India’s stupendous achievement of successfully landing on the moon reminded me of a verse from the great 16th-century savant Appayya Dīkṣitar’s famous text on figures of speech (arthâlaṅkāra), the Kuvalayānanda. There, in discussing the figure sambandhâtiśayôkti (“hyperbole of connection”), he says:
“Hyperbole of relation” holds when we imagine a connection where there is no connection.
[For example] “The spires of the mansions of this city touch the lunar sphere.”
Now that we have successfully landed Chandrayaan-3 on the moon, we have a real sambandha with the moon! We can now proudly say as a matter of fact and not of hyperbole:
asmad-deśasya yānāni cumbanti Candra-maṇḍalam ||
Our country’s vehicles kiss the surface of the moon!
Awesome 👏