3.8 (d): Sentential figurativeness or vākya-vakratā

[Full title: A brief sketch of the contents of Vakroktijīvita, (8): Six divisions of Vakratā, (d): Sentential figurativeness or vākya-vakratā]

The third chapter is a detailed description of sentential figurativeness and he included all figurativeness in this section. Kuntaka says about it as:-

vākyasya vakrabhāvo'nyo bhidyate yaḥ sahasradhā/
yatrālaṅkāravargo'sau sarvopyantarbhaviṣyati//^[1]

Krishnamoorthy translated it as:

‘Art in a whole sentence admits of a thousand varieties. In it is included the whole lot of figure of speech’.^[2]

According to Kuntaka, sentential figurativeness is a unique skill of a poet like an overall beauty of a painting, which is distinct or unique from its constituent elements like canvas, lines, paints etc. Likewise the beauty of a sentence is distinct from its constituent elements like words, meaning etc. and which will only delight the connoisseurs. He also says that the poets never create anything which is non-existent in the world. They just give an extraordinary charm by their poetic excellence to the already existing objects. Then thereafter these things begin to appear as if they are entirely innovative and which make one to think that it is actually invented right now for the first time. Thus the poets reign as the creators in the poetic world.

This idea is reflected in a verse from Dhvanyāloka: -

apāre kāvyasaṃsāre kavireva prajāpatiḥ/
yathāsmai rocate viśvam tathedam parivartate//^[3]

Which means the poet is the only creator in the endless poetical world because all things in the world revolve according to his wish.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

ibid,p.35.

[2]:

ibid,p.321.

[3]:

ibid,p.130.