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to give a definition, in the light of numerous examples, which will specify
the classifying ideas behind the system of figures. Since we are dealing
with different authors, each of whom represents a different system or the
same system in a different way, it will be important to understand in what
sense generalization has been judged legitimate. The examples offered
by the authors are of prime importance in separating essential from non-
essential difference, since it is only through a comparison of each example
with many possible counter-examples that the notion underlying the
classification itself becomes explicit. The definitions are of interest
primarily as tests whereby two examples are judged to vary in respect of
some important feature. The alamkāraśāstra represents an extremely
close analysis of a specific subject matter-poetic utterance and the
attempt to follow out the reasoning involved in differentiating the con-
cepts by an examination of the terminology only misses the point. It
ignores the question of what makes an alamkāra possible: the relation of
a given figurative or deviate idea to the total possible inventory of such
ideas. It is only in its distinctiveness that each figure gets its full measure
of significance.
INTRODUCTION
Let us take several examples of the kinds of problems one meets with
in following this method of definition.
a) In the simplest case, the usage of a term is constant and occupies
an analogous place in each author's pattern of figures. Upamā is an
example of this uniformity. All authors agree that simile is a comparison
of two unlike things; in distinction to all other figures based upon an
adjunction of unlikes, the end, or intention, of the poet is comparison.
No example is offered by the writers which involves a comparison in the
sense indicated and which is not called a simile.
b) Often the same name is applied to figures whose examples indicate
that there is a significant difference between them. In aprastutaprašamsā
(or aprastutastotra), praise of something apparently irrelevant (with a
view to condemning the actual subject of the utterance) is implied by
Daṇḍin, who takes the name literally,182 while Udbhaţa gives an illustra-
tion which involves no moral judgement, but only a mention of something
irrelevant (with a view to suggesting an idea which is the actual subject
of the utterance).183 Though the definitions themselves give no ground
with a few figures chosen at random and has not, therefore, come to any notion of the
system of figures. It is characteristic of the subject, however, that he has discussed
the figures two by two, implying the possibility of assigning each figure a place.
Dandin, 2.340.
181
Udbhaţa, Kāvyālamkārasārasamgraha, 2.4.
188
to give a definition, in the light of numerous examples, which will specify
the classifying ideas behind the system of figures. Since we are dealing
with different authors, each of whom represents a different system or the
same system in a different way, it will be important to understand in what
sense generalization has been judged legitimate. The examples offered
by the authors are of prime importance in separating essential from non-
essential difference, since it is only through a comparison of each example
with many possible counter-examples that the notion underlying the
classification itself becomes explicit. The definitions are of interest
primarily as tests whereby two examples are judged to vary in respect of
some important feature. The alamkāraśāstra represents an extremely
close analysis of a specific subject matter-poetic utterance and the
attempt to follow out the reasoning involved in differentiating the con-
cepts by an examination of the terminology only misses the point. It
ignores the question of what makes an alamkāra possible: the relation of
a given figurative or deviate idea to the total possible inventory of such
ideas. It is only in its distinctiveness that each figure gets its full measure
of significance.
INTRODUCTION
Let us take several examples of the kinds of problems one meets with
in following this method of definition.
a) In the simplest case, the usage of a term is constant and occupies
an analogous place in each author's pattern of figures. Upamā is an
example of this uniformity. All authors agree that simile is a comparison
of two unlike things; in distinction to all other figures based upon an
adjunction of unlikes, the end, or intention, of the poet is comparison.
No example is offered by the writers which involves a comparison in the
sense indicated and which is not called a simile.
b) Often the same name is applied to figures whose examples indicate
that there is a significant difference between them. In aprastutaprašamsā
(or aprastutastotra), praise of something apparently irrelevant (with a
view to condemning the actual subject of the utterance) is implied by
Daṇḍin, who takes the name literally,182 while Udbhaţa gives an illustra-
tion which involves no moral judgement, but only a mention of something
irrelevant (with a view to suggesting an idea which is the actual subject
of the utterance).183 Though the definitions themselves give no ground
with a few figures chosen at random and has not, therefore, come to any notion of the
system of figures. It is characteristic of the subject, however, that he has discussed
the figures two by two, implying the possibility of assigning each figure a place.
Dandin, 2.340.
181
Udbhaţa, Kāvyālamkārasārasamgraha, 2.4.
188