BUDDHACARITA 3.31: Developmental Milestones

−−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−−¦¦−−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−−   Upajāti (Rāmā)

pītaṁ hy-anenāpi payaḥ śiśutve kālena bhūyaḥ parisarpam-urvyām |

⏑−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−−¦¦⏑−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−−

krameṇa bhūtvā ca yuvā vapuṣmān krameṇa tenaiva jarām-upetaḥ || 3.31

3.31

For even such a man sucked milk in infancy

And, in the course of time, again

he went on hands and knees upon the earth;

Having thus become, step by step, an adult in possession of his body,

By that same process, step by step, he has realized old age.”

COMMENT:

EHJ noted that kālena bhūyaḥ (“in the course of time, again”) is clumsy and there is much to be said for following Gawronski's suggested amendment from kālena (“in the course of time”) to bālena (“during childhood”), so as to balance śiśutve (“in infancy”) and yuvā (“as a young man/adult”).

I disagree with EHJ and Gawronski on this point, because whereas the 2^nd pāda ostensibly describes something happening during childhood, I think the real meaning relates to going on hands and knees as a movement with developmental significance that can be beneficially performed not only by children but also by adults.

If kālena needed to be amended, I would think that another krameṇa (“step by step”) would be a better option, because Aśvaghoṣa is clearly intending to emphasize a process of growth that precedes in gradual stages, step by step. 

More serious textual uncertainty attaches to the word I have taken in the 2nd pāda to be parisarpam, which the MW dictionary gives as an indeclinable participle (i.e. an -am form gerund) from pari-√sṛp, to crawl. The old Nepalese manuscript has the impossible parisṛṣṭam, which Amṛtananda presumably amended to parimṛṣṭam (hence, EBC has parimṛṣṭam, “groped” – “and in course of time he learned to grope on the ground”). EHJ amended to parisṛpṭam (“crawled”) based on Bohtlingk's conjecture. I cannot understand the grammar of EHJ's amendment – which is not to say that the grammar is wrong, only that I cannot understand it. (EHJ's amendment to parisṛpṭam seems to me to require a kṛtam, indicating that crawling was done by him, in the same way that milk was sucked by him.) CSL has parisṛṭam, which does not fit the Upajāti metre, but PO translated as “crawled” (parisṛpṭam).

Taking parisarpam as a gerund/absolutive fits with my reading of the hidden meaning of the verse, which is that going on hands and knees, whether as a crawling child or as a bowing adult, is a natural developmental precursor to assuming a mature adult form – a mature adult form being a fully upright condition which is not impeded by the action of immature primitive reflexes like the STNR (symmetrical tonic neck reflex).

In this reading, jarā, “old age,” suggests not so much a condition of decrepitude or demented senility as a condition of true maturity like a ripe fruit or a withered tree.

The real point of today's verse, then, as I read it, is to test our ability to drop off a one-sided view of the terror of aging.

When Marjory Barlow got too old to live on her own, she went quietly to live with her son and daughter-in-law, at whose house I visited her just the once. During this visit I asked Marjory if she was happy in her old age. “Oh yes!” she replied feistily, “Happier than I have ever been!” This was despite the fact that her short-term memory had become very poor, and she was, in her own words, “as deaf as a post.” “When you get old,” Marjory expanded, “you don't worry any more about the things you used to worry about.”

The existence of people like Marjory, who seem to falsify the “old age is a disaster” hypothesis, was surely not lost on Aśvaghoṣa. But not everybody is like Marjory. Marjory in her old age had become Marjory in her old age step by step, as a result of a very gradual developmental process.

And when I think of the human developmental process (I sense readers of this blog rolling their eyes and thinking “here he goes again”), I cannot help coming back to the importance of primitive reflexes, among the earliest of which are the sucking and rooting reflexes, which, all being well, are fully present at a baby's birth. At somewhere between 6 and 9 months the baby, all being well, starts to go on its hands and knees in the gradual, step by step process of inhibition of primitive reflexes and stimulation of postural reflexes. This process, by the way, can be recapitulated at any age – for example, by going on hands and knees and bowing, and by practising what in Alexander work is called “standing in monkey.” By such means, step by step, reflexes may become fully mature (or may not as the case may be – as evidenced by my own example), and a human being may truly come into possession of his or her own body. And by such means, today's verse seems to me to suggest, step by step, such a human being can go on developing, onward and upward, into his old age.

So the hidden meaning of today's verse, as I read it, is related with what in Chinese Zen was celebrated as 仏 向上 事 (Jap: BUTSU KOJO NO JI), “the matter of a buddha keeping going on up.”

VOCABULARY

pītam (acc. sg. n.): mfn. drunk , sucked , sipped , quaffed , imbibed

hi: for

anena (inst. sg.): this , this here , referring to something near the speaker

api: also

payaḥ (acc. sg.): n. ( √pī, to drink) any fluid or juice , (esp.) milk , water , rain

śiśutve (loc. sg.): n. childhood , childishness

śiśu: m. (fr. śū, to swell , grow , increase) a child , infant

kālena: ind (inst. sg.) in the course of time

bālena (inst. sg.): m. a child , boy (esp. one under 5 years)

bhūyaḥ: ind. more , most , very much , exceedingly; still more , moreover , besides , further on ; once more, again, anew

parisṛptam (acc. sg. n.): mfn. crawling

parisarpam = ind. p. pari- √ sṛp: to move round about or to and fro , hover ; to creep or crawl upon

pari- √ mṛś: to touch , grasp , seize ; to examine , consider , inquire into

urvyām (loc. sg.): f. the earth

krameṇa: ind. (inst. sg.) in regular course , gradually , by degrees , step by step

bhūtvā = abs. bhū: to be, become (with nom.)

ca: and

yuvā (nom. sg.): m. a youth , young man ; young , youthful , adult (applied to men and animals) , strong , good , healthy

vapuṣ-mān (nom. sg. m.): mfn. having a body ; having a beautiful form , handsome

vapus: n. form , figure , (esp.) a beautiful form or figure , wonderful appearance , beauty; n. the body

krameṇa: ind. (inst. sg.) in regular course , gradually , by degrees , step by step

tena: ind. (inst. sg.) in that manner, by that process

eva: (emphatic)

jarām (acc. sg.): f. old age

upetaḥ (nom. sg. m.): mfn. arrived at, reached

此本爲嬰兒 長養於母乳
及童子嬉遊 端正恣五欲
年逝形枯朽 今爲老所壞