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Glossary of Indian Figures of Speech / 243 Image 243 of 348 (Page 243)

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GLOSSARY

241

(her face is the moon). The identification is so evident here as not
to require explanation; the difference between upamā and rūpaka is
also best perceived in this case. The grammatical subordination
is that of the imposition of the object on the subject. A subjective
genitive is often employed in English to express an identification;
although our language permits compounding, the use of this device
is restricted, compared to Sanskrit at any rate, and prepositional
phrases having the object of comparison in the syntactically free
position are generally used instead (the face of time, rather than the
time-face). The irreversibility of this construction is even clearer
than in the case of direct compounding: careful consideration may
be required to distinguish the upamā "lotus-eye" from the rupaka
"eye-lotus", but the rūpaka "the lotus of her eye" simply cannot be
turned into a simile "the eye of her lotus". For one reason, the genitive
is no longer subjective. A comparative idea must somehow be
introduced into the genitive (as, "her eye of lotus hue") where the
notion of the common property is made explicit ("of lotus hue" is
"lotus-hued").

Since rūpaka is an identification of two things, the classifications
of this figure have generally followed the line of specifying the degree
of identification or the kind of (non-) parallelism involved in the
fusion. The notion of "degree" implies and is always discussed in
terms of a standard metaphorical type, usually referred to as
samasta-[vastu]vişaya or complete metaphor, wherein not only the
two terms themselves (the major terms) are identified, but several
aspects or parts of each major term are likewise identified with
parallel aspects of the other major term, resulting in a total image.
A metaphor in which only some of the subordinate aspects of the
two major terms are identified-in which, in other words, some of
the aspects associated with the subject of comparison are not meta-
phorically identified is considered a partial metaphor (ekadeśavi-
varti). Dandin, in turn, enumerates several different types of
partialness as the non-metaphorized term or terms is or are the subject
of comparison itself (major term, avayavi), the subordinate aspects
of the subject term (avayava), only some of the subordinate aspects
(vişama), or, finally, the major and some of the subordinate aspects
(ekāñga). The other terms in all of these types, which are understood
from a comparison with the complete metaphor already described,
are, in fact, metaphorical identifications. The elements of the image
are implicit. Dandin also considers two types of avayava rūpaka,

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