[[Mohan K.V 2016-11-12, 05:13:55 Source]]
सदास्वादः
90
स्मारये त्वां न शिक्षये
(smāraye tvām na śikṣaye)
Meaning
“I’m only reminding you, not teaching you”. This phrase has been borrowed verbatim into many regional languages as well, and used to be a staple of refined speech when offering a dissenting opinion.
Context
This phrase is from the of the Araṇya kāṇḍa of the Vālmīkī Rāmāyaṇa. Rāma, together with Sītā and Lakṣmaṇa, is at the periphery of the Daṇḍaka forest, visiting many of the ṛṣis who have set up their hermitages there. Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa have just slain the rākṣasa Virādha, and the hermits dwelling nearby all come to thank and bless them for this feat. In their dialogue, they request that Rāma protect them from the many hordes of rākṣasas that rove the Daṇḍaka forest. To this request, Rāma replies with characteristic humility:
नैवम् अर्हथ मां वक्तुम् आज्ञाप्यो ऽहं तपस्विनाम् ।
केवलेन स्व-कार्येण प्रवेष्टव्यं वनम् मया ॥ 3-6-22
भवताम् अर्थ-सिद्ध्यर्थम् आगतो ऽहं यदृच्छया ।
तस्य मे ऽयं वने वासो भविष्यति महाफलः ॥ 3-6-24
तपस्विनां रणे शत्रून् हन्तुम् इच्छामि राक्षसान् ।
पश्यन्तु वीर्यम् ऋषयः सभ्रातुर् मे तपोधनाः ॥ 3-6-25
na evam arhatha mām vaktum ājñāpyaḥ aham tapasvinām |
kevalena sva kāryeṇa praveṣṭavyam vanam mayā ||
bhavatām artha-siddhi-artham āgato aham yadṛcchayā |
tasya me ayam vane vāso bhaviṣyati mahāphalaḥ ||
tapasvinām raṇe śatrūn hantum icchāmi rākṣasān |
paśyantu vīryam ṛṣayaḥ sabhrātur me tapodhanāḥ ||
“You shouldn’t request me, you should command me!
I had to enter the forest for purely personal reasons;
[But now] Fortunately, I am also able to be of use to you.
My stay in the forest will truly be of use!
I will kill the enemies of the sages, the Rākṣasās.
Behold our valor, O Hermits!”
This kind of responsibility of a ruler to his subjects is the end goal of virtually all our political systems today; how far we still have to go!
Rāma promises his protection, and visits the last of the hermitages on the periphery, that of Ṛṣi Sutīkṣṇa. The trio spend the night there, and after the morning rituals are all complete, bid their farewells and enter the open forest.
Sītā has been silent all this while. When they’re out of earshot of the hermits, she stops Rāma and expresses her apprehensions. In her mind, there are three grave adharmas: lying, coveting another’s wife, and violence without enmity. There is no question of Rāma ever succumbing to the first two; but about the third, she is worried:
तृतीयं यद् इदं रौद्रं पर-प्राणाभिहिंसनम् ।
निर्वैरं क्रियते मोहात् तच्च ते समुपस्थितम् ॥ 3-9-9
ततस् त्वां प्रस्थितं दृष्ट्वा मम चिन्ताकुलं मनः ।
त्वद्-वृत्तं चिन्तयन्त्या वै भवेन् निःश्रेयसं हितम् ॥ 3-9-12
tṛtīyam yad idam raudram para-prāṇa-abhihiṃsanam |
nirvairam kriyate mohāt tat ca te samupasthitam ||
tataḥ tvām prasthitam dṛṣṭvā mama cinta ākulam manaḥ |
tvat-vṛttam cintayantyā vai bhavet niḥśreyasam hitam ||
“This third [adharma], of violence without enmity, has come to you.
That is why I’m filled with worry as I see you set out into the forest.
Some good may come out of my thinking, [please listen to me].”
The astute, caring wife that she is, Sītā sees many perils in Rāma’s promise to the hermits. The rākṣasa hordes he has pledged war against have never harmed Rāma personally. The hermits say they cause problems, but Sītā is not comfortable with Rāma getting involved with war, especially when he has renounced his kingdom to Bharata. Note her gentle subtlety: she repeatedly sees ‘nirvairam’ ‘no enmity’, but neither does she explicitly support the rākṣasas nor suspect the hermits.
Even beyond this sense of not meddling in others’ affairs and taking on unnecessary risks, Sītā has a larger worry:
न हि मे रोचते वीर गमनं दण्डकान् प्रति ।
कारणं तत्र वक्ष्यामि वदन्त्याः श्रूयतां मम ॥ 3-9-13
क्षत्रियाणाम् इह धनुर् हुताशस्येन्धनानि च ।
समीपतः स्थितं तेजो बलम् उच्छ्ह्रयते भृशम् ॥ 3-9-15
na hi me rocate vīra gamanam daṇḍakān prati |
kāraṇam tatra vakṣyāmi vadantyāḥ śrūyatām mama ||
kṣatriyāṇām iha dhanur hutāśasya indhanāni ca |
samīpataḥ sthitam tejo balam ucchhrayate bhṛśam ||
“I do not like going into Daṇḍaka forest. Please listen to me.
A bow in the hands of a Kṣatriya is like fuel to a fire.”
Sītā then relates a story that was well known in her time. A sage was performing great tapas, and Indra (as usual) wanted to to disrupt it. Indra came in the disguise of a soldier, and gave to the sage a fine sword for safe-keeping for a short period and went away. The sage, anxious of losing it (nyāsa-rakṣaṇa-tatparaḥ), carried it everywhere with him. Soon, having a weapon in hand started to act on him, and he began to use it indiscriminately (cakāra raudrīm svām buddhim). He became so carried away by his new powers that he veered away from the path of tapas completely. The moral is that temptation is best avoided at the root.
In relating this story, there’s another level of subtlety: a few days earlier, Indra had visited one of the āśramas just before Rāma and company had, but had left without seeing them. If these sages are so great that the gods themselves routinely visit them, can’t they defeat some trivial rākṣasas on their own? What of their famed power of tapas, which can burn down the three worlds? Why should her husband do all the difficult work of cutting down demons when such an easy route was available? Some part of Sītā feels something is off about all this, but doesn’t want to doubt anyone. Relating one of the many deceits of Indra is her way to get her apprehensions across. Just the effort Sītā puts into controlling her words shows how delicately she wants to approach the matter, how much she treasures her relationship with Rāma as it stands, and how conscious she is of it.
She concludes,
स्नेहाच् च बहुमानाच् च स्मारये त्वां न शिक्षये ।
न कथञ्चन सा कार्या गृहीत-धनुषा त्वया ॥ 3-9-24
क्व च शस्त्रं क्व च वनं क्व च क्षात्रं तपः क्व च ।
व्याविद्धम् इदम् अस्माभिः देश-धर्मस् तु पूज्यताम् ॥ 3-9-27
snehāt ca bahumānāt ca smāraye tvām na śikṣaye |
na kathaṃcana sā kāryā gṛhīta-dhanuṣā tvayā ||
kva ca śastram kva ca vanam kva ca kṣātram tapaḥ kva ca |
vyāviddham idam asmābhiḥ deśa-dharmaḥ tu pūjyatām ||
“Out of love and respect, I’m only reminding you, not teaching you.
You shouldn’t [fight the rākṣasas without provocation] by any means.
Weapons, this forest, the duties of a Kṣatriya, tapas –
All this seems inconsistent with us. Please respect the customs of this place”
नित्यं शुचि-मतिः सौम्य चर धर्मं तपो वने ।
सर्वं हि विदितं तुभ्यं त्रैलोक्यम् अपि तत्त्वतः ॥ 3-9-32
स्त्री-चापलाद् एतद् उदाहृतम् मे
धर्मं च वक्तुं तव कः समर्थः ।
विचार्य बुद्ध्या तु सहानुजेन
यद् रोचते तत्-कुरु मा ऽचिरेण ॥ 3-9-33
nityam śuci matiḥ saumya cara dharmam tapovane |
sarvam hi viditam tubhyam trailokyam api tattvataḥ ||
strī cāpalāt etat udāhṛtam me
dharmam ca vaktum tava kaḥ samarthaḥ |
vicārya buddhyā tu saha-anujena
yat rocate tat kuru mā acireṇa ||
“You always have a pure mind; please follow the dharma of the Tapovana.
You know everything in the three worlds.
I just said what was on my mind without any due thought.
Who can speak to you of Dharma?
Please consider this slowly, along with your brother,
And do what what feels right”
It is no wonder that Sītā’s words have become a staple of gentle, refined speech! Who could have the heart not to consider an alternative opinion, even a fundamental dissent, when it is presented with such finesse and respect! Later in the story, when Rāma meets Hanumān for the first time, he is so impressed with Hanumān’s gentle speech that he remarks, ‘kasya nārādhyate cittaṃ udyatāser arer api?’ ‘Who wouldn’t be pleased with such words? Even an enemy with upraised sword would be calmed down!’ Sītā’s timidity of form, combined with the acute practicality of her content, has tenfold the effect on us!
To Rāma’s credit, he fully appreciates Sītā’s efforts:
हितम् उक्तं त्वया देवि स्निग्धया सदृशं वचः ।
कुलं व्यपदिशन्त्या च धर्मज्ञे जनकात्मजे ॥ 4-10-2
hitam uktam tvayā devi snigdhayā sadṛśam vacaḥ |
kulam vyapadiśantyā ca dharmajñe janaka-ātmaje ||
“You have spoken what is good, my dear, in words
that befit your love and your high birth as the wise Janaka’s daughter”
He goes on to explain that he is caught in a bind: he recognizes the hazard involved in ‘fighting someone else’s fight’, but he also cannot refuse an explicit request. There are some other, less convincing arguments that he puts forward. However, all those are incidental, as we can simply summarize that he entered the forest by kāla-pāśākarṣaṇa – the pull of the cords of Fate.
Consider again Sītā’s plea, “deśa-dharmaḥ tu pūjyatām”. This seems to be made in a completely different mental universe than Rāma’s declaration, “paśyantu vīryam ṛṣayaḥ sabhrātur me tapodhanāḥ”. Sītā’s concern is rooted in observation, thinking, care and risk. The forest has a certain nature, a certain equilibrium under which it is sustained. One must be wary of disturbing that equilibrium, for it can have several undesirable, unintended consequences. Her counsel is for patience, forethought and ample caution: every mother would nod in empathy.
In contrast, Rāma’s words are all about creating the world he wants. Studying the old ways and the old equilibrium is somewhat irrelevant, because he is the new force, and he will shape the world the way he sees fit. The thing to be observed isn’t so much the nuances of some deśa-dharma, but the vīrya that will shape it; a view worthy of a great warrior.
George Soros, writing about his theories about reflexivity and the behavior of markets, writes of a similar distinction:
The participants’ thinking serves two functions. One is to understand the world in which we live; I call this the cognitive function. The other is to change the situation to our advantage. I call this the participating or manipulative function. The two functions connect thinking and reality in opposite directions. In the cognitive function, reality is supposed to determine the participants’ views; the direction of causation is from the world to the mind. By contrast, in the manipulative function, the direction of causation is from the mind to the world, that is to say, the intentions of the participants have an effect on the world.
Consider next this chapter’s phrase, ‘smāraye tvām na śikṣaye’. We all instantly recognize that this is a delicate phrase – but why is it delicate? Somehow, saying that she is merely reminding Rāma of something he already knows, is milder than teaching him, presumably of things he doesn’t know. In Sītā’s world, and indeed much of ours, it is considered a routine occurrence that something we know slips out of our attention, and someone reminding us of it is simply doing us a favour. In contrast, teaching something at the inappropriate moment is seen as highly offensive and condescending. The immediate reaction is often to question the authority of the person doing the teaching, and disregard it anyway. It is seen as a challenge to one’s ability, and any acceptance of it leads to loss of face.
The distinction goes deeper. In formulating the idea of the “poverty of the stimulus”, Prof. Noam Chomsky argues that some portion of our language skills cannot be taught, and are innate within us. Education simply serves to remind us of them, and to hone them better. The idea goes back to the time of Plato, in a work titled Meno. In it, Socrates ‘teaches’ the Pythagoras theorem to a slave. But he doesn’t teach it, so much as demonstrate it to him, and when the slave ‘understands’ it, it is simply as if he was reminded of something he knew, but had forgotten.
From our own experiences, except for dry facts, learning anything often creates a feeling of joy akin to unveiling and ‘seeing’ something. After ‘seeing’ it, it is impossible to go back to the state of not having seen it. We are of course far from fully understanding what ‘understanding’ means, but it’s a wonder how a simple expression of politeness can sit atop such a massive iceberg of cognitive science!
Parting Thought
As Rāma takes leave of the sage Sutīkṣṇa, he says this:
अविषह्यातपो यावत् सूर्यो नाति-विराजते ।
अमार्गेणागतां लक्ष्मीं प्राप्येवान्वय-वर्जितः ॥ 3-8-8
तावद् इच्छामहे गन्तुम् इत्युक्त्वा चरणौ मुनेः ।
ववन्दे सह सौमित्रिः सीतया सह राघवः ॥ 3-8-9
aviṣahya ātapo yāvat sūryo na ati virājate |
amārgeṇa āgatām lakṣmīm prāpya iva anvaya varjitaḥ ||
tāvat icchāmahe gantum iti uktvā caraṇau muneḥ |
vavande saha saumitriḥ sītayā saha rāghavaḥ ||
“ ‘Before the sun becomes intolerable
like an unqualified man who has gained unjust wealth,
we wish to take leave of you, O Sage.’
Saying thus, Rāma, Lakṣmaṇa and Sītā bowed to the sage”
Even poor Rāma couldn’t bear the antics of the nouveau riche of his time!
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