SAUNDARYA LAHARI
.
VERSE 73
COMPENSATION BETWEEN HIGHER NOURISHMENT, GIVING A PURER LIFE
GANESHA AND SUBRAHMANIAN TOGETHER MAKE UP THE ABSOLUTE
अमू ते वक्षोजा-वमृतरस-माणिक्य कुतुपौ
न सन्देहस्पन्दो नगपति पताके मनसि नः ।
पिबन्तौ तौ यस्मा दविदित वधूसङ्ग रसिकौ
कुमारावद्यापि द्विरदवदन-क्रौञ्च्दलनौ
न सन्देहस्पन्दो नगपति पताके मनसि नः ।
पिबन्तौ तौ यस्मा दविदित वधूसङ्ग रसिकौ
कुमारावद्यापि द्विरदवदन-क्रौञ्च्दलनौ
amu te vaksojav amrta rasa manikya kutupau
na sandehaspando nagapati patake manasi nah
pibantau tau yasmad avidita vadhusanga rasikau
kumarav adyapi dviradavadana kraunca dalanau
na sandehaspando nagapati patake manasi nah
pibantau tau yasmad avidita vadhusanga rasikau
kumarav adyapi dviradavadana kraunca dalanau
O banner of the King of Peaks, Your breasts, shoulder-borne
Are nectar-bearing ruby pots indeed, without any trace of doubt:
These two, Skanda and Ganesha, both innocent of the pleasures of marital contact
Drinking from them they remain thus child-like to the present day
Are nectar-bearing ruby pots indeed, without any trace of doubt:
These two, Skanda and Ganesha, both innocent of the pleasures of marital contact
Drinking from them they remain thus child-like to the present day
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After outlining in Verse 72 the broad structural features connected with the breast-region of the Goddess, this verse focuses attention on the same breasts when understood from a revised standpoint. They are here spoken of as ruby pots containing nectar instead of nourishing milk. A ruby is also a precious stone. The world of colours and rubies suggests a peak lower than that of Kailasa, where Shiva with his renunciation reigns supreme among ascetics. Asceticism is to be placed at a higher vertical point in the scale of values, because it transcends all other, lesser joys or values and, in principle, includes all of them. The world of luxury, where the Lord of Wealth, Kubera, reigns supreme, is marked by a peak lower than the one where Shiva resides.
The difference here is the same as that in the Bible between manna and plain bread, which is spoken of as “the staff of life”. The very first line describes the Goddess as “the banner of the King of Peaks”, combining the nobility of both her father and her husband in her personality, as already seen in Verse 61. Manna and bread both provide life-giving nourishment, but they are placed at different levels: manna being more hypostatic than plain bread. Jesus spoke in terms of plain bread instead of the manna promised by Moses to the chosen people.
Advaita respects both these alternatives, and gives each of them a rightful place in a complete scale of values.
Sometimes the breasts are compared to golden pots, as we see elsewhere in Sanskrit literature, as also in Verse 77, where they are not specifically described as golden but as solid and metallic. If we should imagine a series of values placed in pairs, making up a series of horizontal lines at different levels, we would get a picture like the golden ladder of Jacob in the Bible, with angels going up and down. Goethe, in his Faust, has improved on this two-way staircase arrangement by making the angels pour wine into vases while ascending and descending. It was suggested in Verse 7 that the breasts of the Goddess resemble the frontal bulges of a calf elephant. In Verse 19, also, we saw that it is permitted to think of a pair of breasts below as well as a pair of breasts placed above the face, and to cancel out the two sets thus presented. Wherever the horizontal line crosses the vertical we could imagine value centres, not unlike breasts that feed babies. The higher we go in the scale, the more the nourishment derived from the breasts resembles manna rather than mere bread or milk.
At lower psycho-physical synergic centres (chakras or adharas), more earthy values, like fertility or fecundity, can be imagined to be present, according to the degree of abstraction or generalization we might be interested in making.
The first line further underlines, by the Sanskrit word vaksoja (the shoulder-born), the hypostatic rather than the hierophantic status of these value-nodes, belonging to a series of such.
To explain how Skanda and Ganesa, though nourished on the same divine nourishment, could show between them ambivalent characteristics, is another enigma that we have to fit into the dynamism of the scheme presented here. Both of them are free from carnal dispositions which would have made them enter married life quite early. Extroversion and introversion might at first be supposed to be implied in the difference between Ganesa and Skanda.
If that were so, Ganesa, being an extrovert, could have been married, and Skanda, being an introverted type, should have been naturally celibate. This, however, is not what is claimed in this verse. We have to suppose, therefore, that there is something in the milk itself, even from the same mother, which is capable of accentuating opposite characteristics, as evidenced by the strongly contrasting bodily structures of Skanda and Ganesa.
Freudian psychology, which gives primacy to sex as influencing the libido and its growth, would perhaps insist that we treat Ganesa as representing horizontally accentuated tendencies and Skanda, his younger brother, as representing more fully verticalized tendencies. Both of these structural features were already put together without conflict, as we have seen in Verse 72. Just as the filament of an electric bulb could be visible when the current is weak, but could become effaced when the current is strong, so both these structural features could be thought of as being present alternately or together without contradiction. As always, a four-fold structure is implied, whether visible or invisible.
The ambivalence or polarity between Skanda and Ganesa here could thus, in principle, be viewed from both perspectives at once, inclusively, or alternately as an “either/or” situation. When voltage is increased, the polarity is also accentuated. Carnal feelings of sexual attraction can apply only to a state of low voltage. Both these divinities are nourished on milk derived from a highly hypostatic point on the vertical scale. For Skanda, being already on the numerator side, this high voltage agrees with the type he already represents. In the case of Ganesa, the polarizing effect is equally pronounced, nourished as he is from the same milk, but has another ambivalent effect, acting as it were, by double negation and not merely by a one-sided absence of electricity. A magnetic needle can be deflected both positively and negatively by virtue of the intensity of the electric current. Electromagnetism follows the same laws as light waves and can accommodate parity as well as right- or left-handedness, as recent scientific experiments have revealed.
Another way of explaining the difference between Ganesa and Subrahmanya here could be sought in terms of enzymes found in different balances in both sexes at the same time. Equations are easily reversible here, and bodily growth can depend upon such wonderful factors in chemistry as are every day being discovered. The predominance of one or the other of these enzymes or hormones could explain these ambivalent types, biologically as well as in the context of electromagnetism. Sex determination itself might be said to be decided by such factors.
The last line would therefore suggest three contingencies:
- Low energy, producing horizontal ambivalence between sexes in which carnality could prevail,
- A middle state in which intermediate energy is to be presupposed, in which carnality could coexist with more sublimated instincts,
- A third stage of high cyclotronic energy in which carnality is abolished and a new kind of dichotomy takes the place of mere biological ambivalence. This applies to deeper regions of abstraction or generalization of the third or fourth dimension. Predominance of the pituitary or the thyroid without adrenalin entering into the bloodstream, could produce such a state of sex innocence.
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ADDITIONAL COMMENTS WITH STRUCTURAL DIAGRAMS RELATED TO THIS VERSE FROM SAUNDARYA LAHARI/NOTES.
WORD FOR WORD
Amu te vakshojav - these thy bosom-born breasts
Amrta rasa manikya kutupau - are gem containers filled with ambrosia
Na sandeha spandah - there is no alternating movement of doubt here
Naga pati patake - o triumphant banner of the Lord of Hills
Manasi naha - in our minds
Pibantau tau - these two who drink of the two
Yasmad - by this reason
Avidita vadhu sanga rasikau - are these (two) who have never known conjugal felicity
Kumarau adi api - the youths even today
Dvirada vadana krauncha dalanau - the Skanda Ganeshas (? ED)
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Another version:
WORD FOR WORD
Amu te vakshojau - these Your breasts, shoulder-borne
Amrta rasa manikya kutupau - are nectar-bearing ruby pots
Na sandeha spandaha - without any trace of doubt
Naga pati patake - o banner of the King of Peaks
Manasih nah - in our mind
Pibantau tau - drinking (thereof) the two (Skanda and Ganesha)
Yasmat - by reason of it
Avidita vadhusanga rasikau - innocent of conjugal joy
Kumarau adi api - even now, infant sons they remain.
Dvirada vadana kraunca dalanau - the elephant-faced and the mountain-splitting Skanda
Amu te vakshojau - these Your breasts, shoulder-borne
Amrta rasa manikya kutupau - are nectar-bearing ruby pots
Na sandeha spandaha - without any trace of doubt
Naga pati patake - o banner of the King of Peaks
Manasih nah - in our mind
Pibantau tau - drinking (thereof) the two (Skanda and Ganesha)
Yasmat - by reason of it
Avidita vadhusanga rasikau - innocent of conjugal joy
Kumarau adi api - even now, infant sons they remain.
Dvirada vadana kraunca dalanau - the elephant-faced and the mountain-splitting Skanda
(Ganesha: the elephant-headed god, the eldest-born to Shiva and Parvati. He is also called Ganapati, which would suggest that he is the first of the Ganas or beings (from gan to count; and pati, chief). Ganapati has always to be propitiated first in prayers or ceremonies so that no hindrances may befall an undertaking, such as the writing of a book, etc. Ganapati is pot-bellied and has the rat or field-mouse as his Vahana, or vehicle. One of his tusks is also broken, and with the broken piece he is supposed to have written the Maha-Bharata to the dictated recitation on the epic by its author, Vyasa.
Skanda or Subrahmanya: synonymous with Kartikeya and Bahuleya, who was supposed to be born in a lake by the light or glance of Shiva which fell there. Subrahmanya rides the peacock and is six-headed, being born to six mothers. This myth is supposed to be astronomical also in its import, as there is a group of six stars with the same name (possibly the Pleiades). Subrahmanya is younger brother to Ganesha, the elephant-headed son of Shiva. Subrahmanya is much adored in South India, and is mentioned also in the Vedas. ED)
Traditional Indian pot.
In the previous verse, the horizontal difference between the two gods was noted; now we have the vertical difference.
Horizontally, the tusks are put on a par with the milk of the Mother - the tusks contain the principle of interpenetrability.
To arrive at a neutral ground, the tusks and the milk become homogeneous.
The horizontal axis is a value; thus tusks and milk are introduced.
In this verse we have a vertical reference.
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Another version:
TRANSLATION
These Thy breasts born (abstracted and generalized) breasts, both together,
Are gem containers filled with ambrosia (not breasts filled with milk, they are vertical - gems are superior to milk)
There is no alternating feeling of doubt here (spandaha)
(Uncertainty exists horizontally, and we have not entered that region here - see previous verse)
O triumphant banner of the Lord of Hills (the Devi is related to Shiva),
In our minds, (conceptual status - "our" means " we who seek the Absolute)
These two who drink of the two, by this reason (because they drink of this hypostatic ambrosia)
Are those twins who have never known conjugal felicity,
The youths, even today: Skanda and Ganesha.
(Even now they are innocent of that aspect of sex which is horizontal)
Sometime after the previous verse, they remain innocent.
These Thy breasts born (abstracted and generalized) breasts, both together,
Are gem containers filled with ambrosia (not breasts filled with milk, they are vertical - gems are superior to milk)
There is no alternating feeling of doubt here (spandaha)
(Uncertainty exists horizontally, and we have not entered that region here - see previous verse)
O triumphant banner of the Lord of Hills (the Devi is related to Shiva),
In our minds, (conceptual status - "our" means " we who seek the Absolute)
These two who drink of the two, by this reason (because they drink of this hypostatic ambrosia)
Are those twins who have never known conjugal felicity,
The youths, even today: Skanda and Ganesha.
(Even now they are innocent of that aspect of sex which is horizontal)
Sometime after the previous verse, they remain innocent.
Another version:
TRANSLATION
These two breasts, o daughter of the mountain, contain gems.
Drinking from these, Subrahmanya and Ganesha are eternally free from erotic sentiments.
Even now, they are innocent of copulation.
These two breasts, o daughter of the mountain, contain gems.
Drinking from these, Subrahmanya and Ganesha are eternally free from erotic sentiments.
Even now, they are innocent of copulation.
Instead of milk, which is horizontal, they are nourished on a more negative, real and vertical content of ruby-like purity - the chalices of the breasts - which are filled with hypostatic, numerator, nectar
"O banner of the King of Peaks, Your breasts, shoulder-borne"
High breasts mean hypostatic nourishment.
A higher source of life results in innocence.
A higher source of life results in innocence.
(BELOW IS A HIGHLY SPECULATIVE STRUCTURE, NOT PRODUCED BY THE GURU, BUT WHICH MAY CLARIFY THE MEANING OF THIS VERSE. ED.)
