⏑−⏑−,⏑⏑⏑⏑−⏑−⏑−¦¦⏑−⏑−,⏑⏑⏑⏑−⏑−⏑− Rucirā
tataḥ śivaṁ
kusumita-bāla-pādapaṁ paribhramat-pramudita-matta-kokilam |
⏑−⏑−,⏑⏑⏑⏑−⏑−⏑−¦¦⏑−⏑−,⏑⏑⏑⏑−⏑−⏑−
vimānavat-sa-kamala-cāru-dīrghikaṁ
dadarśa tad-vanam-iva nandanaṁ vanam || 3.64
3.64
There with young trees
in flower,
Lusty cuckoos
roving joyously around,
And tiered pavilions in
charming stretches of lotus-covered water,
That happy glade he
glimpsed,
like Nandana Vana, 'the Gladdening Garden.'
COMMENT:
On first reading, the
3rd pāda looked to me like it should be one long compound, as is the
2nd pāda, hence: vimānavat-sa-kamala-cāru-dīrghikaṁ, “lovely
oblong lakes abounding in lotuses and containing multi-tiered
pavilions.”
EHJ separated the
elements out and read as vimānavat sa kamala-cāru-dīrghikaṁ; so
that sa (he, the prince) marks a change of subject. “Otherwise,”
notes EHJ, “the compound is clumsy and a word is wanted to mark the
change of subject from 63.”
But who says the
subject has changed from 3.63? The happiness of a forest is in the
eye of the beholder, and the happy beholder in today's verse, as I
read it, is still the bloke who is so decisively driving his own
chariot.
If we look for
philosophical meaning below the surface of today's verse, the 4th
pāda can be read as representing the moment in which a driver of his
own chariot realizes the gladdening beauty of the reality in which has
has been living, in which moment is contained his childhood, his
adolescence, and his lifework.
In the 1st pāda, then,
flowering of young trees represents childhood. In the 2nd pāda the
lustful roving of the cuckoo represents hormone-fuelled adolescence.
And in the 3rd pāda, the presence in lakes of the kind of pavilions that evolved in eastern asia into pagodas (raised in
gradual steps by building layer upon layer), and abundant lotuses,
represents the result of constructive human effort, in building and cultivation.
In the 4th
paragraph Nandana Vana, the Gladdening Garden, or Garden of Gladness,
means Indra's paradise, which is referred to in several places in
Aśvaghoṣa's epic story of Beautiful Joy, Saundara-nanda.
The Nanda of Nandana Vana
and the -nanda of Saundara-nanda are the same Nanda, which means joy
or gladness and which was at the same time the name of the Buddha's younger
brother, Nanda, Joy.
The consensus among
Buddhist scholars seems to be that Saundara-nanda, far from being
Nanda's struggle to be his beautiful joyful self, is rather a story
of religious conversion. This misconception stems from wide
acceptance of the unenlightened view that the Buddha's teaching is
rooted in religious asceticism. The truth is that the Buddha's teaching is
rooted in the Buddha's total and utter abandonment of all -isms,
beginning with asceticism.
A couple of days ago,
in the process of translating yesterdays' verse, I googled
padma-ṣaṇḍa, searching for any evidence that padma-ṣaṇḍa
might be the proper name of an ancient wood near Kapilavāstu. If such a proper name did exist, that might cause me to have to drop my reading of sa-padma-ṣaṇḍa and accept instead the name padma-ṣaṇḍa; in that case I would have to take sa- not
as a prefix but as repetition of the personal pronoun meaning “he.”
The aforesaid google search led me to an article by David Smith, published in the Oxford Journal of Hindu Studies, which contains the following passage:
Both Kālidāsa and Aśvaghoṣa were the heirs of Vālmīki, whose epic sent kāvya off in search of a world of beauty, with Rāma, Prince Charming as hero, and ramya as its most common adjective, and one of its kāṇḍas taking directly the name ‘beautiful’, the Sundara. And the second of Aśvaghoṣa's two mahākāvyas has the title Saundarananda, ‘Handsome Nanda’. However, the role of beauty differs widely. In the Rāmāyaṇa, the beauty of Sītā, the majesty of Rāma, the beauty of nature, and the beauty of Rāvaṇa's palace are more or less subservient to the plot. Aśvaghoṣa's poems, as Buddhist texts, are necessarily anti-beauty. ‘Handsome’ Nanda has to be disabused of the value of good looks, of beauty. Buddha defeats Māra, but in Kālidāsa Śiva's destruction of Kāma brings about no diminution of Kāma's power, and the affirmation of beauty continues unabated.
I would like to suggest
to David Smith that he abandons the view which is expressed in the sentence “Aśvaghoṣa's
poems, as Buddhist texts, are necessarily anti-beauty,” and tries
again.
If you are listening, David, you should understand that the person who strives to disabuse Nanda of the value of beauty is the striver in Cantos 8 and 9 who had never glimpsed the true beauty of the Buddha's teaching even in a dream. The striver is anti-beauty. The Buddha's teaching is not anti-beauty. The Buddha's teaching is beauty itself. The striver is a trap for people of unexamined views to fall into.
The Buddha's teaching
is the abandonment of all views. Why do Buddhist scholars fail so
spectacularly to see this? Why did my own Zen teacher fail so
spectacularly to see this? Why am I so frequently shown not to have seen this?
The answer to my
question is related with the meaning of dadarśa in the 4th
pāda of today's verse, from the root dṛś, which means to see or
glimpse but at the same time corresponds to the Chinese character 見 (Jap: KEN), as in the compound 見仏 (Jap: KENBUTSU) "seeing/meeting buddha." Meeting buddha does
not mean to apprehend a buddha through the visual sense. It means
nothing but the abandonment of all views, and the gladdening
realization of reality.
This sounds very much like the
teaching of my teacher, Gudo Nishijima. But in certain areas, as I
found from serving him like a slave for several years, Gudo was as
blind as a fucking bat, and utterly attached to wrong views – not
least a wrong view about right posture.
Looking on the bright
side, it might be that failing over the years to understand this painful irony has at least partially sensitized me to the kind of ironies
that fill Aśvaghoṣa's writing.
I dare say that David
Smith, along with EB Cowell, EH Johnston, Linda Covill, and Patrick
Olivelle before him, has so far singularly failed to appreciate
Aśvaghoṣa's beautiful use of irony. But we live in hope.
VOCABULARY
tataḥ: ind. then ;
from that place, thence; in that place, there
śivam (acc. sg. n.):
mfn. auspicious , propitious , gracious , favourable , benign , kind
, benevolent , friendly , dear ; happy, fortunate
kusumita-bāla-pādapam
(acc. sg. n.): with young trees in flower
kusumita: mfn.
furnished with flowers , in flower
bāla: mfn. young
pādapa: m. "
drinking at foot or root " , a tree
paribhramat-pramudita-matta-kokilam
(acc. sg. n.): with lusty cuckoos roving joyously around
paribhramat = pres.
part. pari- √ bhram: to rove , ramble , wander about or through ;
to turn or whirl round , move in a circle ,
pramudita: mfn.
delighted , pleased , glad; gladsome (said of the autumn)
matta: mfn. excited
with joy , overjoyed , delighted , drunk , intoxicated; excited by
sexual passion or desire , in rut , ruttish (as an elephant)
kokila: m. the Kokila
or Koil (black or Indian cuckoo ; frequently alluded to in Hindu
poetry , its musical cry being supposed to inspire tender emotions)
vimānavat-sa-kamala-cāru-dīrghikam
(acc. sg. n.): with lovely
oblong lakes abounding in lotuses and containing multi-tiered
pavilions
vimāna-vat [(acc. sg.
n.)]: having multi-tiered
pavilions
vimāna: m. n. a car or
chariot of the gods , any mythical self-moving aerial car (sometimes
serving as a seat or throne , sometimes self-moving and carrying its
occupant through the air ; other descriptions make the vimāna more
like a house or palace , and one kind is said to be 7 stories high );
m. any car or vehicle (esp. a bier) ; m. a ship , boat
sa-kamala: mfn.
abounding in lotuses
[sa (nom. sg. m.): he]
kamala: n. a lotus ,
lotus-flower , Nelumbium ; mfn. pale-red , rose-coloured
cāru: mfn. agreeable ;
pleasing , lovely , beautiful , pretty
dīrghikā: f. an
oblong lake or pond
dīrghī-- √ kṛ: to
lengthen, prolong
dadarśa = 3rd
pers. sg. perf. dṛś: to see, behold
tad (acc. sg. n.): that
vanam (acc. sg.): n.
forest, wood
iva: like
nandanam (acc. sg. n.):
mfn. rejoicing , gladdening ; n. gladdening or gladness ; a divine
garden , (esp.) indra's paradise
vanam (acc. sg.): n.
forest, wood
林流滿清淨 嘉木悉敷榮
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