SAUNDARYA LAHARI
VERSE 59
A MORE DIRECT VERTICO-HORIZONTAL INTERACTION
A VERTICALIZED VERSION OF PARTICIPATION BETWEEN SARASWATI AND PARVATI
स्फुरद्गण्डाभोग-प्रतिफलित ताट्ङ्क युगलं
चतुश्चक्रं मन्ये तव मुखमिदं मन्मथरथम् ।
यमारुह्य द्रुह्य त्यवनिरथ मर्केन्दुचरणं
महावीरो मारः प्रमथपतये सज्जितवते
spurad gandhabhoga pratiphalita tatanga yugalam
catus cakram manye tava mukham idam manmatha ratham
yam aruhya druhyaty avani ratham arkendu caranam
mahaviro marah pramatha pataye sajjitavate
catus cakram manye tava mukham idam manmatha ratham
yam aruhya druhyaty avani ratham arkendu caranam
mahaviro marah pramatha pataye sajjitavate
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.
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.
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In this verse we have to distinguish a situation in which the battle is about to start between Kama and Shiva, who is here named the Lord of Hosts. It is the beautiful face of the Goddess which is the psycho-physical basis for the chariot of Kama, who was fixing his arrows in the previous verse. Now, on closer scrutiny, the chariot, which is more ontological in status, comes into view. Two of the wheels of the chariot are the large wheel-like ear ornaments worn by the women of ancient India, which were common even thirty years ago. These supply the physical basis for the illusion of the chariot, while the two other wheels are created by their reflections, one degree removed from the physical reality and therefore nearer to the metaphysical. The beauty of the Goddess is neither physical nor metaphysical, but both. In the same way that an actual chair and a conceptual chair could belong together in consciousness to an integrated view of reality, so these two pairs of wheels complement each other and do not enter into conflict with each other. The reflected wheels, however, have only a horizontal status of parity with the two original ones. They are like mirror reflections and therefore virtual The reflecting surface is the glossiness of the cheeks of the Goddess. A thin line has to separate the two sets of wheels because the transition from perceptual to conceptual requires a limiting parameter, as in a mirage which reflects sunlight. A layer of hot air can cause a mirage effect when viewed at a certain angle. The glossy cheeks of the Goddess are therefore aptly referred to as producing this illusion of a chariot with four wheels. Such a chariot has already been introduced into the picture more than once. In Verse 6 it was said to consist of the monsoon breeze favourable to the flowery season. Now Kama takes his position on the completed chariot to let his arrows fly, not only horizontally. The chance of hitting Shiva himself and making him fall in love with the beauty of the face of Parvati is a possibility not to be ruled out in this subtle picture of occasionalism.
Having completed the picture of the chariot of Kama, the poet passes on to the chariot proper to Shiva. Shiva does not require four wheels, because the two celestial orbs, the sun and the moon, could be so manipulated by him that they would, perhaps alternately, take over the function of the two back wheels. The front wheel, with the help of which he is supposed to descend along the vertical line, has to be of an order less hypostatic than the former two. Thus, the chariot could be thought of as functioning with a spherical wheel, which could be none other than the globe of the earth itself. The wheels are in any case imaginary and have a highly hypostatic status; so one should not ask why the analogy does not square with cosmological facts. Cosmology and cosmogony have to differ, and contemplative cosmogony must differ still further. When we make these concessions, we can see that Shiva himself is preparing to fight against Kama. That Kama is a sufficiently dignified rival for Shiva has already been established in Verse 6. He cannot always be victorious, but he has to bide his time as occasionalism dictates. Beauty being an absolutist value, the side-glances of the Goddess can make the arrow of Kama fly more effectively, even in the vertical direction, where Shiva could successfully be hit. That is why Shiva is getting ready to meet the threat. A cancellation will take place in which the Beauty of the Goddess will triumph. The spiritual progress of' the votary of the Goddess thus becomes assured. We have to note that it is readiness for battle, and not actual battle that is to be imagined here. This moment is in the eternal present, in which the paradox of the Absolute is cancelling itself out.
We have referred to the glossy skin of the cheeks of the Goddess as reflecting the light of the ear ornaments. The twilights of many moonsets and moonrises or sunsets and sunrises could be fused together to influence the outer skin, even of fruits such as mangoes or peaches. Oranges are said to be “sun-kissed”. The glossy surface of fruits implies a thin film which separates the beauty that is inside from the beauty that is outside, as between the taste of the orange and the sheen of its skin. Many twilight dreams of innumerable sunset and sunrise hours must have produced the dappled coloration seen on certain fruits, and even perhaps the brindled patches on certain cows. The varieties of coloured light can produce all kinds of patterns of beauty in nature, and the beauty of the Goddess here is not outside the scope of such an explanation.
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ADDITIONAL COMMENTS WITH STRUCTURAL DIAGRAMS RELATED TO THIS VERSE FROM SAUNDARYA LAHARI/NOTES.
In this verse, we have horizontal chariots versus vertical chariots.
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The gold ear ornaments of the Devi are described here as reflected in her face, thus yielding four wheels.
These are the 4 wheels of the chariot, with two actual and two virtual wheels.
(See at the bottom of the page for clarification of the difference between actuality and virtuality. ED)
This is the chariot for Eros to ride in when he fights Shiva.
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In the previous Verse 58, Eros fires his arrows horizontally.
Shiva will descend in a two-wheeled chariot, with the sun and moon as wheels.
He will descend in a logarithmic spiral, like a helicopter, to fight Eros.
Shiva descends in a logarithmic spiral.
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They will fight on the horizontal axis and Shiva will win, because time must absorb space and verticality must prevail.
Virtuality and Actuality have met on the horizontal axis (the four wheels, two vertical and two horizontal).
The Devi is about to break down in emotional crisis, her eyebrows bending, smitten by love.
The two-wheeled chariot is a verticalized version of the four- wheeled one.
Of the four wheels, the virtual ones are the gold ear-ornaments, since they are ornamental; they are near the ears and thus conceptual, and not an actual part of the Devi.
The reflected rings on her temples or cheeks are sure to be the actual, real ones as they are a part of the Devi herself.
Kama Deva (Eros), in the past verses has been gradually overcoming the face of the Devi.
Now he has succeeded and thinks he is powerful enough to fight Shiva, by virtue of his affiliation with the face of the Devi.
Shiva's face is the whole globe - with his feet firmly planted on the sun and moon.
There are two equations:
- a denominator one - Eros and the face of the Devi,
- a numerator one - Shiva and the conceptualized globe.
- a denominator one - Eros and the face of the Devi,
- a numerator one - Shiva and the conceptualized globe.
(BELOW IS A TENTATIVE STRUCTURE WHICH MAY NEED REVISION. ED)
This ("fighting", presumably. ED) can only be a vague way of meaning "opposing, hitting or shaking up".
Everything has to be shining and reflecting for purposes of schematics.
Thus, Eros mounts the chariot of the face - the wheels are the ear-ornaments and the reflections in the cheeks are horizontalized.
Shiva is the counterpart - his circle is the globe - he is standing on the sun and moon.
(A hypostatic entity has a conceptualized basis.)
(A hypostatic entity has a conceptualized basis.)
Then the face of Shiva has to come to the face of the Devi: Eros is the hero, while Shiva is merely prepared to meet the attack - although the attack may only be for one moment when Eros and the face come into the vertical axis.
The Numerator and Denominator are absolute and when they confront each other, there is a participation and a cancellation.
Because of this verticalized status of Eros, Shiva can look at the face of his wife without duality.
How do you justify this business of fighting between husband and wife?
There are two vehicles - enemies - confronting one another: what is the word in the text that justifies this fight?
It is the face Sankara is talking about: there are no chariots, but only the face of the Devi and the face of Shiva.
It is the concept of the earth here - with sun and moon behind - it is hypostatic - a heavenly orb descending to meet the face of the Devi.
There is no opposition, but only participation: there is only a difference of two faces placed near to one another.
No man but Narayana Guru can find the meaning of this verse, except perhaps Chettampi Swami (his guru), by becoming an absolutist due to the circumstance of being illegitimate.
The meaning of this verse consists in bringing the globe down to meet the face.
"It is true because it cannot be otherwise" - this is is rtham - the name of the truth, not the argument.
As opposed to satyam, existent truth, which is true because you can touch it.
How do you know the child loves the mother? It is mathematical.
Reductio ad absurdum.
Reductio ad absurdum.
(Anupalabdhi pramana - the "impossibility of being otherwise". ED)
Two opposing things neutralize each other: 4/4 =1
If they were really fighting, the result would be O, but it is not O, but 1.
If they were really fighting, the result would be O, but it is not O, but 1.
Here there are two war-chariots: show Eros' one coming out of the Devi's face and going back again; another chariot, Shiva's, descending from above.
The shine on the Devi's cheek comes from the sun kissing her:
It has the pearly lustre of a 1000 suns .
THE FOUR LIMBS OF THE QUATERNION.
1. THE ACTUAL CHAIR in which the actual man can sit; this chair will exclude another chair, and occupies a particular space.
2. THE VIRTUAL CHAIR, in which a virtual man can sit; much like a mirror reflection.
3. THE ALPHA-POINT CHAIR, the form of the chair generalized,
It excludes all other chairs.
This is the universal concrete version, it excludes horizontally but not vertically.
4. THE OMEGA POINT CHAIR: the word "chair" in the dictionary, purely conceptual.