Verse 3.14.431

Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of verse 3.14.431:

यथाध्ययनयोः साम्यमध्येत्रोरपदिश्यते ।
तथा क्रियागतैर्धर्मैरुच्यन्ते साधनाश्रयाः ॥ ४३१ ॥

yathādhyayanayoḥ sāmyamadhyetrorapadiśyate |
tathā kriyāgatairdharmairucyante sādhanāśrayāḥ || 431 ||

431. As the word which stands for praise and honour and those which stand for blame and disapproval may be based on different reasons, a particular one is mentioned for the sake of restriction.

Commentary

[It might be argued that there is no need to use a word for specifying the common attribute because a word like vyāghra or siṃha is used in order to express praise and honour and one would naturally understand a quality like courage and not cruelty or something like that. That is true, but the qualities of a tiger that stand for praise and honour for the object of comparison are many and depend upon the context. They are not understood from the mere word vyāghra. A word like śūra has to be used to specify one of them, especially when the context does not help one to understand it. Then the formation of the compound would become possible, unless prohibited. As the formation is not desired, it is prohibited.

Really speaking when the word expressive of the common quality is used as in puruṣo vyāghra iva śūraḥ, there cannot be a compound of puruṣa and vyāghra because the word puruṣa is connected with the word śūraḥ which is outside the compound to be formed. It is sāpekṣa and so there is no sāmarthya between puruṣa and vyāghra according to the principle: sāpekṣam asamarthaṃ bhavati. So they cannot be compounded, even if there were no prohibition. The prohibition has been made and that gives a clue that a compound can be formed if the main constituent is connected with an outside word and not if the subordinate constituent is so connected.]