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 11.4 [Bindu-cyutaka]
Bindu-cyutaka
अन्योऽर्थो विस्फुटं यत्र बिन्द्व्-आदि-प्रच्युताव् अपि ।
प्रतीयते विदः प्राहुस् तद् बिन्दु-च्युतकादिकम् ॥ ११.२ ॥
anyo'rtho visphuṭaṃ yatra bindv-ādi-pracyutāv api |
pratīyate vidaḥ prāhus tad bindu-cyutakādikam || 11.2 ||
When another meaning is clearly perceived simply by deleting a bindu, and so on, the knowers of poetry call that bindu-cyutaka (dropping the bindu), and so forth.
Commentary:
The literary devices expounded from here to the end of the section on ornaments of sound are not ornaments proper. Rather, they are poetical games, according to Rudraṭa.[1] Some of them are outside the scope of the rules of grammar.
In its chapter on ornaments of sound, the Agni Purāṇa mentions poetical games and defines them, but does not give examples. Seven varieties are enumerated: citra (citra-kāvya, picture poetry), praśna (question) (i.e. praśnottara) (the answer to the question is formed with the same letters used in the question) (Commentary 10.190), prahelikā (conundrum, riddle), gupta (gupti) (concealment of a word) (11.11), cyutākṣara (eliding a phoneme), dattākṣara (adding a phoneme), cyuta-dattākṣara (eliding a phoneme and adding a phoneme) (11.8), and samasyā (giving a few words and asking the reader to compose a verse by including them).[2] Samasyā is the same as kāvya-samasyā-pūraṇa (finishing an incomplete verse submitted by another), the thirty-third art among the sixty-four arts.
Viśvanātha Kavirāja invented bhāṣā-sama (11.2). However, he included all poetical games as subcategories of prahelikā (conundrum). According to him, prahelikā is not inherently an ornament since a rasa is not always involved.[3] Vāg-bhaṭa only expounds bindu-cyutaka and mātrā-cyutaka, and includes them in citra (Vāg-bhaṭālaṅkāra 4.1-13). According to Agni Purāṇa, bindu-cyutaka and mātrā-cyutaka are subvarieties of cyutākṣara (eliding a phoneme),[4] defined ahead (11.8).
The Viṣṇu-dharmottara Upapurāṇa was the first treatise to expound prahelikā (conundrum).[5] Daṇḍī mentions categories of prahelikā.[6] He says there are sixteen good ones and fourteen bad ones.[7] The concept of gupti corresponds to his first variety of prahelikā (Commentary 11.16).
Footnotes and references:
[1]:
mātrā-bindu-cyutake prahelikā kāraka-kriyā-gūḍhe |
praśnottarādi cānyat krīḍā-mātropayogam idam || (Kāvyālaṅkāra 5.24)
[2]:
[3]:
rasasya paripanthitvān nālaṅkāraḥ prahelikā || ukti-vaicitrya-mātraṃ sā cyuta-dattākṣarādikā || (Sāhitya-darpaṇa 10.13-14)
[4]:
[5]:
“Ch. 16 names, defines and classifies Prahelikās.” (De, S.K. (1988), History of Sanskrit Poetics, Vol. I, p. 96)
[6]:
krīḍā-goṣṭhī-vinodeṣu taj-jñair ākīrṇa-mantraṇe |
para-vyāmohane vāci sopayogāḥ prahelikāḥ || (Kāvyādarśa 3.97)