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དགེ་ལ་ Genla

Discipline · in Poetry

སྙན་ངག་མེ་ལོང་

The Mirror of Poetry

snyan ngag me long

Daṇḍin's treatise as Tibet received it: the ornaments of meaning and of sound, the qualities of good composition, and the riddles.

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The Mirror is in three chapters: the body of poetry and the qualities of style, the ornaments of meaning, and the ornaments of sound with the riddles. The thirty-five ornaments of meaning are the heart of it, simile and metaphor first, then the figures of contrast, exaggeration, doubt and the rest, each defined and illustrated. Tibetan scholars composed thousands of example verses to teach them, and a student learned to recognise every figure by ear.

The pages here will present the ornaments one by one, with Tibetan examples.