SAUNDARYA LAHARI
VERSE 85
THE MYSTICAL THRILL
MYSTICISM EXTENDS TO THE VEGETABLE WORLD
नमो वाकं ब्रूमो नयन-रमणीयाय पदयोः
तवास्मै द्वन्द्वाय स्फुट-रुचि रसालक्तकवते ।
असूयत्यत्यन्तं यदभिहननाय स्पृहयते
पशूना-मीशानः प्रमदवन-कङ्केलितरवे
namovakam brumo nayana ramaniyaya padayos-
tamasvai dvandvaya sphuta ruci rasavalaktakavate
asuyati atyantam yad abhihananaya sprhayate
pasunam isanah pramadavana kankeli tavaye
tamasvai dvandvaya sphuta ruci rasavalaktakavate
asuyati atyantam yad abhihananaya sprhayate
pasunam isanah pramadavana kankeli tavaye
Spoken words of worship do we offer to these Your lotus feet,
Beauteous as they are to view, smeared over with paste of magenta glory
Extremely jealous is he, the Lord of Beasts, of that Asoka tree
In Your pleasure grove, for desiring to be kicked by them.
Beauteous as they are to view, smeared over with paste of magenta glory
Extremely jealous is he, the Lord of Beasts, of that Asoka tree
In Your pleasure grove, for desiring to be kicked by them.
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The very opening words of this verse seem to underline the importance of “spoken words”, as if there is some difference between spoken and written words, or any other form of representation, such as words that are heard from a radio broadcast. God´s words are another possibility. The reason why spoken words are particularly important here must be because the highly nominalistic and schematic status of the contents of the verses from this point onward has to recognize two cancellable counterparts. The beauty of the twin feet of the Goddess is still the subject matter here, but it is meant to be treated in great schematic abstraction. The beautiful form is meant to be abstracted out of other realistic implications, which might complicate our meditations about the absolute beauty-value of the Goddess. Spoken words are tangible and not just concepts or names in a purely mathematical sense; they are more real. What they are meant to refer to here, so as to give them a visible content, is the colourful beauty of the twin feet of the Goddess. These two counterparts, the nominalistic and formal factors, are meant to be cancelled out so that the resultant value could attain to the absolute or overwhelming value emerging from the equation of the visible with the audible. We can expect the schematismus to become thinner and thinner in this section as we proceed step-by-step toward the culmination of this work where everything is going to be cancelled out, whether into the nothingness or something-ness or both, which the absolute value of Beauty is meant to represent in this work. Knowing such a plan in advance, it would be easier for us to follow some of the finer subtleties, combining nominalism and structuralism, which themselves will be finally transcended. We could pass, thus, not only from realism to what is implied as the meaning lying behind some real pictures, but one step deeper into the meaning of meanings, delving into the semiotic processes of language itself.
After asking the Goddess to place her twin feet on his own head in the previous verse, the author intends to evaluate this relation while standing on still thinner ground. It is the magenta colour on the soles of the feet that becomes more important than the feet themselves as the locus of beauty. The brilliant magenta describes it, while spoken words meet it from the opposite side, as it were, to enhance its meaning-content. This is what might be expected to happen on the positive or conceptual side of the total situation.
At the same time, there is a more ontological level where the same value, called the “magenta glory” on the soles of the feet, is the cause of some disturbance for Shiva, who is here represented as jealous. Jealousy is a negative sentiment and cannot really exist as a virtue in such a high god as Shiva; but even as a negative sentiment the possibility of jealousy is not to be completely ruled out. It is bad to be hungry, but that does not mean hunger does not exist. Similarly, jealousy is bad, but is seen to be necessarily operative in human life. Godliness cannot thrive in a vacuum, but must have a negative basis on which it can express itself, however faint that negativism might be. In the sense that “the exception proves the rule”, the negative features of the Absolute have to enhance its meaning by demonstrating its capacity to transcend its own negativity. What is a virtue at the head end has to imply a vice at the tail end, if Absolutism is not to exclude anything from its scope. This follows from the dialectical rule known to Parmenides and Zeno from ancient times, that the “one” and the “many” had to belong together if they were to make any meaning at all.
Shiva is here only jealous of a garden tree and not of any equally worthy person. In other poems, like Kalidasa's “Malavikagnimitra”, the same kind of ideogram is seen to be fully understood by Sanskrit poets. The asoka tree has to be kicked by the decorated soles of a royal personality if its poor soul is to be thrilled sufficiently to stimulate its own kind of erotic mysticism, creating within it a festive marital sense of exaltation natural to its marriage season In addition to producing new magenta-coloured tender foliage from top to bottom, the stimulus of the kick would be sufficient to thrill the subhuman soul into a kind of exalted mystical state that is supposed to be very enjoyable to the plant. This kind of mixing of human life with the world of mere vegetation, by establishing the unity of life at all levels, underlines an Advaitic attitude which tends to treat life as one, and not as divisible into compartmentalized interests. The jealousy of Shiva in such a context could accommodate a degree of negativity which could be treated, in principle, as already abolishing itself in the context of the totality of the mystical sentiment of life, from which the jealousy itself comes as a by-product. Kalidasa´s poetry abounds in cancellation of this sort, in which double negation at the tail end and double assertion of a virtue at the head end, cancel out into a unique form of absolute Beauty or Virtue. In the second half of this verse, we have to note that Shiva is called pasupati (the Lord of Beasts) which refers to his overlordship in the world of zoology.
The asoka tree belongs to the world of botany; even here, there is a correct respect for naming counterparts by which cancellation could occur, according to the accepted rules and conventions of mathematics. The Goddess here seems to be living in a garden not unlike the pramadavana (the pleasure grove of infatuation), which figures in almost every play of Kalidasa. Understanding Sankara, therefore, naturally presupposes understanding Kalidasa, his forerunner. Shiva has to be jealous of a poor and humble tree in distress, because he cannot find any other rival in the three worlds on whom he could fix his jealousy. This further enhances the verticality of the perspective in which this negative quality is to be cancelled out against itself. Jealousy is a horizontal negative sentiment which deserves to be abolished, and is in effect abolished in this verse. No judge in a courtroom would take this charge of jealousy very seriously. In the last line, the asoka tree is praying to be kicked in order to enjoy the thrill of marital festivity.
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ADDITIONAL COMMENTS WITH STRUCTURAL DIAGRAMS RELATED TO THIS VERSE FROM SAUNDARYA LAHARI/NOTES.
WORD FOR WORD
Namo vakam brumo - We salute (utter words of salutation)
Nayana ramaniyaya - to them, which are beautiful to the eyes
Padayoh - the (twin) feet
Tava asmai dvandvaya - to these present here, to your own ones
Sphuta ruchira salakta kavate - (clear-pleasing-smeared-ones-of Yours) the most bright and beautiful ones with red cotton- flower paste oversmeared.
Asuyat yatyantam - having extreme jealousy
Yad abhi hananaya - with which to have confrontal contact, for being trampled upon by which
Sprhayate - it wishes
Pasu nam isana - Pasupati (Shiva)
Pramada vana kankelita rave - towards the Asoka tree of the pleasure-garden
Nayana ramaniyaya - to them, which are beautiful to the eyes
Padayoh - the (twin) feet
Tava asmai dvandvaya - to these present here, to your own ones
Sphuta ruchira salakta kavate - (clear-pleasing-smeared-ones-of Yours) the most bright and beautiful ones with red cotton- flower paste oversmeared.
Asuyat yatyantam - having extreme jealousy
Yad abhi hananaya - with which to have confrontal contact, for being trampled upon by which
Sprhayate - it wishes
Pasu nam isana - Pasupati (Shiva)
Pramada vana kankelita rave - towards the Asoka tree of the pleasure-garden
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Another version:
WORD FOR WORD
Namo vakam brumo - spoken words of worship do we offer
Nayana ramaniyaya - beauteous to view
Padayoh - to the twin feet
Tava asmai dvandvaya - for these your pair
Sphuta ruchi rasa lakta tava te - smeared over with brilliant magenta glory (paste)
Asuya anti antam - extremely jealous
Yad abhi ananaya - to contact them by being kicked
Pashunam ishanah pramada vana kankeli tarave - towards the Asoka tree of the pleasure grove (intoxication)
Namo vakam brumo - spoken words of worship do we offer
Nayana ramaniyaya - beauteous to view
Padayoh - to the twin feet
Tava asmai dvandvaya - for these your pair
Sphuta ruchi rasa lakta tava te - smeared over with brilliant magenta glory (paste)
Asuya anti antam - extremely jealous
Yad abhi ananaya - to contact them by being kicked
Pashunam ishanah pramada vana kankeli tarave - towards the Asoka tree of the pleasure grove (intoxication)
Another version:
TRANSLATION
- We salute ( you, o Goddess)
- To the feet of most beautiful (or pleasing)
- For these thy two feet (This is not a mathematical concept, but very real)
- keeps me from going mad, and others will be blessed in descending order
- These feet are clear and pleasing (?)
- I do prostrate to the feet again
- Having extreme jealousy
- For being trampled upon
- By which
- The Lord of Animals
- Having jealousy
- Towards the Asoka tree of the pleasure garden
- To the feet of most beautiful (or pleasing)
- For these thy two feet (This is not a mathematical concept, but very real)
- keeps me from going mad, and others will be blessed in descending order
- These feet are clear and pleasing (?)
- I do prostrate to the feet again
- Having extreme jealousy
- For being trampled upon
- By which
- The Lord of Animals
- Having jealousy
- Towards the Asoka tree of the pleasure garden
The tree asks the Devi to kick it into flower, and Shiva says: "I am extremely jealous".
The tree is horizontal, Shiva, as a positive vertical factor, is jealous.
The tree is horizontal, Shiva, as a positive vertical factor, is jealous.
(In Hinduism the ashoka is considered a sacred tree. Not counting a multitude of local traditions connected to it, the ashoka tree is worshipped in Chaitra, the first month of the Hindu calendar. It is also associated with Kamadeva, the Hindu god of love, who included an ashoka blossom among the five flowers in his quiver, where ashoka flowers represent seductive hypnosis.
Ashoka is a Sanskrit word meaning without grief or that which gives no grief. It is a symbol of love. Its beautiful, delicately perfumed flowers are used in temple decoration. ED)
Ashoka is a Sanskrit word meaning without grief or that which gives no grief. It is a symbol of love. Its beautiful, delicately perfumed flowers are used in temple decoration. ED)
(See Verse 86:
"On having inadvertently defaulted in respect of Your family name,
While stooping in shame, Your husband's forehead as You kicked with Your lotus feet,
That enemy of Shiva, wholly giving up his rancour, his victory celebrates with clamour of many jingle bells."
Here, Shiva himself is kicked in the head by the Devi. According to legend a tree needs to be kicked by a woman in order to bear fruit. Eros is delighted at the kick to Shiva's forehead. In Kalidasa's Kumarasambhava Eros' role is to make Shiva fall in love with the Devi to produce a child. Eros perhaps rejoices because Shiva is going to unite with the Devi and create the universe - without her "He is not even able to pulsate."
See Verse 1:
"Shiva united with Shakti becomes able to manifest
If otherwise, this god knows not even how to pulsate.
How then could one of ungained merit be able to bow to, or even praise
One such as you, adored by Vishnu, Shiva and Brahma." ED.)
If otherwise, this god knows not even how to pulsate.
How then could one of ungained merit be able to bow to, or even praise
One such as you, adored by Vishnu, Shiva and Brahma." ED.)
The Devi's feet represent the ontological limit.
The red colour means "full of vitality, life".
The Devi's feet keep the banker from committing suicide and keep Shiva from evaporating, (by creating the Ganges) and bless the scholar.
Shiva says: "You can do all of these things, but why are you giving Your value to the horizontal plane? You are creating pluralism and creating suffering."
Horizontalism is a kind of dispersion.
Horizontalism is a kind of dispersion.
In this way, Shiva is jealous - the devotee receives a blessing.
Shiva's burning head is consoled, and the Ganges is produced.
Vishnu's currency-note head is coloured with life and now the Devi blesses the forest or pleasure-grove, represented by the Asoka tree.
In order to flower, the tree must have a direct impact from some positive Numerator - in this case the feet of the Devi.
Shiva is jealous because the Devi is blessing the horizontal plane.
Shiva is jealous because the Devi is blessing the horizontal plane.
.
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Shiva is mathematical at the Omega Point.
Below that is the mythological, lower version of Shiva as together with Brahma and Vishnu - the Devi's feet create the Ganges.
Below that is the mythological, lower version of Shiva as together with Brahma and Vishnu - the Devi's feet create the Ganges.
The Devi's feet give colour to the white light in Verse 84.
Here, in Verse 85, she gives a kick to the tree on the horizontal plane.
Sankara says: "I find the feet of the Devi to have more value than the mathematical concept of Shiva."
The "pleasure garden" refers to a "Garden of Eden" concept.
There is a giggling of girls in the garden, with no vertical value.
There is a giggling of girls in the garden, with no vertical value.
The Devi is supplying vertical value to this pleasure-garden and Shiva is jealous of this.
She is abolishing horizontal Space and bringing it to vertical Time .
Shiva says: "If I allow the Devi to concern herself with all these horizontal aspects (the trees of the forest), Her vertical value will dissipate".
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Another version:
TRANSLATION
We utter words of salutation to those which are beautiful to the eyes, the twin feet.
To those present here (ontological reality), your twin one,
Your two feet have been smeared (with red colour).
Having extreme jealousy of which, to have confrontal contact.
It (the tree) wishes..
The Lord is full of jealousy toward the Asoka tree which is in the pleasure -garden (and which is known to flower only by contact with the feet of the Devi)
To those present here (ontological reality), your twin one,
Your two feet have been smeared (with red colour).
Having extreme jealousy of which, to have confrontal contact.
It (the tree) wishes..
The Lord is full of jealousy toward the Asoka tree which is in the pleasure -garden (and which is known to flower only by contact with the feet of the Devi)
Eternity will suffer and horizontal Space will gain - thus Shiva is jealous.
These are words of worship to the Devi's feet; Shiva is jealous of an Asoka tree because she kicks it.
See Malavikagnimitra of Kalidasa for the same legend. Some hot stimulus from the leg of a beautiful princess is needed for the tree to flower.
The mango tree in the Nilgiri Mountains is benumbed by cold and cannot flower.
Shiva is jealous of a plant - he wants all the affection for himself; he does not want the Devi to become too negative.
See Malavikagnimitra of Kalidasa for the same legend. Some hot stimulus from the leg of a beautiful princess is needed for the tree to flower.
The mango tree in the Nilgiri Mountains is benumbed by cold and cannot flower.
Shiva is jealous of a plant - he wants all the affection for himself; he does not want the Devi to become too negative.
"Spoken words" are offered to the feet: two sides are meeting: the spoken word and the visual side.
There is an alternation between spoken words and meditation on her feet.
Temple ritual meets Mantra. When they come together you get the Lahari.
Temple ritual meets Mantra. When they come together you get the Lahari.
There is a cancellation between the feet pleasing to the eye and the muttered prayer.
The wife wants to hear, in so many words: "I love you" - this adds the Numerator.
The spoken words on the Numerator side are very important to the Denominator side.
First, make this into a matrix, neither conceptual nor perceptual: only then can you fit in the jealousy of Shiva.
The "twin feet" are important, it is not just a casual reference.
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The biological world is below in the scale of values.
Shiva is jealous because the Devi becomes too negative: cancellation should take place from above, not from below.
Shiva is jealous because the Devi becomes too negative: cancellation should take place from above, not from below.
She is kicking the Asoka tree to make it flower.
A Banyan tree has aerial roots, thus it is both hypostatic and hierophantic.
The Asoka tree is uniformly flowering from head to foot.
The tree is eternal because the roots come down to the ground and reproduce.
The Asoka tree is a dravida sishyu (Dravidian child).
The Asoka tree is uniformly flowering from head to foot.
The tree is eternal because the roots come down to the ground and reproduce.
The Asoka tree is a dravida sishyu (Dravidian child).
(See Verse 75:
"Your breast milk, I consider, O Maiden born to the Earth- Supporting Lord,
As if it were word-wisdom's ocean of nectar, flooding from out of Your heart
Offered by one who is kind, which, on tasting,
This Dravidian child, amidst superior poets, is born a composer of charming verse".
As if it were word-wisdom's ocean of nectar, flooding from out of Your heart
Offered by one who is kind, which, on tasting,
This Dravidian child, amidst superior poets, is born a composer of charming verse".
"Dravidian child" implies negativity and humility. ED)
There is vertical jealousy towards the Asoka tree.
There is horizontal jealousy towards Ganges.
There is horizontal jealousy towards Ganges.
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The vertical Devi kicking the horizontal tree means that:
IN THE LOWER LEVELS OF ONTOLOGY, PARADOX SHOULD NOT BE ABOLISHED
Do not abolish the horizontal entirely, or common sense will evaporate.
Shout at the man who encroaches on your land, do not say "it is all Maya".
Do not abolish the horizontal entirely, or common sense will evaporate.
Shout at the man who encroaches on your land, do not say "it is all Maya".