−−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−−¦¦−−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−− Upajāti
(Indravajrā)
chandaṁ
tataḥ sāśru-mukhaṁ visjya kāṣāya-saṁvid-dhti-kīrti-bht-saḥ
|
−−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−−¦¦−−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−−
yenāśramas-tena
yayau mahātmā saṁdhyābhra-saṁvīta ivoḍu-rājaḥ || 6.65
6.65
Then,
having set the tear-faced Chanda free,
He,
clad in consciousness of the ochre robe,
wearing
constancy and honour,
Moved
majestically
in the
direction of the ashram
[or by
the means of the inexhaustible]
Like
the moon – king among stars – veiled by a
dusky cloud.
COMMENT:
In the 1st pāda, Chandaka
is tear-faced having been set free or sent away or dismissed (visṛjya) by the
prince. Ostensibly, the cause of Chandaka's tears is the prince
sending him back to Kapilavastu on his own, i.e. dismissing him. But
the first meaning of vi-√sṛj is
to set free. So a hidden meaning might be that the prince, presaging
his future influence on people as the enlightened Buddha, has helped
Chandaka to show some emotion and put expression in his eye.
A change of clothing, as Gudo Nishijima
used to point out, changes our mind. In the 2nd pāda I
understand kāṣāya-saṁvid (“kāṣāya-consciousnesss”) in
light of this fact – the point being that to wear a kaṣāya is to
be clad in changed consciousness.
EBC amended the 2nd pāda to
kāṣāya-saṁvid-vṛta-kīrti-bhṛt-saḥ
and translated “wearing his fame veiled by the sign of the red
garment.” EHJ amended to kāṣāya-saṁbhṛd-dhṛti-kīrti-bhṛt-saḥ
and translated “wearing the ochre robe and bearing the fame of his
steadfastness.” PO accepted EHJ's text, separated according to CSL
conventions as kāṣāya-saṁbhṛd
dhṛti-kīrti-bhṛt saḥ, and translated “wearing the ochre robe
and the fame of resolve.”
In
amending the 2nd
pāda, EHJ noted: The
reading is uncertain, though the Tibetan and Chinese translations
show clearly that the old Nepalese manuscript's saṁvid stands for a
word meaning 'wearing.'
This note runs the risk of making Aṣvaghośa's original words
answerable to his Tibetan and Chinese translators. I think it is
another case of EHJ being too ready, when he does not understand the
meaning of his Sanskrit manuscript, to change the text in deference
to Tibetan and Chinese translators who most probably did not
understand the text either.
EBC
understood the prince to be wearing (bhṛt) fame (kīrti) which was
veiled (vṛta) by the sign (saṁvid) of the red garment (kāṣāya).
EHJ/PO
understood the prince to be wearing the ochre robe (kāṣāya-saṁbhṛt),
and bearing/wearing (bhṛt) the fame (kīrti) of
steadfastness/resolve (dhṛti).
In
my reading of the 2nd
pāda, the prince is described as wearing (bhṛt) three things,
those three elements being listed according to the dialectic logic
that Gudo Nishijima emphasized, viz. 1. kāṣāya-consciousness
(kāṣāya-saṁvid), 2. constancy (dhṛti), and 3. good repute or
honour (kīrti).
The
prince's wearing of 1. kāṣāya-consciousness relates to the
principle, discussed above, that changing into a uniform, or the
clothing of one's profession or vocation, changes one's mind.
The prince's wearing of 2. constancy refers, I think, to the form
of the kāṣāya, which is at one and the same time totally variable
and eternally immutable – in the sense that it always has been and
always will be a rectangular sheet of cloth, with no Tibetan yellow
hat, no Chinese wide sleeves, and no Japanese white underwear.
And
wearing 3. honour or good repute relates to the fact that when we are
wearing a kāṣāya we are generally prevented
from grosser forms of wrong-doing,
like say adultery and murder – though an exception to the rule may
be the guy in Burma who has been stirring up murderous hatred against
individuals he sees as the non-Buddhist other.
I
am no fan of certain aspects of Islaamic teaching, but if strong
attachment to a belief that has no basis in reality were a just cause
for hating a person, I would have to hate myself for a start.
(Sometimes, I must admit, in the middle of a sleepless night, I do!)
In the
3rd pāda, yenāśramaḥ
is ostensibly yena + āśramaḥ (yenāśramas-tena yayau = he went
in that direction wherein was the āśram), but it could be read as
yena + aśramaḥ (yenāśramas-tena yayau = he went by that means
which is the indefatigable / inexhaustible).
The
ostenisble reading, naturally enough, is followed by each of the
three professors – EBC: “went
towards the hermitage”;
EHJ: “moved
to where the hermitage was”;
PO: “went
to the hermitage.”
As
suggested by EHJ's translation, however, which is more clunky but a
truer mirror of the original Sanskrit, the original construction
looks as if Aśvoghaṣa contrived it with a hidden agenda in
mind. Why, instead of simply writing āśramam yayau, “he went to
the āśram,” and then giving himself three more syllables to play
with, did Aśvoghaṣa beat around the bush by writing
yenāśramas-tena yayau (= yena + āśramaḥ tena yayau), “in that
direction wherein the āśram was he went.”? One possible answer
is that he wished to make a play on the double-meaning of yenāśramaḥ.
In
the 4th
pāda, saṁdhyā could mean either the morning or the evening
twilight, or both, and uḍu-rājaḥ “king of stars” generally
stands for the moon, but the heavenly body most usually associated
with saṁdhyā (EHJ informs us) is the sun.
If
the hidden reading of the 3rd
pāda is to point to a means which is indefatigable (i.e. a practical
means-whereby, a practical teaching, which is indestructible) then
maybe the sun fits better, as the more conspicuous and massive
reservoir of energy.
Apropos
of that, Marjory Barlow once said that FM Alexander had told her not
to worry, as she was prone to worry, about his teaching being lost.
The words Marjory quoted, if I remember correctly, were: “This work
is too valuable ever to be destroyed.” For FM, Marjory used to
say, “the work” had a kind of objective quality – he saw it as
something eternally out there, something he had discovered rather
than invented.
So
sun or moon? It largely depends on what colour we conceive the word
kāṣāya to express – for example, ochre or saffron? Kāṣāya
is given in the dictionary as “a brown-red cloth or garment.”
Does the moon veiled in dusky clouds give more a sense of brown or
ochre shades? Does the sun wrapped in clouds at sunset give more of a
sense of the brighter reds and yellows of a saffron robe?
Since
Aśvaghoṣa has described the robe as “of the forest,” and I
have been translating kaṣāya as ochre, my first instinct was to
stick with ochre and therefore to go with the moon.
Like
the moon – king among stars – veiled by a dusky cloud.
On
reflection, however, a translation that remains ambiguous, not coming
down on the side of the sun or of the moon, may be more in accord
with Aśvaghoṣa's intention.
Like
the king of stars cloaked by a twilight cloud.
The
Chinese translator, as EHJ points out, hedges his bets in this non-sectarian spirit with
圍繞日月輪 "winding
around the disc of the sun or moon.”
Looking
at the forest now, from the outside, it is predominantly green. But
when I go inside the forest, under the trees, the predominant colours
are browns and yellow – unless I venture inside in the middle of a
moonless night, in which case the predominat colour will be black.
And in autumn all kinds of bright colours, golds and reds, are liable
to come into play. If a blue jay flies by, or I go down to the
stream, a whole lot of other colours meet the eye.
Perhaps
we can conclude, then, that if the colour of a kaṣāya should be a
colour of the forest, that is not an unduly narrow definition.
To
put it another way, if we cite today's verse as evidence in support
of a narrow view that the Buddha's robe was ochre, or saffron, or
brown-red, or yellow-red, we might be falling into a trap that
Aśvaghoṣa has wittingly laid for us.
Did Aśvaghoṣa hide below the surface of today's verse the suggestion that the means-whereby which is a kaṣāya has shades of colour and meaning which are indefatigably, or inexhaustibly, or unfathomably many?
Is
the hidden meaning of today's verse thus to suggest how unfathomable
the kaṣāya is?
We
may not have got to the bottom of it yet.
As
a final postscript, at the end of the Friday when I would have
published this post had I not lost the internet connection on
Thursday, I happened to step out of my Zendo / shed as night was
falling – having just taken off and folded up the old brown kaṣāya
which I sewed in the 1980s in Japan and now keep in France -- to be
greeted by a half moon thinly veiled by a cloud. That was enough to
clinch the decision to go with the moon after all – it seemed to
be, all at once, yellow enough, red enough, and brown enough, not to mention saffron
enough and ochre enough.
VOCABULARY
chandam
(acc. sg.): m. Chanda, Chandaka
tataḥ:
ind. then
sāśru-mukham
(acc. sg. m.): tearful-faced
visṛjya
= abs. vi- √ sṛj : to set free, send away, dismiss
√ sṛj:
to let go or fly , discharge ; to let loose , cause (horses) to go
quickly ;
kāṣāya-saṁvid-dhti-kīrti-bht
(nom. sg. m.): he, with kāṣāya-consciousness, wearing constancy
and good repute,
kāṣāya:
n. a brown-red cloth or garment
saṁvid:
f. consciousness , intellect , knowledge , understanding ; perception
, feeling , sense of (gen. or comp.) ; a mutual understanding ,
agreement , contract , covenant ; a name, appelation
dhṛti:
f. holding , seizing , keeping , supporting , firmness , constancy ,
resolution , will , command ; satisfaction , content , joy
kīrti:
f. mention , making mention of , speech , report ; good report ,
fame , renown , glory
√ kṛ:
to make mention of , praise , speak highly of
bhṛt:
mfn. bearing , carrying , bringing , procuring , possessing , wearing
, having , nourishing , supporting , maintaining (only ifc.
saḥ
(nom. sg. m.): he
kāṣāya-saṁvid-vṛta-kīrti-bhṛt-
[EBC] (nom. sg. m.): 'wearing his fame veiled by the sign of the
red garment'
vṛta:
mfn. concealed , screened , hidden , enveloped , surrounded by ,
covered with (instr. or comp.)
kāṣāya-saṁbhṛd-dhṛti-kīrti-bhṛt
[EHJ] 'wearing the ochre robe and bearing the fame of his
steadfastness'
sam- √
bhṛ: to draw together , roll or fold up ; to bring together ,
gather , collect , unite , compose , arrange , prepare , make ready ,
procure ; to maintain, cherish
yena:
by whom or by which , by means of which , by which way ; in which
direction , whither , where ; in which manner
āśramaḥ
(nom. sg. m.): a hermitage , the abode of ascetics , the cell of a
hermit or of retired saints or sages
aśramaḥ
(nom. sg. m.): mfn. indefatigable
tena:
ind. in that direction , there (correl. to yena , " in which
direction , where ")
tena
(inst. sg.): by that, by those means
yayau
= 3rd pers. sg. perf. yā: to go
mahātmā
(nom. sg. m.): mfn. " high-souled " , magnanimous , having
a great or noble nature , high-minded , noble ; eminent , mighty ,
powerful , distinguished ; m. the Supreme Spirit , great soul of the
universe
saṁdhyābhra-saṁvītaḥ
(nom. sg. m.): clothed in clouds at twilight or the break of day
saṁdhyā:
f. holding together , union , junction , juncture , (esp.) juncture
of day and night , morning or evening twilight
abhra:
n. 'water bearer' ; cloud , thunder-cloud , rainy weather
saṁvīta:
mfn. covered over , clothed , mailed , armoured ; covered or
surrounded or furnished with , concealed or obscured by (instr. or
comp.)
iva:
like
uḍu-rājaḥ
(nom. sg. m.): the king of stars (= the moon)
uḍu: fn. a star; n. a lunar mansion or constellation in the moon's path
uḍu: fn. a star; n. a lunar mansion or constellation in the moon's path
adri-rājaḥ [EBC]
(nom. sg. m.): the king of mountains
即與車匿別 被著袈裟衣
即與車匿別 被著袈裟衣
猶若青絳雲 圍繞日月輪
安詳而諦歩 入於仙人窟
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