ua iccala nippad.

Heres a Mahrsr Prkrit gth from the anthology Ghsatasa, traditionally believed to be
collected by Hla, a king of the Stavhana dynasty who ruled over Pratihana (modern-day
Paiha, in central Maharashtra) from 20-24 C.E.:

ua iccala nippad bhisipattammi reha bal

immalamargabhaparihi sakhasutti vva
(Ghsatasa 1.4, ascribed to a Voisa [Skt. Yodita])
iccala nippad= undisturbed and motionless, bhisipattammi = on the lotus leaf, reha =
silvery-white gleam, bal = heron, immalamargabhaparihi =resting on a flawless
emerald plate, sakhasutti vva = like a conch-shell pearl; mother of pearl.
Look!
A heron
motionless, still,
gleams on a lotus-leaf
Like mother-of-pearl
on a plate
of flawless emerald
The Eeleventh century Kmri poetician Mammaabhaa adduces this gth in the second
chapter of his compendium Kvyapraka as an exemplum of the suggestiveness of
suggested meaning and offers the following dhvani reading:
atra nipandatvena vastatvam| tena ca janarahitatvam | ata saketasthnam etad iti
kaycit kicitpratyucyate | athav mithy vadasi na tvamatrgatobhriti vyajyate ||
(Mammaa, prose commentary on Kvyapraka 2.8)
The word motionless suggests the herons confident state, which therefore suggests a
deserted place. Hence, the poems locutor hints to her lover, This is the spot for a
rendezvous. Or, she might be suggesting Youre lying! You werent here at all.

Heres an interesting verse on the different hints for indicating the particular time of the
rendezvous:
dye yme tu akha syn mahakho dvityake
padmas tityake yme mahpadmas caturthake
If lovers arrange a rendezvous
in the first watch of day,
the hint is akha
if in the second, its mahakha,
If in the third, its padma
and if in the fourth,
its mahpadma

Vivanthas interpretation at Shityadarpaa 2.16 is similar to Mammaas. Heres the 16th

century commentator Gagdhara Bhaas headnote to his dhvani reading of this verse:
kallolinknanakandardau
dukhraye
crpitacittavtti|mudukramrambha
abhinnadhairya lathopi drgham ramate rateu|| itydi kmastrddirgharamanrtha
nyakasynyacittatm kurvat kcidhOnes train of thought can be focussed on places such as rivers, forests and caves, or on
places which are hard to reach. Beginning slowly, a man whose composure is steady can revel
in sexual pleasure for quite a while, even if hes tired. These things are found in the erotic
treatises, and here, a certain woman utters these words to her nyaka to make him focus on
something else, so that they can make love for a long time.

The commentary that follows attributes this utterance to the nyik:

tath yadi vegavidhraaparosi tadainm balkm payannanyamanaskatay cira ramasveti
bhva
and if youre opposed to checking your speed, then look at that heron, and fix your mind on
something else so that you can make love to me for a long time.

The other readings are quotations of Mammaa. Heres the modern 20th century
commentator Bhaa Mathurntha stris headnote to this text:
pallavagahanatay dineapi duprekye kamalinpuline kayocitsaketasaghaanst|
tatrnysaktatayngatyaiva-dattasaket tva ngat, aha tvgata iti vdinam
kmukam kcidA couple fixed a rendezvous spot beside a lotus pond, difficult to see even by day due to the
dense foliage surrounding it. This verse is the womans utterance to her lover who stood her
up because of his involvement with another woman and who alleges that he came to the
assignation-spot and that she didnt.

The other interpretations given quote Mammaa and Gagdhara. The singular common
feature of all the above dhvani readings is that they arent at all borne out lexically from the
text. Mammaa defines dhvani as follows:
vaktuboddhavyakkn vkyavcyyasannidhe|
prastvadeaklder vaiiyt pratibhjum|
yorthasynyrthadhhetur vypro vyaktireva s|

(Mammaa, Kvyapraka 3:21-22)

Suggestion is a semantic function (arthasya vypra) that produces in sensitive readers a

meaning different from the literal sense, by means of specificity of factors like the speaker,
the addressee, the tone of voice, the syntagm of the sentence, the expressed sense, the
presence of a third person, the context, the time, or the place.

Tzvetan Todorov enumerates these very factors (without attributing it to Mammaa) as the
enunciatory context of an utterance:
Language exists in the abstract; it has a lexicon and grammatical rules as its input
and sentences as its output. Discourse is a concrete manifestation of language, and it is
produced, necessarily, in a specific context that involves not only linguistic elements but also
the circumstances of their production: the interlocutors, the time and place, the relations
prevailing among these extralinguistic elements.
Now the interpretation of an utterance is determined, on the one hand, by the sentence that
is uttered, and on the other hand by the process of enunciation of that sentence. The

enunciation process includes a speaker who utters, an addressee to whom the utterance is
directed, a time and a place, a discourse that proceeds and one that follows; in short, an
enunciatory context. In still other terms, discourse is always and necessarily constituted by
speech acts.

(my emphasis)

At another place in the Kvyapraka, Mammaa, perhaps critiquing Bhmaha, Kvylamkra

2.87 and Dandin, Kvydara 2.144, theorizes that even plain, unembellished phrases like
gatostam arka the suns set can be polysemically suggestive, depending upon the
specificity of the context adduced:
api ca vcyortha sarvn pratipattn prati ekarpa eveti niyatosau. na hi gatostam arka
itydau
vckyortha
kvacid
anyath
bhavati.
pratyamnas
tu
tattatprakaravaktpratipattrdivieasahyatay nntva bhajate. tath ca gatostam
arka ityata sapatna pratyavaskandanvasara iti abhisaraamupakramyatmiti
praptapryaste preyniti karmakarannivartmaha iti sndhyo vidhirupakramyatmiti dra

3
m g iti surabhayo gha praveyantmiti santpodhun na bhavatiti vikreyavastni
sahiyantmiti ngatodypi preynitydiranavadhrvyagyorthas tatra tatra pratibhti.
(Mammaa, prose commentary on Kvyapraka 5.47)
The denoted meaning is uniform because its always the same to everyone who understands
(the word or phrase). The literal meaning of The sun has set is never different. But its
suggested meanings are multiple, varying according to the particular context, the person
saying it, the person hearing it, etc. So in the case of The sun has set, unlimited suggested
meanings arise in different contexts: Nows the time to attack the enemy, You should go
meet your lover, Your lover is about to come, lets stop our work, Lets begin the vesper
ritual, Dont go far, Bring the cows to their shed, it wont be hot anymore, Lets pack
up our merchandise, and Even today my love hasnt returned.

Bhoja (11th century CE) in the Light on Passion (grapraka) theorizes that the
remainder of an utterance (
) is to be imagined via aural contextually relevant
inference (rutrthpatti):
sarvavkynm vidhiniedha paryavasyitvtskdarutvapi tadupakalpanam vkyae ah.
tadyath-ryanivsoyam dea ityukte ihaiva sthtavyam Madhyhno vartate ityukte ihaiva
bhoktavyam sa cor path ityukte na gatavyam, grh sarityasymityukte na
sntavyamiti
vkyae o
bhavatika
punaradhyhrvkyae ayorviea?
abdkknivartakodhyhra,
arthkknivartakovkyae a, iti.[] athaia
pratyaknumnopamnaabdai anupalabhyamna kimpramaviayassyt, adhyhravat
rutrthpattiprameya iti.
The purport of all utterances is either exhortation or prohibition. Even if neither are explicitly
mentioned, imagining them is the remainder of the utterance. Hence noble persons stay in
this place means stay here, Stay till noon means have lunch, This paths plagued by
thieves means dont go that way, This lakes crocodile-infested means dont bathe here;
all these are instances of remainder of an utterance.

Gagdharabhaa (16th Century CE?) commenting on Seven Hundred Gths (Ghsattasa)

5.95 prescribes a reader-response strategy similar to Mammaa:
saketasarastram aha gat tva na gat iti jra rvayat kpi
kamalavanavaranachalena sakhm ha;suptasya rjna pravodhanya vaitlikasyeda
vacanam iti kecit, sdhyo vidhir anushhyatm iti, surabhayo mucyatm iti, vikreyavastni
prasryatm
iti,
nstidnm
picdibhayam
iti
pathika!
pratishhsvetydiprastvadeakldibhedt punar anekavidho vyagyortha sahidayai svayam hanya
Model Readers can of their own accord abduct the suggested meaning (sadayai
svayamhanya) here in many ways due to variety of context, place or time
(prastvadeakldibhedt), e.g. Perform the twilight ritual, Release the cows, Spread out
the goods to be sold, Traveler! set out, theres now no fear of demons or other creatures
and so on.

A probable hypotext for the pragmatic-abductive factors delineated by Mammaa and

Gagdhara (and perhaps Bhoja) is Abhinavagupta in the Abhinavabhrat. At the end of his
long commentary on the aphorism of aestheticized emotion (rasastra, Nyastra 6.31c),
Abhinava articulates the distinction between rasa-gustation in aural literature (ravyakvya)
as compared to visual literature (dyakvya). He discusses the relative prominence of the
textual elements (vibhvas, anubhvas and vyabhicrbhvas) in a poetic text and after
quoting exempla in which only one element from these three is prominent, he remarks:
eva dvaya prdhnye cdhryam. kitu samaprdhnya eva rassvdasyotkara. tacca
prabandha eva bhavati. vastutastu daarpaka eva. yadha vmana:- sadarbheu
daarpaka reya. tadvicitracitrapaavadvieaskalyt. (Kvylakra Stri 1.3.3031)
iti
tadparasacarvaay
tu
prabandhe
bhveapravttyaucitydikalpant.
tadupajvanena mukatake. tath ca tatra sahaday prvparaucitam parikalpya dgatra
vaktsminnavasare
itydi
bahutara
phabandharpa
vidadhate.
tena
ye
kvybhysaprktanapuydihetubald
iti
(bhi)
sahdayste

4
parimitavibhvdyunmlanepi parisphua eva skatkrakalpa kvyrtha sphurati.ata eva
te kvyameva prtivyutpattikdanapekitanyamapi.
Its also possible to cite exempla where two elements are prominent. However, the most
intense gustation of jouissance occurs only when these three textual elements are all equally
prominent. This normally occurs only in long narrative texts and really speaking, only in a
dramatic performance in its ten genera. Vmana says (Aphorisms of Poetic Adornment
[Kvylakra Stri] 1.3.30-31) Among literary texts the drama in its ten genera is
superior, because its multifarious due to the comprehensiveness of its particulars, as in a
painting. A similar savouring of rasa is possible even in non-dramatic longer narrative texts if
one can imagine appropriate factors like language, costume and style. Its also possible in
isolated short verse-texts which depend on longer narrative texts. Hence, Model Readers, by
imagining what precedes and what follows can generate a considerable context even for a
short verse by determining that This is the utterance of a particular person on a particular
occasion and so on. For such Readers, by virtue of their sustained study of poetry and their
former good deeds, the meaning of even such short, contextless texts lucidly flashes forth
immediately as if directly perceived, despite the restricted unfolding of the textual elements.
Thus, for such Readers, short poems by themselves can afford jouissance as well as
instruction, even without any dramatic element.

Here, the common point is the semiotic-pragmatic nature of dhvani. The suggested meaning
of a text depends not only upon the texts lexemes, but upon the context that the texts
addressee embeds it in. The pragmatic factors delineated by Mammaa at Kvyapraka
3:21-22 arent new, but are a restatement of Abhinavaguptas reading position.
(Entirely as a digression, Ill mention that Ive always connected tadvicitracitrapaa with
Horace, Ars poetica 361-365, ut pictura poesis and Plutarchs reference at De gloria
Atheniensium 3.346f-347c to the Ur-poet Simonides famous aphorism that poetry is
painting with a voice and painting is silent poetry: pln ho Simnides tn men zigraphian
poisin sipsan prosagoreui tn de poisin zigraphian lalosan (Plutarch again attributes
this dictum to Simonides at Quaestiones Convivialis 748a and repeats it with slightly different
wording without naming Simonides at De Audiendus Poetis 17f-18a and Quomodo
Adolescens Poetas Audire debeat 58b and De Vita et Poesi Homeri 216. The Rhetorica Ad
Herennium at 4.28.39 while discussing the trope commutatio cites this dictum as an
exemplum, but without attributing it to Simonides: poma loquens pictura, pictura tacitum
poma debet esse; cf. Anthologia Palatina 11.145. Also cf. Plato, Republic 10.596c-e.) Its
relevant also to ponder in this connection ekphrasis (Latin descriptio) and the notion of
verbal description creating a visual scene: Cicero, De Oratore 3.53.202 (sub oculos
subiectioi), 2.264 (ante oculos), De Inventione 1.107, cf. Ad Herennnium 4.45 on metaphors
being used to create a vivid mental picture, rei ante oculos ponendae causa, cf. Aristotle,
Rhetoric 3.10.6-3.11.5 on vivid metaphors that are set before the eyes, pro ommatn;
Rmyaa 1.4.17 on pratyakamiva daritam, cf. Bhmaha, Kvylakra 3.52b, pratyak
iva dyate on the prasdagua/alakra Bhvik (see the excellent discussion in Raghavan
1942b), descriptio; Quintillian, Institutio Oratoria 4.2.63-65; 6.2.32-36; 7.3.61-62; 8.3.61-71;
9.2.40-44; enargeia, vividness also called diatypsis/hypotypsis (from hypotypoein, to
sketch), Latin evidentia, depictio, descriptio, imaginatio, repraesentatio, demonstratio,
adumbratio, imaginatio; Ad Herennium 4.39.51; 4.69. Longinus at Peri hypsos 15.2 states
that enargeia is the goal of phantasia; cf. Institutio Oratoria 9.2.33, 12.10.6; cf. the Arabic
Aristotelians on takhyl.)
Its instructive to juxtapose Abhinavas interpretative strategy to what the Semiotician
Charles Sanders Peirce termed abduction. From the viewpoint of Cognitive theory,
Abductive reasoning is an Inference to the Best Explanation, which has the logical form of
an inverse modus ponens (modus ponens /modus ponendo ponens the way that affirms by
affirming; also called affirming the antecedent) and is reasoning backward from
consequent to antecedent. Therefore, Peirce calls it also retroductive reasoning. From a
logical point of view, reasoning backward isnt a valid form of inference. It is conjectural or
presumptive thinking, aiming at matching pragmatic standards of plausibility, guided by the
reasoner's guessing instinct. However, Peirce claims that abduction is logical inference
because it can be represented in a perfect definite logical form:

5
The surprising fact, C, is observed;
But if A were true, C would be a matter of course.
Hence, there is reason to suspect that A is true.
Thus, A cannot be abductively inferred, or if you prefer the expression, cannot
be abductively conjectured until its entire content is already present in the premiss, If A
were true, C would be a matter of course.
(Peirce, Harvard Lectures on Pragmatism, CP 5.188-189)

What Peirce termed abduction and retroduction is identical to the mechanics of the
prama Arthpatti as well as the Vedic hermeneutical concept of Arthavda. Abduction is
central to the mechanics of semiosis. Ill beg to submit, that rasa isnt merely a
abdavypara, it isnt exclusively linguistic (in so far as anything can be exclusively
linguistic), its in fact pragmatic-semiotic-inferential, with the addressees intentio (the mens
lectoris) having a significant role to play. Abhinavas theory of the saadaya
abducting/retroducting a context for a free-floating text is in fact the earliest that Ive seen
of a theory of Reader-Response. Abhinava, even in the Locana mutedly remarks on the role
of the readers imagination in evoking a dhvani reading:
tena
samaypek
vcyvagamanaaktirabhidhaktih|tadanyathnupapattisahyrthvabodhanaaktisttparya
akti|
mukhyrthabdhdisahakryapekrthapratibhsanaaktirlakanakti|
tacchaktitrayopajanitrthvagamamulajtatatpratibhsapavititapratipattpratibhsahyrthad
yotanaaktirdhvananavypra
(Abhinava, Locana on Dhvanyloka 1.4b)
Hence, denotative power conveys the literal meaning of words and is regulated by
convention; the power of sentence-purport conveys a unified sentential meaning, assisted by
the incongruity of the literal sense; the power of secondary usage is the power to reveal a
sense regulated by such cooperating factors as the incongruity of the primary sense; the
suggestive power is the power which has its origin in ones understanding of objects revealed
by the first three powers, and which is then assisted by the addressees imagination which has
been refined by these revelations.

Abhinava in the Eye (Locana, his celebrated commentary on the Dhvanyloka) commenting
on Dhvanyloka 3.7 theorizes that a free verse (muktaka) is contextually unbound and
unrelated (muktakamanyennligita) and that an independent verse occurring in a
narrative, even though syntactically complete (parisamptanirkkrthamapi) wont be
called a muktaka.
tena
svatatratay
muktakamityucyate|

parisamptanirkkrthamapi

prabandhamadhyavarti

na

(Abhinava, Locana on Dhvanyloka 3.7)

A contextless verse occurring in a narrative text, even if that verse is in no need of syntactical
completion, is not called a muktaka.

Ill now return to the three readings of this text. Mammaa invents a nyikbheda
enunciatory context for this gth. His first nyik (i.e., the one who hints of an assignationspot by the pond) is the nyik classified in the nyikbheda typology as a paraky
(anothers), one who keps her love secretive and hidden, being either unmarried (kanyak)
or married to another man (paroh). This is an extremely prevalent topos in Sanskrit kvya,
viz. the topos of the asati or the kula, the wanton. The nyik here may be further
identified as a vcyavidagdh (clever of speech). The nyaka is a paramour (upapati) and
the genre of love is love in union, or sambhogagrarasa, the sthyibhva (basal
sentiment) of which is rati (eros). This is an instance of furtivus amor, or cauryarata.
Mammaas second nyik is one of the 8 avasthnyiks of the nyikbheda typology, viz.
the Vipralabdhnyik, the nyik who reaches the assignation-spot, but whos jilted by her
lover, who doesnt turn up. This nayika is the experienced jilted nayika, the
prauhvipralabdhnyik. The nyaka here is deceiver paramour, a ahaupapati and the
genre of love is love frustrated, or vipralambhagrarasa, the sthyibhva (basal
sentiment) of which is also rati (eros).

Mathurntha stris nyik too is the Vipralabdhparakynyik like Mammaas second

nyik. The enunciatory context invented by Gagdhara Bhaa also relies on the
nyikbheda typology, and also upon the Kmastra.
Gagdharas brief is that every gth in the Ghsatasa suggests grarasa. The verse
(intertext!) that Gagdhara quotes in his headnote to this gth is verse 5.3 from Kokkokas
Ratirahasya, which deals with the erotic technique of vryastambhana, deferral of
ejaculation. The nyik here is a parakynyik, the nyaka is an upapati and the genre is
sambhogagrarasa. This reading is particularly piquant in so far as it posits a context
where the nyik and the nyaka are engaged in lovemaking proper, without any lexeme of
the text actually signifying lovemaking! The rhetorical device used is Svabhvokti, or natural
(necaral!) description.