[INDOLOGY] special metrical rules for śāstric verses

jason.cannon-silber at studium.uni-hamburg.de jason.cannon-silber at studium.uni-hamburg.de
Mon Nov 4 17:45:50 UTC 2024


  Dear all,

Though I can offer no direct answer to Prof. Torella's question about  
a treatise concerning śāstrasamaya, I thought it could be worth  
pointing out that we may have to deal, in part at least, with a  
peculiarity of Utpaladeva himself. As Profs. Torella and Ratié will  
well know, it is not only Utpaladeva's kārikās that exhibit this  
feature; his efforts in the field of kāvya (if we accept stotra as a  
branch of kāvya) also do. Here are two examples from the Śivastotrāvalī:

agnīṣomaravibrahmaviṣṇusthāvarajaṅgama-
svarūpa bahurūpāya namaḥ saṃvinmayāya te ||2.1||

namo nikṛttaniḥśeṣatrailokyavigaladvasā-
vasekaviṣamāyāpi maṅgalāya śivāgnaye ||2.5||

Swami Lakshman Joo's edition of this text is not completely reliable  
from a philological perspective, of course, but hopefully taking two  
examples is enough to reduce the possibility of a major problem in the  
text. Now, in the first example, it might be possible to take the  
first line as an independent vocative (or even as a series of  
vocatives), although I think that Kṣemarāja's commentary (...  
viśvātmanaḥ āmantraṇam idaṃ "svarūpa" ityantam |) makes it fairly  
clear that he takes the whole thing as just one āmantraṇa, nor does he  
feel any need to comment upon the breach between the two halves of the  
śloka.

In the second case, the lack of even a hiatus between the two halves  
should make us feel even more certain that nikṛtta...viṣamāya is one  
compound, I think. I've also gathered, from Prof. Torella's own  
exemplary edition of the Īśvarapratyabhijñākārikā and -vṛtti, that  
Utpaladeva seems to have a special propensity for breaking the hiatus  
between 1st and 2nd and between 3rd and 4th pādas (e.g. 1.1.2, 1.2.4,  
1.3.4, etc.), a practice that I think (please correct me if I am  
wrong) would not generally be allowed according to kāvyasamaya.  
Another question I have had, related to Prof. Torella's, is whether  
this propensity is to be found in other texts of the kārikā type, or  
if this too could be taken as characteristic of Utpala's style.

Best wishes,
Jason

Quoting Raffaele Torella via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info>:

> The only (or at least the best..) way to make sense of the śloka is  
> by accepting Abhinava’s intepretation.      
>   Bhāskarakaṇṭha in his Vyākhyā on IPV has nothing to object.  
> Interestingly, he comments on “/śāstre/” by /śivapraṇītādau/, which  
> amounts to saying that this exception may apply not only to Śaiva  
> scriptures (-/ādau/). The hypothesis that this “anomaly” may be part  
> of the so-called Āṛṣa Sanskrit is to be excluded as Utpaladeva and  
> Abhinavagupta’s Sanskrit is always flawless.
>    
>    Anyhow, a certain margin for assuming a “traditional” practice  
> might be found in the sequel of Abhinava’s discourse. He says that  
> also the more even interpretation (no compound between II and III  
> pādas) could in principle be taken into account, but : /evaṃ tu na  
> kvacit paṭhitam /(Bh.’s comment: /śiṣyapraśiṣyaparamparayā etan  
> naiva śrutam ity arthaḥ/). 
>    
>   In sum, apart from the case at issue, is there any shared  
> agreement in Indian literature about a possible acceptance of this  
> irregularity?
>    
>   Raffaele
>
>
>> Il giorno 4 nov 2024, alle ore 15:25, Madhav Deshpande  
>> <mmdesh at umich.edu> ha scritto:
>>
>>              This is very unusual. Normally, compounds can continue  
>> between the first and the second pādas, and the third and the  
>> fourth pādas; but not between the second and the third pādas. I  
>> don't know of any example similar to Abhinavagupta's  
>> interpretation. Leave aside his interpretation for a moment. Is  
>> there a good way to understand the verse without assuming such an  
>> irregular compounding between the second and the third pādas?        
>>           
>>         Madhav
>>
>>                                                                      
>>  Madhav M. Deshpande                              Professor  
>> Emeritus, Sanskrit and Linguistics
>>                University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
>>                Senior Fellow, Oxford Center for Hindu Studies
>>                Adjunct Professor, National Institute of Advanced  
>> Studies, Bangalore, India
>>                 
>>                [Residence: Campbell, California, USA]
>>
>>                On Mon, Nov 4, 2024 at 6:05 AM Raffaele Torella via  
>> INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
>>
>>> Dear Colleagues,                     
>>>                      while commenting on IPK I.5.12 Abhinava’s  
>>> Vimarśinī says:
>>>             
>>>            ātmāta eva caitanyaṃ citkriyācitikartṛtā /
>>>            tātparyeṇoditas tena jaḍāt sa hi vilakṣaṇaḥ // Ipk_1,5.12 //
>>>            […] citkriyācitikartṛtātātparyeṇa iti samāsaḥ /  
>>> ardhayuk pādaviśrāntiḥ iti hi kāvye samayaḥ, na śāstre.
>>>             
>>>            So the first word in the third pāda is to be considered  
>>> in compound with the last word of the second. According to the  
>>> rule /ardhayuk pādaviśrāntiḥ/ (by the way, coming from where?)  
>>> this should be inadmissible, but – Abhinava says – this holds only  
>>> for kāvya, not for śāstra. My question is: are you aware of a set  
>>> of exceptional rules only valid for the śāstric metrical texts?
>>>             
>>>            Many thanks!
>>>            Raffaele
>>>             
>>>             
>>>                        Prof. Raffaele Torella
>>> Emeritus Professor of Sanskrit
>>> Sapienza University of Rome
>>> www.academia.edu/raffaeletorella[1]
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> INDOLOGY mailing list
>>> INDOLOGY at list.indology.info
>>> https://list.indology.info/mailman/listinfo/indology[2]
>
>  



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