Text 10.256

शास्त्रज्ञ-भास्करं संज्ञा त्वाम् आलिङ्गति सर्वदा. अत्रालिङ्गनम् उपमाया बाधकम्, सत्याः पति-तुल्ये तद्-असंभवात्. तेन रूपकस्यैव साधकं तत्. मुखेन्दुस् तव गोविन्द स्फुरत् कनक-कुण्डलः. अत्र कुण्डलवत्वम् इन्दौ प्रतिकूलम् असम्भवाद् इति रूपकस्य बाधकम्. साधकं तूपमायाः. एवम् अन्यच् च सुज्ञैः परीक्ष्यम्.

śāstrajña-bhāskaraṃ saṃjñā tvām āliṅgati sarvadā. atrāliṅganam upamāyā bādhakam, satyāḥ pati-tulye tad-asaṃbhavāt. tena rūpakasyaiva sādhakaṃ tat. mukhendus tava govinda sphurat kanaka-kuṇḍalaḥ. atra kuṇḍalavatvam indau pratikūlam asambhavād iti rūpakasya bādhakam. sādhakaṃ tūpamāyāḥ. evam anyac ca sujñaiḥ parīkṣyam.

In the sentence: “Saṃjñā (perfect knowledge personified), always embraces you, a sun in the form of a knower of scriptures” (Sāhitya-darpaṇa 10.78), the action of embracing debars the compound śāstrajña-bhāskaram from being a simile (“a knower of scriptures who is like a sun”) because a virtuous wife never loves someone who is like her husband (much less other men). Therefore this only effects a metaphor (“a sun in the form of a knower of scriptures”). (Saṃjñā is a wife of the sun god.)

In the sentence: mukhendus tava govinda sphurat-kanakakuṇḍalaḥ, “O Govinda, Your moon-like face has splendid golden earrings,” only a face can have earrings, therefore this prevents the analysis of the compound mukhendu as a metaphor (moon face) and favors the analysis of it as a simile upamā (moon-like face). Other instances may be looked into by intelligent persons in this way.

Commentary:

There is no aniścaya-saṅkara in any one of those instances. Viśvanātha Kavirāja expounds the topic as follows: An important rule in this regard is: upamitaṃ vyāghrādibhiḥ sāmānyāprayoge, “[An upameya] is compounded with the word vyāghra and so on when there is no mention of an attribute in common” (Aṣṭādhyāyī 2.1.56). Thus in: sundaraṃ vadanāmbujam (a beautiful lotus face), where the common attribute is mentioned, the compound vadanāmbuja cannot be analyzed as a simile (lotus-like face), therefore that compound must be taken as a metaphor (lotus face, i.e. a face in the form of a lotus). A compound which is a simile is formed by the above rule whereas a compound analyzed as a metaphor is formed by the rule: mayūra-vyaṃsakādayaś ca (Aṣṭādhyāyī 2.1.72).^[1] Although the adjective sundaram grammatically modifies ambujam (lotus), it semantically modifies vadana (face) because of the above understanding and because in the construction of that compound both words have a first case ending: vadanam evāmbujam iti vadanāmbujam, “The face is a lotus, so it is a lotus face.” Thus a metaphor in a compound can take place in two ways: The standard of comparison is placed either first or last, yet if it is placed first usually the compound is a bahuvrīhi, as in: candra-mukha (he whose face is a moon) (alternatively, as a simile: he whose face is like the moon). Another example is in Commentary 10.251 (kuśeśaya-dṛśam).

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

evaṃ sundaraṃ vadanāmbujam ity-ādau sādhāraṇa-dharma-prayogaḥ, upamitaṃ vyāghrādibhiḥ sāmānyāprayoga iti vacanād upamā-samāse na sambhavatīti upamāyā bādhakaḥ. evaṃ cātra mayūra-vyaṃsakāditvād rūpaka-samāsa eva (Sāhitya-darpaṇa 10.98).