Saundarya Lahari
Saundarya Lahari
SAUNDARYA LAHARI - VERSE 81
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SAUNDARYA LAHARI
VERSE 81
A SUMMARY OF STRUCTURAL DETAILS ON THE ONTOLOGICAL LEVEL
PRIMACY FOR THE ONTOLOGICAL ABSOLUTE
A FIGURE-8 CIRCULATION BETWEEN EXISTENCE AND SUBSISTENCE
PRIMACY FOR THE ONTOLOGICAL ABSOLUTE
A FIGURE-8 CIRCULATION BETWEEN EXISTENCE AND SUBSISTENCE
गुरुत्वं विस्तारं क्षितिधरपतिः पार्वति निजात्
नितम्बा-दाच्छिद्य त्वयि हरण रूपेण निदधे ।
अतस्ते विस्तीर्णो गुरुरयमशेषां वसुमतीं
नितम्ब-प्राग्भारः स्थगयति सघुत्वं नयति च
नितम्बा-दाच्छिद्य त्वयि हरण रूपेण निदधे ।
अतस्ते विस्तीर्णो गुरुरयमशेषां वसुमतीं
नितम्ब-प्राग्भारः स्थगयति सघुत्वं नयति च
gurutvam vistaram kshitidhara patih parvati nijan-
nitambad acchidya tvayi harana rupena nidadhe
ataste vistirno gurur ayam asesam vasumatim
nitamba pregbharah sthagayati laghutvam nayati ca
nitambad acchidya tvayi harana rupena nidadhe
ataste vistirno gurur ayam asesam vasumatim
nitamba pregbharah sthagayati laghutvam nayati ca
Ponderability and extensiveness Shiva once bestowed on You as dowry
Cutting them off from his own hips; thus these,
Yours here, both weighty and expansive, cancel out the whole world
And by prior substantiality confer lightness on it too.
Cutting them off from his own hips; thus these,
Yours here, both weighty and expansive, cancel out the whole world
And by prior substantiality confer lightness on it too.
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There are many theories for slimming known to beauty specialists and physical culturists. Though they are much advertised by those who recommend the regimes or medicaments, there seems to be no agreement about why certain persons are fat and others slim. A certain kind of obesity or fatty degeneracy might result from age. Hormones or enzymes might have their own roles. Sexual dimorphism is noticeable in certain animals. The queen bee tends to be big while the male is relatively small, and in certain varieties of leeches the male is so small that it can permanently find a place inside the sex organ of the female.
A scrutiny of the contents of this verse reveals that it could not be interpreted meaningfully in the light of any of the contexts suggested above. We notice here that it is the father, who is a mountain personified, who confers on his daughter, who is aptly here called Parvati (Daughter of the Mountains), his own “ponderability and extensiveness” in the form a wedding gift, so that her married life could be easier at a later date. A mountain is both massive and peaked. The peak represents the verticalized aspect, while the massiveness represents the extensive and ponderable aspects. If the former is considered, in principle, to belong to the numerator side of the situation; then the latter could belong to the same context while representing, in principle again, the denominator side of the same situation. It is suggested in this verse that the father cut off “ponderability and extensiveness” from himself and gave them as dowry, in the form of a value or wealth, out of concern for his daughter´s welfare later in life.
At the end of the verse, it is suggested that the Goddess became again light and slim by some kind of personal readjustment, which must have taken place after her marriage with Shiva. The high numerator value that Shiva represents must have helped to accentuate the process of verticalization of the heavy and extensive hips of the Goddess, which were so great as to equal in epistemological status the whole world, as indicated in the third line. The idea is that ponderability and extensiveness could be viewed under two conflicting perspectives, as in the case of conjugates like time and space. Time can devour Space and Space Time, both according to Descartes as well as in the overall context of Einsteinian Space-Time relationships. Res cogitans and res extensa are treated by Descartes as correlates which can interact to absorb or abolish each other. Sankara's own philosophy must have had affinities, however vague, with such views which have come into acceptance in the modern world of science. When time is included in the scheme, we get the notion of a continuum in which both time and space enter as equal partners. It would not be reading too much into the meaning of these verses to suggest that all the implications of the inertial or gravitational field of the Restricted Theory of Relativity of Einstein, as well as the fourth-dimensional perspective of the General Theory of Relativity, are known to Sankara and understood or roughly understood, as evidenced this present verse. We have already indicated that axiomatic and experimental disciplines can be expected one day to meet and verify each other. In the case of this particular verse, without being open to the charge of reading into it more than is there, it would still be quite safe to assert that, basically, the intuitions involved in the theories originating in the context of western science and those already present in Vedanta at least cover the same problems, each in its own particular fashion. In fact, there is a growing tendency among modern scientists to suggest a linking bridge between themselves and Vedanta, Zen Buddhism or ancient Chinese thought based on yang and yin. Oppenheimer, Schroedinger and Niels Bohr have indulged in such references from time to time in their writings. Schroedinger even quotes Sankara and suggests that a methodological and epistemological revision must take place if science is to answer such questions as he puts to himself as he watches the alpine glow on Mt. Blanc. He puts a pointed question about his own personal status if his mother had decided to marry another man. The whole question brings us face to face with the grand process of flux or becoming, in which a personal presence is involved. Time and space, quantity and quality, velocity and energy: all such conjugates begin to create a world of uncertainty, or Maya, as those who have correct visions of it, like Sankara, were able to visualize long ago.
This verse contains a challenge which refuses to be met by any point of view less wholesale than the one natural to Advaita Vedanta, which states, as does Bergson, that the whole of reality is a form of flux in terms of an élan vital (vital impetus). The definition of Sankara conforms essentially to the same eternal process of becoming, which is called anadi bhava rupa (of the form of a beginningless becoming). Heraclitus, whom even Bertrand Russell finds acceptable, also accepts such a flux as the basis of his philosophy. The last two lines of Verse 77 underlined the status of the Goddess here as finally conforming to the flux of Maya. We have been obliged to make these bold general remarks in order to give even some kind of barely consistent meaning to the content of the present verse.
“Ponderability” (gurutvam) must refer to the world of inertia or gravitation. “Extensiveness” (vistaram) must refer to the world of Space understood in the abstract. The words of the first line suggesting a dowry given in anticipation, and the regaining of lightness of substance suggested by the words “prior substantiality”, which is our translation of prag bharah (prag means “anterior”, bharah means “weight”), as applied to the hips of the Goddess here, contain prospective or retrospective elements in reference to the dimension called Time. Thus the verse has necessarily to presuppose, in our eyes, a kind of unified field theory, tacitly understood in broad outline at least, by the penetrating minds of philosophers like Sankara, and which perhaps anticipates some of the further developments and connections likely to take place in the formulation of a unified field theory, which it was the unrealized ambition of Einstein to offer to the scientific world before he died. The same could be said, more or less, of the fate of the great dream of Leibniz of presenting a pattern or characteristic based on a universal form or mathematical language. This was another dream of a great genius that was frustrated.
Let us try to go over the actual words of this verse in the light of these general remarks. We could paraphrase the lines as follows: “Being born of the King of Mountains, who possessed the extensiveness of a massive mountain formation, as well as its ponderability, (because all matter must have the quality of weight), you must have inherited, at the time of separation from your family to go to the family of your husband, this kind of wealth in a form which could combine both quantitative and qualitative aspects”. The peak represents kingship as a unique qualitative characteristic, and so the father did not have to depend on more quantitative or inertial aspects of his personality, because, when the daughter went away, he could expect to become more fully qualitative as a king. This explains the suggestion in the second line that he cut off actual “ponderability and extensiveness” from the lower levels of his own schematized personality. After marriage, in middle age, women tend to put on weight, especially in anticipation of childbirth, by virtue of which weightiness of the hips and breasts becomes accentuated. Here, in Verse 81, where we have descended far into the negative ontological side of the totality of what the Goddess represents, it is the ponderability of the hips with which we are more directly concerned. We must think in terms of more quantitative versions of weight, inertia and Space.
There could be Space-like inertia and weighty inertia. When verticalization and horizontalization are neutralized or balanced against each other, the world itself could be treated in the same way as consisting of Time-like Space or Space-like Time. This could be understood in terms of the Lorentz Transformation and the Fitzgerald Contraction. Thus, when such a revision is applied to the Goddess here, it is quite correct to say that the whole world could be cancelled out by its own counterpart, attributed to the person of the Goddess.
The last line refers to the losing of the weight of what was once heavy. This can be explained by a vertical form of cancellation which can be induced by the influence of the highly austere and pure verticalized principle that Shiva represents, influencing the total situation without being directly involved in it. Vedantic logic would permit prior and posterior substantiality to belong together, as in the context of clay being spoken of as representing the anterior non-existence of the pot.
There are four kinds of non-existence acceptable to the Nyaya school of Indian logic, which are:
- Anterior non-existence (pragabhava),
- Mutual non-existence (anyonyabhava)
- Ultimate non -existence (atyantabhava)
- Absolute non-existence after destruction. (pradhvamsabhava).
Non-existence is known in Tantra Sastra as a padartha (“word content” or “substance”). Abhava (non-existence) is one of the seven padarthas (significant substances) categorized by the Nyaya school; negation being considered as real as minus-one is in mathematics. It is as if one were to get ten oranges from a shop on credit, which would not mean that the debt is not real; it is real in a negative sense.
Such are some of the intricacies of Indian logic, tacitly accepted even by Vedanta, on the basis of which alone this verse can make any cogent meaning at all. The confirmation that we could derive from modern scientific theorization lends support to the same, as we have tried to explain above. Two children in different parts of the world could be seen playing the same game of marbles. This does not mean that one set of boys learned it from the other. We need not, therefore, vainly try to establish any extra credit for one side or the other; to do so would be childish.
(According to Descartes, the two different kinds of substance (in spite of having contradictory properties) somehow combine in a human being. A person comprises: 1. Res cogitans: thinking substance (mind or soul or consciousness) 2. Res extensa: extended substance (body). ED)
("Élan vital" was a term coined by French philosopher Henri Bergson in his 1907 book "Creative Evolution", in which he addresses the question of self-organisation and spontaneous morphogenesis of things in an increasingly complex manner. Elan vital was translated in the English edition as "vital impetus", but is usually translated by his detractors as "vital force". It is a hypothetical explanation for the evolution and development of organisms, which Bergson linked closely with consciousness. ED)
(Lorentz Transformations: the transformations describe how measurements of space and time by two observers are related. They reflect the fact that observers moving at different velocities may measure different distances, elapsed times and even different orderings of events. ED)
(The Fitzgerald Contraction is the physical phenomenon of a decrease in length detected by an observer of objects that travel at any non-zero velocity relative to that observer. This contraction (more formally called Lorentz-Fitzgerald contraction) is usually only noticeable at a substantial fraction of the speed of light; the contraction is only in the direction parallel to the direction in which the observed body is traveling. ED)
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ADDITIONAL COMMENTS WITH STRUCTURAL DIAGRAMS RELATED TO THIS VERSE FROM SAUNDARYA LAHARI/NOTES.
WORD FOR WORD
Gurutvam vistaram - ponderability and extensiveness
Kshiti dhara patih - the earth-supporting Lord
Parvati - o Mountain Daughter
Nijat nitambat acchidya - cutting off from his own proper hips
Tvayi harana rupena - to You by way of dowry
Nidadhe - he bestows
Atah te - this it is (Your)
Vistirno gurur ayam - which is both weighty and expansive
Vishesham - vasumatih - the whole earth
Nitamba pragbarah - by prior substantiality
Sthagayati - cancels
Laghu tvam nayati cha - confers lightness on it also
Gurutvam vistaram - ponderability and extensiveness
Kshiti dhara patih - the earth-supporting Lord
Parvati - o Mountain Daughter
Nijat nitambat acchidya - cutting off from his own proper hips
Tvayi harana rupena - to You by way of dowry
Nidadhe - he bestows
Atah te - this it is (Your)
Vistirno gurur ayam - which is both weighty and expansive
Vishesham - vasumatih - the whole earth
Nitamba pragbarah - by prior substantiality
Sthagayati - cancels
Laghu tvam nayati cha - confers lightness on it also
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Another version:
WORD FOR WORD
Gurutvam vishtaram - heaviness and expansiveness
Kshitidhara patih - the earth-supporting lord
Parvati - O Parvati
Nijat nitambadacchidya - having taken from his own behind part
Tvayi harana rupena - to you as dowry
Nidadhe - gave
Atah te - by reason of this, your
Vistirno gurur ayam - one is expansive and heavy
(Asesam vasumatim - ? not here Nitamba Pragbharah) - the anterior weight of your hips
Sthagayati - is made to shrink
Laghutvam nayati cha - makes it have lightness also.
Gurutvam vishtaram - heaviness and expansiveness
Kshitidhara patih - the earth-supporting lord
Parvati - O Parvati
Nijat nitambadacchidya - having taken from his own behind part
Tvayi harana rupena - to you as dowry
Nidadhe - gave
Atah te - by reason of this, your
Vistirno gurur ayam - one is expansive and heavy
(Asesam vasumatim - ? not here Nitamba Pragbharah) - the anterior weight of your hips
Sthagayati - is made to shrink
Laghutvam nayati cha - makes it have lightness also.
Another version:
TRANSLATION
1 - Heaviness and expansiveness
2 - The earth-supporting Lord, O Parvati
3 - Having taken from his own hind part
4 - To you as dowry
5 - Gave
6 - By reason of this, your
7 - One is expansive and heavy
8 - The anterior weight of your hips (before marriage it is expansive, and after it becomes thin)
9 - Is made to shrink
10 - Make it have lightness also
1 - Heaviness and expansiveness
2 - The earth-supporting Lord, O Parvati
3 - Having taken from his own hind part
4 - To you as dowry
5 - Gave
6 - By reason of this, your
7 - One is expansive and heavy
8 - The anterior weight of your hips (before marriage it is expansive, and after it becomes thin)
9 - Is made to shrink
10 - Make it have lightness also
Eros is a kind of…in this verse..(illegible) the Devi as well as a result of absolute pressure.
The Devi's husband (Shiva) is high Numerator and will not descend.
Eros does the job.
These three bindings are the vertical compensation for the horizontal swelling of the breasts, and prevent the vertical axis from breaking
The Devi's husband (Shiva) is high Numerator and will not descend.
Eros does the job.
These three bindings are the vertical compensation for the horizontal swelling of the breasts, and prevent the vertical axis from breaking
The god gives from his own behind to balance the Denominator (Devi) with the Numerator.
This is like inertia and field quality - like gravitation and the electromagnetic field.
It retains the Numerator for itself and gives also to the Denominator.
By reason of the preciousness of the Devi, Shiva gives the hierophantic, numerator, aspect of himself as dowry - e.g.: the hind part.
This is like inertia and field quality - like gravitation and the electromagnetic field.
It retains the Numerator for itself and gives also to the Denominator.
By reason of the preciousness of the Devi, Shiva gives the hierophantic, numerator, aspect of himself as dowry - e.g.: the hind part.
.
The horizontal piece of ground - horizontalized space - has mass and breadth.
That kind of heaviness which is presupposed (like that of a concierge) is taken away.
The Devi becomes slim - by way of the expansiveness supplied by the Numerator, and the abolished Numerator gives mass and weight to the Denominator.
The horizontal piece of ground - horizontalized space - has mass and breadth.
That kind of heaviness which is presupposed (like that of a concierge) is taken away.
The Devi becomes slim - by way of the expansiveness supplied by the Numerator, and the abolished Numerator gives mass and weight to the Denominator.
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The Denominator meditates on the Numerator and expansiveness is eliminated by reciprocation.
The Himalayas have horizontal expansiveness, but also a qualitative dignity, which is the height of the mountains.
This gives a quantitative aspect to the Devi so that She becomes slim and endowed with high value.
The Devi must have a Numerator factor to balance the Denominator.
This is the secret for wisdom and ultimate salvation.
Men think with their heads, women think with their behinds; the women are right.
The ritual of the Devi corresponds to the world of necessities, i.e. as the cook does not put silver knives into hot water so as not to spoil them.
.
See the structures dealing with necessity and contingency. (Necessity is Denominator, and Contingency is Numerator)
What can save Her is establishing bipolarity with the Numerator: consolation is a one-one correspondence.
"My husband does not pay me or sleep with me, but he is the father of my children"
You accept everything that is necessity, and cancel it with the corresponding Numerator value.
See the structures dealing with necessity and contingency. (Necessity is Denominator, and Contingency is Numerator)
What can save Her is establishing bipolarity with the Numerator: consolation is a one-one correspondence.
"My husband does not pay me or sleep with me, but he is the father of my children"
You accept everything that is necessity, and cancel it with the corresponding Numerator value.
That which has absolute value falls on the vertical axis.
That which is relativistic falls to one side or the other and is confusing (It is horizontal).
Art and beauty are the consolations for the world of necessities.
There are laws laid down somewhere and they provide one-one correspondence.
The emancipated woman is a myth - unless you put Berna to the sword, like Medea in Greek Tragedy.
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(The Guru refers here to the story of Medea and her husband, Jason. In Corinth, Jason abandoned Medea for the king's daughter, Glauce. Medea took her revenge by sending Glauce a dress and golden coronet, covered in poison. This resulted in the deaths of both the princess and the king when he went to save her. Medea continued her revenge, murdering her two children by Jason. Afterward, she left Corinth and flew to Athens in a golden chariot driven by dragons sent by her grandfather Helios, god of the sun. ED)
(Berna was a female disciple of the Guru's in Belgium. ED)
Vedanta says: "Don't kill anybody - cancel the Numerator and the Denominator.
You can be like Medea, or you can follow the laws of necessity and contingency as laid down in Vedanta.
All necessities vanish when you know the Absolute - "the truth shall make you free" etc.
Proper conduct will often clear confusion.
(Similarly with Feng Shui: improper architecture at the place of business will upset the storekeeper: a Chinese sage will come to the failing business and say: "that door is in the wrong place, let me move it here" and the business succeeds from then on. Every detail must be correct).
All proper meditation is erotic, anyone who says that it is not so does not know what he is talking about
Parvati's hips are heavy - they are like Space or inertia.
Shiva's hips are thin and Time-like.
Shiva's hips are thin and Time-like.
There is transformation and contraction here à la Einstein, Lorentz, Fitzgerald - see the commentary on previous verses.
A certain negativity and heaviness descends here as conferred by the Numerator.
Weight and extensiveness are three-dimensional when they come to Parvati, but they are fourth-dimensional when we are dealing with Shiva.
They are again absorbed into higher mathematics.
The Devi's hips are a greater obstruction and hide the concrete world below: then by meditating on Shiva she ascends and the heavy hips gain a lightness as far as the Devi is concerned.
SAUNDARYA LAHARI - VERSE 82
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SAUNDARYA LAHARI
VERSE 82
BALANCE BETWEEN NUMERATOR AND DENOMINATOR
करीन्द्राणां शुण्डान्-कनककदली-काण्डपटलीं
उभाभ्यामूरुभ्या-मुभयमपि निर्जित्य भवति ।
सुवृत्ताभ्यां पत्युः प्रणतिकठिनाभ्यां गिरिसुते
विधिज्ञे जानुभ्यां विबुध करिकुम्भ द्वयमसि
उभाभ्यामूरुभ्या-मुभयमपि निर्जित्य भवति ।
सुवृत्ताभ्यां पत्युः प्रणतिकठिनाभ्यां गिरिसुते
विधिज्ञे जानुभ्यां विबुध करिकुम्भ द्वयमसि
karindranam sundan kanaka kadali kanda patalim
ubhabhyam urubhyam ubhayam api nirjitya bhavati
suvrttabhyam patyuh pranati kadhinabhyam giri sute
vidhijne janubhyam vibudha kari kumbha dvayam api
ubhabhyam urubhyam ubhayam api nirjitya bhavati
suvrttabhyam patyuh pranati kadhinabhyam giri sute
vidhijne janubhyam vibudha kari kumbha dvayam api
Beating both the best of elephant trunks, and groups of golden banana stems,
By thighs and by knees having goodly callosities, due to daily devotions
To Your Lord, even the twin frontal knobs of the heavenly elephant
You outdo, o Mountain Daughter triumphant.
By thighs and by knees having goodly callosities, due to daily devotions
To Your Lord, even the twin frontal knobs of the heavenly elephant
You outdo, o Mountain Daughter triumphant.
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In Verse 82 it is the thigh and leg region which is the locus around which we have to put three circles in order to fix the correct perspective to appreciate the overwhelming beauty factor of this series of verses.
It is comparatively easier to describe the beauty of the face or eyes, because we naturally turn to facial features when disposed to admire women. We have now systematically descended from the ruby-hood of the gem-set crown of the Goddess; through the parted hair to the forehead, and further descended beyond the navel to arrive at the region below the hips, but not yet reaching down fully to the feet. Beauty is not of a conceptual order any more. Concepts, if any, have to be put into the beauty by us. Within the domain of experience we have also to find an analogy that will interpret for us the nature of the Absolute Beauty, which is always arrived at only after transcending duality or paradox. There is an ascending as well as a descending dialectical approach which, when employed together, will enable us to dissolve the paradox. Paradox, if allowed to exist, can vitiate the picture by showing the ambivalence and duality revealed, as it were, threadbare throughout the fabric which is otherwise meant to be of a uniform texture.
The first-dimensional context here has to present us with a sufficiently realistic picture, within the framework of which, apparent dualities are permissible for purposes of clarification, in order to bring out the underlying unity later on when deeper abstractions could be allowed in a serial succession.
Thus it is that we see a reference in this verse to two familiar organic growths in nature. One of them is the trunk of an elephant, and the other is banana tree with a very polished and heavy stem that tapers beautifully upward, with a glossy golden surface that is also natural to the thighs of a beautiful woman. It is better for a beautiful woman's thighs to err on the side of strength, by which her gait and stability could be made steady and firmly established. Weakness, even in such muscular qualities, cannot be considered anything other than a liability factor in the context of beauty. The suppleness of the elephant's trunk would give it a prehensile form of strength by which it could uproot strongly planted trees, such as the banana tree here. The voluntary and involuntary muscles that cooperate in the making of a firm and beautiful thigh region have thus to be thought of in an ambivalent two-sided fashion. Afferent as well as efferent nervous impulses have to work together if the Goddess is to have a dignified and decisive gait. It is not the quality of one elephant trunk or of one banana tree that we have to keep in mind here. We have to abstract the two required qualities of beauty from many trees and many elephant trunks. Thus, there will be an outer polish and an inner strength conferring beauty and stability upon this region, which is more existential in its value than theoretical. The golden stem mentioned here is a colourful reference to the complexion, while deeper factors are not omitted.
The second half of the verse adds another and deeper significance to the legs, whose two parts meet at the kneecap. Beauty in a Goddess comes to her not just because she is beautiful physically; her mental disposition must also contain the same beauty in a sufficiently dignified form. What is such a beauty that could apply to the physical limbs, standing, as it were, on the existential side? The body as a mortal coil is not dignified enough for high philosophical contemplation. What is it good for, then, in the context of absolute Beauty, except to somehow contribute to the glorification of a high numerator factor implied in the total value of the Absolute? The Bhagavad Gita mentions that we could practice contemplation even by means of the body. In other words, we can press into service an inert lump of flesh called the body, however low it might be in a scale of spirituality, in order to somehow glorify the Absolute. According to the Bhagavad Gita, one could make one´s body serve spiritual purposes, as best it can, by cultivating straightforwardness or calmness, failing which, it could be made to worship wise men or spiritual teachers, including whatever divinities one is capable of revering, by prostrations, etc. Otherwise, the body would prove itself a hindrance to contemplation. The Goddess here, in the last line, is referred to as being one who is fully aware of inevitable obligations.
A sannyasi might protest against all obligations and say to himself, “I am a wise man, and I am above all obligatory duties, which are only meant for less evolved souls than myself”. There is a subtle lacuna or hiatus in this kind of attitude by which the necessary forms of action in which human life is caught, whether one likes it or not, are not given normal importance. Breathing is a necessary function, and even if one has become very wise it would be wrong to forget to breathe. What is necessary cannot be bypassed by mere omission. One has to sublimate one´s instinctive dispositions by gradations of normal activities and not by refusing to recognize their presence in one´s system. Yoga is a process by which obligations are first recognized as necessary and then transcended by a form of sublimating practice. One cannot live in a vacuum, and the Goddess here is fully aware of this verity, which the Bhagavad Gita makes unequivocally clear throughout its various chapters referring to action and inaction. The last chapter refers to the difference between a tyagi (a renouncer) and a sannyasi (a man who claims to do without the obligatory ritualism of the Vedas).
The Devi here puts her legs to proper use, according to herself, and is represented as having developed beautiful circular callosities on her knees, which indicates that she must have been kneeling and praying to her Lord, Shiva, secretly every day for long periods. The callosities here are supposed to be beauty spots, as are the golden pot-like rounded breasts which were referred to earlier. The knees are beautiful in their own way, at a lower level of human existence which is steeped in necessities. Between a contingent form of the practice of devotion, such as muttering charms, and the necessary form of the same practice of devotion, there is a subtle form of qualitative difference. A large quantity of small change is required to equal a gold coin. If the post office does not sell a one-dollar stamp, one will be obliged to buy many stamps of lesser value.
The thighs of the Goddess would not be performing any contemplative function at all if they were not given some proper work to do. If words have a rich spiritual value, actions also have a value, but with the difference that, while understanding is like gold, physical actions are of an inferior grade compared to the gold. They could be said to be like an iron city rather than a golden or silver city, in terms of the three cities of values destroyed by Shiva when he descended from Chidambaram. When the callosities gain, from the number of times Parvati kneels in praise of Shiva as a concept, they can add up to infinity. Then the numerator Shiva-value and the value represented by the beauty of the callosities would cancel each other out, revealing the non-dual value of the Absolute. It is in this sense that the frontal knobs of the elephant are outdone by the callosities on the legs of the Goddess. The justification for such a correspondence between the two sets of rounded protuberances has already been suggested as early as Verse 7, where the frontal bulges of a calf elephant are referred to as analogously equivalent in beauty to the maidenly breasts of a young girl. The metaphor might seem to be rather far-fetched and mixed up, unless it is seen in the light of the importance of recognizing the totality of the value of the Absolute, of which only a structural analysis can reveal the component relational factors.
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(The Sanskrit term "Chidambaram" means: "chit" - consciousness and "ambara" - which means "ether", in the sense of "The highly attenuated matter supposed to occupy the heavenly space above our atmosphere". ED)
ADDITIONAL COMMENTS WITH STRUCTURAL DIAGRAMS RELATED TO THIS VERSE FROM SAUNDARYA LAHARI/NOTES.
WORD FOR WORD
Karindranam sundan - with the trunks of the best of elephants
Kanaka kadali kanda patalim - like the gold stems of a group of banana trees
Ubhabhyam urubhyam - by the two thighs
Ubhayam api nirjitya - having won over both, transcending
Bhavati suvrtta abhyam - you one full of good life story
Patyuh pranati kathina abhyam - who has become hard (with callosity) by prostration to the husband
Giri sute - o daughter of the mountain
Vidhijne - one who knows the correctness of actions (ritual or not)
Karindranam sundan - with the trunks of the best of elephants
Kanaka kadali kanda patalim - like the gold stems of a group of banana trees
Ubhabhyam urubhyam - by the two thighs
Ubhayam api nirjitya - having won over both, transcending
Bhavati suvrtta abhyam - you one full of good life story
Patyuh pranati kathina abhyam - who has become hard (with callosity) by prostration to the husband
Giri sute - o daughter of the mountain
Vidhijne - one who knows the correctness of actions (ritual or not)
This verse describes the lower part of the body.
In the Sanskrit tradition you start at the head and work down.
In the Sanskrit tradition you start at the head and work down.
In the previous verse, fatness is found in the hips of Shiva, but he gives it to the Devi and through adoration, she remains slim.
In this verse, the Devi's knees are compared to the callosity on the elephant's forehead - they are not beautiful, because she is kneeling down in accordance with Vedic rites.
(Example of a fat women at the Hare Krishna temple.)
Parvati does not omit her puja (worship), and thus her knees are hard, but by nature Her thighs are tender and polished like banana stems.
But, ever remaining a queen, she puts herself into relationship with the Numerator through devotion and pujas.
These hundred verses are constructed... (?)
.
Another version. in the Guru's own hand and fragmentary:
TRANSLATION
Like the trunks of the best (chief) of Indra's elephants - rough and supple - like the gold stems of a pair of banana trees,
"... polished and golden by the two thighs, having won over both
transcending both of these analogies and r.... (raised ?) in roughness at the knees...
....Good stories of the life activities of the husband...
...which has become hard because of daily prostrations continued for a long time.
Necessity by absolute contingencies in proper order and system.
...daughter of the mountain who knows everything which is ordained in the scriptures.
By the two knees (or kneecaps)
You have transcended elephant knobs (by that holy elephant of Indra).
(the two knobs of necessity (knees) are transcended )"
"... polished and golden by the two thighs, having won over both
transcending both of these analogies and r.... (raised ?) in roughness at the knees...
....Good stories of the life activities of the husband...
...which has become hard because of daily prostrations continued for a long time.
Necessity by absolute contingencies in proper order and system.
...daughter of the mountain who knows everything which is ordained in the scriptures.
By the two knees (or kneecaps)
You have transcended elephant knobs (by that holy elephant of Indra).
(the two knobs of necessity (knees) are transcended )"
The callosity on the knees represents Beauty as the Universal Concrete.
The value of the knobs on the elephant's head is this Beauty.
The value of the knobs on the elephant's head is this Beauty.
Here, the poet is describing all that happens to the Denominator aspect of the Absolute (Her thighs and knees) - while she has not forgotten the Numerator (Her devotion to Shiva).
We have started with realistic imagery and it is carried on throughout the text.
Without the connection with the Numerator, the Devi will go mad.
Abstract and generalize, in other words, schematize.
"Make a green book into the Universal Concrete - think of greenness."
(In other words, take the actual, individual book and abstract and generalize. There is green-ness in general and the universal idea of bookish-ness. This is the methodology by which science proceeds - science and philosophy are a process of abstraction and generalisation. ED)
Why should the Devi prostrate?
The callosity on the knees represents the Universal Concrete.
We have in this verse Beauty as a Universal Concrete - as abstract value represented by a concrete colour.
The same grade of epistemology is used throughout.
(In other words, every verse uses the same methodology to reach understanding - the understanding that is Brahma Vidya, the Science of the Absolute, which is the purpose of Vedanta. Structuralism is used to find the truth. ED)
(The above structure has no accompanying text and is unclear. ED)
Obligations come at the knee level. The lower level need not be cancelled by the higher: the knee level can co-exist with the highest philosophy.
The kneeling does not hurt her, but only glorifies her, she knows the way of behaviour proper to a good family.
The kneeling does not hurt her, but only glorifies her, she knows the way of behaviour proper to a good family.
(Verse 100 is an error - the verse referred to is Verse 90:
"Giving riches to the needy as required and of its store of honey
Distributing plentifully sweetness around; into such a beauty
Of the celestial blossom of Your feet, immersed altogether,
Let my life go merged with legs and inner organs into six-footed bee-hood."
See structure below. ED)
The Absolute Devi kneels even if there is no need: she verticalizes herself.
Verticality can depend on straightforward affiliation.
The breasts are like an elephant's forehead bumps.
The knee callosities are also elephant bumps
- when she prays there is a reciprocity between the three pairs.
The knee callosities are also elephant bumps
- when she prays there is a reciprocity between the three pairs.
Keep close to the vertical axis, where Absolute Values reside - ignore silly problems, which tend to confuse and mislead.
Deal with Absolutes and establish a proper one-one correspondence.
Proper methodology means correct priorities and precedence.
Reciprocity and ambivalence must be respected.
The structuralism of Eddington is the same kind of system as Sankara's - i.e. any mathematical formula can be represented structurally.
(Eddington's structuralism has been explained several times in this commentary, but here it is again:
From A. Eddington, Nobel prize-winner in Physics, we have an example of the quaternion structure used by Nataraja Guru:
THE FOUR LIMBS OF THE QUATERNION:
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 a virtual man can sit; much like a mirror reflection.
3. The Alpha Point chair, the form of the chair generalised,
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 Nataraja Guru:
The basic structural terms assigned to their respective levels:
Ambivalence - the first level, the actual, Subrahmaniam and Ganesha are ambivalent.
Reciprocity - the second level; Saraswati and Lakshmi.
Complementarity - the third level, the Devi with callosities on her knees from kneeling in devotion to Shiva - she wants to establish the final cancellation with Shiva, here, she is his complementary counterpart.
Cancellation - the fourth level, the final operation - Shiva and Shakti are united.
Parity - refers to the horizontal alone; bilateral symmetry.
(These terms used by Nataraja Guru, are applied to the mythological deities which appear in the Saundarya Lahari and are there used as protolinguistic factors. They are also fully valid as part of the terminology of Physics and Science in general. The Saundarya Lahari is not a mere mythological poem but a compendium of structural methodology, as applied to the Science of the Absolute (Brahma Vidya). ED)
STRUCTURALISM: SOME SHORT NOTES FROM NATARAJA GURU, TO BE FOUND IN SAUNDAYA LAHARI/NOTES:
Structuralism is the highest function of the human mind.
Marbles ricocheting off one another are horizontal; a lake inside a lake, a cup inside a cup are vertical.
Horizontally viewed, one second can become a thousand years; vertically viewed, one thousand years can become one second.
(H. Bergson)
The vertical axis is happiness, the horizontal axis is suffering.
The structure of woman reveals the structure of the negative aspect of man, his psyche. Add the numerator to this feminine structure and you get the whole picture.
Transportation, e.g. a truck carrying a load of stones, is horizontal.
Transmission, e.g. of radio waves, is vertical.
Three causes and effects:
1. A billiard ball striking another is horizontal.
2. The unwinding of a clockwork gramophone is vertical
3. An explosion is horizontal
(The fourth, which includes all these, is consciousness. ED)
The elephant uproots a banana tree.
The callosities on the Devi's knees are due to prayer.
"A real woman worships her husband and not God" - Kural (Tamil scripture)
This takes place in the world of obligations and necessity; include everything and do not be an upstart and a cheap fellow.
Her thighs are elephant trunks from the Numerator downwards, and banana plants from the Denominator upwards.
("Firmly supporting" means planted). The two tendencies cancel out.
The frontal bumps of the elephant are brought in as a Numerator factor to cancel against the Denominator callosities.
The Devi can be constructed of horizontal lines at different levels, but she will fall apart without the vertical correlating principle of Shiva.
Without Shiva there is no Shakti (Devi).
.
.
SAUNDARYA LAHARI - VERSE 83
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SAUNDARYA LAHARI
VERSE 83
THE UNIVERSAL CONCRETE IS HERE RECOGNIZED
पराजेतुं रुद्रं द्विगुणशरगर्भौ गिरिसुते
निषङ्गौ जङ्घे ते विषमविशिखो बाढ-मकृत ।
यदग्रे दृस्यन्ते दशशरफलाः पादयुगली
नखाग्रच्छन्मानः सुर मुकुट-शाणैक-निशिताः
parajetum rudram dviguna sara garbhau girisute
nisangau janghe te visama visikho batham akrta
yad agre drsantye dasa sara phalah pada yugali
nakhagra cchadmanas suramakuta sanaika nisitah
nisangau janghe te visama visikho batham akrta
yad agre drsantye dasa sara phalah pada yugali
nakhagra cchadmanas suramakuta sanaika nisitah
His quiver duplicating as Your twin legs, looking like pillars
Made by the God of Love, for giving battle to Shiva,
They show at their knees ten arrowheads, simulating nails,
Sharpened only on the whetstones which are the crowns of gods.
Made by the God of Love, for giving battle to Shiva,
They show at their knees ten arrowheads, simulating nails,
Sharpened only on the whetstones which are the crowns of gods.
.
This verse marks the close of a descending series started as early as Verse 42. The next verse contains a tacit signature which has to be added to the four or five others that we have pointed out already under Verse 75. Here the locus of beauty to be kept in mind is the brightness of the nails showing from beneath the feet of the Goddess. The absolute status of the Beauty of these shining nails emerges from the fact that they are to be sharpened exclusively on the crowns of the god, on the numerator side. These gods could be ten in number so that each nail could have one crown for its whetstone. A whetstone has to be harder than the instrument it whets, or at least, equal in hardness. One cannot cut glass with a piece of soap. In point of hardness, therefore, there is implied here a one-to-one correspondence between the crowns and the toenails of the Goddess. When factors of beauty are cancelled out from head to foot, a certain totality of beauty emerges, which, for the present, is the natural terminus of this series of descending Chakras.
It might be asked why Kama sharpens the ten toenails. The answer is contained in the second line: it is to give battle to Shiva. It might again be asked where the ten gods range on the numerator side. They are only demiurges, for the toenails representing the arrowheads of Kama do not require the unique Omega Point of intensity or hardness to be effectively sharpened. His arrows are not stern enough stuff to really vanquish Shiva, except on an occasion when Shiva descends somewhat from the height of his own proper Omega Point. Such an occasion does not ordinarily take place. The crowns of the demiurge-gods are hard enough to sharpen the arrows of Kama sufficiently for operations within the lesser value system to which he belongs. Below the level of the nails are the soles of the Goddess´ feet which are going to be referred to in Verse 84.
Thus, for the purposes of this verse, the one-to-one cancellation takes place between the sharpness of the toenails, as a denominator factor, and the numerator factor of the hardness of' the whetstones which are the crowns of the gods. Such are some of' the overall features which we have to keep in mind before examining the further details of this verse.
In the previous verse, the reference came as far down as the legs, to the beautifully rounded knee region. The legs and feet below the knee region are compared to duplicated pillar-like quivers within which the arrows stand upside down and not in a position ready to be used directly against Shiva, who is placed at the Omega Point by us for the sake of structural consistency. This inversion is not due to any oversight. In a magnet, positive lines of force and negative lines of force face in contrary directions. The five toes have five arrowheads; this is meant to suggest that there is a fivefold structure on which the human body is built.
Sankara elsewhere refers to this plan, based on two sets of five tiers of duplicated fives, making one hundred. When these are thought of as flames or fires, they reveal the implied structure referred to as pancagni vidya (the secret knowledge of the fivefold fires), which Nachiketas is to learn from the God of Death in the Katha Upanishad, as one of the lesser wisdom secrets in addition to full-fledged brahmavidya. With this lesser secret knowledge, the God of Death intends to dissuade Nachiketas from asking for the last boon of absolute wisdom. Sankara builds up an eightfold ensemble of cities built on a fivefold plan, consisting of five functions, such as speech, etc, five functions, such as hearing, etc. five vital functions, five chief points of the compass (including the upward one), intelligence, with its five subdivisions, the fivefold desires, the corresponding fivefold ignorances and the fivefold tendencies to action, forming eight cities built on a five-fold plan, which, when added to the 100 already given, gives us the 108 syllables of Aum, which are to be repeated when we have to remember gurus, worshippable saints or gods.
Here, when we come to the lower levels of action at least, there is the duplication of the left and right legs, which can be abolished if we turn the structure by 180 degrees. The question of whether each arrowhead needs the separate crown of a distinct god could be kept open, because there is no specific reference to such duplication on the numerator side.
The first line further refers to the lower part of the legs as pillars. Stable support for the body is the chief function of this lower half of the leg, justifying this analogy. The pillars are described as “made by the God of Love”. In what sense is eroticism interested in making pillars for the body? Activity means movement, and erotic persons have to seek their mates, male or female, in a place other than the one in which they find themselves. Thus, the organ of locomotion has a direct bearing on the function of eroticism in its most basic sense. But true eroticism is not of this basic kind. It contains verticalized inner principles of attraction and repulsion within the peripheral or horizontal outer shell.
It is in the brightness of the nails that the existence of these arrows pointing negatively downward could be discerned, because they are hardly visible to a superficial view of the legs. The arrowheads are said, in the third line, to be more real than the nails. The nails are only real in a two-dimensional sense, but the arrowheads are real in a three-dimensional sense and could even attain to a fourth-dimensional absolutist status when their one-sided brightness is increased by being whetted on their own proper counterparts, the crowns of gods. A three-dimensionally real arrow needs to be whetted upon a more than three-dimensionally hard crown to increase its brilliance and to make it tend, by such a cancellation, toward the Absolute Beauty that is to result from this situation. It is true that the nails are hard, but the arrowheads are harder. They can only be whetted on something harder than themselves, approaching the ultimate hardness of a diamond.
All these grades of hardness belong to the context of a universal concrete hardness in an absolute overall sense, so as to be fitted without inconsistency into the highly ontologically-biased picture of bright beauty that is still presented in this, the last verse of the series.
The second line of our translation underlines the fact that it is the God of Love who is responsible for making the two pillars out of the legs of the Goddess. Man is a two-legged animal. Procreation of his kind is for him a basic function, and Kama is the presiding deity for such a function. He is an absolute in his own domain, as far as it can reach upward, but his arrows cannot always fly high and vertically enough to defeat Shiva.
God, in trying to create the brightest and most beautiful part of a woman's body, is said by Kalidasa to have lavished his greatest artistic ability on creating that unique heel of Parvati, who is depicted as walking to a lake so that she could stand in water for forty days to prove her love for Shiva. Shiva's heart can only be conquered by such unique and absolute devotion. In another sense, therefore, we could say that the stability and beauty of the legs of Parvati were conferred by the creator of beauty itself. The heel and the sole do not yet figure in this verse; it must be for that reason that the two pillars and their stability are represented as being the handiwork of the God of Love, Kama. In the next verse we shall pass on to the deeper implications of the feet of the Goddess.
The force of the word “solely” in the last line of this verse is justified because the one-to-one correspondence between the arrowheads of Kama and the rows of gods attains to a self-sufficient cancellability, which marks the limits within which erotic tendencies can live and move. A more verticalized version, as in Verse 84, would put Kama out of commission altogether. There, instead of Shiva as a target for Eros´ arrows, we have Sankara as a student of wisdom presented as a supplicant at the Alpha Point. From Verse 84 through to the end of the work it is the sole of the feet touching its lowermost limit, reaching even into the subhuman world that comes into the various pictures presented. The wisdom supplicant is directly referred to in the next verse as well as in Verse 98, while the intervening verses are meant to clarify further structural implications.
.
ADDITIONAL COMMENTS WITH STRUCTURAL DIAGRAMS RELATED TO THIS VERSE FROM SAUNDARYA LAHARI/NOTES.
WORD FOR WORD
Parajetum rudram - to give battle to Shiva
Dviguna shara garbhau giri sute - his quiver duplicated, O Mountain Daughter
Nishangau - (they are) a pair of pillars
Janghe te - these legs of Yours
Vishama vishikoh - the one of keen arrows (Eros)
Batham akrta - he surely made
Yad agre - at their tips
Drshyante - they are seen
Dasha shara phalah - ten arrowheads
Pada yugali nakha agra cchadmanas - simulating the toenails of the twin feet
Surama kuta snaika nishitaha - sharpened solely on whetstones which are the crowns of gods.
Parajetum rudram - to give battle to Shiva
Dviguna shara garbhau giri sute - his quiver duplicated, O Mountain Daughter
Nishangau - (they are) a pair of pillars
Janghe te - these legs of Yours
Vishama vishikoh - the one of keen arrows (Eros)
Batham akrta - he surely made
Yad agre - at their tips
Drshyante - they are seen
Dasha shara phalah - ten arrowheads
Pada yugali nakha agra cchadmanas - simulating the toenails of the twin feet
Surama kuta snaika nishitaha - sharpened solely on whetstones which are the crowns of gods.
Another version:
WORD FOR WORD
Parajetum rudram - to defeat Rudra
Dvi guna saragarbhau - filling the two quivers, receptacles, doubly
Girisute - o daughter of Giri (the mountain)
Nisanghau (te) - two pillars of yours
Janghe te - your two lower legs
Visama visikho - the one of tragic flame (Eros, libido)
Badham akrta - surely he made
Yad agre - at their tips
Drsyante - are seen
Dasa sara phala - the ten arrow heads
Pada yugali nakha gracchad manah - having the semblance of the nails of the two feet
Suramakuta sanaika nisitah - sharpened well on the whetstones consisting of the crowns of gods.
Parajetum rudram - to defeat Rudra
Dvi guna saragarbhau - filling the two quivers, receptacles, doubly
Girisute - o daughter of Giri (the mountain)
Nisanghau (te) - two pillars of yours
Janghe te - your two lower legs
Visama visikho - the one of tragic flame (Eros, libido)
Badham akrta - surely he made
Yad agre - at their tips
Drsyante - are seen
Dasa sara phala - the ten arrow heads
Pada yugali nakha gracchad manah - having the semblance of the nails of the two feet
Suramakuta sanaika nisitah - sharpened well on the whetstones consisting of the crowns of gods.
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Another version:
TRANSLATION
- To defeat Rudra (Shiva, the hypostatic function)
- Filling the two arrow receptacles (quivers) doubly (referring to the lower part of the legs - a reference to Eros
- five arrows in each of the quivers)
- O Daughter of the Himalayas
- Like two pillars the two pillars are yours)
- Your two lower legs
- The one of tragic flame (Eros- libido)
- Surely he made these arrows
- At their tips
- Are seen (there is seen)
- The ten arrow heads
- Having the semblance of the nails of the two feet
- Sharpened well on the whetstone (solely by these crowns) consisting of the crowns of Devas
- Filling the two arrow receptacles (quivers) doubly (referring to the lower part of the legs - a reference to Eros
- five arrows in each of the quivers)
- O Daughter of the Himalayas
- Like two pillars the two pillars are yours)
- Your two lower legs
- The one of tragic flame (Eros- libido)
- Surely he made these arrows
- At their tips
- Are seen (there is seen)
- The ten arrow heads
- Having the semblance of the nails of the two feet
- Sharpened well on the whetstone (solely by these crowns) consisting of the crowns of Devas
This is equivalent to the wife sharpening her wits on various professors and psychologists to defeat her husband.
The Devi's legs: actually he is describing the calves and not the thighs - see previous verse.
The Devi's legs: actually he is describing the calves and not the thighs - see previous verse.
The psyche is being structurally analyzed - the psyche means a woman.
Shiva has no mathematical equivalent.
Shiva has no mathematical equivalent.
A woman is a complete psyche.
The Devi is against Shiva's nominalism :
"I am the creative principle - I will not allow you to evaporate".
(Nominalism is a metaphysical view in philosophy according to which general or abstract terms and predicates exist, while universals or abstract objects, which are sometimes thought to correspond to these terms, do not exist. ED)
If you want to send arrows, they must be sharp.
She sharpens her arrows on the crowns of demigods.
The sharp arrows of destruction correspond to the flames on Shiva's crown, to defeat Rudra.
There are two legs - vertical copulation is referred to.
In any case the arrows are ineffectual against Shiva, as a sort of hydrogen principle.
(Hydrogen is the lightest element and the most abundant chemical substance. ED)
The arrowheads are harder than the crowns of the Devas.
In Verse 83 we find:
Selectionism
Structuralism
Subjectivism
Selectionism
Structuralism
Subjectivism
(Selectionism: a system or theory based on the doctrine of natural, artificial, or social selection.
Structuralism is the dialectical methodology adopted in this work.
Subjectivism is the philosophical tenet that "our own mental activity is the only unquestionable fact of our experience",
cf. Descartes. ED)
.
Back to back is vertical;
belly to belly is horizontal.
The toenails are arrowheads which are sharpened on the whetstones which are the crowns of gods.
Here poetic fancy overleaps itself.
The head of the total situation is a hydrogen or helium flame which can sharpen her nails.
Again, there is cancellation between Numerator and Denominator factors.
"Make a quiver into pillars into legs with arrowheads."
Let Eros not find a place to sharpen them, until he finds the crowns of gods.
There is an inversion between the feet and the crowns, like the hanging man in the Tarot.
There is a polarity between the ontological richness of the Devi's feet on the negative side and the positive teleological richness of the gods' crowns.
This is a vertical inversion in grades of ambivalent values.
Let there be no distinction within the Absolute; this is an axiomatic truth.
The arrowheads are aimed at Shiva.
SAUNDARYA LAHARI - VERSE 84
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SAUNDARYA LAHARI
VERSE 84
THE CANCELLABILITY OF VERTICAL LIMITS
श्रुतीनां मूर्धानो दधति तव यौ शेखरतया
ममाप्येतौ मातः शेरसि दयया देहि चरणौ ।
ययओः पाद्यं पाथः पशुपति जटाजूट तटिनी
ययो-र्लाक्षा-लक्ष्मी-ररुण हरिचूडामणि रुचिः
ममाप्येतौ मातः शेरसि दयया देहि चरणौ ।
ययओः पाद्यं पाथः पशुपति जटाजूट तटिनी
ययो-र्लाक्षा-लक्ष्मी-ररुण हरिचूडामणि रुचिः
srutinam murdhano dadhati tava yau sekharataya
mamapyetau matah sirasi dayaya dhehi caranau
yayoh padyam pathah pasupati jata juta tatini
yayorlaksa laksmir arunahari cudamani rucih
mamapyetau matah sirasi dayaya dhehi caranau
yayoh padyam pathah pasupati jata juta tatini
yayorlaksa laksmir arunahari cudamani rucih
Mother, Your twin feet, marking as they do the crest point of scriptural wisdom,
Wearable as head ornament by You as by me, kindly place both upon my head
Water for their ablution comes from the stream in Shiva's matted hair
And the red paste on their sole comes from the magenta glory of Vishnu´s crown
Wearable as head ornament by You as by me, kindly place both upon my head
Water for their ablution comes from the stream in Shiva's matted hair
And the red paste on their sole comes from the magenta glory of Vishnu´s crown
.
In Verse 84 there is a verticalized transposition of points of value references, all placed in the vertical axis. The limbs of an equation can be transposed from the right to the left or vice-versa without changing the value of the truth involved in the equation. Here, the feet of the previous verse, which stopped short at the level of the nails within the circle forming the domain proper to Eros, are further viewed from the bottom and are meant to be transformed vertically upward. Lesser values are interposed, which necessarily must have a vertical dimension, however short, successively pushed and displaced upward, so as to make the soles of the feet correspond either to the top of the crown on the head or still further to an even higher level beyond the crown. In other words, the feet could be placed adjustably at whatever level one likes to put them in the vertical scale. In passing from the bottom-most limit of the Alpha Point, one could imagine the pair of feet with magenta paste on their soles being promoted to the O Point of the total situation, which belongs to the Vishnu context of preservation, as justified in the second verse. It is a magenta glory that represents the value pushed still higher toward the Omega Point and beyond the jeweled crown representing conventional theological values of the order of the world of Indra, still relativistic and hedonistic in status.
The crest-point of scriptural wisdom, referred to in the first line of this verse, is where those values terminate and truly absolutist values prevail. These values refer to the highest teachings of the Vedantic wisdom contained in the Upanishads, covering both Veda and Vedanta, here referred to as sruti (wisdom heard directly from a guru). The value of such wisdom is so high that it is considered worthy of being an ornament to any Goddess we could imagine, including the Goddess of this series of verses. Sankara seems to want to place his own head underneath this ornament representing the highest possible watermark of wisdom values. The crest-jewel of wisdom could be worn by any real aspirant for wisdom, to which context Sankara here implies that he himself belongs; as well as by any imaginable Goddess of a theological context. The short phrase “as by me” justifies our thinking that Sankara wishes to substitute himself for whatever Goddess has been dealt with so far in these verses, for purposes of discourse or discussion. This shows that a theological deity is not important for him.
The “both” here refers not to the crown but to the feet transposed in approximation to the Omega Point. These feet have to be washed by some kind of pure or sacred water that is placed still higher in the scale of values, which here are the little streams originating in the matted hair of Shiva, the source of the heavenly Ganges. From Sankara's use of such water in the present context could be seen, in our eyes, the need for linking together in a descending order the different levels of value through which the feet have been raised. The heavenly Ganges is a streak of value that descends to earth to benefit mortals situated horizontally here below. In mythology it is represented as a thin stream descending out of the matted hair of Shiva. Without the obstruction offered by the matted hair, the flood would be too powerful and would endanger the safety of the world itself. That is the idea under reference here.
Thus after passing the crest-jewel of wisdom, the ablution waters derived from the heavenly Ganges could continue to descend, washing against the ruby-coloured crest jewel of the lower, Vishnu, system of values, and finally benefiting mankind in a more humble and earthly sense. The prayer requesting both the feet to be placed on the head of the supplicant gives this verse a touch of realistic intimacy, and confers upon the Absolute, not an idealistic status, as some scholars tend to think, but one that respects ontological realism to its fullest extent.
If there is one doctrine which is dear to the teaching of Vedanta as authoritatively contained in the Brahma Sutras, it is this respect for the ontological concreteness of the Absolute, which is not to be mixed up with idealism such as that of Plato or of the Buddhist Vijnanavadins. Both of the feet are equally real, marking respectively the lower and the higher limits, where ontology begins and teleological axiology ends.
Our guess in the previous verse that the twin feet could be fused into one crown if necessary, seems to be confirmed by the indication here that the crown represents twin feet on the numerator side.
Twin-ness represents the last vestige of parity. It is a horizontal structural feature and, when transformed into its own verticalized version with an Omega Point for reference, it abolishes its own bilateral parity in terms of a higher form of axial symmetry. Right-handedness and left-handedness in this axial symmetry could be considered possible because it is no longer bilateral. From this verse onward we pass on to other subtler features of nominalism and structuralism treated together, the peculiarities of which we shall presently examine.
.
ADDITIONAL COMMENTS WITH STRUCTURAL DIAGRAMS RELATED TO THIS VERSE FROM SAUNDARYA LAHARI/NOTES.
In this verse top and bottom are interchangeable.
WORD FOR WORD
Shrutinam murdhano - the crest point of scriptural wisdom
Dadhati - they indicate
Tava yau - those two of Yours
Shekha rataya mam api - by being crest jewels as for me also
Etau - such these (two)
Matah - o Mother
Shirasi dayaya dhehi - kindly place upon my head
Charanau yayoh - the feet for which
Padyam pathah - ablution water
Pashu pati jata juta tatini - is the brook in Shiva's matted hair
Yayoh laksha lakshmir - for which too, the red paste glory
Aruna hari chudamani ruchih - is the magenta glory of Vishnu's crown
Shrutinam murdhano - the crest point of scriptural wisdom
Dadhati - they indicate
Tava yau - those two of Yours
Shekha rataya mam api - by being crest jewels as for me also
Etau - such these (two)
Matah - o Mother
Shirasi dayaya dhehi - kindly place upon my head
Charanau yayoh - the feet for which
Padyam pathah - ablution water
Pashu pati jata juta tatini - is the brook in Shiva's matted hair
Yayoh laksha lakshmir - for which too, the red paste glory
Aruna hari chudamani ruchih - is the magenta glory of Vishnu's crown
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Another version:
WORD FOR WORD
Srutinam murdhano - the final parts of scripture
Dadhati - you wear
Tava yau - that which are thine (two) (twin feet)
Sekharataya mam api - as crest jewel also for me by way of head ornament are for me too
Etau - these (two)
Matah - o mother
Sirasi dayaya dhehi - place kindly on my head
Caranau yayoh - the feet which belong to thee
Padyam pathah - the water of word-value
Pasupati jata jutatani - the brook that is found in the matted hair of Shiva
Yayor laksa lakshmih - what lends the red glory of laksha rasa (hibiscus juice)
Aruna haricudamani rucih - the red brilliance of the crown of Vishnu.
Srutinam murdhano - the final parts of scripture
Dadhati - you wear
Tava yau - that which are thine (two) (twin feet)
Sekharataya mam api - as crest jewel also for me by way of head ornament are for me too
Etau - these (two)
Matah - o mother
Sirasi dayaya dhehi - place kindly on my head
Caranau yayoh - the feet which belong to thee
Padyam pathah - the water of word-value
Pasupati jata jutatani - the brook that is found in the matted hair of Shiva
Yayor laksa lakshmih - what lends the red glory of laksha rasa (hibiscus juice)
Aruna haricudamani rucih - the red brilliance of the crown of Vishnu.
This verse represents the Devi standing on the head of Shiva.
In the preceding Verse 83, unless you go outside the circle of relativity, i.e. eroticism, the Absolute is powerless.
In the preceding Verse 83, unless you go outside the circle of relativity, i.e. eroticism, the Absolute is powerless.
In that verse Her arrowhead toenails are sharpened on the crowns of five gods, to injure Shiva.
In this verse, there is an inversion whereby the woman is given numerator status, standing on the crown of Vishnu and giving it colour.
Another version:
TRANSLATION
- The final or ultimate point (Vedanta means the end or final point of wisdom)
- You (the Devi) wear
- That which is thy twin feet - (your feet are like the ultimate point of the Upanishads)
- By way of head ornament (crowning decoration) for me too (me = the poet) (Vishnu is only conventional, your feet are more valuable)
(Orientation is not there - please stand on my head and give me orientation)
- These two
- Of the Mother
- By great mercy, on my head, O Goddess, put your feet
- Those feet which are thine
- Word water (like a baptism of words)
- The river which arises from Pasupati (the Lord of Beasts, Shiva)
- Of which the beauty of the red paint (The glow of the feet of the Devi is Numerator)
- Before the pink dawn comes (The sun is Denominator, the colour is Numerator)
- The red brilliance (pink dawn brilliance) of the crown of Vishnu
- You (the Devi) wear
- That which is thy twin feet - (your feet are like the ultimate point of the Upanishads)
- By way of head ornament (crowning decoration) for me too (me = the poet) (Vishnu is only conventional, your feet are more valuable)
(Orientation is not there - please stand on my head and give me orientation)
- These two
- Of the Mother
- By great mercy, on my head, O Goddess, put your feet
- Those feet which are thine
- Word water (like a baptism of words)
- The river which arises from Pasupati (the Lord of Beasts, Shiva)
- Of which the beauty of the red paint (The glow of the feet of the Devi is Numerator)
- Before the pink dawn comes (The sun is Denominator, the colour is Numerator)
- The red brilliance (pink dawn brilliance) of the crown of Vishnu
Sankara is saying: "At the end of my journey through the Upanishads, now I want You to give me ontological blessing by standing on my head".
All this intellectual knowledge and ritual is fine, but now give it some real meaning and colour by rising over the gods and standing on my head - I will become the Denominator by way of your blessing."
For example: a man reads and understands a road map, but can do nothing until he has related the map to his own position.
(The Numerator map - which is in the conceptual world of ideas - has to be related to the physical position in the concrete world of roads and landscapes. ED)
He asks for the feet on his head and on the head of Vishnu, or on a book, a map or the Upanishads.
Compared to the previous verse, there is no opposition here - because everything is on the vertical axis.
(Opposition and contradiction belong to the horizontal world. Vertically, there is only cancellation. ED)
The colour between the rosy dawn and the white light of the sun is superior to sunlight in this context.
It is the value of the Ganges descending to earth, and the value of Aruna, the magenta pink of dawn.
"I want your feet, but not only on Vishnu, but more on my own head to give me the proper orientation."
In this verse there is less contradiction.
In the previous verse there is more contradiction.
In the previous verse there is more contradiction.
Surplus Value = mauna (abstract noun relating to Muni, see Monier -Williams Sanskrit Dictionary)
(Mauna: silence. ED)
Many levels are cancelled out here, including the top of Shiva's own head.
In traditional idol-worshipping rituals, ablution water is poured over the head of the idol, down to the feet.
In traditional idol-worshipping rituals, ablution water is poured over the head of the idol, down to the feet.
The Ganges flows from Shiva's forehead.
Pouring water over an idol.
Here, the feet are to be placed on Sankara's head.
The feet are also placed on the place where Vedanta stops on the numerator side, marking the crest-point of scriptural wisdom.
The feet are also placed on the place where Vedanta stops on the numerator side, marking the crest-point of scriptural wisdom.
All hypostatic and hierophantic factors are linked together by the vertical axis permeated completely by the magenta colour: all vestiges of difference are abolished.
Magenta paste, which is traditionally smeared upon the feet, is the participating medium.
Sankara inserts himself at the bottom of the vertical axis for the Devi to stand on his head.
He wants to go from the feet up to Tat Tvam Asi ("thou art that" (the Absolute)) by a certain verticality called humility.
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SAUNDARYA LAHARI - VERSE 85
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SAUNDARYA LAHARI
VERSE 85
THE MYSTICAL THRILL
MYSTICISM EXTENDS TO THE VEGETABLE WORLD
नमो वाकं ब्रूमो नयन-रमणीयाय पदयोः
तवास्मै द्वन्द्वाय स्फुट-रुचि रसालक्तकवते ।
असूयत्यत्यन्तं यदभिहननाय स्पृहयते
पशूना-मीशानः प्रमदवन-कङ्केलितरवे
namovakam brumo nayana ramaniyaya padayos-
tamasvai dvandvaya sphuta ruci rasavalaktakavate
asuyati atyantam yad abhihananaya sprhayate
pasunam isanah pramadavana kankeli tavaye
tamasvai dvandvaya sphuta ruci rasavalaktakavate
asuyati atyantam yad abhihananaya sprhayate
pasunam isanah pramadavana kankeli tavaye
Spoken words of worship do we offer to these Your lotus feet,
Beauteous as they are to view, smeared over with paste of magenta glory
Extremely jealous is he, the Lord of Beasts, of that Asoka tree
In Your pleasure grove, for desiring to be kicked by them.
Beauteous as they are to view, smeared over with paste of magenta glory
Extremely jealous is he, the Lord of Beasts, of that Asoka tree
In Your pleasure grove, for desiring to be kicked by them.
.
The very opening words of this verse seem to underline the importance of “spoken words”, as if there is some difference between spoken and written words, or any other form of representation, such as words that are heard from a radio broadcast. God´s words are another possibility. The reason why spoken words are particularly important here must be because the highly nominalistic and schematic status of the contents of the verses from this point onward has to recognize two cancellable counterparts. The beauty of the twin feet of the Goddess is still the subject matter here, but it is meant to be treated in great schematic abstraction. The beautiful form is meant to be abstracted out of other realistic implications, which might complicate our meditations about the absolute beauty-value of the Goddess. Spoken words are tangible and not just concepts or names in a purely mathematical sense; they are more real. What they are meant to refer to here, so as to give them a visible content, is the colourful beauty of the twin feet of the Goddess. These two counterparts, the nominalistic and formal factors, are meant to be cancelled out so that the resultant value could attain to the absolute or overwhelming value emerging from the equation of the visible with the audible. We can expect the schematismus to become thinner and thinner in this section as we proceed step-by-step toward the culmination of this work where everything is going to be cancelled out, whether into the nothingness or something-ness or both, which the absolute value of Beauty is meant to represent in this work. Knowing such a plan in advance, it would be easier for us to follow some of the finer subtleties, combining nominalism and structuralism, which themselves will be finally transcended. We could pass, thus, not only from realism to what is implied as the meaning lying behind some real pictures, but one step deeper into the meaning of meanings, delving into the semiotic processes of language itself.
After asking the Goddess to place her twin feet on his own head in the previous verse, the author intends to evaluate this relation while standing on still thinner ground. It is the magenta colour on the soles of the feet that becomes more important than the feet themselves as the locus of beauty. The brilliant magenta describes it, while spoken words meet it from the opposite side, as it were, to enhance its meaning-content. This is what might be expected to happen on the positive or conceptual side of the total situation.
At the same time, there is a more ontological level where the same value, called the “magenta glory” on the soles of the feet, is the cause of some disturbance for Shiva, who is here represented as jealous. Jealousy is a negative sentiment and cannot really exist as a virtue in such a high god as Shiva; but even as a negative sentiment the possibility of jealousy is not to be completely ruled out. It is bad to be hungry, but that does not mean hunger does not exist. Similarly, jealousy is bad, but is seen to be necessarily operative in human life. Godliness cannot thrive in a vacuum, but must have a negative basis on which it can express itself, however faint that negativism might be. In the sense that “the exception proves the rule”, the negative features of the Absolute have to enhance its meaning by demonstrating its capacity to transcend its own negativity. What is a virtue at the head end has to imply a vice at the tail end, if Absolutism is not to exclude anything from its scope. This follows from the dialectical rule known to Parmenides and Zeno from ancient times, that the “one” and the “many” had to belong together if they were to make any meaning at all.
Shiva is here only jealous of a garden tree and not of any equally worthy person. In other poems, like Kalidasa's “Malavikagnimitra”, the same kind of ideogram is seen to be fully understood by Sanskrit poets. The asoka tree has to be kicked by the decorated soles of a royal personality if its poor soul is to be thrilled sufficiently to stimulate its own kind of erotic mysticism, creating within it a festive marital sense of exaltation natural to its marriage season In addition to producing new magenta-coloured tender foliage from top to bottom, the stimulus of the kick would be sufficient to thrill the subhuman soul into a kind of exalted mystical state that is supposed to be very enjoyable to the plant. This kind of mixing of human life with the world of mere vegetation, by establishing the unity of life at all levels, underlines an Advaitic attitude which tends to treat life as one, and not as divisible into compartmentalized interests. The jealousy of Shiva in such a context could accommodate a degree of negativity which could be treated, in principle, as already abolishing itself in the context of the totality of the mystical sentiment of life, from which the jealousy itself comes as a by-product. Kalidasa´s poetry abounds in cancellation of this sort, in which double negation at the tail end and double assertion of a virtue at the head end, cancel out into a unique form of absolute Beauty or Virtue. In the second half of this verse, we have to note that Shiva is called pasupati (the Lord of Beasts) which refers to his overlordship in the world of zoology.
The asoka tree belongs to the world of botany; even here, there is a correct respect for naming counterparts by which cancellation could occur, according to the accepted rules and conventions of mathematics. The Goddess here seems to be living in a garden not unlike the pramadavana (the pleasure grove of infatuation), which figures in almost every play of Kalidasa. Understanding Sankara, therefore, naturally presupposes understanding Kalidasa, his forerunner. Shiva has to be jealous of a poor and humble tree in distress, because he cannot find any other rival in the three worlds on whom he could fix his jealousy. This further enhances the verticality of the perspective in which this negative quality is to be cancelled out against itself. Jealousy is a horizontal negative sentiment which deserves to be abolished, and is in effect abolished in this verse. No judge in a courtroom would take this charge of jealousy very seriously. In the last line, the asoka tree is praying to be kicked in order to enjoy the thrill of marital festivity.
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ADDITIONAL COMMENTS WITH STRUCTURAL DIAGRAMS RELATED TO THIS VERSE FROM SAUNDARYA LAHARI/NOTES.
WORD FOR WORD
Namo vakam brumo - We salute (utter words of salutation)
Nayana ramaniyaya - to them, which are beautiful to the eyes
Padayoh - the (twin) feet
Tava asmai dvandvaya - to these present here, to your own ones
Sphuta ruchira salakta kavate - (clear-pleasing-smeared-ones-of Yours) the most bright and beautiful ones with red cotton- flower paste oversmeared.
Asuyat yatyantam - having extreme jealousy
Yad abhi hananaya - with which to have confrontal contact, for being trampled upon by which
Sprhayate - it wishes
Pasu nam isana - Pasupati (Shiva)
Pramada vana kankelita rave - towards the Asoka tree of the pleasure-garden
Nayana ramaniyaya - to them, which are beautiful to the eyes
Padayoh - the (twin) feet
Tava asmai dvandvaya - to these present here, to your own ones
Sphuta ruchira salakta kavate - (clear-pleasing-smeared-ones-of Yours) the most bright and beautiful ones with red cotton- flower paste oversmeared.
Asuyat yatyantam - having extreme jealousy
Yad abhi hananaya - with which to have confrontal contact, for being trampled upon by which
Sprhayate - it wishes
Pasu nam isana - Pasupati (Shiva)
Pramada vana kankelita rave - towards the Asoka tree of the pleasure-garden
-
Another version:
WORD FOR WORD
Namo vakam brumo - spoken words of worship do we offer
Nayana ramaniyaya - beauteous to view
Padayoh - to the twin feet
Tava asmai dvandvaya - for these your pair
Sphuta ruchi rasa lakta tava te - smeared over with brilliant magenta glory (paste)
Asuya anti antam - extremely jealous
Yad abhi ananaya - to contact them by being kicked
Pashunam ishanah pramada vana kankeli tarave - towards the Asoka tree of the pleasure grove (intoxication)
Namo vakam brumo - spoken words of worship do we offer
Nayana ramaniyaya - beauteous to view
Padayoh - to the twin feet
Tava asmai dvandvaya - for these your pair
Sphuta ruchi rasa lakta tava te - smeared over with brilliant magenta glory (paste)
Asuya anti antam - extremely jealous
Yad abhi ananaya - to contact them by being kicked
Pashunam ishanah pramada vana kankeli tarave - towards the Asoka tree of the pleasure grove (intoxication)
Another version:
TRANSLATION
- We salute ( you, o Goddess)
- To the feet of most beautiful (or pleasing)
- For these thy two feet (This is not a mathematical concept, but very real)
- keeps me from going mad, and others will be blessed in descending order
- These feet are clear and pleasing (?)
- I do prostrate to the feet again
- Having extreme jealousy
- For being trampled upon
- By which
- The Lord of Animals
- Having jealousy
- Towards the Asoka tree of the pleasure garden
- To the feet of most beautiful (or pleasing)
- For these thy two feet (This is not a mathematical concept, but very real)
- keeps me from going mad, and others will be blessed in descending order
- These feet are clear and pleasing (?)
- I do prostrate to the feet again
- Having extreme jealousy
- For being trampled upon
- By which
- The Lord of Animals
- Having jealousy
- Towards the Asoka tree of the pleasure garden
The tree asks the Devi to kick it into flower, and Shiva says: "I am extremely jealous".
The tree is horizontal, Shiva, as a positive vertical factor, is jealous.
The tree is horizontal, Shiva, as a positive vertical factor, is jealous.
(In Hinduism the ashoka is considered a sacred tree. Not counting a multitude of local traditions connected to it, the ashoka tree is worshipped in Chaitra, the first month of the Hindu calendar. It is also associated with Kamadeva, the Hindu god of love, who included an ashoka blossom among the five flowers in his quiver, where ashoka flowers represent seductive hypnosis.
Ashoka is a Sanskrit word meaning without grief or that which gives no grief. It is a symbol of love. Its beautiful, delicately perfumed flowers are used in temple decoration. ED)
Ashoka is a Sanskrit word meaning without grief or that which gives no grief. It is a symbol of love. Its beautiful, delicately perfumed flowers are used in temple decoration. ED)
(See Verse 86:
"On having inadvertently defaulted in respect of Your family name,
While stooping in shame, Your husband's forehead as You kicked with Your lotus feet,
That enemy of Shiva, wholly giving up his rancour, his victory celebrates with clamour of many jingle bells."
Here, Shiva himself is kicked in the head by the Devi. According to legend a tree needs to be kicked by a woman in order to bear fruit. Eros is delighted at the kick to Shiva's forehead. In Kalidasa's Kumarasambhava Eros' role is to make Shiva fall in love with the Devi to produce a child. Eros perhaps rejoices because Shiva is going to unite with the Devi and create the universe - without her "He is not even able to pulsate."
See Verse 1:
"Shiva united with Shakti becomes able to manifest
If otherwise, this god knows not even how to pulsate.
How then could one of ungained merit be able to bow to, or even praise
One such as you, adored by Vishnu, Shiva and Brahma." ED.)
If otherwise, this god knows not even how to pulsate.
How then could one of ungained merit be able to bow to, or even praise
One such as you, adored by Vishnu, Shiva and Brahma." ED.)
The Devi's feet represent the ontological limit.
The red colour means "full of vitality, life".
The Devi's feet keep the banker from committing suicide and keep Shiva from evaporating, (by creating the Ganges) and bless the scholar.
Shiva says: "You can do all of these things, but why are you giving Your value to the horizontal plane? You are creating pluralism and creating suffering."
Horizontalism is a kind of dispersion.
Horizontalism is a kind of dispersion.
In this way, Shiva is jealous - the devotee receives a blessing.
Shiva's burning head is consoled, and the Ganges is produced.
Vishnu's currency-note head is coloured with life and now the Devi blesses the forest or pleasure-grove, represented by the Asoka tree.
In order to flower, the tree must have a direct impact from some positive Numerator - in this case the feet of the Devi.
Shiva is jealous because the Devi is blessing the horizontal plane.
Shiva is jealous because the Devi is blessing the horizontal plane.
.
.
Shiva is mathematical at the Omega Point.
Below that is the mythological, lower version of Shiva as together with Brahma and Vishnu - the Devi's feet create the Ganges.
Below that is the mythological, lower version of Shiva as together with Brahma and Vishnu - the Devi's feet create the Ganges.
The Devi's feet give colour to the white light in Verse 84.
Here, in Verse 85, she gives a kick to the tree on the horizontal plane.
Sankara says: "I find the feet of the Devi to have more value than the mathematical concept of Shiva."
The "pleasure garden" refers to a "Garden of Eden" concept.
There is a giggling of girls in the garden, with no vertical value.
There is a giggling of girls in the garden, with no vertical value.
The Devi is supplying vertical value to this pleasure-garden and Shiva is jealous of this.
She is abolishing horizontal Space and bringing it to vertical Time .
Shiva says: "If I allow the Devi to concern herself with all these horizontal aspects (the trees of the forest), Her vertical value will dissipate".
.
Another version:
TRANSLATION
We utter words of salutation to those which are beautiful to the eyes, the twin feet.
To those present here (ontological reality), your twin one,
Your two feet have been smeared (with red colour).
Having extreme jealousy of which, to have confrontal contact.
It (the tree) wishes..
The Lord is full of jealousy toward the Asoka tree which is in the pleasure -garden (and which is known to flower only by contact with the feet of the Devi)
To those present here (ontological reality), your twin one,
Your two feet have been smeared (with red colour).
Having extreme jealousy of which, to have confrontal contact.
It (the tree) wishes..
The Lord is full of jealousy toward the Asoka tree which is in the pleasure -garden (and which is known to flower only by contact with the feet of the Devi)
Eternity will suffer and horizontal Space will gain - thus Shiva is jealous.
These are words of worship to the Devi's feet; Shiva is jealous of an Asoka tree because she kicks it.
See Malavikagnimitra of Kalidasa for the same legend. Some hot stimulus from the leg of a beautiful princess is needed for the tree to flower.
The mango tree in the Nilgiri Mountains is benumbed by cold and cannot flower.
Shiva is jealous of a plant - he wants all the affection for himself; he does not want the Devi to become too negative.
See Malavikagnimitra of Kalidasa for the same legend. Some hot stimulus from the leg of a beautiful princess is needed for the tree to flower.
The mango tree in the Nilgiri Mountains is benumbed by cold and cannot flower.
Shiva is jealous of a plant - he wants all the affection for himself; he does not want the Devi to become too negative.
"Spoken words" are offered to the feet: two sides are meeting: the spoken word and the visual side.
There is an alternation between spoken words and meditation on her feet.
Temple ritual meets Mantra. When they come together you get the Lahari.
Temple ritual meets Mantra. When they come together you get the Lahari.
There is a cancellation between the feet pleasing to the eye and the muttered prayer.
The wife wants to hear, in so many words: "I love you" - this adds the Numerator.
The spoken words on the Numerator side are very important to the Denominator side.
First, make this into a matrix, neither conceptual nor perceptual: only then can you fit in the jealousy of Shiva.
The "twin feet" are important, it is not just a casual reference.
.
The biological world is below in the scale of values.
Shiva is jealous because the Devi becomes too negative: cancellation should take place from above, not from below.
Shiva is jealous because the Devi becomes too negative: cancellation should take place from above, not from below.
She is kicking the Asoka tree to make it flower.
A Banyan tree has aerial roots, thus it is both hypostatic and hierophantic.
The Asoka tree is uniformly flowering from head to foot.
The tree is eternal because the roots come down to the ground and reproduce.
The Asoka tree is a dravida sishyu (Dravidian child).
The Asoka tree is uniformly flowering from head to foot.
The tree is eternal because the roots come down to the ground and reproduce.
The Asoka tree is a dravida sishyu (Dravidian child).
(See Verse 75:
"Your breast milk, I consider, O Maiden born to the Earth- Supporting Lord,
As if it were word-wisdom's ocean of nectar, flooding from out of Your heart
Offered by one who is kind, which, on tasting,
This Dravidian child, amidst superior poets, is born a composer of charming verse".
As if it were word-wisdom's ocean of nectar, flooding from out of Your heart
Offered by one who is kind, which, on tasting,
This Dravidian child, amidst superior poets, is born a composer of charming verse".
"Dravidian child" implies negativity and humility. ED)
There is vertical jealousy towards the Asoka tree.
There is horizontal jealousy towards Ganges.
There is horizontal jealousy towards Ganges.
-
The vertical Devi kicking the horizontal tree means that:
IN THE LOWER LEVELS OF ONTOLOGY, PARADOX SHOULD NOT BE ABOLISHED
Do not abolish the horizontal entirely, or common sense will evaporate.
Shout at the man who encroaches on your land, do not say "it is all Maya".
Do not abolish the horizontal entirely, or common sense will evaporate.
Shout at the man who encroaches on your land, do not say "it is all Maya".