COMMENTARIES ON OTHER TEXTS OF EROTIC MYSTICISM
While he was studying the Saundarya Lahari, Nataraja Guru also studied various other texts of erotic mysticism.
We present here a partial commentary on Kalidasa's "Shakuntala", together with other texts by Kalidasa and other authors.
KALIDASA'S SHAKUNTALA
Properly called Abhijñānaśākuntalam, (Abhijnana means: "Leading toward knowledge", that is, her "recognition" by Dusyanta). this play by Kalidasa tells the story of King Dushyanta who, while on a hunting trip, meets Shakuntalā, the adopted daughter of a sage, and marries her. A mishap befalls them when he is summoned back to court: Shakuntala, pregnant with their child, inadvertently offends a visiting sage and incurs a curse, by which Dushyanta will forget her completely until he sees the ring he has left with her. On her trip to Dushyanta's court in an advanced state of pregnancy, she loses the ring, and has to come away unrecognized. The ring is found by a fisherman who recognizes the royal seal and returns it to Dushyanta, who regains his memory of Shakuntala and sets out to find her. After more travails, they are finally reunited.
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"Greek drama is based on the dialectics between honour and duty; Indian drama is based on the dialectics between eroticism and asceticism." Nataraja Guru
This commentary is based on the somewhat dubious and punditical translation of the Motilal Banarsidas edition from which the Guru worked.
An even more dubious translation is here provided for lack of anything better.
http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=1261&layout=html#chapter_77399
The commentary is fragmentary and often repetitive,as it is drawn from several manuscripts, which have been left as they are, rather than risk losing important details by attempting to streamline them into a more lineal form. The Guru would often return several times to a passage and give slightly different interpretations each time. The reader will have to refer constantly to the text of the play to discover the passages referred to in the commentary; however, there is a lot to be learnt even from so partial a text, particularly from the structural methodology employed, together with the diagrams used to illustrate this.
Probably, the best way to grasp the commentary is to read the play first in its entirety, and then go through it with the commentary.
1
THE ASOKA TREE.
From roots to top, the Asoka has sprouts of a coral colour.
It is giving endless blossoms - when erotic mysticism is complete, there is a thrilling of the entire body.
Sadness overtakes a young girl in love, as a form of mysticism.
The Vikramurvasiyam of Kalidasa has the same situation: an Asoka tree waiting to flower requires the kick of a Princess.
There is a one-to-one correspondence between the élan vital of the tree and the queen.
Verse 85 of the Saundarya Lahari has a similar theme.
Kicking means to understand the one in terms of the other: she kicks it so that it can get married.
This is an equation between the Self and the Non-Self.
This kind of eroticism gives content to the notion of the Absolute.
The play is properly called Abhijnanashakuntala. Abhijnana means: "Leading toward knowledge", that is, her "recognition" by Dusyanta.
Kalidasa sets up the audience hypnotically before the beginning of the play.
For example, the charioteer's speech about the horses.
The lines hang loose; the steeds unreined
Dart forward with a will.
Their ears are pricked; their necks are strained;
Their plumes lie straight and still.
They leave the rising dust behind;
They seem to float upon the wind.
You are being transferred from the horizontal chariot to the soul of a horse.
The horses change horizontal space into vertical space.
Kalidasa wants you to do the same thing.
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THE NANDI, OR BENEDICTION FROM SHAKUNTALA.
"That which is the first creation of the creator,
That which bears the offering made according to due rites,
That which is the offerer,
Those two which make time,
That which pervades all space,
having for its quality what is perceived by the ear,
That which is the womb of all seeds,
That by which all living beings breathe:
Endowed with these eight visible forms, may the supreme Lord protect you."
The benediction is a masterpiece of structuralism: a god with eight visible forms, both cosmology and psychology together.
1. The first creation is fire, the centre, as with Thales etc.
2. That which bears the fire (what is put into it as an offering) according to a certain order in the universe: some grains.
3. The Hotri, or sacrificant, who makes the offering.
4 and 5. "Those two who make time": the sun and moon, which are to be verticalized so as to rise and set in your consciousness as if presented to the five senses.
6. The visible world - i.e. attainable in a schematized form.
7. Whatever you call the horizontal world - the womb of all seeds.
8. That by which all things live - breath.
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ALL THESE FALL INTO A VERTICAL AXIS.
ABSTRACT AND GENERALIZE AND YOU GET STRUCTURE, THAT IS, FORM.
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The existing translation (Motilal Banarsidas edition) of the Nandi proves to be inadequate, the Guru will translate the work.
In the Nandi only one god is praised: Ishana.
A Puranic interpretation of the eight forms listed in the Nandi would be wrong,
Kalidasa must be read as a Vedantin.The Gita, Brahma Sutras, and Upanishads must be referred to in order to understand his poetry and plays.
Shabda Pramana means that "the words" (e.g. The words of an authority or scripture. ED) are taken as being true.
Other Pramanas (sources of valid knowledge. ED) are:
1. Pratyaksha - what is given to the senses.
2. Anumana - inference (where there is smoke, there is fire).
3. Upamana - analogy between two examples.
4. Sastrimitva - all Shastras would be wrong if there were no Brahman.
This is Shabda Pramana.
These are four of the ten Pramanas commonly accepted in Vedanta.
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In the Nandi, we find:
1. Fire
2. Ghee (clarified butter used as an offering)
3. The Brahmin sacrificer (these two are interchangeable: "ya cha hotri...")
4 and 5. Time as sun and moon. There is an alternating figure eight.
Time mounts the vertical axis, like S and S' (see Bergson in "The Science of the Absolute" on this website)
They must be verticalized.
6. Substance, attribute, sound, "that even which we speak of as Nature".
7, 8. Manifestation itself is the last mentioned, together with prana "breath", it goes at the top; it is a nature-principle which gives breathing to all things.
Thus, here are eight presences that you can approach as being the visible universal concrete: also with the eight-fold content or aspects.
"Let this universal principle be your saviour - let it save you".
"I worship you and I want to be saved by what you see".
The same elements are used in the play: Shakuntala, a pregnant woman, is the centre, the king forgets her; this is the tragedy.
If you are not tuned to the Absolute, not completely verticalized, you will forget your own wife as Dusyanta forgets Shakuntala, which is the greatest injustice.
Dushyanta is horizontally oriented - thus he forgets his wife.
Shakuntala is vertical.
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ANOTHER PROVISIONAL TRANSLATION OF THE NANDI:
1. That creation which is the first of all created (things),
2. That which is the clarified butter.
3. That which is at the same time the sacrificer
4 and 5. Those two which make time
6. That ground in which inhere (stand established) quality, sound and substance
(i.e. the horizontal world), filling the whole universe (vyaya visvam)
7. That which is said to be the seed of all manifestation.
8. That which gives life to all living beings
May all of you be saved by the eight bodies (presences)
Let these, the eight manifestations of the Lord, attainable by what is given to the senses, save you.
(This is the Atman that is at the top of the vertical axis - the Omega point.
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WHAT IS THE RELEVANCE OF THE NANDI TO THE PLAY ITSELF?
"The play is the thing" - what you see and what you feel must correspond, resulting in joy, a revealing of human nature with its echo in the soul, an equation between the Self and the Non-Self.
What you represent while being saved has one-to-one correspondence with the action of the play.
Fire is in the centre: tilt it to the Denominator and you will get Shakuntala.
The same structure will be evidenced.
There is a slight asymmetry of perspective as between the Self and the Non-Self.
The spectators are asked to put themselves in a certain mood. Tilt the camera from the positive side of the audience to the negative side of the unhappy Shakuntala.
5
THE INTRODUCTORY VERSES IN SHAKUNTALA ARE IN A FOUR-FOLD PATTERN.
The stage-manager says:
Why, sing about the pleasant summer which has just begun. For at this time of year
A mid-day plunge will temper heat;
The breeze is rich with forest flowers;
To slumber in the shade is sweet;
And charming are the twilight hours
Actress, sings:
The sirisa-blossoms fair,
With pollen laden,
Are plucked to deck her hair
By many a maiden,
But gently; flowers like these
Are kissed by eager bees.
He is describing the beginning of summer:
1. The days become delightful at evening.
2. To plunge in the water is so delightful.
3. The breeze is filled with perfume, blowing horizontally.
4. There is a boy sleeping in a deep shady place.
Kalidasa puts people in a proper mood by first singing to them, establishing a harmony between the people and the summer season in which the action is going to take place.
The actress sings: this gives a background for a tender, erotic context.
This is a delicate, contemplative tragedy.
Flowers kissed by bees are the most delicate.
This is the world of occasionalism.
The audience is immobilized, as in a picture: subject and object interpenetrate; interest is evenly balanced.
The wife tells the King the Denominator side.
The King is flying, so he is slightly absent-minded.
He is half-awake, to induce a similar state in the audience.
Then there is a gentle surprise - King Dusyanta is brought in and the Prologue ends.
Stage manager:
To tell the truth, madam,
Until the wise are satisfied,
I cannot feel that skill is shown;
The best-trained mind requires support,
And does not trust itself alone.
The Stage Manager or Sutradhara says the words have to meet the acting: conceptualism meets perceptualism.
That twilight zone of consciousness between them is where the drama can flourish - not too vague, not too definite.
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ACT I
The "Pinaka-Wielder", in the Sanskrit text, means Shiva. This brings to mind the archetypal hunter - this is to fulfil the same purpose of revealing Brahman.
This gives the drama its place in the Indian context.
First get the horizontal line clear.
The charioteer is in the centre and speaks.
Your Majesty,
I see you hunt the spotted deer
With shafts to end his race,
As though God Shiva should appear
In his immortal chase
Then the King speaks:
His neck in beauty bends
As backward looks he sends
At my pursuing car
That threatens death from far.
Fear shrinks to half the body small;
See how he fears the arrow’s fall!
The path he takes is strewed
With blades of grass half-chewed
From jaws wide with the stress
Of fevered weariness.
He leaps so often and so high,
He does not seem to run, but fly.
See! The horses are gaining on the deer.
As onward and onward the chariot flies,
The small flashes large to my dizzy eyes.
What is cleft in twain, seems to blur and mate;
What is crooked in nature, seems to be straight.
Things at my side in an instant appear
Distant, and things in the distance, near.
The King's speech indicates the horizontal vanishing point;
The King sees a jumping, zigzag line.
This is a philosophical reflection on the notion of horizontal existence.
Hunting was a necessity in the time of Shiva, at the origin of human life.
So, the hunter reveals a horizontal line.
The infinity of space and relative speed is indicated here.
There is a Fitzgerald Contraction, a telescoping; grass is falling half-eaten out of the deer's mouth.
It moves lightly; the horizontal line is mathematical.
It is bounding; this indicates the vertical and gives the zigzag line of Bergson.
It shows fear of the horizontal.
The first axis is delineated here.
The King's mind is horizontal; the deer's is vertical.
Beauty is the sinus curve of its neck.
The deer was grazing vertically until the King appeared.
The dropped grass is a schematic, dotted line of tragedy and sympathy.
"Level ground" - the King is impatient of the speed of the chariot and wants to establish reciprocity between horses and chariot in pure motion.
Once reciprocity is established in motion, then the vertical is marked by a description of the chariot and the vision of the King.
Space and time are put into the melting pot: this is a "monde affiné", as in Bergson.
"Objects...," means the speed is great. Non-dual means vertical.
Bent becomes straight.
"So great the speed...": reciprocity abolishes all perspective.
He acts fixing an arrow, only fixing the arrow, not shooting.
Then from behind the scenes comes a voice saying that the deer must not be killed, it belongs to the hermitage.
A voice, offstage:
O King, this deer belongs to the hermitage, and must not be killed.
Charioteer:
Your Majesty, here are two hermits, come to save the deer at the moment when your arrow was about to fall.
Yes, your Majesty. (He does so. Enter a hermit with his pupil.)
O King, this deer belongs to the hermitage.
Why should his tender form expire,
As blossoms perish in the fire?
How could that gentle life endure
The deadly arrow, sharp and sure?
Restore your arrow to the quiver;
To you were weapons lent
The broken-hearted to deliver,
Not strike the innocent.
King:
It is done. (He does so.)
Hermit:
A deed worthy of you, scion of Puru’s race, and shining example of kings. May you beget a son to rule earth and heaven.
King:
I am thankful for a Brahman’s blessing.
The two hermits:
O King, we are on our way to gather firewood. Here, along the bank of the Malini, you may see the hermitage of Father Kanva, over which Shakuntala presides, so to speak, as guardian deity. Unless other deities prevent, pray enter here and receive a welcome. Besides,
Beholding pious hermit-rites
Preserved from fearful harm,
Perceive the profit of the scars
On your protecting arm.
Is the hermit father there?
No, he has left his daughter to welcome guests, and has just gone to Somatirtha, to avert an evil fate that threatens her.
Well, I will see her. She shall feel my devotion, and report it to the sage.
"Killing" is the last word that suggests horizontality: now, the drama is about to begin as a contest between the horizontal and the vertical.
The vertical must not be forgotten.
A voice says: "the deer must not be slain"
The Brahmachari (Ashram disciple) is an agent of the Guru.
The Ashram is an island of neutrality, it is vertical, and there is no killing there.
This is treated with much respect, even by a king, who complies and puts away his bow.
This is an epoch-making statement: a Brahmachari (Ashram disciple) is greater than a king.
The hermits are a point of insertion of the vertical.
The hermit's speech: "...perish as blossoms perish in the fire..".
Agni (fire) is brought in. A sacrifice may be necessary in the outside world, but not according to the vertical ahimsa (non-hurting) of the Ashram. Throwing flowers is a part of many rituals.
"Burning" is for the verticalisation of the horizontal.
"Puru": this is the archetypal pattern for all city-kings; weapons should be for decreasing, not inflicting, suffering.
He wishes:" May thou have a son", the King says, " It is accepted " and bows.
Somatirtha (the ashram) is a place on the vertical line, which intersects with the horizontal.
Kanva has gone there to rectify something about the birth of Shakuntala.
She is the daughter of Menaka, fathered by a forest Rishi; she could not be taken to heaven and so went to Kanva's ashram.
Kanva goes to determine Shakuntala's fate, but her fate is decided at Kanva's Ashram itself.
Kanva knows there is an evil fate in store for her, and has gone to Somatirtha, which is more vertical, to alleviate it, but there are certain things which are in the hands of providence.
The King's devotion - he is also innocent. (? ED)
The King's speech on entering the Ashram: there are two descriptions: one is Jaina, or pre-Vedic, and the other Vedic, he wants to put them together.
King.
Charioteer, drive on. A sight of the pious hermitage will purify us.
Charioteer.
Yes, your Majesty. (He counterfeits motion again.)
King(looking about).
One would know, without being told, that this is the precinct of a pious grove.
Charioteer.
How so?
King.
Do you not see? Why, here
Are rice-grains, dropped from bills of parrot chicks
Beneath the trees; and pounding-stones where sticks
A little almond-oil; and trustful deer
That do not run away as we draw near;
And river-paths that are besprinkled yet
From trickling hermit-garments, clean and wet.
Besides,
The roots of trees are washed by many a stream
That breezes ruffle; and the flowers’ red gleam
Is dimmed by pious smoke; and fearless fawns
Move softly on the close-cropped forest lawns.
Charioteer.
It is all true.
King(after a little).
We must not disturb the hermitage. Stop here while I dismount.
Charioteer.
I am holding the reins. Dismount, your Majesty.
King(dismounts and looks at himself).
One should wear modest garments on entering a hermitage. Take these jewels and the bow. (He gives them to the charioteer.) Before I return from my visit to the hermits, have the horses’ backs wet down.
Charioteer.
Yes, your Majesty. (Exit.)
King(walking and looking about).
The hermitage! Well, I will enter. (As he does so, he feels a throbbing in his arm.)
A tranquil spot! Why should I thrill?
Love cannot enter there—
Yet to inevitable things
Doors open everywhere.
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DESCRIPTION OF THE ASHRAM:
1. Some cereal grains, placed by parrots in the holes of trees, are overflowing: there is abundance and peace - the Jainas will never hunt or disturb living beings.
(See the Gymnosophists described by the Greek historian, Herodotus, in his account of Alexander the Great).
2. Ingudi is a nut crushed on stones for oil for lamps. This is a self-sufficient economic system, it is simple.
3. The deer in an Ashram know no fear and are full of confidence. The animals are protected absolutely.
4. There are lines from the washing of the clothes of the Sannyasins that mark the water level. This is inferential as are the signs described in 1 and 2; only 1 is visible.
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There are three kinds of inference here; he may be showing the Pramanas.
The above belongs to the Jaina context, what follows belongs to the Vedic context.
Kalidasa inserts himself into these two, before presenting Vedanta.
The King must protect the Rishi performing the fire sacrifice in the forest.
The second description is closer to the altar, since the grass is cut away, this is more of a cultivated garden.
These two descriptions form a pedestal of two concentric circles on which to place the fire of the sacrificer. Then the vertical axis can be built from there to the voice from heaven, which will be heard by the Hotri, or sacrificer.
The clipped Dharba grass means that it has been put into the fire by the Brahmin.
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II
1. Sprouts of grass indicate the horizontal axis.
2. Leaves made vague indicate the Vedic world of ghee (clarified butter used as a sacrificial offering) and the Hotri, or sacrificer.
3. "Roots bathed..." indicates the denominator side, the Alpha point source, the elementals.
4. Young fawns....
The river is horizontal.
Ripples; fire-bather-Brahmin (? ED).
The root is the source of the vertical axis.
This is a gentle attempt to verticalize the scene.
The King descends; he is going to meet Shakuntala.
He is leaving one level and going one step down; he leaves the horses there.
The King enters - the doors of possibility can open anywhere in this world.
You do not have to wait for possibilities that do not present themselves: what happens to you is in the scheme of the best of possible worlds.
The King's arm throbs: this is traditionally a signal of disaster: the right arm for women and the left arm for men. Unhappiness is going to start now. There is a jolt in the machinery - a delicate cybernetic balance is disturbed.
The damsels with pets - there is a dialectical relationship between the young girls and their pets, there is an equation between them, they sit like a baby in their lap.
...contains sinus curves. It is like the breasts of a woman, each is different.
The beauty is in the reciprocity.
The two girls.
Anasuya (lit. "without jealousy"): Kanva loves plants more than does Shakuntala: they represent the negative side of the vertical axis.
Priyamvada (lit. "praising, agreeable")
"The affection of a sister" - there is a unity of life, even plants, all is the Absolute.
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Reciprocity is established here between Shakuntala and the flower.
Note that Vedanta never postulates something that you cannot see.
She cares for the plants through, by, for and in herself: this Atman is the same as that:
Advaita comes alive.
Do not talk metaphysics without its lived counterpart.
The sami cut by a lotus leaf - The King says Kanva should not discipline Shakuntala, who has all her tenderness expressed as a flower.
Ascetic discipline is not for a young girl who is like a lotus leaf.
The diamond (tapas or renunciation) is at the Omega point.
Dusyanta can see this from the horizontal.
Shakuntala's bark garment - this is a study in contrast, he purposely plays on the bark garment and the growing breasts of a young girl.
The joking between the girls is only meant to set off the sublimity of the King's poem.
"The beauty of women shines the more by contrast".
The one sets off the other, like the spot on the moon.
The two opposites cancel.
She shines by double negation - the bark garment,
and by double assertion - her own beauty.
She does violence to her own nature and becomes more beautiful; she accepts the renunciation of Shiva - she wears the simple bark cloth of the Ashram disciples, rather than luxurious silk.
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What is it that could not serve as an ornament?
The paradox is transcended by her beauty.
The Kesara tree and the creeper: the moving leaves seem to beckon to her.
Priyamvada sees the same beauty as the King; it is absolute beauty; both agree.
"Dusyanta is calling you" that is the dvanyarta (saying one thing in terms of another).
The creeper hangs on the tree for support while putting out flowers.
This is also schematic.
The bark garment - why is it tied with delicate knots?
"Both spoiling the beauty, as also acting as an ornament".
This means that the dress is embellished from the Numerator and detracted from by the Denominator.
Beauty is brought out by contrast, as in the case of the spots on the moon or a lotus next to moss.
A leaf can cover a flower in its tender state; it can also be an ornament to its beauty. Both are presented here.
The King purposely leaves the paradox here.
The delicate knots are supporting the breasts from the numerator side, from the shoulders.
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To appreciate the beauty of Shakuntala, approach her from the austere side, her youth comes from below, there is a tragedy when youth and austerity meet.
Shakuntala is like a mango sprouting young leaves, or a creeper putting forth flowers.
There is a dialectical relationship between them; the marriage of plants at the proper season, a gentle conspiracy of nature.
One must be attuned in order to appreciate these factors.
There is a pre-established harmony (cf. Leibniz) between the mango and the creeper.
Nature is full of occasionalism, especially in the spring.
What is her caste? - his conscience is his own Pramana, his heart will only be attracted by a certain type of woman.
She must be, among other things, fully horizontal and vital.
The King belongs to the horizontal context, so the wife cannot be like a peasant, below the line on the negative side.
How can a vertical girl meet the horizontal king?
He is puzzled by the one-one correspondence in the Ashram.
The King's speech about the bee - dvanyarta (see above)
- the King is describing his own intentions through the reality of the bee.
The bee is flying between the ears and eyes and the lower lip.
This is the square root of minus-one: the beauty of a woman is to be found on the negative side.
The bee is a universal principle of honey seeking; the buzzing noise is meant for nature to hear that it is seeking something.
It is touching the throbbing eye - the eyes are like the Sapharika fish: the seat of gossip is between the eyes and the ears - between what you see and what you hear. The lover will be doing the same thing, kissing the eyes and the ears and whispering - just like the bees: put them together and you will get a mystical world which can take in the Absolute with all its implications.
If the bee appreciates her face, then it is Absolute Beauty.
The King is alluded to - the whole of nature conspires.
Shakuntala feels emotions not fit for an Ashram, she knows they are horizontal.
The King says that he is on duty.
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There is a sparkling light - trembling beauty comes from the hypostatic side; it cannot come from the "surface of the earth".
This relates to Shakuntala being born of a heavenly nymph.
Shakuntala's beauty is not only sprung from nature, but descends as well from the Numerator: real beauty comes from the two sides - there is a glow that is not from chemistry, but it is faster than the velocity of light.
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Movement begins to build up vertically.
The chariot and the charioteer cancel into Zeno's Paradox.
Vertical values begin to prevail, the ascent begins. The dotted circle is magic, inside it there is no fear.
The second pedestal is created by bringing in the horses; actual speed is transformed into psychological speed.
There are three deer: afraid; not afraid; not sacrificed,
There are two pedestals:
1. Jaina - referring to space
2. Vedic - referring to time
This refers to history, not geography: one is in the mind and the other is outside it.
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To bring in the reciprocity of movement, you bring in the horses, who are afraid of the speed of the chariot: not just A > B, but A B
Then it becomes vertical.
Now two O Points have been created as two pedestals.
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The ripples on the river are the hairs upon the mother's skin - she descends from above to feed the baby: this is a Vedic heaven, which nourishes the child.
The river surface glistens from the sun above, not from below.
The O Point here is the navel of the mother.
The Sun God shines on the river, the nourishment is sucked up by the tree.
There is a fire at the O Point, a fire of hunger or of sacrifice.
So there are two pedestals: one proto-Aryan and one Vedic.
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This is the structure of the first description for comparison
Anyway; the two pedestals are constructed.
Bhur-, Bhuvar- and Svar-lokas (the three worlds of earth, heaven and in between) correspond to:
1. Cognition
2. Dusyanta's forgetfulness, the breaking of the continuity
3. Re-cognition.
The second pedestal also contains fawns - for kindness is also there.
The smoke rising makes it into a "Monde affiné" - a refined version of the world - see Bergson..
Contemplation requires subjectivity.
Glistening is most important: the skin of a woman is where nourishment comes from; the glands that produce hair are closely related to those which produce the mother's milk; the hair on a mother's stomach is holy: it comes from above.
"The soul of a child is its rosy behind".
The Vedic world is brought in for need of a voice from heaven for his cosmology and for the telling of the story.
The deer are innocent: note their willingness to believe... this is not Jaina.
"Tremulous beams" - their origin is in the sun and the moon, not the earth, so he recognises the hypostatic side: Saraswati.
See V75 in the Saundarya Lahari of Sankara.
The hermits may be questioned: they have no reserve, no cheques to cash.
No conventional barriers; "contemplatives are not bothered by conventions".
"Having eyes like her own": female deer and Shakuntala.
The bright eyes are very vertical. A husband is not needed.
This is the Absolute from the negative side. It is vitalistic.
Is she going to continue vertically, or is she going to spread out to the horizontal?
That is: will she continue as a disciple in the Ashram, or will she leave to get married and produce children?
She is dependent on another; she will not make her own decision.
If the horizontal had not interfered, she could have continued vertically like the deer, as a Brahmacharini (ashram student), this is the implication.
Priyamvada says that Shakuntala is meant for marriage; thus the King is not violating Shakuntala's svadharma (destiny).
The vertical line of light is to be broken.
The King asks: " Is she going to live the rest of her life like the female deer, with half-drunk eyes?"
She has certain traits, which show she wants a husband badly.
The King wants to say that Shakuntala is perfect both vertically and horizontally; thus the event has to take place exactly at the O Point.
It is possible for her to pass through the horizontal without incident, but Kanva intends her for a normal marriage.
This means that the two axes, vertical and horizontal, must combine and merge properly.
Do not say that one is good and the other bad.
Take what the King says, what Priyamvada says and what Kalidasa says and put them all together in the scheme of the Nandi: get salvation.
A woman has to be dependent on her father's wish:
this is the saddest of truths. She has to be dependent.
Why is a father's soul so concerned about his daughter's chastity?
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If you neglect the father's wishes there will be disaster.
The fire and the gem: the King thought that Shakuntala was a fire which could not be touched; but instead she was a gem.
Poetic justice requires that the King be correct; his duty is now clear to him; it is almost a categorical imperative that he make love to her.
But he will forget, as the first dimension causes the fourth dimension to be lost.
Neither of them is a yogi:
the King is non-innocent and horizontal,
Shakuntala is innocent and vertical.
Life is a paradox, understand that and it dissolves itself in the liquid of unitive understanding.
The obstructions seemed to have been removed from the King's social conscience. Kalidasa seems to be approving.
Gautami is the mother superior of the convent; it has to have supervision.
The first-dimensional touch of anger is to be there: there is no idealism in Vedanta: it is apodictic and realistic.
Bodily movements, etc. - there is little difference between intentional movement and actual movement:
"as if he had gone and come back again".
This is a situation where intentionality dominates: he thinks of going, then changes his mind.
Actual going and coming has the same status as mental going and coming.
Shakuntala is spoken of as a "hermit's daughter" in order to bring in the fourth dimension, making her a universal concrete.
So, the intentional and the actual have the same status in phenomenological epistemology.
The girls are all interested in Shakuntala's love.
The Absolute is participated in by everybody.
There is some Absolutist interest.
Priyamvada turns her back; she does not want to leave.
A beautiful pose - we will deal with this later.
The King's ring - She must be tired from carrying water, the King will pay the debt with his signet ring.
Description: both her hands are red from lifting the two pots
There are two trees to be watered, her hands droop, her breasts heave, etc.
Thus is dvanyarta again (saying one thing in terms of another), the O point in a woman's life has been touched: the whole of nature conspires to unite her with Dusyanta.
Instead of watering the plants for her, he gives her the ring - this needs more attention.
The debt of Shakuntala is "paid": the whole thing is conceptual and nominalistic.
Shakuntala says: "I do not belong to that world - settle your disputes
- I am on the Denominator side, and that is another order of existence.
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12
The alarm is sounded - the harsh, horizontal world intervenes.
The elephant is Ganesha, who must be propitiated if the forest is to be peaceful: space and wind can create trouble: the elements in turmoil are Ganesha.
Shakuntala is held back: nature conspires to have its own way.
Does it really conspire? Nature can laugh at you.
Nature can both protest and conspire.
At a given moment in a woman's life it becomes absolutely necessary for her to have a child.
When nature conspires against a man, he should know how to propitiate the elephant god.
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THE END OF ACT I
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slc8-p63a.
The power of the King is bright and is derived from the Numerator side.
Shakuntala gets caught in a tree, while the others fall faster.
She says: "I am an ontological reality, why do you (illegible: "plore"? ED) for me?"
The King derives his power from the sun and moon.
"Holding hair": she is trying to keep a connection with the Numerator side by pretending to be held back.
She is naturally falling down, but the tree is holding her.
The two plants to be watered mean two children.
Water is at the Alpha point.
Perspiration is cancelling the Sirisa flower.
She is panting, in a completely negative state.
Her red hands mean that she is completely healthy - it is not due to bad health.
You have to worship the elephant to calm the situation.
The horizontal zone is forgetfulness. Memory is vertical.
The whole mistake was caused by the King coming to the Ashram.
The King kills deer, why come to the ashram?
Shakuntala is like a deer.
The drooping Sirisa flower means unhappiness - a negative suffering.
If the Devi's eyebrows vibrated, Shakuntala would be lifted up.
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Shakuntala has the fatigue of a woman who is not married.
The Sirisa flower's glow is disturbed - it is numerator and disturbed by the denominator perspiration.
The flower is not happy, because she is unhappy inside.
She is almost like a dying person, she is panting.
Do not ask her not to get married.
There is delicately woven language here;
2 plants = 2 children
2 pots = 2 breasts
2 waters = 2 milks
13
The most important thing is that nobody asks Shakuntala what she wants.
She has to say, "Do not settle my debts"
Who is concerned with Gomati's happiness?
A civil suit for debt allows the King to enter the dispute.
The signet ring - the two friends see and read it: this is the horizontal conventional world of the King:
Shakuntala does not see it.
The King asks; "Does she feel towards me as I feel towards her?"
She pretends not to listen, but hears every word; though her body is turned away from the object of interest, her eyes and ears are really interested.
So there is a link: there is ground for hope.
This is the same as the deer turning, but this is a verticalized version.
Then the hermits' voices are heard: here the horizontal is inserted again.
The peaceful aspect of the Ashram is disturbed.
The dust is horizontal, the Sannyasis' cloth is vertical: put them together.
The dust becomes a patch of colour - take LSD to understand this.
It is a twilight scene; magenta colour prevails - this signifies the Absolute.
There are two magentas: the Sannyasis' cloth is vertical, and the dust and sunset are horizontal.
The King's officers search for him: there is a conflict of horizontal and vertical interests.
The two friends say: "We are afraid, we are going back"
"Honoured by the sight of you" this is the perceptual side, not words.
Shakuntala is caught: "Wait until I loosen it" - she delays.
"A banner against the wind": "I am related to the vertical, the heart, not to the horizontal body".
She is not interested in horizontal movement, but respects the reciprocity of the two movements – which is vertical.
This is the reciprocity of horizontal movement (see Bergson).
End of Act I.
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slc8-p64.
(The following notes will cover these scenes again, for clarification of the schema and re-examination.)
14
From Shakuntala about to go away.
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Shakuntala wants to leave but Priyamvada "forces her back": she says she has a "debt" of two plants to water.
The King will pay back the debt:
Kalidasa wants to give an ordinary, conventional scene; the ordinary, the horizontal axis is here exposed.
Physical fatigue.
Einstein will be brought in later.
The King desires to give her a ring: he wants to pay wages for labour; the ring has some value.
He is a gentleman as well as a King.
Reading the signet ring absolves from the debt.
"Who are you to send me away or hold me back? You are bargaining as if in a market-place or in a bank; I am real, existential."
Eyes and ears: a perfect picture of reciprocity - she turns away - and yet still looks by side-glances and listens with her ears.
The alarm is sounded: untrained elephants are raising havoc - horizontal values are prevailing.
Act II begins.
Enter Vidushaka (the buffoon): he is the embodiment of sarcastic wit: he is bitter and dissatisfied with everything.
We should take the value-content of what he says.
He leans on his staff, feigning paralysis.
He represents a sterile world, the opposite of Shakuntala.
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slc8-p65b
The conceptual world is sterile and empty of content: there is no Omega Point.
No shade, some water, no sleep, wakened by the sons of the slave-girls. (hard work, activity), his joints are painful.
He belongs to one right angle of the scheme.
He is leaning on a staff - this is the structural key.
The King is on the horizontal axis with the tiger, bear, deer, the sons of the slave-girls, Yavanas, girls, etc.
The King's speech: a man in love interprets everything with himself as a reference.
You can guess from this that he is in love.
Fat hips: this is the negative vertical representing the feminine psyche.
15
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slc8-p66a
All love affairs involve a reciprocity between two people on the vertical axis.
The law of reciprocity is like the law of gravity - there is bipolarity.
He is abstracting and generalising about all people anywhere who are in love: he is sure to use himself as a reference and invert with one-to-one correspondence.
"She is behaving with complementarity and reciprocity to my mind."
So there is one-to-one correspondence with four aspects.
The relationship is perfectly vertical.
The Vidushaka goes on to cross the horizontal - with its own quaternion.
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slc8-p66b
"Pimple on a boil" he is mocking the King for seeing only the surface, the plus side which will cause suffering.
He is not aware of the negative side of Shakuntala
The reciprocity between the King and Shakuntala is based only on eyes and ears - this is the vertical reciprocity: there is a perfect bipolarity - her hips are heavy, his are light.
Shakuntala is rich in negative emotional content.
The King and Shakuntala turn in opposite directions: this is a secret; the bee and the lotus turn in opposite directions, this is reciprocity.
The hips are compensation,
There is cancellability between the eyes and ears - this is a figure-eight.
The Vidushaka does not move. The essence of humour is horizontal conflict.
His humour is always against someone, always sarcastic.
The reed bends: "I am caught in the same situation, the same stream, as you."
"Let the buffalo plunge..." - this marks the transition from the horizontal to the vertical.
A sudden lassitude overtakes the King; his mind goes from the horizontal to the Negative vertical.
"Anyway, the deer look at me with eyes like Shakuntala's."
The horizontal is abolished through true love.
The deer and Shakuntala both look at the King: one is horizontal, the other vertical.
He cannot kill them; they turn their heads to look at him in the same way as Shakuntala: vertically, fear becomes love.
Buffaloes etc: there are three animals mentioned.
Let them come into the natural order.
The bowstring is loosened and becomes vertical.
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slc8-p66c
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Unstring the bow and it becomes vertical.
The hermits have fire: this is a laser ray.
There is a stone like a lens, which is pleasant to touch, but which can burn when exposed to the sun's rays.
Thus, the Ashram is quiet, but do not think there is no fire there.
If the horizontal fire falls on it, it will vomit vertical death rays.
This is a reference to the power of the Ashram’s inmates’ renunciation or tapas.
16
"Son of a slave-girl" means "born out of necessity".
"I am not able to bend this strung bow, with the arrow fixed upon it, against the fawns, who, abiding with my darling, have taught her those beautiful glances. When I think of Kanva's daughter, I have little relish for hunting, for...."
Horizontal deer are looking back at the arrows in the opening scene.
Vertical Shakuntala is looking back at the King.
The King and Vidushaka are sitting on a slab - the stage has been cleared.
Spirituality succeeds by a logarithmic spiral.
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slc8-p67a
The creeper means Shakuntala.
The King has a positive and a negative side.
The Vidushaka has only an actual positive side - chocolates.
The Vidushaka tries to obstruct the King with conventional arguments.
Conventional men always obstruct true love.
The King: "I am talking about Shakuntala: speak as directly as possible - no phoney rhetoric."
Sun Plant: two plants are compared, one is more hypostatic.
Date - Tamarind: the comparison is like that between an insipid Parsi woman and an earthy Marathi coolie girl.
The Drawing: at first it is mathematical, then the outline is filled in by the creator.("A scheme in the mind of the creator")
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1. Make an outline sketch -NUMERATOR
2. Give it content -DENOMINATOR
This is in keeping with the Upanishadic version of creation.
The beauty of Shakuntala is described negatively in a classical verse:
"a flower unsmelt, in itself, by and through itself" - before duality.
This is Absolute Beauty, by definition.
Shakuntala's eyes and smile: this is a paradox: the smiles are for another reason than love: i.e. she is hiding love.
"Caught": the grass is the arrow - from below.
The numerator side dress is also entangled (suppose); she is seeking imaginary reasons for staying.
17
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slc8-p67c
The obstruction of the garment is a false pretext for turning.
The King is the centre of attraction.
Here the garment is an excuse for not going away.
The hermits give a sixth part of piety: there are no taxes for them: they meditate.
They are a vertical value for the Kingdom, surplus value.
Enter the hermit boys: they pay compliments to the king as having a very high Numerator Value.
He is austere in that his treasures are for the General Good of his subjects
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The King is compared to a muni (sage), and says that they are both the same: this is Advaita.
The King controls his subjects - the muni controls his senses.
Structurally they are the same: this is Advaita.
If they are placed in their proper perspectives, they are the same.
ADDHYA KRANTA VASATIRAMUNAPYASRAME SARVABHOGYE
RAKSHAYOGADAYAMAPI TAPA PRATYAHAM SANCHINOTI
ADYAPI DYAM SPRISATI VASIANASCHARANADVANDVA GITA
PUNYAHA SABDO MUNIRITI MUHUH KEVALAM RAJAPURVAHA
The Kingdom is also self-sufficient - like an ashram.
This is a horizontal forest - the Ashram is a vertical forest.
All values are found within this magic circle.
Because he cares for the subjects, he is doing tapas (practising renunciation) every day.
"Even today, two birds sing his praises in heaven, because he holds everything in his control".
He is the master of himself and thus has the same function structurally as a muni.
The apparent difference between contemplation and politics is abolished.
18
Up to this point there are three references to Shakuntala’s bodice hurting.
They must be located schematically :
Shakuntala is verticalized in the tree - the tree is a vertical axis.
Anasuya is next.
Priyamvada is the most conventional.
The King has loosened the bowstring - that is, he has verticalized.
He interprets what she does with reference to himself; he wants to establish an equation between the Self and the non-Self.
Shakuntala is leaving: the tree and the thorn are imaginary.
The Hermits: "O, joy...."
The King represents the complementary counterpart of the hermits: this is imaginary benefit in the vertical axis.
It is a great event: all the great numerator values belong to the King, they are complementary.
The poor Denominator cancels out against the rich Numerator.
(Give the superintendent of police a chair in the ashram)
"Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's..."
Here are two economic worlds existing without conflict.
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The surplus value of munis (sages) is their tapas (penance), one sixth of it goes to the King
The surplus value of the king goes to the Omega Point with the birds.
One sixth is the surplus value; the glory of a king's crown is a compliment to the servant.
A sum of money from the welfare state is another matter; it is horizontal and ordinary.
The praise of the King: (see previous page)
The general good and the good of all are secured: they are open to everyone.
The King and the people both use an umbrella: this is qualitative equality.
He is looking at the people quantitatively and qualitatively.
He is living from day to day, serving the vertical axis.
Penance is the surplus value.
So there is mutual admiration between two economic systems: abundancist and opulencist.
The King is free of passion, though vertically in love with Shakuntala.
The first hermit is qualitative, the second hermit is quantitative; but they agree.
The second is talking about geography and battles; the kingdom girded by the ocean.
This is a circle, a peripheral limit, while the first refers to the vertical axis.
This is a horizontal circle protecting the frontiers: - boundaries are important.
Indra's thunderbolt is vertical.
19
The King rises when the hermits enter, he says:
"What is your command? I am the servant of the Ashram"
The descendants of Puru (i.e. kings) are officiating priests for the distressed.
The same function - sacrifice to the Absolute - is performed both by the King and by the hermits.
At the end of the act: there is a barrier, revealed by Kalidasa; but the verticality of the King and Shakuntala is so absolute that all other arguments fall away.
"Both speak": this means that there is perfect parity between them.
They will fly up in a spiral to the top of a dome where the two birds are praising the vertical axis.
In another verse, the eyes and ears of Shakuntala also have this parity;
WHEN A MAN IN LOVE SEES A WOMAN, WHAT HE REALLY SEES IS HIS OWN SELF.
"KAMI SWATAM PASYATI" – “A MAN IN LOVE HIS OWN SELF SEES”.
There are two voices at the bottom and two birds at the top.
At the Omega point, there is just light; a little lower and there is Indra's thunderbolt; below that and there is the completely horizontal pulling of the bowstring to the shoulder to protect the borders of the country.
He invites the King and the charioteer because the charioteer is the lift-driver for going up the vertical axis.
"Putra pinda palana" - protecting the lump of matter that will develop in the womb into a child: so this is a reflection of what will happen in the ashram.
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"Putra pinda palana"
Solves a problem schematically.
A paradox is resolved here.
The King says what to do - the Vidushaka says to stay suspended between them.
There are two rival duties to be performed.
The King tells the Vidushaka to go, as he has been treated as a son.
Thus the mother is given the status of the queen, who is kind even to a servant.
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slc8-p69b.
20
The Vidushaka is not really afraid of demons - these are negative demons - not sent from heaven.
This refers to some kind of reciprocity between son and servant, between Shakuntala and the demons: "we are doing the same thing".
There are stages in abolishing a paradox, only at the fourth stage do you abolish it - but a proper methodology is needed to get there.
The King: "do not think am serious about loving Shakuntala".
So, there are three worlds of rivalry between them.
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slc8-p70
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King and Vidushaka are both sons, this is a paradox.
Shakuntala or mother? The King says both.
The third world is the world of absurdity and jokes.
End of Act II: the King tries to neutralise the whole situation.
Where are we? - On the numerator side - "where are those who live with fawns, strangers to love?"
"Parocha mantritta" - means Kama (Eros) goes to the conceptual side.
Paradox - the King cancels at the third dimension by a joke.
This is not a complete fourth-dimensional cancellation.
Fourth dimensional - hence the ceremony will be held in the fourth dimension.
Trisanka was pushed up by his guru, Visvamitra, but pushed down by Indra, again and again.
Finally Indra created a third world between heaven and earth; then he compromised and admitted him to heaven, no third platform.
Two are good, but not three.
Thus he is sometimes suspended in a third world where there is no game, and which is absurd.
No sitting on the football - there is no stable third platform.
ACT III
Enter disciple of the chief hotri. (sacrificial priest)
Draw a circle and mark the centre: this is a Vedic circle inside the Jaina circle.
Now we are nearer to the inner altar.
These are the concentric circles of the Sri Chakra.
Vedism is going to be revised in the light of Vedanta.
Note here that the King has the power of driving away poltergeists.
Spirits thrive on negativity and loneliness, they need a world in which negativity can thrive.
Vedism runs contrary to this: bathing, a clean altar, ashes, etc.
21
In the Prelude - Kalidasa is mixing three circles:
A Vedic circle
Kanva's circle
Shakuntala's circle.
Kusa grass is something that pricks the skin and is to be scattered around the Vedic altar.
Shakuntala is suffering from exposure to the sun of Dusyanta - the girls soothe her with lotus leaves and ointment (hypostatic) to be sent through Gautami.
Gautami is the intermediary between Shakuntala and the boys.
The Vedic context contributes numerator water and Ayurveda (traditional medicine) contributes denominator oils; both combine to cure her.
The lotus leaf is the surface of the skin; The stalk is the nervous system.
Shakuntala looking at the King was a sudden glare, which she could not bear.
As in the Greek myth, where Artemis bathing must not be looked at, or the hunter who sees her will die.
Pathological disease has its origin in friendship or passion,
It affects the whole body (and personality): there are two cures: sprinkle holy water, give consolation to the body - lotus leaves and unguents for the nervous system and for the surface of the body.
This is the treatment outlined here.
The King banishes demons - his presence abolishes negativity in the Ashram.
Similarly, an ayurvedic doctor is supposed to wear many jewels when he visits the sick.
Anasuya and Priyamvada
- Priyamvada has the ointments,
- Anasuya gets the water and delivers it through Gautami.
You can heal the emotions with mantras and the body with medicines.
Enter the King: "like water on a slope"
You cannot go against the laws of nature, or gravitation.
In the world of necessity, obey the laws of nature.
He knows that tapasvis (those who practice renunciation or tapas) have powers by representing Truth.
The power of penanceis demonstrated here; it is called Ajña Shakti.
Moonbeams and arrows: the moon is enjoyable, but not when one is affected by love.
"Flower arrows are like fire arrows to me".
"Cool moonbeams are like fire to me, increasing my passion."
This is like sub-marine fire: volcanic eruptions at the bottom of the sea.
“You were burned on the numerator side - I am burned by the fire at the deepest, negative Alpha Point”.
There is a great fire at the Alpha Point as well as at the extreme, positive Omega Point.
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slc8-p71a.
Eros was burned when he emerged at the O Point, but the King was burned when descending.
The light of double negation gives light to the sun and other luminaries.
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22
Volcanic fire is nearer to the Absolute than the light of the sun.
It is deeper - a light of lights.
The sun is superficial light.
Is there an explanation for this without the structure?
Otherwise, without the structure, you just explain one story with another; one purana (legend) with another.
"Strikes me because of her..." - he is afflicted by negative fire.
He says his suffering will be a delight if he is put in the vertical axis.
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slc4-p21-v50
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The banner is on the plus side.
His soul will be reflected in her eyes.
So, double negation occurs.
If he can fall into the vertical axis, then the suffering will be doubly negated.
(“God wanted me to have a first class degree next time, that's why I failed”)
The King will see the banner and Shakuntala on the positive side.
Suffering from fire is the first negation, striking is the second.
Then from the O Point he can see the numerator banner and by double assertion reach the Omega Point.
"If Shakuntala's eyes in the vertical axis are what I gravitate towards, then I will fall into the vertical axis and be saved."
He must fall in the vertical axis - it does not matter where.
Whether by double negation or assertion, the King will reach salvation.
Shakuntala's eyes are still within human life and values.
If the King wants to, by double assertion he can go beyond and out of the circle.
Double negation just puts him on the plus side - double assertion can then operate to take him to the Omega Point.
(referring back to Act I)
There is a previous verse referring to the eyes of deer and to two kinds of celibacy.
Here, where Shakuntala's eyes are the attraction, the King will attain a kind of salvation or verticality.
The previous verse refers to her living like the deer, or else marrying.
The two alternatives are not different, but hang together; the same situation exists here.
"Vaikanasa vrta" is a monastic vow.
The King asks, "Is she completely celibate, or is she to have the eroticism natural to the deer?"
If he knew this, then the King would know how to behave.
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slc8-p72b.
There is no duality between the male and female deer.
The alternatives are between ordinary marriage and the free life of a deer.
Judged by the eyes of a deer, there is no sexual dimorphism:
They continue in their sex-life without abrupt duality; there is no sudden break from girlhood in the Ashram into marriage.
The lifelong vow is not to be confused with strict Jaina or Buddhist austerities, which are dualistic and not Vedantic.
He wants to say that there is an Advaitic, vertical, sex-life within the Ashram, as opposed to Buddhistic or Jaina austerities.
There is abrupt, dualistic brahmacharya (Literally, walking in the way of Wisdom, but often viewed as mechanistic dualistic celibacy by Jainas and others) or a natural, vertical brahmacharya.
Finally, even Shiva is to have at least one baby, according to Kalidasa, in his “Kumarasambhava”.
Note that this verse is not translated properly: "Like the deer...WITH their friends" should be the correct translation; not "with her friends, the female deer", as the Pundits say in Motilal Banarsidas’ translation.
Both kinds are here recommended for Shakuntala, because she is an Absolutist.
The life of a deer and of a woman who wants a child can be put together; both axes will cancel out and I will be saved.
The child will be there and the vertical axis will also prevail.
So, the combination is what is recommended by Kalidasa for the kind of girl that Shakuntala is.
There are two alternatives - one vertical and one horizontal.
Kalidasa says: do both; this is the normalised Absolute: combine and cancel out austerity and eroticism.
Return to Act II and the double negation: the King's speech.
If you are caught in negation, double negate it and come to the plus side, finding there your natural level, so as not to be burned by the sun.
So there is an inner and an outer heat, the outer having a more... (?)
The fire is the propeller and Shakuntala's eyes are the steering wheel.
The eyes of the deer or of Shakuntala are here seen in the banner of Kama, the God of Love.
“Long eyes” mean a meditative state that unites the horizontal and the vertical.
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"Burn me with the negative fire so that I can pass through the tube and come to the eyes of Shakuntala"
23
King, continuing after the banner of Eros:
"Where indeed can I refresh my soul?" i.e. make it happy.
The King descended when he got out of the chariot - a kind of depression.
It is a kind of rebirth - a transition from the horizontal to the vertical.
"Permitted at the end of the ritual..." some Vedic rite is over, pertaining to Karma Kanda (the domain of action) - he has transcended dualistic Karma (action) and is passing on to Vedanta; going from the necessary to the contingent side.
"Malini" is a tributary of the Ganges.
"Sunlight" indicates a positive side where he will find Shakuntala in the shade of a creeper near the Malini.
Karma Kanda (the domain of action) is over and Jñana Kanda (the domain of wisdom) begins.
"Gesticulating touch" the most ontological aspect of what you see objectively - the first.
He will build up the senses from here, from ontology to teleology.
He will put the senses into the schema.
"Embrace the breeze" to cool the incubatory heat of the body.
Malini can be translated as "skin". (There is a word play here.)
Wind plays on the perspiration on the skin.
So there is the beginning of pleasure on the objective side.
"She must be here..." - this is guesswork - This is Anumana (argument by inference - see the Pramanas).
There is a circle of reeds around a bower of creepers.
The heel sinks in deep to show the heaviness of the behind, the negative psyche of a woman.
Being big in the behind is better for carrying a baby.
This is structurally perfect for the soul.
A weighty behind gives the balance for the horizontal axis.
"Circle of reeds" - she is lovesick in a world of her own, encircled and circumscribed.
This shows a degree of subjectivity.
There is a one-to-one correspondence between her circle and a circle around his feelings.
"My eyes are fully gratified..."
There is nothing partial in the Absolute: "my eyes have completed their purpose": this is a perfectly vertical reaction.
The eyes are not wasted; there is a one-to-one correspondence and cancellation - the second in the series.
Enter Shakuntala - they are not going or coming, just abolishing the distance between them - Bergson's reciprocity is present here.
Vertically, the distance tends to be abolished.
One coming to the other is horizontal and vulgar.
The stone slab is a pedestal or an ontological limit.
Her friends are fanning her - she is in a swoon - consciousness is at the square root of minus one.
Her senses are not functioning; she is swooning from a negative state of consciousness
24
The King's description of Shakuntala - the swoon at the square root of minus one is more beautiful than that of sunlight.
They are in the same circle and Shakuntala is at the bottom of the vertical axis.
There is salve on her breast and a lotus-stalk bracelet on her wrist.
Her breasts are swelling; this is a sign of horizontalization, so salve is applied.
Her fatigue is equal to that of a lotus in summer, faded, fatigued and tender: completely fatigued.
The hand corresponds to action, the breast to feeling.
Not all women can go beyond the square root of minus one;
Shakuntala is thus shown to be infra-human, representing absolute negativity.
The hand is a lotus-flower and the wrist is a stalk belonging to the vegetable world.
There is a complete equation between Shakuntala and the lotus.
"Is her malady due to the King?" - Kalidasa wants to teach a lesson, not to tell a story.
The sage-king's (raja rishi's) influence from the plus side means that Shakuntala has to sink correspondingly on the negative side.
These girls are conventional and do not appreciate the depth of all this.
The upper half rises to give torsion to the body, like Michelangelo's Adam in the Sistine Chapel.
This is a most difficult kind of painting.
Anasuya and Priyamvada interrogate Shakuntala - they are conventional women,
Shakuntala is absolute - understand her and you can have salvation.
The two girls delineate the conventional human limit.
Shakuntala is beyond this limit at the square root of minus one...inside and inside and inside...
There is a negative spark of life in a woman.
"Shakuntala cannot disclose... " There is a negative part that she cannot disclose, a lonely part of a woman that no one can share: the flight of the alone to the alone, extending beyond the human.
Kalidasa describes the fading Shakuntala - there is a tragic touch in this description, it is not just romantic.
It is beautiful vertically and deplorable horizontally.
The thinner the crescent, the more beautiful it is.
The King's "new fear" this is at close quarters - his fate is to be decided - he is like a man waiting for a job in the minister's anteroom.
The nearer the ghost, the greater the fear.
"My love for him has reduced me to this plight" - there is no flourish, he just states the case.
This is the best poetry - straightforward - a beauty in itself with maximum effect.
The best writers do not indulge in any flourishes.
25
King: "I have heard what is worth hearing..." the response is also straightforward: there are no tricks.
The heat of noon causes clouds, and the clouds relieve the heat.
This is a supreme example of double negation.
Shakuntala asks for the King. The girls are in charge of convention, but they say there is no immorality here; there is no immorality in the Absolute.
The categorical imperative is the motive; every detail is explained.
This is Kalidasa's point: human conventions are here effaced.
The mango supports the atimukta creeper: this is ordinary horizontality, perfect compatibility.
The river runs into the sea: vertical cancellability.
So there are two kinds of compatibility: the creeper is weak and needs the support of a husband in the form of a mango tree - this is horizontal and conventional.
Then there is a tradition of the family that has to be maintained when choosing a husband for a girl.
Priyamvada and Anasuya represent two grades of conventionality - this is the classic standard in Sanskrit drama.
The King says about them: "what wonder two Visaka stars follow the crescent moon?"
"Secretly and quickly...", "quickly, I can handle; secretly is another thing, as the matter is already public".
There is nothing more that the companions have to arrange; the fruit is ripe on the tree, everything is ready.
The King's gold bracelet: the scar represents the horizontal duty of the King.
Vertically, the ontological diamond on the bracelet and the tear in his eye fit together.
There is a four-fold structure here: tears from the corner of his eye wet the diamonds of the bracelet, vertically.
The hard bracelet is constantly being pushed backwards - he is getting thinner - but does not touch the scars left by the bowstring which is horizontal, representing his duty.
"The bracelet used to touch the shoulder scar, reminding me of the horizontal world"
When he was fatter, the bracelet was tight, now that he is thinner, it is loose: vertical suffering has replaced horizontal suffering - he is as pitiable as Shakuntala, who has fallen down.
26
Kalidasa goes to great trouble to show that Shakuntala and the King suffer equally: he won't have it one-sided.
Also, this match needs no "campaigners" or arrangers, because there is a perfect equality of absolute love between them.
The tear dropping to the diamond is the vertical axis, with suffering inside.
There are two pains and two movements: you have to put them together somehow.
The King hunts during the day to protect the ashram from evil elementals; he is also capable of the deepest sentiments of love in the Absolute sense - he combines the horizontal and the vertical.
"But could fortune, seeking, fail to find?": this means, go from the effect to the cause, from the contingent to the necessary.
There can be only one cause for a certain effect, though many effects are possible from one cause.
"The seeker of fortune may fail, but the fortune seeking a seeker could not fail to find him"
Shakuntala is diffident about writing a love poem to the king: she agrees to write the poem, as there is a savoir-faire necessary in a woman procuring her mate.
Anasuya and Priyamveda both approve of the plan from the conventional side, then Shakuntala only has to give her consent from the vertical.
"Allusion to yourself..."; do not begin with theory, begin with yourself:
"I have been in love..." (cogito ergo sum).
Begin with the real - this is Vedantic methodology, Satkaranavada.
The letter is to be hidden in flowers offered to the deity.
The letter is conceptual. Any conventional "lie" she might tell would be cancelled against the requirements of the ritual.
The ritual cancels out conventional poetry - the ritual is conventional
Moonlight is good for the love-afflicted body: expose it to the full moon to cancel out the incubatory heat inside: the double assertion of the moon cancels out the double negation of the heat.
"Do not now cover the body with a cloth...":
i.e. we are suggesting something natural, accept it.
27
(Back to the King's bracelet)
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slc8-p78a
Put the two, daytime and night, together.
The King is an absolutist at both times.
The King trains himself to shoot the deer.
Here we have absolute speed, absolute verticality and absolute difficulty.
"I am cancelling: a hunter against the deer; but now I am becoming thin for the deer-eyed one, I am verticalized"
The bracelet does not touch the scar; this means that there is no contradiction.
He is an absolutist hunter and an absolutist lover.
Here, he says, do not talk about the horizontal, I am suffering vertically.
Back to the crescent moon and stars.
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slc8-p78b
Astronomically: two stars abolish the duality between them with reference to the brighter moon.
The souls of all of them will be merged and ascend into heaven.
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slc8-p78c
Anasuya and Priyamvada put it in denominator language - a creeper on a mango tree.
The King puts it in numerator language - two stars follow the moon.
The fates of Anasuya and Priyamvada are inextricably entwined with the final salvation of Shakuntala; the King comments on this.
(returning to our place)
Shakuntala sits up smiling: women can change quickly in the vertical axis of the Kundalini:
"You have given me hope, support on both sides: how shall I begin?"
"O, fickleness, thy name is Woman".
The King with eyes unwinking: "Her face reveals passion for me; one eyebrow lifted and cheeks thrilling"
The cheeks are most superficial but reveal the positive state of the body.
The raising of one eyebrow makes a sinus curve, a figure-eight, like holding the hair with one hand.
This is a horizontal figure-eight, which is tilting slightly to the vertical.
The King is immobile and completely interested.
This is called Khecari Mudra: the numerator copulation has already taken place.
On the numerator side there must be a sex act as complete as possible.
Shakuntala as a poetess strains for intellectual (positive) achievement.
Kalidasa will not bother to describe the denominator sex act.
Her smile shows that she has shifted from first to second gears: this is easy for a woman.
She writes on a lotus leaf: nothing artificial should intervene; use a conducting material to pass from negative to positive.
Shakuntala reads her poem: this is a challenge to all other poets.
She is speaking as an ontological philosopher only.
The King is on the numerator side, and is to be known only.
"Anyhow, I am suffering". Kama, the God of Love, is described as "all-powerful",
Not as the "cruel one" - or is it the King?
Enter King: "love only torments you, but me he quite consumes, day causes the lotus to fade, but completely effaces the moon"
The King's description of Shakuntala on the couch – like crushed lotus-stalks.
She is like a creeper that has fallen from the tree to the ground; he treats her limbs pluralistically.
Shakuntala: "why do you delay the King?"
- horizontally there is a gap between the King and his wives
- a horizontal sense of justice.
The vertical sense of justice is that she, Shakuntala, is a humble person, and he is a Raja Rishi (sage-king).
(looking back)
The King's bangle moves up and down the vertical axis that is his arm.
It does not participate with the horizontal; it is not like the lust of people who do not have the vertical participating with the horizontal, they escape in a figure-eight.
Shakuntala sits up and smiles and writes a poem.
Kalidasa is showing that one has alternate states of consciousness that come like electricity.
A simple arched eyebrow is an attempt to verticalize.
The King tells Shakuntala not to rise: "you are almost my equal - in your own way, you are as great as I am, a complementary part of myself".
This one-one correspondence of complementary factors belonging together to the absolute is the essence of Vedanta.
28
Only Kalidasa and Sankara say that it is no sin to sleep with your wife: no other religion says this.
All the works of Kalidasa are aimed at just this one point; verticalize it and there is nothing wrong - that a child is born is only incidental.
"Something superfluous": The King says that you had better say it, you had an intention to say it, and the first promptings of an excellent woman will generally be right.
First impressions are promptings of the soul - but you have to catch them clearly and promptly.
So Kalidasa enunciates a general law.
Priyamvada: "love has smitten her on your account: you and Kama - both are on the numerator side, let her kick the ball".
The King says: "We are sailing in the same boat; passion is reciprocal"
Never say "darling" to your wife - "our suffering is reciprocal."
Then you can cancel it out. Find the centre of the situation.
Admit no duality; you will save yourself trouble all through your life.
This not only gives you freedom, but confers freedom on the other as well.
This cancellation is the secret of Advaita Vedanta.
Do not try to become sublime or ridiculous.
Here, at the most important point of the play, he says: "our passion is reciprocal" - finished.
Shakuntala says, "Why detain the King from his other consorts - he has responsibilities"
There is a wonderful heroism here: she keeps the frame of reference - when you lose the form of your thoughts that is called hysteria.
(Here the Guru votes for European women, especially German.)
Who loves whom here? This is not a love story - it is cancelled love, glorified.
King: "I was once slain by a numerator Eros - the eye at the top, now I am slain by the eye below: I am a fully verticalized person - the other wives in my harem do not count. Do not push me to the horizontal."
Killing is a contradiction.
29
King: there are two glories of his race: the sea-clad earth - a circle, the horizontal world - and Shakuntala, as the vertical.
His wives are incidental and included in the horizontal world, but Shakuntala is the vertical axis.
After showing Shakuntala's concern for the wives of the King, and that of the King himself, they are put in a circle.
After Anasuya's concern for Shakuntala and her people, the King says: "I shall tell you my whole interest in one verse: the sea-clad earth and this Shakuntala".
Do not worry about the small change, I am showing you the whole bold structure at one stroke.
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slc8-p81
When the King and Shakuntala come together, they make one absolute gold coin with two sides.
Here is the theory of ramified sets and sub-sets.
Anasuya and Priyamvada want to love: an antelope seeking its mother has the tender feeling of a woman concerned with the denominator side of bringing babies to their mothers.
Note the delicacy of the device - the fawn is turning towards its mother; again the eyes, but this time without fear.
Anyone else would have written. "Well, dear, we have business elsewhere"
"Let one of you come back, if you both go and take the horizontal support, then I shall fall down":
the flagpole needs a stay-wire to hold it firmly.
"The protector of the earth is with you": this is irony, but not sarcastic; both of them fall into the vertical axis, no sin can arise here.
There are two ways of relieving pain: one is pressing the legs (traditional in North India) - consoling from the negative side - the other is a cool breeze from the numerator side.
The King will normally stop with the latter, but he will function on the denominator side.
This is so near the sex act that it will be of absorbing interest to the audience.
30
Shakuntala will not offend those whom she is bound to respect: there is no pretence, she is thinking of Kanva.
She absolves herself of the last charge, she is completely conscious of all of her responsibility - one does not make love to a guest in the absence of the head of the Ashram.
This respect of every aspect of the situation is a great lesson of Kalidasa.
The King forcibly draws her back: Sec. 133 of the penal code, but a little forcing is in place in nature.
She can normally go vertically, it requires force for direct participation with the horizontal.
Thus Brigitte (A disciple of Nataraja Guru) can be allowed to remain unmarried.
It is normal for the female to run away from the male, as is a certain amount of force.
She is leaving for three-dimensional reasons, but the King represents the fourth: he is right to use force.
Kalidasa is not wrong. (Cf. Narayana Guru and Nabi Mohammed)
"Restrain yourself." moral strength comes from the female side.
She is in love, but is not her own master.
The same thing occurs with Satyavati, yielding to Vyasa.
Gandharva marriage: it is an exception, not a bad example which is being set for human values, "we are both semi-divine".
This is vertical morality, the other morality is horizontal - cf. Bergson’s “The two Sources of Morality and Religion”.
Christ will allow Gandharva Marriage; only the presbyters will object.
The question of sin does not arise in the Absolute, so how can we discuss it?
This is a vertical situation.
She again wishes to take counsel with Anasuya and Priyamvada, very correctly.
The King will go once he has sipped her nectar; it is the perfection of the analogy that keeps you from laughing here.
It is serious and sublime.
Enter Gautami: the King hides himself; she sprinkles water on the head of Shakuntala.
There is the numerator consolation of the kiss and the denominator aspect is not to be acted out.
As she leaves, she bids farewell to the bower and the King: "Hoping once more to be happy under your shade".
31
Shakuntala is satisfied in the numerator sense or aspect.
She addresses her own heart: she did not accept the King's approaches (numerator)
but now she does not want to leave (denominator).
So there are numerator and denominator satisfactions.
The heart is the O point.
The marriage has been made in heaven - she is satisfied.
But she wants to come back here for it to be enacted on earth - she is not yet satisfied.
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slc8-p83a
The same heart and the same bower are there; only the feeling is different.
The King speaks of the lower lip: then he says he will remain in the bower, although deserted by her: then describes the bower - couch, letters, bracelet.
Then he is called away by the voice, to chase the flesh-eating demons.
Movement here is from the Omega Point scene, just enacted, to the Alpha Point scene about to be enacted, as suggested by the demons.
The King and the deer are on the horizontal axis.
The King and Shakuntala are on the vertical axis.
The circle of reeds is vertical.
You have to put eyes everywhere.
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slc8-p83b
The reeds are only time verticalized. Sand and mud are needed for the reeds to grow.
"The handle of the mirror of the face"
- the face of Shakuntala cancels out with the face of the King.
(Compare this to the Saundarya Lahari, Verse 67.)
Kalidasa is showing negative nature and its counterpart on the numerator side.
The conic section is now being described at the horizontal axis.
The King does not leave the bower, because it is vertical.
The King does not ever kiss.
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slc8-p83c
32
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slc8-p84
The King wants to remain in qualitative space.
The arrow here is the light on the King's diamond bracelet.
The King descends, Shakuntala ascends gently, and they participate at the level of the horizontal axis.
There are eyes everywhere.
Throbbing cheeks and raised eyebrows give a figure-eight.
Eyelashes are the upper limit of the circle, lips cancel repeatedly.
He lifts repeatedly, like the Kundalini when it rises through the Chakras.
Words of denial: "please don't violate me!"
Stammering is a paradox; turned on one side it is a figure-eight, like the deer.
"Somehow raised" means a seat.
A physical thing - somehow or other it happened.
It has to face the light many times - "handle of the mirror of the face".
The King remains: Shakuntala is there in principle, her non-existence is there.
Looking all around: recognising the circle -the vectorial space of the colour solid.
"Repeatedly lifting" must refer to Kundalini Shakti:
Kalidasa must have been a yogi - a man of the highest culture.
33
Some secrets on sex from structuralism.
Gotra Skalana (Lack of respect for a woman’s family) - women are mutually exclusive on the negative side: do not ask ANY woman to excuse you for calling her by another's name.
SITUATIONS WITH STRUCTURAL IMPLICATIONS:
1) PUSHING HUSBAND DOWN WELL (DANDIN)
2) KICKING SHIVA IN THE FOREHEAD (SANKARA)
3) CALLING WIFE BY ANOTHER´S NAME (DANDIN)
EDITORIAL NOTE: from here until the end of the commentary on Shakuntala, we have notes taken from a different source. There are, therefore, repetitions and duplications of the text above, but also additional elements and structural diagrams. We have preserved the two sources separately so as not to lose any details.
SHAKUNTALA
KALIDASA
THE NANDI (Introductory Invocation)
"That creation which is of created things the first,
Which bears what is offered according to (obligatory) rules,
That which is the ghee,
That which is at the same time the sacrificer,
Those two which ordain time,
That ground which inhere in sound, substance and quality,
Filling the whole universe,
That which is said to be seed of all manifestation.
That by which gives life to all beings,
Let these eight manifestations of the Lord
Attainable by what is given to the senses,
Bless you.
SHAKUNTALA NANDI
WORD-FOR-WORD TRANSLATION.
"Ya srishti srashturadya" - That creation which was of created things the first.
"Vahati" - bears.
"Vidhibutam" - what is offered according to rules.
"Ya havir" - that which is ghee.
"Ya ca hotri" - that which is the sacrificer.
"Ye dve kalam vidhattam" - those two which ordain time.
"Shrutimshayaguna" - the three categories of sound, hearing, substance, quality inhere (not clear, ed.)
"Ya sthita vyaya vishvam"
"Yam ahuh sarva bya prakrtiti" - that which is the potential source of all manifestation in Nature.
"Yaya praninaha pranavantah" - that by which all living creatures attain to breathing status.
"Pratyakshabhih prapamah" - attained by what is given to the senses.
"Tanubhih" - bodies.
"Ashtabhihi vastabhihi ishah avatu" - of the eight bodies all of you, Lord, let it save.
34
Eka Purusha - there is a golden-haired and bearded man inside the sun and also inside the pupil of your eye.
HYPOSTATIC:
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slp5-p81a.
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There is another version of this structure:
HYLOZOIC:
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slp5-p81b
STRUCTURE SLP5-P81B
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.
EDITOR'S NOTE
On page 81 of this document there are two structures
It appears clear to the Editor, who was also the person who originally made these notes, that the word "hylozoic", which appears in between the two structures on the page, refers to the lower structure, and that there is a missing word "hypostatic", which should refer to the upper structure.
Structural diagram 81A is a hypostatic version, with a positive reference.
81B is a hylozoic version , which would have a more earthy, negative reference.
The error of the pundits is that Kalidasa is not speaking in Puranic but Upanishadic terms.
The first verse of the invocation, the nandi is:
"That which is spoken of as "eka purusha".
There are two purushas (persons) - Vedanta believes in a hypostatic and a hierophantic purusha,
which two cancel out in the "eka purusha". (eka = one)
The duality of Samkhya on the subject of purusha, as well as all other duality, is revised by the Gita.
Sāmkhya philosophy regards the universe as consisting of two realities; Puruṣa (consciousness) and prakriti (phenomenal realm of matter).
35
"Shiva" is the oldest name of the Absolute on Indian soil.
"SHABDA PRAMANA" - ("WORD-VALIDITY") MEANS A CANONICAL TEXT;
IN VEDANTA THE CANONICAL TEXTS ARE:
THE BHAGAVAD GITA, THE UPANISHADS AND THE BRAHMA SUTRAS.
Fire.
The butter is also the person sacrificing.
The sacrificer is not distinguished from the sacrifice.
Time can be divided horizontally or vertically.
Generalise the notion of nature and you get prakriti.
That which is said to be the universal nature principle is breath:
that is the principle which gives life to all living beings.
TRANSLATION OF THE NANDI FROM SAKUNTALA
"That creation which is the first of all created things,
Which bears what is offered according to (obligatory) rules;
that which is the clarified butter, that which is at the same time the sacrificer (hotri).
Those two which make time; that ground in which inhere quality, sound, substance - filling the whole universe.
That which is said to be the seed of all manifestations.
That which gives life to all beings.
Let these eight manifestations of the Lord, attainable through what is given to the senses - bless you."
SHAKUNTALA
Sutradara - the stage manager.
Entry of Dushyanta.
The "Pinaka-wielder" is Shiva.
This is the archetypal figure of Shiva pursuing a deer.
"The deer is scarcely perceived" – there is a vanishing point.
It makes a horizontal line, more through the air than on land.
The arrow flies, this is the tragedy of the horizontal axis.
The path is strewn with half-eaten grass; the dotted line of tragedy.
There is a Fitzgerald contraction of the deer.
The Fitzgerald contraction, also called space contraction is, in relativity physics, the shortening of an object along the direction of its motion relative to an observer. Dimensions in other directions are not contracted.
36
With the speed of the chariot objects are distorted, etc.
He wants to treat the horses and chariot as counterparts.
Near and distant things are being mingled, a monde affiné, a refined version of the universe, as in Bergson’s writings, is being created.
Far becomes near horizontally.
Divided becomes united vertically.
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slp5-p95
This is a horizontal and vertical union.
Bent seems straight.
The charioteer gesticulates to illustrate the horizontal speed - then the Ashram appears - a vertical factor.
37
The Ashram is a vertical island of neutrality.
Fire on flowers = agnihotra (fire sacrifice)
Deer = Shakuntala = flowers
Burning is the beginning of verticalisation.
First description of the Ashram (in Jaina terms):
1) Grains pecked by the parrots are left undisturbed by the Rishis, forgetting food.
2) Nut-crushers for lamp oil - the Ashram is Self-sufficient.
3) The deer are not afraid of the chariot inside the A also called space contraction , in relativity physics, the shortening of an object along the direction of its motion relative to an observer. Dimensions in other directions are not contracted. shram.
4) Marks of die from the bark cloth indicate the simplicity of Ashram life.
The King's throbbing arm is an omen of disaster.
There is a dialectical relationship between pot and damsel - their shape.
The name Anasuya means "without jealousy".
38
The roots of the trees bathe in the canal.
The fire is lit with ghee, clarified butter.
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slp5-p98.
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Shakuntala's garment covers and spoils her beauty, but is also an ornament - paradox.
Shakuntala seems to be a creeper on a tree - this is a suggestion of Shakuntala's involvement with Dushyanta.
The bee goes to her lower lip - square root of minus-one.
Only a woman's lower lip is referred to; a man's never.
A bee is a universal principle of honey-seeking.
"Between eyes and ears" - the seat of gossip is between the eyes and ears.
39
SHAKUNTALA
NANDI (introductory invocation)
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slp5-p100a
The Brahmacharis come to collect firewood (for Vedic sacrifice) = pedestal.
Ahimsa (non-hurting) (a Jaina quality) inside the Ashram = pedestal.
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slp5-p100b.
40
Abhijnana (as in title of play) means "recognition".
Eyes of Shakuntala >< eyes of deer >< chastity.
Dushyanta asks if Shakuntala must continue a life of chastity, like a female deer.
Both the tendencies are merged.
What the King wants; what Priyamvada says; what Kanva wants - together they are a solution and salvation.
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slp5 - p101
STRUCTURE SLP5 - P101
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Dushyanta is non-innocent horizontality;
Shakuntala is innocent verticality.
They combine for this error or non-error.
Vedanta does not explain anything away.
He gives the ring to pay the debt to the waterman.
There are two trees with two pots and her two reddened hands.
By describing her physical fatigue, he describes her erotic feeling.
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slp5-p102
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She is indebted horizontally
41
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slp5-p103
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Plant = child
Water = breast milk
Creeper and tree = Shakuntala and her husband.
The hair represents numerator glossiness, sunshine.
She holds it up to show that she is not wholly overwhelmed by love.
She turns her eyes like a deer turning its head.
42
She is a banner blown against the wind.
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slp5-p105
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The king gives the situation an everyday interpretation by attributing Shakuntala's state to ordinary fatigue.
The elephant means horizontal values are prevailing.
43
The buffoon complains of the hard work and the chase.
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slp5-p106
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"A man in love interprets everything with reference to himself."
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slp5-p106a
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First there is nothingness on the plus side (the buffoon).
The buffoon leans on a pillar (a right angle).
Everything he talks of is on one side of the quaternion.
44
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slp5-p10
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The eyes and ears are the link.
Heavy hips imply rich emotional content.
"A man in love interprets everything in relation to himself"
This is a universal law.
The King is converted from a horizontal state to a vertical.
The deer have Shakuntala's eyes.
45
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slp5-p108
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The buffoon is tired.
The king is still full of activity - but not fatigued of love affairs - he is tired of killing deer.
There is reciprocity between the fawn and Shakuntala.
The deer's glance in the first scene turns from fear to love.
There are four kinds of animals referred to:
buffaloes, deer, boars and .......(birds? horses? ED.)
The loosening bowstring brings bow and string together in the vertical axis.
Surya Kanta is a stone which creates rays when the sun falls on it, like a hermit's potential power.
"Son of a slave girl".
The creeper reoccurs continuously, it stands for Shakuntala.
The King speaks directly of his love, shows honour as Puru's descendant.
One flower drops on another, one is more hypostatic than the other.
Sweet dates and sour tamarind - like refined Bombay Parsi ladies and crude Marathi coolie girls.
46
An outline of beauty filled with content from the existential side.
The creation of existence from the ontological side.
Describe Shakuntala's beauty.
An unsmelt flower - on, from, by, through, for itself – this defines the Absolute
The hermits' heads shine with cheap ingudi oil (insult), they have no other oil than this humble one, from nuts gathered in the forest.
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slp5-p110.
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47
This page is filled with the Sanskrit version and transcription.
48
The King is compared to a Muni - he is the ruler of the kingdom as the Muni is the ruler of the senses.
There are three references to her dress.
An imaginary thorn.
Her two friends are almost vertical: Shakuntala is verticalized, she is like a creeper on a tree,
Anasuya is almost verticalized, Priyamvada slightly so.
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"A person in love sees himself" - this is cancellation - it equates the Self with the non-Self.
The buffoon views the world horizontally, the King has the honour of the Puru race.
The hermit boys say: "we have attained the object of our desires - we are satisfied"
They are going to see the King who is a complementary value to them.
49
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slp5-p113.
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Abundance between two systems.
50
"He has conquered his passions" - but he is in love with Shakuntala.
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Putra-pinda-palana
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slp5-p115
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Both are treated as duties, to the Queen or to the hermitage.
The Queen treats the servant as a son.
Shakuntala is also a mother principle
- there is parity between them.
Reciprocity - there are real demons on the existential side.
Substitutes a messenger for the son - fear of Rakshasas (demons).
Both are the same.
51
Previously the King and the jester were alone under the tree,
Now they enter three worlds, one the rival of the other
(the Queen and Shakuntala).
The boy sends water to Shakuntala.
The King has power to drive away ghosts.
Trishanku - a Manu (sage) sent up to heaven by his guru and rejected by Indra.
Sunyavada - Madhyamika - the philosophy of Nagarjuna - it does not cancel out, it blows neither hot nor cold.
52
SHAKUNTALA
ACT 3
The lotus stalk represents the central nervous system of Shakuntala.
She is injured in her simplicity by her encounter with the King.
(Ayurveda Shastra, Verse 1: "Disease is caused by affection".)
There are two cures: chant some mantras and pour holy water or treat with oil and baths.
Water pouring down a hill.
The laws of nature are operating in the world of necessity.
"Burnt by Shiva's fire" - there is fire also at the Alpha Point.
The light of double negation makes a light that dulls the sun.
Double assertion likewise.
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slp5-p117
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The King is burnt
53
The banner of the God of Love depicts a fish; her eyes are shaped like a fish.
She is on the negative side, but her eyes reveal her position on the positive side.
"This god with fish-banner who pains my mind, will delight me if he strikes me for the large-eyed one."
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Suffering in the vertical axis is doubly negated.
Kama Deva (Eros) is burned and sinks to the Alpha Point.
By subterranean heat he can burn if there is no double negation or double assertion.
54
The King has asked if Shakuntala's vow of celibacy is until marriage, or for good.
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slp5-p119.
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The lotus leaf is horizontal.
The stalk is vertical.
Neither celibacy nor non-celibacy are recommended here.
55
Shiva burns Kama Deva, the God of Love.
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slp5-p120
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Sacrifice - ritual.
Permitted at the end of a rite.
Vedanta is the end (-anta) or final point of the Vedas.
Going beyond Karma (or beyond necessity) to contingence.
The banks of the Malini have little wavelets.
This is the world of sunlight; thus She is on the plus side.
Karma Kanda (that which pertains to action) is over,
Jnana Kanda (that which pertains to wisdom) begins.
56
Kama Deva gesticulates that he feels the touch - at the ontological limit; it is the most basic sense.
This is in order to banish the heat of the love affair - the wind can cool.
The name of the river, Malini, means "skin".
(The bower of creepers - see "Shakuntala".)
There is a circle of reeds - then of creepers - then footprints.
The heavy behind of Shakuntala implies a walk like a duck or swan.
57
The child, when born, will balance the weight of the behind.
This is structural, not aesthetic perfection.
The circle of reeds represents the boundary around the world of a girl in love.
He looks at her and feasts his eyes.
It is a "full feast" - in the Absolute there are no parts.
58
A stone slab strewn with flowers;
- this represents the ontological basis
- flowers are the limit of ontology.
She is swooning from a negative state of consciousness.
She has faded very much - the absolute quality of Shakuntala.
The ointment on her breasts - the breasts are the horizontalization of a woman's body.
Lotus-stalk fatigued in summer – this shows the extent of her fatigue by analogy.
Breast = feeling.
Hands = energy.
Both are fatigued.
59
She is in a state of Absolute negativity, like lotus stalks.
Upper half.
There is a paradox - she is charming and deplorable at the same time.
She states her love straightforwardly.
Double negation - the heat of the afternoon causes clouds which rain and negate the heat - thus her love.
No immorality is involved in their love - Kalidasa wishes to establish this.
This is Gandharva marriage - contemplative human conventions do not apply.
This historic marriage tradition from the Indian subcontinent was based on mutual attraction between a man and a woman, with no rituals, witnesses or family participation
60
A very strong mango tree supports the creeper.
A girl must have horizontal strength to raise a family.
"Type" in literature disappears in Europe after the 17th century.
Anasuya and Priyamvada represent types
- they fulfil both requirements at the same time
- they are neither too abstracted nor too concretised.
Everybody knows of the love affair - there is no need for action - the thing will take care of itself.
The tears of the King flow on his bejewelled and bow-scarred wrist.
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slp5-p125a
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The diamonds are wetted by the tears.
The bracelet never touches the bow-scar
That means that his arm has grown thin.
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slp5-p125b
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ALL RELIGIONS PUT SOME CONCEPT ON A PEDESTAL
BUT VEDANTA ALONE CANCELS EVERYTHING OUT.
61
Shakuntala is advised to send a love letter.
She begins the letter with reference to herself
- begin at the ontological side.
Here we have the trick of hiding the letter amongst the flowers and conventional tricks of poetic composition.
Moonlight.
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slp5 - p126
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The bracelet does not touch the scar - it would if he were a mere hunter.
The King is a horizontal and a vertical hunter
He is a hunter, but he is a hunter of Shakuntala's eyes.
Shakuntala is too far gone in love with the king.
He is worthy of her.
A drop of water and the ocean.
A mango and a creeper.
Two stars and the moon.
62
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63
There is a sudden change in Shakuntala from depression to smiles at the idea of writing a letter.
The horripilation or thrilling of the cheeks - the cheeks are the most superficial part - but they are positive.
She raises only one eyebrow - making a sinus curve or figure-eight.
This is horizontal, but very slightly tilted towards the vertical.
On the numerator side there must be a sex act.
She is writing poetry and raising her eyes in the concentration of composition.
She engraves the poem on a lotus leaf.
Nothing artificial must intervene between the conceptual and the vertical.
64
The day does not make the lotus fade as much as the moon.
Flowers and crushed lotus stick to her body.
The lack of co-ordination of her limbs means that the creeper has fallen to the ground.
Shakuntala does not think herself worthy of the King.
She sits up in interest to compose a love poem
- the King stops her from trying to rise.
"O cloud wanderer, do not be separated from your wife."
See Kalidasa’s poem, Meghaduta. It recounts how a yakṣa, a subject of King Kubera (the god of wealth), after being exiled for a year to Central India for neglecting his duties, convinces a passing cloud to take a message to his wife at Alaka on Mount Kailāsa in the Himālaya mountains. The yakṣa accomplishes this by describing the many beautiful sights the cloud will see on its northward course to the city of Alakā, where his wife awaits his return.
65
STRUCTURE SLP5 - P130
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slp5-p130a.
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slp5-p130.
STRUCTURE SLP5 - P130
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66
The King affirms that his other wives are of no importance to him.
"The sea-clad earth" is horizontal.
"This friend" is vertical.
The girdle of the seven seas delimits the absolute domain of any King
- the seven colours of the spectrum.
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slp5-p131
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67
The antelope seeking its mother - love seeking its object.
Priyamvada and Anasuya are in the same denominator context in going after the antelopes - delicacy of device.
One is called back for horizontal support.
There are two consolations.
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slp5-p132a.
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She offers to leave, thinking of Kanva - he restrains her - a certain use of force is justified.
Gandharva marriage is not in the human context.
Both the King and Shakuntala are of divine origin - he a descendant of Puru, she the daughter of an Apsara. Neither are mere mortals; therefore, Gandharva marriage is normal for them.
"The goodbye to the bower": hesitation at the beginning, then willingness, then regret at the end.
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slp5-p132b
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68
Kalidasa wants to say that the wedding in heaven is over.
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slp5-p133a.
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The reeds in a circle are the arrowheads protecting the King.
The King lingers there - the reeds are verticalized.
The mud is fecund ground for the reed.
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slp5-p133b
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The reed enclosure
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slp5-p134
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To the flesh eating-demons - the flesh is like a precious ruby - like a sunset or sunrise.
The voice from heaven is the introduction of the numinous element.
ACT 4
The girls offer flowers - why this idol worship?
Will the King remember?
He forgets Shakuntala as the result of a device.
Anyway there is Maya - the principle of indeterminism.
On the whole, the King is an honest man.
Will Kanva approve of Shakuntala's action?
69
Priyamvada is conventional.
Anasuya is unconventional.
Anasuya thinks Kanva will approve because she has an open morality and knows he is a spiritual man.
The offering of flowers - Kalidasa does not necessarily approve of the ritualistic, and thus relativistic, worship.
Shakuntala is in love and does not fulfil her duties of hospitality to her Muni (sage) guest.
The Muni threatens that he will respond to her neglect on the horizontal axis by giving her no blessing.
This is a bad omen.
The flower basket falls - also a bad omen.
The sage forgives but cannot take back the curse.
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slp5-p137.
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70
The ring is mentioned - the ring was not mentioned.
Before it was in the vertical world, now indeterminism enters the scene.
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slp5-p138a
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This scene introduces the horizontal axis - now the negative side will come.
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slp5-p138b
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slp5-p138c.
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slp5-p138d
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71
SHAKUNTALA 31
Durvasas wears sad clothes - he is a harsh horizontal saint.
He walks away with a heavy step.
Like a fully blown lotus he tramps quickly.
He is a Tapasvi (renouncer), maybe a Siddha (possessor of psychic powers or siddhis).
With expanded fingers.
He is in the middle and horizontal.
She is in the middle and vertical.
The last scene was demons around a fire at sunset.
Now it is the dawn time.
The sun and moon influence the bodily metabolism.
On the one side the lord of medicinal herbs, (as in the Middle Ages) the moon.
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slp5-p139
In Act 4 complication becomes complete.
Everyone becomes negative but Shakuntala is sleepy and incapable of action.
No-one blames Shakuntala but her misfortune is caused only by love or by the curse of Durvasas.
Shakuntala is blameless.
Kanva also is not involved in the horizontal.
72
There is a contrast between the boy and the girl in the morning.
The girl is tired.
("Women should not wake up early in the morning", Nataraja Guru.)
The Rishi weeps for his daughter - this is a most important verse.
The prophecy comes in four lines of Vedic metered verse - a quaternion.
Priyamvada speaks in Sanskrit, not in Prakrit.
(Prakrit means "natural"; viz. "Prakriti").
73
Shakuntala bears seed as a sami tree bears fire.
This is the essence of Advaita: any log of wood contains fire (by friction).
The garland is kept fresh in a casket to keep her happy.
The mango tree represents the principle of fecundation.
The Kesara tree contains fire between the stamen and the pistil = the fire in the womb.
74
Kanva's speech about the pain he feels - how much more pain would the father of a family feel.
Sacrifice - the speech of Kanva.
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slp5-p144a
"Vedi" is the area of sacrifice.
Perfumed smoke rises to purify.
The structure is the five-fold plan of the body.
108 is a complete structure.
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slp5-p144b
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There are five senses and five satisfactions.
The speech by Kanva to the plants.
At the Omega Point is the voice of the quail.
Kanva is creating a magical world of nature.
75
Three equations.
Shakuntala will not water the plants.
" " " " crop the leaves of the plants.
Her chief delight is the first blooms.
There is a parallel with Persephone.
The supernatural grows out of the natural.
The quail's song = the voice of the trees = possibilities.
Probabilities end, possibilities begin.
Shakuntala embraces the creeper.
The creeper concretely embraces the tree.
The creeper virtually embraces Shakuntala.
Kanva knew that a girl of Shakuntala's absolutist quality could only marry the king - as with a creeper and a mango-tree.
76
There are five fires with grass and sesame strewn around and five boys.
In the middle is a tree - the vertical part of their function is to give vertical life to a flower, as with a baby in the womb.
A man comes from the other side, bathing.
The deer graze on the negative side of the structure.
Parrots pick at the grains, there is another circle - this is like a magic circle, as in the chakras.
There are five petals in the Muladhara Chakra, six in another.
Where is the origin of this?
It is an unauthorised product of the speculation of the Indian mind.
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slp5-p146
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There are deer grazing on the negative side.
Shakuntala is the malika creeper growing around the tree.
The King is the archetypal king of any city. “Pura”means “city” - he is of the Puru line.
77
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slp5-p147a
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All together = chakras.
All become a lotus or a star or crescent.
78
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slp5-p147b
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slp5-p147c
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slp5-p147e.
STRUCTURE SLP5 - P147E
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All together = all the Chakras become lotuses or stars or crescents.
Yoga is a lightning streak inside you.
79
Shakuntala's refusal of the ring = tragic grandeur
She refuses the ring. Also she does not sleep in the palace.
This is Tyaga (renunciation).
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