Saturday, January 10, 2009

SAUNDARANANDA 3.27: Unthinkable Dharma

3.27
nR-patis tataH prathamam aapa
phalam a-mRta-dharma-siddhaye
dharmam a-tulam adhigamya muner
munaye nanaama sa yato guraav iva

Then the royal hero reaped the first

Fruit for the fulfillment of the deathless Dharma.

Having met the unthinkable dharma of the sage,

He bowed to the sage accordingly, as to a guru.



COMMENT:
In the realm of mind there are endings and beginnings, gain and loss, nobility and ignominy, heroes and zeros (1), whereas in the material world -- notwithstanding people's prayers, values and opinions -- trees and actions bear fruit according to the Universal law of cause and effect. "Fulfillment of the deathless Dharma" means, to me, a physical body getting in the Great Groove. That is what I came back to England to investigate: physical materialisation of the Dharma principle that does not die -- but do not call it bodywork! (2). Do not call it bodywork and do not call it spiritual practice. What is beyond mind and matter is dharma that is unthinkable (3), like the king bowing down (4).

VOCABULARY:
nR: man, hero
patiH: master, owner, possessor, lord, ruler, sovereign
nR-patiH: lord of men, king
tataH: then
prathamam: first
aapa (perfect of aap): reached, gained, obtained

phalam: fruit
a-mRta-dharma: the undying Dharma; the Law of the Universe that never ceases to operate, immortal Nature herself, the deathless Universe itself; the materialisation of true Sitting, stripped free of all cultural trappings and transient fripperies.
siddhaye (dative): for the fulfillment, achievement, accomplishment

dharma: dharma, teaching, way of being
a-tulam: beyond measure, imponderable, unthinkable
adhigamya (absolutive): having approached, fallen in with, come into, met, discovered, obtained
muneH: (ablative/genitive) from/of the sage

munaye (dative) to the sage
nanaama (perfect of nam): bowed
sa: he
yataH: from which, since, because of that, accordingly
gurau (locative) to a guru,
iva: like, as


EH Johnston:
Then the king obtained the First Fruit for the fulfillment of the immortal Law and accordingly, on entering into possession of the unequalled Law of the Sage, he prostrated himself before Him as before his spiritual guide.

Linda Covill:
The king then acquired the first fruit for the complete attainment of the deathless dharma, and since he had acquired the unequaled dharma from the sage, he bowed to the sage as to a guru.

2 comments:

Uku said...

What is beyond mind and matter is dharma that is unthinkable (3), like the king bowing down (4).

Well said. Thinking and not thinking. Beyond those is nonthinking, like the king bowing down.

Thank you, Mike!

Uku

P.S. I noticed you called me tosser in your previous post's comment section. I just hope that you're ok with that with yourself? I didn't deserve that kind of behave from you but if you think your behaving is justified, then I can't say anything. I'm just hoping all the best to you, because your behaviour it's sometimes quite sad because of you calling names etc.

Take care!

Mike Cross said...

Whether you hope me all the best or hope me all the worst makes absolutely no difference whatsoever.

But your mixture of gullibility and rigid intellectual arrogance is annoyingly reminiscent of the way I was at your age -- except that I wasn't one of those who only read the brochure.

In my own small island culture, when somebody gives themselves airs of knowing what in fact they know nothing about, we sometimes describe them with the word "tosser."

I think that describes you, Markus, exactly. If I set up a blog and start telling everybody how to be Finnish, you should use the word to describe me.