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SAUNDARYA LAHARI

 

 

VERSE 58

THE ENIGMATIC PARADOX OF THE PSYCHO-PHYSICAL DYNAMISM IS STATED GLOBALLY
 
अरालं ते पालीयुगल-मगराजन्यतनये
न केषा-माधत्ते कुसुमशर कोदण्ड-कुतुकम् ।
तिरश्चीनो यत्र श्रवणपथ-मुल्ल्ङ्य्य विलसन्
अपाङ्ग व्यासङ्गो दिशति शरसन्धान धिषणाम् ॥ 58
 
 aralam te paliyugalam agarajanya tanaye
na kesam adhatte kusumasara kodanda kutukam
tirascino yatra sravana patham ullanghya vilasan
apanga vyasango disati sarasandhana dhisanam
 
The two sets of curved limiting lines of Yours, O Daughter of the King of Mountains,
Who is it that will not fancy them as the bow of the Flower-Arrowed One;
Where, placed obliquely, and reaching beyond the path of hearing,
As it shines, adhering to Your side-glances, it gives the impression of the fixing of the arrow.
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As the poet watches the face of the Goddess, he fixes his attention successively on certain regions placed in a descending series of vertical points. As he lingers at one point, he tries to describe the enigmatic beauty that plays there. He imagines certain highly suggestive double images, where one image is superimposed by mental construction upon the other, which is more ontologically based. Such two-sided images vie with each other in paradoxical play. At the heart of the Absolute there is an ambiguity, a paradox, an enigma, a two-sided indeterminism, which is not meant by the author to be abolished. This is but in keeping with anirvacaniya khyati (the doctrine of impredicability), which is the final philosophical position that Advaita Vedanta wants to take. Jainism has also its syadvada based on "maybe/maybe not", at one and the same time. Impredicability is not looked upon as weakness in Vedanta, but rather as strength. As in the case of Heisenberg's indeterminate science, it does not mean that ambiguity of this kind is to be avoided or overcome by a better philosophy. There are various khyatis (doctrines) referred to as characteristic of different kinds of idealistic philosophies on the Indian soil. This kind of khyativada (discussion of doctrines) attempts to locate error by fixing the paradox on different grounds or realities. Atmakhyati attempts to fix error onto the ground of the Self. Anyathakhyati is the position which says that “something else” is the cause of error. Akhyati is still another variety, in which error has no real ground at all. Abolishing paradoxes has been the challenge successively taken up by philosophers in India, and variously settled by foisting error on the basic ground. The position of Vedanta is like that of the Jainas, but goes one step further by locating the principle of ambiguity or error, or the possibility thereof, at the core of the Absolute itself. The Jainas and the Buddhists do not postulate any such Absolute. Vedanta postulates an eka purusa, the one supreme spirit or Brahman, within whose personality, by a method of double negation and double assertion, ambiguity abolishes itself in terms of a unitive value revealed in a fourth-dimensional context by cancellation. These are the doctrinal aspects of Vedanta, and if we should not take care to keep them in mind, an irreducible perplexity would still remain as a residue when we try to fix the meaning of each of the verses that follow, especially here in the middle of the work. Once we know that the author only wants to heighten the paradox and leave it there, instead of abolishing it - and in so doing wants to underline the principle of indeter­minism, uncertainty or impredicability as a vestige that can be abolished, at best, in the form of an element of wonder at the core of the Absolute itself - then we shall be able to see his purpose here. It is not, however, an indeterminism without a proper method and theory of knowledge that we should expect to find.
 
In this verse, the subject is again the arrows of the God of Love, aimed at his arch-enemy, Shiva, who is seated at the Omega Point. The beauty of the Goddess is the excuse for Kama even to be able to operate, and affords him a neutral ground on which he can still try his pranks. The Goddess wants to attract; while the God refuses to be attracted except when the right conditions are perfectly fulfilled. So an invisible war - sometimes cold, sometimes hot - is taking place here between the beauty on the upper part of the face of the Goddess, with its appeal directed vertically, and Shiva, who represents the positive side of the same principle. The interplay is not a brute form of fighting, but is meant to be reduced into thin schematic terms, both visible and invisible at the same time. At one moment, it is the side of intelligence that is emphasized in order for us to catch the conflict. At another moment, we have to change our perspective to the perceptual side in order to see the progress of the rival forces. Finally, a slight bias on the ontological rather than the teleological side succeeds, and the battle is declared won by the wonder of the beauty of the face of the Goddess. Then the retrogression continues downward into still lower focal points or loci, always in a vertical succession. As soon as a locus has been fixed in a certain verse, it is required that we put a limiting set of circles around it and call it the bindusthana, as in the case of the Sri Chakra.
 
Such circles may not be explicitly mentioned, but some kind of limiting lines are required, within which the ambiguous play of beauty could live and move. In this particular verse, such limits are the two sets of curved lines marked by the two ears and the two eyebrows. The secret fixing of the arrow of Kama behind the visible scene has been alluded to in different stages from Verse 6 through Verse 47. The enigmatic beauty of the Goddess cannot be brought into relief without a conflict, however subtle, being presupposed between Kama and Shiva. Thus Kama has to figure in many places. The Goddess is not just beautiful, but enigmatically so; and this makes all the difference. Beauty without a tragic touch becomes insipid.
 
Physiologically viewed, there might not really be a circle enclosed by these two sets of curved lines, but in a psycho-phy­sically revised version, we could think of the two functions of seeing and hearing as being contained within the limits of the eyebrows and the ears. The arrows fixed by Kama could have two rival positions at right angles to each other. Kama, as a rival to Shiva, can be expected to let his arrows fly in an oblique direction. It is only occasionally, when every other condition is favourable, that his arrows can be made to fly vertically. This he cannot do without complying with the side-glance of the Goddess and conforming to the same highly verticalized attitude. These differences have been alluded to already, especially in Verse 52. In the present verse the object is merely to represent the functioning of Kama, whose arrows fly horizontally, beyond the limits of the ears. Past this limit, what is spatialized motion could be treated as changed qualitatively into time-like motion.
 
Here the arrows, when they fly, have to adhere to the direction of the side-glances. Kama is not yet letting the arrows fly, he is only represented here as fixing them onto the obliquely-aimed bow as he gets ready to give battle in his normal way. While still in the act of fixing the base of the arrow onto the bowstring, it is permissible for us to think of the two sets of curved lines as marking the limits within which Kama could operate, at any of the four right-angle positions possible to him. As his target is on the plus side of the situation, a ninety-degree tilting of the bow is all that we might have to imagine here. If the arrow belongs to a three-dimensional context, the shining lines of the glances of the Goddess could be said to belong to a four-dimensional context, where visibility and audibility cancel each other out. Only the wonder of Absolute Beauty remains for us to see when paradox has thus been abolished.
 
The fixing of an arrow is the only definite event in this verse. The rest consists of glances and sound elements which make up a kind of Chakra, composed of lines representing light or sound radiating from and circulating round the central locus. Beauty is to be meditated upon; and when Absolute Beauty is the theme, it can produce such contemplative visions based equally on fact and fable.
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(Note: Heisenberg's Principle of Indeterminism: a physical principle, enunciated by Werner Heisenberg in 1927, that places an absolute theoretical limit on the combined accuracy of certain pairs of simultaneous, related measurements. The accuracy of a measurement is given by the uncertainty in the result; if the measurement is exact, the uncertainty is zero. ED).
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ADDITIONAL COMMENTS WITH STRUCTURAL DIAGRAMS RELATED TO THIS VERSE FROM SAUNDARYA LAHARI/NOTES.

 

WORD FOR WORD
aralam te - your bent or curved
paliyugalam - outer ear - limit - margin - edges, row - line - circumference // pair - couple - a yoke of oxen
agarajanyatavaye - -o daughter of the king of mountains
na kesam adhatte - in whom should it not instil
kusumasara kodanda kutukam- the suggestion of the bow of the flower-arrowed one.
tirascino - transverse -horizontal - across - obliquely - against one's will
yatra - in which place - where - wherein.

 
In this verse, we have two arrows at right angles.

This describes the ear and eyebrow limits with Eros' arrow aimed at 90 degrees
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This verse deals with the pair of arches between the eyebrows and the ears.
The pundits have not succeeded in explaining this.
We have to go to the intentions of the author.
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First, think of the eyebrows as arched.
Then think of the arrows.
The side-glance is an arrow put at right angles to the arched eyebrows.

The length of the side-glance is such that it goes beyond the ears.
The arrow is horizontal - a side-glance - with arching eyebrows - as a woman deeply in love looks at her husband.

(There is a question as to whether "tirascino" means "obliquely" or " at right angles")
Obliquely - because now the string is being pulled.
This means that the Devi is still capable of emotion.
 
 
Oblique side-glance.

And, he says, anyone can understand this. "Who is it that will not...". The arrow is about to be let go.
She is full of emotions. This is also part of the Absolute.
So She is about to be stricken by love.
This is a front view: the eyebrows are now completely arched - She is full of love for Shiva.

"Who will not?…" - I am not saying something rare when I refer to the bow of Kamadeva (Eros), everyone can see this.
But there is something rare about the side-glance going past the ears of the Devi.
Her eyes are oblique and they go beyond the ears - this implies intentionality
The eyes are exceeding their norm of horizontal limitations in order to attract Shiva.

Narayana Guru and Tagore also ask for the side-long glance of the Devi.
Tagore writes: "In the great hall, I am also a musician, but I cannot sing because my mind is full of devotion to You."

In this verse, Sankara has gone from a streak of magenta in the hair to a pure horizontal aspect of the eyes.
I.e. It is legitimate for women to fall in love, even the Devi.
She has to be negative - She has to have oblique eyes.

This matter of the two bows is very easy to understand.
Sankara says that you should not tax your brain about this, nor should you think that there is anything wrong with the Devi´s love for Shiva.

Think first of a bow - who cannot see this?
But the oblique glance of the Devi has transcended the ears to attract the attention of Shiva or someone.
NOT Shiva but "someone" - this is horizontal, not vertical as it would be in the case of Shiva..

One man is virtual, one man is actual, one on each side of the horizontal - as related to the structure.

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There is a visible bow and arrow.
Then horizontally, there are the long and oblique glances of the Devi.
There are two ears and two eyes - in the middle is a light.

The eyebrows are arched and there is a glistening light coming from beneath the eyelashes of the Devi.

Eros has put the arrow into position.

Of the two suggestions of Sankara's, the first is easy.
The second says that the lengthening of the eyes transcends the ears; that there is a horizontal parameter and also a horizontal light - this is difficult to understand.
Sankara was born of an Aryan father, who taught him the Shastras (scriptures), and a sudra (low caste) mother, who suckled him on the milk of Tantra and esoterics.
The obliqueness of the glance is simply the horizontal axis - and there is a light there.
 
 
Another version:
 
TRANSLATION
- your bent
- pair of limits
- o daughter of the Himalayas
- in whom should it not bring
- the suggestion of the flower-arrow
- there placed tangentially (at right angles to)
- passing beyond the auditory path
- shining
- the length of your side-glance
- expresses or exhibits
- the semblance of someone joining the arrow to the bow (or "idea")
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The "limit" can only be the eyes.
They are bent due to Eros.
There is a line reaching beyond the ears.
Wherever some emotion is present (signaled by Her bent eyebrows) the idea of eroticism is present as well.
The hearing and the eyes are put at right angles to one another - and here we "pass beyond the auditory path" - vision and hearing are two separate axes.
Your side-glance is very long - transcending normal space-time concepts.
It produces the joining of the bow and arrow.
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To the extent that the side-glance is long it is compassion.
To the extent that the eyebrows are bent it is erotic

So there are two aspects of love at loggerheads with one another.
There are two things - the side-glance and the bent eyebrows.

The possibility of erotic sentiment is there, but the side-glance of compassion is the aspect which is stressed.

He is not saying one thing or the other, but both together.
 
(Cf. the principle of indeterminism referred to above. ED)

The Devi must have the possibility of eroticism as a woman, but compassion is present as well.

There is a subtle relationship between seeing and hearing.
Thus the side-glance extends to the ears; eyes and ears belong together.
"To whom should this not bring the suggestion of the flowery bow?"
The bow is placed at right angles to the line between the ears.
These are shining lights - not something real.

"Your side-glance, which is long, exhibits the function of intelligence…"
It causes the idea to arise, which you are meant to imagine as an arrow being placed on a string.

But the bow is not pulled - the idea of erotic sentiment is there, but it is balanced correctly, so as not to be vulgar.

The possibility of sexual interest is there.
If you meditate on the Goddess, you can remain quiet.
The function of the ears is passed over.

Lines of light alone are under reference here.
Length, curves and right-angles are all referred to.
This is a perfect example of structuralism.

"The bow of the flower-arrowed one…"

Pali yugalam (The outer ear limits) - two limiting curves joined together - two lines which are curved, resembling a bow.
Then there is a line oblique to this - the arrow.
Then there is a blue lotus bud for the tip of the arrow.
To whom will this not suggest something subtle?

There is a structural presence, with a dynamism, because the eyes go beyond the ears.
Sound comes to you as a horizontal line.

Then you put the bow and arrow somewhere, with Eros hiding.

When you abstract and generalize beauty on the face of the Devi, you get a vertical and a horizontal line, which have a reciprocal relation.

Why does the Devi hide Eros - the enemy of Shiva - inside Her?

Yoga is like the fixing of the arrow - using the Devi´s image: only through the structure can you meditate successfully.

There are eight Chakras within you - this is the greatest secret of Yoga - do not see Woodroffe in this connection, his information is not correct.
 
(Sir John Woodroffe, a 19th Century author and translator of Tantric texts, whose views are rejected by Nataraja Guru. ED)

The lower structural triangle is the bowstring; the upper triangle is the momentum, which will result when the arrow is fixed
(mass into velocity equals momentum.)
 
 

There is compensation between the bowstring and the momentum.
 

 
The lower structural triangle is the bowstring.
 
 
 
The upper triangle is the momentum, which will result when the arrow is fixed
(mass into velocity equals momentum.)
 

COMPENSATION BETWEEN THE BOWSTRING AND MOMENTUM

CANCELLATION HAPPENS WHEN THE ARROW HITS THE OMEGA POINT AND SHIVA

 

Cancellation is when the arrow strikes Shiva at the Omega Point.

Why Eros? Because there is no story without him: why does Milton want Satan in "Paradise Lost?

Anyway, see it mathematically.
Everything is beautifully vague here and based on guesswork.
The better the guesswork, the better the Vedantin.
To present this in mathematical form is to abolish all cultural divisions.

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