2025, Vol. 11, Issue 5, Part E

author(s)
Anil Pratap Giri

abstract

Indian philosophy has exercised a profound influence on the conceptual foundation and development of Sanskrit poetics. Rather than treating philosophy and poetics as two distinct disciplines, the Indian tradition has continually sought their integration. This integration is especially visible in the way poetic theories are shaped by metaphysical, epistemological, ethical, and linguistic insights derived from various darśanas. Sanskrit literary theory is thus not a separate aesthetic science but a philosophical expression of Indian thought in artistic form. The metaphysical views of various philosophical schools provided the ontological framework for understanding poetry. The dualistic metaphysics of Sāṅkhya, with its concepts of puruṣa and prakṛti, offered a vision of detached enjoyment, where the puruṣa remains a witness to the play of prakṛti; a metaphor that finds resonance in the detached yet immersive experience of rasa. The non-dualistic Vedānta, particularly Advaita, shaped the understanding of universalization (sādhāraṇīkaraṇa) in aesthetics, where the self becomes one with the universal emotion conveyed in poetry. Kashmir Śaivism introduced the concept of camatkāra, the wondrous flash of aesthetic delight, as a manifestation of the divine bliss of consciousness. The poetic experience thus becomes a microcosmic reflection of the metaphysical joy of liberation.

Epistemological categories in Indian philosophy deeply shaped the understanding of poetic cognition. The pramāṇa theory of Nyāya, involving pramātā (knower), prameya (knowable), and pramāṇa (means of knowledge), structured the way poetic experience was framed. The aesthetic response to poetry was understood not merely as emotional but as cognitive, involving a valid means of knowing beauty. The Mīmāṃsā school, with its rigorous theory of śabda-prāmāṇya (verbal testimony) and semantic conditions like akāṅkṣā (expectancy), yogyatā (compatibility), and sannidhi (proximity), became crucial in explaining how poetic sentences communicate meaning. These concepts were absorbed into poetic theory to explain the function of dhvani (suggestion), vakrokti (oblique expression), and vyañjanā (resonance). The Navya-Nyāya school, in particular, offered a refined language for analysing complex poetic cognition, as seen in texts like Rasagaṅgādhara where terms like avacchedaka (delimitor), viśeṣyatā (specification), and samavāya (inherence) are employed to define poetics with precision.Navya-Nyāya language has been systematically employed by Paṇḍitarāja Jagannātha in his magnum opus Rasagaṅgādhara, a landmark text in the tradition of Sanskrit poetics. This work not only reflects his mastery of deductive logic and analytical rigor but also marks a methodological turning point in the theoretical formulation of kāvya (poetry). Jagannātha was the first in the field of poetics to consciously adopt the artificial and highly technical idiom of Navya-Nyāya-a language specifically devised to eliminate ambiguity in philosophical discourse-and to apply it to the domain of aesthetics. During his time, the Indian intellectual milieu was deeply influenced by the Navya-Nyāya tradition, and no scholarly treatise was deemed authoritative unless articulated in its precise linguistic structure. Jagannātha’s objective, it appears, was to elevate kāvyaśāstra to the status of other śāstras by adorning it with this philosophically esteemed mode of expression, a task he accomplished with remarkable success.

This paper aims to explore the systematic methodology of Navya-Nyāya language as applied to the definition of kāvya in Rasagaṅgādhara. The analysis focuses on how Paṇḍitarāja deconstructs and reconstructs the concept of kāvya through epistemological categories such as dharma and dharmin (property and substrate), jāti and upādhi (universal and extraneous factors), as well as various types of avacchedakas (delimiters) like relation, property, and location. Moreover, the relation between viśeṣaṇa (qualifier) and viśeṣya (qualified) is scrutinized to expose the structural underpinnings of poetic cognition. The use of schematic diagrams in this study further clarifies these intricate relationships, making the logical architecture of Jagannātha’s analysis visually accessible. At the heart of this inquiry lies the attempt to delineate the essential nature (svarūpa) of kāvya by employing the tools of Navya-Nyāya language. The investigation reveals how technical notions such as Guṇādimat-Kāvyam, Viśeṣyatāvacchedakaṃ, Prakāratā, and Ramaṇīyatā converge to define the poetic utterance not merely as a verbal artifact but as a cognitive-experiential event that is philosophically justifiable. In doing so, the study reaffirms the critical role of philosophical methodology in shaping classical Indian literary theory.