Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v1.c5.26

v1.c5.26

A special interest attaches to these rules of Pāṇini and the dicta of early grammarians, inasmuch as they form the basis of what may be termed the grammatical sub-division of the figure *upamā* into direct (*śrautī*) and indirect (*ārthī*) simile as well similes based on *kṛt* and *taddhita* suffixes, recognised as early as Udbhaṭa’s time. Thus the authority for the *śrautī upamā*, in which the notion of comparison is conveyed by particles like *yathā*, *iva*, *vā* or by the suffix *vat*, when *vat* is equivalent to *iva*, is supposed to be based on two rules of Pāṇini (V. 1. 115-16), which lay down that the suffix *vat* is applied to the standard of comparison in the locative or genitive case and takes the place of the case-ending and *iva*, as well as to a noun which should otherwise be in the instrumental case in the sense of *tena tulya* (like that), if the similarity consists in an action and not in quality. Thus we get *hatam artham jñāsyāmiti, tat-samīpe yan nṛtyantāya mimīte tad nupamānam, gour iva gavaya iti*, ed. Kielhorn I p. 397.