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55
 
In part then, the number of figures depends upon usage-but usage in
the narrow sense, not of concrete illustration but of characteristic varia-
tion. Two examples of simile which differ only in their reference, and not
in their modalities of expression, are considered to be the same figure.
It is only when the modality can be shown to have been altered that we
have a new figure. For example, the late figure vicitra (Ruyyaka, et al.)
would appear to be a special type of cause-effect relationship in which the
cause is characterized as prayatna 'effort', but it is in effect a special
type of visama (III).
 
(b) The System
 
I. SIMILE, comparison (upamā). The adjunction of a literally irrelevant
object (called the upamāna) which possesses in a higher degree a property
(samānadharma) also present in the subject (upameya), the comparison
thus calling attention forcefully to that distinctive feature by a kind of
transfer of emphasis.
 
THE SYSTEM OF FIGURES
 
Figures based on simile, which add a determination to the basic simile
but which remain similes in intent, are of two fundamentally different
types:
 
(A) Figures which are variations on the form of the simile:
 
(i) an essential element is implicit.
 
all explicit upameya upamāna particle
 
implicit implicit implicit
 
upamā
 
prativa-
stūpamā
 
aprastuta- samāsokti
 
prasamsā
 
anyokti
 
ubhayanyasa
 
type of similitude
 
dharma (property)
 
kriyā (action)
 
These figures, where one of the four elements is implicit, should be com-
pared with IIIC below, where implicitude itself is a major element, not
sub-joined to simile.
 
The later authors, Udbhata, Rudrata and Mammața, use these and
similar formal discriminations to subdivide the figure upamā itself.
Since our classification deals only with those figures which have been
assigned status as major figures by some author, this formal analysis
does not appear here, but it may easily be imagined. Much attention
has been paid to the grammatical form of the comparative particle and
to the manner in which compounding may be employed.