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SAUNDARYA LAHARI - VERSE 46

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SAUNDARYA LAHARI

 

 

VERSE 46

ABSOLUTE BEAUTY AS THE RESULTANT OF TWO CRESCENT MOON BRACKETS
BEAUTY IS PRODUCED BY ONTOLOGY AND TELEOLOGY COMING TOGETHER
 
ललाटं लावण्य द्युति विमल-माभाति तव यत्
द्वितीयं तन्मन्ये मकुटघटितं चन्द्रशकलम् ।
विपर्यास-न्यासा दुभयमपि सम्भूय च मिथः
सुधालेपस्यूतिः परिणमति राका-हिमकरः
 
lalatam lavanya dyutivimalam abhati tava yad
dvitiyam tan manye makuta ghatitam candra sakalam
viparyasya nyasad ubhayam api sambhuya ca mithas
sudhalepasutih parinamati rakahimakarah
 
I fain would treat Your forehead, shining with radiant beauty,
A second crescent to that other frail one fixed to Your crown;
So that, reversed in position, both knit as one to one,
Results the form of a fully matured moon, emanating soft ambrosial essence..
 
Verse 46 speaks in terms of two inverted crescents. The forehead here could make a crescent with its horns turned downward. The crescent fixed to the crown of Shiva or Parvati, as the case may be, has to be turned 180 degrees before the magic intended here could take place. We are familiar with this turning at two right angles in various contexts of physics and mathematics. For instance, polarized light gives different interference figures when the polarizer and the analyser are placed at angles between 45 and 180 degrees. The magic of the interference of double-polarized lights adds wonder to the beauty of mineral crystals.
 
In this verse it is a question of being able to see Absolute Beauty, and not just beauty as a unilateral value. Therefore, Sankara indulges in giving detailed instructions to the reader so that the perfect beauty-value intended here could result from common-sense vision, fully revised and corrected in the light of Advaitic doctrine. The raw materials and the finished product have to be put together unitively. In the theological context, it is enough to decorate Shiva and Parvati with a thin crescent at the Omega Point. But Vedanta is not limited to theological adorations. It must reveal the plenitude of an Absolute Value in the context of immortality and not in the context of relativistic samsara (the process of cyclic becoming). It is not enough to worship either Shiva or Parvati as exalted divine personalities, abstracted and lifted out of the world of necessity. It is the normalized vision of plenitude that counts, although one-sided versions might still be dear to religious or theologically-minded persons who want a favourite deity (ishta devata) to adore.

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

 

The forehead is a second crescent, one crescent is conceptual, the other is perceptual - they come together.
 

A popular print of Shiva with the crescent moon and the river Ganges in his hair.
 
This is "far out", "too much".
You have to take the crescent moon and turn it round, so that it will form a circle with your forehead, which is also shining.

Do not put the two crescents back to back, put them belly to belly - a double correction.

"Your" forehead has one crescent, turned horns-downward;
Shiva's is the other way round, just put the two together (integrating physics and metaphysics) and you get the Absolute.

This is the poet's fancy, as he describes Absolute Beauty.
Take the top crescent of Shiva and turn it upside down.
Turn it upside down and it will contain something.
Together with the other crescent this will make a circle - then close the brackets.
 

 

A non-canonical painting associating a version of Shiva with the crescent moon.

 

Another version:
 
TRANSLATION
- Forehead.
- By the brightness of the beauty very pure.
- It shines.
- That which constitutes your second.
- I consider.
- Fixed onto the crown.
- The frail bit of a crescent.
- By reversing position.
- Both together.
- Having thus intimately joined together.
- The fullness of sweetness (permeated fully by nectar sweetness) of ambrosia (besmeared).
- Becomes.
- A (fully developed) full moon.
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So, the Devi is married to Shiva and thus wears a crescent moon on her crown, similar to Shiva's.
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One crescent is shining on her forehead, the other on the crown.
Which one has primacy?

(Note the parallel with the Devi´s earrings reflected on her cheeks as chariot wheels in Verse 59. ED)

I consider the crown-crescent of Shiva to be the reference - it is the abstract mathematical concept.
So the Devi's crescent is secondary, as compared to Shiva's.
But there is no difference in gradation.
There is no question about their equality.
Epistemologically they are the same.

The approach must have a proper methodology.
Her forehead-crescent is methodologically secondary to the crescent on Her crown.
Ganesha can also have the same crown - it is not just the realm of Shiva.

 

 

 

SAUNDARYA LAHARI - VERSE 47

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SAUNDARYA LAHARI

 

 

VERSE 47

THE TRAGIC CONTRADICTION BETWEEN THE BOWS OF EROS AND OF THE GODDESS

 

भ्रुवौ भुग्ने किञ्चिद्भुवन-भय-भङ्गव्यसनिनि
त्वदीये नेत्राभ्यां मधुकर-रुचिभ्यां धृतगुणम् ।
धनु र्मन्ये सव्येतरकर गृहीतं रतिपतेः
प्रकोष्टे मुष्टौ च स्थगयते निगूढान्तर-मुमे

 

bhruvau bhagne kincid bhuvana bhayabhanga vyasanini
tvadiye netrabhyam madhukara rucibhyam dhrtagunam
dhanur manye savyetarakara grhitam ratipateh
prakosthe mustau ca sthagayati nigudhantaram ume.
 
Oh Uma, ever pained in concern for banishing the fear of all creatures,
And thus with eyebrows somewhat arched, with eyes of bee-like beauty below,
I surmise that they make up the bowstring for the bow
Of the Lord of Love, held by his other hand, his arm and fist hiding the middle part.
 
 
We have explained that, in this second half of the work, Sankara depends more on constructing and superimposing new imagery on the beauty of the Goddess as given to the senses in a more primary sense.
 
Thus, we have seen that the twelve suns had to be fused into a ruby-coloured gem and that Indra´s bow was made to dominate such a gem in Verse 42.
 

"These sky-orbs (twelve), attained to rubyhood and pressed close together;
He who can praise thus your golden crown, o daughter of the snowy peak,
Would he not have then in his mind the impression of the bow of Indra,
When, by reflected glory, a slender crescent is produced by gems embedded therein"

 
In Verse 43, two sets of flowers had to occupy the same tresses of the Goddess.
 
"Let the blooming blue-lotus-forest of your thick, glossy and lustrous cluster of locks,
Oh consort of Siva, banish the darkness within us –
To gain whose natural fragrance the flowers of the garden of Indra
As I can guess, take their place within your tresses."
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The parted hairline became the prolongation of the vertical axis in Verse 44;
 
"May it bless us - the upsurging billow of the beauty of your face
Outflowing like unto a stream to resemble your parted hairline bedecked with vermilion dust,
Keeping apart the strong growth of tresses,
Held as if in bondage by an anti-darkness gang, to reveal the tender rays of dawn"

 
while a row of honey-licking bees was suggested as a perimeter-like line of reference in Verse 45.
 
"Your face - exuding perfume as it gently smiles,
Having your bright teeth for filament, surrounded by your natural curls
Like so many reveling honey-licking bees, each the eye of the Burner of Eros
Puts to shame the beauty of the lotus."
 
 
Two crescents were requisitioned again in Verse 46 so that, like brackets turned inversely, they could contain an Absolute Value, both real and imaginary at once.
 
"I fain would treat Your forehead, shining with radiant beauty,
A second crescent to that other frail one fixed to Your crown;
So that, reversed in position, both knit as one to one,
Results the form of a fully matured moon, emanating soft ambrosial essence."

 
This complex metaphor, developed stage by stage, is carried over here into Verse 47 and the same structural pattern is to be respected in the remaining verses, the evidence of which will be found explicitly in Verses 58 and 59.
 
Verse 58:
 "The two sets of curved limiting lines of Yours, O Daughter of the King of Mountains,
Who is it that will not fancy them as the bow of the Flower-Arrowed One;
Where, placed obliquely, and reaching beyond the path of hearing,
As it shines, adhering to Your side-glances, it gives the impression of the fixing of the arrow."
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Verse 59:

"This, Your face, I consider Kama's chariot with four wheels,
As seen when Your ear ornaments are reflected on Your shining cheeks;
Surmounting which that great hero, Kama, assails the Lord of Hosts,
Who, with sun and moon for foothold, mounting the globe for chariot, is fully ready to give him battle."

 

The darts of the God of Love that can pierce the hearts of persons involved in an erotic world of love are an image not peculiar only to Sanskrit literature. The celebrations of Saint Valentine´s Day, as known to the West, use the same imagery. Eroticism is the natural setting for the appreciation of beauty. Masculine beauty and feminine beauty belong to the same context of Absolute Beauty. Shiva represents the eternal masculine aspect while Parvati represents the eternal feminine. The function or operation of love has to have its instruments. Statically viewed, we get only non-living perspectives, as in the case of physiology studied by the dissection of dead bodies. The functioning of the living nerves comes to light only when we examine living bodies. This distinction could be said to be the same as that which can be assumed to exist between psychostatics and psychodynamics. Here the static picture has first to be understood in dim outline on the basis of this given empirically-based picture and it is for us to superimpose another picture, more mathematically understood. There are subtle parameters and perimeters to be kept in mind if we are to visualize Absolute Beauty with all its living or dynamic implications. This is a difficult task and any poet or author who can take up this challenge will have to respect the rules or norms of both mathematics and mysticism at the same time.
 
One could look at the locomotive of any express train and recognize the cylinder, piston rod and big weighted engine wheels, as the train starts or slows down. Instead of watching the engine from the platform, from inside the compartment one could feel the jolting alternating movements in terms of one´s own life movement. One could sympathize with eyes shut, establishing a bipolar sympathy between the engine and its troubles on the one hand and keeping steady in one´s seat on the other. We have to superimpose on the mechanical picture another dynamic structural image in which movement is understood by empathic intuition. Thus we can have two pictures which we treat with a certain degree of subjectivity, without which they would refuse to belong together or make any meaning. These are some of the requirements for understanding this verse and the many that follow. The laws of nature could be treated in the form of propositions or predications, or we could use the language of graph paper. Every formula has its corresponding graph; the graph verifies the formula and vice-versa.
 
Sankara is faced with the task of revealing the dynamism of Absolute Beauty. In the first half of the verse, we notice that it is not just erotic love that is the basis of the emotional life reflected in the face of the Goddess. Her eyebrows are said to be slightly arched. Because Shiva represents the positive side of the process of universal becoming, the Goddess has to represent the negative counterpart of the same function. If Shiva is the God of the universe, it follows that Parvati is the Goddess who ensures that all living creatures have the chance of a more abundant life. She does not love one creature more than another. This absolute Love at the basis of her eroticism is not a mere preference for her husband. God is good and generous, while being the principle of light or intelligence. The Quran insists in bringing these two aspects of generosity and logical truth together in every one of its chapters by the epithets rahman and rahim, which are to be repeated together before each chapter is read. The kindness of God or his goodness could be understood as an adjective or as a noun, as when we say “God is good” or “God is Goodness itself”. The predicative and nominative aspect belong to the same Absolute Value represented by Shiva and Parvati, thought of as one non-dual life-value, which was the starting postulate from the very first verse of this work. The duality between the functions of Shiva and Parvati, if it comes into evidence here and there in these verses, is meant to be for purposes of discussion only and the intelligent reader must cancel out these dialectical functions in terms of Absolute Beauty, of which the Goddess is a more fitting custodian than the God. However, the same Beauty could be discussed from a perspective more pronouncedly in favour of Shiva, as has been done by Sankara in the conjugate of this composition, the “Shivananda Lahari”. The arched eyebrows constitute the perimeter indicating the concern and anxiety of the Goddess. Her beauty is enhanced by such a concern for living beings.
 
No beauty can be said to exist without somebody to enjoy it. The rows of bees as a bowstring represent a parameter with is related to the perimeter of the bow. The analogy becomes more apt when we know that the bow of Kama (Eros) is not merely one of wood or metal but consists of all the best flowers of the season. The desire of the bees to drink the honey of such a beautiful rainbow-like festival of flowers develops a vertical tension between the two counterparts, viewed in abstracted and generalized terms. If there is no summer, there is no lovemaking, and the cuckoos cannot mark the arrows flying between the two sides that represent the highly emotional state of mystical eroticism. We have to imagine in this verse the arrow which the right hand of the God of Love is supposed to be secretly fixing onto the bowstring. This part is hidden by the left fist and the forearm with the elbow, which together mark the nose-ridge and centre of the eyebrows. One can pull the string downward along this line with more or less force, depending upon the tension belonging to the situation. Psychodynamic aspects become revealed in this manner. To try to describe them through definitions or predications would only give us various static clichés, instead of the real process with all its vitalistic implications. The bow could be fixed vertically when aimed toward Shiva at the Omega Point, or it could be aimed horizontally through the side glances of the Goddess, when and if she condescends to grant her grace to some supplicant like Vishnu or Kama, or even Sankara, all of whom are mentioned as votaries of Absolute Beauty in the different verses of this work. In Verse 75 and again in Verse 98, Sankara himself prays for this kind of horizontal side-glance recognition from the Devi. Vishnu does the same more directly in Verse 5, and Kama triumphs over the world because of the same light falling on his body from the Devi´s side-glance in Verse 6. We have to notice also that the eyes of the Goddess are sometimes compared to bees in a row and sometimes to highly active bees that are agitated because of the absolute compassion or love which constitutes their motivating function in the context of the Absolute. In Verse 45 the Devi´s eyes were seen to be interchangeable with those of Shiva, because he, as her husband, is the final enjoyer of the Beauty of the lotus face of his beloved.
 
One could ask here how two eyes could form a string for a bow. The two eyebrows have to be joined together in the imagination and the horizontal movements of the two eyes are to be seen intuitively as the string, completing the picture which poetic convention, respected by a long line of Sanskrit poets, permits. The line could be hyperbolic or parabolic, an incomplete conic section - like a comet´s orbit round the sun - when the bowstring is pulled downward, but it is not necessary to suppose any such intention in the image presented here. A normalized concern, uniformly maintained, is all that we have to associate with this picture.
 
The eyebrows are somewhat, but not fully, arched. If they were fully arched, it would imply some conflict or dissension. As they are only somewhat arched, it is not personal passion with its preference that is to be supposed, but rather a general state of pity or mercy, called miséricorde in French.
 
To understand the phrase “bee-like beauty” we must understand that a bee has to look at something, because its function is intimately connected with beauty.
 
The use of the name “Uma” as the Goddess here, means that she has no equal or rival. Uma is very superior, the nearest to the Brahman of Vedanta. She is the one in charge of all life functions, and is not limited to the Tantric context of falling in love with her beauty, as corrected here by Sankara.
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ADDITIONAL COMMENTS WITH STRUCTURAL DIAGRAMS RELATED TO THIS VERSE FROM SAUNDARYA LAHARI/NOTES.

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If you understand a woman, if you really understand a woman, you understand God.

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The bent eyebrows of the Devi are like the curves of a bow; when held by the left hand of Eros ("His other hand...") they represent Her compassion for the whole world.

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Her eyes show some libidinous emotion.
The left hand of Eros holds the bow at the bridge of Her nose.
Her eyebrows begin to quiver with compassion..

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The eyes are black, negative and tragic, they are like bees.
They are filled with tears.
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Compassion stems from the libidinous essence of the Devi
- it sublimates into compassion for the whole of humankind.
 
 
TO MAKE A FILM:
 
There are two processes to depict this verse in a film:
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When a woman looks into a mirror, she sees God.
 
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Have the Devi go into the boudoir and look at herself in the mirror with her eyebrow pencil - then reduce and fade
- suddenly reduce it into a cubist picture, or Chinese impressionism.
 
 
 
You can go from realism to surrealism.
 
 
Then you can go to the colours of Picasso, Goya, Van Gogh, and Rembrandt (black and red).
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From there the arrow appears and Eros enters.
The face, instead of glowing, becomes Mandalas and lotus petals, as in the previous 40 verses.
 

 
 
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Then between the eyes comes a burst of light.
Eros must be introduced in the beginning of the film, so that onlookers may be... (manuscript text ends here).

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The Devi has a guide in Eros who is available to fight for the Devi against Shiva or anyone else.
As long as Eros is on the vertical axis, he is safe from being burnt by Shiva (as by an electric current).
But if he crosses the vertical at right angles to the current, then he is in trouble - just as in electricity, where magnetism is also at right angles.
 
 
A popular print of Shiva burning Kamadeva.

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The bow of Eros is at the eyes: the eyes are generally pure windows, but the Devi is not pure and conceptual;
She says: "You fool! Don't you know my function? I am a baby-protector and feeder, thus I must have this bow and arrow!"
 
(See the bottom of this page for a descripion of the burning of Eros. ED)
 
(The Devi is not an abstract concept like Shiva; She needs the horizontalizing factor of Eros' arrow to fulfill Her role as kind mother of the Universe and as Absolute Beauty - Karuna (kindness) and Aruna (magenta). ED)
 

 

The eyebrows bend slightly, like bows, when a beautiful woman is crying.
The bowstring passes through the eyes.
She is concerned about the fear of created things, wishing to preserve their lives.
The eyebrows vibrate with emotion as the bowstring of Eros vibrates on firing the arrow.
 
Eros is responsible for this - that is, the primary motivation can be due to an erotic tendency playing on the emotion of the Goddess.

She is only capable of emotion when it touches the whole of humanity.
The verse just suggests bent eyebrows - She is about to cry - but she is not crying; however, the eyebrows are vibrating.

An arrow is about to be shot at someone.
There is bilateral symmetry here: you can put the right hand of Kama Deva (Eros) there, in the middle.
 
(Bilateral symmetry:a basic body plan in which the left and right sides of the organism can be divided into approximate mirror images of each other along the midline. ED)

The Sanskrit reads: "with the other hand".

Anyway, when you pull the bowstring, the bow vibrates slightly, like the eyebrows of the Devi, in infinite compassion.

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Another version:
 
TRANSLATION
- The pair of eyebrows, slightly bent.
- Of thine, sorrowfully concerned with the banishment of fear from all living beings.
- By Her eyes (here it is not dual: "a pair", implying 2 eyes - but plural).
- Like the brilliant beauty of bumblebees (a row of bumblebees is the string).
- Gaining a bowstring.
- I assume to be the bow.
- Of that counterpart of love, which is the other of the pair. (Parity, but not primacy).
- Forearm and fist alone.
- When it hides - hidden inside.
- O Goddess - Umé. (O Uma)
 
There is a certain parity between right and left hand
- why does he not indicate which hand?
And why does he say "the husband of the Goddess of Love"?
Because this is important to the total structure in the mind of Sankara.
He is saying: "the counterpart hand" - no left or right is indicated, rather, simply, "the other".
Thus an extraneous horizontal factor is hiding the Absolute to a certain extent.
 
(This seems to mean that, just as there is an implied reference to two hands as horizontal counterparts, there is a reference to Kamadeva as the horizontal counterpart of his wife. There is a structural diagram that could illustrate this better, but we are not certain at this point of how it should look. We may be bold enough to produce one later, after more thought. ED)
 
Why does She have bent eyebrows? Because She is concerned for Her children.
Two bows are seen in the face of the Goddess, one vertical and one horizontal, with arrows at right angles.

This is the same as the Michelson - Morley experiment with the Fitzgerald contraction and Lorentz transformation.
 
 
 
(A diagram of the Michelson-Morley experiment, showing the two mirrors which the Guru here compares to the two bows of Eros - one horizontal, one vertical. ED)
 
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"Bent eyebrows": show the two bows with laser technique.
"Your cheap eroticism is not good for my children, go away with your cheap jokes."
She approves of eroticism only up to a point - here she is "somewhat" angry, she is more on the side of Shiva at this level.
 
Eros wants to shoot an arrow in the opposite direction.
1 arrow of sympathy is horizontal,
1 arrow flies upwards to shoot Shiva,
There are 2 bows at right angles.
 
(With reference to special relativity, a subject suggested by the mention of Fitzgerald and Lorentz above, the diagram below may serve to illustrate the universal applicability of the schematism or structural methodology adopted in this work, inter alia. ED)
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(Below is an account of the incineration of Kama to familiarize the reader with the context of this verse:

(This is from a traditional myth, it is NOT Advaita Vedanta. ED)

 
Shiva burns Kama.

Indra and the gods are suffering at the hands of the demon Tarakasura, who cannot be defeated except by Shiva's son. Brahma advises that Parvati must woo Shiva; their offspring will be able to defeat the Demon. Indra assigns Kamadeva to break Shiva's meditation. To create a congenial atmosphere, Kamadeva creates an untimely spring. He evades Shiva's guard, Nandin, by taking the form of the fragrant southern breeze, and enters Shiva's abode.

After he awakens Shiva with a flower arrow, Shiva, furious, opens his third eye, which incinerates Kamadeva instantaneously and turns him into ash. However, Shiva observes Parvati and asks her how he can help her. She enjoins him to resuscitate Kamadeva, and Shiva agrees to let Kamadeva live, but in a disembodied form, hence Kamadeva is also called 'Ananga' (an- = without; anga = body, "bodiless").  The spirit of love embodied by Kama is now disseminated across the cosmos: it affects Shiva whose union with Parvati is consummated. Their son Subrahmanya goes on to defeat the demon.

The attributes of demigod Kamadeva are as such: his companions are a cuckoo, a parrot, humming bees, the season of spring, and the gentle breeze. All of these are symbols of spring season, when his festival is celebrated as Holi, Holika or Vasanta.


 

SAUNDARYA LAHARI - VERSE 48

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SAUNDARYA LAHARI

 

 

VERSE 48

A KEY VERSE

THE OPPOSITE OF VERSE 42
DAY AND NIGHT FORM A FIGURE-EIGHT
THE VERTICALIZATION OF WHAT IS HORIZONTAL
 
अहः सूते सव्य तव नयन-मर्कात्मकतया
त्रियामां वामं ते सृजति रजनीनायकतया ।
तृतीया ते दृष्टि-र्दरदलित-हेमाम्बुज-रुचिः
समाधत्ते सन्ध्यां दिवसर्-निशयो-रन्तरचरीम्
 
ahas sute savyam tava nayanam arkatmakataya
triyamam vamam te srjati rajaninayakataya
trtiya te drstir daradalita hemambuja rcih
samadhatte sandhyam divasanisayor antara carim
 
That eye of yours, in essence the same as the Sun and other than the left,
Generates daytime, the left one, presiding over night, creates its three vigils,
While the third eye, sweet like a half open golden lotus bud,
Ushers in the twilight time which moves between day and night.
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In Verse 48 there is a pointed reference to the implications of what we have to understand as a verticalized version of a cosmological process. Under Verse 42, whether we think of the sun or the moon or the light of the sacrificial fire placed in front of the votary, there are two rival versions possible for the process to be visualized. Day and night could be treated as mutually exclusive opposites. A second way would be to treat them unitively as alternating processes which could be further accentuated and subjected to a more fully verticalized dynamism, by which we could think of twilights common to twenty-four hours or forty-eight hours, merging from both sides to fuse in terms of a continuous twilight. One unit of twilight would take over when the previous one is finished, to guarantee the continuity of their vertical participation day-in and day-out. Such a picture would be as true as any other so-called “factual” one. The difference is one of orientation only, and not of fact. The contemplative prefers the verticalized version rather than a merely mechanistic one. The life process extends to the beginningless past and to the endless future, so that questions of “destiny”, “salvation” or “the happiness of humanity” would come more completely into the picture. A piecemeal version of the same tends to be mechanistic and cuts off the day of judgment or the source of human life from such a cross-sectional view.
 
Devi has two eyes placed horizontally and also a half-open golden lotus bud-like third eye which is meant to see yogic visions rather then mere brute facts. The lotus is a flower that is normally pink, but twilight hours can add a tinge of golden orange to the pink colour. The half-openness of such a third eye, resembling the bud of a lotus flower touched by colours of the twilight hour, represents the contemplative state of the yogi´s mind as it penetrates deeper into the future from the darkness of previous day/night units fused together in terms of twilight.
 
The object of this verse is to present a contemplative version of light, applicable to the consciousness of a yogi, irrespective of the event as such, but without contradicting the factual features. Classroom physiography may not tally with the version presented here, but that does not necessarily mean that this version is unscientific. Thermodynamic laws are not seen operating in the laboratory, but physicists still make such generalized statements as “the entropy of the universe is tending to zero”. A structuralized way of thinking is already treated as permissible in modern physics, which speaks of involution and evolution, implosion and explosion, endosmosis and exosmosis, space and anti-space and “big bang” and “steady state”, in a world of spectroscopic Doppler effects, referring to expanding or contracting universes based on an overall law of conservation of energy. All this is not usually questioned by orthodox physicists.
 
In this verse, one of the eyes of the Goddess, which need not necessarily be the right eye but should not be identified with the left, derives its essence from the sun. The sun is a positive luminary in the sky, and its function is best recognized at midday. Side by side with this positive status, one has to think of the other celestial orb, which takes charge of the night, which Keats described as “that orbed maiden with white fire laden, whom mortals call the moon”. Shakespeare has called it “the watery moon”. In contemplative physiography the sun is hot, while the moon is cold. The moon might have phases, but it does not shine during the daytime. Lovers feel happier in moonlight than sunlight. The gentle beams of the moon are a kind of food for love, but the position could sometimes be reversed when lovers suffer the cruel pangs of separation. In “Shakuntala”, Dushyanta complains that the flowery beams of moonlight become like cutting diamond-pointed arrows when Shakuntala`s favour is not known to him. Erotic poetry and contemplative structuralism both agree in placing these celestial orbs at two opposite vertical limits or, by way of concession, as it were, as two orbs placed in a relation reflecting “parity” instead of the relation called “handedness”. These are all structural problems which are far from being generally settled by physicists. The “fall of parity” has been celebrated more than once in some centres of scientific research. We cannot wait for them to settle their disputes to say that a four-fold structuralism, respecting horizontal “parity” and vertical “handedness”, is permissible for us to concede to absolute space. Newton and Kant have stood for such an a priori absolute space, while modern physicists, viewing the same from a relativistic perspective, tend alternately to abolish it and to accept it again in a modified form a decade later. The structure is finally what we put there, taking it from our minds; and also what we find “over there”, independently of our minds. The paradox is not likely to get abolished by itself as long as one has to think to find the truth. The effort of thought can only dance between the two possible alternatives. Unitive understanding alone can cancel out the prejudices proper to the self or to the non-self to take us beyond paradox. Sankara´s Vedanta claims to do just this, and this verse can be said to be preparing the ground for such a conclusion. The a priori and the a posteriori are both acceptable to Advaita Vedanta.
 
The question might be put: “Why not the right eye?” This is because even the sun can be transcended when positive luminaries with more powerful light could be substituted for it at a higher point in the vertical axis. The moon´s position is nearer home to us and thus comparable more definitely to the left eye of the Goddess, because there are no other luminaries between the fire on earth and the light of the moon, which is brought near to life every day. Our moon and our sun tend to come together the more we descend from the teleological to the ontological limit.
 
The reference to the three vigils of the night is to show that our consciousness passes through three different kinds of contents when we sleep at night. The early part of the night is generally spent in banishing the fatigue of the day. The second vigil could be described as semi-conscious, though equally restful. The third vigil is when angels begin to sing or evil spirits decide to depart, as in the case of Hamlet´s ghost. The cock is meant to crow to punctuate the vigils, especially of the morning hours, and the crucifixion is also connected which such divisions known to literature.
 
It is the subconscious mind that is influenced by moonlight. Virtuality is accentuated at first; then the negativity of subconscious states of dream or deep sleep takes over as night advances and sleep becomes not merely physical in its function. The horizontal alternation in which cerebration is either positively or negatively accentuated could come together without the cerebration being accentuated in any pronounced manner. Equally transparent states of mind thus can take charge of the consciousness during different nightly vigils, under the influence of the moon rather than the sun.
 
When the coalescing of these two alternating processes becomes more and more visually transparent to each other, we can imagine a creeper with two branches. When such a creeper bears its contemplative golden lotus bud between the eyebrows of the yogi, as suggested in this verse, waking and sleeping are both abolished in terms of an ever-wakeful contemplative state which is sometimes referred to as “the fourth”, or turiya. The dynamism of this fourth state can still move vertically up or down in terms of twilight, rather than a contrasting day and night. The last line here implies this state of mind. Narayana Guru describes a similar picture of contemplation in his “Atmopadesa Satakam” (Verse 9) thus:
 
He who dwells in contemplation beneath a tree
Whereon climbing, a creeper bears aloft on either side
The blossoms of the psychic states mark, such a man
By inferno unapproached ever remains.

 

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

 

In this verse we have a 90 degree tilt - the Sun and Moon produce vertical twilight.

The right eye presides over the day, the left over night, while the third eye presides over twilight.
Before, in Verse 44,  the vertical parameter began at the parting of the hair.
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Now, we have the face, with the sun and moon as eyes and the third eye, of a golden colour, as the meeting point.

The third eye of Shiva is the normalized version of the other two eyes.
There is a golden flower at the very centre of the situation.
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Do not strain yourself in meditation with open or closed eyes, but have them half-open, half closed. (Which means normalized).
 

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Another version:
 
TRANSLATION
- Gives birth to daytime.
- Your eye which is not the left (the vaguer the better in this schematic language)
- By being identical with the sun.
- That tripartite divisional factor (the whole night).
- Your left one (eye).
- It creates (manifests).
- The presidentship over night (by being the moon).
- Thy third eye.
- Of slightly-opened golden lotus beauty.
- Ushers into being the twilight dusk.
- Of day and night moving between (it lives and moves).

The night has three vigils, presided over by some kind of moon.
The day is presided over by the sun.
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Put the third eye at the neutral centre point.
This is the small golden lotus, which represents the central value.
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Another version:
 
TRANSLATION
"Thy right eye, being of the form of the sun, begets the day,
While the left (eye), of the form of the moon, begets the night;
Thy third eye, which resembles a slightly blossomed golden lotus,
Brings forth the twilight, which introduces day and night."

 

SAUNDARYA LAHARI - VERSE 49

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SAUNDARYA LAHARI

 

 

VERSE 49

EIGHT VALUE- CITIES
EACH CITY HAS A PERSONALITY REPRESENTING A VALUE-FACTOR
 
विशाला कल्याणी स्फुतरुचि-रयोध्या कुवलयैः
कृपाधाराधारा किमपि मधुरा‌உ‌உभोगवतिका ।
अवन्ती दृष्टिस्ते बहुनगर-विस्तार-विजया
ध्रुवं तत्तन्नाम-व्यवहरण-योग्याविजयते
 
visala kalyani sphuta rucir ayodhya kuvalayaih
krpadhara dhara kim api madhura bhogavatika
avanti drstis te bahunagara vistara vihaya
dhruvam tat tan nama vyavaharana yogya vijayate
 
Visala (the expansive), Kalyani (the auspicious), Sphutaruchi (the clear of taste), Ayodhya (the invincible) due to the blue lotus, Kripadharadhara (on mercy´s fountain founded), A certain Madhura (the sweet), Avanti (of saving power), Bhogavatika (enjoyment affording)
All such cities of lasting fame (vijaya), each fit to be called by its own name, within your total regard do they triumphantly reign.
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In Verse 48 we have seen how textbook physiography can be viewed in a verticalized perspective. Plainer geography, as it might apply to a country, could also be viewed from a contemplative standpoint. It is a subjective and axiologically-based view that we have to take of a country which might consist of many famous cities, however varied, large or small, which could be brought under eight classes representing human interests in which enjoyer and enjoyed could meet, so as to make a beauty-factor emerge into view.
 
Each city is a state of mind, representing a dominant interest associated with its origin, its present utility, or a future destiny toward which it paves the way for its inhabitants. Thus revised subjectively in value terms, all cities of any country could be thought of individually or collectively together. In the subcontinent of India, many holy places have thus grown up through history; and places of pilgrimage attract travelers in large numbers even today. In a contemplative geography of this kind, what counts is the absolute Beauty-Value, under whose aegis the eight varieties of interests, here recognized by the names of eight interesting cities, could be contemplatively reviewed.
 
The idea of eight cities representing the totality of contemplative consciousness is well known in Vedantic literature. Sankara describes in his “Vivekacudamani”, the puryastakam (collection of eight cities as constituting the subtle contemplative body that we could arrive at by a certain kind of abstraction and generalization, This is the method we have to apply in all these verses to extract the contemplative version of a given factual situation. In Verse 50 and following, we must consider further abstractions, such as the nine aesthetic interests that we could distinguish in art or literature. This verse prepares the way for such a generalized treatment by telling us that the regard of Devi could suggest values which represent psychic states or attitudes which, when put together, could apply to the contemplative votary or to the Goddess herself, at once or alternatively, in the world of religious pilgrimage among the holy cities of India. It is the enjoyment that represents the regard, or the eye that recognizes beauty. Happiness or salvation is the overall ground on which beauty can loom into consciousness, in the same way that a bright flower on a lotus plant can enter into the foreground or background of the mind as we meditate upon it; sometimes experiencing clarity of vision and at other times experiencing dim states of mind, having a retrospective or prospective suggestibility. Some kind of happiness relevant to the context of spiritual progress is to be represented by each blossom, interchangeably understood as the regard, or grace, or an eye of the goddess, having a one-to-one correspondence with the contemplative joy within the consciousness of the yogi.
 
In the “Ananda Lahari” section, a similar structural analysis was undertaken in Verse 32, with the help of other monomarks. Here we are dealing with a more objective and open world where places of pilgrimage, rather than the world of icons, are proper to the present context.
 
When we think of the relationship of cities to human life and we trace their history, it can generally be said that cities are originally founded near some source of water, which is the most essential of values to attract human life around it. The fountain thus represents the grace of kindness of the Goddess, and such a central interest lends its genetic coloration to any city, even after it has grown through centuries on the basis of the same original factor. It is a continuous streak or stream of value that has made a city famous.
 
Scrutinizing the content of this verse, we notice that the first-named famous city is Visala, meaning “the expansive”. Heaven is sometimes referred to as being visalam, as in the Bhagavad Gita; expansiveness being suggestive of the plentifulness of opportunities to make a living. In contrast with this first line, the last line refers to all cities bundled up together and treated as belonging to the total regard of Devi. The values that all the cities are meant to represent are evident from the root meanings or derivations of the Sanskrit terms contained in their very names. Commentators have also suggested that a beautiful woman could display eight kinds of recognizable attitudes in her changing looks, revealed by her eyes which could be half shut or fully open. Lotus buds and flowers cold represent such innate open attitudes, totaling up to the Absolute Beauty that is the subject matter or object matter of this verse.
 
After the attribute of expansiveness comes auspiciousness, followed by clarity of taste. We can easily place these three in a numerator group. The second line represents the values that are to be carefully protected against invasion from outside. Ayodhya suggests an invincible city, like a beautiful princess confined to a tower. Knights errant have to fight battles to win such a beauty-value.
 
In the third line, the interest is based on enjoyment. Each city has its pleasures of daytime and of night-time. Madhura in North India, or Madurai in South India, derive their names from the sweet associations of those places.
 
The last line of this verse tells us how to put all expansive values, such as those of heaven, together into one big ensemble; and how to view such a treasure of value as pertaining to the total regard or grace of the Goddess of Beauty, with whom we are always to be concerned. The heaven of the first line is to be included in the cup of total Absolute Value implied in the last line, where it is also suggested that each name is to be treated as a noun as well as having a predicative significance. To extract the central value here requires a special effort of abstraction and generalization on the part of the student or contemplative to whom this verse might apply. If he is able to rise to such a requirement, it would be easier for him to follow the thinner suggestion and generalization contained in the next section of verses (50-60), in which we could say that the structural way of poetic composition sometimes even excels itself by the elusive thinness of its suggestibility. Nominalism and structuralism can also be seen hand in hand here.

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

 

This is the verse which refers to the various kinds of eyes of women;- unconquerable, agitating, etc. As so often in this poem, there is an ambiguity present. It is not just cities, but it is the Absolute Beauty of the Devi which is being described.

These eight cities reign victorious.
Functions and values are indicated by the names of cities.
The Devi can have eight attitudes - these are the subdivisions of value, with their functional aspects of Absolute Beauty.
So this verse adds distinct value-functions to the notion of the Absolute.

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Another version:
 
TRANSLATION
- Named Expansive - Visala.
- Auspicious - Kalyani.
- With crystal clarity of character.
- Invulnerable - fortified - because of blue lilies.
- By the force of blue lotus flowers. (Ayodhya - horizontal).
- Of the overflow of kindness the support.
- A certain city of sweetness.
- Of enjoyment (e.g. Paris)
- Saving (this touches the Alpha Point).
- Your regard.
- Is thus triumphant with the expanse containing many cities.

All these enumerated names must be put into the one consciousness of the Devi: they are triumphant.
They are intransient - the totality of these names triumphs.
 
Many cities are described here, each corresponding to a quality of the Devi.
This final beauty of the Absolute reigns supreme.

Another version:

TRANSLATION:
The glance of thine eyes is all comprehensive (Visala);
spells prosperity (Kalyani);
serenely dazzles and as such cannot be faced in battle (A-yodhya),
by blue lilies is the fountainhead of the stream of mercy (Dhara),
is superbly sweet (Madhura),
enjoys immense happiness (Bhogavati),
is the saviour (Avanti) (of the devoted);
outrivals in extensiveness (Vistaravijaya) several (other) cities;
and is indeed capable of being (appropriately) indicated by their respective names.
All glory to it!
 
This verse gives names to eight aspects of the beauty of the eye of the Devi.
Each, qualitatively, represents part of the beauty of the Goddess.
All can be fitted into a schema, which will produce values when meditated upon.
Do not throw away the real - it is not enough to create a vacuum called the Absolute.
 
The actual is abstracted and generalized to become verticalized.
The eight qualities of Her eyes are graded in a certain way.
This is a method employed by Sankara to show that anything can be reduced from the actual to the vertical.
 

Eight cities give names to eight aspects of the beauty of the eye of the Devi:
Vijayi
Avanti
Bhogavatika
Madhura
Kripadhara
Ayodhya
Kalyani
Visala
 
 
Visala (the expansive), Kalyani (the auspicious), Sphutaruchi (the clear of taste), Ayodhya (the invincible) due to the blue lotus, Kripadharadhara (on mercy´s fountain founded), A certain Madhura (the sweet), Avanti (of saving power), Bhogavatika (enjoyment affording)
All such cities of lasting fame (vijaya), each fit to be called by its own name, within your total regard do they triumphantly reign.
 
These names have also the following meanings:
Death-dealing
Antagonizing
Exorcising
Subjugating
Infatuating
Melting
Attracting
Agitating
 
(It can be seen that, as so often in this text, a certain ambiguity of meaning is present. We are not sufficiently versed in Sanskrit to disentangle these ambi- or polyvalences, but the general idea is clear enough: the beauty of the Devi's eyes is put together with the names of certain cities. ED)
 
Show different eyes with different expressions to correspond to each city - make the face of the Goddess into a map of India.
 
 
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Visala is horizontal.  (Its meaning is "expansive". ED)

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SAUNDARYA LAHARI - VERSE 50

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SAUNDARYA LAHARI

 

 

VERSE 50

JEALOUSY IS A CONTRADICTION BETWEEN HORIZONTAL AND VERTICAL

 

कवीनां सन्दर्भ-स्तबक-मकरन्दैक-रसिकं
कटाक्ष-व्याक्षेप-भ्रमरकलभौ कर्णयुगलम् ।
अमुञ्च्न्तौ दृष्ट्वा तव नवरसास्वाद-तरलौ
असूया-संसर्गा-दलिकनयनं किञ्चिदरुणम्

 

kavinam sandarbha stabaka makarandaika rasikam
kataksa vyaksepa bhramara kalabhau karna yugalam
amuncantau drstva tava navarasasvada taralav-
asuya samsargad alika nayanam kincid arunam
 
Seeing your young-bumblebee-like pair of eyes; which, while seeming to cast side-glances,
Do not give up the basis of your ears, mellowed by the play of the nine aesthetic interests,
Remaining like aptness with poets, wholly absorbed in drinking of the honey within a spray of blossoms
Your mid-forehead lotus bud eye, touched by jealousy, seems magenta tinged.
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In Verse 50, the abstraction and generalization applied to value factors of geography or physiography is carried over from the previous verses to an even more thin and elusive domain where poets are engaged in finding apt analogies when they play with the nine aesthetic interests which constitute the stock and trade of their art. A vibrating magnetic needle can be imagined as slanting 90 degrees to the right or 90 degrees to the left, according to the aptness of the analogies that the poet might employ in his art. In this way, the whole range of the nine interests could be imagined at every 10 degrees on either side, thus filling the whole 180 degrees above the horizontal straight line. When aptness succeeds, the pointer may be said to stabilize itself, with an equilibrium point ranging from left to right, covering all possible points between the limits of - 90 and + 90. In this verse, the eyes are compared to young bumblebees that are very impatient to enjoy the honey within a spray of blossoms. The blossoms could be at the positive end of the horizontal axis, or virtually enjoyable at the negative end, as when through apt analogies we appreciate good poetry. Both could be equally sweet to the young bumblebees as they actively flit between actual and virtual interests in the domain of poetic appreciation. We have also to carry over from Verse 48 a middle eye as a witness to the playful eroticism in which the other two ordinary eyes are likely to indulge. The ordinary eyes can express their interest normally by coquettish side-glances. The serious middle eye does not approve of such fickleness on the part of these younger ones. Such is the background on which the dynamism of the structure here is to be superimposed, playing on the living beauty of the face of the Goddess.
 
The reference to the base of the ears is justified by the fact that it is in this region that visual imagery transforms itself into auditory imagery of a more virtual order. There is a kind of figure-of-eight circulation taking place where alternating interests, virtual or actual, visual or auditory, change sides and play, as it were, a constant game of hide and seek. Aptness is the constant factor that always constitutes the interest involved. The highest sense of aptness, however, is ashamed of its own fickleness when viewed from a horizontal perspective.
 
The young bumblebees here, which refer to the two eyes, are said to be highly interested in looking slantingly, with the ear bases as a reference. Eroticism being natural to youth, enjoyment of the honey is all they care for, resulting in the fickle form of a vibrating needle which stabilizes itself only at a zero point or at 180 degree limits, where the ear bases transform visual into auditory impulses and vice-versa.
 
The central eye, carried over from Verse 48, is not golden in colour, as it was in that verse. By resentment of the shameful conduct of the fickle-minded young bees, a red colour invades the central lotus-bud eye. The aptness of the analogy of Sankara here makes this colour correspond to the jealousy which arises from the resentment natural to a more mature and dispassionate person whom we could call the Absolute Female, for which principle the Goddess here would stand. She is jealous only in proportion to the restless fickleness of the younger bees, which are excited and therefore incapable of any steady contemplation. Steady contemplation corresponds to the vertical parameter, but fickleness oscillates between the positive and negative horizontal limits. When jealousy is cancelled against fickleness, the resultant is the neutral Absolute represented by the Beauty of the face of the Goddess.
 
The expression “seeming to cast side-glances” would suggest that sometimes side-glances could be justified, but not all the time - as the young folk might claim or pretend. The ear-region is further qualified in the vertical axis as “mellowed”, or made more sensitive by constant interest in aesthetic enjoyment. This seems to suggest that mere dilettantism cannot produce the same enjoyment as the fully-matured taste of a person of artistic appreciation. The young bees refuse to leave the base of the ears because they are able to appreciate art in its full value or import, and not merely as persons with a passing interest in it. Side-glances are respectable and become interchangeable with this end of serious interest in art. Pretension of one for the other thus becomes possible and the element of pretence found in the text therefore becomes justified. The bees are not conferring grace on anyone with a really serious side-glance. They are only enjoying the erotic play.
 
The ear bases, which are the centre of aesthetic interest, could be centralized together and the fan-wise expansion of the various items of interest, radiating and overlapping both ways, could all be bundled up into one master interest, when a contemplative touch confers maturity upon the individual sentiments, and inclusively binds them together into an enjoyment which is a central interest that knows no duality.

 

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

 

Jealousy is a contradiction between the vertical and the horizontal.

 

An alternative translation:

TRANSLATION
The (third) eye on thy forehead is somewhat red (as though) influenced by jealousy,
seeing that Thy two young-bee like obliquely glancing (eyes),
in their eagerness to swallow the verse rasas (poetic sentiments) do not leave off thy pair of ears,
which chiefly delight in the honey of the cluster of flowers of poetic composition.
 
The eyes of the Devi are straining to the ears, to see what the ears are enjoying - the nine Rasas (aesthetic interests or moods) of Sanskrit verse, the most important of which is the erotic.
The eyes are like bumblebees - doubly dark.
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We have here a splendid chiaroscuro, like the shell of a bumblebee.

The eyes are tragic, full of life with tragic import.
 
 
When she hears what the poets sing of erotic mysticism, about her beauty, her eyes turn to the ears in enjoyment
- but her third eye becomes red in protest at the lewdness of the poetry.
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It is saying to the two eyes, stop being horizontal: "why don't you verticalize yourself? I am a Goddess".
This represents the same eye and power by which Kama Deva was burned by Shiva.
Pure love is to be extolled.

 

The story of Eros must be presented first.
 
(A brief summary of the relevant myth concerning Eros or Kamadeva is provided at the bottom of this page.ED)

This is like Schroedinger's picture of the Universe.
 
(This reference is not clear to us. Can it be a reference to Scroedinger's cat? Why? ED.)
 
(On second thoughts, it is possible that the Guru was referring to the many-worlds interpretation which is an interpretation of quantum mechanics that asserts the objective reality of the universal wave-function and denies the actuality of wave-function collapse. Many-worlds implies that all possible alternate histories and futures are real, each representing an actual "world" (or "universe").
 
In lay terms, the many-worlds hypothesis states there is a very large—perhaps infinite—number of universes, and everything that could possibly have happened in our past, but did not, has occurred in the past of some other universe or universes.
 
Many-worlds views reality as a many-branched tree, wherein every possible quantum outcome is realised
 
This is not directly related to Schroedinger's Cat, but is in some sense a corollary of it.
 
Maybe what the Guru means is that there is a vertical reality, as seen by the third eye, and a a horizontal one, moving from the auditory - belonging to the ears - and the visual, relating to the eyes.
 
To be frank, ED is puzzled.)
 
 
The quantum-mechanical "Schrödinger's cat" paradox according to the many-worlds interpretation is shown in the above illustration. In this interpretation, every event is a branch point; the cat is both alive and dead, even before the box is opened, but the "alive" and "dead" cats are in different branches of the universe, both of which are equally real, but which do not interact with each other. 
 
In quantum mechanics, there is no such thing as "the location of the cat."
 
According to quantum mechanics, what we can observe about the world is only a tiny subset of what actually exists.
 
Our point is that the paradox between vertical and horizontal eroticism in this verse may be like two branches of the universe - in one the cat lives and horizontal eroticism flourishes - in the other we have a dead cat and vertical eroticism.
 
This is pretty far-fetched, but a lot of structuralism appears pretty far-fetched at first.
 
What else does the Guru mean by comparing this verse to Schroedinger's world- view?
Suggestions are welcome. ED)

Every verse can be reduced and reconstructed.
Go from the real to the schema.
From the schema to the real.
 
In this verse, we have vertical eroticism versus horizontal eroticism: there is a paradox involved here.
 
(A paradox between the eyes being attracted horizontally to the ears and the verticalization of the third eye. ED)
 
The middle eye has a pink colour.
At the extremities of her two eyes there are two bumblebees hiding.
 

The Devi does not approve of these horizontal tendencies to appreciate the erotic aspects of poetry.
She has a superior, an Absolute, taste in her consciousness;
She feels that she should verticalize these horizontal erotic tendencies.

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Another version:
 
TRANSLATION
- For poets
- That master taste enjoying in the total situation compared to a nectar-bearing bunch of blossoms.
- The extremes of the side-regards putting on the appearance of twin small bumblebees (they are horizontal - the bees of the eyes are whispering to the ears)
- Never leaving the ears (always whispering of eroticism).
- Agitated by the effects.
- The nine factors of taste.
- By having a touch of jealousy.
- The forehead eye.
- Has somewhat a magenta touch
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The Devi does not appreciate cheap eroticism.
The Guru decides that the two bees are extracting a horizontal factor from the poetry - but not necessarily the erotic factor - just any horizontal aspect.
Why pick on the erotic aspect?
 
In thinking of the Absolute (Metaphysics) and seeing the Absolute (Physics), the two are brought together.
 
 
When the notion is placed at the Alpha Point, you get a Goddess. Otherwise, we can hypostatize and get Jupiter or Zeus at the positive Omega Point.
 
 
This mathematical and structural language is used in science.
 
Time - there is pure time and mechanistic time. (The cockcrow time and the alarm clock time) as described by Bergson, who writes that for the individual, time may speed up or slow down, whereas, for science, it would remain the same - these two should agree.
 
 
Bergson says - do not mix these two times".
Unless you know this, do not study Brahma Vidya (The Science of the Absolute).
 
From Verse 41 there is a change in style.
The magenta third eye comes into play when eroticism obtrudes into the situation.
The eyes can be treated together, using the same face throughout: it requires a lot of polish on her face, like a varnished door.
(With double negation.)
 
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THE NEXT 10 VERSES ARE SECTION 6, DEALING WITH THE DEVI'S EYES
 
 
A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF EROS (KAMADEVA) IN INDIAN MYTHOLOGY

One of the principal myths regarding Kama is that of his burning by Shiva.

Indra and the gods are suffering at the hands of the demon Tarakasura, who cannot be defeated except by a son of Shiva - but Shiva is a celibate ascetic who has renounced marriage and fatherhood. Brahma advises Parvati to seduce Shiva so that she may bear a son to defeat the demon Taraka. Indra assigns Kamadeva to break Shiva's meditation. To create a congenial atmosphere, Kamadeva creates an untimely spring. He evades Shiva's guard, Nandin, by taking the form of the fragrant southern breeze, and enters Shiva's abode.

After he awakens Shiva with a flower arrow, Shiva, furious, opens his third eye, which incinerates Kamadeva instantaneously and he is turned into ash. However Shiva observes Parvati and asks her how he can help her. She enjoins him to resuscitate Kamadeva, and Shiva agrees to let him live, but in a disembodied form, hence Kamadeva is also called 'Ananga' (an- = without; anga = body, "bodiless"). The spirit of love embodied by Kama is now disseminated across the cosmos: it affects Shiva whose union with Parvati is consummated. Their son Subrahmanya or Kartikeya goes on to defeat the demon, Taraka.

 

 

 

 

  1. SAUNDARYA LAHARI - VERSE 51
  2. SAUNDARYA LAHARI - VERSE 52
  3. SAUNDARYA LAHARI - VERSE 53
  4. SAUNDARYA LAHARI - VERSE 54