Literary Criticism and Figures of Speech (Alankar, Chhanda, Ras)
Rasa theory in brief
Rasa is produced when sthayi bhava is awakened through vibhav (the occasion), anubhav (the outward signs) and vyabhichari bhava (the passing moods). The nine rasas are shringar, hasya, karuna, raudra, veer, bhayanak, bibhatsa, adbhut, shant. In criticism questions, name the sthayi bhava first, then the rasa, then the vibhav that triggered it - that order shows reasoning and protects you if the examiner reads the rasa differently.
Alankar: two families
- Shabdalankar depends on sound: anupras (repeated consonants), yamak (same word, different sense), shlesh (double meaning), punarukti (repetition).
- Arthalankar depends on meaning: upma, rupak, utpreksha, atishayokti, drishtant, sandeh, bhrantiman, apahnuti. Anupras repeats sounds, yamak repeats a whole word with a new sense - a distinction that decides the mark.
Chhanda: matra and varna
Matra-vritta counts laghu (1) and guru (2): doha 13+11, soratha 11+13, chaupai 16+16, rola 24+24, with yati at the stated point. Varna-vritta counts ganas of three syllables each; the eight ganas are ma, ya, ra, sa, ta, ja, bha, na. Always mark the yati, because a pause in the wrong place breaks the metre.
Worked example
Line for practice: "Tohar naina kamal jiyan khile." "Jiyan" is the saman-vachak word, so the figure is upma. Delete it - "Tohar naina kamal" - and the object is simply called the lotus: rupak. Replace the plain claim with a fancied scene, "manu naina se kamal lar rahal ho", and you have utpreksha. Same image, three figures, decided only by the words actually present.
Traps
Assigning rasa from the subject matter; calling any comparison upma; treating anupras and yamak as interchangeable; reciting a line to fit a metre you have already guessed.