काव्ये विश्वासटिप्पन्यः

[[Mohan K.V 2013-03-31, 18:01:52 Source]]

सदास्वाद

आशा-पाश-निबद्ध-जीवविहगो वृद्धो गृहे ग्लायति

(āśā-pāśa-nibaddha-jīvavihago vṛddho gṛhe glāyati)

Meaning

“With his life-bird restrained by the cords of desire, the old man slumps at home”. The essence of life is commonly depicted as a bird in the cage of the body. We all know that every self-respectingvillainousmantra-vadi would make sure to magically lock his own life-bird up in a cave on a distant island, of course :-) However, this particular bird is bound by a rather more abstract and much stronger bond, that of desire. The very word pāśa (cord) contains āśa in it, as if to remind the reader what it’s most powerfulform is. ‘glāyati’ can mean ‘slumps’ or ‘withers’ – a decadent state of little respect. The old man seems to be holding on for no higher reason than mere desire. What is this all about? Read on!

Context

Today’s phrase is taken from the Śāntiśataka of Śilhaṇa.Śilhaṇawas a Kashmiri poet who lived about 1100 years ago, and is survived by this lone work. TheŚāntiśatakais a short anthology of verses on the topic of vairāgya (ascetism), collected from the writings of Bhartṛhari, Dharmakīrti and others. Even though this is a rather dry topic –Bhartṛhari’s Vairāgya-śataka set standards which haven’t been met in two millennia – this anthology does a great job in capturing varieties of “beauty in sound” on some well-known themes. For example, on the eternal Indian poetic hatred towards bowing to rich men:
कामं वनेषु हरिणाः
तृणेन जीवन्ति॰अनन्य-सुलभेन ।
विदधति धनिषु न दैन्यं
ते किल पशवो वयं सुधियः ।१५।
kāmaṃ vaneṣu hariṇāḥ
tṛṇena jīvanti ananya-sulabhena |
vidadhati dhaniṣu na dainyaṃ
te kila paśavo vayaṃ sudhiyaḥ |15|
(āryā metre)
“The deer in the forest happily live on plentiful grass, without caring to bow before wealthy men. And yet, they are ‘animals’, and we are ‘wise men’”
This may seem like simplistic thinking, but contrast a quote by Ellen Goodman captures the absurdity of our present arrangement: “Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for - in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it.” :-)
Further in, it gets graphic; there’s a recognition of the fact that in spite of all our variegated sophistication and meticulous hierarchies, life everywhere is pretty much the same:
इन्द्रस्य॰अशुचिसूकरस्य च सुखे दुःखे च नास्त्यन्तरं
स्वेष्टा-कल्पनया तयोः खलु सुधा विष्ठा च काम्याशनं ।
रम्भा चाशुचिसूकरी च परम-प्रेमास्पदं मृत्युतः
सन्त्रासोऽपि समः स्वकर्मगतिभिः॰चान्योन्यभावः समः ।३६।
indrasya aśucisūkarasya ca sukhe duḥkhe ca nāstyantaraṃ
sveṣṭā-kalpanayā tayoḥ khalu sudhā viṣṭhā ca kāmyāśanaṃ |
rambhā cāśucisūkarī ca parama-premāspadaṃ mṛtyutaḥ
santrāso’pi samaḥ sva-karma-gatibhiḥ cānyonyabhāvaḥ samaḥ |36|
“Between Indra and a dirty pig, there’s no difference between pleasures and pains.
By their natural desires, they tend to have what they like – ambrosia and excrement.
One loves the celestial nymph Rambhā, while the other another dirty pig.
They have the same fear of death, and the same reactions to their actions”
Michel de Montaigne used this same principle to write a pithy homage to humility: “On the highest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own bottom.” :-)
As an aside, a similar thought also appears in the Naiśadhīya-carita that we featured a few editions ago; when Damayanti is made the offer of a ‘more superior’ lover than Nala, she promptly replies that from a worm to Viṣṇu (‘ākīṭa-kaiṭabharipoḥ’), pleasure and pain are the same.
Today’s phrase comes from verse 55, which posits the concept that life itself has a shelf life. Sticking on for longer than ideal has some severe downsides:
स्थूल-प्रावरणोऽतिवृत्त-कथकः कासाश्रुलालाविलो
भग्नोरःकटि-पृष्ठ-जानुदशनो मुग्धातिथीन् वारयन् ।
शृण्वन् धृष्ट-वधू-वचांसि धनुषा सन्त्रासयन् वायसान्
आशा-पाश-निबद्ध-जीवविहगो वृद्धो गृहे ग्लायति ।५५।
sthūla-prāvaraṇo ’tivṛtta-kathakaḥ kāsāśrulālāvilo
bhagnoraḥkaṭi-pṛṣṭha-jānudaśano mugdhātithīn vārayan |
śṛṇvan dhṛṣṭa-vadhū-vacāṃsi dhanuṣā santrāsayan vāyasān
āśā-pāśa-nibaddha-jīvavihago vṛddho gṛhe glāyati |55|
(śārdūla-vikṛīḍita metre, 19 syllables per line)
“Shrouded in a thick blanket, telling meaningless tales, coughing up phlegm and tears,
writhing from pain all over, driving away innocent guests,
Bearing to hear harsh words from haughty daughters-in-law, scaring crows with his stick,
His life-bird restrained by the ropes of desire, the old man slumps at home”
There is something distasteful – even shameful – in sticking on even when one is not wanted. While most of us have experienced this of social occasions, the poet here extends it to life itself. This is a concept radically at odds with our biology, and yet, has a strange appeal to it. Perhaps it is best to contrast it with an opposite social setting of sorts: Charles Mann in a fascinating essay titled The Coming Shortage of Death, explains how increased longevity may cause problems that dwarf the ones we’re facing today:

“It is the propensity of the old, rich, and powerful to die that > gives the young, poor, and powerless hope.” … There is a solution > – don’t mess with nature.Unfortunately, this solution is > self-canceling, since everyone who agrees with it is eventually > eliminated. Opponents, meanwhile, live on and on. >

It is always amazing how a few billion cells which are just temporarily together can work themselves into a state of profound philosophical confusion :-)

Thought for today

WhileŚilhaṇa is certainly an admirable poet, he really is no match for the sheer torrential eloquence of Bhartṛhari. Compare one ofBhartṛhariverses, part of the same anthology and originally from the Vairāgya Śataka:
रम्यं हर्म्यतलं न किं वसतये श्रव्यं न गेयादिकं
किं वा प्राण-समा-समागम-सुखं नैवाधिक-प्रीतये ।
किंतु भ्रान्त-पतङ्ग-पक्ष-पवन-व्यालोल-दीपाङ्कुर-
च्छाया-चञ्चलम् आकलय्य सकलं सन्तो वनान्तं गताः ।४१।
ramyaṃ harmyatalaṃ na kiṃ vasataye śravyaṃ na geyādikaṃ
kiṃ vā prāṇa-samā-samāgama-sukhaṃ naivādhika-prītaye |
kiṃtu bhrānta-pataṅga-pakṣa-pavana-vyālola-dīpāṅkura-
cchāyā-cañcalam ākalayya sakalaṃ santo vanāntaṃ gatāḥ |41|
“Don’t you have a beautiful palace to live in? Much entertainment and song?
A beloved as dear as life itself to love and cherish?”
“Yes, but knowing full well that all this is as fickle as the shadow cast by a flame so weak that it wavers because of even the wind from the fluttering wings of a dizzy bee,
Wise men retreat to the forest”
It can’t get better than this! The bolded words are one brilliantly constructed samāsa – not only does it sound great, it has multiple layers of operation. It is constructed in the opposite way as the English translation – so each word is an additional layer of randomness – dizzy bee’s wing’s wind-fluttering flame’s shadow – giving a feeling of a higher and higher pitch, corresponding to more and more detail. Next, just consider how fickle it must be – first it’s a dizzy bee wandering aimlessly; its wings are tiny, and the wind they cause is tinier; a flame is so weak that it’s wavered by just this wind, but the trappings of life are not even as stable as that flame. They are are as fickle as the shadows of that flame, presumably being magnified and distorted even more by external settings.
The internal rhymes are also beautiful – prāṇa-samā-samāgama-sukhaṃ, ākalayya sakalaṃ and santo vanāntaṃ. Rarely can this sort of genius in the śārdūla-vikṛīḍita be matched!