The Way of the Poet-King

Poetics at the Court of Amōghavarṣa

Andrew Ollett g July 4, 2017

licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

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The Daṇḍin Model of Poetics
The Amōghavarṣa Model of Poetics
Revising Dismissal (ākṣēpa-)

Acknowledgements

Yigal Bronner

Sarah Pierce Taylor

The Daṇḍin Model of Poetics

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Kāñcīpuram, around 700 CE

Place: Kāñcīpuram, city of the Pallavas

Time: around 700 CE

Daṇḍin composes his Mirror of Literature (Kāvyādarśaḥ).

Daṇḍin’s Mirror of Literature

written in Sanskrit ślokas in three chapters:

The Ways of Literature (mārgavibhāgaḥ)
Ornaments of Meaning (arthālaṁkāraḥ)
Difficult Techniques (duṣkaraḥ)

The Amōghavarṣa Model of Poetics

Maḷkhēḍ, around 870 CE

Place: Mānyakhēṭa, city of the Rāṣṭrakūṭas

Time: around 870 CE

Śrīvijaya composes his Way of the Poet-King (Kavirājamārgaṁ) at the court of the Rāṣṭrakūṭa King Amōghavarṣa.

Śrīvijaya’s Way of the Poet-King

written in Kannada kandas in three chapters:

Introduction
Ornaments of Sound
Ornaments of Meaning

An image of a manuscript

Questions for this talk

How can we see the Way of the Poet-King as a reading of, or even a commentary on, Daṇḍin’s Mirror of Literature?
What kinds of interventions does the Way make into the treatment of individual ornaments? (≈ how does the vernacular “write back”?)
How does the Way reimagine the system of literary knowledge that Daṇḍin had provided in the Mirror of Literature?

ad 1: It’s the earliest engagement with Daṇḍin’s Mirror, and one of the most thoughtful. It’s significant that it’s a vernacular adaptation (because Daṇḍin does not seem to allow for the possibility of vernacular textuality). Understanding goes both ways: Mirror explains the Way and the Way explains the Mirror.

ad 2: Not just reception, but a conversation about poetics that includes vernacular texts. What different priorities are in evidence?

ad 3: What I’m responding to is the widespread idea, among modern scholars but also among Kashmiri intellectuals of the eighth century and onwards, that the ‘old school’ of poetics represented by the Mirror and the Way, which was focused on the teaching of literary ornaments, is not sufficiently systematic, reflective, or theoretical.

Ākṣēpaḥ or Dismissal

Ākṣēpaḥ

Dismissal

Ākṣēpaḥ or Dismissal

“The word ākṣepa is post-epic. Whether its earliest meaning was ‘hint’ or ‘denial’ or ‘censure’ I cannot say, for it bears all these senses in the later literature. As a technical name of a figure of speech it is defined by all the Ālaṅkārikas starting from Bhāmaha and Daṇḍin. Usually it is defined as a denial (pratiṣedha, niṣedha) which hints at something unexpressed.”

(Ingalls’ note on Dhvanyālokalōcana 1.13e.)

The two discussions at a glance

Daṇḍin (2.120–166)

Definition

Examples and discussion according to time:

past, present, future

Examples and discussion
according to what is dismissed:

property, property-possessor, cause, effect, assent, denial, disrepsect, blessing, harshness, accompaniment, effort, helplessness, remedy, anger, compassion, regret, embrace, doubt, case in point, reason

Śrīvijaya (3.99–107)

Definition and example

Examples and discussion:

embrace, comparison, doubt, reason

Conclusion

The two discussions at a glance

We can already see that Śrīvijaya’s discussion is drawn from the very beginning and end of Daṇḍin’s discussion.

He bypasses a whole series of examples inspired by Prakrit poetry, where a woman attempts to stop her husband from leaving on a trip (ākṣēpaḥ = ‘chastisement’)
He focuses, instead, on a selection of subvarieties where logical structures are important, like doubt and reason (ākṣēpaḥ = ‘negation’).

What does Śrīvijaya skip?

Here is an example of Daṇḍin’s harsh dismissal (2.143)

yadi satyaiva tē yātrā
kāpy anyā mr̥gyatāṁ tvayā
aham adyaiva ruddhāsmi
randhrāpēkṣēṇa mr̥tyunā

What does Śrīvijaya skip?

Here is an example of Daṇḍin’s harsh dismissal (2.143)

If you’re really going,
go hunt after some other girl.
From now on I’m spoken for—
by death, who’s waiting in the wings.

Introducing ‘Dismissal’

in Mirror 2.120–122

Daṇḍin’s introduction

Mirror 2.120:

pratiṣēdhōktir ākṣēpas
traikālyāpēkṣayā tridhā
athāsya punar ākṣēpya-
bhēdānantyād anantatā

Daṇḍin’s introduction

Mirror 2.120:

Dismissal is the statement of a denial.
It is threefold, in view of the three times.
Or rather, it is infinite, on account of the
infinite variety of things that can be dismissed.

Daṇḍin’s first example

Mirror 2.121:

anaṅgaḥ pañcabhiḥ pauṣpair
viśvaṁ vyajayatēṣubhiḥ
ity asaṁbhāvyam athavā
vicitrā vastuśaktayaḥ

Daṇḍin’s first example

Mirror 2.121:

It’s unbelievable that the Bodiless God
conquered the world with five arrows
made of flowers. Or maybe not:
the powers of things might surprise you.

Daṇḍin’s discussion of his first example

Mirror 2.122:

ity anaṅgajayāyōga-
buddhir hētubalād iha
pravr̥ttaiva yad ākṣiptā
vr̥ttākṣēpas tad īdr̥śaḥ

Daṇḍin’s discussion of his first example

Mirror 2.122:

This kind is past dismissal, since the notion
that the Bodiless God’s victory doesn’t
make sense, which has already come about
on the strength of those reasons, is dismissed.

Introducing ‘Dismissal’

in Way 3.99–100

Śrīvijaya’s introduction

Way 3.99:

viditārthaviparyāsā-
spadame dal ākṣēpam emb’ aḷaṁkāraṁ ma-
tt’ adaṟa viśēṣavibhāgama-
n udāharaṇamārgadiṁ prayōgisi tōrpeṁ

Śrīvijaya’s introduction

Way 3.99:

Dismissal is an ornament based on
controverting a meaning already known.
I will now illustrate particular varieties
of it in practice, by way of example.

Śrīvijaya’s first example

Way 3.100:

mr̥dutaramārgade kennaṁ
madana-śarānīkam oykan olavaṁ paḍeguṁ
hr̥dayaman adavaḻalind’ uṟe
vidārisuvud’ intu kusumamayam alt’ adaṟiṁ

Śrīvijaya’s first example

Way 3.100:

To be sure, the arrowhead of the God of Love
gains its entrance by the most tender of paths.
But then it completely tears the heart apart
with grief. That’s why it can’t be made of flowers.

Since the time-based classification is gone, this is no longer an example of one of the subvarieties of dismissal, but of dismissal as a whole.
What is dismissed is ‘Kāmadēva’s arrows being made of flowers,’ which serves as the reason in Daṇḍin’s example. This is thus not a one-to-one rendition, but a creative rethinking of the example.
Or rather, we could think of this as a ‘dismissal’ of Daṇḍin’s example: rather than countering the statement about Kāmadēva’s power by saying ‘all things are possible,’ he counters the statement by focusing on the ‘flower-arrows,’ and refuting or denying this particular aspect of the statement. Once it is denied that Kāmadēva’s arrows really are made of flowers, there is nothing unbelievable about his conquering the world.

Setting the tone

Śrīvijaya presupposes Daṇḍin’s interventions…
- specifically, the ‘dismissal’ of a temporal classification (traikālya-)
… and responds to Daṇḍin’s examples
- by ‘dismissing’ the reason (pauṣpatā) given in Daṇḍin’s verse

Breaking the Mirror

Daṇḍin’s ‘Doubt Dismissal’ (Example)

Mirror 2.161:

kim ayaṁ śaradambhōdaḥ
kiṁ vā haṁsakadambakam
rutaṁ nūpurusaṁvādi
śrūyatē tan na tōyadaḥ

Daṇḍin’s ‘Doubt Dismissal’ (Example)

Mirror 2.161:

It this an autumn cloud?
Or a flock of geese?
You can hear something like anklets.
So it’s not a cloud.

Daṇḍin’s ‘Doubt Dismissal’ (Explanation)

Mirror 2.162:

ity ayaṁ saṁśayākṣēpaḥ
saṁśayō yan nirvartyatē
dharmēṇa haṁsasulabhē-
nāspr̥ṣṭaghanajātinā

Daṇḍin’s ‘Doubt Dismissal’ (Explanation)

Mirror 2.162:

This is a doubt dismissal,
where the doubt is removed through a property
that is commonly found in geese
but doesn’t pertain to clouds as a class.

Śrīvijaya’s ‘Comparison Dismissal’

Way 3.103:

varahaṁsakadambakam adu
śaradambudam altu mukharanūpurasaṁvā-
diravaṁ negaḻd’ appudu ban-
dhuram adaṟind’ idaṟoḷ embud’ upamākṣēpaṁ

Śrīvijaya’s ‘Comparison Dismissal’

Way 3.103:

“That’s a flock of beautiful geese, not
an autumn cloud, since the lovely sound
of tinkling anklets is arising from it.”—
this is what is called a comparison dismissal.

Śrīvijaya’s ‘Doubt Dismissal’

Way 3.104:

madakariyō ghanasamayām-
budamō ghanam altu negaḻvud’ adaṟoḷ sapta-
cchadagandhasurabhi paduḷaṁ
madakariyene nenege saṁśayākṣēpakamaṁ

Śrīvijaya’s ‘Doubt Dismissal’

Way 3.104:

“Is is a bee, or a monsoon cloud? It’s not a cloud.
Arising from it is the attractive fragrance
of the saptacchada tree.”—one should
consider this to be doubt dismissal.

This is an entirely new example, but one that is closely modelled on Daṇḍin’s example of doubt dismissal (which Śrīvijaya had just used to illustrate the variety he calls comparison dismissal). He has changed the season, and therefore the color of the cloud, and therefore the upameya.

How is this any different, in structural terms from the previous verse?

The doubt here is explicit, whereas in the earlier verse it is presupposed or implicit.
Maybe Śrīvijaya tried adapting Daṇḍin’s verse to Kannada, and ended up without an explicit ‘doubt’—and therefore had to relabel his composition something generic, like comparison dismissal, and compose another, different example to illustrate doubt dismissal. This seems unlikely, given how careful Śrīvijaya generally is.
But are there alternative explanations? Possibly we can look to Bhāmaha’s chapter 5, which discusses the use of inferential reasoning (including anvaya and vyatirēka) in literature.

Śrīvijaya’s Conclusion

Making Connections within the System

Way 3.106:

vyatirēkavikalpam id’ en-
d’ atiśayadhavaḷōpadēśamārgakramadin-
d’ atinipuṇar aṟidu koḷg’ anu-
mitiyind’ ākṣēpam emb’ aḷaṁkāramumaṁ

Making Connections within the System

Way 3.106:

The wisest of the wise will know on the basis
of this system, the Way that is the teaching of
Atiśayadhavaḷa, that these are the varieties of
distinction. They should apply them to the ornament
called dismissal, as well, through inference.

Distinguishing ‘Dismissal’

Way 3.107:

pratipadārthatattvabhēdadoḷ
pratiṣēdhamaṁ negaḻgum anite māḻkeyin-
d’ atiśayākṣēpagaṇanāvyati-
gati nr̥patuṅgadēvamārgadoḷ

Distinguishing ‘Dismissal’

Way 3.107:

In the presence of a difference between the
essence of each object, it effects a negation.
In precisely this manner does the striking
ornament of dismissal diverge, according to
the Way of Lord Nr̥patuṅga.

it effects a negation: of the similarity.

diverge: from distinction.

Certainly seems as if he’s reduced Daṇḍin’s ‘explosion of dismissal to manageable, and theoretically more coherent, proportions. What seems to be a necessary part of dismissal here is an presupposed (implicit or explicit) similarity between two objects that is then explicitly denied. The denial is the distinguishing feature of dismissal vis-à-vis distinction.

Note that this makes ākṣēpa into a relatively uninteresting ornament. It is essentially vyatirēka, or distinction, but stated in a negative rather than a positive way. It also emptied ākṣēpa of the suggestiveness it’s supposed to have (ākṣēpa can mean a ‘hint’) as well as the discursive/pragmatic valences (ākṣēpa meaning ‘chastisement’). This last bit seems to reaffirm that essential negating character of ākṣēpa against these different interpretations.

This seems to be an example of ‘pruning,’ where subvarieties that are present in the Mirror are intentionally excluded from the Way because they would affect the system’s coherence.

A Cue from Bhāmaha?

Ornament of Literature 2.68 and 2.75:

pratiṣēdha ivēṣṭasya yō viśēṣābhidhitsayā
ākṣēpa iti taṁ santaḥ śaṁsanti dvividhaṁ yathā

upamānavatō ’rthasya yad viśēṣanidarśanaṁ
vyatirēkaṁ tam icchanti viśēṣāpādanād yathā

How do we think of the Way of the Poet-King?

An argumentative response to Daṇḍin’s Mirror:
- Daṇḍin’s system is basically accepted;
- but with a great many small and subtle changes,
  - some signifying the acceptance of Daṇḍin’s interventions,
  - others signifying their rejection;
- the whole system is ‘repackaged’ for the new literary project of courtly Kannada.
One of the principles at work: a stricter (and arguably more coherent) understanding of each individual ornament and the system of ornaments as a whole.