Advaita Vedanta

SAUNDARYA LAHARI

VERSE 14

NUMEROLOGICAL STRUCTURALISM
AN ASCENDING VERTICAL SERIES
VERTICAL CONIC SECTIONS NUMEROLOGICALLY ANALYZED

This verse marks a further degree in the abstraction and generalization required before placing oneself in the correct perspective to be understood in these verses. The overwhelming experience of erotic joy pictured in the previous verse refers to an event that could take place in the span of one day. But there are 364 other days in the year in which young men and women must live continuously, without having such an occasion repeated in the same way each day. It is suggested here that one live through that period by verticalizing one's interests to another degree of subjectivity by abstraction and generalization, and not only live the 365 days of the year, but continue in a dispassionate manner, looking forward to no overwhelming event that might tend to make one day different from the rest of the 10,000 years within the context of which, as stated in the "Ruba'iyat" of Omar Khayyam, each human being is expected to place himself philosophically.

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

 

WORD FOR WORD
ksitau - for earth
sat pancasad - 56
dvi samadhika pancasad - 52
udake - for water
hutase - for fire
dvasastih - 62
catur adhika pancasad - 54
anile - for air
divi - for sky
dvih sat trimsat - 72
manasi ca - for the mind
catur shasti iti ye - 64 and thus what
mayukhaha - rays (come out)
tesam api upari - above all these
tava - your
padam buja yugam - your twin feet (are placed)

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"56 for earth..." etc. there are six levels, with the seventh level at the twin feet.
Below and above are the Brahma Chakra and the Brahma Randra, making nine.

365 (The total here is 360, but the manuscript is clear. This discrepancy is characteristic of the problems with the numbers in this verse. ED) days are arranged vertically.

The Mandala language used in the first part of the poem  begins here.
The Devi's feet will be put in many places from now on.

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In this verse we have a review of the Chakras - placing the feet on the Sahasrara - this is a revision by Sankara.

 

 

 

 

(EDITORIAL NOTE: the above structure is tentative and subject to revision. Like so much about this very difficult verse, there are many ambiguities in the interpretation the Guru gave to it. We should perhaps remember in this context that the Guru would often say: "You can't pin it down once and for all, if you fix the four limbs of the structure rigidly in place, you will get a chair or a table - it will not dance". Structuralism is a methodology, not a doctrine.)

 

VERSE 14 - all of the Chakras are passed in review.
VERSE 15 - shows numerator and denominator values.
VERSE 16 - the effect on the lotus-like mind of poets

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Another version:

 

TRANSLATION

This verse is situated at the Omega Point, involving rays and numbers.
- in earth
- 56
- 52
- in water
- in fire
- 62
- 54
- in air
- in the sky
- 72
- in the mind
- thus 64 indeed
- rays (mayukhaha)
- even above those
- your
- pair of feet (are placed)

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This is a numerator schema because it deals with numbers rather than with visible things.

 

 

Each number in this series is divisible by 2, which shows bilateral symmetry and an ambivalence.
In this verse, there is a descent from mind to air and an ascent from earth to fire.

 

 

 

The resultant sum of the numbers, 360, gives a total structure, or a structural whole.
The 360 is four right angles.
The same 360 will also be found in the vertical axis.

 

(EDITORIAL NOTE: the editor was present at the study sessions when the Guru produced his commentaries on this verse. When he was asked about the significance of the numbers making up 360 (56, 52, 62, 54, 72, 64) he stated that they seemed to belong to some numerological system with which he was not familiar and that this was in any case not essential to the understanding of the verse. We have requested an analysis of these numbers from a mathematician, but so far there seems to be no discernible pattern of any interest. Other experts on the Saundarya Lahari and Tantra whom we have consulted have also come up with no results. Any suggestions are welcome.)

The feet can be put at three points on the vertical axis:

at the top at the Omega Point, as in this verse;

centrally at the O Point;

at the bottom at the Alpha Point.

 

Here, it is the Absolute seen as an Omega Point structure.
A universal elsewhere is implied in the rays of light.

64+72+54=190
62+52+56=170

 

(EDITORIAL NOTE: this unequal relation between the two sections may have some parallel with the Sri Chakra of Verse 11, where there are 5 triangles facing upwards and 4 facing downwards. )

 

Sankara is confident of his ability (see later verses) because he knows he is using a structure which meets his descriptions.

Note - "sky" and "ether" are the same word in Sanskrit.
This structure is akin to Pythagoras' tetraktys.

(Both are diagramatical representations of a series of numbers. ED)

 

Another version:

TRANSLATION

The earth element, Muladhara, 56,
In water there are 52, Manipura,
Svadhisthana, in fire , 62, Anahata, in air 54,
The 72 of ether, Visuddhi, the 64 of the mind, Ajña;
Thy feet are far beyond, (above) the rays of these.

 

Instead of saying that she is sporting with Her Lord, the attempt here is to grade all of the Chakras with numbers - 56 to 74 and then renormalized to 62.

 

The rays are supposed to correspond to letters of the alphabet.

 
1) In the previous verse, girls are able to appreciate the Absolute, even in an old man (Verse 13);

2) Here, in Verse 14, the Devi's feet placed in the Bindhusthana and thus normalized - think of the feet there in a kind of bright moonlight.

 

In this verse there is a very tricky use of numeralization and structures.
It is a renormalization from the previous verse.

At the central Bindusthana there is an active principle - the Devi's feet.
The Numerator is an idea, but the Universal Concrete goes at the bottom.

The burning of the candle is in the middle - at the meeting of the idea and the concrete.

 

 

The generalized candle gets its power to burn from Shiva and its substance from the Devi.

 
The nominal candle is at the Omega Point.
The actual candle burns a single man at a time and a place.
(It can be verticalized by abstraction and generalization)

 

 

(This structure is tentative and probably needs revision. ED)

 

A verticalized candle is its reflection; the physical candle is at the Alpha Point.

At the core of your being something is changing (burning) at every moment.

This is the universal concrete man who is eating something.

 

(The reference to a candle in the first place is obscure. We presume it is an example used to clarify the four poles of the quaternion structure, like the more familiar example from Eddington reproduced below. ED)

 

 

EDDINGTON 'S QUATERNION STRUCTURE:

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 generalized, it excludes all other chair.
This is the universal concrete version, it excludes horizontally but not vertically.

4. The Omega Point chair: the word "chair" in the dictionary, purely conceptual.

 

Devi - the idea here, in this verse, is to provide a Numerator (with the numbers. ED) to balance the Devi's Denominator.

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Narayana Guru talks of Numerator and Denominator, front and back mirrors - everything is a reflection except Brahman, the Absolute. (Which is neutral and comprises both Numerator and Denominator. ED)

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The author, here in this verse, reduces, categorizes, schematizes, abstracts, and generalizes.

Finally you become That; That becomes This.
The world is you, you are the world.

Experience what is inside, and the world that is outside.
When these tally, you have achieved Brahmavidya, or the Science of the Absolute.

Place yourself at the inside.
The ferryman counts ten people, then crosses over, then counts nine (without counting himself), and says: "one must be dead".

It was himself. (similarly with the number of the Chakras. ED.).
You can say it (what you see and what you are) but they must tally.
There must be an apperception.
The Darsana Mala contains the essence of Vedanta, it is all there.

 

Another version:

TRANSLATION
Earth - Muladhara - 56
Water - Manipura - 52
Fire - Svadhisthana - 62
Air - Anahata - 54
Ether - Vishuddhi - 72
Mind - Ajna - 64
And the two feet beyond these rays in the Bindusthana.

 

Which epistemology allows you to include Mind as a cosmological factor, among the list of elementals, Earth, Water, Fire etc.?

Mind is included as an universal concrete reference point.

Here the mind is put at the top, descending and interpenetrating matter, (with earth at the bottom).
The elementals must not be considered as separate or distinct from one another. (Like a blue lotus: the blueness and the lotus are not to be separated.)

Also, the elementals may be construed or seen as two sets - one for the Devi on the denominator, one for Shiva on the numerator.

Sankara multiplies the tattvas, etc., by two - because there is duplication.
But a duplication of what?

Even Socrates could not manage to include the Mind in the same schema with the Earth. He said. "I cannot philosophize with mud" (like the hylozoists). (He gave primacy to the conceptual over the perceptual - unlike Vedanta. ED)

So the two legs of the Devi are reciprocal.

We can allow Sankara to normalize upward - putting the feet at the top instead of in the middle.

The Devi is also a nourishing principle - there is a baby inside (denominator) as well as outside (numerator).

 

The two feet, vertically, come one from above and one from below.

The key word is "rays" (mayukhas)
Peripherally the rays are very colourful, and not so colourful at the centre.

The letters of the alphabet finally represent the wisdom of the Vedas.
So the letters are placed in the schema, as the bursting of the Devi - the vehicles of wisdom.

All of the numbers are duplications.
See the multiplication table of 9. That is the Absolute staring at you.

 

Below, as illustration, are some further examples from saundarya lahari/notes:

EVIDENCE OF STRUCTURALISM
1) The Cartesian Correlates
2) Probability curves - curves on graphs

 

3) Multiplication, subtraction, addition and division form a quaternion structure.

 

4) The multiplication table of 9

 

5) The four forms of logic
6) What is "pi" ?
7) Fourier functions - sinus curves in electromagnetics

 

8) "Architectonique musicale"

How do you explain this symmetry, both mathematical and logarithmic?
So these numbers must be seen in terms of duplication.

Verse 14 and Verse 9: both relate to numerology.

The most important point in this verse is that the Devi is breaking through the Chakras. This is like Verse 9, where the Devi is described as: "Sporting with Your Lord secretly in the thousand-petaled lotus"; this means that the Devi and Shiva are equal and that they are participating and absorbing one another.

What about the lower stages? Duality cannot be admitted.

See Gautama, Kanada, Kapila, Patanjali and Jaimini.
The Axiology, epistemology and methodology which unites these six Rishis (wise men), the founders of the traditional Schools of Indian philosophy, was known to Sankara and further elucidated by Narayana Guru, then expanded by Nataraja Guru in "The Science of the Absolute".

 

 

This sequence is the relative way to see the ascending relationship: the intermediary stages should be seen.
What is not clear is how they (the Devi and Shiva. ED) could meet and sport together.

 

There are now numerological and alphabetical implications.
(The vowels are close to the centre, the consonants are horizontal.)

 

 

 

 

There are certain words which are used often in the Mantra diagrams or Yantras.
So letters are taken and graded structurally - a finalization of the thought-word to reveal the Absolute in terms of the Devi, both abstract and concrete: her peripheral aspects (in the Tantra).

 

The Tantris say that the sounds can be correlated with the Colour Solid. Newton, Steiner and Goethe all had colour schemes.

 

 

 

 

(EDITOR'S NOTE: this phenomenon is known as Synaesthesia: in one common form of synesthesia, known as grapheme → colour synesthesia or colour-graphemic synesthesia, letters or numbers are perceived as inherently coloured.

See also Rimbaud's poem "Voyelles".)

"Unless people can prove to me that colour is not real....etc"

(This is a quotation from Bergson, as far as we know. ED)

Colour is a Universal Concrete.

 

 
Why should the rainbow be an illusion? c.f. Bergson.

 

 

Light, line and colour, these are the elements of a painting. (See Ruskin.)

The Colour Solid:

 

 

 

The infinite elsewhere and the infinite here and now are described.

 

The two feet of the Goddess (See Verse 9) come one from above and the other from below.
In the present verse, Verse 14, all the numbers are divisible by two.

The mayukhas (rays) are greater on the Numerator side.
But these numbers are not strict.

Different parts of the Upanishads give different numbers. Sankara here is not able to decide on the finalized numbers.

(But he is a prodigy, he knows every nook and cranny of the Upanishads.)

After three days meditation on Verse 14, the Guru has found some errors in his structuralism. (See Eddington, P. 57. Of which book is not clear. ED))
This is manifestation from the conceptual side with the six Chakras or mayukhas (rays).
You can fix the Bindusthana, that is, the central locus of meditation or interest, where you like - it can be pushed up to the top.

 

The two feet occupy the centre in any case.

The feet can represent proto- or meta-linguistics.
You can combine the two aspects and arrive at a description of Absolute Beauty.

 

As in the example of the amethyst quartz crystal; it is smoky on the bottom, but there is no difference in the beauty of the top or the bottom.

In the mystical language handed down from Sankara and Kalidasa, the touch of the Absolute is often given a slight blue or black colour.

In this verse the Devi is lifted to the utmost white-light principle.
The Gita speaks of this light which puts out other lights.

 

(Eddington and Oppenheimer saw it when looking at supernovae.)

 

As regards these numbers, the numerator side is always greater than the denominator.

Narayana Guru says that the experience must be there first, then the speculation can come to coincide with it.

 

 

 
Something is burning inside you - something warm and bright which transforms the elementals into concepts - into manas (Mind).

These numbers need not trouble us. Examine the multiplication table of 9, and examine the symmetry.
(See Verses: 9, 18, 27, 36, 45, 54, 63, 72, 81, 90).

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1- Structuralism is here viewed from the Omega Point; there is a contrast between Omega and Alpha Points of perspective:

At the Alpha Point is a colour solid,
At the Omega Point is a brilliant light.

Here and now, the universal nowhere and elsewhere, at a point in time; at the O Point, the structure tends to be a matrix.

 

 

 

Letters of the alphabet of any language can be used as the monomarks for the various rays, held together at the core or bindu where the feet of the Goddess can...(ends here.ED)

The whole range of possibilities from earth to sky or mind are covered here in ascending order, and the pure notion of the Absolute in fully conceptual terms is represented by the twin feet of the Devi at the Sahasrara, the positive pole or Omega Point.

 

2- The Bindu can be lit up as by a torch and pointed at any of the intermediate Adharas or stable resting places.

Each will have some constant dignity by the cancellation of counterparts.

When this structural dynamism is kept in mind, the purpose of this verse becomes understood.

 

MATTER FOR A FILM:

Four-sided semantic polyvalence is to be brought out in this verse.
The subject here is balanced poetry; a law of rhetoric is given: alternate two things in order to give absolute balance to your poetry: this is a rhetorical and dialectical secret.

Word and meaning have to belong together, do not get lost in the conceptualised world of description.
Show a quartz crystal with light and dark sides..

 

 

 

 

Vishnu.

 

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Kali.

 

Vishnu and Kali are very, very dark: in that darkness, suddenly show the diamond that Vishnu wears.

 

 

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Saraswati.

 

There is a total structure to be shown in the four hands of Saraswati, or some other god, to show the conceptual and perceptual aspects.

(A big mirror in a dining hall: a poor man cannot eat the meal he sees there - he is actual, the reflection is virtual - this is an example of the two poles of the Horizontal Axis.)

 

The absolutist touch is supplied by the crescent moon and the matted hair - these are the same as worn by Shiva.

 

Bhadrakali.

 

Contrast Saraswati with Bhadrakali (the terrible form of the Devi).

Narayana Guru says that the Absolute is terrible, do not say that it is not.
Humanity is in agony, let your Goddess reflect this agony.

 

METHOD:

Show the silhouette of a meditator; with a red, green or white light in the centre.

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Mark six intermediate stages or Chakras on the vertical axis, and represent the moving image of eternity with a figure-8.

 

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Pass gradually from the lower to the higher.
Increase the voltage to show the ambivalence between the lower and the higher halves.

Show a radiant colour solid at the bottom, a matrix at the middle and a radiant luminary at the top.

Play with the voltage and colour techniques on crystals, make it light and dim alternately.

Let the matrix glow as if set with moonstones of different grades of fluorescence.

 

Show a scintillating diamond emitting sparks at the top - a blinding brilliance.

 

Show the imprint of red feet at the topmost point, the closing Chakra, the Thousand-Petalled Lotus of Sahasrara, the Guru and the Vidyarthi (wisdom-seeker).

 

 

 

 

Like the Pythagorean Tetraktys, this is a symmetrical picture.
It is cosmologically real here - not only imaginary.
Ontology is here related to teleology.

Water is less solid than earth - 56 - 52
Fire is less solid than air - 62 - 54
Mind is less solid than ether - 72 - 64
Altogether making more or less 360 days of the year.
(Twelve 30-day months)

 

What you gain in objectivity you lose in subjectivity.

 

 

What you gain in ontology you lose in teleology.

 

The series of Chakras can be compared to the vertebral column, which is made up of nodes.

 

 

The nodes of a bamboo are stable states of mind of the seasons recorded in the nervous system.
This is the effect of the outside on the inside.

 

Stable points are at intersections between the practical and the theoretical.
There is cancellation at different points and a one-one correspondence.

This is a secret of the universe. The feet are above.
"Feet" means any point of intersection, here they at the limit on the hypostatic side.

 

 

 

(THIS STRUCTURE IS TENTATIVE AND MAY NEED REVISION.)

 

The Goddess is lifted from an ontological to a teleological status.

The next verse, Verse 15, has a hypostatic goddess.

The six seasons are nodes of experience of the seasons in the memory: these are indeterminate, not exact numbers.

 

(EDITOR'S NOTE: the six Chakras could perhaps in some way be seen to correspond to the traditional six seasons of the  Indian year, as it progresses through the 360 or 365 days. This is just a thought.

The six Indian seasons are:

1. Vasant Ritu or Spring
2. Grishma Ritu or Summer
3. Varsha Ritu or Monsoon
4. Sharad Ritu or Autumn
5. Hemant Ritu or Pre-winter
6. Shishir / Shita Ritu or Winter)

Interpersonal and trans-subjective - there are variations between two people, it is not fixed.
Shadadharas means "six stable positions".

Subjected to critical evaluation = Mimamsa philosophy.
Advaita can put woman on top - Tantra cannot.

Panchikarana (quintuplication - the five elementals) can be:

"panchi krita tanmatra" and be cancelled out or
"apanchi krita tanmatra" - not cancelled out.

 

Numerator and Denominator must not be made to cancel and balance too precisely.
The world is not rigid, it is dancing.
If it is fixed rigidly it is a bench or stool - it is not dancing.

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