slender — and it is the first word of the stanza and the first word of the wife. Mallinātha glosses कृशाङ्गी, slight-limbed, and then says what it is not: न तु पीवरी, 'and not stout'. **He does this three times in this stanza and nowhere else in the canto**, which is the sign that he expects the description to be misread. He proves the sense out of Amara — “श्लक्ष्णं दभ्रं कृशं तनु”, where तनु is listed among the words for small — and names the affix that makes the feminine: “वोतो गुणवचनात्” इति ङीष्, Pāṇini 4.1.44, which gives ङीष् to a quality-word ending in उ

in her prime — and this is the stanza's one contested word. श्याम means dark, and DCS reads it that way, as an adjective of colour. Mallinātha does not: श्यामा युवतिः, 'śyāmā is a young woman', with the Utpalamālā quoted to fix it — “श्यामा यौवनमध्यस्था”, a śyāmā is one standing in the middle of her youth. **So it is a technical word for an age and not for a complexion**, and on his reading the first two words of the description give her build and her years rather than her build and her colour. The lexicon is the only thing that decides; nothing in the stanza does

teeth — दशन is a biter, from √दंश्, and Mallinātha answers it with the ordinary दन्त. **The word is plural in his vigraha and singular in the compound**, because a first or last member takes no number of its own: शिखरिणो दशना दन्ता यस्याः सा. The न् of शिखरिन् has dropped before it, which is what an -इन् stem does inside a compound. The neuter दशन is declined as a feminine because the compound describes या

lipped — ओष्ठ is the lip, masculine on its own, and here it ends a bahuvrīhi describing a woman and takes ङीष् by the rule Mallinātha cites, Pāṇini 4.1.55, which lists seven body-words that do this: nose, belly, lip, leg, tooth, ear, horn. **The rule is optional, which is worth knowing**, because ओष्ठा with टाप् would have scanned differently and the poet has taken the alternative the metre wants. The word is the last of four members and the only one that carries an ending

at the waist — the same locative of the same noun that stood at 1.18 and at 2.19, and here it means the middle of a body. Mallinātha does not gloss the word; he replaces the phrase it belongs to with one compound, कृशोदरी, slender-bellied, which turns a locative and an adjective into a bahuvrīhi. **The verse says where she is thin and he says what that makes her**

thin — **the same word that described the house two stanzas ago**, क्षामच्छायं भवनम् at 2.20, where it was the dimness of a lustre. Here it is the narrowness of a waist, and both are the past participle of √क्षै, to waste away, used as an adjective. The poem has now applied it to the house and to the woman in the house, and the second canto's whole argument is that the two are in the same condition

looking — प्रेक्षण is प्र with √ईक्ष्, and it is the act of looking rather than the organ; Mallinātha answers it with दृष्टि, which is the word 2.21 used of the cloud's lightning-glance. **The two stanzas are three apart and both turn on a look**: there the cloud makes one and sends it in, and here the woman has one and it is a doe's. The neuter प्रेक्षण is declined as a feminine because the compound describes या

navel — Mallinātha answers निम्न with गम्भीर and leaves नाभि alone. **The stem has been here before**: at 1.28 it ended the bahuvrīhi दर्शितावर्तनाभेः and lost its table, because an i-stem at the end of a bahuvrīhi keeps its own endings and skt-data offers only the feminine noun's. Here the case is the nominative singular, which is नाभिः on either pattern, so the table stands

from the weight — भार is a load, from √भृ, to carry, so the word says her hips are something borne. The ablative is the ablative of cause, which is the case's plainest use and the only one in the stanza. **Mallinātha's note is not on the word but on the inference**: न तु जङ्घादोषात्, not from a defect of the legs. The final त् becomes द् before the अ of अलस

walk — गमन is the act of going, a neuter noun from √गम्, and it takes feminine endings because the compound describes her. **The root is the one 2.21 opened on**, गत्वा; there it was the cloud going and here it is the woman not doing much of it. Mallinātha replaces the compound rather than the word, with मन्दगामिनी. The neuter गमन is declined as a feminine because the compound describes या

bending — नम्र is from √नम्, to bow, with the affix that makes a habit of an action, so the word is 'given to bending' rather than 'bent'. Mallinātha answers it अवनता, bowed down, which is a past participle and says less. **The instrumental स्तनाभ्याम् is what she bends by**, and the pair of them are the third of the three qualities the stanza gives with a cause attached

by her breasts — the instrumental of cause again, and in the dual, which is the number the body forces and not one the poet chose. Mallinātha keeps the word where it stands and adds only the disclaimer. **The dual is the last of the stanza's paired things** — two teeth-rows, two eyes, two hips, two breasts — and after it the sentence turns from her body to the Creator

she who — and it is the word every other word in the stanza has been waiting for. Nine feminine nominatives stand in front of it with nothing to agree with, and this pronoun, three pādas late, is what they agree with. **Mallinātha says the sentence does not end here either**: तामित्युत्तरश्लोकेन सम्बन्धः, 'the connection is with the following stanza, by the word तām' — so the relative clause runs on past the verse's own last syllable, and 2.23 supplies the correlative. The woman is described for four pādas and named in none of them

there — and Mallinātha will not let it be vague: तत्रान्तर्भवने, 'there, inside the house', picking up the अन्तर्भवन of 2.21. **The adverb reaches back a stanza and a half** to the only place named since the cloud sat down on the hill, and it is what makes this stanza part of the instruction rather than a description standing free

would be — the optative of √अस्, and here it is not a wish or an order but the mood a relative clause takes when it describes somebody the speaker cannot point at. **The verb of the last five stanzas has been supplied and not printed**: at 2.15 to 2.19 Mallinātha had to write अस्ति in five times over, and here at last the poem gives him the copula, in the one mood that keeps the woman hypothetical. He glosses it with a verb of dwelling. The final त् becomes द् before the य् of युवति

in the department of — विषय is the range or the field of a thing, and in a locative like this one it is the heading a statement falls under. Mallinātha throws it over for अधिकृत्य, an absolutive that means 'taking as the subject'. **DCS reads the first member as युवती with a long ī**, the नदी-type feminine, where the text prints युवति, the short-i stem it also is; nothing turns on it, because a first member takes no ending either way

creation — सृष्टि is from √सृज्, to let go or send forth, so what the Creator does to the world is release it rather than build it. The word means both the act and the thing made, and here it is the thing: she is a creation, not the creating. **Mallinātha answers it with a word from a workshop**, प्रथमशिल्पम्, a first piece of craft, which is where the figure comes from. The visarga becomes र् before the आ of आद्या

the first — and Mallinātha spends more on this one adjective than on any other word in the stanza, because the compliment depends on it. He states the claim first: प्रथमनिर्मिता युवतिरियमेवेत्यर्थः, 'the sense is that she is the very first young woman made'. Then he gives the reason the epithet is a compliment at all: प्रायेण शिल्पिनां प्रथमनिर्माणे प्रयत्नातिशयवशाच्छिल्पनिर्माणसौष्ठवं दृश्यते — 'generally, in a craftsman's first making, an excellence of workmanship is seen, from the excess of effort put into it'. **First is best because a maker tries hardest at the start.** And then the consequence: तथा चास्मिन्प्रपञ्चे न कुत्राप्येवंविधं रमणीयं रमणीरत्नेष्वस्ति, 'and so in all this expanse there is nowhere among the jewels that are women anything lovely in this way'

as it were — and the particle is where the figure lives. Mallinātha does not read it as the restrictive एव that means 'only' or 'just'; he replaces it with इव, like, in his own paraphrase — प्रथमशिल्पमिव स्थिता — and then names what that makes the line: इत्युत्प्रेक्षा. **A restrictive एव would be a claim and the comparative इव is a fancy**, and the whole difference between saying she is the Creator's first work and saying she stands as if she were it is carried by a two-syllable word that can be read either way. The initial ए absorbs the आ before it

of the Maker — धातृ is the agent noun of √धा, to place or to establish, so the name is 'the one who sets things in place'. Mallinātha identifies him: धातुर्ब्रह्मणः. **The genitive is the last word of the stanza and it governs सृष्टिः four syllables earlier**, so the sentence closes by naming whose work she is. The word is a तृच् agent noun and lengthens its ṛ in the strong cases — धाता, धातारौ, धातारः — which is the fourth time the poem has met that pattern and the fourth time skt-data has declined it as if it were पितृ