Bhaktivedanta VedaBase: Śrī Caitanya Caritāmṛta Ādi 16.54

pañca doṣa ei śloke pañca alańkāra

krame āmi kahi, śuna, karaha vicāra

SYNONYMS

pañca — five; doṣa — faults; ei śloke — in this verse; pañca — five; alańkāra — literary embellishments; krame — one after another; āmi — I; kahi — say; śuna — kindly hear; karaha — give; vicāra — judgment.

TRANSLATION

"My dear sir, in this verse there are five faults and five literary ornaments. I shall state them one after another. Kindly hear Me and then give your judgment.

PURPORT

In the verse beginning with mahattvaḿ gańgāyāḥ there are five literary ornaments and five examples of faulty composition. There are two examples of the fault called avimṛṣṭa-vidheyāḿśa and one example each of the faults viruddha-mati, punar-ukti and bhagna-krama.

Vimṛṣṭa means "clean," and vidheyāḿśa means "predicate." It is a general rule of composition to establish a subject first and then give its predicate. For example, according to Sanskrit grammar if one says, "This man is learned," his composition is in order. But if one says, "Learned is this man," the composition is not in order. Such a flaw is called avimṛṣṭa-vidheyāḿśa-doṣa, or the fault of unclean composition. The subject matter to be known of the verse is the glorification of the Ganges, and therefore the word idam ("this"), or what is known, should have been placed before instead of after the glorification. The subject matter already known should be placed before the unknown so that its meaning will not be misconstrued.

The second instance of avimṛṣṭa-vidheyāḿśa-doṣa occurs in the words dvitīya-śrī-lakṣmīr iva. In this composition the word dvitīya ("second") is vidheya, or unknown. Placing the unknown first to make the compound word dvitīya-śrī-lakṣmīr is another fault. The words dvitīya-śrī-lakṣmīr iva were intended to compare the Ganges to the goddess of fortune, but because of this fault the meaning of the compound word was bewildering.

The third fault is that of viruddha-mati, or contradictory conception, in the words bhavānī-bhartuḥ. The word bhavānī refers to the wife of Bhava, Lord Śiva. But since Bhavānī is already known as the wife of Lord Śiva, to add the word bhartā, "husband," thus forming a compound meaning "the husband of the wife of Lord Śiva," is contradictory, for thus it appears as if the wife of Lord Śiva had another husband.

The fourth fault is punar-ukti, or redundancy, which occurs when the verb vibhavati ("flourishes"), which should have ended the composition, is further qualified by the unnecessary adjective adbhuta-guṇā ("endowed with wonderful qualities"). The fifth fault is bhagna-krama, which means "broken order." In the first, third and fourth lines there is anuprāsa, or alliteration, created by the sounds ta, ra and bha, but in the second line there is no such anuprāsa, and therefore the order is broken.

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His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, Founder Ācārya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness