197. 220 CHAPTER IV

220 CHAPTER IV

wants to drive him away without letting him know her intention.

A ferocious dog used to be kept here. She knew that the man was very much afraid of it. This dog, for some rea- son, is away from this place. She cleverly tries to explain the absence so as to scare him away and says :- "O religious minded man ! you can now roam freely over this place. For, the dog, of whom you were so afraid, has been killed to-day by the proud lion, who, as you know very well, lives in the impervious thicket on the bank of Godāvarī."

It is not difficult to understand what meaning such a statement will have to such a person, as above described. Will the man, who fears a dog, freely move about at a place, where a lion, which has given a positive proof of his ferocious nature by killing the dog, is abroad ? Will he, after hearing the above statement, stay on in the garden, or will he run away as quickly as possible ? If the latter, is it not because of the negative meaning understood by him in a positive statement ? And if so, the question arises ; why does a positive statement have a negative meaning ? The exponents of the fourth power of the language maintain that the negative meaning, which the hearer gets, is due to Dhvani. In the following pages, therefore, we shall attempt to explain how yielding of such meaning by the language cannot be explained by the aforesaid ordinarily accepted three powers of language. In Sanskrit the statement is worded as follows :- Bhrama dharmika visrabdhah Sa Sunakodya māritastena Godāvarīkūlalatāgahanavāsinā drptasimhena. DH. L., 16.