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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 jhrfns, 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-lakan 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 dhpo 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: theLught-e Kior by Sayyid Tassaduq Hussain Riw glossesfnsas 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 imparts-mamathvpitacchy 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-moderate-high: 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