Kavyamimamsa of Rajasekhara (Study)
by Debabrata Barai | 2014 | 105,667 words
This page relates ‘Abhinavabharati of Abhinavagupta’ of the English study on the Kavyamimamsa of Rajasekhara: a poetical encyclopedia from the 9th century dealing with the ancient Indian science of poetics and rhetoric (also know as alankara-shastra). The Kavya-mimamsa is written in eighteen chapters representing an educational framework for the poet (kavi) and instructs him in the science of applied poetics for the sake of making literature and poetry (kavya).
Part 9 - Abhinavabhāratī of Abhinavagupta
[Post-Dhvani Theory of Sanskrit Poetics (2): The Abhinavabhāratī of Abhinavagupta (10th century A.D.)]
The Kāśmir Śaivite philosopher Abhinavagupta is the very greatest in Indian aesthetics.
‘He resorted to teachers of tarka (Nyāya and Vaiśeṣika system) and of Buddha, Artha and Vaiṣṇava doctrines. Abhinavagupta was proficient in yogic practices; he believed that he had realized the highest reality (Śiva)’.[1]
P. V. Kane realized about in this rhetoric that he is one of:
‘the most remarkable personalities of medieval India. He was a man of very acute intellect and was an encyclopedic scholar. He had taken all knowledge for his province’.[2]
Abhinavabharatī, the commentary of Abhinavagupta on Nāţyaśāstra is an exegesis on all matters discussed in Bharata’s treatise. The concepts of Śānta Rasa posited by Abhinavagupta and defended him with an extraordinary logical rigor, reflects his visionary on Sanskrit poetics.
He says that,
‘the eight rasas are like eight gods, and the Śānta is like their highest centre, Śiva.’
However Abhinavagupta’s intension of the need to modify Bharata’s formulation to suit the changing cultural ethos. In the Locana of Dhvanyāloka, learned Dhvani-theorist Abhinavagupta maintains that Rasa-dhvani in reality constitutes the essence of poetry and that Vastu-dhvani and Alaṃkāra-dhvani terminate ultimately in Rasa-dhvani which is the end of all poetic creation.
Footnotes and references:
[2]:
Ibid, Pp- 236