−−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−−¦¦−−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−− Upajāti
(Indravajrā)
muktvā tv-alaṁkāra-kalatravattāṁ
śrī-vipravāsaṁ śirasaś-ca ktvā |
−−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−−¦¦−−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−−
dṣṭvāṁśukaṁ
kāñcana-haṁsa-citram vanyaṁ sa dhīro 'bhicakāṅkṣa vāsaḥ
|| 6.59
6.59
He, however, having let go of being
wedded to ornaments,
Having acted to banish the crowning
glory from his head,
And having seen the softly shining
light
whose brightness was a golden goose
[or whose brightness is the best of
gold],
He with firm steadfastness longed for
clothing of the forest.
COMMENT:
The small
word that is important to clarify the relation between yesterday's
verse and today's verse is the second word in the verse – in
Sanskrit: tu, in English: however.
The
point is that the prince is being contrasted with religious beings in
heaven. The prince is different from those flotsam-worshipping saṅgas
of heavenly beings in four ways -- in a certain order, as represented
by three verbs in the absolutive form, namely (1) muktvā, “having
let go”; (2) krtvā, “having [concretely] acted, having done”;
(3) drṣtvā, “having seen, having realized”; and finally, as a
result of letting go, doing, and realizing, (4) sa abhicakāṅkṣa,
he knew what he wanted, he longed for clothing of the forest.
When
we reflect on this order, or this progression, there might be real
wisdom in it. Which is to say, that when we think about it in our
minds, a desire or a will comes first, to be followed later by seeing or
realizing or understanding something. But when we look back on the basis of having practiced and
experienced it, it may be that first there was a letting go; followed
by going into movement, or action; followed by seeing or realizing or
understanding something. And on this basis, we knew what we wanted to
do, or better still, what we had to do – like, for example, sewing a robe and wearing a robe to cover our crossed legs every morning.
In
this light, what should we think that the prince is described as
seeing or understanding or realizing in the 3rd
pāda? For once again in
today's verse, it is the 3rd
pāda which seems to be most enigmatic, given (a) the ambiguity of
aṁśukam discussed in connection with BC6.57 where I translated it
twice as “muslin” and (with a questionable degree of poetic
license) “softy shining wings”; (b) the many possible meanings of
citram, translated in BC6.57 as “patterned” but also given in the
dictionary as an adjective: conspicuous, distinctive,
bright-coloured; and as a noun: wonder; pun, verbal riddle; sectarian mark; and (c)
the possible alternative meaning, not discussed yet, of haṁsa, which ostensibly
means a goose or swan, but when it is used in a compound, can mean the best among.
Here
then are three possible readings of the 3rd
pāda which I shall give, again, in a certain order:
(1)
Verbal level
And
having seen in aṁśukam (“the muslin / the gentle blaze of
light”) a pun on kāñcan-haṁsa (“a golden goose / the best of
gold”),
(2)
Objective or material level
And
having seen the muslin with its distinctive outline of a golden
goose,
And
having beheld his upper garment with its embroidered pattern of
golden geese,
(3)
Level suggestive of a transcendent state of freedom in movement
And
having witnessed in the shimmering muslin the wonder of a golden wild
goose,
(4)
Level of suggestion of reality of sitting-meditation
And
having realized the gentle blaze of light whose brightness is the
best of gold,
EBC's
reading of the 3rd
pāda came the closest of the three professors to approaching level
(3). Reading chinham
for citram, EBC translated:
“seeing his
muslin floating away like a golden goose,”
EHJ's
reading is pitched at the level of material reality (2):
“he
looked at his garments with their embroidery of golden geese.”
EHJ
adds a footnote: For the
embroidery of geese Leumann compares a Jain passage, and Gawronski
Kumārasaṁbhava.
The
virtue of EHJ's reading might be in its bringing out a contrast
between an ornate royal uniform, and clothing of the forest which is nothing
fancy. (Having said that, I have seen kaṣāyas that include images
akin to golden wild geese embroidered into them.)
In
any event, EHJ's reading is incongruous in that the aṁśukam it
refers to (the prince's garments) is different from the aṁśukam
referred to just two verses ago (the muslin of the headdress / a
gentle blazing light). This seems unlikely.
PO's
reading also favours the objective level (2) but produces a less
incongruous and more convincing translation:
“seeing the cloth band
resembling a gold swan.”
As in his use in BC5.44 of the phrase
kāñcanam-āsanam, which ostensibly means “golden seat” but
which really means “golden sitting,” I am sure that with the
compound kāñcana-haṁsa ("the goose of gold" = "the best of gold") in today's verse Aśvaghoṣa had in mind
(4) the practice of sitting in lotus as the most valuable thing there
is.
But that is not to refute any of the
other readings cited above, not to mention readings that haven't even
occurred to me, along with readings which have occurred to me but
which I have not bothered to explore further (like taking citram to
be another allusion, like utpala-pattra and viśeṣa, to the mark
painted on the forehead).
What is for sure, in the end, is that
the prince is being described as having a longing which will soon be
fulfilled when he comes into possession of an ochre robe, a kaṣāya.
In
actual fact, thanks largely to the lifework of Kodo Sawaki, whose Zen
retreats my teacher Gudo Nishijima attended from around 1940 onwards,
and whose disciple Taisen Deshimaru, accompanied by the young
Tsunemasa Abe, went to
France in the 1960s, there have been many real life examples,
especially in France, of individuals who have demonstrated the four
phased process I have described above – i.e. who gave up ornaments,
shaved their head, understood something of the supremacy of just
sitting in lotus, and on the basis of that progression had a firm and
steadfast desire to sew and wear a kaṣaya.
Tsunemasa
Abe was like a grandson to the aged Master Kodo, and he taught me in a brief period after I met him in Japan the early 1990s, before I decided to come back to England to train as an Alexander teacher in 1994. He told me how
Master Kodo taught him things like, for example, how to be patient
after taking a piss, shaking off every last drop. He told me how at
the end of his life Master Kodo suffered during and after his Zen
retreats with terrible pain in the neck, whereupon he began to
realize that he had been overdoing the (“back and up” – my
words) direction of the neck. Notwithstanding this realization,
Tsunemasa Abe himself, the way I see it from an Alexander
perspective, continued to overdo that direction, which Gudo expressed
in English as “to pull the chin in slightly in order to keep the
neck bones straight.”
Tsunemasa
Abe also told me that my teacher Gudo Nishijima was not formally a
student of Master Kodo, because Master Kodo was choosy about who he
accepted as a student, and he did not accept Gudo. When I asked Gudo about this, Gudo confirmed that, yes, it was true -- Master Kodo was rather selective. Nevertheless, I
never heard Gudo speak a bad word about Kodo. Gudo did not seem to
bear Kodo any resentment (not like I have continued to bear towards
Gudo, for example), but rather seemed devoted to doing his best to
transmit Kodo's teaching of Zazen -- notwithstanding the fact that the teaching was flawed, as even Kodo himself recognized in the end. This, incidentally, may also be part of the background to why Gudo, to the best of my knowledge, never refused anybody as a student.
So
what? So here in reality, just as in Aśvaghoṣa's poetry, there is
much more going on below the surface than initially meets our eye or
meets our ear. That is why I ask people reading these comments not to
believe a single word I write. Do your own research. Blow your own
nose. Sew what? Sew your own kaṣāya. And if you want to use this blog as a
basis for doing your own translation, be my guest. If you've got any
talent as a poet, you should be able to make a more beautiful
ornament than can be made by the likes of a shit-shovelling miner
like me.
The Japanese have a saying: kusai mono ni futa, "on something that stinks, put a lid." I suppose it is akin to the English proverb about not airing your dirty laundry in public. Sometimes there is wisdom in proverbs. But fuck it. My principle -- however crap I am at following it in practice -- is just to sit and not to worry about good and bad, not to be interested in right and wrong. This as a matter of fact is Kodo's principle which I received through Gudo in a one-to-one transmission, though not a formal one.
Kodo found that Gudo was not his cup of tea.
Gudo, when it came to drinking tea, didn't pick and choose.
Who was right and who was wrong?
From where I sit they were both dead wrong, as was Taisen Deshimaru, as was Tsunemasa Abe. They all failed to understand in practice what Dogen meant by TANZA, sitting upright, and by the principle of MU-I, spontaneity, non-doing.
Yes, it stinks. But there it is.
VOCABULARY
muktvā = abs. muc: to loose , let loose , free , let go ; to relinquish, abandon , give up
muktvā = abs. muc: to loose , let loose , free , let go ; to relinquish, abandon , give up
tu: but
alaṁkāra-kalatravat-tām
(acc. sg. f.): state of being wedded to ornaments
alaṁ-kāra:
m. the act of decorating ; ornament , decoration
kalatra-vat:
mfn. having a wife , united with one's wife
kalatra:
n. a wife
-tā:
(feminine abstract noun suffix)
śrī-vipravāsam
(acc. sg.): banishing of his crowning glory [see also SN5.51-52]
śrī:
f. radiance , splendour , glory ; prosperity , welfare , good fortune
, success , auspiciousness , wealth , treasure , riches (śriyā , "
according to fortune or wealth ") , high rank , power , might ,
majesty , royal dignity ; symbol or insignia of royalty
vipravāsa:
m. going or dwelling abroad , staying away from (abl. or comp.) ; m.
( √4. vas) the offence committed by a monk in giving away his
garment
śirasaḥ
(abl. sg.): n. head
ca: and
kṛtvā
= abs. kṛ: to do, make ; have done with
dṛṣṭvā
= abs. dṛś: to see , behold , look at , regard , consider; to
see with the mind , learn , understand
aṁśukam (acc.
sg.): n. cloth ; fine or white cloth , muslin ; upper garment ;
[Apte] mild or gentle blaze of light
kāñcana-haṁsa-citram
(acc. sg. n.): the wonder of the golden bar-headed goose ; the riddle
of the best kind of gold (?) ; [EHJ: with their embroidery of golden
geese]
kāñcana-haṁsa-cihnam [EBC] (acc.
sg. n.): the sign of the golden bar-headed goose ; [EBC: floating
away like a golden goose]
kāñcana: n. gold
haṁsa: m. a goose , gander , swan ,
flamingo (or other aquatic bird , considered as a bird of passage ;
sometimes a mere poetical or mythical bird , said in RV. to be able
to separate soma from water , when these two fluids are mixed , and
in later literature , milk from water when these two are mixed ; also
forming in RV. the vehicle of the aśvins , and in later literature
that of brahmā ; ifc. also = " best or chief among ") ;
the soul or spirit (typified by the pure white colour of a goose or
swan , and migratory like a goose ; sometimes " the Universal
Soul or Supreme Spirit " ,
citra: mfn. conspicuous ; bright ,
clear , bright-coloured ; strange , wonderful ; n. anything bright
or coloured which strikes the eyes ; n. a brilliant ornament ,
ornament ; n. a bright or extraordinary appearance , wonder ; n. the
ether , sky ; n. a sectarial mark on the forehead ; n. a picture ,
sketch , delineation ; n. punning in the form of question and answer
, facetious conversation , riddle ,
cihna:
n. a mark , spot , stamp , sign , characteristic , symptom ; a banner
, insignia; aim, direction towards
vanyam
(acc. sg. m.): mfn. growing or produced or existing in a forest ,
wild , savage
sa
(nom. sg. m.): he
dhīraḥ
(nom. sg. m.): mfn. firm, constant, steadfast
abhicakāṅkṣa
= 3rd
pers. sg. perf. abhi- √ kāṅkṣ: to long for, desire ; to
strive
vāsaḥ
(acc. sg.): m. (fr. √4. vas) a garment , dress , clothes ; m. (fr.
√5. vas) staying , remaining (esp. " overnight ") ,
abiding , dwelling , residence
太子時自念 莊嚴具悉除
唯有素繒衣 猶非出家儀
太子時自念 莊嚴具悉除
唯有素繒衣 猶非出家儀
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