Sahitya-kaumudi by Baladeva Vidyabhushana
by Gaurapada Dāsa | 2015 | 234,703 words
Baladeva Vidyabhusana’s Sahitya-kaumudi covers all aspects of poetical theory except the topic of dramaturgy. All the definitions of poetical concepts are taken from Mammata’s Kavya-prakasha, the most authoritative work on Sanskrit poetical rhetoric. Baladeva Vidyabhushana added the eleventh chapter, where he expounds additional ornaments from Visv...
Text 8.19
प्रोक्ताः शब्द-गुणाश् च ये ॥ ८.७३b ॥
proktāḥ śabda-guṇāś ca ye || 8.73b ||
proktāḥ—enounced; śabda-guṇāḥ—the śabda-guṇas (qualities of sounds or of words); ca—also; ye—which [śabda-guṇas].
The śabda-guṇas as well were stated.
te’pi pṛthaṅ na vācyā ity arthaḥ.
This means even the śabda-guṇas should not be mentioned separately [from the term guṇa].
Commentary:
Other commentators explain the sūtra differently. Mammaṭa does not elaborate. In Kāvya-prakāśa, this sūtra and the next form one sūtra. The word ye (which) here is the antecedent of the pronoun teṣām (of them) in that sūtra. Śrīvatsa-lāñchana Bhaṭṭācārya says the word upacāreṇa (figuratively) needs to be supplied to this sūtra.[1] According to Govinda Ṭhakkura, the sense is the three literary guṇas were called śabda-guṇas by other persons by figurative usage, but in truth those three guṇas are only rasa-guṇas (qualities of the rasas).[2]
Mammaṭa’s guṇas are śabda-guṇas (qualities of the sounds or of the words) in the sense that the guṇas are worth hearing (8.8). Prasāda, the clarity of the literal meaning (8.12), is a śabda-guṇa inasmuch as it is the quality of a clear wording.