Kuntaka () was a Sanskrit poetician and literary theorist of who is remembered for his work ''Vakroktijīvitam'' in which he postulates the Vakrokti Siddhānta or theory of Oblique Expression, which he considers as the hallmark of all creative literature. He lived roughly 950–1050,
[ between ]Anandavardhana
Ānandavardhana (c. 820 – 890 CE) was a Kashmiri court poet and literary critic, honored with the title of Rajanak during King Avantivarman's reign. Anandavardhana authored the ''Dhvanyāloka'', or ''A Light on Suggestion'' ('' dhvani''), a w ...
in the ninth century and Abhinavagupta
Abhinavagupta (Devanāgarī अभिनवगुप्तः; c. 950 – 1016 CE) was a philosopher, mystic and aesthetician from Kashmir. He was also considered an influential musician, poet, dramatist, exegete, theologian, and logicianR ...
in the tenth century and was a rough contemporary of Dhananjaya and Rajasekhara Rajasekhara may refer to:
* Rama Rajasekhara/Cheraman Perumal "Nayanar" (''fl.'' 9th century), theologian, devotional poet and ruler from south India
* Rajashekhara (Sanskrit poet) (''fl.'' 10th century), Sanskrit poet, dramatist and critic
* ...
.[
]
His theory
Vakrokti, emanating from the creative faculty of the poet
A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...
endows poetic language with strikingness aicitryaand causes aesthetic delight to the reader. Etymologically, the word Vakrokti consists of two components - 'vakra' and 'ukti'. The first component means 'crooked, indirect or unique' and the second means 'poetic expression or speech'.
Types of Vakrokti
It is manifested at six levels in language, viz. the phonetic level, arṇavinyāsa the lexical level adapūrvārddha the grammatical level adaparārddha the sentential level ākya the contextual level rakaraṇaand finally the compositional level rabandha Kuntaka anticipates much of the modern stylistic approach to literature and his stylistics
Stylistics, a branch of applied linguistics, is the study and interpretation of texts of all types, but particularly literary texts, and spoken language with regard to their linguistic and tonal style, where style is the particular variety of l ...
encompasses imaginative language at the micro and macro levels. The conscious choices made by the poet in the language is a fertile field of investigation in his approach. It is the considered view of Kuntaka that poetic language always deviates from hackeneyed expressions by its imaginative turns. Kuntaka avers that the stamp of originality of a great author will be present even in the title of the work of art.
Notes
References
*
*
*
External links
*
Kuntaka's Vakroktijivika with Kuntaka's own commentary
at GRETIL The Göttingen Register of Electronic Texts in Indian Languages (GRETIL) is a comprehensive repository of e-texts in Sanskrit and other Indian languages.
It contains several texts related to Indology
Indology, also known as South Asian studies, i ...
Kuntaka's Vakroktijivika with Kuntaka's own commentary
(Sanskrit text in Devanagari)
{{authority control
Indian male poets
Sanskrit poets
10th-century Indian poets
11th-century Indian poets