Saundarya Lahari

Saundarya Lahari

SAUNDARYA LAHARI - VERSE 51

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SAUNDARYA LAHARI

 

 

VERSE 51

SEVEN OF THE NINE RASAS (SHADES OF AESTHETIC INTEREST)
SEVEN MOODS
EROTIC OR AESTHETIC INTERESTS, SOMETIMES VERTICALLY NEUTRALIZED
 
शिवे शङ्गारार्द्रा तदितरजने कुत्सनपरा
सरोषा गङ्गायां गिरिशचरिते विस्मयवती ।
हराहिभ्यो भीता सरसिरुह सौभाग्य-जननी
सखीषु स्मेरा ते मयि जननि दृष्टिः सकरुणा
 
sive sringarardra tad itara jane kutsana para
sarosa gangayam girisa carite vismayavati
harahibhya bhita sarasiruha saubhagya janani
sakhisu smera te mayi janani drstis sakaruna
 
Moved by sentimental love for Shiva, resentful to any other person,
With anger of jealously toward Ganga, with transportations of wonder at Shiva´s story,
With fearful surprise at the snakes of Hara and for friends a jestful smile
As a source of lotus-red grace, your regard, oh Mother, for me will remain one of kindliness.
 
 
Sanskrit poetic convention defines rhetorical literature as being based upon certain classes of interest called rasas, which are said to be between eight and ten in number. Two of them can be considered as extras, but when one or the other of these is included with the eight (or excluded from the ten), we get nine rasas (navarasa). Rhetoric in the Western world usually refers to classifications such as lyric, heroic, tragic, romantic and so on. As we explained in Verse 38, in Sanskrit, the ten basic interests are srngara (love), vira (heroism), bibhatsa (disgust), raudra (anger or fury), hasya (mirth), bhayanaka (terror), karuna (pity), adbhuta (wonder), santa (tranquility or peacefulness) and vatsalya (paternal fondness). The last two are sometimes omitted, and sometimes only one of them is included. Fear and pity are attitudes or states of mind which are supposed to be induced by Greek tragedy.
 
It is not a question, in this work, of depicting only a perfect picture of beauty or goodness. All possible attitudes, passions or states of mind are to be included together, irrespective of whether they enhance the goodness of the character in question. In this sense, in Western literary criticism it is understood that poetry is a criticism of life, and that it holds up a mirror reflecting life, whether in society or in oneself. The goddess of Beauty of these verses becomes perfect to the extent that she comprises within her personality all the attitudes or states of mind which basically constitute what we know as human life in general. It is in this sense, then, that in this verse all psychic states, whether good or bad, are passed in review in a certain order. It is not hard to recognize in the series of emotions or passions described here, that the nine rasas or interests are being treated of in the abstract. It is the mood induced within the psyche of the enjoyer and also what is in the subject-matter of the poetry itself, treated together, that give to these interests, passions or attitudes an absolutist status, all to be comprised within the beauty of the same Goddess. Each passion enhances her beauty, instead of detracting from it, in the same way as the facets of a cut diamond can set off its attractiveness in a more pronounced form.
 
Jealousy normally cannot be considered as a good quality, but in this verse we find that the Goddess has a rival co-wife in Ganga (the goddess of the river Ganges), and that she is capable of jealousy with that other personified aspect of beauty. The paradoxical element within the Beauty of the Absolute is hereby confronted without any attempt to explain it away. Absolute Beauty is beyond good and evil and is not just good. This is the reason why we find questionable attitudes being included here as adding to, instead of distracting from, the totality of beauty intended to be revealed.
 
In other words, the Goddess is absolutely beautiful in spite of blameworthy aspects in her nature. It is by transcending good and evil, not just by denying them that perfection is to be attained. The three modalities of nature (gunas), as we shall see in the immediately succeeding verses, have also to be similarly transcended. The ontologically-based version of beauty which the Goddess here represents as the consort of Shiva, who is her positive counterpart, would permit the inclusion of all modalities that are real to human nature. Even imperfections are thus included here so that they could be unitively absorbed and transcended by participation with the higher absolute principle that Shiva represents. In this sense, Shiva could be called the “Absolute of absolutes”, while Parvati´s status could be described as the “relative Absolute”. Even this duality could be abolished by mutual cancellation.
 
We notice that first the Goddess is capable of sentimental love toward her husband, as in the case of any other girl. This makes her fully human, and thereby adds to her perfection. We might add here that, because her husband represents the most uncompromising absolutism, her sentimental affection receives, by virtue of it, a certain dignity of its own; but basically the sentiment remains just human and nothing more. This revised form of sentimental love has already been referred to in Verse 16 as gabhira srngara, a revised form of profound erotic love. (See below).
 
Jealously in love has been condemned by poets like Tennyson as being incompatible with pure love. Here we find again that the Goddess is disgusted with all persons; Shiva being the absolute value dear to Parvati. If one should love one´s God with all one´s heart, then a certain bipolarity of relationship is insured between the worshipper and the worshipped. The strictness of this bipolarity necessarily implies its corollary - a touch of exclusion of everything extraneous to such a vertical affiliation. It is in this sense that we have to understand the jealousy and disgust of Parvati for all personages except Shiva. This is above good and evil; it is “Goodness”. But rising to be good from being bad, in the Christian sense, is not profound enough.
 
The jealousy toward her rival, Ganga, which is only to be expected, reveals the relative status of Shiva´s two co-wives. While Ganga represents horizontal value, as a geographical river useful to cultivators around Benares and other cities; Parvati represents the very source of water and sky. River water is a valuable as rain water but the dignity of the rain should not be mixed up with the earthy touch implied in the river. It is in the recognition of this contrast that the Beauty of the Goddess is intended to surge up and overwhelm the contemplative student of these verses. Perfection by transcending is not the same as trying to merely improve on the already vitiated relativistic setup.
 
The next emotion is described as a “transportation of wonder” at the exploits of Shiva. Shaivite epics, especially of South India, tell of many Dionysiac mysteries in which Shiva works wonders among the common people. All miracles are possible in the context of the Absolute. Nothing is impossible for Dionysus either. The wonder here thus belongs to a heightened transcendental order.
 
We find in the next line that fear and surprise are bracketed together as one sentiment. Devi, who is afraid of the snakes coiled around Shiva´s body, says “How wonderful!” Instead of excluding each other, these sentiments blend and complement each other.
 
The condescending smile towards her young rivals, who might be just incidental acquaintances, shows that she is not equally resentful of them. One has to make friends as well as enemies, but only with those who are worthy of such an equal status with oneself. This rule of reciprocity in friendship is mentioned in the “Panchatantra”, where it suggests that friendship should be cultivated only with equals so as to avoid strained relations later.
 
The last line refers to the lotus-red grace of the eyes of the Goddess, where all these possible varieties of attitudes, sentiments or passions can have their source at one and the same locus.
 
The pointer of the emotional needle, which is verticalized, at the beginning here, with tender emotion, deviates to the right or left successively thereafter through the whole gamut of other relational attitudes, to descend finally onto the supplicant. This could be the author himself, who deserves his own favourite form of recognition, which happens to be only a side-glance, but is no less dignified for that reason (as will be explained in Verse 57). Sympathy, compassion, pity, consideration for a servant, a dependant, or a supplicant, standing far off out of respect, are all to be imagined to be present in this special kind of regard of the Goddess. This absolutist dignity of the regard does not suffer, although it is expressed only in the form of a side-glance which seems to say, “I have not forgotten you”. It is here that an overwhelming touch of Absolute Beauty is to be recognized by the critical student. Each of these emotions has an ordinary “human” aspect and a touch of verticality subtly transcending it.
 
Whether all the nine conventional rasas are respected by Sankara or not is unimportant for us here. Chemistry could be studied in an overall manner by scrutinizing the periodic table of elements, as well as through details in a textbook. It is a global overall view of Beauty in which the component parts are still recognizable that Sankara intends to reveal here. This particularly refers to the lower or negative perspective of the Absolute, which is neither transcendental nor immanent, but normalized or re-normalized between the two limits. It is important to recognize that over-focusing and under-focusing are implied here.
 
 
"This revised form of sentimental love has already been referred to in Verse 16 as gabhira srngara, a revised form of profound erotic love."
 
VERSE 16
kavindranam cetah kamalavana balataparucim
bhajante ye santah katicid arunam eva bhavatim
virincipreyasyas tarunatara srngara lahari
gabhirabhir vagbhir vidadhati satam ranjanam ami
 
That beauty residing in the minds of superior poets
Resembling that of a forest of lotuses when touched by the tender light of dawn,
He who can thus adore You, who are so dear to Brahma as magenta itself
He, by profound words of most tender, yet overpowering erotic content, shall please the same select ones.
 

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ADDITIONAL COMMENTS WITH STRUCTURAL DIAGRAMS RELATED TO THIS VERSE FROM SAUNDARYA LAHARI/NOTES.

 

The Devi's interest is horizontal.
Shiva's interest is vertical.
The interaction between them is magenta.
 
 
There are 8 different attitudes reflected in the eyes of the Devi:
Love for Shiva - Her eyes are filled with moisture.
Disgust towards those who praise …. (illegible: ashes?)
Resentment at the Ganges for coming near to Shiva - she is surprised
Wonder at Shiva's exploits - he is here called Girisa - "The king of mountains".
 
(The different names or epithets applied to Shiva, as well as to the Devi in these verses, are always significant. ED)

Dread at the snakes of Hara - fear.
Her kind look eclipses the beautiful colour of the Lotus.
She has smiles for her comrades who consort with Shiva
She is full of grace (sakaruna) towards me (Sankara)
 
(She is jealous of Ganges as it has its source in Shiva's hair and is thus intimately close to him before becoming a horizontal factor on earth. ED)

So the Devi's eyes have all of these qualities.
 
Sankara violates none of the rules of the Absolute.
 
Sankara is part of the structure, on the vertical axis. There are other poets, on the Horizontal Axis; the Devi is not interested in them.
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THIS STRUCTURE MAY NEED REVISION
 
Abstract in your mind the whole of poetic discourse. Literature gives pleasure - this belongs to the absolute side of the Goddess.
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(There is some ambiguity or vagueness about the list of attitudes of the Devi's eyes in both the above structures. This may be due to error on the part of the note-takers, but it should be also kept in mind that structuralism is a methodology, not a dogma, and that several different structure describing a verse may simply reflect different ways of looking at it. As the Guru would say: "If you pin the four corners of the structure down, you get a chair or a table - it does not dance". ED)
 
(The comments below on the previous verse apply equally to the present verse. ED)
 
Thinking of the Absolute is METAPHYSICS
and seeing the Absolute is PHYSICS
The two are brought together here.
 
 

When nature is placed at the Alpha Point, the negative vertical pole - you get a goddess.
Otherwise you can hypostatize and go to the positive vertical pole and get Jupiter or Zeus at the Omega Point.
 
This mathematical, structural language is used in science.
 Some examples are shown below:
 
 
 
 
Time - there is pure time and mechanistic time.
(Compare the cockcrow and an alarm clock.)
These two times should agree.
Bergson says: "do not mix these two times!".
Unless you know this, do not study Brahmavidya (the Science of the Absolute).
 
From the 41st verse on, there is a change in style.
In this verse, 8 attitudes are reflected in the eyes of the Devi:
1- Love for Shiva - her eyes fill with moisture.
2- Disgust for those who praise (unclear. ED) - ashamed.
3- She is surprised, full of resentment at Ganges coming near to Shiva
4- She is full of wonder at Shiva's career (He is here called Girisa, the "Mountain King", which emphasizes his positive status at the Omega Point).
5- She is full of dread for the snakes of Hara - fear.
6- Eclipses the beautiful colour of the lotus.
7- Smiles on "thy comrades" - those who consort with Shiva.
8- …and "full of grace towards me" (Sankara).
 
Show a dancing girl in the background of the Devi's face, with the rays of the nine Rasas, enacting sentimental love, jealousy, etc.
Saraswati's face has structural lines emanating from it.
The face belongs to the soul, the soul is capable of 9 aesthetic attitudes (Rasas).
 
Below are examples of the Rasas, mainly drawn from the classical Bharat Natyam dance:
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The Devi´s eyes have all these qualities.
Sankara violates none of the rules of the Absolute.
Structure - Sankara, as poet, is on the vertical axis.
Other poets are on the horizontal axis - the Devi is not interested in them.
Two of these Rasas or "moods" have no direct reference in this verse.
 
 
(Editorial Note: below is a conventional list of the Rasas:

Bharata Muni established the following list of Rasas:

  • Śṛngāram (शृङ्गारं) Love, Attractiveness. Presiding deity: Vishnu. Colour: green.
  • Hāsyam (हास्यं) Laughter, Mirth, Comedy. Presiding deity: Ganesha. Colour: white.
  • Raudram (रौद्रं) Fury. Presiding deity: Rudra. Colour: red.
  • Kāruṇyam (कारुण्यं) Compassion, Tragedy. Presiding deity: Yama. Colour: dove coloured.
  • Bībhatsam (बीभत्सं) Disgust, Aversion. Presiding deity: Shiva. Colour: blue.
  • Bhayānakam (भयानकं) Horror, Terror. Presiding deity: Kala. Colour: black.
  • Vīram (वीरं) Heroic mood. Presiding deity: Indra. Colour: wheatish brown.
  • Adbhutam (अद्भुतं) Wonder, Amazement. Presiding deity: Brahma. Colour: yellow.)
Here are 6 or 8 attributes that the poets use when singing the praise of the Devi.
Compassion is at the Alpha Point at the bottom of the vertical axis.
At the Omega Point at the top is erotic love (sringara) - the spear on which the goddess is caught.
 

See the previous Verse 50: "The eyes turn towards the ears, on hearing…"
The whole of poetic discourse must be abstracted in the mind in order to understand this verse.

Literature gives pleasure, horizontally; this here is vertical and belongs to the absolute soul of the Goddess.

She is able to verticalize a certain amount of sringara (eroticism); this is gabhira sringara, a refined form of erotic love.
 
(Meaning of the Sanskrit Word: gabhira  gabhīra—deep    SB 10.6.12, SB 10.6.15-17, Madhya 19.137, Antya 1.154
  gabhīra—subtle    SB 1.5.18
  gabhīra—insurmountable    Madhya 24.169) 
 
 
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Erotic interest is the most dominant; thus sringara, eroticism, is given the uppermost position.
 

 

SAUNDARYA LAHARI - VERSE 52

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SAUNDARYA LAHARI

 

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SERIES 52 - 60 DEALS WITH PSYCHO-PHYSICAL REACTION

VERSE 52

KARUNA KATAKSHA - A KIND SIDE-GLANCE
THERE IS NO SIN IN KINDNESS PUSHED TO HORIZONTAL LIMIT
 
गते कर्णाभ्यर्णं गरुत इव पक्ष्माणि दधती
पुरां भेत्तु-श्चित्तप्रशम-रस-विद्रावण फले ।
इमे नेत्रे गोत्राधरपति-कुलोत्तंस-कलिके
तवाकर्णाकृष्ट स्मरशर-विलासं कलयतः॥
 
gate karnabhyarnam garuta iva paksmani dadhati
puram bhettus citta pasama rasa vidravana phale
ime netre gotradhara pati kulottamsa kalike
tavakarnakrsta smarasara vilasam kulayatah
 
Drawn fully to the ear limits like gleaming arrows of Smara (Eros)
With lashes looking like arrow-base feathers, these your eyes,
Having the effect of disrupting the complacent detachment of the City-Burner,
Make for your glory as the highest of the clan of the Mountain King.
 
 
Verse 52 requires a great deal of manipulation and structural construction or interpretation before it gives up its bare meaning. The gleaming arrows of Smara (Eros) have first to be placed in the correct position before they can have even a chance of piercing the heart of the super-ascetic Shiva. Even to think of the possibility of Eros being effective against such a superior target, we have to concede that the person who sends the arrow must himself have a dignity sufficiently rich in order to do so. These requirements are carefully indicated by Sankara when he underlines in this verse that the City Burner, Shiva, is normally detached and placed above the reach of interests that belong to the various grades of values ranged between heaven and earth. The three cities which Shiva burned represent three such intermediate levels. As against such superior qualifications of the husband, what is the qualification of the side of Parvati, which validates her as the rival counterpart of such an exalted value, raised above all earthy considerations? The answer is that Parvati has the glory of being the highest descendant of the clan of the King of Mountains. As the daughter of the Himalayas, she presides over existential values, while Shiva is in charge of corresponding subsistential values.
 
The main incident in this verse refers to some arrow being aimed in order to be sent with such an intensity and velocity that even the absolute dispassionateness of Shiva will be ruffled. The conditions required for such an arrow to succeed in hitting this difficult target are carefully elaborated here in protolinguistic terms. The analogy of the bow and arrow playing on the face of the Goddess, placed in intriguing positions as if visible yet invisible, has been worked out in sufficient detail already in Verse 47. Kama is well known in Sanskrit poetry. In Kalidasa´s masterpiece of mystical eroticism, the “Kumarasambhava”, the roles of Kama and his wife Rati, as well as those of Shiva and Uma, are described in great detail. The central tragedy in that famous heroic epic is the incident where the attempt of Kama to ruffle the heart of the City-Burner suffers a signal failure. Instead of succeeding, Kama is struck down by Shiva´s lightning and burnt to cinders. The section entitled Rati-vilapa (lamentations of Rati ) reveals some precious structural details, meant to show why Shiva was able to burn her husband down. The arrow was not sent correctly and frontally, but from a hidden point of vantage which Kama slyly selected, with no straightforward intention; and where he stood on one leg, peripherally situated from the place where Shiva sat steeped in deep meditation. The poetic justice of Kalidasa considers that such a punishment was justified. A revised picture is then elaborately developed in the same work. It is only through the side-glances of a beautiful woman that the arrows of love can operate on such a superior man as Shiva. The beautiful woman involved in such a game must deserve on her part, by her nobility of origin at least, to send the arrows of Kama, supported by her side-glances which have to act here as a medium to make them fly most effectively in the direction that would correctly hit the bull´s-eye.
 
We read in the “Kumarasambhava” that, in the first part of her penance to propitiate Shiva, Parvati followed a ritualism which belonged to the hedonistic and relativistic context of Vedic sacrifice. Having failed in this approach, she lay fainting and was carried away by her father, “ like a wilted lotus flower carried on the tusks of an elephant”. She is taken back to her parental home, horizontally, by the King of the Mountains; instead of gaining what she badly wanted, the vertical home of her husband Shiva. But she does not give up her austerities. This time she takes a revised and revalued Vedantic approach. She abandons luxuries and stands for forty days in water and follows a discipline which has, over and above the one-pointedness of Vedism, that touch of renunciation or sacrifice which changes the complexion of her approach altogether. We have to keep in mind such details well known to everyone sufficiently versed in Sanskrit lore, before we are able to reinterpret the meaning and structural implications of this verse.
 
The first half of this verse suggests something very difficult for us to imagine. We can understand how, when Kama wants to send an arrow sideways to hit an ordinary target, he could intensify its velocity by drawing the bowstring further backward, the ear being the limit to which it can be drawn. It is between the ear and the eye, then, as they jointly operate, that Kama´s arrows in the form of side-glances can affect the ordinary level. But it pointedly says here that the arrows leave only a gleam in her eye, and that instead of the eyelashes being spread horizontally, they are all gathered together to resemble a bundle of arrow-base feathers which, we should suppose, are used for giving piercing power and lightness to the arrows themselves which are very tender, being made of flowers. Kama is sometimes called pancabana (the five-darted one). Each dart is compared in Sanskrit literature to a favourite flower, such as the lotus or the jasmine. The idea is that the five senses co-operate in the appeal for attention that the female principle invites to herself by her own beauty through the intermediary of these flowers and their respective perfumes, colours and tenderness. Flower-tenderness is the nearest analogy to the existent aspect of Beauty. The glance of Shiva on the numerator side is the target to be attained. This target, however, is of a conceptual order. Establishing participation between the two aspects, the existent and the conceptual, contained within the totality of the occasionalism implied in the Absolute has been examined already in Verses 5 and 6.
 
The suggestion in Verse 47 that the left forearm hides the fixing of the arrow justifies our structural analysis of this verse as belonging to a third-dimensional epistemological level. The base of the ears, to which limit the bowstring has been drawn backward, has to be placed within a conical section with an interior locus, rather than peripherally and horizontally, as in the case of the fusion of many twilights into one verticalized line of light suggested in Verses 42 and 48. We have to think in terms of a revised form of side-glance, not only involving the five senses as five flowers - which would normally be sufficient for Kama to operate with - but we have also to place the ear-limit of negativity in the subjective consciousness at a deeper locus where the mind, itself sometimes referred to as the sixth sense, is located as an “inner organ” or organon.
 
A beautiful woman´s side-glance becomes powerful to the extent that this kind of verticalization and centralization, attaining to the sixth organ where concepts and percepts meet, could also come into play. There are superficial and deeper side-glances, and Parvati´s side-glance has her own wholehearted mind or personal consciousness behind it, although incidentally it is the same Kama that is operating the instrument, as in every other case of effective eroticism. The arrow-base feathers suggest a gleaming arrow that is fully imbedded and vertically poised within the solid conic structure that we are compelled to presuppose here. The feathers mark the negative terminus, and when the gleaming arrow and its terminus are alone visible, the negative appeal of the Eternal Female for her counterpart may be said to attain its maximum effectiveness. By the same token, it becomes competent to disrupt the complacency or detachment of the most positive of transcendental principles, represented by Shiva. The stage is thus set for the occasionalism to take place in the context of absolute erotic beauty.
 
The expression ime netre, being grammatically in the dual case, suggests that the two eyes have to be treated as functioning together in unison in a horizontal setup. The positive and negative ends of the arrow have necessarily to point in opposite directions, so the eyes cannot be expected to have the same function of striking the heart of Shiva. This is an additional reason for us to think that the structure here has to be subjected to a revision, at least in terms of a three-dimensional solid structure, preferably one which has double-sided conical elements included within its purview. In short, it is only the verticalized version of the arrow and not its horizontal functioning that can fit into such a multi-dimensional dynamic situation.
 
We could remark that, in the previous verse, the aesthetic interest, auditory or visual, could be seen either in double-fanwise expansion horizontally, or in a unitary verticalized version of the same. The two fan-folds are dovetailed or telescoped into a bundle as one vertical master-interest in erotic mysticism. This verse only carries over the same structural dynamism, to be imagined in highly vitalistic terms before being cancelled against its own conceptual counterpart. The norm is neither conceptual nor perceptual; neither visible nor invisible - but includes both alternatively. Paradox, if it should persist, should abolish itself by mutual transparency of light, as between existence and subsistence. The resultant would be the Absolute Beauty-Value which is the central theme throughout this work. The mind plays here between the two focuses of structural beauty and poetic actual beauty. The structural beauty is superimposed on top of the actual.
 
We could further note that the various attitudes of the Goddess have an organic sequence between them. The two eyes that are sentimentally, though negatively, focused on Shiva, must be in a kind of meditation between the eyebrows, making the eyelashes tend to come together at the corners of the eyes. The other sentiments or attitudes would pass through other angles, deflected in different degrees from this vertical starting position and finally ending with a side-glance of grace alighting with sympathy on a dependent supplicant standing far off at the periphery. It is a horizontal side-glance rather than a frontal regard that is thus vouchsafed to the devotee. Such a devotee is, in turn, more than satisfied with even this kind of recognition, because his devotion is able to magnify the value to its fullest possible limit. What is lost in quantity is gained in intensity. In effect the light of the sun´s orb and the beams that come out of it are the same. Substance and attribute thus can belong together.
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ADDITIONAL COMMENTS WITH STRUCTURAL DIAGRAMS RELATED TO THIS VERSE FROM SAUNDARYA LAHARI/NOTES.

 

The Devi is the daughter of the mountain clan, and cannot be coquettish in a cheap way.
 
 
She has to use her eyes in a most subtle manner; Her coquetry must be just as strong as Shiva's complacency.
 
(Parvata is one of the Sanskrit words for "mountain"; "Parvati" derives her name from being the daughter of king Himavan (also called Himavat, Parvat) and mother Mena. King Parvat is considered lord of the mountains and the personification of the Himalayas; Parvati implies "She of the mountain". The different names given to the Devi (or Shiva, or others) are always significant. For example - Shiva may be called "The City-Burner" in one context and "The Lord of Beasts" in another verse - emphasizing different characteristics. ED)

There is homogeneity of status; She must show extreme horizontality to compensate for his verticality.
 
 
 

"Having attained to the edge of the ears, as if resembling the feathers..." Shiva is placid and is meditating, but Eros is pulling his bowstring to the ears - thus the eyebrows become arched.

 


When eroticism acts on the negative side of the vertical axis, Shiva becomes disturbed.

 

 

On the cosmic scale, think of horizontal waves as a disturbance of the placidity of the vertical, that means a disturbance of Shiva.


All experience, such as the eroticism here, takes place in the horizontal plane.

All appreciation of beauty and all mysticism is erotic.

 


Numerator and Denominator cannot co-exist at some levels on the vertical axis.
At lower levels, however, the Devi may have erotic emotions.

Here, Eros' work is brought in to show the erotic, horizontal aspect of the Devi, while Shiva remains mathematically pure;
But both are part of the same Absolute.
 
The total absolute picture is one in which male and female cancel out.
But the poet concentrates on the beauty of the Devi, which is Absolute Beauty.
 
The function of the negative absolute is tragic.
The function of the Devi is to create Space - something like waves - horizontally, matter is impenetrable.
 
 
Bhogya (enjoyment) is horizontal.
Bhokta (the enjoyer) is vertical.
 
 
 
The meaning of Smara (Eros) is that horizontalizing erotic tendencies disturb the surface AND CREATE THE UNIVERSE.
 
Devi - the expanding universe.
Deva - (her male counterpart, or Shiva) - the contracting universe.

The Devi is just a woman, any woman.

 

 
 
These are alternating and complementary theories.
 
These two counterparts could be seen as corresponding to Res Cogitans and Res Extensa, as found in the philosophy of Descartes. (the vertical thinking substance and the horizontal extensive substance).
 
These are conjugates which are proportional - see Heisenberg (Physicist - the "Father of Quantum Mechanics).
 
(The reference to Heisenberg is a bit obscure. Perhaps the reference is to the horizontal and vertical being like position and momentum in the quotation below:
 
"In quantum mechanics, the uncertainty principle, also known as Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, is any of a variety of mathematical inequalities asserting a fundamental limit to the precision with which certain pairs of physical properties of a particle known as complementary variables, such as position x and momentum p, can be known simultaneously"
 
The more accurately one property is measured, the less accurately the complementary property is measured, according to Heisenberg. 
 
In other words, we cannot measure the position (x) and the momentum (p) of a particle with absolute precision. The more accurately we know one of these values, the less accurately we know the other. ED)
 
Conjugates are correlates, which belong together.
Quality and quantity reciprocate.
 
(We are talking here about Shiva and the Devi; they are conjugates or correlates and the Saundarya Lahari studies the relationship between them. ED)
 
The placidity of the vertical axis must correspond to the creative urge of the horizontal.

The triumvirate of the Hindu gods, (Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, corresponding to the creation, preservation and destruction of the universe) is finally absorbed by the Goddess.
"The three gods are under Your purview, within Your territory, You are the presiding deity."
They are only points of reference within the totality of the Absolute.

Sringara, the erotic mood, becomes tragic in the text.
The erotic principle of horizontal love - as light and space - disturbs the placidity of the vertical principle.
The horizontal disturbs the placidity of the vertical; so when Eros pulls the string of the bow towards his ear, he disturbs the placidity of the eyes of the Devi.
He is a representative of the erotic principle, which is always present in the universe.

But Eros, the enemy, when sublimated and united with Shiva, cancels out into the glory of the Absolute.
When they are put together, you get the neutral Absolute.

 

The eyes become disturbed when the bowstring is pulled.
If the Devi thinks of Shiva, the disturbing influence will be absorbed and cancelled out.

-

"Fully horizontal" means "fully in love and sympathetic".
Jealousy is the result of a 90 degree deflection.
Karuna or compassion is horizontal.
Her pride in Her family is denominator - not directed up to Shiva.
 
Two versions of the structure referred to above:

colour solid

 


SAUNDARYA LAHARI - VERSE 53

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SAUNDARYA LAHARI

 

 

VERSE 53

HORIZONTAL GUNAS
THE THREE GUNAS ARE LIKE A FOLDED FAN
THEY ARE ABSORBED INTO A HORIZONTAL GLEAMING LINE
 
विभक्त-त्रैवर्ण्यं व्यतिकरित-लीलाञ्जनतया
विभाति त्वन्नेत्र त्रितय मिद-मीशानदयिते ।
पुनः स्रष्टुं देवान् द्रुहिण हरि-रुद्रानुपरतान्
रजः सत्वं वेभ्रत् तम इति गुणानां त्रयमिव ॥
 
vibhakta traivarnyam vyatikarita lilanjanataya
vibhati tvan netra tritayam idam isanadayite
punas srastum devan druhina hari rudran uparatan
rajas sattvam bibhrat tama iti gunanam trayam iva
 
The tricolour distinctness of your eyes, O beloved of Isana (the Lord)
Presented in clear threefold relief by the playful use of collyrium,
Would seem to create anew the gods Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva,
Bereft of passion and having the qualities of rajas (active), sattva (pure) and tamas (dark).
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Verses 53, 54 and 55 bring us back, though more indirectly, to the question of transcending the three modalities of nature (gunas). These modalities belong to the lower or relativistically qualified version of the Absolute. The non-relativistic version of the same, which is technically referred to as para-brahman, has only a conceptual content. The modalities of nature cannot be present in the world of concepts in any real sense. There is thus an epistemological turning of the tables between the immanent and the transcendent versions of the value called Beauty, which we have to recognize as playing round the region of the eyes of the Goddess. In Verses 25 and 26, the relation between the three modalities and the three gods was employed to bring into dynamic relief the mode of operation of the three gunas. Here, in Verse 53, a colour language is employed to describe the three gunas, where sattva (the pure), rajas (the passionate), and tamas (the inert) correspond to white, red and black, respectively. Mythological, psychological and colour languages are all brought into interplay in this verse to reveal a kind of mesh-like crisscross dynamic frame through which the tendencies involved have to pass so as to be transcended or sublimated. In Verse 54, another analogy is employed to describe the three modalities, where there is a confluence of three rivers having the same three colours. Finally, in Verse 55, transcending the modalities involves the crossing of a split-second gap between the creation and dissolution of the universe. The purpose of each of these three verses becomes clearer to the reader when the intention of transcending the modalities is kept in mind as the common theme running through all of them.
 
Here in Verse 53, being called the “beloved of Isana” gives the Goddess a position intermediate between the operation of the three gunas and the transcending of the same. The eyes of the Goddess present three colours: the pupils being black, the corners being red and the sclera white. The Goddess is pictured here as playfully adding her own eye-pencil markings to enhance the contrast between the three colours. It is then suggested that such an enhancement is able to produce the three gods once again, from a background in which they existed in perhaps only a virtual form. Virtuality and actuality are conferred upon enti­ties, divinities or tendencies, on final analysis, by the meeting of the two references which form between them a kind of matrix or lattice formation, also called a “grating” in crystallographic interference figures of optical motions. Some such idea seems to be in the mind of Sankara here, whether he was familiar with these scientific notions in the same way we are, or merely understood the basic principle implied therein in a more vague intuitive form.
 
The last part of this verse qualifies the gods that thus emerge into view as bereft of passion, as the Sanskrit word uparati would suggest; (rati being translatable as “passion”). Thus, there are gods capable of passion and gods who could be created again as passionless versions of themselves. Some commentators have suggested that the antediluvian gods were passionate and that after the deluge they became passionless at the instance of the Goddess. Such an interpretation would only be adding more mythology to an already vague mythological language. We prefer, therefore, to explain that the gods could function with a horizontal reference or, when sublimated, could have a verticalized reference, being placed in the context of the beauty of the face of Parvati. This sublimated state of the Goddess must be the result of the absolute quality of her meditation on her beloved God. The three modalities could have three colours as their monomarks, or three divinities taken from mytho­logy or even three rivers, as in the next verse. What we should try to see in and through these stratifications, tending either to be abstract or concrete, particular or general, is the structural dynamism that is meant to be revealed in the process of trans­cending from the lower Brahman to the higher Brahman. There is, through intentionality, a possible position of participation in which both the vertical and the horizontal references are to be considered equally valid in revealing this structural dynamism underlying the frame of reference.
 
The mythological picture is concrete and real, and can be said to be of the first dimension.
The picture with nature-modalities is still vitalistically real and could be referred to as a second-dimensional setup.
When these same factors are referred to in terms of colour, they could be said to belong to a third-dimensional context.
The voltage of intentionality could be further increased to abolish even the frame of reference into a fully fourth-dimensional context.
 
When bathing in the confluence of the three rivers, as described in Verse 54, the pilgrim attains a sense of holiness or sanctification which is fully subjective, and by Verse 55 mythological realism is left far behind, in terms of an eternal present or eternal moment where creation and dissolution come together to participate on the most subtle of grounds, which is neither material nor mental.
 
The collyrium applied as decoration by the Goddess, out of playful love of enhancing her own beauty, is the Numerator factor here, which puts the gods and the gunas in a new and neutral setting that respects both horizontal and vertical values. How the three gunas and the three gods are to be treated together has already been clarified in Verses 25 and 26. The passionless state has also been explicitly referred to in Verse 26. So, when previous lessons in the same textbook are fully respected, the validity of the lesson in this verse becomes sufficiently clear. It is by intentionality that one transcends the demands of the three nature-modalities. When such intentionality applies to Shiva himself, as the most positive of values, the sublimation takes place most effectively and correctly. It is this strict bipolar affiliation, to the exclusion of all extraneous interests that can spell success in the contemplation of the Absolute.
 
The “threefold relief” and the eventuality of the creation of the Gods bereft of passion could all be understood together if we should admit that the horizontalized version of value modali­ties of interest is reoriented vertically due to the love of Parvati for Shiva. As between the three gunas themselves, rajas, the middle one, is more fully horizontal than the other two. The complex mechanism to which these gunas are subjected is the subject of the whole of Chapter 14 of the Bhagavad Gita, which could supplement what we have to say here. When rajas (the active), becomes bereft of passion, it would have the thinnest mathematical status possible, because essentially rajas refers to a horizontal function, and would accord with the function of Vishnu in mythological terms.

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ADDITIONAL COMMENTS WITH STRUCTURAL DIAGRAMS RELATED TO THIS VERSE FROM SAUNDARYA LAHARI/NOTES.

 

By this very attitude (or expression, or manifestation) these three gods who have gone into a passionless state, as if carved in a pillar and verticalized, take on the functions of Tamas, Rajas and Sattva.
 
(The three Gunas.Gunas: The triple modalities of nature, originally conceived by Kapila in the Samkhya-pravachana-sutras. They are: sattva, rajas and tamas. They are traditionaly represented by the colours white (sattva), red (rajas), and black (tamas). ED)
 
 
 
 
 
There are two eyes and a third, red, eye.
This is reduction and one-to-one functional correspondence.
 
 
 
 
 

 .

 

The Gods are being created by the "tri-colour distinctness" of the Devi's eyes, corresponding to the 3 Gunas (nature-modalities).
 
 
 
("The Goddess is just a woman, any woman."
Nataraja Guru.")
 
 
"Bereft of passion" means half-open like a Japanese fan, thus, half-verticalized and not fully open and horizontalized.
 

The Gunas should not be too pronounced, not too much like an effect on the Numerator side, but half-way down the Denominator side, in between, contemplative.

The gods are nothing but horizontal functions verticalized by abstraction and generalization.

This verse shows how to see vertical reality in the horizontal face of the Devi..
 

 

slc1-p46-v53
 
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("When a woman looks into a mirror, she sees God."
Nataraja Guru.)
 
 
(ED notes that Shiva is here called Īśāna, and that, according to a traditional definition: "Īśāna signifies the subtle ethereal form of Shiva that represents transcendental knowledge". This may or may not be relevant).
 
 
 
 
 
(Although the structural diagram below reads "...horizontal fan" in the original manuscript, this may be an error and the caption should read; "...vertical line". This the opinion of the editor at this time and seems to accord more with the passage above; "Bereft of passion" means half-open like a Japanese fan, thus, half-verticalized and not fully open and horizontalized".  The commentary to the next verse, 54, reads "The three Gunas (horizontal modalities of Nature) are folded together vertically, like a closed fan". ED)
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SAUNDARYA LAHARI - VERSE 54

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SAUNDARYA LAHARI

 

 

VERSE 54

THE THREE GUNAS MERGE WHEN FOCUSED CENTRALLY
 
पवित्रीकर्तुं नः पशुपति-पराधीन-हृदये
दयामित्रै र्नेत्रै-ररुण-धवल-श्याम रुचिभिः ।
नदः शोणो गङ्गा तपनतनयेति ध्रुवमुम्
त्रयाणां तीर्थाना-मुपनयसि सम्भेद-मनघम् ॥
 
pavitrikartum nah pasupati paradhina hrdaye
dayamitrair netrair aruna dhavala syamarucibhih
nadas sono ganga tapanatanayeti dhruvam amum
trayanam tirthanam upanayasi sambhedam anagham
 
O one of kindly, sympathetic regard, Your heart being given over to the Lord of Beasts:
of rivers such as Shona, Ganga and Yamuna,
Coloured red, white and black:
Their sacred waters You do blend indeed into sinless confluence for our purification.
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In Verse 54 we can at once recognize how the intensity of intentionality is further accentuated from the previous verse. The three colours of the eyes directed upward and concentrated between the eyebrows, where the third eye of Shiva or Parvati could be supposed to exist because of the high degree of sympathy developed between them, could mark also the point of confluence of the three rivers, each having different-coloured waters. This apt analogy suggests that the modalities mix and merge, one neutralizing the other by being inclusively comprised under the master modality that comes by affiliation to the Absolute. Just as rivers cross the bar of an estuary, losing their names and forms, the modalities can attain the Absolute. Attaining the Absolute is the same as salvation, which implies in turn the purification from all sin. It is not difficult to see how this complex metaphor, which is more than a mere figure of speech, is carried over with a high degree of suggestibility from Verse 53 to this verse. The way of transcending instinctive conditionings is the main theme here.
 
The reference to Shiva as the “Lord of Beasts” is apt. The transition from the inanimate status of the Himalaya as a mountain to his status as the father of Parvati, via the world of animals, respects the natural hierarchy of values. Shiva is the Lord of Beasts before becoming the City-Burner. The former implies ascent, while the latter implies descent.
 

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ADDITIONAL COMMENTS WITH STRUCTURAL DIAGRAMS RELATED TO THIS VERSE FROM SAUNDARYA LAHARI/NOTES.

 

The Triveni (meeting of three sacred rivers) at Allahabad happens here at the inner corner of the Devi´s eye.
 
(In Hindu tradition Triveni Sangam is the "confluence" of three rivers, two physical rivers Ganges, Yamuna, and the invisible or mythical Saraswati River, at Allahabad. The point of confluence is a sacred place for Hindus. A bath here is said to flush away all of one's sins and free one from the cycle of rebirth. ED)
 
(The eyes have three colours - the white of the eyeballs, the pink or red of the edge of the eyelids and the black of the makeup she applies to her eyes are compared to the three rivers and share their power of washing away sin. They are further compared, directly or implicitly, to the three Gunas or modalities of nature and to the three gods, Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, with their functions of creation, preservation and destruction. ED)

The Devi's eyes are focused on the centre in meditation.
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The three Gunas (horizontal modalities of Nature) are folded together vertically, like a closed fan.
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When bathing in the Ganges You, the Devi, abstract and generalize the river and ourselves - cancellation occurs.
Your personality and the personality of all other bathers attains to homogeneity.
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Bathing in the confluence of the three rivers at Allahabad is traditionally believed to wash away your sins.

It cancels Sattva, Rajas and Tamas (the 3 modalities of nature) and purifies you.
The use of the word "sinless" implies that, when the Gunas are divided, there is sin; when they are joined together, like the three rivers at the Triveni, the confluence of the three rivers, and verticalized, there is no sin.

So there is a structural secret to be brought out in this verse.

This all begins with the story of Shiva and Parvati - Shiva is meditating and She practices renunciation (tapas) in order to gain his favour. Her renunciation is a verticalization of Her personality; the three Gunas are verticalized within Herself as they are in this verse. This is an episode of Kalidasa's Kumarasambhava, also known as "The Birth of the War God".

 

In this poem, Shiva burns Eros with his third eye for distracting him from his meditation with his arrows of erotic attraction, causing his attention to be directed at Parvati.


In Kalidasa's works the structure of the Absolute is revealed through tragedy and comedy.


A minimum of horizontal love is retained through the slight magenta colour, which remains on the lips of Parvati as a normalizing factor.
Meditate on the middle part of the Devi, week by week.

The psyche is a woman.

 

PSYCHOLOGY IS SEX.

 

SEX HAS TO BE SOLVED IN AND THROUGH ITSELF.
 

All aesthetics is erotic.


That is the great secret of the Upanishads, crystallized by Sankara, who wants the feet of the Devi to be put on his head.
 
"Your heart is not in your possession - you have given it to Shiva.
Your eyes, which are full of kindness and friendship, are beauteous with shining red, black and white colours".
 
"You create these three holy rivers: Shona, Ganga and Tapana-Tanayeti."
In India these are three sacred rivers, each with a distinct colour: the Ganges is white etc. These three put together give us absolute beauty, that is, a saving factor.

The Devi's eyes have a beauty which is black, white and red: sattva, rajas and tamas, the three modalities of nature, the value of which, when transcended, gives salvation, which is the same as what is obtained by bathing in the waters of the three rivers.
 
(The three colours of the Devi's eyes are black, red and white; the three sacred rivers at the confluence are black, red and white; the three Gunas have the same colours - these are obviously in a structural relationship.
Below is a possible structural diagram.
The proper placing of the counterparts may need revision, though it seems to us that the three rivers belong on the horizontal. ED)
 

Absolute Beauty has its value because it is cancelled out by its numerator counterpart, which is Shiva.
 
"A devotee like me, admiring the eyes, gets the same benefit as those who bathe in the three rivers".
One of these flows westwards and the other eastward, the Ganges flows north-south.

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Put the component parts of the structural whole together, with reciprocity, complementarity, compensation, etc.
- it will reveal the Absolute by virtue of its content.
 
A man who has faith in the Absolute rises from the level of necessity to the level of contingency by doing that which seems to be impossible.
Otherwise, he remains an ordinary man.
Impossible things become possible when you believe in them strongly enough - in accord with the Science of the Absolute.
 
Below is another, slightly different, structural diagram.

 

 

 

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SAUNDARYA LAHARI - VERSE 55

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SAUNDARYA LAHARI

 

 

VERSE 55

NEUTRALIZATION BETWEEN THE VERTICAL AND THE HORIZONTAL

 

निमेषोन्मेषाभ्यां प्रलयमुदयं याति जगति
तवेत्याहुः सन्तो धरणिधर-राजन्यतनये ।
त्वदुन्मेषाज्जातं जगदिद-मशेषं प्रलयतः
परेत्रातुं शंङ्के परिहृत-निमेषा-स्तव दृशः

 

nimesonmesabhyam pralayam udayam yati jagati
tavetyahus santo dharanidhara rajanya tanaye
tad unmesad jatam jagad idam asesam pralayataha
paritratum sanke parihrta nimesas tava drsah
 
With eyes open or shut, You can effect, as saints say,
The being or non-being of the world, O Daughter of the Earth-Supporting Lord;
What thus came to be as you opened them, this entire world, without anything left,
To save, I now surmise, You remain now with eyes unwinkingly withdrawn
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In Verse 55 we are still concerned with attitudes connected with the language of the eyes of the Goddess. The gods of the Hindu heaven supposedly do not wink. Fish, which belong to the subhuman level, do not wink either. The meditative eyes of a Buddha are seen to be introspectively withdrawn into a half-open/half-shut condition. Besides the side-glances of Devi, which can refer to particular interests, the open or shut eyes could refer to an interest in the whole of creation. When her eyes are open the world presents itself; when they are closed it disappears. The simple act of opening and shutting the eyes thus has two opposite effects. The visible world and the intelligible world can alternate within consciousness in a similar way. Plato divides reality in this way into two categories: the visibles and the intelligibles. We could call them with equal validity observables and calculables, percepts and concepts or names and forms, according to the philosophical context belonging to different historical, geogra­phical or cultural expressions. If visibles have a horizontal reference, then calculables could be said to have a vertical reference.
 
Cosmologically speaking, there are many theories of creation and destruction found in myths, philosophies and sciences. God as a creator or maker, or as the Great Architect, is a theological, anthropomorphic version of creation. More philosophically-biased schools would explain creation in terms of vijnanavada, the rationalist school belonging to the Buddhistic context.
 
Vedanta prefers to adopt the doctrine of mayavada, where indeterminism finds a place side by side with mere rationalism or empiricism. Evolutionism can colour the same picture and give us an endless variety of theories. There is creative evolution, emergent evolution and parallel evolution, as well as the Darwinian and Lamarckian theories, which all differ more or less from one another. Modern physics speaks of creation in terms of the “big bang” theory as against the “steady state” theory. It is not necessary for the purpose of this verse to enter into the details of all such theories. As Sankara stands for pure Advaita Vedanta, it is our task here to see how far this picture of the Goddess creating and sustaining the worlds tallies with his theories as expounded in his great commentaries. A close scrutiny of this verse reveals that, despite resembling the theory of instantaneous creation familiar to us in the Buddhistic vijnanavada school, there is always present an Absolute Goddess, whose function it is to create, maintain or withdraw at will. Buddhists do not recognize any such linking spiritual principle. This Vedantic view conforms to what is known as vivartavada, that is, reality treated as a phenomenal presentiment. According to Vedanta, evolution applies only to matter, as in the familiar example of milk turning sour. The spirit can know no such change. The world is “will and presentiment”, as Schopenhauer puts it, and is thus comparable to a dream that can come and go without involving material change or decay. Such are some of the considerations with which we have to delimit the functions of the Goddess so as to fit them into the correct context intended here by the author.
 
The first line indicates that the theory presented in this verse is accepted by saints or wise men (santah). It thus belongs to a perennial philosophical context, even anterior to Sankara's own Vedanta. By opening her eyes, the Goddess brings the world into being as an overt reality. When she closes her eyes, the reality disappears and gives place to virtuality. According to Eddington, there could be four distinct chairs: a conceptual chair, a perceptual chair, an actual chair and a virtual chair. Each of these four chairs needs a corresponding man, abstract or concrete, factual or virtual, to sit on it. Such is the full quaternion structure within the polivalently possible meanings of which the consciousness of everyone circulates, participating successively within these four aspects in a figure-eight alternation. Even this fourfold polivalence can be further simplified, as in this verse where the three states, open, closed, and the middle, are brought into the picture as covering the essence of creation, subsistence and dissolution which the cosmic process must necessarily imply in any philoso­phy. The Absolute is a constant beyond the changing face of its own phenomenal functionings. Meanings could circulate semiotically or syntactically into a deeper “meaning of meanings”. The final meaning of all meanings attains the Absolute, as is meant to be implied here in the state of mind and appearance. Overtness and innateness could be compared to space and time, and through the transparency of articulated space and time, which are both amorphous, as Bergson would put it, we could see a meaning of lasting interest to humanity, even long after relativity is forgotten. The withdrawn half-shut eyes of the Goddess reveal the same picture as Bergson's, but in Sankara's language. We can still notice a mythological consideration which is retained in this highly philosophical version of creation in the epithet, “Daughter of the Earth-supporting Lord”, which also means to show that the Goddess belongs to the ontological side of the total structural situation, as also pralayatah (from dissolution, or “the deluge”).
 
The expression “without anything left over” shows that, as counterparts, the perceptual and actual contents have an interchangeability. In the context of the Absolute, nothing can be left over as a remainder. The pluralistic world of relativism, when it includes everything without remainder under its scope, attains an equality of status with the unique Absolute of the numerator side. Cancellation is possible only between ensembles of the same status, whether one or many. Only two totalities can be cancelled out. The theory of ensembles in modern mathematics makes this requirement binding.
 
 
From Bergson, as referred to above:
"Traversing Time and Space which we have always known to be distinct, and by that very reason as amorphous, we shall be able to see, as if by transparency, an organism of articulated Space-Time. The mathematical notation of these articulations, effected on a basis that is virtual and carried to its most high degree of generalization, will give us an unexpected hold on reality. We shall then have in our hands a powerful means of investigation, a principle of research of which one could predict even from the present, that the human spirit will not renounce it, even when experience should impose a new form to the Theory of Relativity."

 

(Vijnanavada: the subjective idealism taught by the Yogacara school of Buddhist philosophy. ED)

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ADDITIONAL COMMENTS WITH STRUCTURAL DIAGRAMS RELATED TO THIS VERSE FROM SAUNDARYA LAHARI/NOTES.

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What we have here is the Sharira Vijnana Vada of the Buddhists or the "action cinématographique" of Bergson.
 
(Like the frames of cinematographic film passing at high speed in front of the lens to create an image on the screen, the opening and closing of the Devi's eyes create and dissolve universes. We are talking of the infinite series of universes of Quantum Mechanics, present and past - all of them in the here-and-now. Do not forget that, in Verse 97, the Devi is addressed as Maya. "... you remain as the great Maya, making the universe go round, as queen of the Ultimate Absolute." ED)
 
("Vijnana" means, roughly, consciousness; vijnanavada implies a universe created by consciousness - this is dealt with in Bhana Darsanam of the Darsana Mala of Narayana Guru:
 
"Where consciousness exists, there the
Object of consciousness exists, where
Consciousness exists not, its object neither.
Thus, both by agreement and difference, certitude comes."

The object of consciousness is no different from the universe. So the Devi creates and destroys universes with the opening and closing of Her eyes.
 
Such an observer-created universe is envisaged by modern physics in the Anthropic Principle.
 
The following quaotations are relevant here:
 

“I think that mind and matter are merely convenient ways of grouping events”'  Bertrand Russell.

 
“I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulating consciousness.”  –  Max Planck, theoretical physicist who originated quantum theory, which won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918.  ED)

It is a doctrine acceptable within the context of Maya.
We have the creation and dissolution of the world in a constant split-second continuum.
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The world is an illusion presenting itself in split-second pictures, looked at from outside.

But as a flux, from inside the Devi, there is no such alternation.
 
In the philosophy of Madhva, duality persists.
 
(Madhva, or Madhvacharya, was the founder of the Dvaita school of Vedanta, which emphasizes Bhakta, or worship of a divinity, usually Vishnu, rather than the uncompromising non-dualism of Sankara's Advaita. ED).
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With Sankara we have a figure-8 dynamism between the counterparts.
Overt and innate aspects of creation are neutralized.
There is a neutral balance between noumenal and phenomenal aspects of creation.
 
 

The four limbs of the quaternion structure, as described by Eddington:

 

1. THE ACTUAL CHAIR in which the actual man can sit; this chair will exclude another chair, and occupies a particular space.

 

2. THE VIRTUAL CHAIR, in which only  a virtual man can sit; much like a mirror reflection.

 

3. THE ALPHA-POINT CHAIR, the form of the chair generalized,
It excludes all other chairs.
This is the universal concrete version, it excludes horizontally but not vertically.

 

4. THE OMEGA-POINT CHAIR: the word "chair" in the dictionary; it is purely conceptual.

 

"From "The Science of the Absolute"

An actual, virtual, conceptual or nominal chair with four persons of corresponding status, who can only sit on the appropriate chair and thus not violate the epistemology involved, is the essence of the same structuralism we have tried to outline. If an actual heavy man "sits" on a nominalistic chair, the resultant situation can only be at best considered a joke or an absurdity. Eddington has written something along these lines, as follows:
 
"Let us first notice that the phrase "chairs we sit upon" adds nothing to the term "chair". For what sits on the chair is the body; and if we have to discriminate the scientific chair, i.e. the object, not really a chair, which the physicist describes, from the familiar chair, we must also discriminate the scientific body, i.e. the object, not really a body, which the physicist describes, from the familiar body. So when we sit on chairs the familiar body sits on a familiar chair, and the scientific body sits on a scientific chair. And if there is an abstract body it doubtless performs an abstraction of sitting on an abstract chair." "

 

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  1. SAUNDARYA LAHARI - VERSE 56
  2. SAUNDARYA LAHARI - VERSE 57
  3. SAUNDARYA LAHARI - VERSE 58
  4. SAUNDARYA LAHARI - VERSE 59