Text 11.7

मन्द्रैः कलापिनाम् एते पक्षिणां धरणी-रुहाः ।
विरुतैः स्वागतानीव वारि-वाहाय तन्वते ॥

mandraiḥ kalāpinām ete pakṣiṇāṃ dharaṇī-ruhāḥ |
virutaiḥ svāgatānīva vāri-vāhāya tanvate ||

mandraiḥ—pleasant (or of a low tone); kalāpinām—which are peacocks; ete—these; pakṣiṇām—of birds; dharaṇī-ruhāḥ—trees (“they grow from the Earth”); virutaiḥ—by sounds; svāgatāni—greetings; iva—like; vāri-vāhāya—for the clouds (“they carry water”); tanvate—they make.

These trees as if greet the rainclouds with the pleasant sounds of peacocks (mandraiḥ kalāpinām) (or mandraika-lāpinām, with the sounds of birds who wail with low tones).

atra mandrair iti visarga-vicyutau mandraikalāpinām iti bhavati. evam anyac ca varṇa-cyutakādikam ūhanīyam.

By deleting the visarga after mandraiḥ, the word mandraika-lāpinām (of birds who only keep wailing with low tones) is formed. Other such occurrences, such as varṇa-cyutaka (dropping a phoneme), can be inferred in this way.

Commentary:

Sometimes the deletion of a visarga is obtained by a rule of grammar.^[1] That makes a śleṣa. This verse by Rudraṭa shows mātrā-cyutaka (dropping a mātrā, i.e. a vertical line in Devanāgarī script) in the first half and bindu-cyutaka in the second:

niyatam agamyam adṛśyaṃ bhavati kila trasyato raṇopāntam |
kānto nayanānandī bālenduḥ khe na bhavati sadā ||

niyatam—certain; agamyam—should not be gone to (or not understandable); adṛśyam—unseeable; bhavati—is; kila—indeed; trasyataḥ—of a man who is afraid; raṇa—of battle; upāntam—the approach (or kalatrasya—of a wife; toraṇa—of festoons; upāntam—proximity); kāntaḥ—a male lover; nayana-ānandī—one who has bliss in the eyes (or one who delights the eyes); bāla-induḥ—the waxing moon (“the young moon”); khe—in the sky; na—not (or bāle—O simple girl; duḥkhena—with hardship); bhavati—becomes; sadā—always.

“The inevitable approach of battle felt by a man who is afraid is not understandable and cannot be envisioned (or: The proximity of a wife to a parade that has festoons is restricted: It cannot be attended nor can it be seen). The lovely waxing moon, which delights the eyes, is not always in the sky (or: Hey girl, a true lover is he who always gets bliss in the eyes with hardship)” (Kāvyālaṅkāra 5.28).

In the first half of the verse, kila changed to kala. This is a mātrā-cyutaka because the letter i in Devanāgarī script was elided and the vowel a is automatically perceived instead. That causes a second meaning by modifying the phonetic combination: The words kila trasyato raṇopāntam are changed to kalatrasya toraṇopāntam.

In the second half (the second sentence), bālenduḥ became bāleduḥ, and in that second meaning the words bālenduḥ khe na are changed to: bāle duḥkhena. Here also there is no deletion of a Sanskrit anusvāra, yet there is a deletion of a Prakrit bindu, like the dot in Hindi.

This is an example of mātrā-cyutaka by Vāg-bhaṭa:

mūla-sthitim adhaḥ kurvan pātrair juṣṭo gatākṣaraiḥ |
viṭaḥ sevyaḥ kulīnasya tiṣṭhataḥ pathi kasya saḥ ||

“A sensualist (viṭa) who lowers the basic principles of etiquette and has illiterate advisors might be served by which well-educated man who stays on the right path?” Alternatively (here, in addition pathi kasya is taken as pathikasya): “A well-bred traveler should stay for a moment under a Banyan tree (vaṭa) which keeps its roots low and which is endowed with leaves that block the trickling rain.” (Vāg-bhaṭālaṅkāra 4.10)

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

The rule is: sātvata-paratve lopyaś ca, “The visarga can be deleted when a śauri (ś, ṣ, s) which is followed by a sātvata (k, kh, c, ch, ṭ, ṭh, t, th, p, ph) follows” (Hari-nāmāmṛta-vyākaraṇa, Bṛhat 139) (khar-pare śari vā lopo vaktavyaḥ, Vārttika 8.3.36).