atash ca hasta ity uktaa
mayaa shraddhaa visheShataH
yasmaad gRhNaati sad-dharmaM
daayaM hasta iv' aakShataH
- = - = - - = =
- = = = - = - =
= = = = - = = =
= = = - - = - =
12.36
And so I call it the Hand,
Because it is this confidence, specifically,
That grasps the true Dharma
As a hand takes a gift, naturally.
COMMENT:
MW defines akShata as not crushed, and LC's translation evidently follows this definition, interpreting akShataH as the nominal singular of akShata. EHJ's translation "of itself," however, seems to interpret akShataH as an adverb composed of the stem akSha and the ablative suffix -taH. MW gives akSha as axle, axis, or wheel. So can akShataH mean "following from the rolling of a wheel," i.e. naturally, effortlessly, of itself? If jiblet, Karttikeya, or any other student of Sanskrit who might be reading this can shed light, I would be grateful.
The point of the words shraddhaa visheShataH, "specifically confidence," as I read them, may be to specify the particular form of confidence described in the previous verse, which is confidence that a particular effect (growth of corn) follows from a particular cause (sowing a seed).
This confidence is not at all the same as optimistic belief.
A person in possession of what has been sold to him as gold by a good gold salesman might prefer to maintain his optimistic belief that his gold is true gold. He might maintain this optimistic belief for many years, or even for a lifetime. But if he is willing to submit his gold to scientific verification, i.e. if he is open to finding out that his former belief about his gold might have been wrong, then he has the real possibility of finding out that his former belief was wrong. If it transpires that he has indeed been sold fool's gold, if his attitude is purely scientific he will feel happy to have drawn closer to the truth. Otherwise, he may feel that his former optimistic belief has been totally crushed. The initial shock is most likely to lead to a process of grieving beginning with denial, followed by stages of anger, cycles of aggression and passivity, tears, et cetera, before the final stage of letting go.
To maintain a view that whatever gold I seem to own is true gold is a kind of optimistic belief, which is ever liable to be crushed. What the Buddha is describing here, as I hear him, is something totally different from optimistic belief about what belongs to me.
This work that I am doing now, which I call mining Ashvaghosha's gold, is an exercise in building confidence in the real existence of the true gold which is not anybody's true Buddhism, but which is the original teaching of the Buddha, the true Dharma.
A central prejudice I have brought to this translation work is that the SHOBO, or "True Dharma" of Master Dogen's SHOBOGENZO "Treasury of the Eye of True Dharma," means sitting upright in lotus with body, with mind, and dropping off body and mind.
But this work asks me to drop off even that prejudice and listen to what the Buddha is actually saying, as recorded by Ashvaghosha.
In the context of the previous verse, and also in the context of Nanda's request in 12.16 (It is the eradicator of all suffering, / Your most excellent Dharma, that I rejoice in), the compound sad-dharma, as I read it now, refers particularly to the Buddha's teaching, to be expounded in detail in Canto 16, that suffering is an effect whose cause is the faults that begin with thirsting.
This teaching seems to be presented in Saundarananda as a scientific law, akin to the 2nd law of thermodynamics, observable everywhere, and open to operational verification by anybody in the laboratory of the self.
This teaching or law, then, cannot belong to Buddhism, or any other -ism. Really to have confidence in this teaching, which is an objective law of cause and effect, is to abandon the security of ones former -ism.
If the original meaning of Islaam is submission, can Islaamism be true Islaam? I don't think so. If the original teaching of the jew Jesus was "Thy will be done," can true followers of Jesus be adherents to Judaism or Catholicism or Protestantism or Calvinism or Methodism, or even Non-conformism? I don't think so.
Can the true Dharma be somebody's true Buddhism, or realism, or humanism? In former days, I believed so, with very great optimism.
We cling in fear to our -isms, and in the process do harm to others. Speaking for myself, I have never been harmed by Islaamism. But I have been severely hurt in the name of true Buddhism.
Gudo's Nishijima calling me a non-Buddhist was in some sense a gift. Truly to understand the fault that was behind the old man's jibe, which was not meant in an ironic sense, is to understand the fear which lies behind my own faults, and which lies behind everybody's faults.
Now I am sitting at my laptop surveying the evening sunlight on ash and hazel trees, expounding a view on what sad-dharma really means. The view I am expounding might be called non-ism-ism. But if I find security in this view of mine, I am only buying once more into fool's gold. The reality of true Dharma is always not that.
EH Johnston:
Therefore I call faith especially the Hand since it grasps the Holy Law of itself, as a hand takes a gift.
Linda Covill:
That is why I refer to faith particularly as 'the hand,' since it reaches out to the true dharma like an unimpaired hand reaches out for a gift.
VOCABULARY:
atas: from this
ca: and
hasta (nominal): hand
iti: " "
uktaa: (f.) , uttered , said , spoken
mayaa (instrumental): by me
shraddhaa: f. faith , trust , confidence , trustfulness, faithfulness, belief in
visheSha: distinction, peculiarity
-taH: (ablative suffix)
visheSha-taH: in particular, spacifically
yasmaat: since, from which
gRhNaati = 3rd person singular of grah: to seize, take by the hand, grasp, to take possession, to lay the hand on
sad-dharmam (accusative): true teaching, the true Dharma
sat: (pr. p. of √as) being , existing , occurring , happening , being present; real , actual , as any one or anything ought to be , true , good , right
dharma: that which is established or firm , steadfast decree , statute , ordinance , law ; nature , character , peculiar condition or essential quality
daayam (accusative): m. gift , present , donation
hastaH (nominal): hand
iva: like
a-kShataH (nominal): not crushed; uninjured , unbroken , whole
akSha: axel, axis, wheel
-taH: (ablative suffix)
2 comments:
Hi Mike,
Re akShataH: I don't know, of course. But your ablative adverbial reading does ring truer to me than LC's "uncrushed" (why?!). I confess that I'm not familiar with, and haven't yet found, EHJ's stem 'akSha', meaning 'itself'. But while looking...
I did find, further down the page in MW, under the 3rd heading for "akSh", the meaning "an organ of sense, sensual perception...born blind..." So: 'blindly; in response to a sensual stimulus' perhaps?
Or, indeed, "naturally".
Many thanks, jiblet.
I had noticed the defintion of akSha in MW as "an organ of sense" and "sensual perception," but I failed to notice "a person born blind" -- which, as you spotted, does fit the context very well.
In support of the interpretation that akShataH could mean "uncrushed," it often transpires that very nervous swimmers, for example, or people who are unreasonably afraid of speaking or singing in public, had their confidence crushed when they were young by some bad, end-gaining method of teaching.
That said, I think the original meaning of akShataH is exactly as you indicate: "blindly," and hence spontaneously, naturally.
Thank you again.
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