2023-03-29 18:09:37 by ambuda-bot
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HISTORY OF THE SEARCH FOR SYSTEM
39
and several similes have in fact been defined wherein the tertium is nothing
but a pun (e.g., upamāsamuccaya).
But Sanskrit is much richer in double-entendres than is English. Several
factors combine to produce a far greater inventory of homonyms: the
wealth of vocabulary, the lack of a thoroughgoing distinction between
concrete and abstract applications of a given word, the great variety of
contextual variations permissible for each morpheme, the wide range of
derivational affixes in use, and the freedom with which descriptive epithets
are formed. Further, the relatively free word order of Sanskrit, and the
ability to compound stems and thus to leave aside even the grammatical
terminations of words, lends even greater opportunity to the facility of
punning. Although Dandin treats ślesa in the chapter on arthālamkāras,8
Rudrața first explicitly recognizes the possibility that pun may indeed
function on a level beyond that of mere verbal similarity; the two punned
senses may be implicitly comparable.88 Rudrața apparently thought that
the simultaneity of apprehension of the comparables in the punned
simile added an element of hyperbole which could not be expressed in
any other way.
87
Our own poetic education is such as to make us wary of any system in
which the most perfect poetic category is the pun. But again, our awareness
of the pun is conditioned by the impoverished and relatively exact vocabul-
ary of modern Western languages; we ought not to extrapolate from a
basis of incompetence. Many critics, De among them, have sought to
justify the pun:
It is true that it demands an intellectual strain disproportionate to the aesthetic
pleasure, and becomes tiresome and ineffective in the incredible and incessant
torturing of the language found in such lengthy triumphs of misplaced ingenuity
as those of Subandhu and Kavirājā; but sparingly and judiciously used, the
puns are often delightful in their terse brevity and twofold appropriateness.89
Keith is even more judicious:
Moreover, though we may easily find their paronomasias tedious, there is no
doubt that they are frequently rightly called models of twofold appropriateness,
and the free employment of figures of speech is often superior to the somewhat
BT Kavyādarśa, 2.310 ff.
This is especially true when the two punned senses are not limited to single words
in the sentence, but, as is the case in the elegant Sanskrit puns, are extended to the
entire sentence by several parallel double-entendres: "asāv udayam ārūḍhaḥ kāntimān
raktamandalah / rājā harati lokasya hṛdayam 'mrdubhiḥ karaih". Dandin, Kavyādarša,
2.311. Such facility is simply lacking in English.
89 Dasgupta and Dey [De], HSL, p. 33.
39
and several similes have in fact been defined wherein the tertium is nothing
but a pun (e.g., upamāsamuccaya).
But Sanskrit is much richer in double-entendres than is English. Several
factors combine to produce a far greater inventory of homonyms: the
wealth of vocabulary, the lack of a thoroughgoing distinction between
concrete and abstract applications of a given word, the great variety of
contextual variations permissible for each morpheme, the wide range of
derivational affixes in use, and the freedom with which descriptive epithets
are formed. Further, the relatively free word order of Sanskrit, and the
ability to compound stems and thus to leave aside even the grammatical
terminations of words, lends even greater opportunity to the facility of
punning. Although Dandin treats ślesa in the chapter on arthālamkāras,8
Rudrața first explicitly recognizes the possibility that pun may indeed
function on a level beyond that of mere verbal similarity; the two punned
senses may be implicitly comparable.88 Rudrața apparently thought that
the simultaneity of apprehension of the comparables in the punned
simile added an element of hyperbole which could not be expressed in
any other way.
87
Our own poetic education is such as to make us wary of any system in
which the most perfect poetic category is the pun. But again, our awareness
of the pun is conditioned by the impoverished and relatively exact vocabul-
ary of modern Western languages; we ought not to extrapolate from a
basis of incompetence. Many critics, De among them, have sought to
justify the pun:
It is true that it demands an intellectual strain disproportionate to the aesthetic
pleasure, and becomes tiresome and ineffective in the incredible and incessant
torturing of the language found in such lengthy triumphs of misplaced ingenuity
as those of Subandhu and Kavirājā; but sparingly and judiciously used, the
puns are often delightful in their terse brevity and twofold appropriateness.89
Keith is even more judicious:
Moreover, though we may easily find their paronomasias tedious, there is no
doubt that they are frequently rightly called models of twofold appropriateness,
and the free employment of figures of speech is often superior to the somewhat
BT Kavyādarśa, 2.310 ff.
This is especially true when the two punned senses are not limited to single words
in the sentence, but, as is the case in the elegant Sanskrit puns, are extended to the
entire sentence by several parallel double-entendres: "asāv udayam ārūḍhaḥ kāntimān
raktamandalah / rājā harati lokasya hṛdayam 'mrdubhiḥ karaih". Dandin, Kavyādarša,
2.311. Such facility is simply lacking in English.
89 Dasgupta and Dey [De], HSL, p. 33.