SAUNDARANANDA 12.39: The Seed and the River

punash ca biijam ity uktaa
nimittaM shreyaso' yadaa
paavan'-aarthena paapasya
nad" iity abhihitaa punaH

- = - = - - = =
- = = = - = - =
= - = = - = = -
- = - - - = - =

12.39
Again, I call it the Seed

Since it is the cause of higher good;

And for its cleansing action,
in the washing away of wrong,

Again, I call it the River.

COMMENT:
How can the seed of confidence cause the growth of a higher good?

For the 2nd line, EHJ's original Sanskrit text, published in devanagari script in 1928, has:
nimittam shreyaso'tpadaa.
In his footnote, however, EHJ notes that both the palmleaf and paper manuscripts of the Saundarananda, as well as the 1910 edition by Shastri, all have:
nimittam shreyaso' yadaa

By the time he came to publish his English translation in 1931, EHJ seems to have had second thoughts about departing from the original manuscripts and writes in a footnote:
"I think on the whole the manuscript reading should be kept in [39] b."

The Clay Sanskrit Library version goes with nimittam shreyaso' yadaa

In this wobbling back and forth by EHJ, I can't help feeling something admirable in Johnston's dutiful sincerity as an Oxford scholar of his day -- so different from the brash pronouncements of the opinionated Zen Master.

In his preface to the Sanskrit text of June 1928, EHJ writes: "I must admit that there are only too many passages in which the text I have adopted or the explanation I have given is only tentative. But even an unsuccessful conjecture or explanation may provide a hint of the right one to some one else and so justify itself."

Johnston's tentative and modest attitude expresses a lack of confidence of a certain kind. The kind of confidence that Johnston lacked is the confidence of the drill and fill dentist who filled my teeth with mercury in the 1970s. EHJ lacked the confidence of the arrogant consultant obstetrician whose presence would sometimes cause a midwife friend of mine to guide birthing mothers in the direction of the sanctuary of the ladies' toilets. EHJ lacked the kind of confidence that wins friends and influences people. EHJ lacked the blustering confidence of the con-man.

The kind of confidence that I see in EHJ is not confidence in his own view, but rather the scholar's confidence in the ultimate value of the text he is working on. That is the confidence not of the con-man but of the well-digger, the firestick-twirler, and the seed-sower. Efforts arising from that seed of confidence result eventually in human beings having access to water, to fire, to food -- and ultimately even to Ashvaghosha's gold.


How can confidence wash away wrongdoing, as a great river would seem to wash away the sewage from the relatively small human settlements of ancient times?

A river does not wash away sewage directly, as if with a brush. The only wish a river has is to keep flowing. Although the river originally has no specific sewage removal function, this function does arise, indirectly, from the river's relentless tendency to flow.

Confidence, similarly, confers many benefits indirectly. When the fear reflexes are not unduly excited, what Alexander called "the primary control" works well, so that all human functions, including respiration, digestion, and elimination, tend to flow better.

Confidence, in other words, does not cleanse the body of anger and other toxins directly; its cleansing effect is felt indirectly through the intermediation of the primary control.

This indirectness is I think reflected in the use of arthena with the genitive paapasya, as in the previous verse with arthena and the genitive dharmasya.

FM Alexander's niece Marjory Barlow, who I knew as a paragon of indirectness, used to tell me, "If you feel you are wrong, give your directions and go into movement without a care in the world. Let it come out in the wash!"

EH Johnston:
Further, it is said to be the Seed in that the highest good originates from it and the River too from its property of cleansing from sin.

Linda Covill:
What is more, it is said to be 'the seed,' since it causes the arising of Excellence; again, it is called 'the river' because it cleanses wickedness.


VOCABULARY:
punaH: further, again
ca: and
biijam (accusative): seed
iti: " "
ukta: uttered, said, spoken

nimitta (accusative): cause
shreyasaH = genitive of shreyas: good (as opposed to evil); higher good, ultimate good
utpad: to arise, originate
yadaa: when, at what time, whenever

paavana: purifying, pure, holy
arthena = instrumental of artha: cause, reason
paapasya = (genitive) of paapa: bad, vicious, wicked, evil

nadii: flowing water, river
iti: " "
abhihita: named, called
punaH: further, again