[[Mohan K.V 2015-07-05, 01:35:53 Source]]
सदास्वादरोमन्थः
Dear readers,
It has been more than six months since our last reminiscence. Work and family commitments have slowed down our pace considerably, but we were very happy to be receiving a constant stream of feedback on our older chapters. On another happy note, the group now has over 300 subscribers!
First, a blast from the past! In the chapter on laukika-nyāyas last year, we’d spoken of the ‘vṛddha-kumārī-vākya-nyāya’, ‘[The example of] the old virgin woman’. This comes from an example in the Mahābhāṣya of Patañjali. Indra appeared before a poor, old virgin woman and asked her to make one — only one — wish. She promptly asked,
पुत्रा मे बहु-क्षीर-घृतम् ओदनं कांस्य-पात्र्यां भुञ्जीरन् (8.2.3)
putrā me bahu-kṣīra-ghṛtam odanaṃ kāṃsya-pātryāṃ bhuñjīran
“May my sons eat food rich with milk and ghee in brass bowls.”
In one stroke, the woman asked for a husband, children, riches and multiple levels of enjoyment of all these. We came across a new discipline called Requirements Engineering (RE), that deals with mega-projects like a fighter jet, deepwater oil development or a software suite. These projects are so complex that their design needs to meet several hundred thousand ‘requirements’. After one point, just the study of how these requirements should be articulated, stored and applied itself has become an independent field. One key insight from it is that each requirement needs to satisfy 9 criteria: clear, complete, individual, unique, identified, verifiable, traceable, design-free and feasible. It is marvelous how the woman’s wish satisfies all 9 except for the one Indra imposed: ‘individual’. Indra better sign up for some online courses to up his RE game!
In Chapter 73 on the Kṛṣṇa-karṇāmṛta, we had referred to the matta-kokila metre and its variants. Longtime readers Vishvas Vasuki and Pooja suggested some excellent further examples: Sri Vādirāja’s ‘Palayachyuta’ and the Candraśekhara-āṣtakaṃ – we could scarcely believe the two are in the exact same metre!
In that chapter, we had mentioned that the ‘sound scheme’ used in the verse ‘lokān unmadayan…’ was very distinctive, and was observed in multiple places, including K. S. Arjunwadkar’s invocatory verse. We’d asked for its most famous application. We had in mind two verses from the Bhagavad-gīta, where the Lord describes how a wise man acts in the world:
नैव किञ्चित् करोमीति युक्तो मन्येत तत्त्व-वित् |
पश्यन् शृण्वन् स्पृशन् जिघ्रन् अश्नन् गच्छन् स्वपन् श्वसन् ||5.8
प्रलपन् विसृजन् गृह्णन् उन्मिषन् निमिषन् अपि |
इन्द्रियाणीन्द्रियार्थेषु वर्तन्त इति धारयन् ||5.9
naiva kiñcit karomi iti yukto manyeta tattva-vit |
paśyan śṛṇvan spṛśan jighran aśnan gacchan svapan śvasan ||
pralapan visṛjan gṛhṇan unmiṣan nimiṣan api |
indriyāṇi indriyārtheṣu vartanta iti dhārayan ||
“The wise man knows that he is not the doer — even when he’s seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, eating, walking, sleeping, breathing, talking, letting go, grasping — even as he blinks. He is constantly aware that the senses are immersed in their objects.”
Ms. Suma Viswanath had come up with a completely different answer, from the Vana parva where Arjuna is relating to Yudhiṣṭhira and others how he acquired the Pāśupatāstra; here, he describes a fearsome boar that interrupts his penance:
निघ्नन् प्रोथेन प्रिथिवीम् विलखन् चरणैरपि ।
सम्मर्जन् जठरेणोर्वीं विवर्तंश्च मुहुर्मुहुः ॥3.168.19, (Chapter 3.166 in K. M. Ganguli’s translation)
nighnan prothena prithivīm vilakhan charaṇaiḥ api |
sammarjan jaṭhareṇa urvīṃ vivartan ca muhur muhuḥ ||
“Digging at the earth with his snout, marking it menacingly with his feet,
rubbing its belly and pacing around, [the boar raged]”
He sees a hunter following the boar. Arjuna then takes out one of his own arrows and shoots it, just as an arrow from the hunter pierces the boar simultaneously — and what happens next is the Kirātārjunīya episode.
The parting thought for that chapter captured a paradox we often experience — after a lot of work, we seem to find ourselves back to where we started. Many scholars after a lifetime of learning come to the belief that most of their scholarship could be replaced by one or two one-liners — or worse, that it is simply irrelevant, because the most important things in life don’t depend on it (“…śāstra-adhītis tu niṣphalā”). T. S. Eliot’s lines:
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
And as if to add insult to injury, this has been nicely used in TV ads selling Sprite. We frankly don’t know how to resolve the paradox — any help would be welcome!
In Chapter 74 on Kālidāsa’s Raghuvaṃśa, it is ironic that one of the very few verses the poet writes about himself includes one which says ‘mandaḥ kaviyaśaḥ prārthī gamiṣyāmi apahāsyatām’ – “I’ll be ridiculed for being a dullard looking for poetic fame’ – when he later turned out to be known most for this one work! Or perhaps he knew he had a winner, and was indulging in some sly modesty?
The set of 4 verses with 16 attributes of the kings of the Raghuvaṃśa is a great example for how important interpretation is. Consider ‘yathā-kāla-prabodhinām’. Literally this means, ‘those who wake up at the right time’. It could be used to mean ‘wake up from bed’ (say, as a pointer to their daily discipline), or more abstractly ‘those who know the right time to act’. Poor Kālidāsa can go from a hostel warden to a fine poet without even changing a syllable! Even with that said, some elements of the list are definitely less timeless than others – compare the expansive ‘yathā-kāla-prabodhinām’ or ‘ā-nāka-ratha-vartmanām’ vs the uninspiring ‘yaśase vijigīṣūṇām’ or ‘prajāyai gṛha-medhinām’. Someone described such discordant lists succinctly with an imagined headline: “Man arrested for arson, murder and jaywalking”!
We received many shades of feedback for chapter 75 on the Yakṣa-prāśna. Some readers felt that the chapter was far too long, and unnecessarily combined two distinct scenes. In hindsight, we agree: the dialogue between Yudhiṣṭhira and the Yakṣa is cut from a cloth very different from the description of Yudhiṣṭhira’s actions and choices right after the dialogue. The latter, along with the contrast with Duryodhana’s behaviour, would have made for a standalone chapter by itself. Some other readers felt no such ‘break’, and even said the chapter was too short!
Longtime reader and well-wisher Hari Ravikumar made some very helpful critical comments on our overall style. He suggested that at times we’re applying a little too much highlight – be it as an excited description, too much ‘telling’ instead of ‘showing’, or simply the use of ‘lazy punctuation’, like exclamation marks, italics or smileys. Such inputs are very welcome, and we’ll try to absorb as much of them into future chapters as possible.
Very soon however, we run into rather existential issues. One of our prime intentions behind starting Sadāsvāda was to highlight sections from our Sanskrit reading that struck us as deep, incisive, funny, timeless, – as somehow worth recalling over and over. We often read through a work and leave with a general good impression, without remembering specific examples to support why it was good. It might be that one verse in the Amaruśataka that stands tip-toed above the rest, and yet may be overlooked for no bigger reason than a pedestrian translation, or a Koh-i-noor like the Gṛdhra-jambuka-saṃvāda casually strewn somewhere on the wrong bank of the Mahābhārata Krishna-deluge. When we try to frame these bits and explicitly point out all that’s good in them, we hope to make them stand out – and a bit of highlighting and excited pointing and ‘telling’ can be inevitable. Your thoughts on how we could do this better would be most appreciated! [By the way, the real Koh-i-noor was found on the right bank of the Krishna river in Guntur about a thousand years ago]
In the Yakṣa-praśna, the first half ‘quiz show’ format can be very powerful when the right people are involved. An organization called Edge poses an ‘annual question’ to top scientists across fields like Physics, Biology and Artificial Intelligence, and compiles their replies into a book. For example, the 2004 question was, “What’s your law?”. A sample response from Stewart Brand, founder of the Whole Earth catalog: “The past can only be known, not changed. The future can only be changed, not known.”
The final answer in the quiz, ‘asmin mahā-moha-maye kaṭāhe…’ where life is explained with cooking analogies appears to be a popular frame. Here is DVG with something very similar in Manku-timmana-kagga:
ತೋಯಿಸುತ ಬೇಯಿಸುತ ಹೆಚ್ಚುತ್ತ ಕೊಚ್ಚುತ್ತ
ಕಾಯಿಸುತ ಕರಿಯುತ್ತ ಹುರಿಯುತ್ತ ಸುಡುತ |
ಈಯವನಿಯೊಲೆಯೊಳೆಮ್ಮಯ ಬಾಳನಿಟ್ಟು ವಿಧಿ
ಬಾಯ ಚಪ್ಪರಿಸುವನು - ಮಂಕುತಿಮ್ಮ || 156
“Soaking, cooking, cutting, chopping, heating, frying, roasting, burning — placing our lives in the world’s oven, Fate licks his lips in delight!”
In that chapter, as in many times previously, we chided Yudhiṣṭhira over his unmanly, far from leader-like behaviour. We contrasted him unfavorably with Arjuna and Bhīmasena, who were much more passionate about events in their own lives. We had simply chalked it down to his inferior personality. Imagine our surprise when we read a very insightful perspective on the probable causes of such a ‘lack of ownership’ on Yudhiṣṭhira’s part, in Iravati Karve’s masterful Yugānta: [she refers to Yudhiṣṭhira as Dharma; emphasis ours]
Dharma was the son of Pandu, a crowned king. He had the right to the kingdom after his father’s death, but complications and wranglings barred his path. As a child he was forced to live meekly in the house of his enemies. He could not afford to forget even for a moment that the kingdom was rightfully his. Nor would his mother and brothers have let him forget it. Gathering Brahmins and having them perform sacrifices, giving generous fees and receiving the blessings of grateful people, holding discussions on dharma, listening to the stories of old kings, playing dice now and then — these were the things he liked to do. But the role that fell to his lot demanded a man of action. Dharma could never play the part. Whatever he got was through the valour of others. His beautiful wife, his powerful father-in-law he owed to Arjuna. For protection in both exiles he was indebted to Bhima. Indraprastha and the incomparable Maya-sabha were secured by Arjuna and Krishna. The war itself was won through the valour of his brothers and the statesmanship of Krishna. To add to Dharma’s humiliation, he had to plead with Arjuna and threaten to renounce the kingdom altogether if Arjuna did not fight. And finally, when he got what he was fighting for he had to pay so heavily that instead of his face shining with victory his mouth was filled with ashes. From beginning to end Dharma’s life was filled with sadness. In this respect too, his life was like Vidura’s. Not getting what he fully merited was Vidura’s sorrow. Having to pay an awful price for what was his by right — that was the sorrow of Dharma. Throughout the Mahabharata Vidura’s frustration is never expressed. But Dharma himself revealed his own frustration. On their last journey when Draupadi fell down, he said she had fallen because she had loved Arjuna the most. In these words the usually reticent Dharma bared his life-long wound. Again in the dice game, when he wildly staked his kingdom, his brothers, and his wife, we feel that he once more revealed the pain in his heart. Did he think it a manly deed to throw to the winds all that others had won for him? Was it a gesture to show he had nothing but contempt for what he possessed?
This completely altered our mental picture of Yudhiṣṭhira. Far from being unmanly or cowardly, even his act of staking everything at a dice game reveals the boiling passions underneath. What a challenge it must have been to live through such stresses! How can he be expected to act any differently, when his natural impulses are so discordant with the role he has to play?
In chapter 76 on the Kādambarī, we had mentioned that the living epic is one of the most striking features of India. Every town or village has some kind of organic connection with the Mahābhārata and the Rāmāyaṇa. Śatāvadhāni Dr. R. Ganesh goes a step further, and says the only true national languages of India are the Mahābhārata and the Rāmāyaṇa!
In that chapter, Bāṇa remembers Agastya’s āśrama with great fondness and reverence, keeping Rāma and Sītā at its centre. But did Rāma’s and Sītā’s share that fondness too, or was it only Bāṇa’s rosy retrospection? There’s a good chance they did, writes Iravati Karve, contrasting Sītā’s happy exile with Draupadī’s misery:
Sita’s exile was unshadowed by hatred and suffering. For more than twelve years she lived in a continual honeymoon. As the wife of the crown prince in Ayodhya she had been surrounded by the bustle of servants, by her father-in-law and three mothers-in-law. There had been no chance to give herself completely to love. Now she was free. Her forest was like the forest in the romantic dreams of young city girls; there were deer and swans, and the delightful Godavari River with its long stretches of sandy shore. Dotting the landscape here and there were the ashramas of the rishis, offering hospitality and human companionship. Occasionally there were just enough cruel beasts to give one a few delightful shivers. Of the burden of the real world there was nothing — no smart of remembered insult, no yearning for absent children, no crowds of guests. The poet Valmiki has poured into Ramayana all of his powers. Using the forest as background, he has told the story of the gradual transformation of Sita from a young girl into a mature woman deeply in love. To Sita herself the memory of her exile was so idyllic that during her pregnancy she craved only one thing — to go back to the forest.
As always, we welcome any thoughts, feedback and suggestions from you all. Please email us at kvm….@gmail.com and shree…@gmail.com
Parting Thought
In the middle of the Yakṣa-praśna, we noticed this little gem that seemed to poke right at us:
पठकाः पाठकाश् चैव, ये चान्ये शास्त्र-चिन्तकाः ।
सर्वे व्यसनिनो मूर्खाः यः क्रियावान् स पण्डितः ॥
paṭhakāḥ pāṭhakāś caiva, ye cānye śāstra-cintakāḥ |
sarve vyasanino mūrkhāḥ yaḥ kriyāvān sa paṇḍitaḥ ||
“Students, reciters, teachers, ponderers of the śāstras – these are all simply addicted fools. The only learned man is one who acts.”
:-)
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