Auchitya, the Concept of Propriety

Ksemendra was the foremost proponent of the concept of Auchitya in Sanskrit Poetics. This is the concept of propriety that advocates observing certain norms of behaviour and speech. Ksemendra in his work Auchityavicharak discusses the fact that improper use of figures of speech and stylistic merits will put the aesthetic effect aside and hence the aim to relish a text will not be realized. Propriety therefore is a device to make speech or composition convincing and effective. He contends that anything which is suitable to its context is proper (uchit) and that the state of being proper is propriety (auchitya). However this theory never gains universal recognition for it is never complete. It is incomplete in a sense that it emphasizes appropriateness but how it can be achieved depends heavily on the poet’s talent. Moreover, it is a shifting literary concept that at times satisfies ethical and moral considerations and at other literary and aesthetic ideas. Therefore this theory acts more as a guiding principle than as a literary theory.