[[Mohan K.V 2016-05-02, 08:55:00 Source]]
सदास्वादरोमन्थः
Dear readers,
We just reached a milestone of 80 posts, after a long hiatus due to personal events. How much things can change between two posts, how much of life can happen! Many thanks to everyone who wrote in with their kind notes of concern and support. The group has nearly 350 subscribers now, and virtually everyone here has come from word-of-mouth. We’re grateful for your encouragement and enthusiasm.
Prof. Pramod Viswanath had written to us about an old chapter, #48 on the Rāmāyaṇa. On reading the title verse again, a deeper level of meaning becomes apparent:
सन्नामिव महाकीर्तिं श्रद्धामिव विमानिताम् ।
प्रज्ञामिव परिक्षीणाम् आशां प्रतिहतामिव ।। 5.19.12
sannām iva mahākīrtiṃ śraddhām iva vimānitām |
prajñām iva parikṣīṇām āśāṃ pratihatām iva ||
“[Hanumān saw Sītā for the first time in the Aśoka-vana, who was] Like once-great fame that has decayed, like faith insulted, like intelligence withered, like hope dulled.”
The similes seem to progressively become more and more inward, and less and less ambitious. It starts with declining fame. Fame by itself involves thousands of others and the contortions of Fate. It is sad when it wanes, but it is only to be expected. Faith, in a way, is an expectation of the way the world works. It doesn’t need the active participation of others like Fame does, but it still dependent on the universe acting per a certain model. The next one goes inward – a high prajñā is simply a better, more higher resolution model of the world and oneself. As it declines, one is no longer able to understand the world, let alone command it (fame) or expect it to follow a course (faith). At the very end – forget the world – is simple desire – and even that is प्रतिहता. This verse itself traces the decline of Sita in captivity, and her lowering expectations every passing day.
The potential for new interpretations like these in each reading is what makes for great poetry.
In chapter 74 on anger in the Amaru-śataka, Mmanu Chaturvedi sent in some excellent analogues from the Ghazal corpus.
Ghalib is exasperated by his beloved’s general cluelessness:
yā rab vo na samjhe hain na samjheṃge merī bāt
de aur dil un ko jo na de mujh ko zubān aur
“Oh lord, they have not understood, nor will they understand my words.
Give them another heart, or give me another tongue!”
Faiz Ahmed Faiz, lamenting that explanations and sweet talk won’t make up for deeper slights:
woh bāt sāre fasāne mein jiska zikr na thā
woh bāt un ko bahut nā-gavār guzri hain
“What was not even mentioned in that long tale,
Is what they have turned out to dislike the most.”
Faiz again, this time annoyed at himself at his inability to stay angry for too long:
Dil se to har mu’āmlā kar ke chale the sāf hum
kehne mein unke sāmne, baat badal badal gayi
“We set out with a clear idea of all matters [to complaint about],
But just as we began speaking to them, the words themselves changed”
We’re grateful for Mmanu for these wonderful gems. The last one in turn reminds us of two more. One from the Gāthā-sapta-śati:
अवराह-सहस्साइं भरिमो हि अएण तम्मि अद्दिट्ठे ।
दिट्ठम्मि उण पिअसही एक्कं पि हु णं ण संभरिमो ।903।
avarāha-sahassāiṃ bharimo hi aeṇa tammi addiṭṭhe |
diṭṭhammi uṇa piasahī ekkaṃ pi hu ṇaṃ ṇa saṃbharimo ||
“When he’s not around, I think only of his thousand offenses.
But the moment I see him, my dear friend, I can’t think of a single one.”
One from the Amaru that we should have included in the original chapter; compare the majesty and flow of the Amaru verse with the simplicity and unpolishedness of the Gāthā verse:
भ्रू-भङ्गे रचिते ऽपि दृष्टिर् अधिकं सोत्कण्ठम् उद्वीक्षते
कार्कश्यं गमिते ऽपि चेतसि तनू-रोमाञ्चम् आलम्बते ।
रुद्धायाम् अपि वाचि सस्मितम् इदं दग्धाननं जायते
दृष्टे निर्वहणं भविष्यति कथं मानस्य तस्मिन् जने ॥
bhrū-bhaṅge racite api dṛṣṭiḥ adhikaṃ sotkaṇṭham udvīkṣate
kārkaśyaṃ gamite api cetasi tanū-romāñcam ālambate |
ruddhāyām api vāci sasmitam idaṃ dagdha-ānanaṃ jāyate
dṛṣṭe nirvahaṇaṃ bhaviṣyati kathaṃ mānasya tasmin jane ||
“Even if I knit my brows, my eyes look longingly toward him.
Even if I force my mind to be harsh, my body runs to hug him.
Even if I forcibly stay quiet, my damned face breaks into a smile.
How the hell does all my pride vanish as soon as I look at him!”
A curious quirk appears to be that the speaker is almost exclusively male in most Ghazal poetry, whereas there’s a more even mix with a slight female bias in Sanskrit love poetry.
In chapter 78 on the Rāmāyaṇa, we had remarked at the immense cultural ocean that gave birth to that pearl of a verse, ‘pinaṣṭīva taraṃgāgraiḥ…’. To someone who is familiar with that cultural ocean, this verse is an amazingly compact piece of art that captures so many ideas so naturally, so quickly.
In recent years, a very interesting theory that states that beauty arises from ‘processing fluency’ has been developed. In short, we feel thrilled when we grasp with ease something that we did not know before. The more ‘fluently’ an observer processes something, the more beautiful it can seem to him. It is the thrill of understanding that is the ultimate source of attraction. So whether it is a talented actor’s face which makes us feel that we completely understand the complex emotion he’s going through, or a verse that recalls many cultural elements in half a śloka, it is that fluency at play. [Fluency influences beauty, and even the truth].
The idea also explains the growth of tastes. When we begin, we have a rather low resolution of appreciation. We just like or dislike things; ‘nice’ or ‘not-nice’. Gradually, as our capacity to process becomes larger, more and more nuance appears. The old likes and dislikes are often too simple to cause the same excitement, and we ‘grow out’ of them or get bored. But every now and then, we come across something whose magic remains constant amid this growth, and that is the sign of classic art.
Moving on, one of the key nodes of that chapter was Rāma lamenting lost time. No distance is too far, and no enemy powerful enough that he can’t win Sītā back. But Time is beyond even Rāma, and their period of separation is never coming back. In this context, we were surprised to see a quote that flipped over this truth into a positive light:
“The chief beauty about time is that you cannot waste it in advance. The next year, the next day, the next hour are lying ready for you, as perfect, as unspoiled, as if you had never wasted or misapplied a single moment in all your life. You can turn over a new leaf every hour if you choose.” –Arnold Bennett
Indeed, great poets have used this to great effect. Kālidāsa does an exceptional job in the 13th sarga of the Raghuvaṃśa, where Rāma is with Sītā in the Puṣpaka-vimāna, flying back to Ayodhyā. Rāma points out his journey after her abduction, and recalls places where key events happened, as if on a map. He also tells her how he missed her and what she felt at all those places. A sad experience is converted to a moment of deep bonding and affection in retrospect. Bennett might as well have been elaborating on that ancient call to hope and fortitude, eti jīvantam ānando naraṃ varṣa-śatād api! “Happiness will eventually find a man, even if it takes a hundred years!”
Another key element in that chapter is Rāma’s extreme discomfort at an imagined scene, which he says burns him inside like poison: “my Sītā would have cried out to me, “O Lord!”, as she was carried away”. This scene loops over and over in his mind’s eye. It is impossible for Rāma to come to terms with the thought, and it drives him to action.
One of the most “I-feel-it-in-my-bones” movie scenes we can recall is the handshake scene in Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained. The villain Calvin Candie has wrested his pound of flesh, and has forced the good-guy Dr. Schultz to part with his fortune to save his partner’s wife. This was a terrible deal – the fortune was supposed to be just bait; they were only supposed to pay a few hundred dollars if everything went per their cunning plan. But nothing can be done now, and they’d all be lucky to just get out alive. Even luckier, in fact, that their ‘mission’ to save her was successful. Everything’s worked out and Dr. Schultz gets ready to leave. Candie then wants to shake his hand.
Dr. Schultz’s character is exceptionally mature and intelligent. Of course he’d shake Candie’s hand and get the hell out of there. But no – images of Candie’s inhumanity and the horrors he’s seen repeatedly torment him, just like the loops in Rāma’s mind. The simple act of shaking Candie’s hand seems to him as an invitation to condone it all, to treat him as an equal. It proves too much for him, and he shoots Candie. The movie makes a major twist for every character in that moment.
In the movie Schindler’s List, the protagonist Oskar Schindler goes about his business rather cheerfully, not very ruffled by the stories of Nazi atrocities. Statistics and the faceless multitude don’t mean anything to him, even when he sees glimpses of these atrocities himself, and he feels no compulsion to change his normal life course. But he happens to catch sight of one lost toddler in a little red coat in the ghetto [Warning: Very graphic], and that completely changes his mind. He cannot get the image out of his head, and that one act leads to the rest of the movie’s events. The director Steven Spielberg chose to make the girl in the red coat the only character in color in the bulk of the 3-hour black-and-white movie, an artistic choice that was instantly recognized a stroke of the highest genius.
In chapter 79, we had spoken of Śaṅkara’s sadness at his mother’s passing. Prof. Pramod Viswanath noted that this was the first time we had featured a verse by Śaṇkara, even though we had referred to a few verses by him in passing. We don’t know if it was the same Ādi Śaṇkara, but whoever it was that wrote it, he has fulfilled all his poetic debts with that one verse. Many of you wrote in with your personal stories of bereavement, and we’re deeply grateful for that.
The act of pouring rice into the deceased’s mouth seems profoundly brutal. But nearly every ritual from the moment of passing to the moment of turning back from the burning ground is unspeakably brutal – indeed, the very sight of the lifeless body of someone who was filled with life, love and laughter is horrific torture. We wondered whether we should write about those rituals. After all, like with so many other things, a clear, high-resolution description can be greatly comforting and can be a point of bonding and relatability. But just the recall of the event can be a source of great pain, and at this time something that we wish is simply not brought up.
There is a mention of 3 vairāgyas (‘detachments’) in many religious texts that is perhaps related to the chapter. Prasava-vairāgya is the detachment arising from labor pain. At the time of its experience, the pain is said to be so intense that it leads a sense of total detachment from any desire. With labor, both the pain and the memory of the pain appear to decline quite rapidly, making it somewhat temporary. But in our modern world, many varieties of chronic and acute pain lead to more permanent altering of how the mind thinks.
The next type Abhāva vairāgya, or detachment arising from lack. It could a wide-ranging calamity like a famine, or a personal situation where a desire has been thwarted one too many times – the mind recoils from scarcity, and a kind of detachment develops as a compensation.
Śmaśana vairagya is the detachment of the burning ground. The brutal setting of fire to the chest, the horrific sounds of the body burning… a living being, full of life essence; whose active mind just a short while ago could be made happy by a joke; a strong body that has borne many loads… burning to ashes rapidly, as if in a great tearing hurry to go back to the permanent home of the five elements… seeing this in flesh and blood leads to a sort of conviction that there is little on this floating rock worth getting emotionally invested in, ‘making some noises during a brief interlude between infinite silences’.
Chapter 80 was on the story of Indradyumna. The initial setting bears many similarities to the tale of Rip Van Winkle, who slept for 20 years and woke up to a radically different world. Many allegories seem to lurk below the surface: one’s identity as separate from one’s social context; what changes and what doesn’t change if one pops out for a couple decades, and what happiness and sadness are gained and lost; no one with the shared context, no one who has “seen those times” – Indradyumna faced all these as well!
There were much appreciation for Indradyumna, but also much wonderful objection. Prof. Pramod Viswanath countered that Indradyumna could do a thousand yajñas because he was rich and powerful. What is a poor man to do, with little capacity to influence other people’s lives, because he is poor in money, learning or capacity for consolation? Is heaven forever out of his reach?
An even more intense objection is by the delectable Schopenhauer, pointed to us kindly by Dr. Arvind Iyer: “Other people’s heads are too wretched a place for true happiness to have its seat”. We are instantly reminded of a trenchant verse by the Kannada poet Gopalakrishna Adiga:
ನಿನಗೆ ನೀನೇ ಗೆಳೆಯ ನಿನಗೆ ನೀನೇ
ಅವರಿವರ ನಂಬುಗೆಯ ಮಳಲರಾಶಿಯ ಮೇಲೆ
ಬಾಳಮನೆಯನು ಮುಗಿಲಿಗೆತ್ತರಿಸಲಿಹೆಯಾ?
ನಿನಗೆ ನೀನೇ ಗೆಳೆಯ ನಿನಗೆ ನೀನೇ!
“You have only yourself, my friend, only yourself.
On the flimsy sands of other people’s trust,
You’re planning to raise the tower of your life to touch the sky?
You have only yourself, my friend, only yourself.”
And an even deeper one by DVG:
ಒರ್ವನೆ ನಿಲುವೆ ನೀನುತ್ಕಟ-ಕ್ಷಣಗಳಲಿ
ಧರ್ಮ-ಸಂಕಟಗಳಲಿ, ಜೀವ-ಸಮರದಲಿ |
ನಿರ್ವಾಣ-ದೀಕ್ಷೆಯಲಿ, ನಿರ್ಯಾಣ-ಘಟ್ಟದಲಿ
ನಿರ್ಮಿತ್ರನಿರಲು ಕಲಿ - ಮಂಕುತಿಮ್ಮ ||
“You will stand alone in all your difficult moments,
your impossible dilemmas, your life’s battles,
in your preparation to leave, and your exit –
Learn, my friend, to be alone.”
The third line is especially hard-hitting.
All this resonates with us as strongly as Indradyumna’s tale does! It seems like we have a paradox! Niels Bohr’s observation was made especially for such moments: “The opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.”
One attempt to try to resolve this paradox: Indradyumna’s tale is not so much about an individual, but an idealized picture of what a society should be; a society that is made strong by bonds of gratitude, which yoke both the person giving help and receiving help into mutually beneficial dependence; a society where having (unknowingly) helped a tortoise can be the single determinant of a mighty king’s ascent to heaven.
In a sense, many successful modern societies have achieved this by trade. For example, a typical dweller in a developed economy interacts with thousands of fellow-citizens via the products he consumes daily – the producers of his toothpaste and soap, the grinders of his coffee, the sellers of his breakfast cereal, and uncountable others. The net result of all their work is to create comfort and enjoyment for him at some hour of the day. The failure of any one of these people negatively affects his life, and so he has every incentive to hope and work for their well-being. Of course, money is the medium of interaction, not cultural mores, and that has its pitfalls; however, at one level, the densely interlinked system imagined in Indradyumna’s story is the same as one where a businessman recognizes that his soft drink is consumed by poor men as well as Presidents, and that his interests are in keeping his consumers happy, no matter who they are. As the quip goes, “Your network is your net worth”. It doesn’t matter if one is rich or poor, highly learned or not – one is bound to have something to offer to this rich tapestry, even if it is just holding a few stitches together. The ‘goal’ in Indradyumna’s story is to create such a rich, robust tapestry.
Besides, it doesn’t seem to matter in the grand scheme of things: societies forget much the same way individuals do, quickly and broadly.
In another sense, the story is one answer to the question, “What is worthy of admiration?”. Is it one’s natural impulses, arising from one’s innate personality? For example, someone’s innate desire to give and help? Or is it one’s conscious choices, which can transcend innate personality? Like a miser overcoming his instincts and being generous at a crucial moment? Or, like in the case of Indradyumna, is it simply one’s circumstances (of being a great wealthy king), with a tiny bit of the former two? We don’t know :-)
On a lighter note, permits to heaven need not just be based on one’s good deeds. One of the most wonderful episodes of Tom and Jerry, Heavenly Puss (1949), is about Tom needing to get a ‘certificate of forgiveness’ from Jerry in order to enter heaven :-)
We had noted that the word abhijānāti/pratyabhijānāti can mean both ‘recognize’ and ‘remember’. We sense a difference between the English words, but the same word is used for both in Sanskrit, with a number of implications for meaning. It appears that ‘recognize’ is an ‘easier’ version of ‘remember’: the object is present in front, and the only work is in jogging memory. In contrast, ‘remembering’ is harder work: something has to trigger the memory in the first place, and then memory is jogged. Phew, small mercies for poor Indradyumna, he could pass if he was merely recognized :-)
In the conclusion of that chapter, we had used a line from delightful poem by Billy Collins. The full poem is worth recalling:
Introduction to poetry
I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem’s room
and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author’s name on the shore.
But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.
In the parting thought, we had mentioned Yama’s happiness at finding a good student. Prof. Pramod Viswanath also made a connection that stunned us. Yama’s comment appears to be identical in spirit to one made by the drunkard Ratna, in G. P. Rajaratnam’s famed Ratnana Padagaḷu:
ತಿಳ್-ದೋರ್ ಕಾಲನ್ ಇಡ್ಕೊಂಡ್ ಕಲಿಯೋರ್ ಇಂದಿನ್ ಕಾಲ್ದಾಗ್ ಇದ್ರು!
ಕಲಿಯೊ ಮಂದಿ ಯಲ್ಲೌರ್ ಈಗ, ಕಲ್ಸೋರ್ ಮೇಲ್ ಬಂದ್ ಬಿದ್ರೂ!!
“In the old days, students would latch on to learned men’s feet in the hope of learning something!
Who is interested to learn these days, even if teachers throw themselves at them?” :-)
One last thing: Indradyumna’s lake still exists, and as the first of the Pañca-tīrthas, has an intimate connection with the rituals at the Puri Jagannath temple. The nearby Gahirmatha beach is a major nesting ground for olive ridley turtles, probably the descendants of Akūpāra. Perhaps we should trace out Pravara-karṇa’s and Nāḍijaṅgha’s descendants, and plan a reunion party :-)
Moving on, chapter 81 was on a simile in Kālidāsa. That chapter is a great example of how subjective poetry appreciation can be. We genuinely believe that simile is the best one in all of the literature we have encountered. It was mentioned to us in a memorable instance by Śatāvadhāni Dr. R. Ganesh many years ago, and it has never left our minds since then. But many of you wrote in to say that while it was indeed a wonderful simile, it hadn’t struck with the same force. Some wrote in with their alternate picks for the top spot.
It is clear that the our innate tastes and the circumstances of encountering a piece of art strongly influence our judgment. This is true not just for appreciation – the bhāvayitrī pratibhā – but also the process of creation itself, the kārayitrī pratibhā. There is a wonderful verse attributed to the modern Sanskrit poet, Dr. Jagannath Pathak. Recalling the story that Vālmīki was inspired to write poetry when he saw a bird being hit by a hunter’s arrow, and was moved to sorrow:
कियद् वारं क्रौञ्चा इह न निहता व्याध-विशिखैः
परं काव्यं रामायणम् इदम् इहैकं समुदितम् ।
स कर्ता कालो ऽसौ स च हृदयवान् सा च कविता
समेत्य द्योतन्ते यदि वलति वाणी-विलसितम् ॥
kiyad vāraṃ krauñcāḥ iha na nihatā vyādha-viśikhaiḥ
paraṃ kāvyaṃ rāmāyaṇam idam ihaikam samuditam |
sa kartā kālo ‘sau sa ca hṛdayavān sā ca kavitā
sametya dyotante yadi valati vāṇī-vilasitam ||
“How many birds have been killed so far by hunters’ arrows?
But only one Rāmāyaṇa has arisen.
The poet, the time, the moved heart and the work,
All shine when the magic of words ties them together”
The idea of such a perfect storm is so compelling that we offer our own take:
अस्त्रैः सहस्रैर् विहगाः सहस्राः
आकल्पम् एव प्रहतास् तथापि ।
तद् एक-काले च पदे तद् एके
वाल्मीकिनैकेन बभूव काव्यम् ॥
astraiḥ sahasraiḥ vihagāḥ sahasrāḥ
ākalpam eva prahatāḥ tathāpi |
tad eka-kāle ca pade tad eke
vālmīkinā ekena babhūva kāvyam ||
“Thousands birds from thousands of arrows
Have been felled from the start of time. And yet,
In that one moment, in that one spot,
Poetry arose from that one Vālmīki”
One of the many reasons Kālidāsa’s simile appealed to us was that it brought to mind an expansive, intricate, moving scene with just a simple half a verse. We think it is the same concept of processing fluency at play. In addition to fluency, a key dimension of classic poetry is evident in this verse – not only should it be easy to understand and yet excite the observer, it should also remain beautiful after repeated readings. A political quip or emotional outburst may seem fluent and exciting at the moment, but seems stale the next day. But this verse has delighted readers for thousands of years, and we have ourselves recalled and spoken about this dozens of times – and yet, its magic has not dwindled one bit.
We had somewhat disparaged the wide-spread title ‘dīpa-śikhā-Kālidāsa’ as not a good enough example of Kālidāsa’s genius. One reason may be that the simile is exclusively visual. Its purpose is to bring to mind an actual picture. We were very surprised to learn recently that there is a wide variation in the capacity to visualize ‘mental images’. When we say we imagine a sunrise or a friend’s face, we (personally) don’t actually see anything. Maybe a glimmer of a shape that lasts a split second, at best. The only time we see images is when we’re fast asleep and dreaming. But we are apparently in the minority! It appears that the vast population do actually see an image in the mind when they imagine, say, a beach or a forest! It is no wonder that the visual imagery of dīpa-śikhā fell flat for us, whereas the abstract idea of kapayaḥ ceruḥ was so enthralling. We’d be very curious to hear from you about your perception of mental imagery!
How many such differences are hiding in plain sight, fundamentally defining our tastes, and yet we continue to maintain the illusion of ‘normality’ and expectations of similar judgments and reactions!
Prof. Pramod Viswanath suggested another mechanism by which Kālidāsa’s similes appeal to us. Kālidāsa seems to use stock ideas to begin with, but subverts them in a very distinct fashion. The stock idea is common enough to ensure familiarity and fluency, whereas the twist takes care of the newness and excitement. In the chapter’s example, it is a long-worn cliche that the mind is like a monkey. But Kālidāsa cleverly suggests that thoughts are like monkeys, taking the concept to another level entirely. Another example from Prof. Viswanath, from sarga 4, describing Raghu:
कामं कर्णान्त-विश्रान्ते विशाले तस्य लोचने ।
चक्षुष्मत्ता तु शास्त्रेण सूक्ष्म-कार्यार्थ-दर्शिना ॥ 4.13
kāmaṃ karṇānta-viśrānte viśāle tasya locane |
cakṣuṣmattā tu śāstreṇa sūkṣma-kāryārtha-darśinā ||
“Although he had wide eyes that extended all the way to his ears,
His sight was through wisdom, which sees the value of the subtlest acts.”
“Wide eyes = Beauty” is a common and highly annoying trope in Sanskrit poetry (like ā-jānu-bāhu, ‘long arms extending to the knees’, which makes gorillas the pinnacle of handsomeness). We can’t help but think that Kālidāsa is poking fun when he extends Raghu’s eyes all the way to his ears, no less, and almost start groaning at the stock image, before he wonderfully subverts it in the next line. Note also the brilliant compression: the second half is just three nouns and no verbs, literally “Sighted-ness but through-wisdom through-subtle-act-meaning-seer”. We might be able to think up the last samāsa, but ‘cakṣuṣmattā’ is exceptional. If we had to write it, we’d probably have not been able to avoid the verb, like ‘ददर्श शास्त्र-नेत्रेण’, which loses the ‘but’, or ‘दृष्टिस्तु शास्त्र-नेत्रेण’, which would repeat dṛṣ.
Some more examples, from the 17th sarga on King Atithi:
प्रसादाभिमुखे तस्मिन् चपलापि स्वभावतः ।
निकषे हेम-रेखेव श्रीर् आसीद् अनपायिनी ॥ 17.46
prasādābhimukhe tasmin capalāpi svabhāvataḥ |
nikaṣe hema-rekheva śrīr āsīd anapāyinī ||
“Under his graceful rule, Lakṣmī, even though fickle by nature, stood steady,
Like a streak of gold upon a touchstone.”
Lakṣmī being fickle is a trope as old as time. And yet, the second line is enthralling: gold is scratched against a touchstone to test its purity. Naturally, a touchstone always has a streak of gold on it, even though the actual gold may change hands many times in a single day! The analogy takes us to many fascinating places. A touchstone doesn’t hoard gold, or even try to possess it. It is in fact a test of gold, one which judges well. One would think that gold would be annoyed to be near someone who always judges it impartially, but she actually turns out to be more stable near it than anywhere else.
As an aside, we have to wonder if Lakṣmī is at times unfairly blamed for the actions of those who possess her (or more accurately, those whom she possesses). In the narrow meaning of ‘wealth’, at least in stable times and wise management, she is more stable than she is given credit for. It is only when we consider a broad meaning of ‘luck’ that the fickleness charge starts to stick.
Dr. Ganesh had a brilliant take on Lakṣmī in the modern world: Lakṣmī is technology, Sarasvatī is science. Technology can produce great wealth (c.f. the dot-com boom), but it can change in a blink to wipe away decades of work (c.f. Nokia). Science fundamentally enables technology, but takes a more boring but stable path. At times, the demands of science, like detailed understanding and painstaking confirmation, can seem antithetical to the go-go-go world of technology. A true visionary is one who can yoke the two together and make them pull in the same direction!
न तस्य मण्डले राज्ञो न्यस्त-प्रणिधि-दीधितेः।
अदृष्टम् अभवत् किंचिद् व्यभ्रस्येव विवस्वतः॥ 17.48
na tasya maṇḍale rājño nyasta-praṇidhi-dīdhiteḥ|
adṛṣṭam abhavat kiṃcid vyabhrasyeva vivasvataḥ||
“For the king who had placed his power in his spies,
there was nothing in the kingdom that was invisible, like to the sun on a cloudless sky”
The idea of the sun seeing everything is as old as the Vedas, but the king doing the same with spies is new and exciting. The natural dhvanis include the spies being straight and bright, that the king cared enough to know what was happening, and so on.
This is a also a good verse to caution enthusiasts from trying to import poetry into public policy too quickly. It is not a good idea to ask for Kālidāsa’s opinion on the iPhone privacy scandal or Aadhaar :-)
Later in that chapter, there is a beautiful sahokti: “Rāma entered the Daṇḍaka forest, and the hearts of all good men”. It appears to be a general-purpose alaṅkāra in Sanskrit, but in English however, it seems that it is almost always used humorously. Some choice examples from various sources:
Flanders and Swann:
“She lowered her standards by raising her glass,
Her courage, her eyes and his hopes.
When he asked “What in Heaven?” she made no reply,
Up her mind, and a dash for the door.”
Unknown: “The farmers grew potatoes, peanuts, and bored.”
Joel Stickley: “Joe Stockley was in an expensive sports car and deep trouble. This time, he had really let his mouth and his exotic foreign lover run away with him and it was getting beyond a joke and his immediate circle of friends in the form of rumours and speculation.
As he ran a red light, the conversation back in his mind and away from his troubles, he couldn’t help but feel a sense of rising panic and the soft matte finish of his hand-stitched leather steering wheel. Angelica had been absolutely right and his wife for fifteen years, so why was he running scared, these kind of risks and this deadly gauntlet of illicit entanglements?”
Yathāsmai rocate viśvaṃ tathā vai parivartate, that’s all :-)
Dr. Arvind Iyer commented that he actually preferred us dropping pretenses of balance and constraint, and take more risks like declaring the best upamā in all languages we know :-) In support, he had a wonderful quote from Anatole France: “I prefer the folly of enthusiasm to the indifference of wisdom”.
We’d be thrilled to cater to that preference! Indeed, as we had mentioned sometime ago, in ‘beauty contests’ like these, the fun is in the beauties, not the nitty-gritties of the contest. Even the seers of alaṅkāra-śāstra wisely chose to be poetic, and not precise, in defining the upamā. The Kuvalayānanda proclaims, ‘upamā yatra sādṛśya-lakṣmīr ullasati dvayoḥ’ ‘Upamā is where the wealth of similarity between two objects sports joyfully’. So be it in emotion or the chemistry of the allyl radical, anything that celebrates similarity beautifully is a beautiful upamā.
On a lighter note, such controversial judgments serve another purpose. There is an ‘internet law’ called Cunningham’s Law, which states: “The best way to get the right answer on the Internet is not to ask a question, but to post the wrong answer”. The urge to correct a wrong answer is far more compelling than the urge to answer!
Besides, it was a late learning for us that ambiguity can be an art form. If we had said, “Some of Kālidāsa’s upamās are great, while some others are mediocre”, there would have been wide approbation and not a dissenting voice would squeak. If instead we say “X is the best upamā”, the pitchforks come out :-)
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
Speaking again of King Atithi in sarga 17, Kālidāsa remarks
अनित्याः शत्रवो बाह्या विप्रकृष्टाश् च ते यतः ।
अतः सो ऽभ्यन्तरान् नित्यान् षट्पूर्वम् अजयद् रिपून् ॥ 17.45
anityāḥ śatravo bāhyā viprakṛṣṭāś ca te yataḥ |
ataḥ so ‘bhyantarān nityān ṣaṭpūrvam ajayad ripūn ||
“External enemies are temporary, and far away.
Therefore, he first conquered the perennial internal enemies, the Six”
The Six are the ari-ṣaḍ-varga – kāma (lust), krodha (anger), lobha (greed), moha (delusion), mada (pride) and mātsarya (jealousy).
There ought to be a similar verse for positive relations as well!
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