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42
the pun was a comic device. Even now, the language will not support
the burden of simultaneous apprehension which writers like Joyce have
put upon it: the language itself is deformed, made more like an echo
chamber of distorted and malformed words which imperfectly suggest
several adjacent ideas. "Jack the Nipple', said Wolmbs puffing deeply
on his wife, 'is not only a vicious murderer but a sex meany of the lowest
orgy'." The example is not Joyce, but John Lennon, M.B.E., to whom
Mr. Wain is devoting the review quoted. How far from this weak and
tawdry language, struggling with the shadow of an idea, is the elegant
stability of the Sanskrit śleșa, spinning out its burden of duplicity in neat,
precise verse, with never a phoneme out of place! One has the feeling
that if Joyce had been able to write in Sanskrit, he could have been himself
and Matthew Arnold, too.
INTRODUCTION
(iv) Svabhāvokti
The final category of Rudrața's system, vāstava ('natural': literally
'real'; derivative adjective from vastu "thing', as realis from Latin res),
would appear to contradict the idea of figuration itself, which is predicated
on the notion of systematic deviation from the norms of real utterance.
"Real [is that class of figures] wherein the nature of a thing is described;
and this must be pregnant of sense, but not ironical, comparative, hyper-
bolic, or punned."*95
Rudraţa evidently develops his category vastava within the tradition of
the much discussed figure svabhāvokti 'natural description'. Bhamaha,
the earliest writer in the figurative tradition proper, is already not quite
sure of the credentials of svabhāvokti. Although he gives an example, he
feels obliged to add that "some consider svabhāvokti a figure"; presumably
some do not. The occasion for his malaise is the obvious opposition
in terms between svabhāvokti and vakrokti, which Bhämaha in another
famous passage has declared to be the basic condition of all the figures.
98
$5 "vāstavam iti taj jeyam kriyate vastusvarūpakathanam yat/ puştärtham aviparitam
nirupamam anatiśayam aśleşam //", Rudraţa, Kävyālamkāra, 7.10.
** Svabhāva and svarüpa being synonymous. Note the evident relation to the first
Nyāya pramāṇa: pratyakṣa.
97 De states the case much too categorically and mistranslates also: "Such svabhāvokti
is not acceptable to Bhāmaha who refuses to acknowledge svabhāvokti as a poetic
figure at all". Kuntaka, Vakroktijivita, A Treatise on Sanskrit Poetics, ed. De (Calcutta,
1961), p. xx.
18 Kävyālamkāra, 2.85. "Saişā sarvaiva vakroktir anayārtho vibhāvyate । yatno 'syām
kavinā kāryaḥ ko 'lankāro ʼnayā vinā", "This [atiśayokti 'hyperbole'] is nothing but
vakrokti; by means of it the sense is displayed. The poet must make an effort in its
regard, for what figure is there which lacks [an element of] it?" But do the pronouns
refer to the vakrokti, or to the original subject, atiśayokti? Both are feminine.
the pun was a comic device. Even now, the language will not support
the burden of simultaneous apprehension which writers like Joyce have
put upon it: the language itself is deformed, made more like an echo
chamber of distorted and malformed words which imperfectly suggest
several adjacent ideas. "Jack the Nipple', said Wolmbs puffing deeply
on his wife, 'is not only a vicious murderer but a sex meany of the lowest
orgy'." The example is not Joyce, but John Lennon, M.B.E., to whom
Mr. Wain is devoting the review quoted. How far from this weak and
tawdry language, struggling with the shadow of an idea, is the elegant
stability of the Sanskrit śleșa, spinning out its burden of duplicity in neat,
precise verse, with never a phoneme out of place! One has the feeling
that if Joyce had been able to write in Sanskrit, he could have been himself
and Matthew Arnold, too.
INTRODUCTION
(iv) Svabhāvokti
The final category of Rudrața's system, vāstava ('natural': literally
'real'; derivative adjective from vastu "thing', as realis from Latin res),
would appear to contradict the idea of figuration itself, which is predicated
on the notion of systematic deviation from the norms of real utterance.
"Real [is that class of figures] wherein the nature of a thing is described;
and this must be pregnant of sense, but not ironical, comparative, hyper-
bolic, or punned."*95
Rudraţa evidently develops his category vastava within the tradition of
the much discussed figure svabhāvokti 'natural description'. Bhamaha,
the earliest writer in the figurative tradition proper, is already not quite
sure of the credentials of svabhāvokti. Although he gives an example, he
feels obliged to add that "some consider svabhāvokti a figure"; presumably
some do not. The occasion for his malaise is the obvious opposition
in terms between svabhāvokti and vakrokti, which Bhämaha in another
famous passage has declared to be the basic condition of all the figures.
98
$5 "vāstavam iti taj jeyam kriyate vastusvarūpakathanam yat/ puştärtham aviparitam
nirupamam anatiśayam aśleşam //", Rudraţa, Kävyālamkāra, 7.10.
** Svabhāva and svarüpa being synonymous. Note the evident relation to the first
Nyāya pramāṇa: pratyakṣa.
97 De states the case much too categorically and mistranslates also: "Such svabhāvokti
is not acceptable to Bhāmaha who refuses to acknowledge svabhāvokti as a poetic
figure at all". Kuntaka, Vakroktijivita, A Treatise on Sanskrit Poetics, ed. De (Calcutta,
1961), p. xx.
18 Kävyālamkāra, 2.85. "Saişā sarvaiva vakroktir anayārtho vibhāvyate । yatno 'syām
kavinā kāryaḥ ko 'lankāro ʼnayā vinā", "This [atiśayokti 'hyperbole'] is nothing but
vakrokti; by means of it the sense is displayed. The poet must make an effort in its
regard, for what figure is there which lacks [an element of] it?" But do the pronouns
refer to the vakrokti, or to the original subject, atiśayokti? Both are feminine.