⏑−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−⏑−¦¦⏑−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−⏑− Vaṁśastha
praviṣṭa-dīkṣas-tu
sutopalabdhaye vratena śokena ca
khinna-mānasaḥ |
⏑−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−⏑−¦¦⏑−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−⏑−
jajāpa devāyatane
narādhipaś-cakāra tās-tāś-ca yathāśrayāḥ
kriyāḥ || 8.15
8.15
Whereas,
having undertaken complete dedication,
with
a view to getting a son,
His
mind exhausted by observance and by sorrow,
The
ruler of men spoke in whispers in the temple,
And
performed, as he felt fit, various acts.
COMMENT:
The
tu (but, whereas) in the 1st pāda of today's verse
signals a contrast between the approach of the king and that of the
women in yesterday's verse. The women responded to their
disappointment by closing their windows and wailing. The king, in
contrast, is a man with a plan. His agenda is to get back his son,
and his plan of action centres on pious muttering of prayers and
performance of religious rites.
Even
more than he is contrasted with the women, in their uninhibited
expression of their emotion, the king is contrasted with the horse
Kanthaka. Whereas the king mutters piously with a religious resolve
that masks a personal agenda, the women wail emotionally when an
expectation arising from their thinking human brain is not met; but
Kanthaka's neighing in BC8.4 is natural instinct, pure and simple.
If
our pious resolve as Zen practitioners is to drop off body and mind
and show our original features, Kanthaka needn't trouble himself with
such a vow – he is there already.
"When an
investigation comes to be made it will be found that every single
thing we do in the work is exactly what is done in Nature, where the
conditions are right, the difference being that we are learning to do
it consciously."
On
a textual note:
The old Nepalese
manuscript, and EBC's text, have the king performing rites
yathāśrayāḥ (EBC: “as suited the occasion”; MW
dictionary [referenced to this verse] “as fit or appropriate”).
EHJ amended to yathāśayāḥ (EHJ: “suitable to his
intention”; PO: “as he desired.”) Since āśraya
originally encompasses a wide range of meanings (including, according
to the MW
dictionary, appropriate
act or one consistent with the character of the agent)
I have stuck with the original text.
The
tu in today's verse stimulated me to consider who in BC Canto 8 is
being contrasted with who, in their grieving. In this particular
section, Aśvaghoṣa seems to be rotating through the cast of
grievers subject by subject, verse by verse. Thus BC8.14 introduced the
women in general. The subject of BC8.15 is King Śuddodhana. BC8.16
takes us back to the horseman Chandaka, and BC8.17 to the horse
Kanthaka. The subject of BC8.18 nearby birds and horses, and of
BC8.19 nearby common folk.
Looking
beyond that, from BC8.20-23 Aśvaghoṣa will devote four verses to
describing the women – touching in passing, as described yesterday,
on their darting eyes; their fine clothes; their make-up and
earrings and anklets (or lack thereof); their tears of emotion; and
not neglecting to mention of course their female breasts. The subject
of BC8.24 is one woman in particular, Gautamī, the prince's
step-mother. Six more verses from BC8.25-30 are devoted to the women,
some of whom are described as anyāḥ (different, individual), which
is a red flag pointing to hidden meaning, since when Aśvaghoṣa
describes women who are different or individual, we have discovered
over the years, he tends to be parodying or praising individual monks
within an assembly. (Of these six verses, fellow breast-spotters will be delighted to hear, there are only two which fail to
mention the women's breasts.) BC8.31 introduces the prince's
abandoned wife Yaśodhara, whose lament extends for ten verses from
BC8.32-41. From BC8.42-49, Chandaka responds. The women are again the
subject of BC8.50 (strangely, no mention of breasts). BC8.51 returns
in particular to Gautamī, whose lament continues to BC8.58. It is
briefly back to the women in BC8.59 (more disappointment for those
expecting further mention of breasts). Then BC8.60 takes us back to
Yaśodhara, whose lament continues to BC8.69. The subjects of
BC8.70-74 are Yaśodhara, the lotus-like women, and finally the king,
who expresses his grief in six verses from BC8.75-80. In the final
seven verses of the canto (BC8.81-87) the king is counselled by a wise
counsellor who the king despatches, together with his aged family
priest, to go to the forest and reason with the prince.
So the subjects are, to recap:
1-2
horseman Chandaka
3-4
horse Kanthaka
5
horseman & horse together
6
city of Kapilavastu (almost emptiness itself)
7
horseman & horse together
8
people of the city
9
common folks
10
horseman
Chandaka
11-13
common folks
14
women
15
King Śuddhodhana
16
horseman Chandaka,
17
horse Kanthaka,
18
birds and horses
19
common folks
20-23
women
24
Queen Gautamī
25-30
women (including anyāḥ, different ones)
31-41
Yaśodhara
42-49
horseman Chandaka
50
women
51-58
Queen Gautamī
59
women
60-70
Yaśodhara
71
women
72-81
King Śuddhodhana
82-85
counsellor and family priest
86-87
King Śuddhodhana
The present canto, then, is in marked contrast with a canto like BC Canto 6. That canto is an act in which
the Buddha-to-be and Chandaka are the only two players. The present
canto considers the expression of grief by a varied cast of
characters, including Chandaka, Kanthaka, civilized people of the
city, common blokes, the women as a group, women who are different,
the King Śuddhodhana, his Queen Gautamī, and Yaśodhara.
When
today's verse is thus read in this wider context, the King as I see
him emerges as one of several grieving subjects whose response to
grief is not enlightened, not effectual, and not exemplary.
In
Soto Zen Buddhism in Japan today, rituals are of primary importance.
By learning Buddhist funeral rites, in particular, professional Zen
priests can earn an income from conducting funerals. There again, on
his first attempt to find words in English to represent the Sanskrit
kaṣāya, my teacher Gudo Nishijima went with “the ritual robe.”
Nevertheless,
I read today's verse as one of those verses that point indirectly to
what the Buddha's teaching is all about, by describing what the
Buddha's teaching is NOT all about. It is NOT all about responding to
grief by religious observances, muttering of prayers and performance
of rites.
Correct
me if I am wrong, but in SN Canto 17 when Nanda, wearing a robe of
the forest, heads for the forest in order to make the four noble
truths into his own possession, he doesn't go equipped with sticks of
incense and a statue of Buddha....
Correcting myself, because I am wrong, in the room where I have just sat this morning, there is on a
small shelf a jade Buddha-image that I bought in an antique shop in
Birmingham in 1989. And there are also sticks of incense and an
incense burner. To proclaim like some primitive sectarian Islaamist
arsehole that performance of this or that rite is the mark of the
infidel, and so death to the infidel, evidently, would not be true.
In
conclusion, in the work of learning to realize consciously what
happens in Nature naturally, burning a stick of incense or performing
some other rite may help or it may not help. What is mainly suggested
in today's verse, as I read it, is the sadness of performing this or
that rite while not going in the direction of emptiness but while
being led, on the contrary, by a personal agenda.
The
king, even while presiding over the city which symbolizes emptiness,
is being led by a personal agenda. Hmmm. What kind of a cautionary
metaphor could it be?
It
could be a metaphor that cautions against doing the rite thing with a
personal agenda. And it could be a metaphor that cautions against
negating the rite thing with a personal agenda.
When
in Nature the conditions are right, it may be that no human personal
agenda is to the fore. Hence, notwithstanding the possibility of a
city's parks and fountains and people and dogs all being no different
from a natural forest, the Buddha recommended Nanda to go and make
the noble truths his own not in the city but in the forest itself. In the wasteland, in the wooded wilderness, where human beings with their personal agendas – aside from maybe the occasional avid mushroom-hunter – are nowhere to be seen.
My Zen teacher Gudo Nishijima once said to me, in all sincerity, "There is no me in me. There is only Dharma in me." And I almost believed it. It sounded true and it very nearly was true. But it wasn't true. He was lying to himself. His very sincere wish to be totally true turned my teacher into a liar – a tough lesson, but one that prepared me well to appreciate the irony that pervades Aśvaghoṣa's writing.
P.S.
You can make of this postscript what you will, but after publishing the blog and retiring to the front garden to do some sawing and chopping, it occured to me that – with no little irony – I might have totally missed a hidden reading of today's verse whereby the ruler of men represents a Zen patriarch who, having dedicated himself completely (praviṣṭa-dīkṣaḥ), with a view to gaining Dharma-heirs (sutopalabdhaye), exhausts himself by grieving for a suffering world and by practice. Such a master is able to convey his teaching by secret whispers in a temple, or by acting just as he pleases.
So as not to blot out this hidden meaning, I have changed the translation, which when I published it read like this:
P.S.
You can make of this postscript what you will, but after publishing the blog and retiring to the front garden to do some sawing and chopping, it occured to me that – with no little irony – I might have totally missed a hidden reading of today's verse whereby the ruler of men represents a Zen patriarch who, having dedicated himself completely (praviṣṭa-dīkṣaḥ), with a view to gaining Dharma-heirs (sutopalabdhaye), exhausts himself by grieving for a suffering world and by practice. Such a master is able to convey his teaching by secret whispers in a temple, or by acting just as he pleases.
So as not to blot out this hidden meaning, I have changed the translation, which when I published it read like this:
8.15
Whereas, having entered into religious observances,
with a view to getting back his son,
His mind wearied by the mix of grief and pious resolve,
The ruler of men muttered prayers in the temple,
And performed, as he felt fit, various rites.
VOCABULARY
praviṣṭa-dīkṣaḥ
(nom. sg. m.): entered into religious observances
praviṣṭa:
mfn. entered ; one who has entered upon or undertaken , occupied with
, intent upon , engaged in (loc. or comp.)
dīkṣā:
f. preparation or consecration for a religious ceremony , undertaking
religious observances for a partic. purpose and the observances
themselves; self-devotion to a person or god , complete resignation
or restriction to , exclusive occupation with (comp.)
dīkṣ: to consecrate or dedicate one's self (esp. for the performance of the soma-sacrifice) ; to dedicate one's self to a monastic order Buddh
dīkṣ: to consecrate or dedicate one's self (esp. for the performance of the soma-sacrifice) ; to dedicate one's self to a monastic order Buddh
tu:
ind. but
sutopalabdhaye
(dat. sg.): for taking possession of his son
suta:
m. son
upalabdhi:
f. obtainment , acquisition , gain
upa- √ labh: to seize , get possession of , acquire , receive , obtain , find
upa- √ labh: to seize , get possession of , acquire , receive , obtain , find
vratena
(inst. sg.): m. (√vṛ, to choose) will , command ; obedience, service ; a religious vow or practice , any pious observance ,
meritorious act of devotion or austerity , solemn vow , rule , holy
practice ; any vow or firm purpose , resolve
śokena (inst. sg.): m. sorrow, grief
śokena (inst. sg.): m. sorrow, grief
ca:
ca
khinna-mānasaḥ
(nom. sg. m.): with wearied mind
khinna:
mfn. depressed , distressed , suffering pain or uneasiness ;
wearied, exhausted
jajāpa
= 3rd pers. sg. perf. jap: to utter in a low voice ,
whisper , mutter (esp. prayers or incantations)
devāyatane
(loc. sg.): n. " the dwelling of a god " , a temple
narādhipaḥ
(nom. sg.): 'lord of men'; king
adhipa:
m. a ruler , commander , regent , king
cakāra
= 3rd pers. sg. perf. kṛ: to do, make
tās-tāḥ
(acc. pl. f): this and that, various
ca: and
yathāśrayāḥ (acc.
pl. f.): mfn. as fit or appropriate, Bcar. viii, 15
āśraya:
m. that to which anything is annexed or with which anything is
closely connected or on which anything depends or rests ; depending
on , having recourse to ; appropriate act or one consistent with the
character of the agent ; mfn. ifc. depending on , resting on ,
endowed or furnished with
yathā: ind. according
to
yathāśayāḥ [EHJ]
(acc. pl. f.) in accordance with the seat of his feelings and
thoughts
āśaya:
m. resting place, seat ; the seat of feelings and thoughts , the mind
, heart , soul
kriyāḥ
(acc. pl.): f. doing, action , undertaking , activity , work , labour; a religious rite or ceremony , sacrificial act
, sacrifice
失太子憂悲 加増怖懼心
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