Agnipurana 344

English (machine translation) 344

Language: English

344.3 — 1 part
344.15 — 1 part
344.18 — 3 parts

344.1

Agni said: / An ornament of both word and meaning adorns both equally, / like a necklace placed in one spot [adorns] both the breast and the neck of a woman.

344.2

Praise, grace, propriety, conciseness, exact measure of meaning, / and manifestation: clearly these six divisions are recognised.

344.3

Praise is the application of speech that melts the innermost heart of another; / and that is twofold, divided into words of affection and eulogy.

344.4

Words of affection and eulogy are synonyms for speaking lovingly and reciting virtues. / Grace is the harmonious connection of the expressed and the unexpressed pleasing to everyone’s mind.

344.5

As is the subject matter, so is the style; as is the dramatic mode, so is the aesthetic sentiment. / Propriety arises from forceful or soft composition.

344.6

Conciseness is the comprehension of much meaning through few expressive words. / Exact measure of meaning is the absence of deficiency or excess between word and subject matter.

344.7

Manifestation is clarity; it has two varieties: / literal sense and implied sense. There, literal sense is the word's delivery of its own meaning.

344.8

It is twofold: causal and conventional. / Convention is technical usage; arising from that, it is conventional.

344.9

And both of those are twofold: primary and metaphorical. / When the function of its primary designation slips, the signifier expresses a secondary meaning.

344.10

The function through which a word operates by some occasion is metaphorical; / and that is twofold: indicative and qualitative, based on indication and association of qualities.

344.11

An apprehension inextricably bound up with the primary meaning is called indication. / From relation to the designated, from proximity, from inherence,

344.12

from opposition, and from connection with action, indication is held to be fivefold. / The qualitative is endless because qualities are endless according to the speaker’s intention.

344.13

Where an attribute belonging to one thing is properly superinduced upon another, / conforming to worldly convention, that is remembered here as superimposition.

344.14

Because a meaning not directly obtained from hearing shines forth as endowed with consciousness, / that is paralipsis; and it is suggestion, because it is manifested through resonance.

344.15

Where, having effected its own acquisition by means of word and meaning,

344.15_2

a seeming prohibition of what is desired [is used] in order to express a distinction,

344.16

they call that paralipsis. Again, this praise is laudation; / when there is praise of another subject that lies outside the immediate scope,

344.17

and where a meaning not directly stated is understood through identical adjectives, / that has been declared by the wise as concise speech on account of its brevity of meaning.

Concealment is the indication of some other meaning by concealing [the actual one]. / Periphrasis is when something is expressed in an alternative manner. / Therefore, the single designation for these is suggestion.

344.18.p1

Thus ends the three hundred and forty-fourth chapter, named 'The Exposition of the Ornaments of Word and Meaning in Poetics,' in the great Agni Purāṇa.

344.18.p3

Now begins the three hundred and forty-fifth chapter:

344.18.p4

Examination of poetic excellences.

Other recensions (1)

Agnipurāṇa (Nag Publishers edition, Delhi) — Sanskrit

Linked texts (1)

Agnipurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit