bla chhabl tiyanu mai baith pu chhip

aragata hm pnsa s paragata hoti lakh

(Bihr , Satsa, Ratnkara no. 603)
The Shityik Brajbhs Ko, Prashant, derives aragata as alag+ta
and glosses it as bhia, nirl; it glosses fnsa/pnsa as
jhrf ns, kadl and cites this doh as an exemplum for both
words. Babu Jagannth Ds Ratnkar, who was the first modern
Hindi critic to comment systematically on Bihr, sems to have taken
aragata in the sense of separate, aloof:
aragata=alamgat,

prthak,

pnsa (f.fns)=wo kc k
gher, jis me mombatt itydi jaly jt haifns abd k
arth, yah lakana-la

kan se, pns me sthit dpak hot

hai, jais pajab bar bahdur hai kehne se pajb nivs
purus samjhe jte hai.
[aneknek bar] chhabl (sudar camak-damak wal) striyo ke
bc me [bh] pu (nij rp ko) chhipkar baith hu [wah] bl
fns [ke dpak] s [apne cro or ke varan se] aragata

(alag) h paragata
(prakat, spast) lakh (lakit) hot hai.
Ratnkar also understands pnsa as a modern glass lantern.
Another modern commentator, Trigunyat

commenting on
Ratnkara says:
aragata
=alag h, pnsa=(arb fns)-fns abd arb bhs
k hai Ratnkar j ne ise bhram se frs k baty hai. isk
arth hot hai battdn artht e k ban bartan jisme
rawn jal jt hai yahn par updna lakan se dpikh
se daidpyamn fns arth liy gay hai.
These commentaries, Prashant, therefore suggest this translation:
That lovely girl
hid herself
amongst
many luminous women
But she shone forth
separately
like a lantern
The older commentators, however, understood pnsa not as a
glass covering, but as a thin, translucent muslin covering draped
over a lamp. Mlavya (2008) quotes a reading from a manuscript of
the Awar Cadrik, a commentary by the medieval commentator
Shubakaran Ds:
pai he nyak t desi fnsa s arughatahi fnsa jo diy
dharvai ko pijr kapr dh
po hot hai tme dpa jaise
bahuta disi
deta hai taise nyik k las
jo dis
so pragata

hota hai, t desi

Yet another modern Hindi commentator, Ll Bhagwna Dna takes

aragata as ghmghat

veil, contra Ratnkar. Heres his

commentary:

pu chhipy=apne ko chhipkar (ghmghat

me muh
chhipkar). aragata= (ra+gtra

) pard artht ghmghat.

fns= kc ke hr k adar rakkh hu dpak.

bhvrth-wo chhabl nyik bahut s striyo ke madhya me
apne cehre ko ghmghat

se chhipkar baith,

to bh ghmghat

ke bhtar h se usk chhab fns ke adar wle dpak k tarha

pratyak dikhi parne

lag.
However, he still understands pnsa as a glass casing! The
meaning of aragata as ghmghat

veil suggests this translation:

That lovely girl
hid herself
amongst
many luminous women
But her veil dazzled
forth
like a lantern
The very interesting thing, Prashant, is that in this doh, pnsa is
best understood in its original, etymological Arabo-Persian
signification of a whisperer, a tale-bearer, a pickthank, tell-tale,
slanderer. Nafs glosses fns as nammm-o sukhan c
(calumniator and tale-bearer). The Ghiys-al Lught glosses the
etymological meaning of fns thus:
dar asl baman sukhan c ast. fns-e ama r az jihat
goyad kih rawn beirn mdihad.
Dihkhoda too cites a similar etymology of fns from the Muntah-al
arab:
dar asl baman sukhan c wa fns-e ama r az jihat
goyad kih rawn beirn dihad.
Dihkhoda speculates that fns is derived from the Greek phnos:
gumn m kunam jumlah az ynn fnas giriftah uda
bad kih baman afff ast. prhan-e ama r b mddah-e
khs afff mskhtad kih nr r ziyd mkard.
In a footnote to this gloss, he mentions dar ynn Phnos. Mon
also derives fns from the Greek Phnos. Phnos () in Greek,
Prashant, is light, bright, brightness, joyousness; (of garments)
washed clean. I, for my turn will speculate that its perhaps (etymo
and philo)logically sounder to derive fns from the Greek pnos
() lamp, lantern, torch rather than phnos or pharos.
As for Urdu, many lexicologists seem to have glossed only the glass
covering meaning. Theres no entry for fns in Shakespear in the
Hindustan and English part, but in the English and Hindustan
part, he glosses Lantern as fns, kandl, mashla. Forbes
glosses fns as a shade (to keep the wind from a candle), a
lantern and Lighthouse as fns. Fallon glosses fns as
Rus. phanns, n. f. A glass shade. Platts, strangely, hasnt glossed

the etymological meaning of fns as slanderer. Some lexicologists

gloss the etymological meaning: the Lught-e Kior by Sayyid
Tassaduq Hussain Riw glosses fns as sukhan c, lutr and
Platts glosses lutr as Driven off or away, expelled, rejected;-a
sycophant; babbler, tattler, tell-tale, blab; a silly person; a
backbiter. The Farhag-e safiyah

and the Nr-al Lught inter alia

gloss fns as sukhan c, ghammz. Jall Hassan Jall in the
Tazkr-o Tans adduces a lovely exemplum from aikh Imdd Al
Behr

Lakhnaw (cited by both safiyah

and the Nr), poetic

disciple of aikh Imm Bakh Nsikh to illustrate that fns is
masculine (and also the meaning slanderer):
tabat

Behr
k rawan hw jab wasf-e

abr se
huw fns misr-e

mah-e naw ama-e mamn k

Bihr Satsa Ratnkara no. 603 Prashant, therefore presents a
philological problem: a lexical choice between aragata

as
separate/aloof and as veil and pnsa as glass casing and
muslin cloth and hence slanderer. Ill rely here, Prashant, on the
(semiotic) concepts of semantic disclosures of narcotizing or
blowing up certain lexemes, as delineated by professor Umberto
Eco:
When faced with a lexeme, the reader does not know which of
its virtual properties (or semes, or semantic markers) has to be
actualized so as to allow further amalgamations.
Should every virtual property be taken into account in the
further course of the text, the reader would be obliged to
outline, as in a sort of vivid mental picture, the whole network
of interrelated properties that the encyclopedia assigns to the
corresponding sememe. Nevertheless (and fortunately), we do
not proceed like that, except in rare cases of eidetic
imagination. All these properties are not to be actually present
to the mind of the reader. They are virtually present in the
encyclopedia, that is, they are socially stored, and the reader
picks them up from the semantic store only when required by
the text. In doing so the reader implements semantic
disclosures or, in other words, actualizes nonmanifested
properties (as well as merely suggested sememes).
Semantic disclosures have a double role: they blow up certain
properties (making them textually relevant or pertinent) and
narcotize some others []
However, to remain narcotized does not mean to be abolished.
Virtual properties can always be actualized by the course of
the text. In any case they remain perhaps unessential, but by
no means obliterated.
Ill therefore submit, Prashant, that a philological, semiotic reading of
this doh will entail in the semantic disclosure of blowing up
aragata
as veil (and narcotizing the meaning separate/aloof)
and blowing up (the Arabo-Persian etymological) pnsa as
muslin cloth and hence slanderer (and narcotizing the
meaning glass casing) .The meaning of this doh will therefore be

as follows: the nyik, draped in a veil (the Sanskrit avagunthana

) is
surrounded by a bevy of luminous beauties, but her very veil itself,
which is supposed to hide/screen her, instead slanders her radiant,
dazzling luster and thereby identifies (and betrays) her..! Blowing
up the meaning of aragata
as separate/aloof and pnsa as
glass casing will rob this text of its camatkra, in as much as the
beloved is then merely sitting aloof/separate from the other
luminous beauties and can be seen clearly, much like a lamp is
plainly visible in a glass casing!
This mamn, Prashant, of the ((Dazzling Beloved)) in Indic rhetoric
theory bears the terminus technicii obh, kti and dpti, which are
amongst womens twenty innate graces (sattvaj alamkrh

,
Daarpaka 2.47) and are unaffected (ayatnajh, ibid. 2.48).
obh is physical beauty due to loveliness, passion and
youth:rpopabhogatrunyaih

obhngnm
vibhsanam

(Daarpaka 2.53) kti is the radiant glow that love impartsmamathvpitacchy saiva kntir iti smrt
(Daarpaka 2.54) and
dpti is kti intensified:dptih kntes tu vistarah (Daarpaka 2.56).
The medieval Sanskrit rheteoricians Rmacandra and Gunacandra

define obh (Ntyadarpana

4.35) as aujjvalyam yauvandnm

atha obhopbhogatah: obh is the glow generated by the
enjoyment of youth and kti as s ktih prnasambhog

(ibid.):
that (i.e., obh), when heightened by lovemaking is kti. They
define dpti (ibid.) as kntes tu vistarah: dpti is kti intensified.
The word upabhoga at Ntyadarpana

4.35 (as well as at Daarpaka

2.53) can also mean Enjoyment (of a woman), cohabitation; and
this is the sense that Rmacandra and Gunacandra

seem to gloss in
their autocommentary svopajyavritti

on Ntyadarpana

4.35:
rpalvanydnm

ca purusenopabhujymnnm

yadaujjvalyam
chhyviesah
s obh: obh is the special glow and radiance of
women whose youth and beauty have been sexually enjoyed by
men. This carnal definition of obh applies to kti and dpti as
well since the three are on an ascending scale of mild-moderatehigh:
yauvandnmaujjvalyasya
mada-madhya-tvrvasthh
kramena

obh kti dptaya ityartha iti (svopajyavritti

on
Ntyadarpana

4.35).
Khwj Haider

Al ti, Prashant, has used the mamn of dpti :

sf
t hai nazar
pok se nr-e badan
pairahan fns hai jism-e maghrr ama
Faiz too, has used this mamn in his poem Nazr-e

Hfiz in his
collection m-e ahr-e Yrn:
ama-e badan fns-e qab me
khb-e tan kuchh is se ziydah