SAUNDARYA LAHARI - VERSE 2

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SAUNDARYA LAHARI

 

 

VERSE 2

A PARTICLE WORLD

A TAOIST PAINTING
 
THREE PHENOMENAL FUNCTIONS IN A "MONDE AFFINE"
 
तनीयांसुं पांसुं तव चरण पङ्केरुह-भवं
विरिञ्चिः सञ्चिन्वन् विरचयति लोका-नविकलम् ।
वहत्येनं शौरिः कथमपि सहस्रेण शिरसां
हरः सङ्क्षुद्-यैनं भजति भसितोद्धूल नविधिम्
 
taniyamsam pamsum tava carana pankeruha bhavam
virincih sancinvan viracayati lokan avakilam
vahaty enam saurih katham api sahasrena sirasam
haras samksudyainam bhajati bhasitod dhulanavidhim
 
The fine dust arising from your lotus feet
Brahma gathers up and the worlds creates.
Vishnu incessantly bears them up somehow with his thousand heads
And Shiva having shaken it up, accomplishes with it his ash-wearing rite.
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In this verse the individual function of each of the three demiurges is fitted into a common schema as attributes of the same unifying vertical parameter running through their three vertical functions. It is important to remember that it is not an ordinary universe that we have to presuppose or postulate in this verse; but rather the monde affiné known to modern physics, which we have to visualize as a starting datum for the purposes of this work. There is a direct reference to fine particles, whether in the form of botanical pollen, of matter seen in mineral crystals, or as finely divided matter, independent of the states of solid, liquid or gas. Particle physics speaks an exponential language of many decimal points to describe the immensity or minuteness of the worlds of astronomy or quantum physics. The telescope and the microscope are magnifying instruments which bring nearer to our view the frontiers of the macrocosm and the microcosm, within which the observable world exists for us. Placed between these two worlds is our own mysterious universe, which is capable of expanding or contracting through processes of explosion or implosion, endosmosis or exosmosis and entropy or negentropy.

 

Sources of cosmic rays have been found to be bright spots from which streams of energy units like neutrinos may enter our cosmos and disappear again through black holes. Modern physics at present even speaks in terms of particles and anti-particles, and matter and anti-matter; yet the very structure of the space in which we live is still a profound mystery to the best of physical theorists to the present day. Particles of matter seem to have smaller planet-like bodies with left-handed and right-handed spins (or both) floating around them just as in solar or galactic space. Here supernovae, red giants and white dwarfs, with their colour schemes based on a periodic law to which all matter is chemically subject, heighten the mystery even of the physical world which is the normal environment of us ordinary human beings. The wonderful colour patterns produced by cross-polarized light through the spectroscope reveal the structure of the minutest of crystals, when polarized and analyzed through the help of short-wave X rays. The red and violet shifts give us evidence, though indirectly only, of a universe expanding or contracting at a velocity approximating the speed of light.
 
In modern times it would not be incorrect thus to assert that there is little difference between scientific myth-making and the ordinary myth-making tendency so natural to humanity ever since literature began to influence human life. The creation of the universe is said to have taken place by a "big bang", according to some advanced physicists, while other experts think of this creation in terms of a "steady state". Modern science is thus in the process of putting every favourite notion into the melting pot called scientific knowledge.
 
It is the task of the bold speculator to attempt to reconstruct a cosmos out of this kind of intellectual chaos. If he is not able to put some order into these diverse relativistic knowledges, there will occur disruption of human values leading to a confused state of mind, the signs of which are already evident in modern society. Therefore it is very important for the reader's understanding of Verse 2 to try to look at the universe from a perspective thoroughly revised from that to which we have been accustomed by convention hitherto.
 
We have already said that Absolute Reality could be viewed from either the conceptual or perceptual perspectives, the latter being placed at a lower point in the degree of generalization or abstraction implied. The increase of energy or voltage in the positive direction results in the higher version of the same Absolute without abolishing its basic content.
 
The higher subsumes the lower and the lower assumes the higher. Within the lower Absolute, postulated for purposes of speculative scrutiny, we should first insert the three grand processes of creation, preservation and destruction as three horizontal stratifications which are traversed vertically by a single correlating parameter, without which they might fall apart and lose their global unity. The universe, as in the form of an eternal process or flux of becoming, was understood by Heraclitus of Ancient Greece and even finds approval from modern critical philosophers such as Bertrand Russell, who calls Heraclitus the first scientific philosopher. Bergson supports the same hylozoic point of view, and even goes to the extent of inverting topsy-turvy the whole set-up of the universe when he ends his work "The Two Sources of Morality and Religion" with the statement that the universe is a machine for the making of gods. The scientific perspective can be said to take a teleological starting point for its speculation. One form of reasoning ascends from cause to effect and could be called ascending dialectics, while the other takes its stand on end results or effects, teleologically, and employs descending dialectics to enter into the very heart of reality hereunder. Between the opposing forces of contraction and expansion, evolution and involution, entropy and negentropy, explosion and implosion and other such antinomian factors - all acceptable to present-day philosophers of science or scientific philosophers - modern humanity stands, trying to decide which way to turn.
 
The three gods, Brahma,Vishnu and Shiva, enter into the series of verses in several places, and it is necessary to fit their functions, dynamically as well as statically, into the overall context of the Absolute, before we can fill this lower or negative perspective of the Absolute with a value-significance or content. This is a necessity for intelligent living in an environment where a regulated hierarchy of human values enters as interests to choose from, within the scope of the total ecological setting within which we have necessarily to live and move.
 
Thus we have to view reality in its structural, functional, ontological, existential and even pragmatic aspects in order to do justice to all opportunities that present themselves to us, moment after moment, in our lives. Everyday problems demand the same intelligence as the problem of final salvation, in which humanity has always been interested. Otherwise there would be no religions or churches, scriptures or rituals, towers or spires - all standing on modern utilitarian or idealistic institutional life, representing aspirations normal to humanity. Brahma here represents biologically significant aspirations, Vishnu the hedonistic and Shiva the idealistic or tragic . We have explained that if the mythological language of the Indian tradition should be repugnant to persons outside its normal climate, we could substitute more scientific and mathematical terms, idioms, ideologies and ideograms to convey the same meaning.
 
Brahma is said to be a lotus-born god belonging to the botanical or biological context. The lotus is the flower most dear to the Indian mind, and its haunting beauty has enriched through the ages the similes and metaphors of poetry on Indian soil. A flower represents the dream of a plant, just as a crystal could represent the dream of a supersaturated liquid. A flower emerges from the otherwise dull background of botany and looms into general consciousness, not unlike a colourful globe of light, displaying its variegated beauty to attract and please the eye. It is the most basic object of beauty in this world, having its origin in mud and dirt, as is particularly true of the lotus flower.
 
Each flower is a global and structural unit, complete in itself, and if we put three circles around it and its beauty, as conceived in abstract and general terms, we could easily insert such a globe of light within our total consciousness. It could occupy, at plus and minus levels, a position on the vertical axis or in any one of the ramified sets of possible positions. Brahma, as the four-headed, lotus-born god, is to be placed within the qualitative space of the individual or collective consciousness of mankind and treated as a phenotype to mark the source of all creative activity. As the lotus blooms within time, the four-headed god, each of whose faces turns towards one of the four points of the compass, would give us a concrete image of creation as a visualizable process in the form of a personified agent within the specific function of creation, who is to be placed at the ontological negative vertical limit called the Alpha Point. As the processes of growth and division proceed sufficiently forward in pure verticalized terms, we transcend the world of biology into another order where solidity of matter, characterized by mutual impenetrability of particles, initiates a horizontalizing exclusiveness between each unit. This results in what we understand as terra firma, which consists mostly of silicon dioxide crystals, each of which seems to be fighting to preserve its own space from being occupied by another crystal at the same time. Without this terra firma, the drama of life itself could not be acted out. All human aspirations must have a firm basis as a foothold without which no value could ever be enjoyed, even for a split second. This is the parameter, however thin in its functional amplitude, that we have to allow in favour of Vishnu, who is represented as sleeping on a thousand-headed serpent, Ananta, in a milk ocean, symbolically representing the life-value of nourishment spread generously all around, at the basis of human life itself. Salvation would lose its meaning without such a basis.
 
Vishnu, as a universal concrete principle, is represented also by a small golden fish, Matsya, which grew to immense proportions; by a tortoise, Kurma, who supported a mountain on his back for the churning of the milk ocean; and by a boar, Varaha, who with his hard tusks killed the demon Hiranyaksa and brought the earth back to the surface of the ocean. The fish, tortoise and boar, which are said to be successive incarnations of water-loving creatures, are evidently to be placed in a vertical series, beginning at the Alpha Point or negative limit. There are many Sanskrit texts which lend support to the view that Vishnu supports from below all the hypostatic worlds above. The horizontal expansiveness of space in terms of quantity stands for the firm earth; the schematic representation of the same would be the horizontal axis. Thus we arrive at a general notion of the function of Vishnu.
 
Now, when we pass over this horizontal parameter represented by Vishnu at the equatorial region of the total situation, we enter into the world of vertical values of a more and more teleological order, passing through the immensity of empty spaces, i.e. the interstellar space of our own universe. The same vertical parameter, produced vertically far enough, takes us to the domain of Shiva, as the universal principle of destruction. Creation would not have any meaning without its counterpart, dissolution. Heat and cold belong together; the same is true of birth and death. Existence and essence have also to belong necessarily together, whether we wish to die early or not. If grandmothers and grandfathers refuse to die, what will be the lot of this world? Surely a sombre and vegetative picture, full of sadness and frustration, would be the state of humanity if Shiva refused to function as the most "generous" principle of destruction - at least in the most paradoxical sense of Shakespeare's dictum: "sweet are the uses of adversity". Every reality must have a container which has a lid at one end, just as a jug cannot be open at both ends. This is known in Vedantic literature as the principle of the inverted cup, or in the West as the phenomenological principle of bracketing.

Heat must be countered by cold; and creation by destruction, in any process conceived in its totality. Modern phenomenologists have tried to describe human life as an epoché, enclosed within brackets, one evidently being at the top and the other at the bottom. Shiva's function has thus to be put in its proper structural perspective. This task is not easy, even for modern physicists, but in the sequence of verses that follows, the ancient speculative tradition in India takes up this challenge with as much confidence and dignity as modern theoretical physics.
 
Grey ashes and nourishing food, such as rice and water, mark the limits or brackets between which human life is destined to fulfil itself. There is a complementarity, reciprocity, compensation and cancellation between these two limits as life unfolds corrected and harmonized within these ambivalent tendencies. Ashes cancel out against rice and nourishing water into the central value represented by mother's milk, as so touchingly alluded to in Verse 75. Milk represents the generosity of the Absolute, viewed from the perspective of motherhood.
 
Shiva thus occupies the Omega Point or highest limit in the total system of contemplative values. He is represented as dancing in the graveyard in the Shaivite literature of South India, in the temple at Chidambaram, dedicated to him, and in the world-famous bronze of the dancing Nataraja. He is known as the City-Burner, descending with flame in hand, while himself engulfed in the flames of his own austere way of life. Thus, he is not an auspicious god in the conventional sense, but one who can bring to bear on the total situation that positive touch without which life would be meaninglessly lopsided. He represents the principle of tragic cancellation. Thus, it is apt to describe him as smearing his body with ashes while reveling in the positive principle of tragedy. When cancelled against its own negative counterpart, Absolute Beauty is both tragic and comic at once. The Absolute transcends both, and is beyond both good and evil, beyond all dualities. Such are some of the guidelines to be kept in mind when scrutinizing this second verse, by the light of which the three stratified functions within the total scope of the Absolute Universe could be easily visualized by the reader without further explanation.
 
 
(Entropy/negentropy: entropy is a rough measure of randomness and disorder, or the absence of pattern in the structuring of a system. Negative entropy, or negentropy, roughly refers to the degree of order or organization within a closed system. ED)
 
(Phenomenology:(1) A description of the givens of immediate experience. (2) An attempt to capture experience in process as lived, through descriptive analysis. (3) A method of knowing that "begins with the things themselves, that tries to find a 'first opening' on the world free of our perceptions and interpretations, together with a methodology for reducing the interference of our preconceptions. (4) A method of learning about another person by listing to their descriptions of what their subjective world is like for them, together with an attempt to understand this in their own terms as fully as possible, free of our preconceptions and interferences. Phenomenology is the act of trying to experience the total reality of the consciousness of someone who experiences his or her world in a certain place and time. Phenomenology has roots in the Greek word, phenesti, which means "to show forth, to bring into the light of day". ED)

(Epoché:  "suspension" is an Ancient Greek term which, in its philosophical usage, describes the theoretical moment where all judgments about the existence of the external world, and consequently all action in the world, is suspended. One's own consciousness is subject to immanent critique so that when such belief is recovered, it will have a firmer grounding in consciousness. ED)
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(Bracketing: (German: einklammerung); also called epoché or the phenomenological reduction, is a term in the philosophical school of phenomenology describing the act of suspending judgement about the natural world to instead focus on analysis of mental experience. ED)
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(The reference to Shiva as "not an auspicious god in the conventional sense" is because, in Sanskrit, "shiva" means "auspicious". ED)
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ADDITIONAL COMMENTS WITH STRUCTURAL DIAGRAMS RELATED TO THIS VERSE FROM SAUNDARYA LAHARI/NOTES.

 

WORD FOR WORD
Taniyamsum pamsum = extremely fine dust.
Ta va charana pankeruha bhavam - Virinchih = arising out of thy lotus feet, Brahma.
Sanchinvan virachayati lokan = makes the worlds.
Avikalam vahati = bears up each from each distinctly
Enam = this (the worlds)
Saurih kathamapi = Vishnu somehow.
Sahasrena sirasam = with even his thousand heads.
Harah samkshudya = Rudra having shaken it up, beaten it up as for an omelette.
Enam = this.
Bhajati = serves with it, accomplishes as benefit out of it.
Bhasito dhulana vidhim = the ash-smearing rite.

 

Another version:


WORD FOR WORD
taniyamsam pamsum - the fine dust
tava carana pankeruha bhavam - arising out of Your lotus feet
virincih - Brahma
sabcinvan viracayati - gathering up
lokan avikalam - the worlds creates
avikalan vahaty - incessantly he bears
evam - this same
saurih katham api - Vishnu somehow or other
sahasrena sirasam - by his thousand heads
harah samksudyainam - Shiva, having shaken it up
bhajati - accomplishes religiously
bhasito viddhulana vidhim - (his) ash wearing rite.
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The Goddess here represents the Absolute viewed schematically under a slightly negative perspective.
 
 
On the vertical parameter, thus revealed at its lower Alpha Point, is to be located, as it were, at the feet of the Goddess, the creative function of which, as is well known Hindu mythology, the god Brahma seated on a lotus and with four faces representing the four aspects of space, is the operative principle. All existence is brought into being and subjected to becoming by the function of Brahma, the Creator.
Below is a representation of Brahma.

Higher up on the vertical parameter of reference, we have to locate the sustaining or preserving function, which Hindu mythology attributes to Vishnu. His function is at the meeting point of the horizontal and vertical structural correlates representing the noumenal and phenomenal aspects of the Absolute, both as being and becoming at the same time, taking speculation beyond paradox so as to make it attain the Absolute. The principle of occasionalism (see Descartes) involved herein justifies the use of the expression "somehow" in the third line of the verse.
 
(Vishnu is often known as Narayana, one who sleeps on the primordial waters (Nara, water; ayana, to lie in repose). Creation, before Brahma gave it the four directions, symbolized by his four heads, has the indefinite nature of all-pervading water ("God moved upon the face of the waters" as Genesis, I, 2 puts it) on which the numinous principle of life or creation was supposed to recline. This image of creation formed the background of the later Vishnu tradition which itself suffered many changes through history and became the Vasudeva  tradition of the Bhagavad Gita epoch. In the original Narayana scheme, Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma met without distinction as the Adi-Narayana, the first divinity of creation, or the primordial Man or Nara, when called Nara-Narayana. ED)
 
 
 
 
(Descartes' occasionalism: this theory states that the illusion of efficient causation between mundane events arises out of God's causing of one event after another. However, there is no necessary connection between the two: it is not that the first event causes God to cause the second event: rather, God first causes one and then causes the other. ED)
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Vishnu's function has to be pluralistic, as represented by the suggestion of the thousand heads of the snake on which he reposes in the eternal present of contemplative sleep.
 
(Ananta: literally "endless" is the name of the snake upon which Vishnu is supposed to sleep, resting on the primordial milk-ocean of universal goodness. The name stands for eternity. The counterpart name is Adi-Sesha, meaning "what originally remains," i.e. the eternal, present from the most ancient antiquity. This snake is many-headed, signifying the multi-sided nature of creation at any given moment. ED)
 

 
In Shiva we attain the upper, conceptual or nominal limit of the total situation here schematically (i.e. structurally) analyzed. Existence here gives place to thin logical or rational subsistence, merging into the value world of pure axiological status.
Below is a representation of Shiva.
 
 
 
Shiva the destroyer is thus the Omega Point, where actualities evaporate into thin mathematical nothingness of nominalistic, though pure, Absolute Value. The thin dust of the feet is subjected to further refinement, as suggested in the last line here, so that it becomes the ritual ornament smeared lightly on the radiant body of Shiva.


Thus existence, subsistence and value with pluralistic, horizontal reference are all capable of structural recognition in this verse.
(Existence, subsistence and value correspond to sat, chit and ananda)
 
 

(The structural diagrams of the previous verse can be used for this verse also.)
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The Absolute hides a paradox, if you do not resolve the paradox, there is no salvation.
Only downright Vedanta can resolve it. First, state the paradox as clearly as possible:

Absolute negativity is the Goddess (horizontality), the absolute vertical positive is Shiva.
 
 

Without the numerator Omega Point, the paradox cannot be resolved and yet, Shiva is powerless without Shakti.
Shiva destroys the three cities (that is, the three worlds of heaven, earth and what is between) i.e. he cancels them out.

Shakti attains to Shiva by being loyal to him.
The relationship between Shiva and Shakti is reciprocal, compensatory and cancelable.
They are put together in such a way that the paradox is presented.

Where paradox is resolved, the Absolute is revealed.

A Brahmin goes to heaven and enjoys a vacation, but then comes back to earth: this is Vedic relativistic religion.
Vedanta involves a Sanyasin with a begging bowl. He does not seek heaven, but liberation from the cycle of recurring births and deaths. (A camel cannot pass through the eye of a needle…)
 
(Sanyasin: One who has taken to Sanyasa. Generally in India the Sanyasin or renouncer wears a yellow ochre dress, has a shaven head, and carries a danda or staff and a kamandalu or water-pot. He wanders homeless and depends upon Bhiksha or freely given alms. In the post-Buddhist period, under the leadership of Sankara, this order became more and more prevalent and recognized in India.

Sanyasa: The act of renunciation, especially of ritualistic Vedic religious life in favour of monastic life of austerity, where philosophy gains the foreground and has primacy in the life of the individual. ED.)

 

The first verse has set the paradox and the frame.
The three functions are brought together and then abolished.
 
 

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An earlier translation of this verse:
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TRANSLATION
Extremely fine dust (pollen) (arising) (taken by Brahma)
From thy feet (from the lotus of the feet - pollen dust)
Gathering together by Brahma
He creates the (three) worlds
(Brahma creates the many worlds of values, each distinct from the others)
Bears up each from each distinct
(Each has its own vertical axis - impenetrability)
This (some world which is manifested)
He supports with thousand heads (Vishnu)
All these dust-produced worlds
Shiva comes and, having beaten them all together,
Accomplishes (serves) the benefit of it (destroys it, and puts the ashes on his head), (without the destruction, cancelling...(?))
Wearing the ashes (ritual)
 

 

Vedanta is outside the context of religion.
Christianity will say: "As it was in the beginning, is now etc...."
They cannot cheat humanity all of the time.

Where is your God that you ask me to worship, where is the description of your God?
What about Copernicus, and Bruno and Galileo?
Jehovah sent a column of light so that Moses could see from earth to heaven.

If you ask: "What did you see? Did you see God?" They will say: "Oh no, you cannot see God!"
"What about the Sistine Chapel?" "Oh that is just a joke of the Pope´s".
 
Three gods, Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, came in to fill the Absolute, which was empty.

What is the best thing with which to fill it? Absolute Beauty.

The voice that spoke to Moses was empty. What did it mean to the shepherds?
The whole of the Bible is trying to give some content to this voice.
God - "maker of heaven and earth", "as it was in the beginning..." etc.
What is it that is true? They do not tell you.
Please, Bible, tell me something about this God whom I want to worship.
The Book of Job indicates that God is a bad schoolmaster who will not answer questions.

The most difficult gap in the Bible to fill up is the content of God from the earth up.
"Is there no cosmology about this God? Will you tell me about God?"
"NO, NO, NO!"
 
Sankara gives us the whole phenomenal side, which is our side as people living in the world.
 
 

He presents the whole picture in terms of left-hand spirals becoming right-hand spirals and on into infinity.
 
 

 

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There are two spiral processes - Vishnu's firm ground. Powder from the Devi's feet,
 
This is the paradox of the phenomenal universe.

If the non-Europeans had had guns early enough, the Bible would have been thrown away - NO aborigines would have been converted to Christianity.

Verse 2 consists of three gods, with three functions - Numerator, Denominator and Middle.
Everything in the world has three stages - birth, life and death.
These are the functions of creation, preservation and dissolution.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Mythology is a growth determined by geography and culture.
Narayana Guru decided not to use mythology, but definitions drawn from everyday examples, to describe the Absolute.
When mythology is used, he refers to all mythology.

TO GO FROM THE KNOWN TO THE UNKNOWN, TO FILL THE ABSOLUTE WITH CONTENT,
THE SAUNDARYA LAHARI USES THE BEAUTY OF A WOMAN; THE SLIGHTEST OF COMMON CONCEPTS, ABSTRACTING AND UNIVERSALIZING IT.
 
"Philosophy is that intelligence by which the landlady can tell if the tenant will pay the rent", B.Russell.
 
An example is NOT a starting postulate.
You must use either deductive or inductive reasoning.

How to justify Verse 2 within the context of the Absolute?
Brahma comes, takes fine dust from the feet of the Devi and creates three vertical worlds, till it becomes the firm earth that we know.
 
Begin from the "monde affiné", the refined version of the world described by Bergson (See above).
00001, the square root-of-minus-one etc.; this is the pollen powder used by Brahma to create the universe.

Vishnu sleeps on a coiled 1000-headed snake, floating on a milk ocean - a pluralistic pragmatist.
Vaishnavas (Vishnu-worshippers) give Brahma a secondary status next to Vishnu.
Vishnu represents value-worlds so comfortable that he does not have to work.
From his navel comes a lotus in which is sitting Brahma
Why? Because all gods represent the Absolute.
 

Then we need the concept of destruction, since no man believes he will die.
Shiva appears in two aspects - operative as a demiurge and also as the mathematical Absolute, a pure concept.
The functioning Shiva as a demiurge is included in the Omega Point concept.

These three gods are included in a circle.
Brahma creates, Vishnu sustains, and Shiva destroys:
These are personifications of natural laws that we can see.
Shiva pulverises the whole thing, and then puts the ashes on his forehead and says: "I am proud to have destroyed."
Why? Because there can be no creation without destruction.
 

This is a close-up of the three functions of creation, preservation and destruction. The author now examines the negative aspect, the phenomenal world:
Brahma finds powder at the feet of the Devi to create the universe,
Shiva, after destroying the universe, also puts three lines of powder on his head;
It is described as powder because the universe consists of small particles.
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Brahma creates the world from pollen dust.
Vishnu, who represents stability, somehow supports it all on his thousand heads (representing horizontal plurality) and stabilizes it.

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Shiva (Hara) destroys it all and wears the ashes on his forehead.


 
All this takes place on a homogenous ground; there is complementarity of function.

 

There are two spiral processes - Vishnu's firm ground and powder from the Devi's feet.

This is a monde affiné (c.f. Bergson) there is no actual firm ground - all is composed of dust.


This is like the famous passage by Eddington, "standing on the threshold..." where he describes the room he is about to enter as made up of innumerable particles flying around in empty space, with no solid objects such as floors, ceilings, tables and chairs.


Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva represent three functions here.
1) Brahma, with his four heads is seated on a lotus and creates the universe from pollen dust.


2) Vishnu supports it with his thousand heads - making a terra firma.


3) Shiva destroys it - turns it into smoke and ashes - this is the evaporation of everything into mathematics


Brahman, the Absolute, can be numerator as Para-brahman, the transcendent Absolute - then it is impredicable.


So:

Para-brahman, the transcendent Absolute, is impredicable

Apara-brahman, the non-transcendent Absolute, is predicable


 

 

You can ascend or descend. The Saundarya Lahari is ascending from Apara (the non-transcendent absolute) to Para (the transcendent absolute): from perceptual to conceptual, from the known to the unknown.


Sankara has taken the trinity of Indian gods, Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, and given them three separate representative functions in this verse, which introduces the stratifications of the vertical axis, with the three gods each having their place on it.
Some kind of interesting value-content must go into the Absolute, such as creation, subsistence and destruction, here represented by the three gods.


The pollen is pressed together into a firm ground and is supported by Vishnu.
The final third aspect is the destroying fire and smoke of Shiva.
Experience first Apara-brahman, the non-transcendent absolute - as described in the writings of Narayana Guru.

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SOME NOTES FOR A PROJECTED FILM OF THE SAUNDARYA LAHARI

FILM GENERALITIES

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BEFORE THE FILM COMMENCES, INSERT SUFFICIENT INFORMATION ABOUT THE FOLLOWING SUBJECTS:

a) How the Devi occupies the same space as the Absolute; the place of Magenta in the scheme.

The status of the Hindu Gods:
b) Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesvara (Shiva), Rudra, etc. (The three gods of creation, preservation and destruction, and Rudra, who is the god of storms, seen as a form of Shiva. ED)

c) The relationship between Saraswati, Lakshmi and Kali. (Saraswati - the positive Goddess of Learning and the Arts; Lakshmi - the Goddess of Prosperity - occupying a central and slightly horizontalized position; and Kali the negative goddess of destruction. ED)

d) Subrahmanya and Ganesha. (The two sons of Shiva and the Devi - Subrahmanya, the numerator War-God, and Ganesha - the denominator Elephant God of Learning. ED)

e) Kama and Rati Devi. (Eros and his wife, literally "desire". ED)

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a) THE PLACE OF MAGENTA IN THE SCHEME.

 

 

Magenta is an absolute colour; ultraviolet and infrared meet in it. Colour film technique proves that magenta can produce any other shade, tint or saturation by positive or negative filters. These filters presuppose a colour-solid with an Alpha and an Omega point from which, by omitting or adding certain elements, all colours required can be produced. This is a great discovery of modern times in optics. (See the Introduction to "An Integrated Science of the Absolute" on this website)


colour solid

 

Thus the basic or absolute colour, magenta, is obtained by neutralisation of plus and minus factors.
It is thus reasonable to equate it with the Absolute principle of Beauty, or the Goddess of this work.

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b) THE GODS AND THEIR INTERRELATIONSHIP

It is necessary to fit all of these into a structural context and also to indicate the dynamism involved.


Brahma, Vishnu or Shiva or any others belonging to the same positive, numerator order of divinities, such as Rudra, Sadashiva etc.: these have to be placed in the top half of the circle, which is divided by a horizontal line: but there is no harm in indicating that this top half could be absorbed into the bottom of the vertical axis, as when a Japanese fan, which is a horizontal semicircle when open, folds up into the vertical axis.


This dynamism must be demonstrated on the screen. These three gods have to be given their functions, and viewed both in their horizontalized and verticalized aspects.

 

c) THE GODDESSES

 

Sarasvati is at the top of the vertical axis.

 

Kali at the bottom.

 

Chamundi in the middle. (see Verse 89)


The Dasakumaracarita of Dandin describes the goddesses for ten nights.
Show how the goddesses change from one to the other. If you can purify the vertical negative, then you have Lakshmi, or else Saraswati on the positive side, in a calm aspect without horizontality.

 

d) GANESHA AND SUBRAHMANIYA

 

Ganesha.

 

Subrahmanya.

 

Of the two sons of Shiva and the Devi, Subrahmanya is vertical and Ganesha is a purified version of the horizontal.

Ganesha is existence, Subrahmanya is the essence of God..

Finally bring these two, that is, the horizontal negative and the vertical positive, together and cancel them both out.

 

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e) EROS AND HIS WIFE

 

 

Kama Deva (Eros) and Rati (his wife, her name means "desire").
Rati, being a woman, has no function really; she is just to be absorbed.
Kama, however, has a function, and no woman can live without him.
The difference between a Pre-Raphaelite Madonna and the Mona Lisa is that Kama Deva is present in the latter. Kama can still operate when Shiva is not present; show him jumping into the lake of the Devi´s navel; Rati cries and goes to the negative side of the vertical axis.

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THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SHIVA AND THE DEVI

 

 

There are mutual complementarity, compensation, cancellability and reciprocity between Shiva and Shakti (the Devi). Explain this fully, while being careful never to minimise the importance of one or the other.

Complementarity is most difficult. You have to show magenta arising out of Shiva's ashes and the magenta spot on the Devi's forehead (So there is colour mixing here).
The possibilities of colour, laser and holograph technologies have to be explored here.

 

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THE STRUCTURAL ELEMENT

The Structure explained:


a. The Cartesian correlates, horizontal and vertical axis's in a graph.


b. Solid geometry and conics

.

.
c. Crystal structures:


 

d. The status of other flowers and water lilies.

 

 

 

 

 

e. Some favourite trees used for structural purposes.

 

 

 


a. Show the vertical and horizontal axis, and how they are used everywhere: in hospitals, finance, etc.

 

 

b. Halley's comet comes and makes a parabola or hyperbola. There is a solid geometry found in the sky, cf. conics in astronomy.


There are double rainbows, with the colours reversed. Conics enter into cosmology.

 


c. There are different kinds of coloured quartz, gems, etc. to photograph.
Show the crystal structures with colours (in museums).

.

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d. Lotuses and sunflowers and arrangements of logarithmic spirals, the golden proportion,
cf. Edna Kramer (what work? ED).

 

In several natural phenomena one may find curves that are close to being logarithmic spirals. Here follows some examples and reasons:

  • The approach of a hawk to its prey. Their sharpest view is at an angle to their direction of flight; this angle is the same as the spiral's pitch.
  • The approach of an insect to a light source. They are used to having the light source at a constant angle to their flight path. Usually the sun (or moon for nocturnal species) is the only light source and flying that way will result in a practically straight line.
  • The arms of spiral galaxies. Our own galaxy, the Milky Way, has several spiral arms, each of which is roughly a logarithmic spiral with pitch of about 12 degrees.
  • The nerves of the cornea (this is, corneal nerves of the subepithelial layer terminate near superficial epithelial layer of the cornea in a logarithmic spiral pattern).
  • Many biological structures including the shells of mollusks. In these cases, the reason may be construction from expanding similar shapes, as shown for polygonal figures in the accompanying graphic.
  • Logarithmic spiral beaches can form as the result of wave refraction and diffraction by the coast. Half Moon Bay, California is an example of such a type of beach.
  • The Fibonacci Series of numbers forms a spiral.

 

 

e. There are some flowers that close and some that open at night.


f. The Asoka, fig trees with aerial roots.
See the Gita on the fig tree with roots above and branches below.
There is a reference to an Asoka in Verse 85 and Verse 96: a tree or creeper is an extremely negative value.

 


THE DEVI'S BODY AS DESCRIBED IN THE SAUNDARYA LAHARI

Woman's form examined through the rules of Indian iconography.
One should examine minutely:
a. The structural implications of the lower and upper half, divided by an imaginary tropic line.
b. The thin waist.
c. The navel, the navel-lake and the three folds at the waist.
d. Thighs and knees: their strength, suppleness and frailty implying reciprocity between elephant tusks and banana plants.
e. Horizontal and vertical versions of the breasts.
f. The four-fold structure of the mid-eyebrow region, the eyes, ears etc.; implying a vertical arrow.
g. The feet placed at the bottom, middle and top: further details to be supplied by actual verses, when more closely examined.

This is a study in itself, note the hands, sinus functions,
Fourier functions, etc., as found in iconography.

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 SHIVA AND THE DEVI

Descending Shiva and ascending Goddess - how they meet, how they interact:
a. Back-to-back eroticism versus belly-to-belly.
b. They do not touch each other, except for the chin; they always keep twelve inches apart.
(further implications in the verses themselves)

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 THE CHAKRAS

The origins of the six Chakras.
a. What they represent as a psychodynamic mechanism with synergisms and syndromes.
b. The hierarchy of Chakras: Sahasrara on the plus side and Muladhara on the negative side and one at the mid-point. (Further details in Verses 36 & ff.)

A yogi sitting with the Chakras fixed in their positions, psycho-dynamically understood. The interplay of Sattva, Rajas and Tamas (the three modalities of nature).

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STRUCTURALISM

Geometry and Algebra must meet in structuralism.
a. Magenta is an abstract colour, with possible positive and negative filtration.
b. Laser techniques and three-dimensional space or the colour-solid as a mathematical entity.

See the theory of Protolinguistics, see monograph by the Guru.
Pure mathematics can contain both algebra and geometry, as complementary vertical counterparts: see the two proofs of Pythagoras' theorem, one algebraic and metalinguistic, and the other geometric and protololinguistic.
Cf. post-Hilbertian mathematics and Galois.

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STRUCTURALISM

The figure-eight dynamism (see Bergson).
a. Explain the matrix and O-point.
b. Explain the "universal here and now" at the Alpha-point.
c. The "universal elsewhere" - timeless - is at the Omega-point.
d. Explain the Mandalas or Chakras, do not omit them, they are four-cornered:
the Sri Chakra, Kaula and Samaya cults revalued.

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 STRUCTURALISM

Parity, virtuality, right and left spins, the mutual exclusion of horizontal factors, impenetrability; the seed of troubles in this world - harshness; the problem of evil located at the horizontal of the spirit.

N.B. This could be divided in two or three parts and presented separately, so as not to bore the audience.

See quantum mechanics and molecular structure: Diagrams to be found in Gent University, etc.
Bachelor and female particles.

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THE EIGHT-FOLD STRUCTURE - ITS PARTS:
My question was: " Is Ashtatam (eight) arrived at by a quaternion on the Denominator and another on the Numerator?"
"No. The eight are derived in "The Epistemology of the Gnosis" from six plus two or seven plus one to make eight.
Then there is a quaternion in each of the eight Adharas or levels.
Then put eight of Subrahmaniam on the numerator and eight of Ganesha on the denominator; interpenetrate the two and you get the normalised Kali as in the "Kali Natakam" of Narayana Guru.

The terms assigned to their respective levels:
Ambivalence - the first level, the actual, Subrahmaniam and Ganesha are ambivalent factors.
Reciprocity - the second level; Saraswati and Lakshmi.
Complementarity - the third level, the Devi with callosities on Her knees from worshipping 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 united.
Parity - refers to the horizontal alone; bilateral symmetry.

 

THE WORLD LINE OF BERGSON.
When you treat Time as a factor with some epistemological status of length, breadth and thickness - schematise - you get the world line of Einstein and Minkowski.

Bergson says "very good, but make it valid for philosophy as well as physics; the world line for S and S' must coalesce".

A boy on a tricycle makes circles in the drawing room, he has to turn the handlebars, but at what angle? An infinitesimal angle entering at infinitesimal instants of time. A big or small circle does not make any difference: it is the infinitesimal factor in calculation that makes them the same.
(Relevant to Chaos Theory? ED)