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<div class="gmail_default" style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);font-size: 13px;font-family: georgia, serif;">As has already been pointed out, English is far from extraordinary in this regard! Sanskrit poets developed techniques of punning to a truly extraordinary degree</div><div class="gmail_default" style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);font-size: 13px;font-family: georgia, serif;">. Prof. Yigal Bronner has summarized the technique of <i>śleṣa</i>, or conarration, through this helpful analogy: </div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family: arial, sans-serif;font-size: 13px;"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family: georgia, serif;"><br></div></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family: arial, sans-serif;font-size: 13px;border-left-width: 1px;border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204);border-left-style: solid;"><font face="georgia, serif">Imagine a poem<div class="gmail_default"> </div>of<div class="gmail_default"> </div>large or even epic proportions, say, the<div class="gmail_default"> </div><i>Iliad</i>. Now try to imagine that the language of this poem is constructed in such a way that it simultaneously tells an entire additional story. Suppose, in<div class="gmail_default"> </div>other words, that each verse of the <i>Iliad</i> could simultaneously be read as narrating the <i>Odyssey</i> as well. It is hard to imagine that language could sustain such an effort and still be intelligible, let alone beautiful. We can conceive of punned words or even proverbial utterances that are doubly readable, such as "Gladly the cross-eyed bear" for "gladly the cross I'd bear;' but a large-scale poem that is consistently "bitextual" seems inconceivable<div class="gmail_default"> …</div></font><span style="font-family: georgia, serif;">In South Asia the phenomenon I have described here does, in fact, exist. The creation, consumption, and study of doubled texts using the literary device called <div class="gmail_default"><i>śleṣa </i></div>was a robust literary movement that lasted over</span><span style="font-family: georgia, serif;"> </span><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family: georgia, serif;">1</div><span style="font-family: georgia, serif;">,ooo years throughout the Indian subcontinent. It is primarily associated with Sanskrit, but it existed in several other languages as well.</span><span style="font-family: georgia, serif;"> </span><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family: georgia, serif;"> <i>Śleṣa</i></div><span style="font-family: georgia, serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: georgia, serif;">was</span><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family: georgia, serif;"> </div><span style="font-family: georgia, serif;">used for many purposes, but most productively to conarrate the two great South Asian epics, the</span><span style="font-family: georgia, serif;"> </span><i style="font-family: georgia, serif;">Ramay</i><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family: georgia, serif;"> <i>ana</i></div><span style="font-family: georgia, serif;"> and the</span><span style="font-family: georgia, serif;"> </span><i style="font-family: georgia, serif;">Mahabharata</i><span style="font-family: georgia, serif;">. </span><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family: georgia, serif;"> (1-2)</div></blockquote><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family: arial, sans-serif;font-size: 13px;"> </div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family: arial, sans-serif;font-size: 13px;"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family: georgia, serif;">As you might imagine, the production of these "bitextual" epics was enabled by a vast lexicographical apparatus of <i>anekārthakoṣā</i>s"lexicons of homonyms produced by and for poets. </div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family: georgia, serif;"><br></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="georgia, serif">I highly recommend Prof. Bronner's book, <i>Extreme Poetry: The South Asian Movement of Simultaneous Narration </i>(Columbia University Press, 2010), to those interested in the relationship of lexicography with literature in South Asia. For those interested in the diverse range of punning devices (e.g., <i>īhām</i>, <i>tajnīs, </i>and <i>"ilʿ </i>ایہام، تجنیش، ضلع) in Urdu literature and lexicography, the third chapter of my dissertation ("Diction and Dictionaries: Language, Lexicography, and Learning in Persianate South Asia," <a href="http://repository.upenn.edu/dissertations/AAI3447480/" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">http://repository.<wbr>upenn.edu/dissertations/<wbr>AAI3447480/</a>)</font><span style="font-family: georgia, serif;"> provides some very rudimentary points of reference.</span></div><div class="gmail_default"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif;"><br></span></div><div class="gmail_default"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif;">Best wishes,</span></div><div class="gmail_default"><span style="font-family: georgia, serif;">Walt Hakala</span><span style="font-family: georgia, serif;"> </span></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family: georgia, serif;">University at Buffalo</div></div></div>
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