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 10.33
लिम्पतीव तमोऽङ्गानि वर्षतीवाञ्जनं नभः ।
असत्-पुरुष-सेवेव दृष्टिर् निष्फलतां गता ॥
limpatīva tamo'ṅgāni varṣatīvāñjanaṃ nabhaḥ |
asat-puruṣa-seveva dṛṣṭir niṣphalatāṃ gatā ||[1]
limpati iva—as if besmears; tamaḥ—darkness; aṅgāni—the limbs; varṣati iva—as if rains; añjanam—eyeliner; nabhaḥ—the sky; asat—bad; puruṣa—person; sevā iva—as if serve; dṛṣṭiḥ—an eye (eyes); niṣphalatām—the state of being useless; gatā—attained.
Darkness as if besmears the limbs. The sky as if rains eyeliner. The eyes become useless like serving an evil man becomes useless.
ete svarūpotprekṣe.
The above two verses exemplify svarūpa utprekṣā (imagining the nature).
Commentary:
The verse features two utprekṣās and a simile. In this regard, Ruyyaka created two broad kinds of svarūpa utprekṣās: dharmi utprekṣā (imagining one thing to be another) and dharma utprekṣā (imagining that an attribute belongs to some particular entity).[2] In the above verse, each utprekṣā is a dharma svarūpa utprekṣā because an action is fancifully ascribed to a thing and the term “as if” is used. However, if on that occasion a term expressive of utprekṣā is not used, that ascription is in the scope of the virodha ornament (contradiction).
This is Paṇḍita-rāja Jagannātha’s example of dharma-svarūpotprekṣā,
nidhiṃ lāvaṇyānāṃ tava khalu mukhaṃ nirmitavato
mahā-mohaṃ manye sarasiruha-sūnor upacitam |
upekṣya tvāṃ yasmād vidhum ayam akasmād iha kṛtī
kalā-hīnaṃ dīnaṃ vikala iva rājānam atanot ||“I think that for sure Brahmā’s profuse bewilderment has escalated. He, who fashioned your face, a storehouse of loveliness, has slighted you because, expert as he is, he suddenly made the moon the king in this world, as if he were bonkers. The moon is devoid of skill (kalā) and is in a sorry state” (Rasa-gaṅgādhara, KM p. 296).
The utprekṣā is that the quality of being highly bewildered is fancifully attributed to Brahmā. It is fanciful, and not out of place, because of the concurrent statement that he fashioned an exceedingly beautiful face. Thereafter the reason for that dharma utprekṣā is mentioned: “He made the moon the king”, and it involves another dharma utprekṣā (“as if he were bonkers”), which is fanciful especially because of the concurrent statement that he is expert (kṛtin). Then the reasons for the latter utprekṣā are stated: (1) kalā-hīna (devoid of skill), which has the dual sense of “full moon” (lit. less by one-sixteenth portion),[3] and (2) The moon is in a sorry state (dīna) since its rabbit mark makes it disfigured.
The idea that Brahmā made the moon the king is striking because the word rājan (king) has the double meaning of moon.[4] An implied utprekṣā is that Brahmā should have made her face the king. Or else he should have made her face the moon.
Footnotes and references:
[1]:
[2]:
[3]:
The full moon which is less by a fraction is called anumati: paurṇamāsī tu pūrṇimā. kalā-hīne sānumatiḥ (Amara-koṣa 1.4.8); kṣīṇa candrakalā-vālī pūrṇimā kā nāma—anumati (Śrī Manna Lal’s Abhimanyu bhāṣā-ṭīkā 1.4.8,Caukhambā).