Assignment Paper :-109 ( Literary Theory & Criticism and Indian Aesthetics)
Name :- Aarti Bhupatbhai Sarvaiya
Batch :- M.A. Sem. 2 (2022-2024)
Enrollment N/o. :- 4069206420220027
Roll N/o. :- 01
Subject Code & Paper N/o. :- 22402 Paper 109: Literary Theory & Criticism and Indian Aesthetics
Email Address :- aartisarvaiya7010@gmail.com
Submitted to :- Smt. S. B. Gardi Department of English – Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University – Bhavnagar – 364001
Date of Submission :- 31 March, 2023
Indian Poetics Vs Western literary criticism
Introduction :-
Indian Poetics & Aesthetics is all about analysis of literature especially Poetries. There are several chief Indian Aesthetics & Poetics who came up with the various theories which we used alot in our literature as well as in our day to day life but we don't have any idea about that and that Poetics introduce us with those theories.
Those theories include Rasa, Dhvani, Vakrokty,Alankara, Riti, Auchitya and Ramniyata. These all theories are in the Sanskrit Language.
About Indian Poetics :-
Indian aesthetics is earlier than western aesthetics. Before Italian philosopher Croce there was no real aesthetics in the West. The first available book of this discipline in India is NatyaShastra, presumed to be authored by Bharata, who is thus accepted to be the first acharya (aesthetician) of the Sanskrit poetics. The last eminent acharya of this science is Panditraja Jagannatha, the author of Rasagangadhara, Bharata is believed to be belonging to between 5 c. BC to 2 B.C. The Sanskrit poetics thus is widespread over a period of one and a half or two thousand years.
The stand, regarding principles of poetry which were prevalent at the time of Bharata, changed during the period of Bhamah and Dandin, the authors of Kavyalamkārā and Kavyadarsha, belonging to 6th and 7 c AD. Bharata was an exponent of rasa, i.e, sentiment, while Bhamah and Dandin were of alankara, ie, embellishment or figurative beauty. According to both these acharyas, rasa was taken to be a mode.
In the 9 e. A. D. three acharyas by name of Vamana, Udbhata and Anandavardhana came into existence in this field They are the authors of Kavyalankara-sutra-vritti ,
Kavyalamkārāa-sara-samgraha
and Dhvanyaloka in respective order. Among these Vamana, supporting riti (poetic diction or style), had declared it to be the amman (essence or soul) of poetry, while Udbhata, the follower of Bhamaha and dandin, was an adherent of alamkārāa, but Anandvardhana accepted dhvani (an aesthetic suggestivity) as the soul of poetry.
On the basis of this theory he shifted the Sanskrit Poetics into a new direction. That is why he is said to be an epoch-making acharya.
However for about two hundred years many aestheticians refuted the theory of dhvani Chief among them are Dhananjaya (10 c. A D) the author of Dasarupaka, who included dhvani into fatparya- vriti (the function of the words called purport), Kuntaka (10 & 11" c. A. D.), the author of Vakrotijivita (vakrokti clever speech or artful expression and Mahimabhatta (11 e A. D.), the author of Vyakti Viveka, who included divani into anumana (an inference).
But Mammata (11 c. A. D.) the author of Kavyaprakasa, through his profound exposition, refuting all the adversaries of divani, defended and re-established the theory of divani indisputably, and throughout six centuries ahead, this doctrine was accepted by all the acharyas Even Jayadeva (13 c. A. D.), who had accepted alankara to be an inseparable component of poetry, dealt with dhvani in his book Chandralekha Vishvanatha (14 c. A. D.) though established Rasa as an atman of poetry, yet, while treating the theory of dhvani with all its varieties and sub-varieties in his book Sahitya Darpan, accepted Rasa as an important variety of deviant. The last acharya Jagannath advocated this theory with full faith in it.
Indian Poetics Vs Western literary criticism :-
The Western tradition of literary theory and criticism essentially derives from the Greeks, and there is a sense in which Plato, Aristotle, and Longinus mark out positions and debates that are still being played out today. At a moment when we are questioning the sufficiency of such Western critical methods to make sense of the plethora of literatures produced by the world’s cultures, it may be useful to remind ourselves that other equally ancient classical critical traditions exist. There is an unbroken line of literary theory and criticism in Indian culture that goes back at least as far as the Western tradition. Indian criticism constitutes an important and largely untapped resource for literary theorists, as the Indian tradition in important respects assigns a more central role to literature than the Greek tradition does.
No concept in Western literary criticism occupies as pro- minent a place as rasa does in Indian poetics; indeed, according to many students of Sanskrit poetics, "a work of art is artistic only when it evokes the experience of rasa" .
The theory of rasa seeks to explain everything through the emotions and we must ask how far rasa can be rendered compatible with categories of Western thought. Rasa is the reader's total emotional response to the text; it describes also the dominant emotion of a literary work, and the abstract enjoyment of such an emotion. A work may well engender several emotions: some emotions, having no independent existence, get swallowed up by other emotions, while others are rather more durable.
V.K. Chari points out, the theory of rasa does not allow the possibility of a 'cocktail' of emotions leading to some new delectable mixture: one emotion must dominate. He finds in the work of the eighteenth-century Scottish critic Kames, with his distinction between 'discordant emotions' and 'concordant emotions', and in Coleridge's notion of the 'unity of effect', considerable affinities to the theory of rasa, but avers that rasa offers a more "comprehensive and convincing account of poetic semantics and a consistent general theory of poetry".
If the theory of rasa can be made meaningful to Western readers by showing its affinity to certain strains in Western aesthetics and literary criticism, one can also attempt to find parallels for other concepts which were the stock and trade of Sanskrit theorists. They appear to have had a firm conviction that the language of poetry is distinctive in that it deviates from the commonplace, is a heightened form of expression, or is otherwise striking.
Speaking of Kuntaka, "the greatest exponent of the theory of vakrokti," Pathak finds that "his views offer the most striking similarities with modern Western analytic criticism" . Pathak likens vakrokti to the 'oblique approach' of Pound and Eliot, F.W. Bateson's stress on the 'connotations' of poetry, Allen Tate's concept of 'tension', and R.P. Blackmur's views on poetic language as 'gesture'. P.S. Sastri, meanwhile, in his essay on "Indian Poetics and New Criticism", construes 'Cleanth Brooks' 'paradox' and Empson's 'ambiguity' as analo- gues to vakrokti. Irony, ambiguity, gesture, paradox, tension, and a host of other concepts all approximate vakrokti, but yakrokti is much bigger than any of them, or even all of them put together. Thus several of our contributors note with evident pride "that the modern critical creed of the search for irony, paradox and ambiguity was anticipated in India hundreds of years ago". The expansiveness of the concept of vakrokti is said to be matched only by its antiquity.
For Example., Dominant emotion of Hamlet , shows how rasa, vakrokti, dhvani or any other element of Sanskrit poetics is to be employed in the task of practical criticism. Had this been attempted, it would have helped one to demarcate one concept from the other and equally from categories of Western thought, besides demonstrating how Indian poetics can enrich our understanding of works of literature, particularly those belonging to the modern period.
Oak tree as 'the tree', and there will be no ambiguity. The personal emotion of such a conversation would be described by Sanskrit theorists as bhava. At a higher level of abstraction, at a greater remove from the realm of the purely personal, "one can speak with carpenters about the fact that some trees are more useful than others for their craft." Or one can talk about love or anger, which are 'permanent emotions', the sthayi-bhava, that are within everyone's experience. "Or one can speak at a very high level of abstraction...of trees being made only by God." It is at this level of impersonal enjoyment and aesthetic delight" that one can speak of rasa. As Dimock remarks, "it is of course the common denominator 'tree', 'meaning all kinds of tall, barked, needles or leafy plants, that allow us to communicate with that vast proportion of the human race who have seen trees but who are neither carpenters nor intimate picnickers".
Whatever may be the intricacies of the rasa and bhava theory, Dimock is more interested in how Sanskrit poetics may be used to explicate some difficult questions of translation and interpretation. Whether poetry is really translatable at all is a question that has engaged many minds, and Dimock offers the intriguing suggestion that, with reference to Sanskrit poetics, translation is only possible on the level of the sthayi-bhava. He drives his point Rasa may well be the dominant theory of classical Sanskrit poetics, but for too long we have assumed that it has a monolithic character.
There is not one Ramayana in India, but nearly forty; and similarly the rasa theory, which may be likened to the trunk of a gigantic tree, has sprouted many branches. The study of Sanskrit poetics, and particularly the rasa theory, has been largely denuded of its significance by the tendency of scholars to resort to platitudes and vague generalities.
Conclusion :-
To Conclude, Indian Poetics mostly focuses on the intention of the works and Western literary critics mostly focuses on the mistakes or a figurative language. In some ways ,both are quite similar but it differs from their views towards literature.
Word Count :- 1630
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