SAUNDARYA LAHARI
VERSE 92
A DOWNWARD NORMALIZATION OF THE DEVAS FROM THE OMEGA POINT
गतास्ते मञ्चत्वं द्रुहिण हरि रुद्रेश्वर भृतः
शिवः स्वच्छ-च्छाया-घटित-कपट-प्रच्छदपटः ।
त्वदीयानां भासां प्रतिफलन रागारुणतया
शरीरी शृङ्गारो रस इव दृशां दोग्धि कुतुकम्
शिवः स्वच्छ-च्छाया-घटित-कपट-प्रच्छदपटः ।
त्वदीयानां भासां प्रतिफलन रागारुणतया
शरीरी शृङ्गारो रस इव दृशां दोग्धि कुतुकम्
gatas te mancatvam druhina hari rudresvara bhrtah
shiva svacchac chayaghatita kapata pracchada patah
tvadiyanam bhasam pratiphalana ragarunataya
sariri srngaoa rasa iva drsam dogdhi kutukam
shiva svacchac chayaghatita kapata pracchada patah
tvadiyanam bhasam pratiphalana ragarunataya
sariri srngaoa rasa iva drsam dogdhi kutukam
Gone as they are to Your couch-hood, Brahma, Vishnu, Ishvara, Rudra and others
Shiva wearing a deceptive canopy derived from his crystal light;
By Your radiance projected on to it and turned to a magenta shade,
As the very embodiment of erotic bliss, he charms the view.
Shiva wearing a deceptive canopy derived from his crystal light;
By Your radiance projected on to it and turned to a magenta shade,
As the very embodiment of erotic bliss, he charms the view.
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In Verse 92 the reference to the beauty of the legs is finally abandoned in favour of the legs of a couch on which the Goddess is sitting. We had in Verse 8, almost symmetrically situated with the present one, a reference to the actual picture of a Goddess seated on a couch which represented a metamorphosis of the person of Shiva himself. In the context of Hermetic Philosophy this is known as the principle of correspondence, represented, for example, by the tarot card of the man hanging head downward. There is a subtle inversion here, which Bergson would call “a back-to-back relation”, or a correlation between the world of concepts and the world of percepts. Bergson even goes to so far as to say that “we happen to accidents” and not the other way around, as we might think. This philosophical perspective and the epistemology and methodology proper to it, is quite in keeping with Vedanta and the structure of the Absolute known to it. We cannot enter into the discussion of such a view-point here.
Shiva, as a crystal-clear value placed at the Omega Point in the vertical axis, can lend his own ontological reality to natural objects such as the couch, which is here referred to in the first line as being made up of his sub-functionaries within the Absolute, who are divinities placed at a lower level than Shiva himself. When reflected on the side of percepts, they could, in principle, lend support to the ontological stability or firmness of the couch on which the Goddess, occupying the neutral point between the two extremes, is to be located or seated. The Shiva principle is not expended by the secondary functions that he sanctions from his own higher position. His crystal-clear pure principle, of a conceptual order, can take the deceptive form of a canopy which could have at first, before he descends too low toward the couch, a clearer complexion or colour, participating more closely with the numerator than with the central magenta of the mid-region occupied by the Goddess. Such a clear canopy, however, as it descends toward the centre from above, could have a borrowed magenta colour playing on it.
Thus the canopy would, by its revised and more ontological conditioning with reference to the central magenta glory that the Goddess always represents, appear to be magenta, while really being crystal-clear in colour. The Real can be conditioned by the False, and vice-versa. The resultant indeterminism or ambiguity belongs to Maya. Eroticism is proper to the negative side, but the positive side can also appear to be conditioned by the same quality. This is another example of anyonya adhyasa (mutual participation), of which we have had more delicate instances, as in the description of the lips and the teeth in Verse 62, and in other verses. Eroticism, as the last line makes clear, is meant here only to charm the view, and add to the beauty-value of the situation represented here.
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ADDITIONAL COMMENTS WITH STRUCTURAL DIAGRAMS RELATED TO THIS VERSE FROM SAUNDARYA LAHARI/NOTES.
WORD FOR WORD
Gatah te mancha tvam - gone as they are to Your couch-hood
Druhina hari rudreshvara bhrtah - Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, Your functionaries
Shivah - Shiva the supreme
Svacchac chaya ghatita kapata pracchada patah - wearing a canopy derived from crystal light
Gatah te mancha tvam - gone as they are to Your couch-hood
Druhina hari rudreshvara bhrtah - Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, Your functionaries
Shivah - Shiva the supreme
Svacchac chaya ghatita kapata pracchada patah - wearing a canopy derived from crystal light
ENDS HERE
"Gone as they are to your couch-hood..."
What is the justification for inverting the gods?
There is a principle of inversion in the Absolute, like the hanged man in the Tarot pack.
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Shiva can kill Eros, but he is also the embodiment of erotic bliss.
(This is a great paradox. The Guru would say again and again that there was a paradox at the core of the Absolute. This must be understood if one wishes to understand the Saundarya Lahari and Vedanta. ED)
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