One of the most famous verses in Sanskrit is the opening verse of Kālidāsa’s Raghuvaṃśa:
Here, Śiva and Pārvatī are seen to be inextricably intertwined like a word and its meaning.
Another verse I came across today expresses a similar relation, but between different pairs of upamānas and upameyas:
May you remember that enchanting form of Mura’s Conqueror,
dancing around playfully in the Rāsa-līlā,
united individually with all of the milkmaids,
like a suffix with flexional bases.
As may be imagined, this is the opening verse of a grammatical text: the Prakriyā-sarvasva of Mēlpattūr Nārāyaṇa Bhaṭṭatiri, who is most famous for his composition of the Nārāyaṇīyam addressed to Kṛṣṇa. As to why Kṛṣṇa should be seen as a suffix (which, in English at least, sounds like it’s subordinate somehow to the word to which it’s added), it’s because the Pāṇinian tradition of grammar sees the suffix’s meaning as dominating the word’s meaning. Moreover, a suffix can be added to far more words than a word can take suffixes, and so it has greater “freedom of union” in that sense. Finally, and conveniently, the word for suffix, pratyaya, takes masculine gender, while the word for flexional base, prakṛti, takes the feminine gender.
vāg-arthāv iva sampṛktau vāg-artha-pratipattaye |
jagataḥ pitarau vande pārvatīparameśvarau ||
Here, Śiva and Pārvatī are seen to be inextricably intertwined like a word and its meaning.
Another verse I came across today expresses a similar relation, but between different pairs of upamānas and upameyas:
rāsa-vilāsa-vilolaṃ smarata murārer mano-haraṃ rūpam |
prakṛtiṣu yat pratyayavat praty-ekaṃ gopikāsu sammilitam ||
May you remember that enchanting form of Mura’s Conqueror,
dancing around playfully in the Rāsa-līlā,
united individually with all of the milkmaids,
like a suffix with flexional bases.
As may be imagined, this is the opening verse of a grammatical text: the Prakriyā-sarvasva of Mēlpattūr Nārāyaṇa Bhaṭṭatiri, who is most famous for his composition of the Nārāyaṇīyam addressed to Kṛṣṇa. As to why Kṛṣṇa should be seen as a suffix (which, in English at least, sounds like it’s subordinate somehow to the word to which it’s added), it’s because the Pāṇinian tradition of grammar sees the suffix’s meaning as dominating the word’s meaning. Moreover, a suffix can be added to far more words than a word can take suffixes, and so it has greater “freedom of union” in that sense. Finally, and conveniently, the word for suffix, pratyaya, takes masculine gender, while the word for flexional base, prakṛti, takes the feminine gender.
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