Shringaraprakasha 8.p1.1

8.p1.1

The eighth chapter: 'Illumination of the Relational Capacities of Words in Mutual Expectancy'. There, mutual expectancy is the mutual requirement between word-meanings whose difference of relation has become apparent. And this occurs in what is contiguous and compatible. As in: 'The god rains.' Since the action of raining cannot occur without an agent, it expects the 'god', which is contiguous and compatible. Where, however, that which is contiguous lacks compatibility, that which is compatible is expected even if separated by intervening words. As in: 'Enter, the rice-ball.' Here, since the action of entering cannot occur in an incompatible rice-ball, it expects that which is compatible, such as 'the house', even though separated. This object-word 'rice-ball' too, being impossible in connection with 'enter', expects a compatible action-word such as 'eat'. This mutual expectancy among word-meanings, in brief, is threefold: denotational, logical, and prohibitive. Among them, that which is expressed through direct Vedic audition, superimposition, sentence, alternation, conjunction, extended application, and the like, is denotational. That which is apprehended through conjecture, inversion, transformation, supplied ellipsis, positing a separated head noun in a sentence, and the like, is logical. That which is excluded through impossibility of expression, contradiction, accomplishment of purpose, exclusive specification, ascertainment, and the like, is prohibitive. Among them, the denotational is first: where there is specification of an attribute and a subject for the sake of resemblance between two things, by repetition and through a difference of case-inflection heard directly, that is denotational through direct audition. As in: 'With his slender body touching her slender body, his burning hot limb touching hers intensely heated, his tear-filled face touching hers moist with tears, with intense yearning touching her longing, his hot breath touching hers breathing deeply—blocked in his way by a hostile fate, he enters her far distant through those mental resolves.' And where also, for the sake of resemblance between two things, there is a connection of attribute and subject through a single shared expression and non-difference of case-inflection, that too is denotational through direct audition. As in: 'Seeing Rāma with his younger brother, like a leafy tree devoid of shade, having lost its foliage through fate, and unsought by those seeking fruit, she wept.'