SAUNDARYA LAHARI
VERSE 18
A KEY VERSE
A COMPLETE AURORA
VITALITY CONTRASTED WITH DELICACY
KIMPURUSHAS AND CELESTIAL MAIDS ARE CANCELLED
CANCELLABLE COUNTERPARTS
तनुच्छायाभिस्ते तरुण-तरणि-श्रीसरणिभि-
र्दिवं सर्वा-मुर्वी-मरुणिमनि मग्नां स्मरति यः ।
भवन्त्यस्य त्रस्य-द्वनहरिण-शालीन-नयनाः
सहोर्वश्या वश्याः कति कति न गीर्वाण-गणिकाः
tannucchayabhis taruna tarani srisaranibhir
divam sarvam urvim arunima nimagnam smarati yah
bhavantyasya trasyad vanaharina salina nayanah
sahorvasya vasya kati kati na girvana ganikah
With shades of your bodily form enriched by the tenderly sunlit sky of a dappled dawn
Submerging the whole earth within its sheer magenta glory able to contemplate thus,
He wins over maids with startled, gentle, wild-deer eyes
Together with Urvasi and how many, how many other such celestial damsels.
Mutual attraction between the sexes is a normal aspiration in the world of erotic life not only of adolescents of no distinction, but also of superior men or women, whether earthly or celestial in their value as beautiful persons, viewed from a neutral point between them, where the prototype of Absolute Beauty is to be attributed to the central Goddess of these verses. All manifestations of bodily beauty have to be derived from this central normative model. If we consider this model as real, all other manifestations of bodily beauty are only shadows or reflected images of the same. When we concede these facts in respect of beauty, and try to fill the total ground or field with this content of beauty, we get roughly the picture presented here by Sankara.
In Verse 13 the same heavenly damsels of this verse were referred to respecting their state of infatuation for an over-aged, ugly man, who had but the side-glance of the Goddess embellishing his attractiveness. There, the attractiveness was a kind of reflected glory, even a little of which was enough to give him heightened personal value. This same idea of the mutual heightening of values between men and women of superior or ordinary levels, though in a more wholesale context of overwhelming beauty, is what is again pictured here in order to view the same subject from a more homogeneously unified viewpoint.
Here it is a devotee within whose consciousness, as he meditates on Absolute Beauty, rich patches of shaded magenta are seen. The shade is derived from the earthy side, but the tender dawn contributes its light pink brilliance. Colours become beautiful by saturation, tint or brilliance. Brilliance is hypostatic in origin; tint or shade must have a reference at the lower, horizontal limit of origin. Saturation is a quality which depends upon the distance of the colour: it decreases inversely when the patch of colour increases its distance from the centre of the structure. These patches are not essentially different from the forest of lotuses described in Verse 16. Here the flower form is made to fade impressionisticaly into the background and the patches take their place with the same overpowering appeal. This is because the contemplation here is evidently that of a yogi, also neutrally placed vis-à-vis the model of beauty at the core of his own field of consciousness.
Yoga could be conceived of as a type of union between values; and when this union takes place, the yogi is supposed to see a vision in his inner space, of which this verse is a description. If we suppose, for convenience, that the yogi is a man, each patch of shaded magenta would represent a beautiful young damsel who is the prototype of the Goddess of Beauty.
The appeal of beautiful young women to men is to be taken for granted. Into the picture here are brought two types of young women, which have to be carefully distinguished: the "maids with startled, gentle, wild-deer-eyes," as opposed to "Urvasi and how many, how many other such celestial damsels." The latter have a hypostatic origin, while the former are evidently ordinary women of tribalistic origin, called kimpurusas in Kalidasa's poetry, who inhabit the slopes of the Himalayas and live among the wild animals, especially the wild deer. The patches of magenta light which invade from the upper limit or those of magenta shade which permeate the scene from the lower limit of reference, represent damsels of one or the other of these two opposite types. The maids with the startled-deer eyes may be humbler and more earthy than the celestial beauties, but what they lose by their humble origin they make up their extraordinary vitality and alertness, as qualities of inner beauty. A cancellation of inner beauty and outer beauty is thus to be understood here, as intended by the master poet.
The yogi who, while meditating on the Goddess, is able to fill the total ground of his own consciousness with these two kinds of overwhelming magenta patches encroaching from both sides, lending light and shade from opposite poles of the situation so as to immerse the scene in a homogeneous glory of neither light nor shade, neither of heaven nor of earth - this yogi has accomplished an important stage in his spiritual progress. The value of such a vision is not to be minimized, and it is indicated here that such an experience of homogeneous and overwhelming beauty is more valuable than the legitimate ambition of all young human beings to be attractive to the other sex. The great number of damsels involved here shows that it is the earthy side that wins the game, while the others are to be counted among the numerous "runners-up".
A most important hint here is found in the second line: "submerging the whole world in its sheer magenta glory". This describes the full aurora effect that we can sometimes see in the Polar Regions. Here Beauty cancels with its own counterpart, and the resultant is the yogic experience characterized by the absolutist touch.
(The reference above to saturation, hue and brilliance or brightness can be best clarified by the colour solid shown below which plays a central part in structural methodology. ED)
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ADDITIONAL COMMENTS WITH STRUCTURAL DIAGRAMS RELATED TO THIS VERSE FROM SAUNDARYA LAHARI/NOTES.
Tannucchaya bhihi te - with shades of Your bodily form
Taruna tarani srisarani bhihi divam - the sky thus most tenderly and totally overcovered by the dappled dawn
Sarvam urvim - as also the whole earth
Arunima nimagnam - as immersed in sheer magenta glory
Smarati yah -
(WORD-FOR-WORD breaks off here)
Cancellation occurs above the O Point, the girls come running below the O Point.
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This is praise of the aruna (magenta) colour: anyone who can fill both Numerator and Denominator with this colour will fall down in mystical ecstasy.
Any man who can appreciate that can attract any woman.
(Aruna (magenta) = karuna (kindness), ED)
Urvasi is a beautiful, shy, woman of heaven. The aruna (magenta) colour is Absolute, independent of the Numerator; it is both an idea and a reality.
The heavenly maidens participate in heavenly light and thus exert an attraction.
When meditated upon by an intelligent man, the principle of Absolute Beauty cancels out as a Denominator.
A man who can think of the Devi as the magenta colour - which absorbs all of reality - is the man who loses nothing: he is interesting to the heavenly maidens, whose eyes are as beautiful as those of startled deer.
These heavenly maidens will not look at most men, but when they see the Numerator of the man who can meditate properly on the Devi, the absolute point of speculation; then the Denominator is cancelled out: he has arrived at the term of his speculative philosophy.
But it is only the vulgar who take this seriously; it should be put into a schema and then forgotten.
The Vedantin asks for heaven and earth together: they must cancel out and merge into the Absolute.
How many, how many will not fall for him who is able to view the Devi as in a shadow and of magenta colour?
On one side, within heaven, are the beautiful damsels.
The idea of beautiful girls to embrace in heaven is a sublimation of sexual desire.
A Vedantin's meditation is centred in the Bindusthana, or central locus, which is a shadow in which all is effaced by the magenta colour which he sees.
The meditation of Indra is here sublimated and far surpassed.
The Vedantic meditator is merged in the magenta colour.
You would have to put thousands of these heavenly maidens in the picture, all of them chasing after him.
The relativistic picture of heaven is superseded by this absolutist picture, where beauty comes in waves from the centre to both sides.
This is infinite Beauty, the other is relativistic.
The radical note is what gives Vedanta its flavour.
"How many, how many..." means that the relativistic worshipper can have as many maidens as he likes: it is not as good as the absolutist's meditation.
Colour is a universal concrete - both within and without you.
Magenta is the neutral colour - the blue of the sky and red of the earth.
Hills and mountains are all effaced by waves of magenta colour.
Then the meditating yogi falls down overwhelmed by Absolute Beauty - while Indra is still looking at some heavenly maidens.
There are few people in this world who realize the importance of Aruna - magenta.
Another version:
- By the dappled light of dawn belonging to Your body
- The sky enriched with the glory of tender cirrus formation of sky light
- (With) the whole earth
- Immersed in magenta colourfulness
- He who recollects
- For him it happens
- (Maidens) having beautiful wild deer startled eyes
- Inclusive of Urvasi become won-over
- How many, how many may there not be
- Heavenly damsels
On the numerator side there is a man meditating on the world as magenta.
All of these damsels become won over to the man who has this vision.
The beauty of magenta, which is non-representative, is canceled against any amount of natural beauty - like the eyes of a startled deer in the forest, the epitome of natural beauty.
Its equal in terms of relativistic values is an infinite amount of "small change".
An infinite number of relative values (quantitative) becomes an absolute value (qualitative).
"Startled deer"- there is an element of surprise in this beauty - like a streak of lightning, by its suddenness.
The actual and the ideological come together in the Absolute.
The dappled light of dawn is cancelled out against the dappled skin of a deer, producing a magenta colour.
The gold dollar is on the Numerator, the small change on the Denominator.
2) Bring in also the gold dollar, and the small change.
3) The deer is a vertical animal, its eyes are often referred to in Sanskrit poetry, e.g. in Kalidasa's "Shakuntala"
Insert Shakuntala and Dushyanta making love in an arbour; a deer comes to drink water from a lotus: the deer is frightened and runs away from the horizontality.
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Create an aurora borealis into which the deer disappear, then it covers the world.
The ideal woman is to be like the startled deer, not like an ascetic (tapasvi).
Horizontal and vertical are brought together in the purest context:
Dushyanta wants her to have a baby, not just to have deer for friends.
He says that the head of the ashram is trying to cut a diamond with a blue lotus and that she has been waiting for just such a man to come and marry her.
She does not speak throughout the play; she represents the Absolute, and all of the action takes place around her.
As for the deer, they copulate so gently; as no-one has ever seen.
Then they jump with great agility - this is the point, for the starting point of the negative side is agility, not austerity.
c.f. Verses 17 and 18 of the "Meghaduta", by Kalidasa.
Mt Amrakuta will carefully bear you upon its head, you whose showers extinguished its forest fires and who are overcome by fatigue of the road. Even a lowly being, remembering an earlier kind deed, does not turn its back on a friend who has come for refuge; how much less, then, one so lofty? (17)
When you, resembling a glossy braid of hair, have ascended its summit, the mountain whose slopes are covered with forest mangoes, glowing with ripe fruit, takes on the appearance of a breast of the earth, dark at the centre, the rest pale, worthy to be beheld by a divine couple. (18))
Some of the descriptive verses just preceding can be used - cloud, lightning, hilltop.
Cancellation is above the O Point, the girls come below the O Point.
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Two clouds, two trees with ramified branches or streaks of lightning.
Between them, the Devi appears.
Girls or substitute Devis are running in a horizontal cloud.
The celestial damsels are numerator.
The startled eyes of a tribal girl are denominator.
The Devi is magenta and vertical.
The man who is able to bring the three grades of magenta here together, (corresponding to the Brahmin girls, the Devi and the wild tribal girls) - his mind is neutralised.
A deer is neutralised eroticism, innocent and drunken.
Subrahmanya has two wives:
Valli, who is black.
"How many hundreds" of rays (girls running)
One man - the yogi
The two cancel out: the girls are horizontal and many, the yogi is vertical and one.
The girvana ganikas described here are heavenly maidens who study Sanskrit.
All that a man has to do is meditate in a certain way on Absolute Beauty - then he will attract the ganikas.
Sat, Chit, Ananda (existence, subsistence and value) - these comprise Brahman, the Absolute.
There are two moralities: that of the market place and a higher morality. Man should be lifted up out of the market place.
The first step is heavenly values, but this is still relative.
But when he meditates on the Devi - as aruna, the magenta colour - then "How many, how many girvana ganikas will not chase after him?"
Samsara (worldly) values are a relative, alternating figure-eight - action and equal and opposite reaction - while Absolute values are the cancellation of Numerator and Denominator into neutrality.
Absolute Beauty resides in the magenta colour.
If you cannot understand this, do not study Vedanta.
Light and shade merge into the magenta colour.
(In south Kerala, some families had a pundit and thus became Brahmins. The Kshatriyas were warrior classes. There was settlement in Kerala because of the fertile soil.)
Narayana Guru taught that Brahmins were the cleanest priests in the world.
They wash, then recite the Vedas for one hour for one rupee, saying wrong mantras. In spite of all these defects, they are spiritual men.
"I am a Sannyasin - I have renounced everything and within me I have the beauty of a thousand rising suns".
Sankara arrived at this light through both the Vedas (Sarasvati) and his own Vedanta (Advaita).
So there are two diagrams: Samsara and Bindusthana.
From the Bindusthana: (central locus) "Of Your body, the shadow.."
Why shadow (or shade)?
"In the shade of Your (Devi) body, You should merge."
Absolute Beauty comes like the expression of the slender, beautiful deer's eyes when startled.
This is the embodiment of purity, as is the tiger.
The beauty of the deer is often sung by Sanskrit poets.
This beauty has a Denominator element, which is to be equated to the meditating man, who is able to appreciate the shadow of the beauty of the Devi.
"Shadow" because without shadow there is no light.
"Shade" means the slightly negative version of the Absolute.
"You are already in heaven, how can You talk about shadow or shade?"
If a man is able to submerge the whole world into one magenta colour, then all the beautiful maidens of heaven are startled like deer in the forest and are agile and quickly run away.
This is an element like lightning - a wonder.
The Absolute induces wonder. It startles.
The sheer beauty in nature is the Denominator of the beauty which a man feels when he sees the Absolute as magenta colour.
(URVASI AND THE APSARAS
Apsaras are beautiful, supernatural female beings. They are youthful and elegant, and superb in the art of dancing. They are often the wives of the Gandharvas, the court musicians of Indra, King of the Gods. They dance to the music made by the Gandharvas, usually in the palaces of the gods, entertain and sometimes seduce gods and men. As caretakers of fallen heroes, they may be compared to the valkyries of Norse mythology. As ethereal beings who inhabit the skies, and are often depicted taking flight, or at service of a god, they may be compared to angels.
Apsaras are said to be able to change their shape at will, and rule over the fortunes of gaming and gambling. Urvasi, Menaka, Rambha and Tilottama are the most famous among them. Apsaras are sometimes compared to the muses of ancient Greece, with each of the 26 Apsaras at Indra's court representing a distinct aspect of the performing arts. Apsaras are associated with water; thus, they may be compared to the nymphs, dryads and naiads of ancient Greece. They are associated with fertility rites. ED)