Late vedic Rupakas based on nature imagery: ritual identifications as a sort of alamkara-pattern

The hypothesis according to which “many of the Vedic identifications might be understood as metaphors“ was already advanced thirty years ago. The fresh approach of this paper consists in verifying a supposed cultural and technical connection of the earliest conceptualizing of the rūpaka as an extendend homology with the ritual and speculative procedures of substitution, rearranged by the Vedāṅga and Darśana-traditions. The structure of some late Vedic passages based on nature imagery is compared with the most ancient śāstra-definitions of this alaṃkāra, by paying special attention to the relationship between the whole and its parts. A Vārttika of Kātyāyana is attributed the value of a source of inspiration to the alaṃkāraśāstra-writers for the exceptional role accredited to the upamāna inside the rūpaka. The remote background of this research has to be recognized in the inquiry into the origin of Kāvya-literature.