Carrello
The Ramacaritam by Sandhyakaranandin, a narrative poem of 215 stanzas (of which 215 survive), is a perfect example of poetry with two meanings: by constant use of slesa, it contrives to summarize the plot of the Ramayana and to relate the recovery of Eastern Bengal, during the eleventh century AD, by Ramapala, a ruler of the Pala dynasty. The last chapter extends beyond the martial story and deals with the succession of the epic hero and of the historical king. Some thirty stanzas add a third meaning, of theological character, to the two main ones.
This book provides the transliterated Sanskrit text (the transliteration is duplicated to reveal the different morphological analyses), a separate translation of each meaning, and a close analysis of polysemous sequences. An introduction sheds light on the literary and historical context on the one hand, on the linguistic and rhetorical devices which generate polysemy on the other hand. The book is complemented with several appendices containing: another famous literary example of double entendre, a list of known inscriptions issued by the rulers who are referred to in the poem, and the text and the translation of one of the main epigraphs. Two indices record all the polysemous words and all those of historical or geographical purport.