Devkota Studies No. 15 (October 2013) 65 Devkota on Gandhi: A Study of Metaphors in Bapu and Other Sonnets --Komal Prasad Phuyal Abstract Metaphor works at the cognitive process when new knowledge is presented before mind. The prior knowledge turns into the foundation for the new one to seek semantic similarities and understand them. Thus, the cognitive process of understanding, thinking, and expressing solely depends on metaphors. The prior knowledge and the new knowledge are technically termed referral and referent respectively. This paper attempts to study metaphors in Laxmi Prasad Devkota’s ten sonnets selected from Bapu and Other Sonnets in order to explore Devkota’s perception of Mahatma Gandhi. Metaphors Human cognition is metaphorically structured. The perceptions and understandings come in the form of metaphorical expression. The linguistic expressions are produced out of this pervasive functioning of metaphors. George Lakoff and Mark Johnsen argue that metaphor forms the basis of understanding and responding to situations of life since the conceptual system is fundamentally metaphorical. They state: Primarily on the basis of linguistic evidence, we have found that most of our ordinary conceptual system is metaphorical in nature. And we have found a way to begin to identify in detail just what the metaphors are that structure how we perceive, how we think, and what we do. (4) For them, understanding, thinking, and action of human beings are determined by the metaphorical processes since metaphors give perspective to observe, understand, and respond to the world that one is in. Linguistically speaking, metaphor means talking about one thing in terms of another, or x in terms of y. For Lakoff and Johnsen, “The essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another” (5). It works with the principle of similarities or close associations. Human mind requires connecting the new ideas to the previously learned ones in order to understand the new comfortably. In other words, the referral has got to share some semantic features with the referent. Unless such referent is present in the cognitive structure human mind fails to grasp the basic meaning being articulated.