SAUNDARYA LAHARI
VERSE 15
VEDIC WORD-VALUE IS COMPENSATED BY PERCEPTUAL VALUE
THE WORDS OF TWO DICTIONARIES ARE DISTINGUISHED AND CANCELLED OUT
THE VEDIC DEVI IS COMPENSATED BY INTENTIONALITY (HER MATTED HAIR)
शरज्ज्योत्स्ना शुद्धां शशियुत-जटाजूट-मकुटां
वर-त्रास-त्राण-स्फटिकघुटिका-पुस्तक-कराम् ।
सकृन्न त्वा नत्वा कथमिव सतां सन्निदधते
मधु-क्षीर-द्राक्षा-मधुरिम-धुरीणाः फणितयः
वर-त्रास-त्राण-स्फटिकघुटिका-पुस्तक-कराम् ।
सकृन्न त्वा नत्वा कथमिव सतां सन्निदधते
मधु-क्षीर-द्राक्षा-मधुरिम-धुरीणाः फणितयः
saraj jyotsna subhram sasiyuta jatajuta makutam
vara trasatrana sphatika ghatika pustaka karam
sakrn natva na tva katham iva satam sannidadhate
madhuksira draksa madhuri madhurina phanitayah
vara trasatrana sphatika ghatika pustaka karam
sakrn natva na tva katham iva satam sannidadhate
madhuksira draksa madhuri madhurina phanitayah
Clear as autumnal moonbeams, with matted hair-made diadem
Attached with crescent and with hands bearing refuge or boon-giving gesture,
Rosary made of crystal-clear beads and book: how could any one worshiping you but once
Not gain in flow of words, somehow, the pleasing sweetness of honey, milk and grapes?
Attached with crescent and with hands bearing refuge or boon-giving gesture,
Rosary made of crystal-clear beads and book: how could any one worshiping you but once
Not gain in flow of words, somehow, the pleasing sweetness of honey, milk and grapes?
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In this verse we are no longer concerned with the phenomenal aspects of beauty, as we ascend one step higher in a vertical direction. The value here is the gift of poetic expression, which is not to be understood in a religious sense, but in a wholly aesthetic context. One aspires to be a great poet so that one can hold up a mirror to life or truth. Poetry has sometimes been defined as a critique of life. Social novels reflect the state of contemporary society and all that belongs to it, in the form of crisscross or rival interests, with heroes and heroines of greater or lesser nobility, all tending to reflect the actual problems of life. Romantic plays, however, like Victor Hugo's "Hernani", rise higher in the scale where romance and tragedy blend their value-systems.
In the plays of Sophocles and Euripides tragedy attains to further heights of the fearful and pitiable. There is thus a difference of levels represented by the literary works of different great poets. The expert manipulation of phrases is the main task of the author. When word-value substitutes other values, such as the joy implied in the successive seasons, as in the previous verse, we naturally come to the Goddess of Word Wisdom, like the Santa Sophia of Constantinople, to whom a great domed church was once dedicated, although the votaries inside have been indifferently Christian and Muslim at different times.
Word-wisdom has its value and its consolation to cultured people. On the Indian soil, Sarasvati represents this value. In the "Sathapatha Brahmana", she is represented as sending her arrows in two diametrically opposed directions: one upwards to nominalism through conceptualism, and the other downwards through very earthy expressions to the very source of the Word.
The third line describes such a Sarasvati with her familiar crystal rosary beads and book. When we look at the first line though, where Sankara applies a dialectical touch to her representation, we find a slight departure from the conventional Sarasvati. The brightness of moonbeams still suggests a hypostatic region of highly intelligible values, but the reference to the "matted hair-made diadem" serves as an anti-climax. The word-goddess is here deprived of her jeweled headdress; instead of which her glory is expressed through the same matted hair of which her husband is so proud. This anticlimax introduced into the upper limit of the situation is intentionally meant to cancel out against the actual sweetness of "honey, milk and grapes", referred to in the last line. The matted hair represents renunciation and indifference to sense values, but at the opposite limit the tastes of honey, milk and grapes are represented as containing within their existential enjoyability an essence which is meant to participate with the value represented by the same matted hair.
The third line also states that austerity cannot go with the love of grapes, except in people who can put them together as limiting instances of one and the same value parameter, from the highest to the most factual limit of ontologically significant values. The lahari of overwhelming beauty here resides within the mind of a poet who is able to see how the taste of grapes and the matted hair could belong together, when compressed within the one absolute notion of Beauty. If anyone could understand how such a cancellation of two aspects is possible in the name of Advaita Vedanta, all could be accomplished for them in terms of spiritual progress, forever. The result might be that they decide to be a poet rather than a religious magnate. This does not make any fundamental difference, because both a kavi (poet) and a manisin (spiritually perfected person) are treated as equal partners in terms of their understanding of absolute values.
In the second line, the crescent of Shiva is also duplicated as the natural heritage of Parvati, though her glory has a negative reference only. The ambivalence is transcended when existence and subsistence, or fact truths and logic truths, meet and cancel out into the significant value of beauty, although expressed through words here.
The "hands bearing refuge or boon-giving gesture" have been described previously by the author in Verse 4. He justifies bringing them into the picture again here, as we pointed out before, through methodological necessity which should not be mixed up with doctrinal conclusions. By the same token, we could now understand this compromise between the conventional Vedic Sarasvati and a fully ontologically-based Parvati, on the grounds that her downright existential aspects, like the taste of honey, milk and grapes, are intended to be cancelled out against higher essential values at the higher level. That Parvati consents to remove her crown and be satisfied with matted hair, like her husband, Shiva, is already a gesture that heightens her status in a fully revised context of Vedantic absolutism. In order to have a one-to-one correspondence with this heightened status implied at the higher limit, the poet takes care to balance it by such factual factors such as the joy one gets from tasting honey, milk or grapes. Cancellation thus becomes mathematically adequate and justified. The resultant vision is meant for very highly evolved poets. Others may not obtain this vision so easily. Moreover, it should be noticed that the sweetness of honey, milk and grapes is to be enjoyed here through literature and not merely as a preference of the palate. This puts the whole meaning into the core of word-wisdom, which has nothing to do with sense-indulgence at all.
It is suggested here that poetry excels when realistic aspects are correctly blended with word-aspects, which are nominalistic only. A perfect sentence or paragraph must contain as many references to fact truths as to truths that are only imaginary. It is the one-to-one correspondence between these two bipolar aspects that makes literature pleasing in an absolute sense. This truth has been recognized by Shakespeare when he makes the acts and scenes of a play alternatively touch lighter and more serious chords in the human heart. Indian jewelers know how to set rubies and diamonds side by side, pearls with coral, or amber and crystal beads together so that the different qualities of jewels cancel out into a beautiful garland. A book is a natural ornament for Sarasvati, the Word-Goddess; while the thin crescent of Shiva represents a pure mathematical function in the domain of reason. She also wishes for the same pure reasoning as her husband, as represented by the crescent moon. The bright moonbeams of clear autumn nights figure as a favourite ideogram in Sanskrit poetry.
The overwhelming Beauty in this verse is to be located in the reference to the "matted hair-made diadem" which effects a complete cancellation of any negativity she might represent otherwise. Taken as a whole, this verse might be said to cover the same value ground as the logos, the verbum or the Word, in western theology. The value-ground of the Word continues up through Verse 19, inclusive.
It might further be suggested that there is a gentle touch of sarcasm that a keenly critical eye can discern in this verse. This sarcasm is of the order of "damning with faint praise". There are numerous places in the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads where veiled sarcasm and faint praise blend into something ineffable, beautiful and harmless.
Sankara is not unaware of this subtle literary device. When viewed in such a light, the praise of Sarasvati here could still be seen to fit correctly into the sequence and context of these verses. When we read, in the third line, that it is enough to worship such a Sarasvati even once, the ironical implications present here in a veiled manner would become recognizable and even appreciated.
ADDITIONAL COMMENTS WITH STRUCTURAL DIAGRAMS RELATED TO THIS VERSE FROM SAUNDARYA LAHARI/NOTES
Hedonistic beauty without renunciation.
WORD FOR WORD
saraj jyotsna subhram - clear as autumnal moonbeams
sasi yuta jata juta makutam - with matted hair-made-diadem attached with crescent
vara trasat trana sphatika ghatika pustaka karam - with hands bearing refuge or boon-giving gesture, rosary of crystal beads and book
sakrt - once
natva na tva - worshipping you but once
katham eva satam - how long could a good man
sannidadhate - not attain the presence of
madhu - honey
kshira - milk
draksa - grapes
madhuri madhurina phanitayah - (blank in the original manuscript).
saraj jyotsna subhram - clear as autumnal moonbeams
sasi yuta jata juta makutam - with matted hair-made-diadem attached with crescent
vara trasat trana sphatika ghatika pustaka karam - with hands bearing refuge or boon-giving gesture, rosary of crystal beads and book
sakrt - once
natva na tva - worshipping you but once
katham eva satam - how long could a good man
sannidadhate - not attain the presence of
madhu - honey
kshira - milk
draksa - grapes
madhuri madhurina phanitayah - (blank in the original manuscript).
The tongue is the locus here, the transition point from perception to words. .
On the Numerator side read good poetry,
On the Denominator drink a glass of wine.
On the Numerator side read good poetry,
On the Denominator drink a glass of wine.
Before, in Verse 14, the Devi's feet were above the mind at the positive limit of the vertical axis.
Here he descends to the level of the goddess Saraswati, the consort of Shiva, slightly lower than in Verse 14, but still at the top of the vertical axis.
The Devi is here seen as hypostatic, with four hands, holding a rosary and a book. (traditional attributes of the goddess Saraswati, symbolizing meditation and learning).
Sankara is descending through the Chakras, from the top of the vertical axis in Verse 14.
"Having at least worshipped this Goddess once, how could his words not have the sweetness of honey, milk and grape juice?" (These are on the denominator, perceptual side. ED)
The numerator Goddess, when understood, will give this denominator benefit.
Saraswati must have the corrective principle, which is the absolute status given by Shiva's crescent moon, worn in her crown.
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Here, Sankara is equating experience with knowledge.
That is, he is equating the Experimental Denominator and Axiomatic Numerator.
That is, he is equating the Experimental Denominator and Axiomatic Numerator.
(The experimental method involves the use of controlled observations and measurements to test and prove hypotheses.
An axiom is a proposition that does not require proof. ED)
Put the experimental and the axiomatic in two compartments and equate them.
Conceptual and perceptual entities are here brought together: perceptual factors - honey, milk, etc., are canceled by the numerator aspect of Shiva; this cancellation is represented by the fact that the Devi wears Shiva's ornaments.
The existential satisfactions coming from the three foods are on the denominator side.
The crescent is above the Himalayas on the numerator side.
Ganesha is to the left - the actual side, and Subrahmanya to the right - on the virtual side.
The crescent moon is above; there is a dangerous middle ground of forest; then the Devi at the Alpha Point at the bottom of the vertical axis.
Numerator and Denominator cancel.
How could anyone who has seen this vision at least once ever miss tasting the absolute value of these words which describe the Absolute?
(The question is: "Why should the words of a man who has seen this vision not have the sweetness and pleasure of honey, milk and grape-juice?")
(The above illustration is from a popular print and does not conform exactly to the correct traditional model ED)
The book is Numerator, the rosary is Denominator; if you think something right, She will pull you towards Her.
The rosary beads she holds in Her hands are for Herself, for Her introverted meditation, and are thus on the negative side.
The book is positive, like the Vedas, which are public rather than private.
The book is positive, like the Vedas, which are public rather than private.
The space between the beads and the book; between ontology (atman - the individual soul, roughly translated) and the teleological concept (Mimamsa) must be filled (eliminated) by the disciple in his meditation.
Reference by commentator. (? ED)
In the ocean of beauty, there is the Devi, with three eyes and eight arms - four above and four below as a reflection of the upper four.
Monomarks are marks which give you the function of certain elements in a mathematical function (equation).
The eight arms that appear in an example verse from the Malayalam edition have the function of monomarks.
(Maha Saraswati, a variant of the Goddess, appearing in certain legends (puranas) is depicted as eight-armed and is often portrayed holding a Veena whilst sitting on a white lotus flower. ED.)
A blueprint is a conceptual entity, the house built from it is real, but depends on the blueprint and its inclusive data.
Exponential mathematics gives you Pythagorean distances: > trigonometry >logarithms > differential calculus.
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(In mathematics, the exponential function is the function "ex", where e is the number (approximately 2.718281828) such that the function "ex" is its own derivative. The exponential function is used to model a relationship in which a constant change in the independent variable gives the same proportional change (i.e. percentage increase or decrease) in the dependent variable.. ED)
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Eddington first created "e numbers". By them fact can verify calculation.
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(There is also an "e" number which is a famous irrational number, and is one of the most important numbers in mathematics. The first few digits are: 2.7182818284590452353602874713527 (and more ....) It is often called Euler's number after Leonhard Euler. ED)
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Calculate first, verify later.
Why are there eight arms, representing monomarks? Because there are eight functions of life.
Why are there eight arms, representing monomarks? Because there are eight functions of life.
(Reproduction, excretion, growth, transport, absorption, circulation, synthesis etc. ED)
Concepts and percepts participate or cancel out, as do future and past.
Matter participates in mind, mind in matter.
Matter participates in mind, mind in matter.
They participate at the interstices, at the the hub.
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Subsistential and existential values have to belong together in the same Absolute.
This verse clearly indicates a numerator Saraswati, with crystal-clear (colourless) beads or rosary.
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But to this, Sankara wants to add something ontologically real - a denominator factor - milk, honey and the essence of grapes: this is the Dravidian touch.
But to this, Sankara wants to add something ontologically real - a denominator factor - milk, honey and the essence of grapes: this is the Dravidian touch.
("Dravidian" was often used by the Guru to signify negative, down-to-earth ontological factors. ED)
The point here is that the numerator is valueless without the introduction of the denominator factor.
(Hylozoism is the philosophical point of view that all matter (including the universe as a whole) is in some sense alive. ED.)
Another version:
TRANSLATION
- Brilliantly clear as the rays of the autumnal moon
- Wearing crown of matted hair, having crescent
- Having hands bearing the boon-bestowing or refuge-giving gestures, rosary of crystal-clear gems and book
- Once
- Having adored that
- You should not be
- In whatsoever manner might be that good men
- Should come to have the pleasing sweetness
- Of honey, milk and grapes
- The array of words
- Brilliantly clear as the rays of the autumnal moon
- Wearing crown of matted hair, having crescent
- Having hands bearing the boon-bestowing or refuge-giving gestures, rosary of crystal-clear gems and book
- Once
- Having adored that
- You should not be
- In whatsoever manner might be that good men
- Should come to have the pleasing sweetness
- Of honey, milk and grapes
- The array of words
If one knows the Numerator value, here represented by the Devi - to that extent, somehow or other - one will have the eloquence of flow of words of the sweetness of honey, milk and grapes.
One is the corollary of the other. One implies the other.
One side is the numerator Vedas; one side is denominator experience.
One side is the numerator Vedas; one side is denominator experience.
The crescent moon that Saraswati wears refers to lordship or kingship of the Himalayas, and of Shiva (which is a numerator factor. ED.).
This is the "idea of the holy" - the mysterious.
The Himalayas are like crowns and the crescent moon is particularly beautiful there.
Saraswati is described here with some of the attributes of Shiva.
(The crescent moon, matted hair etc. ED)
What is the value of numerator music to a man who is starving?
(He needs denominator food - like honey, milk and grapes. ED)
She holds a book and rosary, for she is alternately reading and meditating.
The other two hands are in the gestures of protection or boon-bestowal.
(An illustration of this is not available for the moment, so we shall have to be content with images where the two other hands play the vina. ED)
Any man who adores a two-sided goddess of this type, will somehow or other succeed in having within his reach those words which are like honey, milk or grapes.
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If you know the Numerator side of Absolute Beauty, the Denominator comes by itself.
If you know the Numerator side of Absolute Beauty, the Denominator comes by itself.
In the domain of the Word there are the conceptual and the experiential sides. Why should he who knows the numerator value also have the denominator value?
The array of words would have the pleasing sweetness of honey, milk and grapes.
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There are two sides which meet in any certitude. (Certitude comes from cancellation of the two sides - Numerator and Denominator. ED)
The value in this verse is the gift of sweetness which is as good as successful poetry.
Poetry is the art of arranging phraseology.
Poetry is the art of arranging phraseology.
The presiding deity of the Word (who grants word-power to great poets) is the numerator goddess Saraswati - who is the same as Kali, as understood in the more natural proto-Aryan setting.
Saraswati.
Kali.
Kali is the negative or mute aspect of the Absolute Feminine Principle, and the mute denominator Bhadra Kali belongs to the negative aspect of the Word.
In the Vedic context, she transcends the horizontal axis and emerges on the numerator side as Saraswati, the benediction and the source of the four Vedas.
Kali, thus upgraded, carries a book, representing the Vedic world.
The first half of this verse refers to the presiding deity of the Word.
Even the beads of the rosary are represented as of a crystalline, colourless quality.
She is often seen in white, seated on a white lotus, with a vina (stringed instrument).
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The two remaining hands are represented as showing gestures of protection and boon-bestowing, with a reciprocity of attraction and repulsion implied. This gesture is called abhaya, protection; it indicates no alternative but surrender for the devotee.
Abhaya Mudra - "Do not fear!"
The image of the Goddess occupies only the numerator aspect here, per Sankara.
The poets should have not only the concepts, but also their perceptual counterparts, in the form of enjoyable inner experiences.
The creative urge is to be presupposed as a counterpart to the facility with words: thus an alternation between the two cancel out, yielding the overwhelming beauty of the Absolute.
He who sees this principle at once gets the right to be an absolutely gifted poet: whatever he writes will hit the target in the centre.
There is only good and bad poetry.
The poet who has once had this experience - tantamount to prostrating to the Goddess - can make great poetry.
The array of words would be awaiting the poet's command to fall into order.
But not every Goddess can grant this gift - there are secret indications here - the crescent moon and the crown of matted hair. (Which represent the asceticism she shares with Shiva. ED.)
But not every Goddess can grant this gift - there are secret indications here - the crescent moon and the crown of matted hair. (Which represent the asceticism she shares with Shiva. ED.)
This is the secret: the drop-out touch, the absolutist, Vedantic revaluation; the austerity and renunciation of Shiva, rising above all conventional life.
The crescent moon has a thin, logical status, this is to signify that She is as generalized and abstract as Shiva himself, representing his own value at the Omega Point.
There is no actual Saraswati to worship: she is an abstracted and generalized principle of the Omega Point.
As against this numerator aspect, above the line, think of examples of ontological experiences: like Krishna saying "I am the sapidity of water" in the Gita - it is a perceptual image raised to the status of the Absolute, representing all other perceptual factors.
Similarly, Sankara here uses honey, milk and grapes to represent all other perceptual enjoyments: touch, etc.
The teaching is that numerator and denominator factors must cancel out.
They represent two great ensembles: name, which is conceptual, and form, which is perceptual.
They are of equal epistemological status, so as to be cancelled out mutually into the resultant Absolute Beauty in poetry.
The book held by Saraswati means that the world of poetry is intended here.
Also there is a legend that Kali wrote a secret syllable on the tongue of Kalidasa, giving him the gift of "vidyabuddhi" - knowledge and wisdom. Sankara's treatment in this verse is reminiscent of this.
Honey, milk and grapes - this is still a sensuous paradise.
"Worship even once" - perhaps there is a very slight satirical touch here.
The matted hair, traditionally worn by ascetics, is negative, signifying renunciation.
"Worship even once" - perhaps there is a very slight satirical touch here.
The matted hair, traditionally worn by ascetics, is negative, signifying renunciation.
(See John Stuart Mill - the principle of agreement and difference, uha-apoha in Sanskrit - see Jnana Darsanam in the Darsana Mala and the Science of the Absolute.)
(Mill's method of induction - that is, the process of deriving general principles from particular facts or instances - consisted of Agreement, Difference, Agreement and Difference, Residue and Concomitant Variations. ED)
In this verse we have cancellation of the medium and the message to make poetry.
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One who can think of Saraswati in a very real sense, with matted hair, can produce poetry with the Numerator equivalent of honey, milk and grapes.
Hedonistic beauty is without renunciation.
(Here, Saraswati's beauty is not hedonistic and sensual, but austere. ED)
Here there is no colour and She has matted hair, these are signs of renunciation.
She is Gauri, the wife of Shiva.
She is Saraswati modified by the matted hair.
This shows the sympathy of a wife for Her husband, the austere Shiva with his matted hair, but She is still on the Numerator side.
The previous verse traveled upward to the feet.
Now we have a descending movement.
Now we have a descending movement.
Here there is a thin, mathematical Vedic Devi, as though seen in moonlight.
This is a theoretical picture, but there is also a very thin perceptual experience of moonlight.
She wears Shiva's moon in order to identify with him inside, although She is not on the positive level of Shiva.
In the Mahabharata, Kunti Devi is blindfolded in sympathy with her blind husband. (The Devi here has a similar sympathy with Shiva's renunciation. ED.)
In Verse 4, Sankara rejects hand gestures or Mudras of the Devi, in favour of her feet as a source of blessing - here he accepts them, but at a very high level.
The reward is the poetic gift - as desired by Brahmins.
The crystal beads have no colour: pure intelligence is white.
Worshipping "but once" gives the power of words - not morality etc..
Honey, milk and grapes - this is not a theoretical value
- it descends to the ontological level of enjoyment and cancels the conceptual side of the rosary and book.
Even a Vedic goddess can give actual results.
Beauty arises from the cancellation of the actual and the conceptual.