Literary Theory & Criticism-Indian Poetics

 Name:Joshi Deepti M

  Paper:Literary theory & Criticism-Indian poetics

 Topic:Vakrokti,Riti,Auchitya

 Submitted to:Department of English

                            M.K University,Bhavanagar 

 Short note: Vakrokti, Riti, And Auchitya


1. Vakrokti:-

Among the key terms of Indian poetics vakrokti is the most misunderstood and misinterpreted one. The old school of Sanskrit rhetoric was primarily concerned with distinguishing different shades of poetic beauty under the head of alankara or figure of speech relating to sound (shabda) and sense (artha). And in this theoretical quest some earlier write like Bhamasha and Dandin just land upon the principles of vakrokti or we can say that on oblique expression which is also equated with atishyokti.   

Vamana, the next writer, shift his focus to the linguistic function involved in all aesthetic usage, and lands upon lakshana or metaphorical language which he calls vakrokti. But still for him riti or style that rooted in qualities is the soul of kawya, not the vakrokti.

In Sanskrit drama such vakrokti are of common occurrence. In the very opening verse of the famous play Mudrarakshasa by vishakhadatt is a very striking vakrokti or evasive speech by lord Shiva.

In that scene of one fine morning Lord Shiva comes home with Ganga on his head to the utter consternation of Parvati. He is caught on the wrong foot by the jealous wife and Shiva manages to escape unsullied only by his artful and convincing replies.

Parvati: who is this blessed damsel on your crest?

Shiva:            shashikala

Parvati: oh is that the name of the lady?

Shiva: surely! How is it you have forgotten her name

           Though so.

Parvati: My query is about the lady and not about the        

              Moon.

Shiva: let then Vijaya, the lady in attendance reply and not

            The moon.

Though Rudrata vamana Bhamasha and Dandin tried to define and clarify the concept of vakrokti it become the whole and sole aesthetic principles in the hands of Kantaka whose vakroktijivita is a feat of skill going beyond the theory of an Anandvardhana's divana. Both in depth and in extensive. Kantaka felt that poetic meaning had not been properly classified in the dhvani theory.

Anandvardhana’s had spoken of three qualitative levels of poetry,

 1 The best (Dhvnikavya)

 2 the next best (gunibhuttavyangya-kavya) 

3 the bottom grade (Chitrakavya) 

And poet should be aware about these three qualities as it is appreciated in three distinct ways such as primarily grasped secondarily noticed or virtually unnoticed.

While Anandvardhana gives importance to these three qualities which should be in the poem and these are the most important in a good poem kuntaka believe that three can be only one way to differentiate between what poetry is and what it is not.
According to kuntaka....,

"whatever appeals to a man of taste are good poetry and   

 Whatever not is non-poetry”

According to kuntaka it would be too fastidious to expect any single standard applicable to the appeal of all poetry because there can be a hundred and one different reason for the peal of different poems to men of taste.

For kantaka even dhvani may be one of the important features for the expression of the poets’ Pratibha or genius. Vakrokti of kuntaka is a synonym for the principles of beauty underlying all kinds of poetic language. It is also strongly connected with vaichitrya (streakiness) and vichchitti (beauty).
Kuntaka has classified forms of vakrokti in six fold.

1. Varna: shabdalankaras & avana - guna

2. Padopurvardha: suggestive use of linguistic elements

                                 & gunas

3. Pratyaya: suggestive use of affixes etc....

4. Vakya: figures of sense

5. prakarama: episode in plot with unity and originality

6. Prabandha: whole plot

So it is these sixfold vakrokti that distinguished poetry from other types of discourses. And this alone is therefore entitled to be called the vital essence of poetry. It should be noted that though at first sight this classification is modeled on the dhvani classification Anandvardhana it is not a mere reach. While Anandvardhana’s classification is circumscribed by his triple vyangyas such as vastu, alankara, and rasadi kuntaka scheme is not. Kantaka theory of vakrokti has included all shabdalankaras, all beauty of grammatical affixes, termination etc...  Under pada purvardha vakrokta and pada purvardha vakrokta, all alankara, riti, gunas and rasadi under Vakya vakrokta, the beauty of the whole work and dominant rasa under prabandha vakrokti. 

In early poetics, Vakrokti was generally distinguished from Svabhavokti where the poet does not add anything of his own and wherein his keen and observant recording itself is aesthetic.

         

                                                                                            

2. Riti

the riti School of poetics is represented fully by its chief exponent Vamana, author of kavyalankar sutravritti, who flourished in Kashmir towards the close of the eight century A.D.

According to vamana riti or style or mode of expression constitute the soul of poetry. It is a special arrangement of words deviant from the normal colloquial expression and this specialty is based on gunas or qualities like figures of speech, both of sound and sense which have a role to play to enhance the beauty of any poem.

During that time vamana wanted from writers that they should go deeper and understood the value of riti and should not be content with the superficial alankara. And even an unfavorable critic of the Riti School like Anandvardhana said that

“The riti is a feeble attempt at enunciated the basic fact of poetic vision and its transfer to the readers through the medium of language.”

Vamana's riti is anticipated in the marga of the south Indian writer Dandi, author of kavyadarsha. The distinctions between the vaidarbha style and the gaudya style was known even to Bhamasha , the earliest important writer who was in against of praising the vaidarbha and condemning the gaudya , and said that both style have their own place in good literature.

But in Dandin we find the earlier partiality for vaidarbha and aversion to gaudya given great prominence. He takes the vaidarbha style as the best and says that it contains all ten poetics qualities properly balanced. Those ten qualities are: -

1. Ojas:  strength through the use of long compounds

2. Prasad:  clarity & lucidity

3. Shlesha:  well knittedness

4. Samata:  evenness of sound within a line

5. Samadhi:  ambivalence through the use of metaphors

6. Madhurya:  sweetness

7. Sukamarata: softness & delicacy

8. Udaratva:  exaltation

9. Arthavyakti: lucidity of meaning

10. Kanti: grace

Vamana took the ten gunas of Bharata and Dandi but he treated all gunas separately as belonging to the expression and as belonging to the meaning thus making their number twenty. He defined them in his own way to suit his theory of riti and stated that all the gunas existed clearly and fully in the vaidarbha riti while only a few of
them existed in other ritis.

Vamana is emphatic about the impotence of gunas pertaining to the sense in making the vaidarbha style really charming. Mahimabhatta has painted out in his Vyaktiviveka that

"The rich suggestiveness of vaidarbha style is due to its obscene of long compounds, leaving each word to convey its maximum load of suggested meaning"

To the early styles vaidarbha and gaudiya of ancient writers. Vamana added a third one called panchali. All these are geographical names and suggest the style popular in those regions. And he defines these entire three rites in his own way.

According to vamana vaidarbha is that style which is untouched by even the slightest blemish, which is full of all the qualities and which is as sweet as the notes of a lute. The gaudiya style is characterized by Ojas and Kanti but it devoid of Madhurya and saukumarya it is full of long compounds and bombastic words. Panchali is the style which has the qualities of Madhurya and saukumarya and is devoid of Ojas and Kanti. It is soft and sweet and resembles the puranic style.

Later Rudrata adds latiya to: make the number of riti four. Though the names have a geographical association, they are really related to the theme and the sentiment.

 
Among later writers Kuntaka refers in his vakrokti- jivita to three geographical ritis vaidarbha gunas and panchali but does not recognize them as correct. He wants to explain the ritis subjective as based on the character of the poet. The three style indicated by him are Sukumara, vichchitra and Madhurya, though different in themselves all the styles have their own appeal to the readers.

And he accepted four poetic excellence or gunas of the style:  Madhurya, Prasada, lavanya and Abhijatya. All these different styles, but all are present in each style.

Though the poets original aesthetic experience and his imaginative powers are important in the creation of poetry, one has to remember that poetry is written with words, and what is available to the critic for objective analysis and study is the expression consisting of words and their meaning, through which alone any idea about the soul of
poetry can be studied and apprehended.

The critic has to analyze the poetic expression and contrasting it with the normal colloquial expression be has to find out the salient features of deviance and try to understand the means adapted by poets enriching the suggestive possibilities of the language. This analysis
of poetic expression and the theories formed as a result of the study are to be used as a means for appreciating and enjoying literature. The Riti School developed by vamana was a serious attempt in this direction on all later critics.

3. Auchitya

Auchitya in literary criticism has not appeared all of a sudden but literary critics collect ingeniously materials from older literature and build their theories on them. Kshemendra likewise found the rudimentary concept of Auchitya in earlier literature which he developed into an elaborate thesis.

Bharata  was the first to observe that for a proper and full development of rasa, the rules of propriety have to be observed in all their forms thus there has to be a proper employment of the anubhavas in relation to the subject matter the speakers the sentiment and the means with
which it is evoked. It is a matter of fact clear that it is difficult to speak of gunas or doshas in absolute terms and in a clear cut manner.

Hence arises their conception of Nitya and anitya permanent and transitory doshas and gunas. It is therefore not surprising to find the dhavnikara observing that the secret of rasa lies in observing the established rules of propriety.

This concept of rasadishas gradually led to the concept of doshas connected with the pada and the padartha the Vakya and the vakyartha means word & its meaning sentence and its meaning. Mahimabhatta also in second chapter of his work vjaktiviveka deals with the problem of
anauchitya and speaks of two aspects of impropriety referring to shabda and artha. He also speaks of propriety which is internal (antaranga) and external (bahirga) as it is with reference to the meaning.

Rudrata in his kavyalankar while dealing with different styles called ritis. Like the vaidarbha and the panchali and the different rasas and their development and the use of compounds in the context admits Auchitya as the governing principle. It can be said that Rudrata has
anticipated here the theory of Auchitya developed by Anandvardhana and fully established by Kshemendra.

When all other constituents like rasa the riti guna and alankara move in the direction of its development and are expected to contribute to it. Rudrata actually uses the concept of Auchitya and seems to develop the principles in some respect in his work for he speaks of the five
ritis madhura, praudha, pamasha, lalita and Bhadra- and advises a good poet to use them all skillfully after considering the propriety in the context of the speaker and the sense.

Kantaka admits Auchitya as guna a quality on account of which any charming expression bring out the excellence of the subject described. Kuntaka holds that propriety pervades in the word the sense and the entire poetical composition and if a composition, in any of its parts or anywhere suffers from impropriety Auchitya fails to lead
to the desired end. Kshemendra picks up all these scattered threads expressed or implied bints in the writing of the early writers like Rudrata Anandvardhana and Mahimabhatta and developed his own theory of Auchitya as soul of poetry.

All this discussion leads one to believe that in the pre-Kshemendra period the principles of Auchitya was thought of particularly in the context of character meaning subject vritti rasa word excellence of the object the nature of the speaker and the listener the sentence and the entire composition.

Kantaka admits Auchitya as guna a quality on account of which any charming expression bring out the excellence of the subject described. Kuntaka holds that propriety pervades in the word the sense and the entire poetical composition and if a composition, in any of its parts or anywhere suffers from impropriety Auchitya fails to lead
to the desired end. Kshemendra picks up all these scattered threads expressed or implied bints in the writing of the early writers like Rudrata Anandvardhana and Mahimabhatta and developed his own theory of
Auchitya as soul of poetry.

All this discussion leads one to believe that in the pre-Kshemendra period the principles of Auchitya was thought of particularly in the context of character meaning subject vritti rasa word excellence of the object the nature of the speaker and the listener the sentence and the entire composition. And at the same time no writer had declared that the propriety was the soul of poetry.

According to Kshemendra Auchitya resides in 28 place and he appears to have been more or less inspired by the approach of kantaka in listing the place where vakrokti resides. Like kantaka Kshemendra also bring out excellence as well as defects of earlier writers and at place his indebtedness to kantaka is quite obvious.

In the formulation of his original thesis Kshemendra is not an original thinker that way but his critical insight can be definitely seen in his formulating a new doctrine and basing it on the earlier discussions. He had also the necessary discipline and love of labour. But he was no genius and therein lie his limitations and that is the
causes as to why the Auchitya School of poetry could not belong to the list of recognized schools in Sanskrit poetics.
Kane’s judgment that

" Kshemendr’s contribution to poetics is meager is harsh and does no justice either to Kshemendra or to his work.”

The concept did not receive much attention from the writers on rhetoric in the post Kshemendra Period. But it is seen to play an important role in the literary criticism of the 19th and 20^th centuries. Auchitya comes into play when a Raleigh or standard or custom comes into conflict with the   reality at hand and decides the issue.

Regards for propriety really leads to classicism where rules. Norms and correctness are of supreme value. However according to some, Auchitya (propriety) or correctness is a negative virtue, for it are of the nature more avoiding defects rather than some positive achievement of graces. But the theory of Auchitya as elaborated by Kshemendra makes it loll like inner harmony of poetic creation.