on, “they com to have values assigned to them according to their relatione with the two theorier of gas and dbvani". Indian poetice should, 4n fact, be taken as an organic whole. Bach concept occupdes a significant place in the system, and the exponents of difgerent tieories have tried to tackle certain fundamental insuer from their respective pointe of view, Thece theories are not rival ctances militating against one another but complenentary approaches which mutually enrich am explicate. The descriptive accounts and theoretical formations of Indian oesthetictans rey at times appear to be lece rigorous and saticfactory by currect standards, but they con enlighten the modern mind on a nunber Of iscues pertaining to poetic creation, Of their achtevorentc ant affinities with modern vays of thought, one could say what WS, Allen said of the early Sanskrit phonaticianss There echolare “epeak in fact to the twentieth century rather than to the Midele ager or even to the mid-nineteonth century...#°° although Indian aestheticians G14 net ure the terminology of modern criticism, linguietice and stylistics, they seen to have gone far in thic area, and in certain respecte thee approsch 4c even more compreheneive and striking than that of the Wectern scholars. "It cannot be maintained", remarks &.1.De, “that these theoriste have said the lact word on the subject, or said1 it [always] clearly or concictently: but they have certainly dealt with some of ite fundonentol aspects very ably."57 2 good gow deruse sugiested by then have been taken up fer fuller diecucsion by the lectern thinkers in mocern times. Poetics 4e one of tho three min field of Ymowledgo in which Indian echolorchip hac made eignificant contr4butions, the other two bedng gram.ar and philosophy. Unlike the Indian eycteme of philorophy and gramiar, hovever, Indian pootice hac not beon properly appreciated in tha West. It hac "nover recoived tha acclaim accorded in the Uect to anclent Inddan religion, philosophy, art and Literature".5® me earliest Indian aestheticians’ formations on postry are seminal, thoujh mich of the later sanskrit Pooticr gets bogged down in verbal analyses and purely rhotorical preoccupations. The insighte of sanckrit postice have romained unexplored ovdng to grave obstacles to commmication, Ite treaticor ore in Sanskrit and are written in a terse and atgeicult style, The textr brictle with lineuirtic tectnicalities and aro not always freo from obscurity, Their vealth of cetaile, mystical dross, quaint terndnolocy and abctruse Aiccurcions would create incuperable barriere to a reader vio fe not well-vorced in Sanckrit and has not been properly initiated to this type of study. A careful peruse] of Sanskrit postice, hovaver, after weeding out Anegsential details, scholestic niceties, conevhat worn-out observations and unnocercary technicalities enneched in a dense opaque diction, will roveal profound foundations 0€ Indian views on voriouc acpects of poetic creativity and experience, Taken an a whole, Indian poetics is Sar more profound than a syctem of rhetoric, and in dite highest reach it coare Anto sectheticc and Linguistic philosoviy. The2 €4e1d of poetics, ar it developed in India, 4e full of Loical, philosopidcal, linguietic, epistemological and metaphyeic:1 problons, a eystenatic ctudy of which 4s Most likely to unfold new virtas of knowledge. The realm of postice presents a moct faccinating ana exciting area of Indian echolarcidp. Hunro epeake highly of tha “comprehensive, thorough an systenatic* point of viow enshrined in Indian peotics. The great works produced by Indian aestheticians, he says, bear wdtners to “the will and ability to develop a certain aecthetic theory in great éatail, rolating it to a metaphysical world-view on the one hand, ani to a considerable amount of empiricel data on the other", Their conclusions are undoubtedly tho outcom of a "long, close profeccional observation and experience of art".59 Moet often Indian scholors' remarks bespeak a comprehensive approach and a mature mina capable of genuine aesthetic delight. Thece ancient thinkers laid down excellent standards of litecary taste and formulated an accurate theory of poetic expression, Their findings, which reached their apex in the works of scholars like Anandavardbana, Kuntake and cbhinavagupta, are “still valid todey and [are even relatively novel to Western thought". a careful perusal of sanskrit postice would Prove to any one “not merely tho great afivancer mde by Inéian aectheticc in relation te Arictotle but its amazing roterntty api unparaltelied adomicy in the midst of the chaos of modern critical theories". °+ Ae Krishnamoorthy observes, “the vhole field of Sonekrit glahkiradseten or poetice may be regarded as one continued attempt to unravel the mystery of beauty in Postic Language", & That the ancient Indian sestheticians had their own Aietinctive concept of poetic language isB evident from their theory of yaknoktd. Spealing of the achfevenente of runtcka, ite qreatest exponent, Krichnamoorthy says that hie bacie postulater "can find many echoes in modern sertietic theoriec".® Tho concept of vakroktt can be profitably considered in relation to the western concept ©f oblique ctyle or linguictic dislocation, It can also be Placed beride certain formulations of the New Critics and the Saussurean distinction of langue and parole Adiolact and Hoan Chomcky's concepte of ‘competence’ and ‘performance’, Furthermore, Kuntaka'e vieve ovfer “the most striking cimilaritioc wth modorn hostern analytic criticten*,°* mis ic one area where the afZinitice of the Indian thought and the european thinking are clearly diccernible. The presont etudy aims at exploring a significant area of intersection between the Indian ané Wectorn thinlcing, viz. their views on pootic expression ac an oblique specch, It ic hoped that the explorction will sched a valuable Licht on an outstanding aesthetic problem by bringing out significant aféinities between tho two. It has beon romarked that, ovding to their peculiarities and deep bearinge on Brahmanic speculations, Indian scholaore' pronouncements “do not make the comparative msthod eacy to apply, whether ite purpore dc to trace influence or to reveal a commen foundotion or eimply to discovor convergent, tendencies" and that “of all branches of learning which stem from the genius of India, fow are sc profoundly Indian as serthatice".°> pecpite ite co-called 'Indfanness', a comporative ctudy of the theories of Indian poetice and their vertern counterparts wil) yield significant dneighte for study and analycie of literature. aL, Basham has rejected the strongly religious interpretation of Indian arte and accthaticc.” moreover, *thore 16 necd for moro active interchange of ideas ani mere cooperative4 research among aestheticians from opposite sides of the earth", Tt would be really meaningful to reveal truco agsinities and parallelisme botween Indian and suropean aecthetic thoughts, It would help uo find out certain ‘universale' of literary creation and evaluation and appreciation, a comparative study of Indian and western Poetic theories wll also bring about a healtiy ‘croce-fertilization of téecs'.© ae Raghavan and Ragondra point out, As we traverse deeper into the realm of the Site Pine acta tee pare be the pootical theoriee of inita Snatehe tase ‘to each other, and a reliable conn code of 1 geet standard can be evolvod through @ rational ané coordinated study of the two. There is no need of airing our superiority by showing off our rich literary an( critical heritage and by publicizing ‘influences’ on others, The greatest need of the hour is to explore the possibilities of enriching our Uuropean borrowings by the life-giving contact e€ the Indian tradition vith a view to micing them relevant to us in terme of our own tradition, There 4c no need of fighting shy of our aesthetic heritags, It 4¢ worthy of consideration by any standard, Speaking at the Annual Conference of the Britich society Of zacthetics, held in septenber 1966, Philip Rawson remarkeds In the f1eld of aesthetics ... a great series Of thinkere who lived in India and wrote in Sanskrit between about the fourth cantury A.D. and the thirtecnth have put up many ideas which Bat be brought into our present-day debater on art,15 Rawson feels that the formulations of Indian aecthetictans would extend the Wectern ccholars' ‘conceptual armoury’. In more reepects than one, the postic theories of India and the Weet wl prove to be complementary. In the contemporary babel of critical theories and discourses, the Sanckrit tradition has a peculiar authority, relevance, and force of clarity. It 4 worth remembering that the validity and Usafulnase of Indian postice has bean realized by a scholar of the standing and repute of Rene’ vellek, himself an able Practitioner of Comporative Literature and zacthetice, who maintains that comarative studier should 4deally include the acsthetic deliberations of the Orients also. ’? The Indian theory of yakroktd, which forms the subject matter of the presant study, chowe a remarkable divergence of views spelt out by cuch scholars as Biiamaha, Dandin, Vamana, Kuntaka, Avhinavagupta and uhoja on the one hand, and udrata, Mamata and their followore on the other. Vakrokti ie one of the most important critical theories propoundad by Indian echelare. Ite nature and scope, however, do not gsem to have been properly accertained, V.V. Sovani, for example, remarks that "Vekmoktiiivitkars may be included in the alankim echool, as he merely elaborates thamiha's wakrokti".’? sovani encompacres the vakroktd and alahkara schools in ons and the sam clace, P.V. Kane, too, does net feel any necesrity of recognizing yakroktd as an Andependent school of Sanskrit poetice, "The yaknoktd theory", he maintains, “is really an offshoot of the alanlars school and need not be separately recognized", ~ The concept of yokroktd may be related to the theory of glaikdra, but it 4c something far more than a mare cystem of rhatoric in Indian poeties. Kuntaka's definition of yakroktd as the ‘vital epconce of vootry' (valmokti) kavAve-tivitam tc16 very comprehensive. lo attached eo mich drportance to Postic expreccion that ha devoted a whole treatine to this subject and included under it Snbellichnant, style and even Kaga and dhvani. Makxolt, contains the crux of the Indian thinking on poetic exprescion, Dacyite ite sonowint ‘extrone nature’ and ‘quaint nomenclature’, 4 it presente an integrative philocoply of the language of pootry. It 4s not a means of @oaling wath 044 Kinds of poams, To Dhavele, it is an *extronely interesting theory of meaning in poetry". Krishna Chaitanya rightly obeorvee that Kuntake has "formated a significant theory of postic expression’ and that he has attacked the problem of diction and the poetry of tension ‘wath a rare intuition'.”° panedar Thakur, too, is highly dnpreceed by "the depth and commrehensivenses of critical intelligence’ revealed in the Vakroktsiivita. 77 While appreciating itr ‘originality’, ‘Literary acumen and ‘great value’, hovever, Kane tellr ue that the theory has fallen in neglect.” Mort modern seholare voriing on Indian poatice have either ionore Kuntaka altogether or Presented his vieve rather inaccurately.’ sven a echolar like S.K, De, who edited Kuntaka's text and attempted a Pioneering analysis of hie contributions, remarke that “he could not get himself entirely out of the conventional groove" and that he started well on his journey but stood “half-way, enmeshed and wncertain®.°° such an attitude te undoubtedly unfair to Kuntala, Hic yakrokts ic an cscthetic concept par emnellenca and explains and explores in a romrkable way the secret of poatic form and content and the aesthetic essence of pootic expression and ap-rectation, It de high tire that 1t were retrieved ¢rom 'unmorited ontiviont 2217 A careful perusal of his work will show how Kuntaka de always concerned vith the oft-repeated Anandavardhana Anedcte that the post should be avere of the principle of aectmlation and avoidance ef figures in accordance vith the need of the context.°4 Ha warne againet the tendency of vhat Keate would call leading ‘every rift ... wth are’. > aAthinavagupta, however, explain with brilldant subtlety the principle of embeciéing figures. The extended poetic continuum, saye he, integretes figurative embellishments Like Glowing water whoce ripples occasionally glint by catching the light, When a figure takes form in pootic expreccion, at bos a body(dearixa) — lnouictic tissue, which dteel¢ Ins to be beautiful,°° abhinavagupta further says that alebkara are genorally like exterml ornauents on the bedy but can cometines be like the kubluma. smeared for beauty on 4t.°7 Kpemenira also affims that literary ernaments have value only whon they are the plactically moulded exsression of pootic imvariness. “*unough wth ornanente", cayc ho, “Of viot use are attribute 4¢ thore20 de no 1igo there? Ornaments are ornanontes attributes are attributecr but aucttya (Propriety) is the life of the caga-ensouled poem, Ornament ic now no loner looked down ac something superadded to poetry, «co “iilip Ravecon observes, it ie not “something euxerfluous, inoscential, as trinmuing which adds nothing to the work but only obscures ites beauty*y 4t tc "a Cunctdonal acpect of art, erbodded in it, not a gratuitous extra’.°? tho recent analypie of metaphorical Languace has chown thet 4t te deoply integrated to the poet's subject matter and hie sensildlity, Far from boing something tacked on, a figure 1s the consacusnce of the post's creative power, Tt fe a vay of croating meaning, of expreecing vhot othorvice voald romain unexprossed, John ti4daleton Hurry objects to “the concoption that the notaphor 4e dn any useful cance of tho vord an ornament". Te pointe out that “for moct of the things whore quality a weitor vdchos to convey there are no procies epithets, simply because he 4c engaged in diecovering their qualities". Under cuch circumctancos, it dc the Sigurative languavge that come to the post's help, To Whalley, a postic figure de a ‘fecling-vector’.402 ariorcon hac iecussed the true natur: of figuros dn detail, Figures, according to hin, are not "a sugar vidich you sifted into the pudding in greater or loscer quantity as you thought wol1*.2°* 1s gurtior maintain: For ¢igures of gpecch are not more ornarente of style to be used or dispensed yth at dil, In their origin they are just cuch natural exproscions of emotion cc the shediing of teare, or a dog's wagging of ite tail, (ore they differ from thoes indications of fecling ic in a greater dirtinctness, in being extensions of the articulats, not merely the dnarticulate, expreccion of our feoling, 100