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Riti - Class Notes
Riti - Class Notes
The Riti School of Poetics is represented by its chief exponent VAMANA, author of KAVYALANKAR
SUTRAVRITTI, who flourished in Kashmir towards the close of 8 th Century A.D.
Acharya Vamana (later half of the 8th- early 9th Century) was an Indian Aesthetician and Rhetorician
(a person who studies logic and persuades through his words and grammar - he is able to influence
someone). He was one of the most brilliant thinker whose contribution to Indian literary criticism
was unique and of lasting value. His philosophy-oriented investigation into constitutional and nature
of a kavya revealed certain strikingly new facts and treatment of its elements were highly
imaginative and refreshingly original.
वामन के अनुसार, रीति या 'शैली' या 'अभिव्यक्ति का तरीका', कविता की आत्मा का निर्माण करते हैं। वामन के अनुस्वार, कविता की गति, रीति, लिख्यें
शीलि या अभिभिक्ति के औसर बंती हैं।
It is a special arrangement of words deviant (untypical) from the normal colloquial (casual)
expression and this specialty is based on Gunas or qualities like figures of speech, both of sound and
sense which have a role to play to enhance the beauty of any poem.
याह समन्या बोलचाल की अभिवावक से विचलित शबद की ईक वशेश विदवस्थ है और याह वशिष्ठ भषा के गन पर अधार होत है। गुन जाईस अलंकार का इस्तिमाल कर के
कविता कुं डारत को बदहया जा सकत है।
Riti means style or method, mode of expression. According to Vamana this style or method which an
artist or poet uses to express himself in the formation of a kavya constitutes the soul of poetry.
Every Poet/writer has his/her style of writing or creating a poetry. There is a sense of particular
diction or language which they choose to create their work in. this makes RITI. It is the language of a
poetry, that is what vamana focused on. According to him, this choice of language only makes a
poetry or Kavya soulful.
It was perhaps Vamana who initiated the speculation about the atman or soul of poetry. He
declared that Riti is the soul of Poetry “RITIR ATMA KAVYASYA”
Vamana’s pithy epithet (Short/concise/brief – Label) soon became trendy ; and ignited the
imagination of the champions of other schools of poetics. Each one re-coined Vamana’ phrase by
inserting into it (in the place of riti) that Kavuya guna (poetic virtue) which in his view was the
fundamental virtue or the soul of poetry.
For Instance, Anandavardhana idealised Dhvani as the Atma of Kavya, Visvanatha said Rasa is the
Atma of Kavya; while Kuntaka asserted that Vakrokti as the Jivita- the life of Kavya.
Besides, Rajasekhara who visualised literature as a whole, in a symbolic human form (Kuvya
Purusha) treated Rasa as its soul (Atma)
So Vamana was the first to use the term atma explicitly, just as everybody has atma, kavya has its
Riti. Thus for him, Riti is essence of Kavya and the gunas are essential elements of the Riti.
The language and its structural form lead us to the inner core of poetry and when that language
becomes style (Riti), it absorbs into itself all the other constitutes elements of poetry. It allows them,
as also the poetic vision, to shine through it.