SAUNDARYA LAHARI
61-70: VERTICAL PARTICIPATION AT THREE LEVELS
INTIMATE PARTICIPATION AND ONE - ONE CORRESPONDENCE
VERSE 61
A HIERARCHY OF OVER-GENEROUS VALUES
असौ नासावंश-स्तुहिनगिरिवण्श-ध्वजपटि
त्वदीयो नेदीयः फलतु फल-मस्माकमुचितम् ।
वहत्यन्तर्मुक्ताः शिशिरकर-निश्वास-गलितं
समृद्ध्या यत्तासां बहिरपि च मुक्तामणिधरः
त्वदीयो नेदीयः फलतु फल-मस्माकमुचितम् ।
वहत्यन्तर्मुक्ताः शिशिरकर-निश्वास-गलितं
समृद्ध्या यत्तासां बहिरपि च मुक्तामणिधरः
asau nasavamsas tuhina giri vamsa dhvaja pati
tvadiyo nediyah phalatu phalam asmakam ucitam
vahaty antar muktas sisirakara nissvasa galitam
samrddhya yat tasam bahir api ca muktamani dharah
tvadiyo nediyah phalatu phalam asmakam ucitam
vahaty antar muktas sisirakara nissvasa galitam
samrddhya yat tasam bahir api ca muktamani dharah
O banner of the dynasty of the Himalayas, Your nose ridge, here as Your clan's flagstaff,
Let it ripen for us, standing so near below You, deserving fruit;
Inwardly wearing pearls as they do, and dropped by cool moonbeam respiration,
It bears, even outside, pearls due to the plenitude of the same.
Let it ripen for us, standing so near below You, deserving fruit;
Inwardly wearing pearls as they do, and dropped by cool moonbeam respiration,
It bears, even outside, pearls due to the plenitude of the same.
The centre of interest now passes from the brightness of the face as a whole to the nose-ridge, which represents a vertical descending line. In Verse 47 the left fist and forearm of the God of Love were hiding the downward movement of the bowstring as it was being pulled along the vertical line across the face, corresponding to the ridge of the nose. In this position the target aimed at must be Shiva. If the hands of the God of Love belong to a three-dimensional grade of appearance, here the line of the nose-ridge could be said to mark the vertical amplitude within which subtler values reside.
A pearl is always used as an analogy for something precious, as when we say “a pearl of great price”. In Indian philosophy also, the pearl has been very dear to contemplative speculators as an analogy for the value of truth. Though the ocean may contain gems which are equally precious; on a more hypostatic level, values are more aptly comparable to bright pearls. Iridescent hues that play on its surface give the pearl a silvery gleam, and Vedanta has used this peculiar quality as an analogy to explain the vain glamour of false appearances. The hard nacreous layer of the inner shell of an oyster, called the mother-of-pearl, is where the pearls are formed; but from a chemical standpoint, this layer is nothing other than calcium carbonate.
The Vedanta of Sankara in its methodology gives primacy to ontology as against higher, theoretical, values. Here, however, in the context of the beauty of the face of the Goddess, the pearl is compared to a prayer, which in turn is comparable to a wish-fulfilling tree called Devadaru, placed very high in the hypostatic scale of values. The corresponding wish-fulfilling factor belonging to the lower limit of existences is often referred to as Kamadhenu (the cow of plenty). In the face of the Goddess we are still on the side of the numerator values of life, so it is not unjustified here for the poet to use the image of a heavenly tree, at the bottom of which some supplicants can be imagined to be standing, praying for some kind of benefits to be dropped down to them by way of answer to their various prayers. God grants prayers, because there would have been no God in any of the world's literature if the opposite had been true in the experience of mankind.
In fact, any prayer unanswered could be answered by ourselves, because theology admits that the Kingdom of God is within oneself. In Vedanta, this dictum is quite acceptable, because the axiomatic overall dictum of all mahavakyas (great sayings) categorically asserts that “thou art That”. One receives what one deserves: “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap”. God, in his justice and generosity, cannot violate such overall laws, within the framework of which he himself is placed. No god can exist otherwise than by granting prayers because prayers alone can apply to possible boons or benefits. The axiomatic laws of reciprocity, compensation and cancellability in the overall structural context of the Absolute, make such a law binding equally for man and God at once, though only in a subtle, absolutist fourth-dimensional sense. It is to this order of values that the beauty of the Goddess belongs, where pearls are items of beauty representing benefits like fruits that could drop down from a heavenly tree for hungry children to pick up and eat. The production of fruit in such superabundance by a tree could not be explained if such a theory were to be discarded as completely fanciful.
The opening epithet, “Banner of the Dynasty of the Himalayas”, means that, since the Himalayas are already the highest of mountains, to erect a flagstaff to make them rise even higher indicates that such attributes as family honour or reputation can be produced, as far as one chooses, along a vertical positive parameter. Noblesse oblige is the rule: the nobler you are, the more your generosity is heightened. In the previous verse, we were still in the realm of values that belonged to the world of good literature; but here honour is a value that can reach even higher and subtler limits. The flagstaff analogy is thus very apt. In India we are justified in thinking of a bamboo flagstaff, because this verse implies that it must be hollow in order to allow the passage of moonbeams as well as air. The nose exists for breathing through, up or down. Here, waiting immediately below such a vertical nose, are those who are praying for benefits like fruits to fall down to the horizontal terra firma. The gods confer blessings from above, while the denizens of the earth wait to receive them. Such is the overall situation from which we have to extract the beauty-value of the centre of the face of the Goddess, still one degree above the mouth, which is slightly tilted hypostatically. The glory of the flagstaff could refer to the father of Parvati at its base; while the flag at the top could be a symbol that glorifies Shiva. Between these two limits there is an ascent and a descent taking place in terms of cool and pearly moonbeam respiration, in the context of sheer beauty. Such an abstracted respiration is like the alternation between space-like and time-like factors within the Absolute, where space can devour time and time space, in the eternal cosmic process of alternating phases, just as in human respiration.
Life matures with each act of breathing and fulfils itself in the form of that generosity which is basic to its overall nature. It is not just generosity, but over-generosity, like that of a gambler who gives his shirt when only his coat is asked for. Absolute Generosity cannot be compatible with the calculative caution of a hesitant man. In springtime, fruit trees overladen with flowers unquestionably reflect the generosity of nature. In tropical regions of palm trees and coral reefs, the many small coconuts that drop to the ground during the ripening process surely reveal such superabundance, within the context of which nature normally operates. Mango trees are sometimes so overladen with fruit that their branches are bent down to the ground. Such a picture has touched the heart of mystics like Narayana Guru, because there is beauty in such superabundant generosity. Because generosity is normally a subjective feeling, the analogy of pearls ripening inside the hollow of the flagstaff and dropping down to the supplicant subjectively, as if through a tube, would be justified. Absolute generosity in a fully Advaitic sense knows no limit of inside or outside. This distinction between inside and outside is dissolved or abolished by itself as generosity attains to its more absolutist quality. Sankara resorts to such a far-fetched analogy of pearls covering the outside and filling the inside of the nostrils of the Goddess. Pearl nose-studs worn by Indian women show a cluster of pearls, which look as if they are overflowing from inside the nostrils. Poetry might have guided the jeweller´s art here, or vice-versa. For us, it is important to derive the lesson that generosity and beauty are inseparable.
MINOR CONSIDERATIONS
The opening line refers to the clan of the Goddess. A young woman is proud of her father´s clan, but after marriage her loyalties are transferred to her husband. The transition between the two loyalties; one turned retrospectively and the other turned prospectively, is a delicate one, and is sometimes seen to be very touchy in the case of sensitive women who feel easily insulted if a slight slur is cast upon their ancestry. Later, in Verse 86, we will see that this kind of touchiness is possible even in the relation between Shiva and Parvati. This is good advice for husbands: do not discredit your father-in-law.
The second line emphasizes the fact that the devotees are placed very near to the foot of the flagstaff, and that they can get only those benefits which they deserve. Cause and effect are vertically related by a law of reciprocal specificity. Clay is the material cause of the pot and the medium through which cause and effect are linked either way. One cannot make curds without milk, and no wave is possible without water. No illusion is possible without some basis for the illusion. Vedanta respects such a law of reciprocity as a categorical imperative. One cannot pray for something that one does not implicitly or explicitly deserve. A woman can only pray for a husband, not for a wife. We can see that any young woman´s prayer for a husband is generally answered sooner or later, the difference being only incidental, making allowances for accidental jolting in life. It is by the timely answering of prayers that humanity continues to live normally, generation after generation.
In the third line, the cool moonbeams are suggested as favourable to the dropping of ripe fruit from the trees. Wintering is as important for fruits as the heat of the sun for the putting forth of tender leaves and for giving an impetus to flowering. We see in the mango tree, for instance, that strong sunlight is required to usher in the best season for the fruit. Apple trees, on the other hand, require heavy winter conditions for the fruit to mature, The dropping of the fruit occurs only after they have first matured in sunlight. In this sense, it is not against nature to think that the cool breezes help to make the fruit drop down. The idea that moonbeams mixed with cool air pass through the cavity of a flagstaff to grant benefits to supplicants might seem far-fetched, but such a style is normal to the whole of this work, where creative imagination and poetic fancy are given the fullest freedom.
Finally, in the last line, where pearls cluster outside as well as inside the nostrils of the Goddess, the function of the poet surpasses itself. The only excuse for doing so is that Sankara thereby justifies his own Advaitic position in treating Absolute Beauty as an ultimate value. Internally and externally, as between the selfsame class or as between two classes, vijatiyaand sajatiya, Advaita tolerates no duality or difference. In these verses, which are often mistakenly considered to be merely part of Tantrism, such poetic excesses can be justified, according to us, only in the name of that uncompromising unitive stand so characteristic of Sankara's philosophy as a whole.
ADDITIONAL COMMENTS WITH STRUCTURAL DIAGRAMS RELATED TO THIS VERSE FROM SAUNDARYA LAHARI/NOTES.
(Note that, although the following commentaries are drawn from different sources, they are almost identical in places. We have, however, preserved them as they were found in the original manuscripts, so that no detail is omitted. ED)
Prayer comes from the Denominator side, and the fruit falling from the tree is the answer of God.
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Connect the two sides together by a tube, which is the nose-ridge: magic is taking place there; prayers are being answered.
This verse refers to the Devi as the banner of the dynasty of the Himalayas; in legend, her father is the Himalayas.
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Her nose contains pearls.
There is a bamboo flagstaff. There are pearls inside, sticking to the sides.
There is a bamboo flagstaff. There are pearls inside, sticking to the sides.
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By the light of the moon, an abundance of these fall; they are Her beautiful thoughts.
There are two worlds here: one inside, one outside.
There are two worlds here: one inside, one outside.
He has now, in this sequence of verses, come from the eyes to the ridge of the nose, described as the insignia of the family of the Himalayas. ("Your nose pretends to this").
"Let it confer blessings on those who are most intimately related to you."
The breath of the Devi is the cosmic breath, intimately related to our own breathing.
The pearls inside the tube are value-factors - let it give to each person what they deserve, by way of merit.
These pearls are deep down the hollow tube of the flagstaff; the tube is overflowing with value-pearls.
The moon is a hypostatic intelligent factor and its coolness or warmth causes the pearls, by some ineffable light, to be experienced intimately.
The pearls represent a richness of contemplative value-factors. Whether they are filling up from the bottom upwards or falling down from the top, the point is that there is an overflowing of contemplative value-factors in the vertical axis.
The cross-section level of these pearls depends on the inhalation or exhalation of the "breaths" of the moon, or of the breath of the Devi.
(Here the Guru indicates that all this is tentative - "Don't put the nails in yet").
The Guru refers to Narayana Guru, who said that the three garlands of Subrahmanya; glass, silver and pearls, are worn by Subrahmanya to abolish the unhappiness which may be inside me.
Shiva went to the lowly hut of a hunter, to find a wife for his son, Subrahmanya. She is the lowliest of black girls.
Hence, Narayana Guru calls him "O you black girl's husband, please enter within me and ease my suffering".
(Apart from the reference to pearls to abolish the unhappiness of the worshipper, this reference is puzzling. However, the reference to a black girl is interesting: Subrahmanya had two wives, one black and one white - this is a structural reciprocity or complementarity parallel to the fact that his brother, with whom he is structurally paired throughout the Saundarya Lahari has one tusk complete and one broken off to write all wisdom literature. ED)
Pearls are inside the tube or bamboo or nose of the Devi.
These represent introspective values.
The tube is a vertical axis.
These represent introspective values.
The tube is a vertical axis.
Kalidasa talks of the bamboo in the Himalayas.
This bamboo has a banner floating high: this is one end of the axis.
At the middle of the tube is the intimacy, which will save the devotee: "Just know Brahman (the Absolute), and you will be saved."
He who knows Brahman becomes Brahman.
Joy is there as a glory, as ananda (bliss).
Moonbeams suggest intelligence; they are hypostatic.
The Devi is described here as the daughter of the Himalayas, underlining Her hypostatic status.
The Himalayas are the horizontal measuring rod of the universe.
It is "intimate" because Her values are all for the Absolute - and that means for each devotee.
Some of the pearls will fall to the bottom, some will overflow and some will stick, due to the coolness of the universal breath.
This is an exchange of hypostatic and hierophantic values.
The moon is presided over by Shiva.
Those who worship the Devi will have the experience of ineffable joy; of life more abundant.
Some of the pearls will fall to the bottom, some will overflow and some will stick to the tube.
You must have interaction between the hierophantic and hypostatic aspects, between the positive and the negative.
The glory comes from the Himalayas in the North, but the Devi is Dravidian, from the South; Sankara is bringing these two factors together.
If the images are fanciful, it is because Sankara is continuing the Sanskrit culture of Kalidasa.
He extends it to his version of Vedanta.
Narayana Guru says the same thing as Sankara, and Nataraja Guru says it again, mathematically.
(Nataraja Guru uses a structural methodology - protolanguage - rather than the verbal metalanguage used by previous writers. ED)
Value-factors thus sometimes drop to the bottom of the tube and sometimes overflow at the top.
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"To us, who are standing so near to You..." - it is something intimate, not the hypostatic banner, but the nose, which is familiar and near the horizontal axis.
The Devi, as a flag, has both symbolic and actual value.
It will immediately bless the devotees - the nose is near the centre of consciousness and near the horizontal axis.
There is respiration in a figure-8, which fills the tube, uniting hypostatic and hierophantic aspects of value.
Absolute value is an interplay within consciousness; it completely fills the vertical axis.
The bamboo flagstaff is her nose; it contains pearls inside and has pearliness outside, because of the abundance of pearls inside.
A pearl nose-ring is often worn by Indian women.
What does it all mean?
"Hinduism is all a pretence, because they pretend they understand this.
They do not understand; they are telling lies morning, afternoon and evening."
Why pearls inside, and pearliness outside?
Pearls are quantitative and substantive, therefore horizontal.
Pearliness is qualitative and predicative, therefore vertical.
Pearliness, for the nose, is meant philosophically.
Iridescence is false - it shows the world of appearance, a false world.
(The gleam of the mother-of-pearl, which appears to be silver, when only calcium carbonate is really there, is a favourite Vedantic example of illusion or Maya, which is only "the universal category of error". ED)
Narayana Guru writes in Verse 8 of the Maya Darsana of the Darsana Mala:
8. suktikayam yatha'jnanam rajatasya yadatmani kalpitasya nidanam tattama ityavagamyate
As the ignorance about the mother-of-pearl
Is the basis of the silver-presentiment,
So too what in the Self is the basis (of the world),
That is known as darkness (tamas).
Is the basis of the silver-presentiment,
So too what in the Self is the basis (of the world),
That is known as darkness (tamas).
Didhiti Commentary:
Some people see the mother-of-pearl and mistake it for silver. The reason for this error is ignorance. In the same way, ignorance, which is the cause of the presentiment of the world, is darkness. When the Self is properly understood we come to know that it alone is real and the world is only a presentiment in the Self and is unreal. Just as darkness is the cause of error in perceiving silver in the mother-of-pearl, so the cause of the supposition of the world in the Self is that aspect of Maya called darkness.
Further elaboration of this subject is to be found in Chapter 4 of the Science of the Absolute.
The flagpole is a vertical axis: pearls stick inside through the Devi´s breathing.
This refers to the Devi as the banner of the dynasty of the Himalayas: She is the daughter of the Himalayas.
Her nose is described as containing pearls.
There is a bamboo flagstaff. There are pearls inside, sticking to the sides.
By the light of the moon, an abundance of these fall. (Beautiful thoughts).
By the light of the moon, an abundance of these fall. (Beautiful thoughts).
There are two worlds, inside and outside the hollow bamboo.
Sankara has now come from the eyes to the ridge of the nose
- described here as the insignia of the family of the Himalayas.
("...Your nose pretends to this.")
- described here as the insignia of the family of the Himalayas.
("...Your nose pretends to this.")
"Let it confer pearls on those who are most intimately related to You".
The breath of the Devi is the cosmic breath - it relates intimately to our own breathing.
The pearls inside the tube are value factors
"Let it give whatever each person deserves, by way of merit".
These pearls drop down from the hollow tube or flagstaff.
The tube is overflowing with value-pearls.
The moon here is an intelligent hypostatic factor and its coolness or warmth causes the pearls - by some ineffable light - to fall.
This richness of contemplative value factors is to be experienced intimately.
Whether these value-factors, or pearls, are filling up from the bottom of the tube, upwards, or falling downwards from its top, the point is that there is an overflowing of contemplative value factors in the vertical axis.
The cross-section level of these pearls depends on the inhalation or exhalation of the "breath" of the moon or the breath of the Devi.
(The phases of the moon are compared to breathing in and out. ED)
In the hollow core of the tube is the intimacy that will save the devotee.
"Just know Brahman, and you will be saved".
"Just know Brahman, and you will be saved".
"He who knows Brahman, becomes Brahman" (brahmavit brahmeva bhavati - one of the Mahavakyas or basic axioms of Vedanta)
Joy is there as a glory - ananda (bliss).
The moonbeams suggest intelligence. They are hypostatic.
The Devi is referred to as the "daughter of the Himalayas" - this means She is the daughter of the Himalayas as the horizontal measuring rod of the universe.
(The Himalyas are the horizontal measuring rod of the perceptual universe on the denominator side of the structure which is the domain of the Devi. ED)
It is "intimate" because Her values are all for the Absolute; and that means for each devotee.
Some of the pearls fall, due to heat, and some stick, due to the coolness of the universal breath.
This is an exchange of hypostatic values from above and hierophantic values from below.
This respiration is a figure-8 - sometimes there are hypostatic value factors, sometimes hierophantic: thus some pearls drop to the bottom of the tube and some of them overflow at the top.
"To us, standing so near to You..." means that this is something intimate,
It is not the hypostatic banner on the positive side, but the nose, which is familiar and near the horizontal axis.
It is not the hypostatic banner on the positive side, but the nose, which is familiar and near the horizontal axis.
The Devi, as a flag, has both symbolic and actual value.
She will "immediately" bless the devotees.
Her respiration makes a figure-8, which fills the tube, uniting the positive hierophantic and negative hypostatic aspects of value.
Absolute value is an interplay within the consciousness, which completely fills the vertical axis.
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(EDITOR'S NOTE: the two structures above are present in the original manuscript, but seem unrelated to this verse, though they were maybe given by the Guru as examples of some point which is not clear to us. We include them in the interests of accuracy.)
From inside the pearls are real - shut your eyes to the rainbow appearance outside;
meditate on the reality within you.
HERE WE HAVE A HIERARCHY OF OVER-GENEROUS VALUES
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Another version:
TRANSLATION
O banner of the dynasty of the Himalayas, Your nose ridge, here as Your clan's flagstaff,
Let it ripen for us, standing so near below You, deserving fruit;
Inwardly wearing pearls as they do, and dropped by cool moonbeam respiration,
It bears, even outside, pearls due to the plenitude of the same.
O banner of the dynasty of the Himalayas, Your nose ridge, here as Your clan's flagstaff,
Let it ripen for us, standing so near below You, deserving fruit;
Inwardly wearing pearls as they do, and dropped by cool moonbeam respiration,
It bears, even outside, pearls due to the plenitude of the same.
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There is plenitude inside and outside.
(We must notice the parallel with Verse 74, which also deals with pearls, but on a more denominator level, between the Devi's breasts.
"Your mid-bust region, wearing a slender garland of pearly beads,
Derived and worked out by some elephant-demon vanquished by Shiva
The semblance bears of his reputation with added redness of lips
And an inner brightness presenting a picturesque charm."
Derived and worked out by some elephant-demon vanquished by Shiva
The semblance bears of his reputation with added redness of lips
And an inner brightness presenting a picturesque charm."
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There is a structural diagram which refers to the present verse and contrasts them.
Below is the commentary to this structure.
(The above structure is extremely interesting. The banner at the top of the vertical axis refers to Verse 61:
"O banner of the dynasty of the Himalayas, Your nose ridge, here as Your clan's flagstaff,
Let it ripen for us, standing so near below You, deserving fruit;
Inwardly wearing pearls as they do, and dropped by cool moonbeam respiration,
It bears, even outside, pearls due to the plenitude of the same".
This verse describes numerator pearls produced by the Devi's breathing descending upon the situation.
The two arrows along the horizontal axis indicate that the pearls inside the elephant's skull are a verticalisation of horizontal elements - the Guru would say that space was like sitting inside an elephant - four elephants (dik gajas) are used to indicate the four cardinal directions of space. ED)