SAUNDARYA LAHARI
VERSE 72
MUTUAL ERROR FROM TWO POINTS ON THE VERTICAL AXIS
GANESHA AND SUBRAHMANIAN TOGETHER MAKE UP THE ABSOLUTE.
समं देवि स्कन्द द्विपिवदन पीतं स्तनयुगं
तवेदं नः खेदं हरतु सततं प्रस्नुत-मुखम् ।
यदालोक्याशङ्काकुलित हृदयो हासजनकः
स्वकुम्भौ हेरम्बः परिमृशति हस्तेन झडिति
samam devi skanda dvipavadana pitam stanayugam
tavedam nah khedam haratu satatam prasnuta mukham
yad alokyasankakulitahrdayo hasajanakah
svakhumbhau herambah parimrsati hastena chatiti
tavedam nah khedam haratu satatam prasnuta mukham
yad alokyasankakulitahrdayo hasajanakah
svakhumbhau herambah parimrsati hastena chatiti
Let it banish our misery, o Goddess, your twin breasts,
Ever being sucked equally by Skanda and Ganesha;
Of which, seeing their milk-spouting fronts, Ganesha causes laughter
As he feels his own front with misgivings in his mind.
Ever being sucked equally by Skanda and Ganesha;
Of which, seeing their milk-spouting fronts, Ganesha causes laughter
As he feels his own front with misgivings in his mind.
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The parity and chirality ("handedness", see below) of the structure of the Absolute are attempted to be put together in this verse, together with a horizontally placed mirror-like reflecting surface separating the counterparts. Ganesa (the elephant-headed god) and Skanda or Subrahmanya (the god who glorifies Brahminical virtues) enter as equal partners into this composite picture, evidently created by Sankara himself and not found in any other mythological story. We have now to put a circle round the breast region of the Goddess and try to visualize the structural relationships that are meant to give integrated beauty-content to the absolute Goddess.
The two breasts being sucked by the two sons of the Mountain Goddess represent in themselves strikingly ambivalent characteristics between them. The elephant-headed god, Ganesa, has a more earthy character than his brother Subrahmanya, who is thin and refined and full of heavenly brightness. The difference in their personalities could be traced to the milk that each of them is nourished on, which is from the same mother and cannot be basically different. Peripherally considered, however, the breasts of the Mother could have a slight lack of parity between them, one being derived from the side of sunlight and the other being derived from the side of moonlight. This idea was suggested in Verse 19. There is a degree of virtuality and actuality, even within the overall status of parity between the breasts, when viewed horizontally. The Absolute is enclosed within an upper limit and a lower limit, and horizontal parity, when tilted 90 degrees, can be absorbed into the vertical axis. Then, instead of parity, we have to think in terms of chirality (handedness). These distinctions are now entering into the discussion of the structure of space in modern science. There is a right-handed spin and a left-handed spin of electrons described in quantum mechanics. Hexagonal crystals of quartz could have their right-handed facets or left-handed facets more developed, presenting a verticalized asymmetry. (See the Lee-Yang theorem). The complexity of the structure within the Absolute and its dynamism are still the subject of speculation by scientists and philosophers, nor is this question likely to be settled in the near future, unless epistemology and methodology are subjected to drastic revision independently of the one-sided prejudices of either physics or metaphysics. An integrated Science of the Absolute has still to be presented to the world.
After visualizing the two divinities, Ganesa and Subrahmanya, sucking the twin breasts of' the Goddess on a basis of horizontal parity, it is natural for us to view the same picture later in a more vertically-revised perspective at a stage when at least one of these divinities has been at least partially weaned from the early state of childhood. This gives us the picture of Ganesa alone confronting the two breasts of the Goddess, so generously spouting milk out of their tips. The suggestion here is that while Parvati and Subrahmanya are watching Ganesa still engaged in, or just after, sucking the milk of his mother; Ganesa looks round, and has the strange illusion that the two small tusks growing on his snout are some sort of duplicate of the ivory-white spouts of milk that he sees coming from the two breasts of the Goddess. This would suggest that there is a reflecting surface between the consciousness of Ganesa and what he is able to visualize in front of him. Ganesa, being a divinity more earthy than Subrahmanya, is to be placed below this line of demarcation separating the conceptual from the perceptual.
The situation on the whole occasions humour on the part of everyone except Ganesa himself, who still treats the illusion seriously and wishes to verify the truth experimentally by passing his hands over his face to see if his tusks are real or only a reflection. They could be both; and in this two-sided predicament of doubt, there is an element of humour to be recognized by us. Bergson in his well-known work on laughter, “Le Rire”, analyzes the essence of humour on similar lines. When the mechanistic and the vitalistic worlds interfere with each other, humour emerges
Now a question remains about the aptness of the prayer of the poet here that the picture presented above should banish the misery of humanity. This can only be in the sense that knowledge of the essence of the Absolute, with all its contents and relations properly understood within its context, would, as the Upanishads promise, make a person identical with Brahman itself, and thus would confer salvation directly, without any other intervening factor.
The word “ever” in the second line confers an eternal or absolute status on the picture and lifts it out of the context of a mere mythological solution.
The last line further underlines that the misgivings of Ganesa take place in his heart; and not really outside. Thus the schematic status of the imagery is further assured.
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ADDITIONAL COMMENTS WITH STRUCTURAL DIAGRAMS RELATED TO THIS VERSE FROM SAUNDARYA LAHARI/NOTES.
A mother sees her child as an elephant,
The child sees the mother as an elephant
The child sees the mother as an elephant
There is hallucination both ways
WORD FOR WORD
Samam devi - equally at once, o Goddess
Skanda dvipa vadana - (dvipa = twice drinking: i.e. both by trunk and mouth)
pitam stanayugam - by Skanda and Ganesha sucked, the twin breasts.
Tava idam - yours these here
Naha khedam haratu - let it banish our misery (abolish our paradox)
Satatam - for ever
Prasnuta mukham - milk-spouting
Yad alokya - which, on seeing
Ashanka kulitah hrdayah - with misgivings in his heart
Hastena jhaditi - causes laughter (in Skanda)
Samam devi - equally at once, o Goddess
Skanda dvipa vadana - (dvipa = twice drinking: i.e. both by trunk and mouth)
pitam stanayugam - by Skanda and Ganesha sucked, the twin breasts.
Tava idam - yours these here
Naha khedam haratu - let it banish our misery (abolish our paradox)
Satatam - for ever
Prasnuta mukham - milk-spouting
Yad alokya - which, on seeing
Ashanka kulitah hrdayah - with misgivings in his heart
Hastena jhaditi - causes laughter (in Skanda)
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Another version:
WORD FOR WORD
Samam devi - at once, o Devi (on underfocus)
Skanda dvipa vadana pitam stanayugam - Your twin breasts sucked by Skanda (brother of Ganesha) and Ganesha (baby elephant god and super- refined baby)
Tava idam - these thy
Nah khedam haratu - let it banish sorrow for us
Satatam - for all time
Prasnuta mukham - milk-dripping face
...which on seeing, with doubting, anxious heart
...Shiva and two others, in a manner giving cause for laughter
...his own snout, Ganesha
He passes his hands to know...by looking at breasts, he asks; "have I lost my tusks?"
...by hands quickly...(the white, streaming milk represents his tusks).
Samam devi - at once, o Devi (on underfocus)
Skanda dvipa vadana pitam stanayugam - Your twin breasts sucked by Skanda (brother of Ganesha) and Ganesha (baby elephant god and super- refined baby)
Tava idam - these thy
Nah khedam haratu - let it banish sorrow for us
Satatam - for all time
Prasnuta mukham - milk-dripping face
...which on seeing, with doubting, anxious heart
...Shiva and two others, in a manner giving cause for laughter
...his own snout, Ganesha
He passes his hands to know...by looking at breasts, he asks; "have I lost my tusks?"
...by hands quickly...(the white, streaming milk represents his tusks).
A popular image of the Devi with Skanda and Ganesha, with Saraswati on her left and Lakshmi on her right.
A popular image of Ganesha and Skanda as babies.
Chirality or handedness is the relationship between Skanda and Ganesha.
Another version:
WORD FOR WORD
Samam devi - at once, o Devi
Skanda dvipa vadana pitam stana yugam - the twin breasts sucked by Skanda and Ganesha
Tava idam - these thy
Naha khedam haratu - let it banish sorrow for us
Satatam - always
Prasnuta mukham - of milk-drinking face
Yad alokya - which on seeing
Asanka kulita hrdayaha - with doubting, anxious heart
Hasa janakaha - giving cause for laughter
Sva kumbhau - on his own front of head (snout)
Herambah - the elephant god
Pari mrshati - he passes his hand to know
Hastena jhaditi - by hands quickly
Samam devi - at once, o Devi
Skanda dvipa vadana pitam stana yugam - the twin breasts sucked by Skanda and Ganesha
Tava idam - these thy
Naha khedam haratu - let it banish sorrow for us
Satatam - always
Prasnuta mukham - of milk-drinking face
Yad alokya - which on seeing
Asanka kulita hrdayaha - with doubting, anxious heart
Hasa janakaha - giving cause for laughter
Sva kumbhau - on his own front of head (snout)
Herambah - the elephant god
Pari mrshati - he passes his hand to know
Hastena jhaditi - by hands quickly
Shed religions; shed the frontiers of language and politics.
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On this subject consult:
Wilfred Cantwell Smith on comparative religion.
Suzanne Langer on Philosophy.
Mircea Eliade.
Bucar.... (illegible ED)
A negative hallucination is occurring here.
Suzanne Langer on Philosophy.
Mircea Eliade.
Bucar.... (illegible ED)
A negative hallucination is occurring here.
The streak of milk represents the conceptual, or hypostatic side,
The tusks represent the perceptual, or hierophantic side.
The tusks represent the perceptual, or hierophantic side.
Ganesha is confused as to how they participate.
Shiva and Parvati laugh because he is looking in the horizontal for the answer to a vertical problem.
ANYTHING VERTICAL WHICH IS MADE HORIZONTAL IS CALLED A JOKE
This participation, then, is of concepts and percepts - of mind and matter.
An earlier version:
TRANSLATION
Thy breasts, here sucked at the same time by Skanda and Ganesha,
Let they banish our sorrows always.
The face, streaming with the overflow of milk,
Suspicious in mind, in a manner giving rise to laughter,
On his own front feels, the elephant-headed god, with hands.
Thy breasts, here sucked at the same time by Skanda and Ganesha,
Let they banish our sorrows always.
The face, streaming with the overflow of milk,
Suspicious in mind, in a manner giving rise to laughter,
On his own front feels, the elephant-headed god, with hands.
Baby Elephant.
The elephant-headed god has one-to-one correspondence with the Devi.
He touches his face because he is on the Denominator side,
While Skanda (also known as Subrahmanya - Ganesa's brother) is on the Numerator side.
He touches his face because he is on the Denominator side,
While Skanda (also known as Subrahmanya - Ganesa's brother) is on the Numerator side.
(Skanda is white and Brahminical - representing positive values; Ganesha is dark and elephant-like - the Guru said that space was like being inside an elephant - and represents negative values. ED.)
Numerator and Denominator are nourished by the same Absolute Devi
- when you understand this, all sorrow is abolished.
Ganesha thinks that the streams of milk from the Devi's breasts are the tusks of an elephant - and he puts his hands on his own face, as if to say, "Am I not the elephant-headed one?"
There is a one-to-one correspondence established between Ganesha and the Devi.
Not between Skanda and the Devi, because he is a numerator god, while Ganesha is denominator.