काव्यप्रकाश (आचार्य मम्मट - सम्पूर्ण १० उल्लास सटीक)

net result of the teaching of the Sāhitya Shāstra : viz. that the ex-
pression of the emotions, in their infinite forms and their combi-
nations developed by the infinite forms and situations of human life,
is the business of literature; and that those writers are the greatest,
and those works the most permanent and the most prominent that
have seized and embodied the most permanent and prominent emo-
tions of humanity in the most remarkable manner.
It is interesting and instructive to compare Dr. Bain's class-
fication of the emotions admissible into poetry with those of the
Sanskrit authors, and their respective arguments in support of them.
The secret of the true reason, why Pathos plays such an important
part in all literature, why रसेषु करुणो रसः ( " amongst the poetical
emotions the supreme is Pathos ") in the words of the ancient Indian
poet, and why " our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest
thought " in the words of the modern English poet, is still to seek.
Neither Mammata nor Bain, etc., are quite satisfactory on this point.
The student might try and invent an explanation for himself. If
he can, further, satisfy himself as to why "the Furious" "the Terrible"
and " the Disgusting " should find a place in poetry, he will
have discovered a deeper reason than Dr. Max Nordau, for the
amazing outbreak of these in the literature, whose aberrations he so
trenchantly, if not sufficiently deeply, exposes in his book entitled
" Degeneration ".
Another notable point is that the form of the Kāvya is assigned a
very secondary place in Sāhitya. While in the West, metre, and to
a less extent, rhyme, have been held to be essentials, they are of very
minor importance in India. Prof. Bain and J. S. Mill before him (vide
his Dissertations), apparently approximate to the Indian view which
allows of such famous gadya-kāvyas (prose-poems) as Kādambarī,
Vāsavadattā, &c., and of course includes the drama under poetry at
large, as one of its species , Walt Whitman and his imitators also
recognise in practice the accuracy of it. It must be confessed, how-
ever, that this view is only correct in principle and as a theory. In
practice the powerful additions made to the pleasures of poetry by
metre and rhyme have checked the growth of prose-poems consider
ably, and thrown into the shade all but the very best. For similar
reasons, just as the metrical poem is an advance upon the prose-