Text 10.249

यथा वा,
हृत-भुवन-तमाः क्रमाद् विरागः कलय कलानिधि-वैष्णवो विशुद्धः ।
रुचिम् अमृत-मयीं क्षिपन् विदूरे प्रविशति विष्णु-पद-प्रपत्ति-वीथीम् ॥

yathā vā,
hṛta-bhuvana-tamāḥ kramād virāgaḥ kalaya kalānidhi-vaiṣṇavo viśuddhaḥ |
rucim amṛta-mayīṃ kṣipan vidūre praviśati viṣṇu-pada-prapatti-vīthīm ||

hṛta-bhuvana-tamāḥ—[the moon,] by which the darkness of the world is dispelled (or a Vaiṣṇava, by whom the ignorance in the world is ended); kramāt—sequentially; virāgaḥ—devoid of redness (or devoid of passion); kalaya—calculate (i.e. look); kalānidhivaiṣṇavaḥ—the Vaiṣṇava which is the moon (i.e. the moon is the form of a Vaiṣṇava); viśuddhaḥ—pure; rucim—a radiance (or a liking); amṛta—of nectar (or of liberation); mayīm—consisting; kṣipan—while casting; vidūre—far away; praviśati—enters; viṣṇu-pada—of the sky^[1] (or to Viṣṇu’s feet); prapatti—of the attainment (or of surrender); vīthīm—the path.

Look: The Vaiṣṇava moon dispels the darkness of the world (or he dispels the ignorance in the world), is bright (or pure), and is without redness (or is dispassionate): It enters the pathway of the attainment of the sky (or the path of surrender to Viṣṇu’s feet) while casting far away its radiance of nectar (or by casting far away a liking for liberation). (Lalita-mādhava 9.35)

atra rūpakam aṅgī śleṣo’ṅgam ity anayoḥ saṅkaraḥ.

The verse features a saṅkara of rūpaka (the moon in the form of a Vaiṣṇava) as the aṅgī and śleṣa (literal double meaning) as the aṅga.

Commentary:

The verse occurs in a context where there is a mention of the moon. The last line of the previous verse reads: śaṅke śaṅkara-maulir abhyudayate rājā purastād diśi, “I suspect that the moon, which rests atop Śiva’s head, has begun to rise in the eastern direction” (Lalita-mādhava 9.34). That context continues in the next verses: rātrāv api, “Even though it is night” (Lalita-mādhava 9.38). Therefore, since only the moon is contextual, the double meanings are not literal. The double meanings are the form of a second-rate implied sense of the vācya-siddhi-aṅga variety (an aspect in the accomplishment of the literal meaning) (5.10) because they justify the metaphor “Vaiṣṇava moon”. Since there is no śleṣa, there is no saṅkara.

Furthermore, the compound kalānidhi-vaiṣṇava cannot be analyzed as a simile (Vaiṣṇava-like moon) because the modifiers are paronomastic and because, by the rule upamitaṃ vyāghrādibhiḥ sāmānyāprayoge (Aṣṭādhyāyī 2.1.56), a compound cannot be interpreted as a simile if the attribute in common is stated outside the compound (Commentary 10.256).

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

viyad viṣṇu-padaṃ vā tu puṃsy ākāśa-vihāyasī (Amara-koṣa 1.2.2).