वासवदत्ता (महाकवि सुबन्धु - श्लेष-प्रधान शास्त्रीय गद्यकाव्य सान्वय सटीक)

INTRODUCTION 19 praśnād apraśnatō vā "pi kathitād vastunō bhavēt tādṛganyavyapōhaś cēc chābda ārthō 'thavā tadā parisaṅkhyā, ‘if there is either an expressed or implied exclusion, whether with or without an interrogation, of a thing similar to (but) other than the object mentioned, then it is a parisaṅkhyā.’ An example from the Vāsavadattā is nētrōtpāṭanaṁ munīnām, ‘⟨roots (nētra)⟩ were plucked out only in the case of «wormwood-trees(munīnām)» (for «ascetics (munīnām)» did not pluck out their ⟨eyes (nētra)⟩)’ (ed. Hall, p. 19). The mālādīpaka, or ‘garland elucidator’ (‘verkettete Klimax,’ according to Böhtlingk, Sanskrit-Wörterbuch in kürzerer Fas- sung, s. v., St. Petersburg, 1879–1889), is a rhetorical repetition of words in a sequence so as to heighten the effect, and is thus defined by the Kāvyādarśa (2. 108; cf. Kāvyaprakāśa, tr. Jhā, p. 226, Benares, 1898; Kuvalayānandakārikā, 1. 105): pūrvapūrvavyapēkṣiṇī vākyamālā prayuktē "ti tan mālādīpakaṁ matam, ‘a conjoined series of words, each of which refers to the one pre- ceding, is considered a mālādīpaka.’ As an example may be cited bhujadaṇḍēna kōdaṇḍaṁ kōdaṇḍēna śarāḥ śarāir ariśiras, ‘by his staff-like arm the bow, by the bow the arrows, by the arrows his foeman's head’ (ed. Hall, p. 41). The utprēkṣā, or ‘poetic fancy,’ usually indicated, like the ślēṣa, by iva, ‘as,’ in the Vāsavadattā, and one of Subandhu’s favourite rhetorical devices, is thus concisely defined by the Sāhityadar- paṇa (No. 686; cf. Kāvyādarśa, 2. 221; Kāvyaprakāśa, tr. Jhā, p. 211, Benares, 1898; Kuvalayānandakārikā, 1. 30): bhavēt saṁbhāvanō "tprēkṣā prakṛtasya parātmanā, ‘poetic fancy would be the imagining of an object under the character of something else.’ Examples of this figure abound in the Vāsavadattā, as in the following description of the moon: dadhidhavalē kālakṣapaṇakagrāsapiṇḍa iva niśāyamunāphēna- puñja iva mēnakānakhamārjanaśilāśakala iva, ‘while he was white, as it were, with the curds which constitute a morsel of food C 2