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 9.51
[This illustrates a śleṣopamā (simile based on paranomasia):]
व्रज-विपिनाद् बक-शत्रौ सह सखिभिर् गृहम् उपागते सुमुखि ।
विधुर् इव सकल-कलोऽयं विलसति नन्दीश्वरः पश्य ॥
vraja-vipinād baka-śatrau saha sakhibhir gṛham upāgate sumukhi |
vidhur iva sakala-kalo'yaṃ vilasati nandīśvaraḥ paśya ||
Take a look, beautiful woman: When Kṛṣṇa returns home from a forest of Vraja with His friends, Nandīśvara is sakalakala like the moon!
ity evam ādāv upamādir eva mukhyo’laṅkāraḥ, śleṣa-pratibhā tu tad-utpatti-hetuḥ, sāmyaṃ tu śabda-mātreṇaiva.
In such an instance, only the upamā ornament (simile) is primary. The brilliance of the paronomasia is the cause of the origination of the simile, yet the point of similarity is only the sound.
Commentary:
Nandīśvara is sa-kalakala (it has a cacophony) and the moon is sakala-kala (it has all the kalās). Here Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa discusses a topic that Mammaṭa expounded earlier in this chapter in Kāvya-prakāśa. Mammaṭa clarifies that although by definition a simile occurs due to a common attribute which is either a quality or an action, that does not exclude a mere similarity of sound from being the cause of a simile. However, Mammaṭa says the simile is the cause of the perception of the paronomasia. For instance, the śleṣa is not apparent only by hearing “Nandīśvara is sakalakala.” On the other hand, the paronomasia justifies the simile, thus they assist each other. The simile ends up as the aṅgī in the sense that the simile is primordial (10.247-248). In this way Mammaṭa approves of Rudraṭa’s statement that a simile can take place even though the similarity is merely based on śleṣa,[1] and refutes Udbhaṭa’s opinion that śleṣa is more important than any other figure it happens to be conjoined with.
Footnotes and references:
[1]:
na cāyam upamā-pratibhotpatti-hetuḥ śleṣaḥ, api tu śleṣa-pratibhotpatti-hetur upamā. tathā hi—yathā “kamalam iva mukhaṃ manojñam etat kacatitarām” ity-ādau guṇa-sāmye kriyā-sāmye ubhaya-sāmye vā upamā. tathā “sakalakalaṃ puram etaj jātaṃ saṃprati sudhāṃśu-bimbam iva” [adapted from Kāvyālaṅkāra 8.14] ity-ādau śabda-mātra-sāmye’pi sā yuktaiva. tathā hy uktaṃ rudraṭena, “sphuṭam arthālaṅkārāv etāv upamā-samuccayau kintu, āśritya śabda-mātraṃ sāmānyam ihāpi sambhavataḥ [Kāvyālaṅkāra 4.32]” (Kāvya-prakāśa, verse 378 vṛtti).