The Pali Subodhālaṅkāra and Daṇḍin's Kāvyādarśa

The Pali Subodhālaṅkāra and Daṇḍin's Kāvyādarśa Author(s): J. C. Wright Source: Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Vol. 65, No. 2 (2002), pp. 323-341 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of School of Oriental and African Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4145617 . Accessed: 15/11/2013 11:15 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

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The Pali

and Dandin's Subodhalanikara Kavyadarsa J. C. WRIGHT

Schoolof OrientalandAfricanStudies Subodhalankara, a Pali treatise on rhetoric in 367 verses, has been attributed, on the evidence of the colophons, to a twelfth-century author Safigharakkhita Mahasa-mi. A commentary, whose fourth-chapter colophon associates the title and name with itself rather than with the verses (Mahasami-namikayam has acquired the name Pordna-tTka.G. E. Fryer had Subodhalanikaratfkayam), edited the verses alone (in 'Pali studies. No. 1 ', JASB, 1875, 91ff.): his omission of the commentary and failure to note the close affinity of the combination of these two texts (as Karika and Vrtti, so to speak) with Dandin's Kavyadarsa, coupled with their reputation for being wholly dependent upon Sanskrit models, must account for the neglect of a work that nevertheless seems to have an important bearing on the earliest strata of Alamkara literature. In a welcome new edition, P. S. Jaini has included, besides the 'PoranatTka' which he takes to be Safigharakkhita Mahasami's auto-commentary, a so-called 'Abhinava-Tkia'which an oral tradition assigns to fifteenth-century Burma.' As he explains, the Abhinava is no independent work, but rather a more detailed and more helpful version of the same commentary. Jaini's texts substantially reproduce the somewhat erratic Burmese edition of 1964, with collation of an even rarer one of 1928, but without reference to Fryer's readings based on two Burmese manuscripts, and with no information to offer on the Ce of 1910, which was 'with (purdna)sannaya' according to Helmer Smith in CPD, I, 60*. G. P. Malalasekera imputed a 'TikaS'to Vacissara (Pali literature of Ceylon, 1928, 204), which Smith listed (loc. cit.) as 'Pordnatfkak', along with a 'NavatTka';but this does not guarantee that any commentary exists independent of the Vrtti in two recensions, Pordna and Abhinava, that has been edited from Burmese sources. Fryer's obtuse statement (1875, p. 106) 'I have met with no commentaries on the work. There is, however, a gloss (tfka), which is said to be scarce' obscures the fact that his Burmese manuscripts evidently included the Abhinava. That was 'the Tikad' from which, in his study of Vuttodaya ('Pali studies. No. 2', JASB, 1877, 410), he cited six specimens of Yamaka as 'rhyming', for the Pordna has only two examples; and his paraphrase of the verses agrees with the wording of the Abhinava.2 Subodhalanikaraand Dandin verses, the inspired kavi achieves his poetic According to the Subodhalan4kira effect (vimhaya) through the art of rhetoric, and not from the study of 'Padmanabh S. Jaini (ed.): Subodhalankdra.Porana-tkad (Mahdsami-tTkd)by Sanfgharakkhita Mahasami. Abhinava-ttka (Nissaya) (anonymous). xix, 315 pp. Oxford: The Pali Text Society, 2000. Reference will be to Jaini's verse numbers, mainly one less than Fryer's (since Fryer's v. 20 has become v. 19ef). 2 His rendering 'minor poems' for v. 6 kabba- reflects a gloss beginning muttakakulakadi- in the Abhinava (p. 19, line 22). The sense 'minor and major poetry' is clearer in the Porana, because it is not averse to a clumsy inclusion of the word mahikabbam within the definition of kabba(p. 15, line 9' muttakadivdkya-... -vdkyasamuddyasampannam... pajjamayam ... mahd[vik]yaripam mahakabbam ca': the edition reads 'mahdkavyaripamnmahakabbamr',but cf. avayavasabhavehi... mahavakyasabhavenaca in the Abhinava). Bulletin of SOAS, 65, 2 (2002), 323-341. ? School of Oriental and African Studies. Printed in the United Kingdom.

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traditional forms of kabba and nataka (v. 6f.).3 Approved heroic and romantic imagery are usually illustrated in terms applicable to Buddhist eulogy (Jaini, p. xvii); and a definition of Kavya genres is smuggled in only within the Vrtti. (The term Vrtti will be used to refer to the consensus of both Tikas.) Dandin's layout, a compendium of Alamkara with preface on diction and appendix on faults, agrees with the Pali definition of composition in terms of sadda, attha, dosa, in that order. In his own definition, the sequence is reversed: he applies an image of the 'body' of poetry first to faults (i, 7: as blemishes on its body), and then to content and form (i, 10: as its ornamented body).4 His phrase istarthavyavacchinnapaddvalTsuggests a more plausible reading (with typical enjambment) and significance (reflecting the moral, as well as linguistic and aesthetic, implications of attha) for the Pali definition in v. 8ab than its Vrtti provides: bandho ca nama sadd' atth[a]sahita dosavajjitd 'words with good sense and without fault constitute a composition'. This agrees well enough with the use of bhdratTin v. 10b, as continuing bandho in v. 8a. The Vrtti, though it professes to read 'saddatthd sahitd', glosses sahita as atthasahita in order to read into it the terms of the much more sophisticated definition of bandha in v. 13f.5 Indeed, its 'saddattha sahita' is awkward, whether construed as words and meanings in combination or in concatenation. The Subodhalarikaraproceeds to discuss faults and their avoidance in vv. 17-115 (dosa with reference to obscure wording, as in Yamaka, and to cacophony, as in alliterative verse); merits in 116-163 (guna with reference to lucidity and euphony), and finally figurative and emotive diction in 164-367 (atthalarikara and rasabhava). Its structure more readily explains, than is explained by, Dandin's bracketing of Alamkara (more than twice as much text for roughly the same set of figures) in between a prefaced listing of guna and appended listing of dosa. While he incorporates into guna a treatment of Anuprasa (a classification as unknown to the Pali as to Bharata), dosa is appended after an equally over-blown analysis of Yamaka. Where the Pali declines to illustrate perplexing Yamakas (v. 33 n'ekantamadhuraniti, upekkhiyanti), Dandin decides, for no obvious reason, to postpone the entire topic (i, 61cd tat tu naikantamadhuramatah pascad vidhasyate). Curiously, his juxtaposition of Yamaka with faults seems to imply no disrespect; and his use of the term duskara to introduce a set of even more artificial constraints is markedly contrived, as compared with the distinction between approved (icchita) and unduly obscure (accantadukkara)Yamaka in Pali.6 3 Dandin's version, i, 103f., differs crucially. Success in stereotyped genres (kavyasampad) demands formidable qualifications: pUirvavdsanagundnubandhi pratibhdnamadbhutam,.rutam bahu nirmalam, yatna, and divine favour. Pali vimhayakararmparam seems to aim at the ultimate Adbhuta Rasa; Dandin's pratibhanam adbhutamconveys nothing very specific. 4 The Vrtti reads an image bandhasarTrainto v. 9, inappropriately since the verses introduce a comparison of bandha with mukha in v. 10f. and with kafiinain v. 14. b5andhandma tamsajjitataddvali (*.'ibddrthalarmkarasajjita'abdrthasamuddyah) gunalanikaragatia' samyutt-. Hence, for sahita in v.8, Abhinava, p. 25, line 9 '?anurfLpatthenasahabhavam similarly, it seems, Pordna, p. 22, line 14f. 'ektbhhta vuttalakkhan [atthi] ye/hi, te pubbacariyehi sahita vuccanti'. Cf. Kulluika's imputation of the meaning 'and sisters' to sahitdh in Manu 9.212, when he might just as well attribute it to bhratarah. 6 See also J. C. Wright, BSOAS, 59/1, 1996, 48-54 and 59f., re Dandin's debt to Buddhist literature for a Prahelika and definitions of Kavya. Also id., 'Pali dipam attano and attadfpa' in R. Tsuchida and A. Wezler (ed.), Hardnandalahar-,volume in honour of Professor Minoru Hara on his seventieth birthday, Reinbek, 2000, 488-92: re his debt to Pali poetry for types of Upama, Dipaka, and Rtipaka. [Ibid., p. 490, 13-16, re Bhinnapada Slesa, read: Dandin emulates Pali su-d-fpa(*-dvipa) with pra-dosa 'evening/enmity' (*pra-dvesa: Prakrit pad(d)esa, pa(d)osa, Pali padosa): his sambadhnan rdiijii pradosah is rather 'the enmity pertaining to the king' than 'a wicked man associating with a king '].

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THE PALI SUBODHALANKARA

AND DANDIN'S

KAVYADARSA

325

Historians of Pali literature assert that the Pali texts are adaptations of Kavyddar'a,7 as the Vrtti's reference to a 'Dandi' as one of its own sources appears to imply. It is never at all obvious that this is so. The starting point of the analysis of dosa and guna in Pali is padadosa 'lexical fault'. It is the final item in Dandin's appendix on dosa, and the more obvious hypothesis seems to be conversion from a Middle Indo-Aryan source into Sanskrit. The Pali classification of faults (faults of wording, construction, and import) includes v. 34 virodhi padarm'contradiction in terms', and only this matrix accounts for the neuter gender of Dandin's virodhi (iii, 126), kificit ... dejsddivirodhi (iii, 164). To explain how the fault can be used to good effect, Dandin offers the same vague reference to artistry (iii, 179); but his word order, inverting the padas of v. 68 (to accommodate kavikau'aldt for kavikosalld) and preferring utkramya dosaganandm to atikkamma, is far dosasanikhyam less natural. In Dandin, virodhais used to refer (iii, 179) to the Dosa-cum-Guna desddivirodhi. The words virodha (ii, 333) and virodhin .lesa (ii, 315) also designate two barely distinguishable forms of paradox Alamkara. The Pali distinguished rather more clearly, both in terminology and in its examples, between antithesis (v. 323 virodhitd) and a punning paradox (v. 300 virodhisilesa), and between these figures and the contradiction (v. 68 virodha) involved in virodhipadam. Dandin's definition of the latter (iii, 162-178) as an absolute fault in poetry kavyesu), exemplified with nonsense stanzas, is followed immediately (varjyd.h (iii, 179-185) by specimens of its effective use in portents. In Pali, the approved omen verses were set in a mitigating context of Dosapariharavabodha(v. 70ff.) which is wanting in Dandin. The list of types of solecism was given separately in v. 34, and there we are spared any irrelevant nonsense: the verse has only a cross-reference (uddharanato phutam), which the Vrtti implements with examples taken from the approved verses. The Karika, v. 146, provides a Middle Indo-Aryan basis for Dandin's Kanti Guna: lokiyatthanatikkanta kanta sabbajanenapi, kanti ndma 'tivuttassa vutta sa pariharato. Not overstepping the bounds of reality and beloved by all: Kanti is so-called because it avoids the fault of over-statement. A Prakrit pun on kram- and kam- is explicit, and the form kanti confirms that 'charm' is primarily intended. Indeed the example that is given of the fault of crass overstatement (v. 56 ativuttam, explained as lokiyattham atikkantam) is singularly charmless: atisambadhamcIkasametissa thanajambhane.The illustration of Kanti in v. 95, a figurative mitigation of the same overstatement 'no room for it in the cosmos', makes an indirect reference to kanti 'moonlight' in the Riipaka image that equates the Buddha's fame with moonbeams: Munindacanda-sambhu-ta-yasorastmar-cinam, sakalo py ayam dkaso ndvakaso vijambhane. Dandin's definition also links the two etymologies (i, 85 sarvajagatkdntam laukikarthanatikramat);but since the pun and the 'moonlight' figure are both lost, one has no idea why he chooses to equate matter-of-factness with kanti 'charm'. He assigns i, 91, his expansion of v. 56cd, crass atyukti, to the Gaudas, and (in lieu of the Buddhist v. 95) foists upon the Vaidarbhas a less fulsome, but no more charming, compliment (i, 87 stanayor jrmbhamanayoh, 7

Similarly, H. N. Chatterjee, Comparativestudies in Pili and Sanskrit alanmkaras,1960, vi.

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avaka-o na parydptas tava bdhulatantare).The implication is possibly that he recognizes Magadhi and Maharashtri as the source of inspiration for notions of ugliness and beauty in the Pali, but avoids terms that specify a Prakrit linguistic medium.8 He misses the point that it is the Rupaka, identifying the Buddha's fame with moonbeams, that makes it possible to visualize its infinite extent. In the Pali, the separate enumeration of Kanti really serves only to boost the number of Gunas to a round number, for this sort of figurative measurability could well have been included among its specimen instances of Samadhi. These go beyond personification (which alone emerges from Dandin i, 93-100), by including four forms of imputed concretization: ruipa, rasa, drava, kathina. Like Kanti, Samadhi is defined with reference to a combination of metaphor with reality: this is implied by its prefix sam- (v. 150bc lokasTmanurodhato samma adhTyate). Dandin loses all cohesion. Separating figurative Samddhi from factual Arthavyakti, he juxtaposes Samadhi with Kanti, although their similarity is no longer apparent. His lotus metaphors, simple or complex (i, 94a kumuddni nimTlanti;96 padmdni ... vamantiva), lack the linking factor, the consistent use of comparisons with moonlight as a link with reality. The Pali combined its lotus metaphor (v. 153 viniddd kumudint) with a full-moon Rilpaka; and to demonstrate that Samadhi can render even vulgarity highly attractive (v. 159): vaman'uggilanadyetamrgunavuttyapariccutaim atisundaram;aiman tu kimam vindati gammatamr.9 the example had toenails that seem to swallow the moonlight (candakanti) by spewing radiance (kanti). Dandin's resort to mere metaphor reflects a misunderstanding of the The Vrtti, followed by the editions, claims to enjambed reading to read etam guna' and identify guna arbitrarily as an alien 'appadhaina' etam.guna. the topic throughout Samadhi is the transfer of a natural property, although property 'mukhyavatthuno pasiddhaguno' (p. 145, line 6f.). As in the case of v. 8 sadd' atthasahiti (above), the Abhinava conflates the two readings. It construes etam implausibly with vaman'uggilanddi(hitherto unmentioned); but construed with guna' in its 'idani imesu eva it has also a gloss on etamrn [p]dnidhammidisu' [Ed. vani': but Samadhi comprises paninam dhammo,etc.: p. 146ff.]. In deference to the caesura, etam has been glossed separately as an adverb ('iddni'); but, although the syntax is wrong, it is rightly explained as a reference to the natural property ('painidhammaddsu').The term etamguna is indeed essential, as a reference back to v. 150 afifiadhammo(tato ai-iiattha ... adh-yate), the property to be transferred. Unlike the Vrtti, Dandin excises the seemingly superfluous etam, takes gunavutti to be *gaunt vrttih, and replaces pariccu- with a purely rhetorical notion of 'descent' (... vantadigaunavrttivyapairayam ... gramyakaksramvigahate). Importantly, however, apariccuta stressed the advantage of 'retaining' a

8 Non-Buddhistic illustrations in the Karika can be reminiscent of Maharashtri verse (n. 18, below), and later taste might well condemn as charmless and wilfully obscure the archaic Magadhi ballads, specimens of which survive in the Jain Manipaticarita (Ludwig Alsdorf, 'Zwei Proben der Volksdichtung aus dem alten Magadha' in Beitrage zur Indienfjorschung,Ernst Waldschmidt zum 80. Geburtstaggewidmet, 1977, 17ff.; Kl. Schr., 1998, 777ff.). 9 Ed. uggira? (as in v. 162); Fryer and Vrtti (1928 ed.) uggila?. Ed. etam guna?. Fryer ?vutyap, for *vutt'ap?as a compound ('tato apariccutam'); Ed. has ?vuttydp?,possibly Abhinava ?vuttyap?, sandhi "vuttya 'p, after Dhvanyaloka 1.17. Read *gamya? (