Text 7.113

स्थितेष्व् एतत्-समर्थनम् ॥ ७.५८d ॥

sthiteṣv etat-samarthanam || 7.58d ||

The justification for this is found in the works of great poets.

karṇāvataṃsādi-śabdāś cen mahā-kavi-kāvyeṣu tiṣṭhanti, tarhi yukti-pradarśanaṃ tatraitat. na ca tadvat pāda-nūpura-jaghana-kāñcī-kara-kaṅkaṇādayaḥ prayojyāḥ.

If the words beginning from karṇāvataṃsa are in the poetry of great poets, then the proof of this logical reasoning is found there. However, the following words should not be used: pāda-nūpura (ankle bells on the feet), jaghana-kāñcī (girdle on the waist), kara-kaṅkaṇa (wrist bracelet on the hand), and so forth.

Commentary:

Mammaṭa begins his famous criticism of Vāmana here. Mammaṭa says the usage of jaghana-kañcī is wrong whereas Vāmana says the term nitamba-kañcī (girdle on the lower part of the waist) is acceptable (Kāvyālaṅkāra-sūtra 2.2.19 vṛtti).

This entire kārikā (7.58)—the above sūtra and the previous sūtra—is a verse quoted by Vāmana (c. 800 CE) in his Kāvyālaṅkāra-sūtra (2.2.19 vṛtti). The discussion regarding karṇāvataṃsa and so on is sourced in Kāvyālaṅkāra-sūtra (2.2.13-16). In his commentary on Rūpa Gosvāmī’s Mukunda-muktāvalī 5 (Stavamālā), Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa, while justifying Rūpa Gosvāmī’s usage of the word muktā-hāra (a necklace of pearls), cites this kārikā and says that Bharata Muni is the author.^[1] The verse is not in Nāṭya-śāstra.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

yadyapi hāra-śabdo muktā-sandarbhasya vācakaḥ, “hāro muktāvalī” iti viśva-prakāśāt, tathāpi muktā-śabdas tasya viśuddhi-boddhāya, “karṇāvataṃsādi-pade karṇādi-dhvani-nirmitiḥ, sannidhānādi-bodhāya sthiteṣv etat-samarthanam” iti bharata-maharṣi-vacanāt (commentary on Stavamālā). In the Kāvya-mālā edition of Stavamālā (1903), the authorship of the commentary is wrongly attributed to “Śrī-jīva-deva.”