⏑−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−−¦¦−−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−−
Upajāti (Haṁsī)
mahoragā
dharma-viśeṣa-tarṣād-buddheṣv-atīteṣu ktādhikārāḥ
|
⏑−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−−¦¦−−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−−
yam-avyajan
bhakti-viśiṣṭa-netrā mandāra-puṣpaiḥ samavākiraṁś-ca
|| 1.19
1.19
Mighty
serpents who, in their thirst
for the choicest dharma,
Had
watched over buddhas of the past,
Fanned
him, their eyes exuding partiality,
And
covered him in a confetti of mandāra blossoms.
COMMENT:
The
present series of verses is similiar to the 10th canto of
the Saundarananda in the insight it gives into the working of
Aśvaghoṣa's imagination. Here, as there,
Aśvaghoṣa's thoughts are very
much grounded in reality. Aśvaghoṣa's magical realism, a kind of
thinking, is grounded in the reality which is beyond thinking (though
in certain circumstances, as George Soros observantly points out, it
can be greatly influenced by human thinking).
The
gulf that exists between thinking and reality was at the centre of
the teaching of my teacher, Gudo Nishijima. That is why when I went off to explore the work of FM Alexander, who described his work as “an
exercise in finding out what thinking is,” Gudo became suspicious
of what I was getting into and expressed the hope that I would “come
back to Buddhism.”
From
where I sit, the one who went astray in this thinking about the
relation between thinking and reality was Gudo himself. He fell into
what Soros calls “the enlightenment fallacy,” which is that the
reasoning observer and the reality he observes must always be
absolutely divorced from each other. Whereas the truth, as anybody
who persists with Alexander work, or who studies market bubbles,
cannot fail to realize, is that human thinking sometimes condition
reality -- generally for the worse, but sometimes for the better.
In such matters as directing the spine to lengthen without accidentally narrowing the back in process, Gudo was blind to the potential practical usefulness of thinking. Nevertheless, in his investigations of how Dogen thought about the reality which is
beyond thinking, Gudo astutely recognized an implicit four-phased
approach. Progress through four phases, which Gudo sometimes called
“three philosophies and one reality” or “subject, object,
action, reality (SOAR)” is generally implicit in the structure of
four-line Chinese verses and, before them, of four-pāda Sanskrit verses like those we are studying by Aśvaghoṣa.
Today's verse, then, as I read it, is not only humorous but also deeply philosophical. The 1st line relates to the first noble truth, i.e. to the suffering of the
thirsting subject. The 2nd line can be understood as
antithetical to idealism, or to religion, or to the subjective values
of the suffering Buddhist subject, in that it puts big snakes
(presumably slithering in big trees) above buddhas. The 3rd
line relates to action, namely the action of fanning (which the
serpents presumably realised by means of their hoods). And the 4th
line points to a glorious reality which I for one have experienced
while sitting outside in springtime under a big tree in blossom.
Instead of giving Gudo what he wanted, which was a translation into English of Nagarjuna's writings which he could call his own, I went off to France and bought a place where I could sit in springtime under a confetti of falling blossoms. I don't regret doing the latter, but in retrospect, if I had manned up and sent my knees more forwards and away, I might have been able to do the former as well.
VOCABULARY
mahoragāḥ
(nom. pl.): m. a great serpent (with jainas and Buddhists a class of
demons)
uraga:
m. (fr. ura = uras and ga , " breast-going ") , a serpent ,
snake ; a nāga (semi-divine serpent usually represented with a human
face)
dharma-viśeṣa-tarṣād
(abl. sg.): out of thirst for choicest dharma
viśeṣa:
m. distinction , peculiar merit , excellence , superiority (in comp.
often = excellent , superior , choice , distinguished)
buddheṣv
(loc. pl.): buddhas
atīteṣu
(loc. pl.): mfn. gone by , past
kṛtādhikārāḥ
(nom. pl. m.): mfn. superintending, watching over (loc.)
adhikāra:
m. authority; rule; office; prerogative; privilege
yam
(acc. sg. m.): him (relative pronoun)
avyajan
= 3rd
pers. pl. imperfect vyaj: to fan
bhakti-viśiṣṭa-netrāḥ
(nom. pl. m.): their eyes exuding attachment
bhakti:
f. attachment , devotion , fondness for
viśiṣṭa:
mfn. distinguished, distinct; characterized by (comp.); pre-eminent ,
excellent , excelling in or distinguished by (comp.)
mandāra-puṣpaiḥ
(inst. pl.) mandāra flowers, flowers of the coral tree [see also
SN10.16]
samavākiran
= 3rd
pers. pl. imperfect sam-ava- √ kṝ: to scatter completely over ,
cover entirely , overwhelm with
ca:
and
No comments:
Post a Comment