SAUNDARYA LAHARI

 

 

 

VERSE 62

 

THE THING AND THE THING SIGNIFIED HAVE A DANCING PARITY BETWEEN THEM

 

प्रकृत्या‌உ‌உरक्ताया-स्तव सुदति दन्दच्छदरुचेः
प्रवक्ष्ये सदृश्यं जनयतु फलं विद्रुमलता ।
न बिम्बं तद्बिम्ब-प्रतिफलन-रागा-दरुणितं
तुलामध्रारोढुं कथमिव विलज्जेत कलया

 

prakrtya raktayas tava sudati dantacchada ruceh
pravaksye sadrsam janayatu phalam vidruma lata
na bimbam tad bimba pratiphalana ragad arunitam
tulam addhyarothum katham iva vilajjeta kalaya

 

O One of Goodly Teeth, of Your parted lips naturally red I shall declare the similitude;
Let the coral reef bear fruit by reflection from its original model
With which desiring to climb to the point of mid-parity,
However could it avoid being abashed at least by a degree?

 

In Verse 62 the bindusthana, or central locus, is to be placed between the parted lips, where the beautiful teeth of the Goddess are revealed. The play of participation between the pearly teeth and the coral-red lips is the central theme of this verse. Sanskrit poets are fond of one analogy in particular for the luscious, rich and fully red lips of a voluptuous maiden, which is the bimba fruit (the bright red fruit of the plant Momordica Monadelpha), so a beautiful girl is often called “one of bimba-fruit-lips”.

 

Here the poet steps down from the platform, as it were, to speak intimately with his audience by means of the analogies that are most fitting to the beauty of the lips and teeth, which blend their colours both ways to create a non-dual form of absolute Beauty by mutual participation. The teeth are hard like coral, while the lips are naturally soft and supple like a bimba fruit. The problem is to establish a parity or one-to-one correspondence between them to fulfil the requirements of a central Advaitic value which should always be the same, at whatever level, inside or outside. The beauty of the Goddess is going to be appreciated by the poet himself here. By stepping down from the platform to talk to the reader, he throws off his formal status, and seems to say that between the reader and the poet an intimate understanding could be established on a certain basis. Both of them are equally interested in finding the nearest analogy to the beauty that emerges at that particular locus where the parted lips reveal the brightness of the teeth. The object of the poet here is to show that the magenta colour of coral and that of bimba fruit seem to rival each other in establishing superiority over some other analogy that another poet might suggest.

 

Thus, the situation is one that involves a subtle intrigue between rival poetic tastes. The solidity of the teeth would make it reasonable for a poet to think that the analogy of hard coral applies more aptly to the teeth than to the bimba fruit; which by common-sense standards would naturally belong to the side of the lips. It is clearly stated in the first line that the poet is trying to find the right analogy for the teeth and the lips and, because the teeth are hard and solid, he suggests that if the coral reef could have a fruit, that would establish a parity between the teeth and the lips to reveal the non-dual beauty that suggests itself in that region. The coral reef does not have fruit, but we could suppose a soft fruit in order to suggest that the redness of the fruit permeates into the region of the teeth and thus makes them look like fruit by borrowed light, one degree removed from the suggested analogy.

 

The attributes of solid coral and those of a luscious fruit are here meant to be cancelled out into a state of parity or equality. The teeth, in trying to establish equality in respect of brilliant reddishness, do not fully succeed in doing so. It is even suggested that they shyly hesitate in the attempt. This hesitation implies that at one moment they are equal in beauty with the lips, and at another moment they are not, in the opinion of the teeth themselves.

 

An element of ambiguity is thus purposely retained by Sankara here in order to underline the doctrinal principle of indeterminism or non-predicability that applies when two conjugates are involved as rival factors to the same absolute value. The analogy of the energy and velocity of particles in quantum mechanics is supposed to represent such a principle of indeterminism. They cannot both be fixed at the same time and place to give a value that is fully determined. Vedanta accepts this indeterminism as basic to nature itself, when viewed from the side of physics rather than of metaphysics. Either physics is right or metaphysics is right, at any given time. For both to be right at the same time, the Absolute must step in as a normative and a re-normative reference. The shyness and hesitation in the matter of establishing an equality of beauty between the solid teeth, which resemble coral ontologically, but which wish to attain an equality of beauty with the luscious fruit-like lips which are more qualitative or teleological in their status, presents an enigma which refuses to be abolished. The vestige of a paradox exists at the core of even the notion of the Absolute, however much we might try to fix its meaning finally. Such a paradoxical element is considered permissible as a last residue in the Bhagavad Gita. The Absolute is a mystery and a wonder, and it is a rare value within the mind of yogis capable of medita­ting on it. An alternating figure-eight movement belongs to the Absolute value-content until meditation abolishes even the least duality between the Self and the non-Self aspects of the same content - but the mystery is never to be abolished. Within the core of such a mystery, the stable term is to be marked, if at all, by that finalized experience in which the meditator becomes none other than the object meditated upon, by cancellation. The term of all meditation is thus attained as a supreme yogic experience. Even mind and matter can be said to meet here, as well as ends and means.

 

It is to bring out this subtle Vedantic position that Sankara leaves the contested equality of beauty between lips and teeth, one shining by the borrowed light of the other, in the form of a rhetorical question in terms of shyness, where ontology and teleology may be said to be playing a game of hide-and-seek through all time. Such a situation is called anyonya adhyasa (mutual conditioning). The favourite example of adhyasa (condi­tioning) is that of a clear, colourless crystal placed on a piece of red satin. Without becoming red, the crystal is made to look red throughout. The teeth and the luscious fruit comple­ment each other, as do quality and quantity, and the indeterminism that would persist in the form of hesitation or shyness is itself a value to be equated with the absolute Value and not to be abolished. The two limbs of an equation need not be abolished for a trained mathematician to understand its import. The duality between the limbs of the equation is no drawback to the equation itself.

 

The final meaning is the message to be sought in the experience of the yogi. It is a form of unitive understanding and nothing more. Pluralism can coexist with the notion of unity, so that the philosopher could cancel them both out into the non-dual Absolute. All propositions must contain terms which it is the task of the logician to resolve into a middle term. Such a middle term is the Absolute. To recognize the ambiguity between terms so as to abolish them correctly is preferable to just saying, as logicians often do, that one should not believe in many gods. Dialectical methodology would admit both the references of thesis and antithesis for arriving at a final synthesis. Even Hegelianism admits of such a method, of which Engels is only a continuator.

 

If time and space are conjugates, we can see through their amorphous articulation a being which, like a flame or a dancing Nataraja, gives us a functional picture of a figure-of-eight. This idea is similar to the shyness of the teeth to resemble the lips. Thus, one attains the Absolute through abstracting rival aspects of beauty. Truth is both a way as well as a fact. Ends and means unite in it into an experience. We must be careful not to bind down with hide the ambiguity of this dancing flame. Fixing it as a doctrine will only result in “Lord, Lordism”. As the Bhagavad Gita says, “It is a wonder and a mystery”. That is as far as one can understand it. We must leave it as a value of this kind and not solidify it into a doctrine.

 

The Guru comes in naturally because people attached to wisdom have an automatic affiliation. Guru and disciple are like the two limbs of an equation. They are equal, in principle, like comrades.

 

This language of such a high degree of fancifulness is natural to man, and perfectly acceptable to children. If the financial world can speak of the “dancing pound” or say that the “dollar is shy”, why cannot Sankara use such terms in an absolutist context?

 

The ontological teeth, as effect, lag slightly behind the teleological lips, as cause, in the figure-eight participation. This is poetry bent to speak for the philosophy of Vedanta in a way which Westerners would claim to be unfair. There is a subtle trick played here by Sankara. The interplay here is between quanti­tative and qualitative aspects of beauty, and the event could be described as inter-subjective as well as trans-physical.

 

(Adhyasa, according to one definition: from "adhi", above, over, + the verbal root "as" "to throw, cast". A misconception or erroneous attribution, the significance being that the mind casts upon facts, which are misunderstood, certain mistaken notions; hence false or erroneous attribution. Equivalent to adhyāropa. Simply put, adhyasa means superimposition or false attribution of properties of one thing on another thing. See below for more on this concept, which is very important in Advaita. ED)

 

 

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

 

(Note that, as with the previous verse and others, 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. This is particularly important as this verse is one of the most difficult and elusive of all. ED)

 

WORD FOR WORD
Pravaksye - I am going to tell you
Let the real creeper have a fruit
Na bimbam - not the original of a reflection
Tad bimba etc. - what is reddened by being a reflection of its original
Tulam etc. - the equal scale to mount (?)
Katham iva etc. - in what way should it become ashamed
Kalaya - by a fraction
 
WORD FOR WORD TRANSLATION (CONFUSED)
Having redness by its very nature...
Tava - Your
O bright-dented one
Of the brightness belonging to the lips
Sadrshyam - resemblance (by appearance)
Pravyaksha - I state (assert)
Janayatu phalam vidrumalata - let it bring about the effect of coral (reef)
Na bimbam - not reflected - or not another fruit which is red of a reef
Tad bimba pratiphalanaragad arunitam - made into that (deep hue) belonging to the pink of dawn, by reflection of its colour.
Tulam adhyarodhum - to climb to a mid-position between two rival colour-factors
Katham iva vilajjeta kalaya - why should it not in some way be ashamed even by its partial shade.
 

This is a figure-8 dance in search of parity between the redness of the teeth and of the lips.

 

Adhyasa is the only way to give any meaning to this verse.
Adhyasa is attributing something to something else.
The Bimba fruit is red. Coral is also present.
 
(Adhyasa: means superimposition or false attribution of properties of one thing on another thing. According to Advaita Vedanta error arises on account of the superimposition of one reality on another. Sankara defines Adhyasa as "the apparent presentation, to consciousness, by way of memory of something previously observed in some other thing".
 
In the glossary on this website, we find:
 
Adhyasa: Superimposition; false attribution; illusion. Adhyasa is of two forms:
Svarupa-adhyasa and Samsarga-adhyasa.
Svarupa-adhyasa
consists in superimposing an illusory (mithya) object on something real.

Example: Seeing a snake on a real rope, or of superimposing ignorance (avidya), that is, the empirical world, upon Brahman, which is an example of a foundational error.

 
Here it is the redness of the lips by which the white teeth are also tinged (by adhyasa). There is a comparison to be made with Verse 64:
 
"By incessant repetition of a muttered charm glorifying Your Lord;
As offering, the flower-red shade of Your tongue triumphs;
The pure, clear, crystal outline image of Saraswati,
While seated at Your tongue-tip, o Mother, in turn attains to rubyhood in its bodily form.
" ED)
 

.
"Your teeth are white and reflect the coral colour of the lips..."

 

The teeth are "ashamed" of being compared to the coral colour.
The magic is the juxtaposition of all these four together:
1) Bimba fruit,
2) Coral, which bears no fruit,
3) Lips of coral colour,
4) Teeth, which reflect the coral colour and are ashamed.
.
 
There is VERTICAL participation between the lips and teeth,
HORIZONTAL participation between the Bimba and Coral.

Cf. prathiti. (Means "celebrity".  - with reference to what? ED)

 

These four are brought in only for the quaternion structure.

The teeth are ashamed because they are white and pure - "why do you call me a cheap imitation red?"
The delicate interplay between the teeth and lips is the point here.
The teeth are ashamed because their colour is borrowed from the coral.

Magenta glory results from this participation: this participation between two colours is like the participation between mind and matter.
 
(“I think that mind and matter are merely convenient ways of grouping events”'  Bertrand Russell.
 
"Where consciousness exists, there the
Object of consciousness exists, where
Consciousness exists not, its object neither.
Thus, both by agreement and difference, certitude comes.
"

From Bhana Darsana, from the Darsana Mala by Narayana Guru.
 
(Consciousness and the object of consciousness are, of course, just other names for mind and matter. ED)
 

The teeth are hard, and have a borrowed colour; the lips have the original colour: this is bimba and pratibimba (pratiphalana)
 
("Tad bimba pratiphalana ragad arunitam - made into that (deep hue) belonging to the pink of dawn, by reflection of its colour." ED)
 
There are word-plays here in Sanskrit

(Pratibimba - a reflection. In logic, "bimba" is the object itself, with the "pratibimba" being the counterpart with which it is compared. ED)

Sankara gives this much importance because it settles the question of the participation of this world and the other.

So, there is shame, because the imitation can never equal the original.

He makes a fuss about this because pratyaksha pramana (meaning empirical evidence or the evidence of the senses) is a very important question in Vedanta.
Empirical evidence is not excluded from Vedanta, as is sometimes claimed.
 
(Is the evidence of the senses to be trusted or not? It involves the world of percepts, - the thing seen, a paddy-field, for example; and the world of concepts in the mind of the person who sees. ED)
 
THIS IS IMPORTANT- HOW DOES THE FLESHLY EYE SEE THAT PADDY FIELD?

It is a participation of mind and matter: this is the problem dealt with in this verse.
 
(See the Occasionalism of Descartes, dealt with in previous verses; see also Verse 1; the Bhagavad Gita refers to this duality by its own terms, as the field (kshetra) and the knower of the field (kshetrajna). ED).
 
(Occasionalism is a philosophical theory about causation which says that created substances cannot be efficient causes of events. Instead, all events are taken to be caused directly by God. The theory states that the illusion of efficient causation between mundane events arises out of God's causing of one event after another. However, there is no necessary connection between the two: it is not that the first event causes God to cause the second event: rather, God first causes one and then causes the other. ED)
 
How can consciousness appreciate the outline of that paddy field?
By mutual participation on a homogeneous ground: this is called sama-adhikarana : empirical evidence, the evidence of the senses, or pratyaksha pramana. (sama - same, adhikarana - category)
 
(A pramana is a source of valid knowledge e.g., the senses, inference, analogy etc. ED)

 

There must be a neutral substance between mind and matter.
The empiricist cannot explain this participation between mind and matter without postulating a neutral substance between the two: this is the soul.
This is the neutral monism of Bertrand Russell.
 
Thus Vedanta is not mere Idealism, but also uses the empirical approach, it does not discount the evidence of the senses: thus Plato and Aristotle are put together.
 
(Empiricism: the practice of basing ideas and theories on testing and experience.
Idealism:  a theory that ultimate reality lies in a realm transcending phenomena.
or
a theory that the essential nature of reality lies in consciousness or reason.
 
Plato emphasized numerator, conceptual factors - concepts - his "Ideas" - Aristotle gave more importance to the perceptual denominator side - percepts. ED)
 
 
So the teeth are ashamed for not being able to establish a perfect bi-polar relationship with the lips and their colour: the neutral centre wants to be established, but there is one degree of difference.

This is much more delicate than you think it is.

 

"Wants to attain the middle ground..." this is the neutral point, as between mind and matter: it is one thing to go to one side of the road (shame); it is worse if the side you go to is also the wrong side.
 
(To leave the middle ground would imply deviating from the neutral Vedantic position. ED)

Re the versification: Sankara wants you to be confused as between the two factors.

 

An actual fruit of magenta colour would be ashamed to be compared to a coral of the same colour.
The lips of the Devi are so bright that the teeth also appear to be red.

Similarly, the mind conditions the body, and the body conditions the mind.
He uses the two opposite examples; whichever way you put it; the beauty is the same.
 
 
 
He is helping the mind to make a kind of figure-8, to unite subject and object.
They must participate equally, this is Advaita.
Sankara plays a wonderful trick here, delicate and beautiful.

 

"Na bimbam" means "not Bimba fruit" or "not original" - a word play.
The teeth are not the original of the red colour.
The original colour is the coral of the lips.
This is a transferred epithet: e.g. "he spent the whole night on a weary pillow."

Here there is a dialectical interchange between subject and object.
The predicative (the attribute) and the substantive (the thing) are interchangeable.
Here the lips are the original ontology and the teeth reflect the colour.
Suppose the coral had a fruit; it would have been ashamed of the fraction of difference between them.
 
 
So, the creeper has its effect - it is a qualitative aspect of the cause.
(The creeper which bears the bimba fruit, of course. ED)

Red is the original, redness is the effect.
Supposing the coral has an effect upon the truth (originating in the lips).
The teeth are ashamed of the colour of the lips.

 

The Numerator is afraid of the adjective by a slight fraction.
The original coral of the lips and the reflected coral of the teeth want to be in perfect balance.

The teeth are ashamed in the matter of attaining the middle ground
- sometimes it feels better, sometimes worse. Shame is a confusion.
It is not able to attain the middle ground.

The "shame" is due to a disturbance of the absolute equilibrium.
There is a fractional tilting of the balance, thus there is shame.
Pure magenta colour is the same, whether reflected or original.
Here Sankara says: "I decide", "I shall declare the similitude", not "I consider", that is: "I am a philosopher writing poetry".

The magenta colour represents the Absolute; you abolish the paradox between Numerator and Denominator.
Suppose the coral had a fruit - it would be the effect of the coral.
The effect is the result of a specific thing; thus, it is qualitative.
(text almost illegible here. ED)

A fraction of the element of pure shame exists between the colours.
Here we have colour as a cause and colour as an effect - between these there is shame, trying to find a middle ground
- a normalized and re-normalized magenta colour.
(A reference to quantum electrodynamics. ED)

He is cancelling these factors out against each other.
The bimba fruit is red.
The red coral is there too.
"Your teeth are white and reflect the coral colour of the lips of the Goddess"
The teeth are ashamed of being compared with the coral colour.
The magic is to juxtapose all these four with each other
There is vertical participation between lips and teeth, and horizontal participation between bimba-fruit and coral.
 

 

 

These four factors are brought in only for the quaternion structure.
 
(Definition of Quaternion:
1.
a group or set of four persons or things.
2.
Bookbinding. four gathered sheets folded in two for binding together.
3.
Mathematics.
  1. an expression of the form a + bi + cj + dk, where a, b, c, and d are real numbers; i 2= j 2= k 2= −1; and ij = −ji = k, jk = −kj = i, and ki = −ik = j.
  2. a quantity or operator expressed as the sum of a real number and three complex numbers, equivalent to the quotient of two vectors. The field of quaternions is not commutative under multiplication. ED)

 
 
 
 
 
 
Some examples of quaternions.
 
(This quaternion structure of even mathematical concepts, which conform to the methodology used throughout this work, should demonstrate to the reader that, despite its abstruse, poetico-mythological language, the Saundarya Lahari has a fully scientific methodology, epistemology and axiology. ED)

The teeth are ashamed because they are white and pure:
"Why do you call me a cheap imitation red?"

 

The delicate interplay between teeth and lips is the point here.
The teeth are ashamed because their colour is borrowed from the coral.
Magenta glory results from this participation:
this participation of the two colours is like the participation between mind and matter.

The teeth are hard and have a borrowed colour;
the lips have their original colour: this is "bimba tad bimba pratiphalana..."
Sankara gives this much importance because it settles the question of the participation of this world and the other.
So there is shame, because the imitation can never equal the original.
 
Thus the teeth are ashamed of not being able to establish a perfect bi-polar relationship with the lips and their colour: the neutral centre wants to be established, but there is one degree of difference between the two.
(This is much more delicate than you think it is.)
He wants to attain the middle ground, the neutral point:
it is one thing to go to one side of the road (shame);
it is worse if the side you go to is the wrong side.

 

There is a deliberate paradox present in the analogy.
Both the horizontal and vertical are made as thin as possible and cancellable.

But a slight prejudice in favour of reality must be there.
Reality is a necessary reference in life.
 
("Reality" may be taken to refer to the lips. The imagery here is very subtle and complex and perhaps left purposely vague or ambivalent by Sankara. ED)
 
 
 
 
(In Vedanta, ontology on the negative side is more important than teleology on the positive side - this is the principle of satkaranavada, as opposed to satkaryavada.
 

Satkarana-Vada: That mode of argument or doctrine which gives primacy to cause as against effect. Advaita Vedanta as understood by Sankara is essentially of the Satkarana-Vada tendency in its methodology.

Satkarya-Vada: That mode of argument or that doctrine in which primacy is given to effect as against cause. All Vaiseshika schools in the Indian philosophical scene conform to this mode. ED)

 

Re versification-
Sankara wants you to be confused as between subject and object,
cause and effect etc., for in Vedanta they are interchangeable
and are finally resolved into a neutral mid-point.

.

Another version:

 

WORD FOR WORD TRANSLATION (CONFUSED)
Having redness by its very nature...
Tava - Your
O bright-dented one
Of the brightness belonging to the lips
Sadrshyam - resemblance (by appearance)
Pravyaksha - I state (assert)
Janayatu phalam vidrumalata - let it bring about the effect of coral (reef)
Na bimbam - not reflected - or not another fruit which is red of a reef
Tad bimba pratiphalanaragad arunitam - made into that (deep hue) belonging to the pink of dawn, by reflection of its colour.
Tulam adhyarodhum - to climb to a mid-position between two rival colour-factors
Katham iva vilajjeta kalaya - why should it not in some way be ashamed even by its partial shade.
 
 
 
.
 
Coral.
.
.
A Bimba fruit.
.
 
.
An actual fruit of magenta colour will be ashamed of being compared to a coral of the same colour.
The lips of the Devi are so bright that the teeth also appear to be red.
The mind conditions the body and the body conditions the mind.

So, he uses these two opposite examples - whichever way you put it, the beauty is the same.
He is helping the mind to make a kind of figure-8, to unite subject and object.
They must participate equally; this is the secret of Advaita.
So Sankara plays a wonderful trick here, delicate and beautiful.

 

The coral is North India.
The fruit is South India.
 
 
 
They can also be compared to the two wives of Subrahmanya,
One high caste, one Sudra (low caste).
(The Guru then talks about the caste system and decides that the women support it.)

A common woman can also be beautiful.
The fancy woman with jewels is her opposite counterpart.

"The whole of life is flowing in a verticalized flux and I am a martyr to wisdom".

"Red, by its own natural colour is Yours, o One having beautiful teeth".
There is a similarity between the lips and the teeth: "I am going to tell you..."
"Let the coral-creeper produce fruit" - not the original, in order to equalise the two counterparts.

 

There is a word play in the original Sanskrit: "na bimbam" means "not Bimba fruit" or alternatively "not original".
The teeth are not the original of the red colour.
The original colour is the coral of the lips.
By a fraction, the teeth are "ashamed".

 

There is a transferred epithet here, as in the phrase:
"He spent the whole night on a weary pillow".
Here there is a delicate interchange of subject and object.

Predicative (attribute) and substantive (thing) are interchangeable.
Here the lips are the original ontology and the teeth reflect the colour.

Sankara is saying: "Suppose the coral had a fruit, it would have been ashamed of a fraction of difference between it...."

" Pravaksye..." means "I am going to tell you..."
" Let the coral creeper give rise to fruit..."
" Na bimbam" - not the original of a reflection.
" Tad bimba..." - what is reddened by being a reflection of its original.
" Tulam addhyarothum..." - the equal scale to mount.
" Katham iva..." - in what way should it become ashamed.
" Kalaya..." - by a fraction.

 

So the creeper bearing the bimba fruit has its effect - it is the qualitative aspect of the cause.
(There is also the quantitative aspect of the effect which is horizontal, while the cause is qualitative and vertical. ED)
 
 

Red is the original; redness is the effect.

Supposing the coral has an effect upon the teeth, originating in the lips:
it is "Ashamed of the colour of the lips..."

 

The noun is ashamed of the adjective by a slight fraction.

The original coral of the lips and the reflected coral of the teeth want to be in perfect balance.
The teeth are ashamed, in the matter of attaining the middle range.
Shame is due to the disturbance of the Absolute balance "by a fraction":
there is a tilting of the balance. Thus there is shame.

Pure magenta colour is the same whether reflected or original.
Likewise, the Absolute.

Here Sankara says, "I decide", not "I consider"
- that is, "I am a philosopher writing poetry".

The magenta colour represents the Absolute.

You abolish the paradox between Numerator and Denominator.
This is the paradox at the core of the Absolute - there is only one Absolute, when Numerator and Denominator are cancelled out.
.
"Suppose the coral has fruit..." - it would be the effect of the coral.
"Effect" is the result of a specific thing; thus it is qualitative.

There is here a fraction of the element of pure shame, between the colours.
Colour as a cause and colour as an effect - between them there is shame,
They are trying to find the middle, the normalised and re-normalised magenta colour.