Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v2.c83.18

v2.c83.18

When this *abhidhā* or the primary meaning of a word is incompatible, another power called *lakṣaṇā* or Indication (i. e. transference of sense) is communicated, whereby another meaning connected therewith is apprehended, either through usage (*rūḍhi*) or from some special motive (*prayojana*). Thus one can say 'the country rejoices', but since the country itself cannot rejoice, it is indicated that the people of the country rejoice. This power really belongs to the sense (*artha-vyāpāra*), as later analysis points out, but it is attributed to words and is thus an *āropita-śabdavyāpāra*. That is to say (as other writers explain it) we have first *śabda* or the word, then its *vācyārtha* or direct denoted meaning, after which or in connexion with which comes the *lakṣyārtha* or indicated meaning through the power of Indication. It is thus *sāntara* (and not *nirantara* like *abhidhā*), having the *vācyārtha* coming in between; for the *lakṣaṇā* is resorted to when the primary sense is incompatible (*bādhita*) and is so far *artha-niṣṭha* as based on the expressed sense¹⁰. Hence the three essential requisites of the *lakṣaṇā* are the incompatibility (or exhaustion) of the primary sense, the connexion of the indicated sense with the primary sense, and the reason or motive (*prayojana*) for resorting to it. As the Denotation is dependent on worldly convention (*vyavahārika saṃketa*), so is the Indication (as Mammaṭa points out) upon the special convention based on these three requisites; and as there can hardly be any indicated or transferred sense without the primary sense, the Indication is sometimes called the tail, as it were, of Denotation (*abhidhā-pucchabhūtā*). In fact, writers like Bhaṭṭa Nāyaka, as we have seen¹¹, would include *lakṣaṇā* under *abhidhā*, of which it is supposed to be an extension.