Alamkaras mentioned by Vamana
by Pratim Bhattacharya | 2016 | 65,462 words
This page relates ‘Alamkara-shastra according to Bhamaha (7th century)’ of the study on Alamkaras (‘figure of speech’) mentioned by Vamana in his Kavyalankara-sutra Vritti, a treatise dealing with the ancient Indian science of Rhetoric and Poetic elements. Vamana flourished in the 8th century and defined thirty-one varieties of Alamkara (lit. “anything which beautifies a Kavya or poetic composition”)
3: Alaṃkāra-śāstra according to Bhāmaha (7th century)
Bhāmaha, in his Kāvyālaṃkāra or Bhāmahālaṃkāra, has established the basic foundation of the ‘Alaṃkāra school’ of Sanskrit poetics. He probably flourished between the latter half of the 7th century A.D. and the first half of the 8th century A.D. He gives supreme importance to the alaṃkāras or poetic embellishments and he elaborates different poetic figures with suitable illustration in two long chapters.
Bhāmaha even declares that among the many modes or grades of poetic expression ‘vakrokti’ is the best one and it is the essential nucleus of all alaṃkāras–
saiṣāsarvaiva vakroktiranayārtho vibhāvyate/
yatno'syāṃ kavinākāryaḥ ko'laṃkāro'nayāvinā//
—Kāvyālaṃkāra (of Bhāmaha) 2.85.
The term ‘vakrokti’ which etymologically means crooked speech is used by Bhāmaha to mean a selection of words and ideas regarding poetical composition–
vācāṃ vakrārthaśabdoktiralaṃkārāya kalpate/
—Kāvyālaṃkāra (of Bhāmaha) 5.66.
This ‘vakrokti’ is completely reverse to matter of fact speech or ordinary speech. Later on this concept of ‘vakrokti’ has been exhaustively dealt and developed by Kuntaka in his Vakroktijīvita thus creating a whole new school of Sanskrit Poetics known as ‘Vakrokti-prasthāna’.