123. Naṭasāmājika-nyāya
An actor portrays many characters on stage, may it be Rāma or Bhīma. He provides the connoisseurs a feast of rasa by showing the sorrow of Rāma or the anger of Bhīma as though it is his very own. A member in the audience connects himself to those characters and thus is able to enjoy the rasa. In worldly affairs too, the intimate connection one keeps with his wife and children is the reason for the joys and sorrows one would experience. If his son feels happy he too feels happy, and if the son feels sad the man also feels likewise.
124. Naṣṭāśvadagdharatha-nyāya
This nyāya is related to the horses which have fled and the chariot which has been burnt. Here is the background. Two honest men were travelling to some destination in their chariots. During the night they stayed in a village. The hut they stayed in accidentally caught fire and the horses belonging to one man fled in panic, the chariot belonging to the other got burnt. Next morning there was a huge obstacle to continue their travel. One had no horses while the other had no chariot! They conjured a plan. They tied the horses to the remaining chariot and they continued their journey together in the chariot. With unity one can achieve the end goal is the import of this nyāya.
In jest it can be compared to a marriage between a widow and a widower.
125. Na hi karakaṅkaṇadarśanāyādarśāpekṣā
There is no need for a mirror to see the bangle adorning one’s own hand. One an entity is evident then there is no need for a proof to establish its existence. There is a Kannada proverb along the same lines which states ‘does one need a mirror to see a blister on one’s own hand’ Same holds for karatalāmalaka (the gooseberries in the hand)
In the Prakrit drama named ‘karpūramañjarī’ there is a similar statement, “हस्तकङ्कणं किं दर्पणेन दृश्यते”
126. Na hi kākinyāṃ naṣṭāyāṃ tadanveṣaṇaṃ kārṣāpaṇena kriyate
Kākinī is a shell, worthless, a currency of the lowest denomination. Kārṣāpaṇa on the other hand is a silver coin. If someone loses a kākinī, he wouldn’t spend a silver coin to search and retrieve it. It's not prudent to spend a higher denomination to recover a lower denomination currency. The import is, too much effort for a small return in futile.
127. Na hi godhā sarpantī sarpaṇadahirbhavati
Godhā means the chameleon; just because it crawls like a snake doesn’t mean that it can become a snake. Just because we imitate someone's clothes and behavior we cannot change ourselves inherently. We cannot become foreigners just by wearing the clothes they wear. Or we won’t get the good or bad qualities they have because of that.
There is a kannada verse which goes as follows:
ಎಲೆ ಬೆಕ್ಕೆ ರೂಪಿನಿಂದಲೆ
ಹುಲಿಜಾತಿಗೆ ಸೇರ್ದೆನೆಂದು ಗರ್ವಿಸಬೇಡ ।।
“O cat! Don’t be proud just because you resemble a tiger!”
Another famous verse says this:
आबद्धकृत्रिमसटो जटिलांसभित्तिरारोपितो यदि पदं मृगवैरिणः श्वा।
मत्तेभकुम्भतटपाटनलम्पटस्य नादं करिष्यति कथं हरिणाधिपस्य ॥
“If we tie the mane of the lion to a dog and anoint it as the king of animals, will it become a lion? Will it ever be able to produce that majestic roar which would split the temples of elephants?”
In grammar the preceding rules are applied and then the subsequent ones called as anuvṛtti. The meaning might change with such an application, how is it possible?
“Can anuvṛtti change the meaning?” Thus questions the mahābhāṣya using this nyāya.
128. Na hi triputro dviputra iti kathyate
You would never say a man has two sons when he has three sons. It is equally wrong to do vice versa. If one understands the background of this it becomes clear. If someone possesses a hundred rupees, it isn’t wrong to claim that he has fifty rupees, because fifty is included in the hundred, likewise if we say one has three sons, two is included in three.
But it is not the case. It needs more precision. If someone has two sons it means exactly two sons. So the one with three sons cannot be addressed as the one with two sons. This is the quality of the ‘signification’ of the word or the ‘śabdaśakti’ . We cannot say that someone who is fifty years old is also twenty years old. A kg of rice cannot be said to be half a kg even though internally includes half kgs. Or a rope which is one meter cannot be called a rope with one foot.
This nyāya is used in multiple instances in the mahābhāṣya.
129. Na hi nindā-nyāya
The origin of this nyāya is ‘न हि निन्दा निन्द्यं निन्दितुं प्रवर्तते, अपि तु स्तुत्यं स्तोतुम्’.
The rebuke or ridicule isn’t used to ridicule, but to actually applaud the one who is worthy to be praised.
In the vedas or the purāṇas in some places we see that either some deity or some śāstra has been ridiculed. Seeing that some people might assume that, that’s indeed the real opinion of the text. This nyāya says it’s not true. Here the intent is not to ridicule that particular deity or the śāstra but to rather praise some other deities or śāstras. In some purāṇas, Viṣṇu might be rebuked, we shouldn’t take it as the ultimate truth. Those purāṇas might intend to praise Śiva. Likewise in some cases it might be vice versa.
To quote an example
The sentence, “सामवेदस्तु पित्र्यः स्यात्तस्मात्तस्याशुचिर्ध्वनिः” occurs in a smṛti. For the sāmaveda, the pitṛs are the presiding deities so singing sāma is impure/inauspicious. When all the four vedas have been accepted as the most pure and auspicious, how can one agree with this statement? Even bhagavān Śrikṛṣṇa has said in the gītā that amongst the vedas he is the sāmaveda (वेदानां सामवेदोऽस्मि). So the sentence quoted doesn’t intend or opine what is immediately evident from the statement. The intent is to praise the other vedas instead. The intent here is to say that, in some special cases one should use the mantras from ṛk and yajus but not sāma.
Another example from the Mahābhārata.
“The ṛṣis place the Mahābhārata on the one side of the weighing scale and all the four vedas on the other side to test its worth. Since it weighed more and was bigger than the vedas it got the name ‘Mahābhārata’”
Here too the intent is to praise the Mahābhārata, not to ridicule the vedas.
This is the fifteenth part of the multi-part translation of the Kannada book "Sandarbha Sukti" by Mahamahopadhyaya Vidwan Dr. N Ranganatha Sharma. Thanks to Dr. Sharada Chaitra for granting us permission to translate this wonderful work. Thanks to Śatāvadhānī Dr. R Ganesh for his inputs. The original in Kannada can be read here
