Rasavadalamkara, as described by Hiriyanna in his book Art Experience, is one of a small group of

alamkaras, generally recognized by the older writers on Sanskrit poetics. Some of these alamkaras are
differently explained sometimes, the common feature amongst them being that they all relate to
emotional states.

It is described as an alamkara since it is an attribute of poetry-essential according to some, but only

desirable according to others. An alamkara may embellish either the poetry’s form or its content. The
Rasavadalamkara is an arthalamkara, it contributes to the beauty of poetry, not on the formal but on its
content side. Since the content is acknowledged to be vacya, the alamkara may be described as
vacyopaskaraka, i.e subserving the meaning directly expressed in poetry.

Rasa cannot be classed under alamkara. If the Rasavadalamkara is held to be vacya, it will not yield the
intended experience but only present its objective accompaniments; if, on the other hand, it is taken to
be arthapatti-gamya, the experience to which it leads will be very far from what is meant by rasa.

It is that some alamkarikas regard rasa not as an alamkara, but as a guna of poetry. However, gunas, like
alamkaras, are conceived as attributes of poetry; they are the only positive aspects of poetry, according
to Hiriyanna, it may be concluded that rasa should be an alamkarya (or gunin) and not an alamkara. Rasa
is an element of poetic value- a point which is undisputed by any alamkarikas, old or new. This means
that it stands for the ‘soul’ or essence of poetry- not for what embellishes, but for what is embellished.
That is the view based on which the later school criticized the the pracina conception of
Rasavadalmkara; and, in taking their stand on it, they judged aright the place of rasa in poetry.

Dhvani theory was originally given by Dhvanikara and was later advanced by Anandavardhana and
Udhhata. Dhvanyaloka theory draws analogy of dhvani with the theory of sphota which is the revelation
of meaning through the sound of words. The purpose of both the theorists was to synthesize the theory
of dhvani with theories of riti, guna, alamkara and rasa. However, none of these theories give an
account of the evocation of rasa in poetry.

Apart from the misconceived status of rasa in poetry, the pracina school failed to explain how rasa
experience comes to be evoked at all. In trying to explain it, they landed into a dilemma- either it
remains unevoked in its essence or only an idea of the corresponding emotion is conveyed in purely
conceptual terms. The later school was successful in avoiding this dilemma by enunciating vyanjana-
vyapara. It is commonly interpreted as the ‘process of suggestion’, wherein, the reader should ideally
reproduce in himself, with the aid of the suggestive elements and with that of his own feeling
equipment, a mode of experience similar to the one, under the spell of which the poet has expressed
himself in the form of the poem in question.

The dhvani theory of Anandavardhana analyses the function of the words to denote different kinds of
meaning. Three aspects of dhvani are:

1. Abidha- intrinsic meaning of the word. It is the power of a word to convey the meaning.

2. Laksana- concerned with the usage of words metaphorically wherein the meaning is indirectly
connected with the words used.

3. Vyanjan-Vyapara
Accordingly, emotions are not communicated by the poet; he only suggests them and thereby helps
their waking to life in the mind of a competent person, when they will necessarily be inwardly
experienced by him. In saying this, unlike the pracina school, the navina school accounts for the
important psychological fact that no emotions, other than one’s own, can be directly experienced.
However, this waking up of emotions in the mind of the reader must not be regarded as a revival of his
private experience otherwise, that would, by no means, constitute rasa. For, though the process may
eventually go back to impressions latent in his mind, the emotional experience itself, to state the same
otherwise, owing to the imaginative level at which the waking takes place, becomes impersonal and
quite unique. This is the solution by the later school of the riddle of rasa experience.

The logical consequence, accepted by the later school, of such a view is to exclude the Rasavadalmkara
from the sphere of poetics altogether, for it is a self-discrepant conception representing an alamkarya as
an alamkara. However, it is what contributes to, or enhances, the beauty of something else; even
though, rasa is intrinsically primal in character, it is sometimes found to subserve other suggested poetic
elements, and then it may secondarily be described as alamkara.

Hiriyanna contends that it is important to note that a rasa may subserve another suggested element of
poetry was not a new discovery by Anandvardhana or any other later thinkers. The rasa element is
present even in the later school; and yet, it is distinguished from the Rasavadalmkara, because that
element is not of first importance.