Maharishi Ramana

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    valuable cognitive tool of everyday communication as well as poetic language

    (1980, 5).

    Metaphoran overviewThe traditional school of thought describes metaphor as an intuitive

    perception of similarity in dissimilars. Aristotle talks of style that raises

    poetry from commonplace to unusual and lofty by using ornamental words.

    For Aristotle, poetry is a craft to be achieved by using linguistic devices such

    as metaphor, simile and alliteration. According to House, the greatest

    achievement by far, for the poet, is to be a master of metaphor (House1970,121). The views of Aristotle continued to prevail for a long time until they

    were challenged by many scholars. I.A. Richards talked about poetry as the

    business of a poet where he gives order, coherence and freedom to a body of

    experience. Words act as its skeleton and structure by which the impulses

    that make up the experience are adjusted to one another and act together

    (1974, 22). The impulses and experiences are organized and adjusted within

    the framework of words by poets with the help of metaphor. The poets take

    recourse to restructure the already existing elements of conceptual

    metaphors in a new and innovative manner. The poetic genius turns the day-

    to-day ordinary metaphors into special ones.

    Cleanth Brooks also defines modern poetic technique by calling it the

    rediscovery of metaphor and the full commitment to metaphor. He calls a

    poem an organic whole, where poetic images are not merely assembled but

    related to each other just as blossoms are related to other parts of a growing

    plant. The beauty of a poem is like a flowering plant which needs all its

    partsstalk, stem, leaves and roots (1974, 60). Brooks again refers to poetry

    as an organic whole when he talks about the poetic theme as defined and

    refined by the participating metaphors. Lakoff and Johnsondiscussed

    ordinary conceptual metaphors as prevailing in our day-to-day language. The

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    same metaphors were there in poetry, too, but reworked and modified in

    many ways: Metaphorical concepts can be extended beyond the range of

    ordinary literal ways of thinking and talking into the range of what is called

    figurative, poetic, colorful or fanciful thought and languageIf ideas are

    objects, we can dress them up in fancy clothes, juggle them, line them up nice

    and neat etc. (1980, 13). The commonly accepted features of traditional

    theory of metaphor have been challenged in the theory of conceptual

    metaphor. Metaphors are not mere embellishments used for artistic and

    rhetorical purposes. Metaphors do not involve deliberate and conscious

    efforts of great writers, rather they are part of everyday conversation ofordinary people.

    Cognitive Theory of MetaphorIn the cognitive linguistic view, metaphor is defined as understanding one

    conceptual domain in terms of another conceptual domain, says Zoltn

    Kvecses (2010, 4). Cognition is a group of mental processes that includes

    aspects such as awareness, perception, reasoning and judgment. They are

    inner mental states from which understanding results. Hence the cognitive

    function of the metaphor lies in seeing and understanding about the world.

    Conceptual metaphors seen in everyday lives not only structure our language

    but also shape the way we think and act. Lakoff and Johnsons Metaphors We

    Live By(1980) propagated the theory of conceptual metaphor where

    metaphors are an inevitable process of human thought and action (1980, 3).

    Thus metaphorical language is interwoven into daily life. The language of

    poetry also drew forth from the same metaphorical concepts of our ordinary

    day-to-day life.Poetic metaphors appear different, prominent and striking by their poetic

    fancy as poets rework ordinary metaphors by extending, elaborating,

    combining and questioning to convert them into special ones. To borrow the

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    words from Arthur Osborne, the poet cries the truth of man and the

    thunderous silence of God and opens up a world of wonder undefined (2000,

    3). Mark Schorer calls this difference between content or experience and the

    achieved content as techniquea means of discovering, exploring and

    developing his subject and conveying his meaning (1974, 71). Here the

    technique is metaphor made up of experiences of our daily lives. The poets

    work on these metaphors to express these experiences in a better way. Hence,

    abstract ideas take the help of concrete experiences of the tangible world we

    live in. Metaphor is a way to reveal who we are and what kind of world we

    live in (Kvecses2010, xiii). Grounded into human experience of each kindcultural, perceptual, social and physical, we express the way we experience

    the world. The cognitive view of metaphor takes into view this faculty of

    human mind to translate the abstract via concrete. The various dimensions of

    human experiences in the outside world are manifested in the form of

    objective reality and expressed in the form of subjective imagination of the

    writer. Metaphor captures the world of a poet in totality. Since the boundaries

    of language are not fixed, it goes to the credit of a writer or a poet to make use

    of the boundless capability of metaphor to enter the world of reality and the

    world beyond realitya world of senses, reasoning, perception and

    imagination. It is the beauty, creativity and richness of literary metaphors that

    makes them noteworthy by their special appeal and uniqueness.

    Metaphors in Everyday Life and Literature

    Metaphors in literature and everyday life are structured by the metaphorical

    concepts. Metaphor provides nourishment to the actual communication and

    turns it into intended utterances. Susan Sontag inAesthetics of Silence calls

    language a privileged metaphor for expressing the mediated character of art

    making and artwork (1976,460). Language has a dual function. It helps to

    express concrete details of reality and moves beyond that reality into the

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    project of transcendence. Thus language is a process by which it creates art

    and at the same time it is the final product of art which structures itself into

    metaphorical concepts. Maharshis poetry does thatit moves beyond the

    ordinary range of perception with the help of metaphors. However,

    metaphors in our ordinary communication pass unnoticed as they are

    manifested in day-to-day life and become a part of routine conversation. For

    instance Is he on the road to recovery? would go unnoticed, whereas The

    Road not Taken as a title to Robert Frosts poem would suggest rich,

    evocative details of choices in life. It is in metaphors that we think and hardly

    pay any attention to them. The question is: why do poetic metaphors havesuch an aesthetic appeal? Although no distinct boundaries separate poetic

    and the ordinary day-to-day metaphors, the writers seem to have a special

    skill and ability which turns ordinary metaphors into fanciful and beautiful

    ones. If all language is essentially metaphorical, there must be some effort on

    the part of the writers to either highlight or hide some elements of metaphors

    so as to make them perceptible and conspicuous.

    The relationship between metaphors of everyday language and the

    metaphors used in literature, particularly poetry, needs to be probed.

    Raymond W. Gibbs in The Poetics of Mindconcedes that figurative language

    has been fiercely at odds with literal language and clarity but also admits that

    the language of great poets has definitely been more creative and poetic

    (1994, 3). Gibbs says that much of conceptualization of experience and

    cognition is metaphorical (1994, 7). Metaphors constitute much of our

    experience and also constrain the way we think and act in ordinary lives. Of

    course, literary writers and ordinary users of language make use of same

    metaphors. Literary metaphors take shape from the experiences of ordinary

    everyday life as they are not born out of context. Writers do not create new

    metaphors but use already existing metaphors in new ways. Metaphors do

    not stand in isolation; they are basically devices for understanding and

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    communicating situations and experiences. Much of our understanding

    emerges directly from our interaction and physical involvement with the

    environment, whereas the rest of it emerges indirectly from feelings,

    intuitions and emotions. Thus metaphors take us on a journey of known to

    unknown, explicit to implicit and obvious to suggestive reality. Language

    becomes integral to our capability to express these experiences. Hence our

    concepts are, as Lakoff and Johnson suggest, partially structured by

    metaphors and partially extended in some ways. The statement seems to be

    made very cautiously as metaphors are not merely a matter of language but

    also of conceptual structure which involves all natural dimensions of oursense experiences: color, shape, texture, sound, etc. (1980, 235)

    Since we are human and the language we use does not emerge in isolation but

    in our social, psychological, mental and physiological interaction with outside

    world, metaphorical utterances semantically become pluralistic. The

    multiplicity of meanings consists in layers of meaning in language used by

    poets, whether metaphor or constituted by use of other tropes like symbols,

    images, similes and personification, etc. Senses, feelings and emotions create

    a world of their own and the literal language finds itself too restrictive to

    express them. Metaphor is an effective tool to reach the inner world of ideas.

    Zoltn Kvecses goes to the extent of saying that metaphor is not only in

    language and thought but also in our culture, body and brain(2010, 311).

    Brain has its role in modifying and transforming ideas. Metaphors are

    continually at work to grasp and translate all those ideas which are beyond

    the reach of reality by ordinary language, whereas poetic metaphors are made

    special by reworking conventional ordinary everyday metaphors.

    Since the cognitive view of metaphor tries to grasp one conceptual domain

    with the help of other conceptual domain, the human tendency is to

    understand the abstract concepts via concrete concepts. Thus, the conceptual

    mappings consist of two important elements of metaphor which Lakoff

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    advocates for transference of meaningthe source domain and target

    domain. The source domains are generally less abstract and simple as

    compared to target domains. It is the writer who transforms and restructures

    the already existing elements of metaphor to make them unusual, creative

    and novel. Maharshis poetry indicates that he draws his poems from

    everyday metaphorical concepts. The next section of the paper discusses the

    main tenets of the cognitive theory of conceptual metaphor and relates them

    to the poems of Maharshi Ramana. The paper seeks to find this relation

    between ordinary day-to-day metaphors and the poetic metaphors in view of

    the categories listed by Zoltn Kvecses (2010, 53) by which metaphorsbecome striking. These categories are: extending, elaborating, questioning,

    combining or by personification and image metaphors.

    Maharshis poetryMaharshi Ramana, born in a South Indian family in Tiruchuzi in 1879, was not

    a born poet. His spiritual concerns kept him preoccupied all the time. After

    having a normal childhood, his life changed when he was only twelve after his

    fathers death. He went to stay with his uncle where he had an experience

    which changed his life forever. He had a sudden feeling of death despite

    feeling perfectly healthy. This made him realize the full force of his

    personality. He came to know that consciousness of the Self is the only

    existing reality. He was a Sthithaprajnasettled in divine consciousness, yet

    intensely human in his dealings. These two concepts formulate the basis of

    metaphors he used in his poetry. On one side, the metaphors relate to the

    ordinary everyday life, on the other side, they relate to a higher consciousness

    of life which is Swarupathe infinite, absolute consciousness beyond time

    and space. Swarupa or abidance of the primal, pristine and original state of

    the Self, cannot be gained anew. It already exists and needs to be uncovered

    only. Consequently all his explanations and writings were directed to

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    convince his followers that this Swarupa was their true state. However, this

    truth is obscured by self-limiting concepts of the mind. Letting go of these

    concepts would result in the truth being revealed. He prescribed an

    innovative method of self-enquiry, which he called atma-vichara. The

    technique is regarded as the most distinctive motif in his teachings. All of his

    poems were written either as answers to the queries by his devotees or

    written on their request. His poetry was not a deliberate and conscious effort

    but a documentation of the revelation of his inner Self. Thus metaphors in

    Maharshis poetry are representations of both what he saw and what he

    realized. He captures: the outer worlda world of senses, objects and egoand the inner world of Self which isAtamswarupaabidance in the Self. His

    poetry is a document of the journey of the body to the realized Self.

    Metaphors capture this reality in totality in Maharshis poetry. Lokyate iti

    lokah that which is seen is the world, says Maharshi. The eye sees the world

    with ego. Beyond ego is the consciousnessthe Self. (Sarnagathi July 2012,

    4). The thematic content of Maharshis poetry gives his poems a uniqueness

    which is reflected in the way he has modified and reworked his metaphors.

    Maharshi says that everyone desires happiness. There is nothing wrong with

    this desire as it is mans nature. The only wrong thing is to desire it in the

    world outside whereas it is very much inside the man. There is a strong

    semantic link between the world as it is objectively external and subjectively

    within. Maharshis numerous poems articulate the realization of Self. The

    Five Hymns to Arunachala, The Essence of Instruction, Reality in Forty

    Verses, Five Verses on the Self and some miscellaneous poems like The

    Song of Poppadum, Self Knowledge, and The Self in the Heart exhibit this

    journey from outside world to the world within. The poems selected for

    present study are The Marital Garland of Letters and Eleven Verses to Sri

    Arunachala. Selected from the Five Hymns to Arunachalain The Collected

    Works (2007), they were written to celebrate the indissoluble union of human

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    soul and God. The Marital Garland of Letters is a very long poem consisting

    of 108 stanzas and approximately 296 lines. Eleven Verses to Sri Arunachala

    is also a poem of 11 stanzas and 72 lines. Thus the selection of only two

    poems for the present paper is justified. The lengthy poems not only provide

    ample opportunity to go through the metaphors which are in abundance, but

    also command attention for their profound and emotional thematic content.

    The poems depict the emotional attitude of devotion and aspiration without

    changing into doctrinal.

    The Marital Garland of Letters and Eleven Verses to Sri Arunachala

    The Marital Garland of Letters is a poem of 108 stanzas. One of the earliest

    poems written in absolute bliss of union of human soul and God, it is a

    profound and moving poem ever written by Maharshi. The Marital Garland

    of Letters makes use of the metaphor of Hindu marriage where the

    bridegroom and the bride exchange garlands with each other. The ceremony

    in marriage symbolizes the physical and spiritual union of two persons.

    However in the poem, the sought union is about the aspiration of soul seeking

    the God. The relationship is considered sacred in Hindus where the two

    individuals pursue dharma (duty), artha (possessions ), kama (physical

    desires ) and moksha (ultimate piritual salvation).

    It is important to state here that Hindus consider 108 as a sacred

    number. The number signifies 108 beads of a rosary and 108 philosophical

    Hindu texts ofUpanishads; but Maharshi has other reasons for using this

    sacred number., Maharishi seems to have made a garland of 108 stanzas to be

    recited in Arunachala s praise. It is a spread of 108 stanzas interspersed and

    dotted with similes, images and symbols. The title is also metaphorical as it is

    a marital garland of words to solicit union with God. The conceptual

    metaphor of marriage is taken from everyday Indian life and is reworked by

    Maharshi to reach the transcendent world of spirituality. The other poem

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    Eleven Verses to Sri Arunachala also makes use of various metaphors and

    similes from daily life. The ideas have been reworked by Maharishi. Of course

    the efforts to convert metaphors of everyday life into poetry may not have

    been intentional and premeditated since he wrote it more as spiritual

    instructions. The poets do itwhether deliberately or unintentionally is a

    matter of further discussion. The paper now elaborates the use of various

    devices to render the metaphors aesthetically appealing. Both the poems

    make use of the following poetic devices by reworking the conventional

    everyday metaphors already existing in human consciousness so as to make

    them look novel and special: Elaborating

    Extending

    Questioning

    Combining

    Personifying

    Image metaphors

    Extending

    Extending can be defined as bringing a new conceptual element in the source

    domain of conceptual metaphor with the help of new linguistic means to

    make conventional metaphor novel. The similarity between two items

    selected by the poet is further extended in a novel way and makes them

    unusual.

    In The Marital Garland of Letters there is a conventional metaphor

    The strumpet mind which when extended makes it unusual and

    extraordinary.

    The strumpet mind will cease to walk the streets if

    only she find Thee. Disclose thy beauty then and hold her

    bound, Oh Arunachala! (83)

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    in the fathomless ocean ofsasara, therefore the fruit is spoilt and not

    accepted by God. God does not accept man as an entity now sinking and now

    rising in the world. It is only when he dives deep in his heart that he realizes

    this Self-eternal and pure bliss. This state metaphorically speaking is that of a

    ripe fruit and will be accepted by God. The element of ripeness already exists

    in man but he needs to strive in this direction make it acceptable by God.

    Maharshi makes use of yetanother metaphor of raft to extend it

    further to convey his meaning. He starts seeking Self which is another form of

    God. As he is about to reach his destination, his raft capsizes in the sea. There

    is an unexpected twist in the conventional metaphor of raft used for journeyof soul. Man lives in this world of senses and often loses himself in the sea of

    worldly distractions. The raft used for this spiritual journey is Gods grace.

    On seeking Thy Real Self with courage, my raftcapsized and the waters came over me. Have mercy on me,Oh Arunachala! (88)

    It is with his grace and mercy that he can save himself from being submerged

    in the sea of world.

    In Eleven Verses to Sri Arunachala Maharshi uses another metaphor

    of physical force. God draws man near with cords of his grace. However, there

    is an element of surprise in store for him when God decides to kill him out

    rightly.Drawing me with the cords of Thy grace, although Ihad not even dimly thought of Thee. Thou didst decide to killme outright. (99)

    Thus, force, a common source domain cited by Zolton Kvecses (2010, 22) is

    in metaphorical conceptualization of Maharshi. God exerts force to draw

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    Maharshi near him when he does not even expect it. The new conceptual

    element is that after drawing near, God decides to kill him when he is

    expecting salvation. Killing is a new conceptual element introduced in the

    metaphor represented by force.

    Elaborating

    Another device used by poets is elaboration. The poet does not introduce a

    new element in the source domain of metaphor but elaborates already

    existing element in source in an unusual way. There is a very interesting

    metaphor ofdog who follows his master even after he has no idea of his

    scent. It is said that a dog can smell his master and find him. This is the usual

    and assumed characteristic of a dog.

    Am I then worse than a dog? Stead fastly will I seek Thee and regain

    Thee, Oh! Arunachala! (86)The faithfulness of dog and his characteristic to search his master by his smell

    are the existing elements in the source domain but the same are elaborated

    when Maharshi follows God even when he has no idea of how to follow him.

    Another example of elaborating the already existing conceptual element in a

    new way is from Eleven Verses to Sri Arunachala--

    I have discovered a new thing! This hill, the lodestoneof lives, arrests the movements of anyone who so much asthinks of it, draws him face to face with it, and fixes himmotionless like itself, to feed upon his soul thus ripened. (100)

    There is an unexpected twist and change in the the given elementof

    conceptual metaphor of lodestone. Force of any type whether physical or

    mechanical brings changes and affects the objects and persons in many ways.

    Here the change is in the form of a distressing situation. Instead of showering

    his grace, God decides to feed upon his soul. Ripe soul is again anothermetaphor from food, associated with mankind since the beginning of

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    humanity. Thus the already existing element of a lodestone attracting another

    metal and keeping him near is elaborated in a different way.Combining

    The most powerful mechanism in conceptual metaphor is combining several

    everyday metaphors. It helps in going beyond the everyday conceptual

    system using the same materials of everyday thought. In The Marital Garland

    of Letters combines two metaphors:Dazzling Sun that swallowest up all the universe inThy rays, open the lotus of my Heart, I pray,Oh Arunachala! ! (85)

    The two conventionally accepted metaphors in the ordinary life are: light is

    life and events are actions. The poet combines both. It is the sunlight which

    gives life to mankind and plants. Lotuses in the ponds open with the Sun

    rising in the morning. Lotus is a metaphor for heart of the devotee which

    opens with the sunlight of grace of God. These two metaphors make theidea of spiritual ripeness clear. Lotus in Hindu mythology stands for both

    beauty and non-attachment as it remains pious and pure even when it lives in

    mud and water. This is how man should live in the worlddischarging duties

    without attachment. Maharshi combines the two metaphors to demonstrate

    the way to live in the world. It is only by the grace of God Arunachala

    (metaphorically Sun) which bestows light to open the lotus of heart.

    In Eleven Verses to Sri Arunachala, lotus is again a prominent

    metaphor. Maharshi combines two different metaphor lotus and stream,

    Oh, love, in the shape of Arunachala, can the lotus blossom without the

    sight of the sun? Thou art the sun of suns; Thou causest grace to well up

    in abundance and pour forth as a stream! (98)

    In the first part of the stanza, there are oft-repeated common metaphors oflotus and Sun. A person living in the pool of worldly activities can remain

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    detached from the same if he reaches the ideal pristine state of Self just as a

    lotus can preserve its beauty even while living in mud. The next metaphor is

    that of a stream flowing with water. The metaphor symbolizes kindness and

    of water. Kindness and grace of God accumulate in abundance to pour out like

    a stream.

    In another instance from Eleven Verses to Sri Arunachala, Maharshi

    combines four conventional metaphors.

    I am ever at Thy feet, like a frog(which clings) to the stem of the lotus;make me instead a honeybee which (from the blossom of the Heart)sucks the sweet honey of Pure Consciousness; then I shall havedeliverance. (99)

    The first line contains a simile of a frog which clings to the the stem oflotus, a

    metaphor. The honeybee, the honey of consciousness, blossom of the heart

    are the other conceptual metaphors. Man ignorantly clings like a frog to the

    stem of lotus to save himself as he is only conscious about his body and the

    worldly pursuits related to the body. The next line, however, explains the

    knowledge of consciousness as he wishes to be a honeybee which sucks from

    the blossoms of heart. Frog represents ignorant man; stem of lotus represents

    worldly possessions; honeybee symbolizes the conscious man; blossom is the

    heart striving for God and honey is pure consciousness. Thus, there are four

    metaphors and one simile from conventional metaphors combined together.

    Questioning

    In the poetic device of questioning the poets call into question the

    appropriateness of a conventional metaphor . In stanza third of the The

    Marital Garland of Letters, the poet says:Entering my home and luring me to Thine

    why didst thou keep me prisoner in thy hearts cavern,

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    Image metaphors

    All poetry abounds in images which can be arranged by the poet as he wishes.

    Maharshis poetry is no exception. There are a number of examples of image

    metaphors in both the poems. In The Marital Garland of Letters Maharshi

    says:Lord! Thou didst capture me by stealth and all thesedays hast held me at Thy feet! Lord! Thou hast made me (tostand) with hanging head, (dumb) like an image when askedwhat is Thy nature. Lord! Deign to ease me in my weariness,struggling like a deer that is trapped. Lord Arunachala! Whatcan be Thy will? (99)

    Many images mark the above stanza. To capture someone stealthily, to stand

    with hanging head and to struggle like a deerall the images show the

    suffering of a man who is struggling for union with God. Sadness of man here

    highlights the spiritual suffering of man because God does not bestow his

    grace on him. He is standing there ignorant and ashamed. Two altogether

    different images are therethe first image is that of a person ashamed

    because of his shortcomings and the second image is that of a deer struggling

    to free himself. The poets make use of images to provide a structured

    understanding of various patterns of experiences. They also use them as a

    source domain for understanding other experiences.

    Another image used by the poet is of a man standing with his head down. We

    generally associate happiness as up and sadness as down. Maharshi makes

    use of the same image when he is standing before God with head down. The

    experience shows his inability to achieve bliss which would make him stand

    before God with head high.

    In and out are also widely used spatial images by Maharshi. Although

    Maharishis poetry is deeply spiritual still the physical imagery of in and out

    has a very important place in Self-enquiry. Maharshi says:

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    As instruments for knowing the objects the sense organsare outside, and so they are called outer senses; and the mindis called the inner sense because it is inside. But the distinctionbetween inner and outer is only with reference to the body; intruth, there is neither inner nor outer. (9)

    One has to recognize the images of directions which lead man to Being-

    Consciousnesss-Bliss inside the body. In The Marital Garland of Letters,

    Maharshi makes use of this image again.

    Didst Thou not call me in? I have come in. Nowmeasure out for me, (my maintenance is now Thy burden).Hard is Thy lot, Oh Arunachala!(93)

    Here the image is more concrete. The conceptual metaphor relates to call

    someone home and then not taking care of him. Although the image used by

    the poet brings to mind the Gods calling human soul and then shoving him

    away. The orientational image of coming in refers to the soul coming to God.

    However such spiritual imagery abounds throughout the poem. Maharshi

    intersperses it with other image metaphors like the Sun, raft capsizing in the

    water, shriveled fruit, a dog searching for its master, a lotus waiting for Sun

    and a mirror showing reflection to a nose less man. Of course similes of

    lodestone, a flower bee, ether, a tender creeper needing support and a ship

    caught in storm fill in the gap and serve the purpose of linkages. Maharshi

    makes use of conventional metaphors to convert them into unconventional

    and novel.Personification

    There still remains a device used by literary writers to use the knowledge

    about themselves to comprehend other aspects of world. To quote Lakoff and

    Johnson, personification allows us to comprehend a wide variety of

    experiences with non-human entities in terms of human motivations,

    characteristics, and activities.(1980, 33). Arunachala is a hill in South India

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    domains of journey, path, orientation and directions. The creative genius does

    wonders by transforming them in one or the other ways cited above. To

    conclude we can say that the religious textsin this case Maharshi Ramanas

    poetry, make use of abundant conceptual metaphors from everyday life. The

    experiences of life are the concrete source domains by which poets reach

    abstract target domains. It may be a movement, direction, food or plantthey

    all serve as the basic experiences by which poets rework wonders. Nothing

    comes from vacuum. Contexts of all types, concrete experiences of routine life

    and the pictures we see all around formulate the basis of conceptual

    metaphors. Poets rework on them and they appear original. Of course thesubjective emotions and feelings may play their role in making the poetry

    exceptional, but life is still a journeymay be spiritual, movement is still

    there although in the direction of God and freedom is there from the darkness

    of a cavern into the sunlight of Gods grace. Hence the main tenets of cognitive

    theory of metaphor prove that the experiences of life do not go waste but

    provide the righteous ways to live.

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    Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson, 1980, Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: The

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