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 10.79
[This is the samāsokti variety of aprastuta-praśaṃsā,]
किं चातकीर् अपि रस-स्पृहयैकताना
वर्षन्तम् अम्बुदम् अपि स्व-वशे नयन्ती |
वात्ये विधाय दृग्-अगोचरम् एव तासां
छन्नेन राजसि रजोभिर् अनेन कामम् ||
kiṃ cātakīr api rasa-spṛhayaikatānā
varṣantam ambudam api sva-vaśe nayantī |
vātye vidhāya dṛg-agocaram eva tāsāṃ[1]
channena rājasi rajobhir anena kāmam ||
kim—why?; cātakīḥ—the female cātaka birds; api—also; rasa—for water (rainwater) (or for rasa); spṛhayā—out of a desire; eka-tānāḥ—fixated; varṣantam—which is raining; ambudam—on the cloud; api—even; sva—own; vaśe—under control; nayantī—you are bringing; vātye—O female windstorm; vidhāya—having made; dṛk—of the sight; agocaram—out of the range; eva—only; tāsām—of those [cātakīs]; channena—[the cloud,] which is covered; rājasi—you are resplendent; rajobhiḥ—with dust (or with passion; the plural is used in the sense of high regard); anena—with this (the cloud); kāmam—at will.
O windstorm! Because of longing for water (or for rasa), the female cātaka birds are fixated on the raincloud, so why do you make the cloud invisible to them, by bringing it under your sway and by covering it with dust (rajas) (or with passion) in order to be resplendent with it at your discretion? (Alaṅkāra-kaustubha 8.105)
atra rāse hariṇā tyaktānāṃ gopīnāṃ tenopabhuktāyāś ca mukhyāyāḥ prastāve tat-tulyānāṃ cātakīnāṃ vātyāś coktiḥ. cātakī-prabhṛtīnāṃ pratināyikāditvaṃ viśeṣaṇa-sāmarthyād avaseyam iti samāsokti-cchāyā.
In the Rāsa dance, Hari took pleasure with the principal gopī and abandoned the other gopīs. On that occasion, here there is a talk of a windstorm and of female cātaka birds, which are similar to them respectively. By the force of the modifiers, it is to be understood that the female cātaka birds and so on are the rival heroines and so forth. There is a shadow of samāsokti in that way.
Commentary:
The windstorm is Rādhā and the raincloud is Kṛṣṇa. This is the samāsokti variety especially because the modifiers rasa and rajas are paronomastic and because no substantive is paronomastic. Here the genders of the substantives are an additional suggestive factor: The word windstorm is in the feminine (vātyā), the cātaka birds are female, and the cloud (ambuda) is masculine.