Saundarya Lahari

Saundarya Lahari

SAUNDARYA LAHARI - VERSE 81

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SAUNDARYA LAHARI

 

 

VERSE 81

A SUMMARY OF STRUCTURAL DETAILS ON THE ONTOLOGICAL LEVEL
PRIMACY FOR THE ONTOLOGICAL ABSOLUTE
A FIGURE-8 CIRCULATION BETWEEN EXISTENCE AND SUBSISTENCE
 
गुरुत्वं विस्तारं क्षितिधरपतिः पार्वति निजात्
नितम्बा-दाच्छिद्य त्वयि हरण रूपेण निदधे ।
अतस्ते विस्तीर्णो गुरुरयमशेषां वसुमतीं
नितम्ब-प्राग्भारः स्थगयति सघुत्वं नयति च
 
gurutvam vistaram kshitidhara patih parvati nijan-
nitambad acchidya tvayi harana rupena nidadhe
ataste vistirno gurur ayam asesam vasumatim
nitamba pregbharah sthagayati laghutvam nayati ca
 
Ponderability and extensiveness Shiva once bestowed on You as dowry
Cutting them off from his own hips; thus these,
Yours here, both weighty and expansive, cancel out the whole world
And by prior substantiality confer lightness on it too.
.
 
There are many theories for slimming known to beauty specialists and physical culturists. Though they are much advertised by those who recommend the regimes or medicaments, there seems to be no agreement about why certain persons are fat and others slim. A certain kind of obesity or fatty degen­eracy might result from age. Hormones or enzymes might have their own roles. Sexual dimorphism is noticeable in certain animals. The queen bee tends to be big while the male is relati­vely small, and in certain varieties of leeches the male is so small that it can permanently find a place inside the sex organ of the female.
 
A scrutiny of the contents of this verse reveals that it could not be interpreted meaningfully in the light of any of the cont­exts suggested above. We notice here that it is the father, who is a mountain personified, who confers on his daughter, who is aptly here called Parvati (Daughter of the Mountains), his own “ponderability and extensiveness” in the form a wedding gift, so that her married life could be easier at a later date. A mountain is both massive and peaked. The peak represents the verticalized aspect, while the massiveness represents the extensive and ponderable aspects. If the former is considered, in principle, to belong to the numerator side of the situation; then the latter could belong to the same context while representing, in principle again, the deno­minator side of the same situation. It is suggested in this verse that the father cut off “ponderability and extensiveness” from himself and gave them as dowry, in the form of a value or wealth, out of concern for his daughter´s welfare later in life.
 
At the end of the verse, it is suggested that the Goddess became again light and slim by some kind of personal readjust­ment, which must have taken place after her marriage with Shiva. The high numerator value that Shiva represents must have helped to accentuate the process of verticalization of the heavy and extensive hips of the Goddess, which were so great as to equal in epistemological status the whole world, as indicated in the third line. The idea is that ponderability and extensi­veness could be viewed under two conflicting perspectives, as in the case of conjugates like time and space. Time can devour Space and Space Time, both according to Descartes as well as in the overall context of Einsteinian Space-Time relationships. Res cogitans and res extensa are treated by Descartes as corre­lates which can interact to absorb or abolish each other. Sankara's own philosophy must have had affinities, however vague, with such views which have come into acceptance in the modern world of science. When time is included in the scheme, we get the notion of a continuum in which both time and space enter as equal partners. It would not be reading too much into the meaning of these verses to suggest that all the implications of the inertial or gravitational field of the Restricted Theory of Rel­ativity of Einstein, as well as the fourth-dimensional perspective of the General Theory of Relativity, are known to Sankara and understood or roughly understood, as evidenced this present verse. We have already indicated that axiomatic and experimental disciplines can be expected one day to meet and verify each other. In the case of this particular verse, without being open to the charge of reading into it more than is there, it would still be quite safe to assert that, basically, the intuitions involved in the theories originating in the context of western science and those already present in Vedanta at least cover the same problems, each in its own particular fashion. In fact, there is a growing tendency among modern scientists to suggest a linking bridge between themselves and Vedanta, Zen Buddhism or ancient Chinese thought based on yang and yin. Oppenheimer, Schroedinger and Niels Bohr have indulged in such references from time to time in their writings. Schroedinger even quotes Sankara and suggests that a methodological and epi­stemological revision must take place if science is to answer such questions as he puts to himself as he watches the alpine glow on Mt. Blanc. He puts a pointed question about his own personal status if his mother had decided to marry another man. The whole question brings us face to face with the grand process of flux or becoming, in which a personal presence is involved. Time and space, quantity and quality, velocity and energy: all such conjugates begin to create a world of uncertainty, or Maya, as those who have correct visions of it, like Sankara, were able to visualize long ago.
 
This verse contains a challenge which refuses to be met by any point of view less wholesale than the one natural to Advaita Vedanta, which states, as does Bergson, that the whole of reality is a form of flux in terms of an élan vital (vital impetus). The definition of Sankara conforms essentially to the same eternal process of becoming, which is called anadi bhava rupa (of the form of a beginningless becoming). Heraclitus, whom even Bertrand Russell finds acceptable, also accepts such a flux as the basis of his philosophy. The last two lines of Verse 77 underlined the status of the Goddess here as finally conforming to the flux of Maya. We have been obliged to make these bold general remarks in order to give even some kind of barely consistent meaning to the content of the present verse.
 
“Ponderability” (gurutvam) must refer to the world of inertia or gravitation. “Extensiveness” (vistaram) must refer to the world of Space understood in the abstract. The words of the first line suggesting a dowry given in anticipation, and the regaining of lightness of substance suggested by the words “prior substantiality”, which is our translation of prag bharah (prag means “anterior”, bharah means “weight”), as applied to the hips of the Goddess here, contain prospective or retrospective elements in reference to the dimension called Time. Thus the verse has necessarily to presuppose, in our eyes, a kind of unified field theory, tacitly understood in broad outline at least, by the penetrating minds of philosophers like Sankara, and which perhaps anticipates some of the further developments and connections likely to take place in the formulation of a unified field theory, which it was the unrealized ambition of Einstein to offer to the scientific world before he died. The same could be said, more or less, of the fate of the great dream of Leibniz of presenting a pattern or characteristic based on a universal form or mathe­matical language. This was another dream of a great genius that was frustrated.
 
Let us try to go over the actual words of this verse in the light of these general remarks. We could paraphrase the lines as follows: “Being born of the King of Mountains, who possessed the extensiveness of a massive mountain formation, as well as its ponderability, (because all matter must have the quality of weight), you must have inherited, at the time of separation from your family to go to the family of your husband, this kind of wealth in a form which could combine both quantitative and qualitative aspects”. The peak represents kingship as a unique qualitative characte­ristic, and so the father did not have to depend on more quantitative or inertial aspects of his personality, because, when the daughter went away, he could expect to become more fully qualitative as a king. This explains the suggestion in the second line that he cut off actual “ponderability and extensiveness” from the lower levels of his own schematized personality. After marriage, in middle age, women tend to put on weight, especially in anticipation of childbirth, by virtue of which weightiness of the hips and breasts becomes accentuated. Here, in Verse 81, where we have descended far into the negative ontological side of the totality of what the Goddess represents, it is the ponder­ability of the hips with which we are more directly concerned. We must think in terms of more quantitative versions of weight, inertia and Space.
 
There could be Space-like inertia and weighty inertia. When verticalization and horizontalization are neutralized or balanced against each other, the world itself could be treated in the same way as consisting of Time-like Space or Space-like Time. This could be understood in terms of the Lorentz Trans­formation and the Fitzgerald Contraction. Thus, when such a revision is applied to the Goddess here, it is quite correct to say that the whole world could be cancelled out by its own counterpart, attributed to the person of the Goddess.
 
The last line refers to the losing of the weight of what was once heavy. This can be explained by a vertical form of cancellation which can be induced by the influence of the highly austere and pure verticalized principle that Shiva represents, influencing the total situation without being directly involved in it. Vedantic logic would permit prior and posterior substantiality to belong together, as in the context of clay being spoken of as representing the anterior non-existence of the pot.
 
There are four kinds of non-existence acceptable to the Nyaya school of Indian logic, which are:
  1. Anterior non-existence (pragabhava),
  2. Mutual non-existence (anyonyabhava)
  3. Ultimate non -existence (atyantabhava)
  4. Absolute non-existence after destruction. (pradhvamsabhava).
Non-existence is known in Tantra Sastra as a padartha (“word content” or “substance”). Abhava (non-existence) is one of the seven padarthas (significant substances) categorized by the Nyaya school; negation being considered as real as minus-one is in mathematics. It is as if one were to get ten oranges from a shop on credit, which would not mean that the debt is not real; it is real in a negative sense.
 
Such are some of the intricacies of Indian logic, tacitly accepted even by Vedanta, on the basis of which alone this verse can make any cogent meaning at all. The confirmation that we could derive from modern scientific theorization lends support to the same, as we have tried to explain above. Two children in different parts of the world could be seen playing the same game of marbles. This does not mean that one set of boys learned it from the other. We need not, therefore, vainly try to establish any extra credit for one side or the other; to do so would be childish.
 
 

(According to Descartes, the two different kinds of substance (in spite of having contradictory properties) somehow combine in a human being. A person comprises: 1. Res cogitans: thinking substance (mind or soul or consciousness) 2. Res extensa: extended substance (body). ED)

 

("Élan vital" was a term coined by French philosopher Henri Bergson in his 1907 book "Creative Evolution", in which he addresses the question of self-organisation and spontaneous morphogenesis of things in an increasingly complex manner. Elan vital was translated in the English edition as "vital impetus", but is usually translated by his detractors as "vital force". It is a hypothetical explanation for the evolution and development of organisms, which Bergson linked closely with consciousness. ED)

 

(Lorentz Transformations: the transformations describe how measurements of space and time by two observers are related. They reflect the fact that observers moving at different velocities may measure different distances, elapsed times and even different orderings of events. ED)
 

 (The Fitzgerald Contraction is the physical phenomenon of a decrease in length detected by an observer of objects that travel at any non-zero velocity relative to that observer. This contraction (more formally called Lorentz-Fitzgerald contraction) is usually only noticeable at a substantial fraction of the speed of light; the contraction is only in the direction parallel to the direction in which the observed body is traveling. ED)

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ADDITIONAL COMMENTS WITH STRUCTURAL DIAGRAMS RELATED TO THIS VERSE FROM SAUNDARYA LAHARI/NOTES.

 

WORD FOR WORD
Gurutvam vistaram - ponderability and extensiveness
Kshiti dhara patih - the earth-supporting Lord
Parvati - o Mountain Daughter
Nijat nitambat acchidya - cutting off from his own proper hips
Tvayi harana rupena - to You by way of dowry
Nidadhe - he bestows
Atah te - this it is (Your)
Vistirno gurur ayam - which is both weighty and expansive
Vishesham - vasumatih - the whole earth
Nitamba pragbarah - by prior substantiality
Sthagayati - cancels
Laghu tvam nayati cha - confers lightness on it also

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Another version:

WORD FOR WORD
Gurutvam vishtaram - heaviness and expansiveness
Kshitidhara patih - the earth-supporting lord
Parvati - O Parvati
Nijat nitambadacchidya - having taken from his own behind part
Tvayi harana rupena - to you as dowry
Nidadhe - gave
Atah te - by reason of this, your
Vistirno gurur ayam - one is expansive and heavy
(Asesam vasumatim - ? not here Nitamba Pragbharah) - the anterior weight of your hips
Sthagayati - is made to shrink
Laghutvam nayati cha - makes it have lightness also.
 

Another version:
 
TRANSLATION
1 - Heaviness and expansiveness
2 - The earth-supporting Lord, O Parvati
3 - Having taken from his own hind part
4 - To you as dowry
5 - Gave
6 - By reason of this, your
7 - One is expansive and heavy
8 - The anterior weight of your hips (before marriage it is expansive, and after it becomes thin)
9 - Is made to shrink
10 - Make it have lightness also
 
 
 
Eros is a kind of…in this verse..(illegible) the Devi as well as a result of absolute pressure.
The Devi's husband (Shiva) is high Numerator and will not descend.
Eros does the job.
These three bindings are the vertical compensation for the horizontal swelling of the breasts, and prevent the vertical axis from breaking
 
The god gives from his own behind to balance the Denominator (Devi) with the Numerator.
This is like inertia and field quality - like gravitation and the electromagnetic field.
It retains the Numerator for itself and gives also to the Denominator.
By reason of the preciousness of the Devi, Shiva gives the hierophantic, numerator, aspect of himself as dowry - e.g.: the hind part.
 
.
The horizontal piece of ground - horizontalized space - has mass and breadth.
That kind of heaviness which is presupposed (like that of a concierge) is taken away.
The Devi becomes slim - by way of the expansiveness supplied by the Numerator, and the abolished Numerator gives mass and weight to the Denominator.
 
.
The Denominator meditates on the Numerator and expansiveness is eliminated by reciprocation.
 
 
The Himalayas have horizontal expansiveness, but also a qualitative dignity, which is the height of the mountains.
 

This gives a quantitative aspect to the Devi so that She becomes slim and endowed with high value.
 

The Devi must have a Numerator factor to balance the Denominator.
This is the secret for wisdom and ultimate salvation.

Men think with their heads, women think with their behinds; the women are right.

 

The ritual of the Devi corresponds to the world of necessities, i.e. as the cook does not put silver knives into hot water so as not to spoil them.
.
See the structures dealing with necessity and contingency. (Necessity is Denominator, and Contingency is Numerator)
What can save Her is establishing bipolarity with the Numerator: consolation is a one-one correspondence.
"My husband does not pay me or sleep with me, but he is the father of my children"
You accept everything that is necessity, and cancel it with the corresponding Numerator value.

That which has absolute value falls on the vertical axis.
That which is relativistic falls to one side or the other and is confusing (It is horizontal).

Art and beauty are the consolations for the world of necessities.
There are laws laid down somewhere and they provide one-one correspondence.

The emancipated woman is a myth - unless you put Berna to the sword, like Medea in Greek Tragedy.
.
(The Guru refers here to the story of Medea and her husband, Jason. In Corinth, Jason abandoned Medea for the king's daughter, Glauce. Medea took her revenge by sending Glauce a dress and golden coronet, covered in poison. This resulted in the deaths of both the princess and the king when he went to save her.  Medea continued her revenge, murdering her two children by Jason. Afterward, she left Corinth and flew to Athens in a golden chariot driven by dragons sent by her grandfather Helios, god of the sun. ED)
 
(Berna was a female disciple of the Guru's in Belgium. ED)

Vedanta says: "Don't kill anybody - cancel the Numerator and the Denominator.
You can be like Medea, or you can follow the laws of necessity and contingency as laid down in Vedanta.
All necessities vanish when you know the Absolute - "the truth shall make you free" etc.
Proper conduct will often clear confusion.

(Similarly with Feng Shui: improper architecture at the place of business will upset the storekeeper: a Chinese sage will come to the failing business and say: "that door is in the wrong place, let me move it here" and the business succeeds from then on. Every detail must be correct).
 

All proper meditation is erotic, anyone who says that it is not so does not know what he is talking about

Parvati's hips are heavy - they are like Space or inertia.
Shiva's hips are thin and Time-like.
 
There is transformation and contraction here à la Einstein, Lorentz, Fitzgerald - see the commentary on previous verses.

A certain negativity and heaviness descends here as conferred by the Numerator.
Weight and extensiveness are three-dimensional when they come to Parvati, but they are fourth-dimensional when we are dealing with Shiva.

They are again absorbed into higher mathematics.

The Devi's hips are a greater obstruction and hide the concrete world below: then by meditating on Shiva she ascends and the heavy hips gain a lightness as far as the Devi is concerned.

 

SAUNDARYA LAHARI - VERSE 82

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SAUNDARYA LAHARI

 

 

VERSE 82

BALANCE BETWEEN NUMERATOR AND DENOMINATOR
 
करीन्द्राणां शुण्डान्-कनककदली-काण्डपटलीं
उभाभ्यामूरुभ्या-मुभयमपि निर्जित्य भवति ।
सुवृत्ताभ्यां पत्युः प्रणतिकठिनाभ्यां गिरिसुते
विधिज्ञे जानुभ्यां विबुध करिकुम्भ द्वयमसि
 
karindranam sundan kanaka kadali kanda patalim
ubhabhyam urubhyam ubhayam api nirjitya bhavati
suvrttabhyam patyuh pranati kadhinabhyam giri sute
vidhijne janubhyam vibudha kari kumbha dvayam api
 
Beating both the best of elephant trunks, and groups of golden banana stems,
By thighs and by knees having goodly callosities, due to daily devotions
To Your Lord, even the twin frontal knobs of the heavenly elephant
You outdo, o Mountain Daughter triumphant.
.
 
In Verse 82 it is the thigh and leg region which is the locus around which we have to put three circles in order to fix the correct perspective to appreciate the overwhelming beauty factor of this series of verses.
 
It is comparatively easier to describe the beauty of the face or eyes, because we naturally turn to facial features when disposed to admire women. We have now syste­matically descended from the ruby-hood of the gem-set crown of the Goddess; through the parted hair to the forehead, and further descended beyond the navel to arrive at the region below the hips, but not yet reaching down fully to the feet. Beauty is not of a conceptual order any more. Concepts, if any, have to be put into the beauty by us. Within the domain of experience we have also to find an analogy that will interpret for us the nature of the Absolute Beauty, which is always arrived at only after transcending duality or paradox. There is an ascending as well as a descending dialectical approach which, when employed together, will enable us to dissolve the paradox. Paradox, if allowed to exist, can vitiate the picture by showing the ambivalence and duality revealed, as it were, threadbare throughout the fabric which is otherwise meant to be of a uniform texture.
 
The first-dimensional context here has to present us with a sufficiently realistic picture, within the framework of which, apparent dualities are permissible for purposes of clarification, in order to bring out the underlying unity later on when deeper abstractions could be allowed in a serial succession.
 
Thus it is that we see a reference in this verse to two familiar organic growths in nature. One of them is the trunk of an elephant, and the other is banana tree with a very polished and heavy stem that tapers beautifully upward, with a glossy golden surface that is also natural to the thighs of a beautiful woman. It is better for a beautiful woman's thighs to err on the side of strength, by which her gait and stability could be made steady and firmly established. Weakness, even in such muscular qualities, cannot be considered anything other than a liability factor in the context of beauty. The suppleness of the elephant's trunk would give it a prehensile form of strength by which it could uproot strongly planted trees, such as the banana tree here. The voluntary and involuntary muscles that cooperate in the making of a firm and beautiful thigh region have thus to be thought of in an ambivalent two-sided fashion. Afferent as well as efferent nervous impulses have to work together if the Goddess is to have a dignified and decisive gait. It is not the quality of one elephant trunk or of one banana tree that we have to keep in mind here. We have to abstract the two required qualities of beauty from many trees and many elephant trunks. Thus, there will be an outer polish and an inner strength conferr­ing beauty and stability upon this region, which is more existential in its value than theoretical. The golden stem mentioned here is a colourful reference to the complexion, while deeper factors are not omitted.
 
The second half of the verse adds another and deeper signi­ficance to the legs, whose two parts meet at the kneecap. Beauty in a Goddess comes to her not just because she is beautiful physically; her mental disposition must also contain the same beauty in a sufficiently dignified form. What is such a beauty that could apply to the physical limbs, standing, as it were, on the existential side? The body as a mortal coil is not dignified enough for high philosophical contemplation. What is it good for, then, in the context of absolute Beauty, except to somehow contribute to the glorification of a high numerator factor implied in the total value of the Absolute? The Bhagavad Gita mentions that we could practice contemplation even by means of the body. In other words, we can press into service an inert lump of flesh called the body, however low it might be in a scale of spirituality, in order to somehow glorify the Absolute. According to the Bhagavad Gita, one could make one´s body serve spiritual purposes, as best it can, by cultivating straightforwardness or calmness, failing which, it could be made to worship wise men or spiritual teachers, including whatever divinities one is capable of revering, by prostrations, etc. Otherwise, the body would prove itself a hindrance to contemplation. The Goddess here, in the last line, is referred to as being one who is fully aware of inevitable obligations.
 
A sannyasi might protest against all obligations and say to himself, “I am a wise man, and I am above all obligatory duties, which are only meant for less evolved souls than myself”. There is a subtle lacuna or hiatus in this kind of attitude by which the necessary forms of action in which human life is caught, whether one likes it or not, are not given normal importance. Breathing is a necessary function, and even if one has become very wise it would be wrong to forget to breathe. What is necessary cannot be bypassed by mere omission. One has to sublimate one´s instinctive dispositions by gradations of normal activities and not by refusing to recognize their presence in one´s system. Yoga is a process by which obligations are first recognized as necessary and then transcended by a form of sublimating practice. One cannot live in a vacuum, and the Goddess here is fully aware of this verity, which the Bhagavad Gita makes unequivocally clear throughout its various chapters referring to action and inaction. The last chapter refers to the difference between a tyagi (a renouncer) and a sannyasi (a man who claims to do without the obligatory ritualism of the Vedas).
 
The Devi here puts her legs to proper use, according to her­self, and is represented as having developed beautiful circular callosities on her knees, which indicates that she must have been kneeling and praying to her Lord, Shiva, secretly every day for long periods. The callosities here are supposed to be beauty spots, as are the golden pot-like rounded breasts which were referred to earlier. The knees are beautiful in their own way, at a lower level of human existence which is steeped in necessities. Between a contingent form of the practice of devotion, such as muttering charms, and the necessary form of the same practice of devotion, there is a subtle form of qualitative difference. A large quantity of small change is required to equal a gold coin. If the post office does not sell a one-dollar stamp, one will be obliged to buy many stamps of lesser value.
 
The thighs of the Goddess would not be performing any contem­plative function at all if they were not given some proper work to do. If words have a rich spiritual value, actions also have a value, but with the difference that, while understanding is like gold, physical actions are of an inferior grade compared to the gold. They could be said to be like an iron city rather than a golden or silver city, in terms of the three cities of values destroyed by Shiva when he descended from Chidambaram. When the callosities gain, from the number of times Parvati kneels in praise of Shiva as a concept, they can add up to infinity. Then the numerator Shiva-value and the value represented by the beauty of the callosities would cancel each other out, revealing the non-dual value of the Absolute. It is in this sense that the frontal knobs of the elephant are outdone by the callosities on the legs of the Goddess. The justification for such a correspondence between the two sets of rounded protuberances has already been suggested as early as Verse 7, where the frontal bulges of a calf elephant are referred to as analogously equivalent in beauty to the maidenly breasts of a young girl. The metaphor might seem to be rather far-fetched and mixed up, unless it is seen in the light of the importance of recognizing the totality of the value of the Absolute, of which only a structural analysis can reveal the component relational factors.

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(The Sanskrit term "Chidambaram" means: "chit" - consciousness and "ambara" -  which means "ether", in the sense of "The highly attenuated matter supposed to occupy the heavenly space above our atmosphere". ED)
 

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS WITH STRUCTURAL DIAGRAMS RELATED TO THIS VERSE FROM SAUNDARYA LAHARI/NOTES.

 

WORD FOR WORD
Karindranam sundan - with the trunks of the best of elephants
Kanaka kadali kanda patalim - like the gold stems of a group of banana trees
Ubhabhyam urubhyam - by the two thighs
Ubhayam api nirjitya - having won over both, transcending
Bhavati suvrtta abhyam - you one full of good life story
Patyuh pranati kathina abhyam - who has become hard (with callosity) by prostration to the husband
Giri sute - o daughter of the mountain
Vidhijne - one who knows the correctness of actions (ritual or not)
 
This verse describes the lower part of the body.
In the Sanskrit tradition you start at the head and work down.

In the previous verse, fatness is found in the hips of Shiva, but he gives it to the Devi and through adoration, she remains slim.
 
 
 
 
 

In this verse, the Devi's knees are compared to the callosity on the elephant's forehead - they are not beautiful, because she is kneeling down in accordance with Vedic rites.
(Example of a fat women at the Hare Krishna temple.)
 
 

Parvati does not omit her puja (worship), and thus her knees are hard, but by nature Her thighs are tender and polished like banana stems.
 

 

But, ever remaining a queen, she puts herself into relationship with the Numerator through devotion and pujas.
These hundred verses are constructed... (?)
.

Another version. in the Guru's own hand and fragmentary:

TRANSLATION
Like the trunks of the best (chief) of Indra's elephants - rough and supple - like the gold stems of a pair of banana trees,
"... polished and golden by the two thighs, having won over both
transcending both of these analogies and r.... (raised ?) in roughness at the knees...
....Good stories of the life activities of the husband...
...which has become hard because of daily prostrations continued for a long time.
Necessity by absolute contingencies in proper order and system.
...daughter of the mountain who knows everything which is ordained in the scriptures.
By the two knees (or kneecaps)
You have transcended elephant knobs (by that holy elephant of Indra).
(the two knobs of necessity (knees) are transcended )"
 
The callosity on the knees represents Beauty as the Universal Concrete.
The value of the knobs on the elephant's head is this Beauty.

Here, the poet is describing all that happens to the Denominator aspect of the Absolute (Her thighs and knees) - while she has not forgotten the Numerator (Her devotion to Shiva).

We have started with realistic imagery and it is carried on throughout the text.

Without the connection with the Numerator, the Devi will go mad.

Abstract and generalize, in other words, schematize.

"Make a green book into the Universal Concrete - think of greenness."
(In other words, take the actual, individual book and abstract and generalize. There is green-ness in general and the universal idea of bookish-ness. This is the methodology by which science proceeds - science and philosophy are a process of abstraction and generalisation. ED)

Why should the Devi prostrate?
The callosity on the knees represents the Universal Concrete.
We have in this verse Beauty as a Universal Concrete - as abstract value represented by a concrete colour.

The same grade of epistemology is used throughout.
(In other words, every verse uses the same methodology to reach understanding - the understanding that is Brahma Vidya, the Science of the Absolute, which is the purpose of Vedanta. Structuralism is used to find the truth. ED)

(The above structure has no accompanying text and is unclear. ED)

See Verse 7 and Verse 100.

 

 

.

.

 

 

Obligations come at the knee level. The lower level need not be cancelled by the higher: the knee level can co-exist with the highest philosophy.
  The kneeling does not hurt her, but only glorifies her, she knows the way of behaviour proper to a good family.