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Upajāti (Mālā)
krameṇa
garbhād-abhiniḥstaḥ san babhau cyutaḥ khād-iva yony-ajātaḥ
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kalpeṣv-anekeṣu
ca bhāvitātmā yaḥ saṁprajānan suṣuve na mūḍhaḥ || 1.11
1.11
Having
emerged from the womb gradually,
He
who whose position at birth was never fixed,
shone
as if he had dropped from empty space.
Again,
as one whose self had been developing over many aeons,
as one whose self had been developing over many aeons,
He
was born with integral awareness,
and
not in the wrong position.
COMMENT:
None
of the many translations of this verse hitherto, from Sanskrit into
English, and from Sanskrit into Chinese and thence into English, has
caught the irony that Aśvaghoṣa intended, or sensed that he was
talking about a real human birth along the lines that nature –
working via evolution through natural selection -- intended.
Translators
hitherto have thought that Aśvaghoṣa was describing something
miraculous in the religious or fantastic or unnatural sense of a
miracle. But what Aśvaghoṣa was really describing was the miracle
of a normal or natural birth.
In
that light, the first word to understand is krameṇa
which means gradually.
EB
Cowell: in due time
EH
Johnston: in due course
P
Olivelle: in due course
S
Beal: gradually
C
Willemen: in due course
Gradual
progress down the birth canal is desirable from the point of view of
the baby's development, for example, in terms of exercising the tonic
labyrinthine reflex in extension and the asymmetric tonic neck
reflex. So the point of krameṇa
as I read it is to emphasize that the Buddha's birth was not
precipitous. In that case, the translators I agree with are the
Chinese translator and S. Beal. A case could be made that Aśvaghoṣa
was also suggesting that the birth was on time, not premature or
late, in which case “in due time” would fit. But still I think
krameṇa
describes a labour that was neither precipitous nor prolonged, but
gradual.
When
EHJ, PO and CW translated
krameṇa as “in due course,” what
kind of course did they mean? EHJ
in a footnote to his translation answers my question for himself,
confirming that he for one got the wrong end of the stick: “This
and the next verse are relative sentences depending on tasya in 10,
and explain why the birth was miraculous. Krama means 'the ordinary
course of events', Buddhas naturally being born in a supernatural
way.”
But
where not only EHJ but all previous translators really got hold of
the wrong end of the stick is in their understanding of what
Aśvaghoṣa meant by describing the Buddha as yony-ajātaḥ.
The phrase yony-ajātaḥ
is deliberately ambiguous, meaning (1)
“not born of/through/from the female organs of regeneration,” or
(2) “not born into a station fixed by birth.”
All
translators fell into Aśvaghoṣa trap by going for the
former intrepretation, thus:
EBC:
he who had not been born in the natural way
EHJ:
he did not come into the world through the portal of life
PO:
he did not emerge through the birth canal
Chinese
translation: 不由於生門
(not
through the birth gate)
SB:
not through the gates of life
CW:
he did not pass through the portal of birth.
Understood
like that, Aśvaghoṣa is guilty of an absurd contradiction –
saying in the 1st pāda that the Buddha emerged gradually
from the womb and in the 2nd pāda that he was not born
naturally from the womb through the birth canal, but was born by some
other unnatural means.
I
think the reason Aśvaghoṣa presented the reader with what, on the
surface, appears to be an absurd contradiction is that he wished us
to adopt a questioning attitude, to dig below the surface appearance
and excavate his real intention – which might be less religious and
more scientific than any translator hitherto has ever suspected, even
in a dream.
If
I seem to be strident in saying this, it is not because I know the
right position, because I don't. But I do have some insight, on many
levels, into what the wrong position is. I know what it's like to be
totally arse over tit in trying to understand the Buddha's teaching
-- under a teacher whose teaching was totally arse over tit, who
taught that the Buddha's teaching was philosophy, not religion, and
yet who referred to himself as “Reverend Nishijima.” And so,
from my own religious experience of being arse over tit, I have no hesitation
in asserting that the translations done by the aforementioned
Buddhist scholars are all totally arse over tit.
Does it fuck mean "remembering his previous births."
My
understanding of saṁprajānan
is informed by the fact that at
brainstem level the human vestibular system plays the fundamental
role of integrator of all the senses, and by around 6 months after
conception the vestibular part of the VIIIth cranial nerve joining
the ear and the brainstem is already wired up; and so in that sense a
healthy baby already knows before it is born all that it needs to
know about where up is and where down is. Such a baby tends not to
present itself arse over tit in the breech position.
Having
written the above comment, I intended to say something along the
lines that “not arse over tit” might be rendered in Sanskrit as
na
mūḍhaḥ. At
that point, I re-checked the MW dictionary and found that included
among the definitions of mūḍha
is indeed: “wrong, out of the right place (as the fetus in
delivery).”
Since
nobody would deny that today's verse relates to the delivery of a
fetus, one might have thought that EBC or EHJ or PO would have been
awake to this meaning of mūḍha.
But not a bit of it:
EBC:
not foolish
EHJ:
not ignorant
PO:
not oblivious
Chinese
translation: 不死
(lit.
not dead) or variant reading不
亂
(lit. not
confused).
SB:
not foolish
CW:
without any confusion
It
is difficult to criticize SB and CW, as they were just replicating the inaccuracy of the original Chinese translator, who would have better translated na
mūḍhaḥ
as 不倒
(not
upside down). I reserve my crticism for the Sanskrit-English
translators who – not understanding that the Buddha's teaching is
not primarily religious and not primary psychological – ignored
the dictionary definition of mūḍha
that
was obviously most relevant to today's verse.
Here
for the moment I rest my case. Aśvaghoṣa had real understanding of
the faculties, centered on the vestibular system, with which
evolution has furnished a baby, so that a healthy natural birth can
take place. Aśvaghoṣa was therefore talking in terms that make
sense to a modern evolutionary biologist or to a neuro-developmental
therapist -- but evidently not to a Buddhist scholar who thinks the
Buddhacarita is a religious text about supernatural or unnatural
miracles.
VOCABULARY
krameṇa
(ind. instr. krama): in regular course , gradually , by degrees
garbhāt
(abl. sg.): m. the womb, interior
abhiniḥsṛtaḥ
(nom. sg. m.): mfn. issued or issuing from (abl.)
san
= nom. sg. m. pres. part. √as: to be
babhau
= 3rd pers. sg. perf. bhā: to shine , be bright or luminous ; to
shine forth , appear , show one's self
cyutaḥ
(nom. sg. m.): mfn. come forth from , dropped from ; fallen from any
divine existence for being re-born as a man
khāt
(abl. sg.): m. the sun ; n. a cavity , hollow , cave , cavern ,
aperture ; vacuity , empty space , air , ether , sky ; heaven ;
brahma (the Supreme Spirit)
iva:
like, as if
yony-ajātaḥ
(nom. sg. m.): not born from a womb; not born into a station fixed by
birth
yoni:
mf. the womb , uterus , vulva , vagina , female organs of generation
; family , race , stock , caste , the form of existence or station
fixed by birth (e.g. that of a man , Brahman , animal &c ; ifc.
= belonging to the caste of)
ajāta:
mfn. not born
kalpeṣu
(loc. pl.): m. a fabulous period of time
anekeṣu
(loc. pl. m.): mfn. not one, many
ca:
and
bhāvitātmā
= nom. sg. m. bhāvitātman: mfn. " one whose soul is purified
by meditating on the universal soul " or " whose thoughts
are fixed on the Supreme Spirit " , meditative , devout , holy ,
a sage , saint
bhāvita:
mfn. (fr. Caus. bhū) caused to be , created , produced , obtained ,
got ; (ifc.) made to become , transformed into ; cherished, protected
, fostered , furthered , promoted ; cultivated , purified (» comp.
below); soaked, steeped in
ātman:
m. the breath; the individual soul , self ; essence , nature ,
character , peculiarity (often ifc. e.g. karmātman, one whose
character is action)
yaḥ
(nom. sg. m.): [he] who
samprajānan
= nom. sg. m. pres. part. sam-pra- √ jñā: distinguish, discern,
know accurately or perfectly (see also SN17.50).
suṣuve
= 3rd pers. sg. perf. √sū: to beget
na:
not
mūḍhaḥ
(nom. sg. m.): mfn. stupefied , bewildered , perplexed , confused ;
stupid , foolish , dull , silly , simple ; wrong , out of the right
place (as the fetus in delivery)
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