AdvaitaVedanta Website - Introduction

Saundarya Lahari

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SAUNDARYA LAHARI

VERSE 2

A PARTICLE WORLD

A TAOIST PAINTING

THREE PHENOMENAL FUNCTIONS IN A "MONDE AFFINE"

तनीयांसुं पांसुं तव चरण पङ्केरुह-भवं
विरिञ्चिः सञ्चिन्वन् विरचयति लोका-नविकलम् ।
वहत्येनं शौरिः कथमपि सहस्रेण शिरसां
हरः सङ्क्षुद्-यैनं भजति भसितोद्धूल नविधिम्

taniyamsam pamsum tava carana pankeruha bhavam
virincih sancinvan viracayati lokan avakilam
vahaty enam saurih katham api sahasrena sirasam
haras samksudyainam bhajati bhasitod dhulanavidhim

The fine dust arising from your lotus feet
Brahma gathers up and the worlds creates.
Vishnu incessantly bears them up somehow with his thousand heads
And Shiva having shaken it up, accomplishes with it his ash-wearing rite.

In this verse the individual function of each of the three demiurges is fitted into a common schema as attributes of the same unifying vertical parameter running through their three vertical functions. It is important to remember that it is not an ordinary universe that we have to presuppose or postulate in this verse; but rather the monde affiné known to modern physics, which we have to visualize as a starting datum for the purposes of this work. There is a direct reference to fine particles, whether in the form of botanical pollen, of matter seen in mineral crystals, or as finely divided matter, independent of the states of solid, liquid or gas. Particle physics speaks an exponential language of many decimal points to describe the immensity or minuteness of the worlds of astronomy or quantum physics. The telescope and the microscope are magnifying instruments which bring nearer to our view the frontiers of the macrocosm and the microcosm, within which the observable world exists for us. Placed between these two worlds is our own mysterious universe, which is capable of expanding or contracting through processes of explosion or implosion, endosmosis or exosmosis and entropy or negentropy.

Sources of cosmic rays have been found to be bright spots from which streams of energy units like neutrinos may enter our cosmos and disappear again through black holes. Modern physics at present even speaks in terms of particles and anti-particles, and matter and anti-matter; yet the very structure of the space in which we live is still a profound mystery to the best of physical theorists to the present day. Particles of matter seem to have smaller planet-like bodies with left-handed and right-handed spins (or both) floating around them just as in solar or galactic space. Here supernovae, red giants and white dwarfs, with their colour schemes based on a periodic law to which all matter is chemically subject, heighten the mystery even of the physical world which is the normal environment of us ordinary human beings. The wonderful colour patterns produced by cross-polarized light through the spectroscope reveal the structure of the minutest of crystals, when polarized and analyzed through the help of short-wave X rays. The red and violet shifts give us evidence, though indirectly only, of a universe expanding or contracting at a velocity approximating the speed of light.

In modern times it would not be incorrect thus to assert that there is little difference between scientific myth-making and the ordinary myth-making tendency so natural to humanity ever since literature began to influence human life. The creation of the universe is said to have taken place by a "big bang", according to some advanced physicists, while other experts think of this creation in terms of a "steady state". Modern science is thus in the process of putting every favourite notion into the melting pot called scientific knowledge.

It is the task of the bold speculator to attempt to reconstruct a cosmos out of this kind of intellectual chaos. If he is not able to put some order into these diverse relativistic knowledges, there will occur disruption of human values leading to a confused state of mind, the signs of which are already evident in modern society. Therefore it is very important for the reader's understanding of Verse 2 to try to look at the universe from a perspective thoroughly revised from that to which we have been accustomed by convention hitherto.

We have already said that Absolute Reality could be viewed from either the conceptual or perceptual perspectives, the latter being placed at a lower point in the degree of generalization or abstraction implied. The increase of energy or voltage in the positive direction results in the higher version of the same Absolute without abolishing its basic content.

The higher subsumes the lower and the lower assumes the higher. Within the lower Absolute, postulated for purposes of speculative scrutiny, we should first insert the three grand processes of creation, preservation and destruction as three horizontal stratifications which are traversed vertically by a single correlating parameter, without which they might fall apart and lose their global unity. The universe, as in the form of an eternal process or flux of becoming, was understood by Heraclitus of Ancient Greece and even finds approval from modern critical philosophers such as Bertrand Russell, who calls Heraclitus the first scientific philosopher. Bergson supports the same hylozoic point of view, and even goes to the extent of inverting topsy-turvy the whole set-up of the universe when he ends his work "The Two Sources of Morality and Religion" with the statement that the universe is a machine for the making of gods. The scientific perspective can be said to take a teleological starting point for its speculation. One form of reasoning ascends from cause to effect and could be called ascending dialectics, while the other takes its stand on end results or effects, teleologically, and employs descending dialectics to enter into the very heart of reality hereunder. Between the opposing forces of contraction and expansion, evolution and involution, entropy and negentropy, explosion and implosion and other such antinomian factors - all acceptable to present-day philosophers of science or scientific philosophers - modern humanity stands, trying to decide which way to turn.

The three gods, Brahma,Vishnu and Shiva, enter into the series of verses in several places, and it is necessary to fit their functions, dynamically as well as statically, into the overall context of the Absolute, before we can fill this lower or negative perspective of the Absolute with a value-significance or content. This is a necessity for intelligent living in an environment where a regulated hierarchy of human values enters as interests to choose from, within the scope of the total ecological setting within which we have necessarily to live and move.

Thus we have to view reality in its structural, functional, ontological, existential and even pragmatic aspects in order to do justice to all opportunities that present themselves to us, moment after moment, in our lives. Everyday problems demand the same intelligence as the problem of final salvation, in which humanity has always been interested. Otherwise there would be no religions or churches, scriptures or rituals, towers or spires - all standing on modern utilitarian or idealistic institutional life, representing aspirations normal to humanity. Brahma here represents biologically significant aspirations, Vishnu the hedonistic and Shiva the idealistic or tragic . We have explained that if the mythological language of the Indian tradition should be repugnant to persons outside its normal climate, we could substitute more scientific and mathematical terms, idioms, ideologies and ideograms to convey the same meaning.

Brahma is said to be a lotus-born god belonging to the botanical or biological context. The lotus is the flower most dear to the Indian mind, and its haunting beauty has enriched through the ages the similes and metaphors of poetry on Indian soil. A flower represents the dream of a plant, just as a crystal could represent the dream of a supersaturated liquid. A flower emerges from the otherwise dull background of botany and looms into general consciousness, not unlike a colourful globe of light, displaying its variegated beauty to attract and please the eye. It is the most basic object of beauty in this world, having its origin in mud and dirt, as is particularly true of the lotus flower.

Each flower is a global and structural unit, complete in itself, and if we put three circles around it and its beauty, as conceived in abstract and general terms, we could easily insert such a globe of light within our total consciousness. It could occupy, at plus and minus levels, a position on the vertical axis or in any one of the ramified sets of possible positions. Brahma, as the four-headed, lotus-born god, is to be placed within the qualitative space of the individual or collective consciousness of mankind and treated as a phenotype to mark the source of all creative activity. As the lotus blooms within time, the four-headed god, each of whose faces turns towards one of the four points of the compass, would give us a concrete image of creation as a visualizable process in the form of a personified agent within the specific function of creation, who is to be placed at the ontological negative vertical limit called the Alpha Point. As the processes of growth and division proceed sufficiently forward in pure verticalized terms, we transcend the world of biology into another order where solidity of matter, characterized by mutual impenetrability of particles, initiates a horizontalizing exclusiveness between each unit. This results in what we understand as terra firma, which consists mostly of silicon dioxide crystals, each of which seems to be fighting to preserve its own space from being occupied by another crystal at the same time. Without this terra firma, the drama of life itself could not be acted out. All human aspirations must have a firm basis as a foothold without which no value could ever be enjoyed, even for a split second. This is the parameter, however thin in its functional amplitude, that we have to allow in favour of Vishnu, who is represented as sleeping on a thousand-headed serpent, Ananta, in a milk ocean, symbolically representing the life-value of nourishment spread generously all around, at the basis of human life itself. Salvation would lose its meaning without such a basis.

Vishnu, as a universal concrete principle, is represented also by a small golden fish, Matsya, which grew to immense proportions; by a tortoise, Kurma, who supported a mountain on his back for the churning of the milk ocean; and by a boar, Varaha, who with his hard tusks killed the demon Hiranyaksa and brought the earth back to the surface of the ocean. The fish, tortoise and boar, which are said to be successive incarnations of water-loving creatures, are evidently to be placed in a vertical series, beginning at the Alpha Point or negative limit. There are many Sanskrit texts which lend support to the view that Vishnu supports from below all the hypostatic worlds above. The horizontal expansiveness of space in terms of quantity stands for the firm earth; the schematic representation of the same would be the horizontal axis. Thus we arrive at a general notion of the function of Vishnu.

Now, when we pass over this horizontal parameter represented by Vishnu at the equatorial region of the total situation, we enter into the world of vertical values of a more and more teleological order, passing through the immensity of empty spaces, i.e. the interstellar space of our own universe. The same vertical parameter, produced vertically far enough, takes us to the domain of Shiva, as the universal principle of destruction. Creation would not have any meaning without its counterpart, dissolution. Heat and cold belong together; the same is true of birth and death. Existence and essence have also to belong necessarily together, whether we wish to die early or not. If grandmothers and grandfathers refuse to die, what will be the lot of this world? Surely a sombre and vegetative picture, full of sadness and frustration, would be the state of humanity if Shiva refused to function as the most "generous" principle of destruction - at least in the most paradoxical sense of Shakespeare's dictum: "sweet are the uses of adversity". Every reality must have a container which has a lid at one end, just as a jug cannot be open at both ends. This is known in Vedantic literature as the principle of the inverted cup, or in the West as the phenomenological principle of bracketing.

Heat must be countered by cold; and creation by destruction, in any process conceived in its totality. Modern phenomenologists have tried to describe human life as an epoché, enclosed within brackets, one evidently being at the top and the other at the bottom. Shiva's function has thus to be put in its proper structural perspective. This task is not easy, even for modern physicists, but in the sequence of verses that follows, the ancient speculative tradition in India takes up this challenge with as much confidence and dignity as modern theoretical physics.

Grey ashes and nourishing food, such as rice and water, mark the limits or brackets between which human life is destined to fulfil itself. There is a complementarity, reciprocity, compensation and cancellation between these two limits as life unfolds corrected and harmonized within these ambivalent tendencies. Ashes cancel out against rice and nourishing water into the central value represented by mother's milk, as so touchingly alluded to in Verse 75. Milk represents the generosity of the Absolute, viewed from the perspective of motherhood.

Shiva thus occupies the Omega Point or highest limit in the total system of contemplative values. He is represented as dancing in the graveyard in the Shaivite literature of South India, in the temple at Chidambaram, dedicated to him, and in the world-famous bronze of the dancing Nataraja. He is known as the City-Burner, descending with flame in hand, while himself engulfed in the flames of his own austere way of life. Thus, he is not an auspicious god in the conventional sense, but one who can bring to bear on the total situation that positive touch without which life would be meaninglessly lopsided. He represents the principle of tragic cancellation. Thus, it is apt to describe him as smearing his body with ashes while reveling in the positive principle of tragedy. When cancelled against its own negative counterpart, Absolute Beauty is both tragic and comic at once. The Absolute transcends both, and is beyond both good and evil, beyond all dualities. Such are some of the guidelines to be kept in mind when scrutinizing this second verse, by the light of which the three stratified functions within the total scope of the Absolute Universe could be easily visualized by the reader without further explanation.

(Entropy/negentropy: entropy is a rough measure of randomness and disorder, or the absence of pattern in the structuring of a system. Negative entropy, or negentropy, roughly refers to the degree of order or organization within a closed system. ED)

(Phenomenology:(1) A description of the givens of immediate experience. (2) An attempt to capture experience in process as lived, through descriptive analysis. (3) A method of knowing that "begins with the things themselves, that tries to find a 'first opening' on the world free of our perceptions and interpretations, together with a methodology for reducing the interference of our preconceptions. (4) A method of learning about another person by listing to their descriptions of what their subjective world is like for them, together with an attempt to understand this in their own terms as fully as possible, free of our preconceptions and interferences. Phenomenology is the act of trying to experience the total reality of the consciousness of someone who experiences his or her world in a certain place and time. Phenomenology has roots in the Greek word, phenesti, which means "to show forth, to bring into the light of day". ED)

(Epoché: "suspension" is an Ancient Greek term which, in its philosophical usage, describes the theoretical moment where all judgments about the existence of the external world, and consequently all action in the world, is suspended. One's own consciousness is subject to immanent critique so that when such belief is recovered, it will have a firmer grounding in consciousness. ED)

(Bracketing: (German: einklammerung); also called epoché or the phenomenological reduction, is a term in the philosophical school of phenomenology describing the act of suspending judgement about the natural world to instead focus on analysis of mental experience. ED)

(The reference to Shiva as "not an auspicious god in the conventional sense" is because, in Sanskrit, "shiva" means "auspicious". ED)

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

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

Another version:

WORD FOR WORD
taniyamsam pamsum - the fine dust
tava carana pankeruha bhavam - arising out of Your lotus feet
virincih - Brahma
sabcinvan viracayati - gathering up
lokan avikalam - the worlds creates
avikalan vahaty - incessantly he bears
evam - this same
saurih katham api - Vishnu somehow or other
sahasrena sirasam - by his thousand heads
harah samksudyainam - Shiva, having shaken it up
bhajati - accomplishes religiously
bhasito viddhulana vidhim - (his) ash wearing rite.

The Goddess here represents the Absolute viewed schematically under a slightly negative perspective.

On the vertical parameter, thus revealed at its lower Alpha Point, is to be located, as it were, at the feet of the Goddess, the creative function of which, as is well known Hindu mythology, the god Brahma seated on a lotus and with four faces representing the four aspects of space, is the operative principle. All existence is brought into being and subjected to becoming by the function of Brahma, the Creator.

Below is a representation of Brahma.

Higher up on the vertical parameter of reference, we have to locate the sustaining or preserving function, which Hindu mythology attributes to Vishnu. His function is at the meeting point of the horizontal and vertical structural correlates representing the noumenal and phenomenal aspects of the Absolute, both as being and becoming at the same time, taking speculation beyond paradox so as to make it attain the Absolute. The principle of occasionalism (see Descartes) involved herein justifies the use of the expression "somehow" in the third line of the verse.

(Vishnu is often known as Narayana, one who sleeps on the primordial waters (Nara, water; ayana, to lie in repose). Creation, before Brahma gave it the four directions, symbolized by his four heads, has the indefinite nature of all-pervading water ("God moved upon the face of the waters" as Genesis, I, 2 puts it) on which the numinous principle of life or creation was supposed to recline. This image of creation formed the background of the later Vishnu tradition which itself suffered many changes through history and became the Vasudeva tradition of the Bhagavad Gita epoch. In the original Narayana scheme, Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma met without distinction as the Adi-Narayana, the first divinity of creation, or the primordial Man or Nara, when called Nara-Narayana. ED)

(Descartes' occasionalism: this theory states that the illusion of efficient causation between mundane events arises out of God's causing of one event after another. However, there is no necessary connection between the two: it is not that the first event causes God to cause the second event: rather, God first causes one and then causes the other. ED)

Vishnu's function has to be pluralistic, as represented by the suggestion of the thousand heads of the snake on which he reposes in the eternal present of contemplative sleep.

(Ananta: literally "endless" is the name of the snake upon which Vishnu is supposed to sleep, resting on the primordial milk-ocean of universal goodness. The name stands for eternity. The counterpart name is Adi-Sesha, meaning "what originally remains," i.e. the eternal, present from the most ancient antiquity. This snake is many-headed, signifying the multi-sided nature of creation at any given moment. ED)

In Shiva we attain the upper, conceptual or nominal limit of the total situation here schematically (i.e. structurally) analyzed. Existence here gives place to thin logical or rational subsistence, merging into the value world of pure axiological status.

Below is a representation of Shiva.

Shiva the destroyer is thus the Omega Point, where actualities evaporate into thin mathematical nothingness of nominalistic, though pure, Absolute Value. The thin dust of the feet is subjected to further refinement, as suggested in the last line here, so that it becomes the ritual ornament smeared lightly on the radiant body of Shiva.

Thus existence, subsistence and value with pluralistic, horizontal reference are all capable of structural recognition in this verse.

(Existence, subsistence and value correspond to sat, chit and ananda)

(The structural diagrams of the previous verse can be used for this verse also.)

The Absolute hides a paradox, if you do not resolve the paradox, there is no salvation.

Only downright Vedanta can resolve it. First, state the paradox as clearly as possible:

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

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

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

Where paradox is resolved, the Absolute is revealed.

A Brahmin goes to heaven and enjoys a vacation, but then comes back to earth: this is Vedic relativistic religion.
Vedanta involves a Sanyasin with a begging bowl. He does not seek heaven, but liberation from the cycle of recurring births and deaths. (A camel cannot pass through the eye of a needle…)

(Sanyasin: One who has taken to Sanyasa. Generally in India the Sanyasin or renouncer wears a yellow ochre dress, has a shaven head, and carries a danda or staff and a kamandalu or water-pot. He wanders homeless and depends upon Bhiksha or freely given alms. In the post-Buddhist period, under the leadership of Sankara, this order became more and more prevalent and recognized in India.

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

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

An earlier translation of this verse:

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

Vedanta is outside the context of religion.

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

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

If you ask: "What did you see? Did you see God?" They will say: "Oh no, you cannot see God!"
"What about the Sistine Chapel?" "Oh that is just a joke of the Pope´s".

Three gods, Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, came in to fill the Absolute, which was empty.

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

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

The most difficult gap in the Bible to fill up is the content of God from the earth up.
"Is there no cosmology about this God? Will you tell me about God?"
"NO, NO, NO!"

Sankara gives us the whole phenomenal side, which is our side as people living in the world.

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

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

This is the paradox of the phenomenal universe.

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

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

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

TO GO FROM THE KNOWN TO THE UNKNOWN, TO FILL THE ABSOLUTE WITH CONTENT,
THE SAUNDARYA LAHARI USES THE BEAUTY OF A WOMAN; THE SLIGHTEST OF COMMON CONCEPTS, ABSTRACTING AND UNIVERSALIZING IT.

"Philosophy is that intelligence by which the landlady can tell if the tenant will pay the rent", B.Russell.

An example is NOT a starting postulate.
You must use either deductive or inductive reasoning.

How to justify Verse 2 within the context of the Absolute?
Brahma comes, takes fine dust from the feet of the Devi and creates three vertical worlds, till it becomes the firm earth that we know.

Begin from the "monde affiné", the refined version of the world described by Bergson (See above).

00001, the square root-of-minus-one etc.; this is the pollen powder used by Brahma to create the universe.

Vishnu sleeps on a coiled 1000-headed snake, floating on a milk ocean - a pluralistic pragmatist.

Vaishnavas (Vishnu-worshippers) give Brahma a secondary status next to Vishnu.
Vishnu represents value-worlds so comfortable that he does not have to work.
From his navel comes a lotus in which is sitting Brahma
Why? Because all gods represent the Absolute.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So:

Para-brahman, the transcendent Absolute, is impredicable

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

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

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

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

SOME NOTES FOR A PROJECTED FILM OF THE SAUNDARYA LAHARI

FILM GENERALITIES

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

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

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

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

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

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

a) THE PLACE OF MAGENTA IN THE SCHEME.

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

colour solid

Thus the basic or absolute colour, magenta, is obtained by neutralisation of plus and minus factors.

It is thus reasonable to equate it with the Absolute principle of Beauty, or the Goddess of this work.

b) THE GODS AND THEIR INTERRELATIONSHIP

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

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

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

c) THE GODDESSES

Sarasvati is at the top of the vertical axis.

Kali at the bottom.

Chamundi in the middle. (see Verse 89)

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

d) GANESHA AND SUBRAHMANIYA

Ganesha.

Subrahmanya.

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

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

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

e) EROS AND HIS WIFE

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

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SHIVA AND THE DEVI

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

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

THE STRUCTURAL ELEMENT

The Structure explained:

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

b. Solid geometry and conics

.
c. Crystal structures:

d. The status of other flowers and water lilies.

e. Some favourite trees used for structural purposes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The approach of a hawk to its prey. Their sharpest view is at an angle to their direction of flight; this angle is the same as the spiral's pitch.

The approach of an insect to a light source. They are used to having the light source at a constant angle to their flight path. Usually the sun (or moon for nocturnal species) is the only light source and flying that way will result in a practically straight line.
The arms of spiral galaxies. Our own galaxy, the Milky Way, has several spiral arms, each of which is roughly a logarithmic spiral with pitch of about 12 degrees.

The nerves of the cornea (this is, corneal nerves of the subepithelial layer terminate near superficial epithelial layer of the cornea in a logarithmic spiral pattern).
Many biological structures including the shells of mollusks. In these cases, the reason may be construction from expanding similar shapes, as shown for polygonal figures in the accompanying graphic.
Logarithmic spiral beaches can form as the result of wave refraction and diffraction by the coast. Half Moon Bay, California is an example of such a type of beach.
The Fibonacci Series of numbers forms a spiral.

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

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

THE DEVI'S BODY AS DESCRIBED IN THE SAUNDARYA LAHARI

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

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

SHIVA AND THE DEVI

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

THE CHAKRAS

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

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

STRUCTURALISM

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

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

STRUCTURALISM

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

STRUCTURALISM

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

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

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

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

The terms assigned to their respective levels:
Ambivalence - the first level, the actual, Subrahmaniam and Ganesha are ambivalent factors.
Reciprocity - the second level; Saraswati and Lakshmi.
Complementarity - the third level, the Devi with callosities on Her knees from worshipping Shiva - she wants to establish the final cancellation with Shiva, here, she is his complementary counterpart.
Cancellation - the fourth level, the final operation - Shiva and Shakti united.
Parity - refers to the horizontal alone; bilateral symmetry.

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

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

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

Details: Written by Patrick Misson; Parent Category: Content; Published: 20 October 2008; Created: 20 October 2008; Last Updated: 26 September 2015; Hits: 124412

SAUNDARYA LAHARI

VERSE 3

A SWASTIKA
A QUATERNION WITH ONE-TO-ONE MATCHING OF INTERESTS
IN FOUR TYPES OF PERSON

अविद्याना-मन्त-स्तिमिर-मिहिर द्वीपनगरी
जडानां चैतन्य-स्तबक मकरन्द श्रुतिझरी ।
दरिद्राणां चिन्तामणि गुणनिका जन्मजलधौ
निमग्नानां दंष्ट्रा मुररिपु वराहस्य भवति

avidyanam antas timira mihira dvipa nagari
jadanam citanya stabaka makaranda sruti chari
daridranam cintamani gunanika janma jaladhau
nimagnanam damstra muraripu varahasya bhavati

To the uninstructed you are the light-city, inner darkness banishing, mid-ocean placed;
To inert ones, the ooze of sweetness within blossoms celestial, having mind-expanding effect;
While for indigent spirits you become a brood of philosopher's stones
And for those submerged in the ocean of birth and death, the very tusk of Vishnu's boar.

A four-fold quaternion structure is evidently implied in this verse, although such a structure is not easy to imagine in rigid geometrical lines on the surface of two-dimensional paper. There are, presented within the scope of this verse, four types of spiritual aspirants. To place each of them correctly in their proper positions in the qualitative perspective of beauty within which each has to find its own place, brings us face-to-face with a problem which is important to solve correctly from the very beginning.

Vedantic literature knows of a similar four-fold distinction of types of aspirants, such as in the Bhagavad Gita, where we read of one aspirant who is steeped in affliction; a second who has a desire to know the truth; a third is fond of gaining the goods of life and a fourth who represents the aspirant for ultimate wisdom. The same four types are also presented here, but their aspirations or interests are brought under more positively elaborated value-worlds representing the item of interest most attractive to each type of aspirant; here they are the uninstructed, the inert, the indigent and the suffering. These four types are to be inserted into a four-fold frame of reference, with a one-to-one correspondence between what each one is in himself and what his aspiration represents. When a person's interest cancels out against what he is, his dignity attains to a meaning which refers to his own proper absolute value. Just as when Shakespeare says that the dress makes the man, or when the Bhagavad Gita equates faith with the person who is faithful; there is an interchangeability and reversibility to be understood between the Self and the non-Self. The passion of an Othello possesses him completely so that he becomes identical with it. In the same sense, Shakespeare elsewhere uses the expression "the play is the thing". This way of treating self and non-self unitively and of placing them together within a subjective and contemplative world of value is quite normal in the literature of Advaita Vedanta. Each man is known by his master interest, just as each mathematical term is known by its function, or as a tree is known by its fruit.

The seeker of wisdom of the first line, described as the "uninstructed", is the most respectable of the four types that are designated here in a certain structural order of gradation. He could be thought of as one whose main interest is to know the truth which he aspires for as a believer in sayings like: "Thou shalt know the truth and the truth shall make you free". He aspires for that glorious day of emancipation to come to him. He is a dreamer, steeped in the darkness of ignorance, who envisions before him the beautiful circular structure described in the first line. The "City of God on high", called Civitas Dei, is an idealized Acropolis placed on a hill in the Augustinian imagination. Here, however, we notice that the "light-city" is placed in the middle of an ocean. When we apply the structural frame of reference to this situation, we could imagine the perspective of this aspirant to be a central position in any circular cross-section which we could take within the quarter of the apex of the lower cone, while the "city of light" here can be seen as a cross-section at a corresponding position within the upper cone. The lower inverted cone is negative and can therefore represent darkness, from which the aspirant seeks the light from above the normal cross-sectional plane dividing the two cones, placed base to base. The meaning of this first kind of spiritual aspirant becomes clear to us when we visualize truth or wisdom as the non-self on the positive or numerator quarter, while the uninstructed ignoramus, as the counterpart of his own aspiration, can be seen on the negative or denominator side of the quaternion. We shall find this same mental island elaborated further in later verses.

To visualize the inert man of the second line, who is fond of the ordinary pleasures of life and to place him correctly in his proper structural perspective, we have only to think of a day-dreaming fat boy type of character like Kumbhakarna in the Ramayana, or Joe in Dickens' "Pickwick Papers". Literature is familiar with many such fat boys. This kind of aspirant is interested only in the merriment of eating, drinking and sleeping, and is never bothered by the harsh pinch of necessity. We could thus visualize this inert man on the left or virtual side of the horizontal parameter as the counterpart of the actual item of his fancy, which can be seen on the horizontal right side in the quaternion structure.

The third line refers to a man who is actually poor and cannot make ends meet in his everyday life. The indigent spirit is haunted by the love of wealth which never actually reaches his hand. An example of this type of aspirant might be a kind of scholar-gypsy who, by too much book-learning is unable to make a livelihood. Having missed his occasion to succeed, he is troubled about somehow making good without being serious about the philosophy he espouses. He hopes one day to come to good luck and keeps dreaming about such a value in a pharisaic or dilettantish manner. Such a type fits in the numerator side of the total four-fold situation.

The afflicted or suffering man of the fourth line, submerged in the birth-cycle ocean, is stifled and suffocating due to a lack of free air to breathe. His repeated efforts only cause him to rise and sink alternately in this ocean of necessity. His main desire is to climb to a level where he could at least breathe fresh air, ridding himself of this suffocating world of necessity. To free himself from such a dire circumstance, he seeks only that which is factual, decisive or firm, with the ontological richness of the hard tusk of Vishnu's boar, as in Verse 2. As an example of this type of aspirant we could think of a person who has badly lost in business and suffered bankruptcy. In this state of mind his only desire is to stand up in the world as a solvent person once again. He can thus be placed on the actual right side of the horizontal parameter.

The intention of the author in this verse is evidently to make the student sufficiently familiar with the implied quaternion structure. The further elaboration of its subjective implications should become more precise and convincing as we proceed in this work.

Bhagavad Gita, page 336,

Verse 16
chaturvidha bhajante mam
janah sukritino 'rjuna
arto jijnasur artharthi
jnani cha bharatarshabba

Four kinds of the (doers of the) good are intent on
Me, Arjuna; the distressed, the seeker of
knowledge, the seeker of the goods of life, and the
wise, 0 Leader of the Bharatas (Arjuna).

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

WORD FOR WORD
avidyanam - for the uninstructed
antah stimira mihira - inner darkness banishing
dvipa nagari - light city, mid-ocean placed
cadanam - to inert ones
caitanya stabaka makaranda - the ooze of mind-expanding
sruti charim - sweetness from within blossoms celestial
daridranam - for indigent spirits
cintamani gunanika - a brood of philosophers' stones
canma caladhau - in the ocean of repeated birth and death
nimagnanam - for those submerged
damstra - the tusk
muraripu varahasya - of the boar of Vishnu (the enemy of Ripu)
bhavati - you become

The four quadrants of the quaternion structure are now introduced:

1 Avidya (ignorance, nescience),

2 Vidya (knowledge or science),

3 The lazy man,

4 The poor man or the man caught in necessity

- each of these four is to be placed on a limb of the structure.

Here, four types of person are mentioned, with the-value factor which corresponds to each of them.

Each should go in his proper quadrant; each has his own slant and his own value reference.

The four are:

The ignorant seeker of the city of light and wisdom on high.

The lazy fat man seeking a nectar-filled lotus of enjoyment.

The poor scholar seeking a brood of Philosopher's stones.

The man immersed in the ocean of necessity (samsara) (he is cut by the boar's tusk).

These are not to be treated as rigid compartments, they are fluid.

(Rishikesh is a holy city on the Ganges. ED.)

Caliban, in Shakespeare's "The Tempest" is an example of the mentality of the "Lazy Man" in this verse.

In the inner circle is what each of these four men dreams of.

In this verse the Author shows us the four-fold structure within the Absolute.
The movements of these circles can be reversed etc.
One man may be in all four of these positions at different times.

Another version:

TRANSLATION
1) for the ignorant an island city of sunlit (island) of inner darkness
2) for inert persons of the mind-blossom the heavenly honey-streak flow
3) for the indigent a collection of philosophers' stones
4) for those who are about to be immersed in the ocean of phenomenal becoming the (cutting) tusk of Vishnu's boar (antasti mira mihira)
- thou, o Goddess

Yet another, earlier, version of this verse:

TRANSLATION
To the uninstructed you are the light-maker, inner darkness banishing, mid-ocean placed;
To inert ones, the ooze of sweetness within blossoms celestial, having mind-expanding effect,
While for indigent spirits you become a brood of philosophers' stones,
And for those submerged in birth-cycle ocean the very tusks of that anti-Mira (Vishnu's) boar.

Four types of votaries are envisaged here with their corresponding value-counterparts.

Put together, they cancel out, as Numerator and Denominator of equal function, into the unitive value represented by the Absolute Mother, apostrophized in this century of verse.

The content and context of such a negative version of the Absolute - that is, the Absolute Mother, the Goddess, Shakti or the Devi, are indicated in the first and second verses of this series.

Now the axiological counterpart of utility or value for four grades falling within a vertical parameter are indicated in a downward serial gradation of compensatory items meant as the consolation of the contemplation of such an Absolute Value here called the Mother. The structural analysis below will clarify its implications further..

Each man represents in himself an aspiration vaguely felt as an intentional factor of interest.

1 The ignoramus aspires for some light with the Absolute as its source.

2 The indigent or poor man sees it negatively as a treasure of gems which would abolish his poverty and console him too as a high human value.

3 The pleasure-loving man of inert ways seeks something sweet to drink like the honey at the core of a flower.

4 The man steeped in imperative or absolute necessity in a very actual or real sense has to have something like the tusk of a Vishnu's boar to hold him up and prevent him from sinking deeper into the sea of need that might make him despair.

Conditioned by subjective states, each sees only one aspect of the Absolute.

In this structural diagram note the four-fold context of the structure of the Absolute, as well as the double force acting on each interest, with equilibrium resulting in the consolation the Wisdom Mother represents.

(EDITORIAL NOTE: the quaternion structure will reappear in almost every verse of this work and many further clarifications and examples will be provided, but the examples below may begin to clarify the subtle characteristics of the structural methodology used throughout.)

From A. Eddington, Nobel prize-winner in Physics, we have an example of the quaternion structure used by Nataraja Guru:

THE FOUR LIMBS OF THE QUATERNION:

1. The actual chair in which the actual man can sit; this chair will exclude another chair, and occupies a particular space.

2. The virtual chair in which a virtual man can sit; much like a mirror reflection.

3. The Alpha Point chair, the form of the chair generalised,
It excludes all other chairs.
This is the universal concrete version, it excludes horizontally but not vertically.

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

From Nataraja Guru:

The basic structural terms assigned to their respective levels:
Ambivalence - the first level, the actual, Subrahmaniam and Ganesha are ambivalent.
Reciprocity - the second level; Saraswati and Lakshmi.
Complementarity - the third level, the Devi with callosities on her knees from kneeling in devotion to Shiva - she wants to establish the final cancellation with Shiva, here, she is his complementary counterpart.
Cancellation - the fourth level, the final operation - Shiva and Shakti are united.
Parity - refers to the horizontal alone; bilateral symmetry.

(These terms used by Nataraja Guru, are applied to the mythological deities which appear in the Saundarya Lahari and are there used as protolinguistic factors. They are also fully valid as part of the terminology of Physics and Science in general. The Saundarya Lahari is not a mere mythological poem but a compendium of structural methodology, as applied to the Science of the Absolute (Brahma Vidya). ED)

STRUCTURALISM: SOME SHORT NOTES FROM NATARAJA GURU, TO BE FOUND IN SAUNDAYA LAHARI/NOTES:

Structuralism is the highest function of the human mind.

Marbles ricocheting off one another are horizontal; a lake inside a lake, a cup inside a cup are vertical.

Horizontally viewed, one second can become a thousand years; vertically viewed, one thousand years can become one second.
(H. Bergson)

The vertical axis is happiness, the horizontal axis is suffering.

The structure of woman reveals the structure of the negative aspect of man, his psyche. Add the numerator to this feminine structure and you get the whole picture.

Transportation, e.g. a truck carrying a load of stones, is horizontal.

Transmission, e.g. of radio waves, is vertical.

Three causes and effects:
1. A billiard ball striking another is horizontal.
2. The unwinding of a clockwork gramophone is vertical
3. An explosion is horizontal
(The fourth, which includes all these, is consciousness.)

EVIDENCE OF STRUCTURALISM
1) The Cartesian Correlates or Coordinates - some examples below:

2) Probability curves - curves on graphs:

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

4) The multiplication table of 9:

5) The four forms of logic

(An Editorial note on the four logical forms - The Ancient Greeks such as Aristotle identified four primary distinct types of categorical proposition and gave them standard forms (now often called A, E, I, and O). If, abstractly, the subject category is named S and the predicate category is named P, the four standard forms are:

All S are P. (A form)
All S are not P. (E form)
Some S are P. (I form)
Some S are not P. (O form)

Below we have a conventional structural representation of the same subject, called a "Square of Opposition".

(An example of a subalternation is "If all leopards are mammals, then some leopards are mammals."

Contrary: opposite in nature, direction, or meaning

Subcontrary: a proposition so related to another that though both may be true they cannot both be false)

The square of opposition is a chart that was introduced within classical (categorical) logic to represent the logical relationships holding between certain propositions in virtue of their form.

EDITOR'S NOTE: a possible, if tentative, improvement on the square of opposition might be as below:

The above structure may be in need of revision.)

6) What is "pi" ?

7) Fourier functions - sinus curves in electromagnetics

8) "Architectonique musicale"

(EDITOR'S NOTE: this remains obscure to us;we are trying to discover what the Guru meant on this subject. So far, to no result)

Details: Written by Patrick Misson; Parent Category: Content; Published: 20 October 2008; Created: 20 October 2008; Last Updated: 26 September 2015; Hits: 13880

SAUNDARYA LAHARI

VERSE 4

THE SQUARE ROOT OF MINUS ONE
THE PRIMACY OF CAUSE OVER EFFECT (SATKARANAVADA)
PRIME POTENT POWER.

त्वदन्यः पाणिभया-मभयवरदो दैवतगणः
त्वमेका नैवासि प्रकटित-वरभीत्यभिनया ।
भयात् त्रातुं दातुं फलमपि च वांछासमधिकं
शरण्ये लोकानां तव हि चरणावेव निपुणौ

tvad anyah panibhyam abhaya varado daivata ganas-
tvam eka naivasi prakatita varabhity abhinaya
bhayat tratum datum phalam api ca vancha samadhikam
saranye lokanam tava hi caranav eva nipunau

Other arms than yours can confer protection or boon;
You alone do not act overtly, by gesture, the promises of refuge or boon
What is more, your feet, o sole refuge of the world of beings,
Are alone expert indeed in yielding boons more than asked for.

This verse has its setting in the world of Hindu iconography. A visit to an Indian museum, such as the famous one in Madras which is filled with bronze figures and statues of divinities, would verify for the reader the intention of the author here; while a visit to some of the temples of South India would be even more convincing for those seriously interested in the study of such images. Each image is meant to tell you something. The votary generally looks at the image from a short distance outside the temple doors, while camphor bits are waved before the icon. When a man goes to the temple for worship, he has in his mind a prayer most dear to him at that moment, referring to one of the four sets of values reviewed in the previous verse, where the prayer for wisdom denoted the most superior aspirant. In the many temples of South India there are multitudes of believers who bow before such images, asking for favours from the variety of divine representations or presences. All prayers are bound to be answered, for the simple reason that it could not be otherwise. Humanity would not have continued to build so many houses of prayer the world over if experience had proved that all prayer amounted to nothing at all. Man has had many centuries to test such an experience. If God had been dead and ineffective, man would have removed God from his life long ago.

Even the Russian dictionary contains the word "God", which shows that, rightly or wrongly, faith in the efficacy of prayer still persists. Religion is a necessity for man, though not in the same sense as food. Other hungers also need satisfaction. Even if there were no God, we might have to create one and put him in place.

In this verse the author purposely brings into relief a pointed contrast involving a question that has an important and direct bearing on the philosophy of Advaita, especially that represented by Sankara. This point is, however, not one of doctrinal importance, but one that has to be understood in the methodology proper to Advaita philosophy. The question here is whether one has to give primacy to cause or to effect in the philosophical enquiry that would take one to the truth of the manifested world of appearance. Each manifestation has a cause lurking behind it which is not manifest. In our enquiry we can travel positively from effect to effect ad infinitum, which is the way of the Vaiseshikas (atomists) and others. But there is another way, distinguished as the via negativa, which depends upon the philosophical dictum omnis determinatio negatio (all specification is negation) of Spinoza.

This way of enquiry, which is an approach to truth by eliminating the extraneous, is recommended by the Upanishads and is there called neti-neti. By this method we arrive at the source of all manifestation at the negative limit, or Alpha Point, of the vertical axis. Otherwise, if we follow the positive way of giving primacy to effects rather than causes, we soon land ourselves in a world of plurality of effects in the visible world. We have, as Bergson puts it, to do violence to ourselves in the effort of philosophizing, and not only enter into the heart of the reality that we are examining, but sink to its point of origin by a process of eliminating the plurality of horizontal manifestations.

Translated into the language of iconography, this methodological principle is underlined by Sankara here in Verse 4. At the negative limit, marked by the feet of the goddess in this image-language, resides the origin or source where individual manifestations merge into unity. Mathematical structuralism, in the context of complex numbers, is familiar with this same idea when it puts the square root of minus one at the bottom of the vertical axis, as understood with the help of the Cartesian coordinates.

Thus, the Absolute Goddess is negativity; while there could be innumerable classes and sub-classes of divinities which could answer prayers or grant benefits in an endless variety of gestures or favours.

While at the numerator end the possibilities are located in the infinity of possible effects; when the locus is fixed in the denominator aspect, at the feet of the Goddess, we could think of the one and unique end result or benefit of Absolute Wisdom alone accruing to the votary, seeker or supplicant, to the exclusion of all other miscellaneous benefits that ordinary human beings might be interested in. Praying for particular favours is called upasana and, because the value implied therein is paltry and transient, the absolutist Vedantin, who is most whole-hearted, discountenances all such devotional conduct and prefers only to know the truth. Such are some of the methodological and doctrinal secrets which Sankara wants to insist upon in this verse.

The reference to "more-than-asked-for boon" in this verse may require some explanation. Ordinary prayer is answered according to the mechanistic law of action and reaction being equal and opposite, following an arithmetic form of justice of a "tooth for a tooth" order. On the other hand, when one says that if a man asks for your shirt, give your coat also, there is a generosity which is not arithmetical. The good Samaritan and the father of the prodigal son have a sense of generosity which is of a higher order than a merely quantitative justice. Bergson distinguishes between Natural Justice, with a capital letter, and the justice which is measured out quantitively between the two sides of a set of scales. Absolute Justice is natural and open-minded in its generosity. In the Bhagavad Gita, the Absolutist attitude has been compared to that of a gambler and follows the law of "partial stimulus: total response" It is in this sense that the "more-than-asked-for boon", given by the grace of a Goddess enjoying an absolutist standpoint, contrasts with relativistic items of benefit derived from lesser classes of divinities.

In the second line, it is understood that hand gestures are part of the stone language by which the icons communicate to the votary. Generally it is by gesture with one or more hands that the response from the side of the deity is conveyed to the devotee.

Such gestures are called mudras and the wisdom-gesture given by a Guru to a disciple is the highest of them. There are four well-known gestures, each given by one of Shiva's four hands. The varada, that of boon-giving or benediction, is one. The gesture of protection is called abhaya, in which the hand points at the foot to indicate that the devotee should surrender himself to the feet of the divinity for refuge. Another hand can carry a weapon, which is indicative of the anger or punishment involved. The fourth hand might carry a flame or some other symbolic item. Vishnu's four hands are distinguished by the conch, discus, mace and lotus. Subrahmanya is recognized by his lance, and Rama by his bow. The rosary and book belong to Saraswati, while Kali can have many arms and hands, as in Chamundi. Four monomarks, held by four hands in which are bow and arrow, noose and goad, belong to the structuralism of the Absolute Goddess portrayed here, as presented to us in Verse 7 and others, where this kind of language of hand-gestures in stone is referred to. The foot or the twin feet have primacy over all such numerator monomarks, where even bow, arrow, noose and goad could help us recognize numerator or hypostatic values. Existence has primacy over essence, at least for methodological requirements.

(A Cartesian coordinate system specifies each point uniquely in a plane by a pair of numerical coordinates, which are the signed distances from the point to two fixed perpendicular directed lines, measured in the same unit of length. Each reference line is called a coordinate axis or just axis of the system, and the point where they meet is its origin usually at ordered pair (0,0). ED.)

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

The subject of this verse is the Prime Potent Power or Pradhana.

This is no other than the Devi.

WORD FOR WORD
tvad anyah - other than yours
panibhyam - by hands
abhaya varado - which give protection or boon
daivata ganah - classes of divinities
tvam eka naivasi - you alone are not thus
prakatita varabhity abhinaya - in not acting overtly, by gesture, boon-granting or refuge
bhayat tratum - to save from fear
datum - to grant
phalam api ca vancha samadhikam - more than asked-for-boon
saranye lokanam - o refuge of the worlds
tava hi caranav eva nipunau - your feet alone are expert

Here, there is a reference to the world of bronze figures of goddesses, with hands making many different gestures, each representing one of the deity's attributes - promising refuge or bestowing benefits.

He is saying, "These hands are not Yours, o Devi, abolish them. You, o Devi, speak to me a different language, the language of Vedanta". (Not the language of dualistic religious worship. ED.)
Think of all the possible gestures, boons or benefits from the gods on the Numerator side and abolish them.

The Devi's feet are at the bottom of the vertical axis - the square root of minus-one.
They are a place of refuge.
Here we have one cause, her feet, as against multiple effects

Go to the negative side, the source of all things, at the feet of the Devi this is the way to salvation, the "more than asked-for boon".

It is the Denominator which saves; go to the Denominator cause, not to the Numerator effect.

The Devi in this verse is the Prime Potent Power or Pradhana.

Her feet are compared to a lotus.

PRAKRITI = NATURE

Pradhana (prime potent power) is a term used by Samkhya philosophy and is referred to in Narayana Guru's Darsana Mala in the section called Maya Darsana, in Verse 1:

1. na'vidyate ya sa maya vidya'vidya para'para
tamah pradhanam prakrtirbahudha saiva bhasate

What is not real, that is Negation (Maya),
Which by itself, as by science-nescience,
Transcendence-immanence, darkness and prime potency
Of nature, in many forms looms.

Here Pradhana is translated as "Prime Potency of Nature".

Maya is the name for the Negative Absolute.

(An editorial note on Maya:

Maya is perhaps the most difficult concept to grasp in Sankara's Advaita Vedanta. Nataraja Guru often said that there is a paradox at the core of the Absolute, and the Advaitic view of Maya may indeed appear paradoxical.

In other schools of philosophy, and in common speech in India and elsewhere, Maya is dismissed as "illusion" and as an obstacle to enlightenment which is almost looked upon as morally bad.

A typical quotation: "Maya or Māyā: a term found in Pali and Sanskrit literature, has multiple meanings and can be translated to mean something of an "illusion" (or more accurately a "delusion"). (our underlining. ED)

The position of Advaita is much more subtle.

Some definitions of Maya in the Guru's writings:

"Maya is the principle of indeterminism."

"Whatever is postulated as the cause of the unreal, spoken of in the most generic of categorical terms in philosophy, as against theology, is to be laid at the door of Maya. It is the basis of duality or synergic antinomies. The nearest Western equivalent is the Negativität of Hegel's system."

"Maya is the universal category of error"

Perhaps the most difficult to grasp is what is stated in Verse 97 of the present work, the Saundarya Lahari, and its commentary:

Verse 97:

"As the Goddess of the Word, Veda-knowers speak of You as Brahma's wife
Lakshmi is Vishnu's wedded one,
and the Mountain Daughter is Shiva's consort;
Certain others as the unattainable and boundless fourth state refer to You;
While you remain as the great Maya, making the universe go round, as Queen of the Ultimate Absolute."

(Our underlining. ED)

The Goddess is here praised in several ways: as the consort of each of the three gods and as the fourth state of consciousness (turiya) which is defined in the Guru's writings as follows:

“Turiya, the fourth or deepest flux of consciousness, where subject and object merge in the Absolute that is within and without…”

"Turiya - Absolute Consciousness"

“Turiya, the fourth, which has fully absolutist status.”

“Turiya, completely absolute, beyond any relativity.

“What transparent awareness has, turiya consciousness that is.” (Narayana Guru)

Maya is equated to the Devi - the Negative Absolute - Universal Concrete Beauty.

Universal Concrete Beauty is better than an abstraction such as Turiya.

Maya, instead of being reviled as in other, dualistic and relativistic philosophies, in Advaita Vedanta is to be seen as "... the great Maya, making the universe go round, as Queen of the Ultimate Absolute."

See also the Kena Upanishad, as quoted at the bottom of the commentary to Verse 97, as indeed the entirety of that commentary.)

In Verse 1 of Maya Darsana, Narayana Guru itemises all the possible kinds of negative error (Maya): they are seven in number:

A pair called vidya-avidya (science-nescience):

(Or knowledge and ignorance in colloquial language. ED)

Another pair called para-apara (transcendence-immanence).

Transendence: existence or experience beyond the normal or physical level.

Immanence means that the divine encompasses, or is manifested in, the material world.

Three other items are included under Maya in Verse 1:

prakriti,

pradhana or prime potent power,

and tamas or darkness.

Tamas is one of the three gunas or modalities of nature, the dark or dull, also described as tragic or inert.

The Guru further defines the 1st item in the verse on Maya - Vidya - Science, as the error of knowledge, wrong judgement, logic etc.

The 2nd - Avidya - Nescience, is described as giving too much importance given to the immanent, nescience, ignorance.

3rd - Para
4th - Apara
5th - Tamas

The 6th item - Pradhana - could be seen as the seed containing the oak-tree, where space is abolished

The 7th - Prakriti - is a centripetal force of becoming, it expands up the vertical axis.

The first 4 verses demonstrate the following principles:

Verse 1: Vertico-horizontal reciprocity. (Complementarity, compensation, cancellability)
Verse 2: Phenomenal functions of creation, subsistence and destruction fitted into context.
Verse 3: The four sectors of values with the corresponding types.
Verse 4: The square root of minus-one: the negative pole of the Devi's feet

(The square-root of minus-one is at the bottom of the structure at the negative pole of the vertical axis - it can be used interchangeably with the feet of the Devi, Pradhana, Prime Potent Power, Negativität etc, as a monomark in this verse. ED)

Sankara is not concerned with numerator values and boons, but with the bottom of the vertical axis, the square root of minus-one.

In Vedanta - negative ontology has primacy over positive teleology.

Karana is cause, Karya is effect; Vedanta goes from effects to cause.
"Ontological reality is at Your feet, not in Your hands".
Sankara is a Satkaranavadin, not a Satkaryavadin, that is, he is a believer in the reality of causes and not of effects.

Another version:

TRANSLATION
other than yours
by hands
conferring refuge and boons
the whole ensemble of divinities (demiurges)
you alone are not like that
(hand gestures are not important to the Devi, her feet will do.)
exhibiting dramatic action of (conferring) boon or refuge
to save from fear
to confer benefit
as also to confer favours in surplus to what has been prayed for
of all possible worlds, o the sole refuge
yours indeed, the (pair of) feet are expert in
(put your faith in the feet, the square root of minus-one;
not in the hands of numerator gods.)

In Vedanta, we go from the multiplicity of effects, which are horizontal, to the cause which is vertical.
This is a fundamental aspect of Vedanta: go from effect to cause.
This is Vedantic methodology: causes before effects - Satkaranavada, as opposed to Satkaryavada

The Advaita Vedanta of Sankara is based on the method of reasoning where one travels from effects, which are pluralistic and positive, to a common subjective cause in terms of one's own self-consciousness.

Theologically understood, the divinities in any religion, Greek or Hindu, are recognised by their functional or operational overt positive values, which have hedonistic, pluralistic or essentially hypostatic significance.

These enter positively or negatively as protection or benefits of worship, devotion or contemplation.
One is granted what one prays for.

As the Absolute Value comprehends all varied flavours or essences, conceptually understood through various scriptures of the world, and inclusively covers them all, it is but right to think of it, the Absolute Value, as the seed at the bottom of a vertical parameter of reference. At this negative vertical point, ontological richness prevails to a maximum degree of intensity at the core of a really-experienced sub-consciousness, which is not merely verbose predicative representation.

The elimination of positive effects by way of giving primacy to cause is the negative way of arriving at, or attaining, the Absolute, which could otherwise be empty of all real content.

The universal concrete attains reality in the most scientific form where the duality of physics is effaced and its paradox vanishes, melted or absorbed into the totality of the homogeneous matrix of the Absolute.
The present series of verses presupposes a slightly negatively-tilted perspective, as is proper to Vedantic methodology.

WORD NOTES
Those terms or expressions in the verse such as "other arms", "sole refuge", "worlds of all beings" are meant to underline the contrast between the relative and the absolute, and combine such opposites as boons and protection from fear.

The words "alone", "unique" and "overt" have also to be noted. Absolute generosity is reflected in the words "more than asked for boon".

The ambivalence or dichotomous implications based on antinomian principles, the ramified sets and double assertion are all to be recognised in the pluralistic gods under reference, and in "what is more", respectively.
Metalinguistic poetry tallies here with protolinguistic structural imagery.

STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS

Theological divinities are many. They can protect votaries and confer boons in various pluralistic, relativistic or hedonistic contexts known to non-Vedantic or dualistic scripture.

This involves representing the non-dual Absolute Value that has rich ontological value, but only negligible teleological or hypostatic significance in Vedanta.

While the range of the ramified sets of gods or demigods, which are numerous, can grant hedonistic, relativistic or pluralistic benefits or security, at the bottom of the vertical parameter of all values, rich ontology of real or universally concrete values comprise and comprehend all the miscellaneous and conceptual values of the hypostatic or axiological intentionalities and expectations.

It is at the existent level that all essences merge into a unique value-factor.

As in the case of atomic structure, the neutrino or neutron is richer in negative content than the electron particle.
Indigence prevails on the plus side.

Innate subjectivism on the negative side is more important than analytic or positive objectivism on the positive side.

Sankara gives value to the Absolute through beauty-content.

Concrete Beauty is female
The male is abstraction.

Sankara disregards the branches - he goes to the root.
The root is the Universal Concrete - the source of all causes.

The feet of the Goddess are more important than the hands with all their mudras (gestures).

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SAUNDARYA LAHARI

VERSE 5

REFLECTED GLORY COMING INDIRECTLY FROM THE ABSOLUTE
SUB SPECIE AETERNITATIS (UNDER THE AEGIS OF THE ABSOLUTE)

हरिस्त्वामारध्य प्रणत-जन-सौभाग्य-जननीं
पुरा नारी भूत्वा पुररिपुमपि क्षोभ मनयत् ।
स्मरो‌உपि त्वां नत्वा रतिनयन-लेह्येन वपुषा
मुनीनामप्यन्तः प्रभवति हि मोहाय महताम्

haris tvam aradhya pranata jana subhagya jananim
pura nari bhutva puraripum api ksobham anayat
smaro'pi tvam natva ratinayana lehyena vapusa
muninam apy antah prabhavati hi mohaya mahatam

Once Vishnu, having adored you, the bestower of blessings on your worshippers,

Taking womanly form, caused agitation even unto the City-Burner.
Eros, too, worshipping you with body licked into reality by the glances of Rati,
Even to the minds of great recluses, confusion of values brings.

This verse brings us one step closer to the main content or subject matter of this series of verses. Since the central theme of this work is erotic mysticism, the God of Love has to be understood first. Man finds woman beautiful and vice-versa, because between their forms there is operative a subtle parity, reciprocity, complementarity or cancellability in terms of pure and subjective action between values which could be called counterparts. The joy or bliss that results therefrom is not a value to be excluded from the total scope of eternal or absolute values. There is an interaction between contemplative and worldly interests involved in this kind of conjugal joy. The Goddess cannot experience it by herself. The life principle that enjoys it has to participate with both pure or sacred values, on the one side, mixed with more profane values on the other.

The experience of love, which is so well known to young men and women, is such a serious matter that there is not one year in which some suicide pact between a young couple does not occur in one region or another. Like hunger, which has no limbs nor any exact position within the body, love can pervade and possess the whole personality of a man or a woman at a given moment. This given moment is regulated by the principle of occasionalism, as known in Cartesian philosophy, by which the will of God and the disposition of man cancel out on occasions that are fully favourable. It is in this sense that Othello's passion fills him so completely that he becomes a tragic hero of the fullest stature. Cosette and Marius in "Les Misèrables" find themselves in each other's arms before they are even conscious of what they are about. Instances of this kind can be multiplied indefinitely from the world's best literature.

Love is a noble sentiment, laudable in one perspective, but not so much in another. Shakespeare's sonnets contrast the real difference between true and false love. The Upanishads do not treat legitimate love as a forbidden fruit, but include it within the scope of the absolute joy that the soul of even a dignified person should be capable of enjoying. Kalidasa's poem "Kumarasambhava" is perhaps one of the best classical examples on this subject. Shiva forever remains the leader of ascetics even though, in the last verse of that work, he is represented as living eternally in the bedchamber of the Goddess, refusing even breakfast. Here, the paradox of eroticism is faced squarely without making this subject either wholly profane or wholly sacred. It is the principle of the non-dualistic Absolute alone that can finally dissolve this paradox. Eroticism can have the dignity of mysticism only when the contradiction at the core of profane love has been fully abolished. This task is what Sankara undertakes in the present series of verses, and in this verse he clears the ground for viewing the subject of erotic mysticism in the structural perspective proper to it. Further, it is important that such a perspective fall correctly within the aegis of Absolute Beauty, because it is the beauty of the female which is the very occasion for erotic mysticism to come to be talked about at all. The expression sub specie aeternitatis of Spinoza, explained elsewhere, describes this unitive perspective. The passion of Othello becomes a Passion, with a capital letter, when it falls within the ambit of the Absolute on a given occasion. This is the reason why people are said to "fall in love" and justifies somewhat the popular saying that "marriages are made in heaven".

Eros, known in the Greek context, is represented in some paintings as a winged angel that descends onto the body of a beautiful woman from above. The Sanskritic Eros is called Ananga or Manasija ( The "Limbless One" or the "Mind-Born God"). His position in the structural setup is in the peripheral region of the base of the lower rather than the upper of the two cones placed base to base.

With his bow and arrows made of flowers, he lies in wait for the proper occasion to make young lovers fall for each other as they sit in a garden in the flowery season, called vasanta in India, when the cuckoos sing and the mangoes put out their blossoms and tender magenta leaves. The élan vital in nature operates with highest pressure on this occasion, when mentally pictured with the gentle malaya breeze and other concomitant circumstances favourable to the function of this god. Details of the behaviour of Eros and his wife Rati, are depicted in detail in Kalidasa's "Kumarasambhava". We shall have occasion to return to this same subject in the verse that follows. Like hunger, love has no limbs. As an inner experience, it is an amorphous entity that can pervade all the limbs of one's body at a given moment. The Mind-Born God (Manasija) is thus considered limbless (ananga). One might ask how he could send his flowery arrows without limbs. His bow and arrows are made of flowers to show that his instruments, as well as his limbs, belong to a very tender and neutral order in which matter and mind are interchangeable and can participate both ways. Life is the principle that links matter and mind, and it is exactly at this point of meeting that the Mind-Born God, Eros, has his being. Without anticipating what we shall have many more occasions to elaborate upon, let us fix our attention in this verse on the divinity called Vishnu, who is said to have assumed a beautiful outward female form to distract the attention of Shiva on the occasion of the churning of the milk-ocean mentioned in the Bhagavata legend. In this incident he was named Mohini (the Enchantress). By his intervention, Vishnu was able to avert a conflict that would otherwise have become a disastrous situation. Vishnu's structural position is more centrally located, perhaps a little below the middle of the vertical parameter. It is because of his special normalized absolute position, falling within the scope of the vertical parameter itself, which is of a fourth-dimensional order within the structural totality, that he is able to attract the attention of Shiva himself, in spite of the latter being the most austere of austere divinities. These mythological anecdotes or episodes are not to be directly depended upon by us in this commentary. We only allude to them in passing, so that they might lend whatever verisimilitude they could to our approach, which is one that is primarily nearer to a mathematical structuralism proper to science, treated as integrating physics with metaphysics.

Though Eros is placed in the lower cone, with base upwards, the value-principle implied in him can, at a particular moment, permeate the whole structural field, giving to it a red or magenta hue throughout. The recluses referred to in the fourth line are generally persons who have left their homes to live in Himalayan retreats for the purpose of practising various lukewarm degrees of austerities, usually to forget some past unhappiness in their married lives. The intensity of their devotion to austere ways of life could be great, which would justify the epithet "great recluses" in this verse; but it is to be understood that their detachment has not attained to the positive heights of that leader of all ascetics, Shiva. The influence of erotic values could still be dominant in the minds of such recluses, compromising its absolutist status, however great their lopsided dedication to an austere life might be. It is in this sense that the mountain-daughter, Parvati, is said in the "Kumarasambhava" to be respected even by munis (recluses). Even after leaving their homes, the appeal of a beautiful woman can perturb their minds, causing some confusion of values within their hearts. Such a view finds support in the poetry of Kalidasa, where a traveller from a distant land, separated from his once-favourite wife, bursts into tears when reminded of his lost felicity by the sight of a beautiful tree laden with flowers waving in the breeze. These recluses, as ordinary human beings, still belong to the horizontal plane and are to be situated somewhere peripherally between the bases of the two cones in the structure.

The reference to the body of Eros being licked into shape by his wife, Rati, may need some clarification before we leave this verse. Beauty in its four-dimensional fullness is the resultant of the meeting of two sets of light, as revealed in modern laser technique. Holographs have to be resolved or made clear by one cross-polarized ray meeting another at a certain angle. Eros, by himself, is incomplete beauty, without the admiration of his wife from another position, cutting at correct angles from one of the peripheral rims of one of the cones placed base to base.

Cross-polarized light interferences create visibly living colour effects, as is familiar in modern crystallography. Spectral colours are revealed at the periphery, while magenta pervades the greater part of the remainder of the rim. Some structural explanations of this verse may be considered far-fetched, but our excuse for resorting to such descriptions is that we only intended to add some adequacy or validity to the otherwise "negatively unscientific" or mythological language used here. Our attempt, as we have stated, has been to substitute a more scientifically acceptable version for the mythological language. Myths can verify mathematics and vice-versa.

(Sub specie aeternitatis: Latin for "under the aspect of eternity"; hence, from Spinoza onwards, an honorific expression describing what is universally and eternally true, without any reference to or dependence upon the merely temporal portions of reality. ED)

(Occasionalism is a philosophical theory about causation which says that created substances cannot be efficient causes of events. Instead, all events are taken to be caused directly by God. (A related theory, which has been called 'occasional causation', also denies a link of efficient causation between mundane events, but may differ as to the identity of the true cause that replaces them.) The theory states that the illusion of efficient causation between mundane events arises out of God's causing of one event after another. However, there is no necessary connection between the two: it is not that the first event causes God to cause the second event: rather, God first causes one and then causes the other. ED)

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

WORD FOR WORD
haris tvam aradhya - once Vishnu having adored you
pranata jana saubhagya jananim - the mother that bestows blessings on those who worship you
pura nari bhutva - taking womanly form
puraripum api - even to the City-Burner
ksobham anayat - caused agitation
smaro api - Eros too
tvam natva - on worshipping you
ratinayana lehyena vapusa - with body licked into reality by the glances of Rati
muninam api antah - even to the minds of great recluses
prabhavati hi - is able indeed to bring
mahaya mahatam - for causing confusion of values

Another version:

WORD-FOR WORD
Hari = Vishnu
Tvam aradya = having adored You
Pranata jana saubhagya jananim = who confers goodness
On worshippers
Pura nari bhutva = once having become a woman
Puraripum api = even that burner of the city (Shiva).
Kshobham anayat = led to agitation
Smaropi = even Eros
Tvam natva = having bowed to You.
Ratinaya lehyena vapusha = with body licked into being by the eye
of Rati (wife of Eros)
Muninam api antah = even within recluses
Prabhavati hi = becomes able to accomplish indeed
Mohaya = to make for confusion of values
Mahatam = to great ones

Mohini

Vishnu once took the form of a radiant woman, attracting Shiva by coming to the vertical axis.

Biologically, the female is the type, the male a sub-type.

When a man in love sees a woman, what he really sees is his own self.
"kami svatam pasyati" -" a man in love his own self sees"

The body of Eros (Kama Deva ) is licked by his wife, Rati's, glances into a pearly beauty.

Kama Deva

There is sometimes a confusion of values for these poor Rishis (sages), because of the overwhelming beauty involved.

There are many kinds of Yogis, but there are some few, the most fortunate ones, who can see the Absolute in a woman’s body.

Vishnu's beauty is reflected glory from the Absolute Goddess at the O Point - it confuses the Alpha Point.

Grace can operate directly or indirectly.

The reference here is to the churning of the milk-ocean, when Shiva is tempted to fall in love with the female form of Vishnu.

The point is; you can fall in love with Absolute Beauty, even Shiva can - when it is in the vertical axis.

Beauty comes from the O Point.
If Vishnu is in the vertical axis, Shiva has to fall in love - it is communication with the Devi.

Another version:

TRANSLATION

Hari (another name for Vishnu) having adored You, the source of prosperity of those who worship You, having once become a woman
even the burner of cities
caused to have passion
Smara (Kama Deva, Eros) also
having prostrated to You
by a body licked into shape by the consort of Eros (Rati)
the mind of even recluses
triumphs indeed
conducive of confusion, even to the great recluses (Munis)

Kama Deva (Eros) derives his beauty from the Absolute, indirectly.

Why does Kama Deva (Eros) triumph over the minds of the Munis (recluses or ascetics)?
Rati confers a beauty on him, which is derived from the Absolute.

The ascetics are overcome by the reflected beauty of Smara (Kama Deva, Eros).
They are simple people on the denominator, practising austerities in the Himalayas.
They are attracted to his beauty.
Even Shiva falls in love with Vishnu (Hari), who falls in the vertical axis.

There are two stories here:

1) Direct light - Shiva falls in love with "himself" - on the vertical axis.

2) Reflected light - Eros and Rati on the horizontal axis. (Eros is more horizontalized - the Guru even refers to him in one place as a "horizontal Shiva" Ed.)

The Munis (ascetics) are peripheral horizontally on the denominator side.
They are attracted even by the reflected, also peripheral, light of Eros.

Confused Sage or Ascetic.

There is sometimes a confusion of values for these poor Rishis (sages), because of the overwhelming beauty involved.

A very confused ascetic bathing in the Ganges.

They now see both the perceptual and conceptual aspects of beauty - where generally they see only the perceptual aspect (because the ascetics themselves are peripheral and horizontalized. Ed.).

When Vishnu, as representing the Absolute Reality, confers Its stamp of reality on the negativity of the pure Absolute Becoming that constitutes eternal essential existence, he may be said to take himself a female form, because femininity has to be negative.

The legendary myth in which Vishnu took such a charming womanly form to confuse even Shiva, reputed to be beyond temptation, supports this.

This Absolute Beauty, as a value in women or rather womanhood, sub specie aeternitatis (under the aegis of the Absolute), can be a rival factor to the divinity called Shiva, when he is considered as a member of the trinity of godheads (Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva) of the theological pantheon of divinities as Isvaras or Demiurges (minor relativistic divinities).

(This Shiva, considered as a demiurge operating in the field of creation, preservation and destruction and described in Verses 1 and 2, has to be clearly distinguished from the Paramashiva , or Supreme Shiva, the positive counterpart of the Devi. ED)

The myth is justified only when Shiva is given a lower status in the context of the full Absolute, which is neutral and impersonal.

In the second half of the verse the reference is to Eros as the personification of earthly love.

He himself is ananga, (without limbs).
His appearing to have limbs is due to the reflected light coming from the eyes of the horizontal negative counterpart of the pure erotic principle as such - that is, his wife, Rati.

As in modern laser technique, two lights, one reflected and virtual and the other direct; when they are holographically intensified, have to meet to result in the real beauty-value represented here by the Goddess.

Horizontally reflected lights complement each other at this level.

When a pure, universally concrete reality representing the absolute beauty of the Goddess thus becomes manifest, it is suggested, at the end of this verse, that such a beauty will attract even recluses who have won full control over everyday sensuous attractions.

A structural analysis will help to reveal the fourfold factors involved here.

STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS
There are two sets of double corrections to be thought of in terms of normalisation and re-normalisation here.

Beauty as an Absolute Value is the central theme.

This beauty could be viewed from two perspectives, which are complementary or reciprocal counterparts, compensatory and cancellable into the final unity of the value represented by the Absolute as Beauty here.

Vertically, Shiva, as the Burner of the Three Cities, is the positive counterpart of Vishnu as the normalising factor.

Horizontally, the virtuality of Eros has its counterpart in the actualising light of his wife Rati.

All around the central value there are groups of contemplatives of different sets and sub-sets, all of whom benefit spiritually or in actual terms from a contemplation of the Absolute.

Shiva as an extremely uncompromising radical and positive principle must have the renormalising factor as a central counterpart which acts as a descending factor or function vis-a-vis this thin mathematical parameter at the Omega Point of the Absolute.

A girl, beautiful in a worldly sense, can participate in the Absolute and have a stunning effect on a recluse, even one of the status of a Shiva.

Vishnu, as a neutrally-placed normalising influence, could be a simple girl with stunning beauty; or he could be viewed theologically as the cosmic principle of preservation.

The circling set of recluses are all aspirants who practice contemplation of various types, which can be fitted into the scheme in endless gradations or variety of sets and sub-set ensembles. The structure above will help one to understand this.

The borrowed light or glory of the Absolute makes one resemble the Absolute.
Vishnu borrows the beauty of the Absolute Goddess and then he even attracts Shiva.
Eros tries to defeat Shiva with arrows.
Rati's admiration gives him the light of Absolute Beauty.
Eros depends on occasionalism - the mountain breeze, the flowery season, as dealt with in the next verse,Verse 6..

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SAUNDARYA LAHARI

VERSE 6

OCCASIONALISM GIVES POWER TO EROS

धनुः पौष्पं मौर्वी मधुकरमयी पञ्च विशिखाः
वसन्तः सामन्तो मलयमरु-दायोधन-रथः ।
तथाप्येकः सर्वं हिमगिरिसुते कामपि कृपां
अपाङ्गात्ते लब्ध्वा जगदिद-मनङ्गो विजयते

dhanuh pauspam maurvi madhukaramayi panca visikha
vasantas samanto malaya marud ayodhana rathah
tathapy eka sarvam himagirisute kam api krpam
apangat te labdhva jagad idam anango vijayate

O daughter of the snowy peak, just deriving from your glance askance
Whatsoever grace he could, with flowery bow and bumble-bee bowstring
And five-flowered dart and springtide for minister; all these as one withal,
Mounting the chariot of the mountain breeze, he victoriously reigns, that God of Love.

This verse continues and carries over the basic ideas just examined in Verse 5 and adds a little more dynamism to the picture. The key to the understanding of this verse is in the principle of occasionalism, by which Eros acquires a dignity out of all proportion to his importance in human life. All people do not fall in love at all times of the year. The component factors, making up the totality implied in every absolute occasion in which they do fall in love, are here enumerated and described realistically in some detail. Let us examine them separately and together.

The primary requisite for Eros to reign supreme is stated in the first line to be the glance, though only askance, of the Goddess. This kind of glance is very familiar in devotional Sanskrit literature where the votary, out of humility, does not dare pray for a full frontal look of kindness towards him from the Goddess. Such a sympathetic side-glance, well-known as karuna kataksha, is all that a humble devotee can claim from an absolute Goddess. Though the glance is only partial in its nature, it is received with total gratitude on the side of the devotee. Thus, what is lost on one side is compensated for on the other side. Shiva's love of Vishnu in female form, mentioned in the previous verse, is a richer and more direct relationship than in the case of Eros and the Goddess in this verse. Eros thus has a lesser status than even a demiurge or a divine presence. He tends to derive his dignity from the instinctive pole of the personality of the Goddess and, as such, is to be placed nearer to the elemental spirits, located at the ontologically-rich pole of existence at the negative limit of the vertical axis. This is the reason why, as we shall see in the later verses, the God of Love is depicted as having his proper place within the legs of the Goddess. Above the horizontal line, Eros is exposed to too much light and heat or electricity coming from the topmost limit of the vertical axis. In this bright world of high energy his head is said to catch fire and he is obliged to jump into the navel of the Goddess, represented as a lotus lake in the mid-region of her body. More such details will come under more specific reference in later verses.

The reference to a bowstring of bumblebees has its own structurally dynamic implications. Every flower of the vasanta season (spring-summer) carries a drop of honey at its core, and each drop of honey attracts a bee. Thus develops the basis of a dynamism such as that between a bow and its bowstring.

A bee, very thirsty for the drop of honey from the flower, develops a kind of tension within its mind, similar to the tension of a bowstring when drawn away from its bow. In this picture the bow and the arrowhead are made up of choice flowers. The season spreads over the surface of the earth horizontally and evenly. The same scene, when reviewed three-dimensionally, gives us a cross-section which contains the bowstring of bees sitting in a line along the horizontal parameter, thirsty for the drops of honey in the flowers which make up the bow. Enjoyment and the enjoyer, represented by the honey and the corresponding thirsty bees, are thus structurally placed together as counterparts.

The arrow shoots vertically through this two-sided total horizontalized situation. When the trajectory of the arrow is perfectly verticalized, it can hit Shiva at the Omega Point, the apex of the upper cone. It is Parvati who gives perfect verticality to the arrow of the God of Love, who has to lie in wait for this propitious moment, based on the principle of occasionalism in the total absolutist context. The five flowers of the arrows represent the five sense-interests. When they strike the victim all together at the given occasion when everything else is favourable, even an austere god like Shiva is unable to escape their total effect. The fate of us human beings, who are lesser than Shiva, could be thus left to the readers' imagination. The whispering breezes of springtide lend their support to endorse this power conferred on Eros by the occasion. The arrow has to be released at the most favourable moment to hit Shiva. The mountain breeze is also an important concomitant, finalizing the imperative character in the operation of such successful functioning of the God of Love. It is in this sense that, at a given moment alone, when the totality of favourable factors conspire together, the God of Love can triumph. The integrative principle belongs both to principles represented by Shiva, as well as by Shakti. Eros has necessarily to hide and operate from the negative side. The dynamism gains support from the relational structuralism and vice-versa; both must be treated as belonging to Occasionalism with a capital letter.

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

The Numerator and Denominator must be ready for cancellation to take place.
Pure love comes from the Alpha Point at the negative pole of the vertical axis of value and is irresistible - no one is excepted from it.

Ananga (Eros, "the limbless one") = Beauty.
Ananga rules. Although he is a passion, he still rules. (See Othello).

(Ananga or Kama or Kama-Deva is the Eros of India. Rati is his consort. The central eye of Shiva which erupts fire is said to have burnt Kama to ashes when Kama aimed his flowery-arrow at Shiva in order to make him erotic, as commissioned by the gods who needed a martial deity to be born. The war-god was born, however, without erotic love in circumstances portrayed by Kalidasa in his poem called Kumara Sambhava (The Birth of the War-God). ED)

WORD FOR WORD
dhanuh paushpam - (with) flowery bow
maurvi madhukara mayi - bowstring of bumblebees
panca visikha - five-flowered dart
vasantah samanto - springtide for minister
malaya marud sayodhana rathah - Southwest breeze for war chariot
tathapi - in spite of this
eka sarvam - all one
himagiri sute - o Daughter of the Himalayan Peak
kam api krpam - some little grace
apangat te - from your side-glance
labdhva - obtaining
jagad idam - this world
anango vijayate - Eros reigns supreme

Another version:

WORD-FOR-WORD
Dhanuh paushpam = the bow made of flowers
Maurvi madhu kara mayi pancha vasikha = the bow-string with five-fold flower arrowheads is made up of bumblebees
Vasantah samantantah = the springtide makes the minister
Malaya marud ayodhana rathah = the wafting mountain breeze stands for the war chariot
Tathapi ekah sarvam = notwithstanding all these as one
Hima giri sute = o Daughter of the Himalayas
Kam api krpam = whatever mercy
Apangate = from Your side-glance
Labdhva jagad idam anangah = having derived that limbless god of love (Eros)
Vijayate = he reigns supreme

In Verse 6, half of the Devi's body is filled with eroticism; eroticism is normal bliss.
You cannot throw eroticism out of the picture as Christianity does.
The Absolutist picture gives Eros a place in the Devi's legs.

Eros reigns victorious, because he got some fraction of grace from You, the Devi.
He is victorious on the numerator side and is going to fill the numerator side with content.

Imagine the flowery season. This is when people are smitten with love.

Eros has a chariot and the grace of the Goddess comes to him by her glance, slightly askance.
His power is absolute for a certain time, when all the right factors are present.

Eros reigns supreme in spring; this is how numerator values can have (false) erotic luxury implied and still reign victorious - the side-glance of Devi gives this power.

The aide or adviser is Springtime, whispering to Eros to shoot his arrow at Shiva.

(This is described in the Kumara Sambhava, a minor Sanskrit epic by Kalidasa, literally, "The Birth of the War-god Kumara". In their struggle against the demons (asuras) the gods (devas) badly needed a warrior-god and approached Brahma to this end, who counselled that they should somehow make Shiva, who was then steeped in meditation, fall in love with a woman. Kama Deva (Eros) (q.v.) was selected to tempt him for this purpose, and Kama Deva came with his wife, Rati, choosing the moment when Uma (the Devi) came with offerings, to let fly at him the flowered dart of erotic temptation. Shiva caught Kama Deva before the arrow left his bow, and in his anger, Shiva opened his third eye whose glance reduced Kama Deva to ashes. ED)

This is the situation favourable to love affairs; flowers, pleasant breezes, bees that suck honey - also, there is a conspiracy to give battle with chariots. The whole situation conspires for love to triumph.
Do not treat any of these as distinct parts, they are one, a unit or gestalt.

(In Gestalt Psychology, the operational principle is that the brain is holistic, parallel, and analog, with self-organizing tendencies. The principle maintains that the human eye sees objects in their entirety before perceiving their individual parts, suggesting the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. ED)

You cannot stop people falling in love: first with the above factors and then with the sanction of the Absolute (the side-glance of the Devi).

Another version:

TRANSLATION
the bow flowery
the string made of bees
five-flowered dart
springtide (is) minister
the western mountain breeze
war chariot
notwithstanding (their distinctness)
everything (here) treated as one
o daughter of the Himalayas
some sort of grace (kam api krpam)
from Your side-glance
obtaining

Eros ("the limbless one" - HE IS A MENTAL STATE) reigns supreme over this world.
So, given certain conditions, Eros must be successful, when the grace of the Devi is there.
An example of occasionalism is divine will.
Even given all the other factors, the final occasionalism is the grace of the Devi - Her side-long glance.

(Occasionalism is a philosophical theory about causation which says that created substances cannot be efficient causes of events. Instead, all events are taken to be caused directly by God. ED)

There is a war-chariot because there is a conflict.
The conflict is the paradox between the vertical and horizontal factors involved in falling in love.

There is always a struggle to resolve a paradox - thus, the war-chariot.
Shiva is not completely free of eroticism - this is the element of paradox here.

We have first to recognize the components mentioned in this verse as making up the totality of the Absolute feminine principle.

The bow, arrow, the humming bow-string and arrowheads are concrete and harsh counterparts to be viewed in a more structurally subjective and refined context.

The chariot and the minister belong more to the general and plus side of concepts. They are symbolic rather than direct signs.

(Signs are metalinguistic and horizontal; symbols are protolinguistic and vertical. A red traffic light is a symbol; the letters R.E.D. written on a piece of paper are signs. A symbol is semantically polyvalent - it has many meanings, roughly speaking - and a sign has only one meaning - "R" represents a certain sound and that is all. ED)

After fitting these various conceptual and perceptual elements into a total whole, one should think of Eros himself as a total and Absolute Value, colouring life itself and giving it a vital complexion.

It is the Negative Absolute, implicit in the Goddess, that is praised here for Her beauty as a supreme value, under whose aegis Eros gets the power to influence human life, always and at all places.

He himself substitutes and functions for the Absolute. A structural analysis will help to bring the rigid and subtle aspects of the total erotic situation of the double perspective here into proper relief.

STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS
The total erotic situation can be schematically represented as the top and bottom half of a circle. The bow of iron, when conceptualized, becomes flower-tender as a luxury springtime value.

Flowers bring bees, and the bumblebee is the conceptual aspect of summer love-feeling in operation.

The five senses and their afferent functional counterparts are represented by five darts that hurt the lovers' hearts subjectively or objectively.

The total controlling factor giving purpose to erotic life is the season of spring; and the more ineffable numerator side of the situation is a wind-wafted chariot.

The minister is a person, here and now, and thus has to take his position on the point where the vertical axis meets the horizontal at the O Point.

Eros himself is an abstraction created by the mind, and thus he represents an erotic value under the aegis of the Absolute.

Thus, he could be said to radiate his essence over the whole of the conscious situation from the Omega Point at the positive apex of the vertical axis; while the Devi herself, as his counterpart, occupies the rich ontological position of the Alpha Point at the bottom of the vertical axis. Other structural implications ought to be clear.

Numerator and Denominator must be ready for cancellation to take place.
Pure love comes from the Alpha Point and is irresistible - no-one is excepted.

In Verse 7, the Devi is "Purushika", a bold, virago-like figure, the counterpart of Shiva: do not try and copulate forcefully with Her: the Absolute cannot be defeated.

In Verse 8, the Yogi has to meditate on something: a gem-island.

In Verse 9, stable positions of cancellation ascend on a vertical axis.

In Verse 10, there are two "trees of Porphyry"- one spreading upwards, the other downwards.

(Porphyry presented the basis of Aristotle's thought as a tree-like scheme of dichotomous divisions, which indicates that a species is defined by genus differentia and that the process continues until the lowest species is reached. ED)

Above is a Tree of Porphyry as applied to Geography.

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AdvaitaVedanta Website - Introduction

Saundarya Lahari

SAUNDARYA LAHARI - VERSE 2

SAUNDARYA LAHARI

VERSE 2

SAUNDARYA LAHARI - VERSE 3

SAUNDARYA LAHARI

VERSE 3

SAUNDARYA LAHARI - VERSE 4

VERSE 4

SAUNDARYA LAHARI - VERSE 5

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SAUNDARYA LAHARI

VERSE 5

SAUNDARYA LAHARI - VERSE 6

SAUNDARYA LAHARI

VERSE 6