−−−⏑¦⏑−−−¦¦−⏑−−¦⏑−⏑−
śaktāś-cālayituṁ
yūyaṁ vīta-rāgān-ṛṣīn-api |
−⏑−−¦⏑⏑⏑−¦¦⏑−−⏑¦⏑−⏑− navipulā
apsarobhiś-ca
kalitān
grahītuṁ
vibudhān-api || 4.11
4.11
You are able to spur
into movement
Even dispassionate
seers;
And even gods enticed
by heavenly nymphs
You are able to hold
transfixed.
COMMENT:
Udāyin in today's verse is cleverly discussing movement and stillness. He has observed how women can instigate in men both hyper-active panic and paralysis. He knows that arrestingly beautiful women are able to stir men
sexually even as, paradoxically, they stop men in their tracks.
A
particular truth of which Hurry-Up Udāyin is strikingly unaware is
that women, by means which are neither sexual nor direct but which
are rather softly-softly-catchee-monkey, can point men into that
world of action where pure movement and stillness abide.
Women,
in other words, are perfectly capable of transmitting the Buddha's
teaching.
And
Udāyin, although he is strikingly unaware of this truth, is once
more expressing it in words which he does not understand.
The
title of the present canto, incidentally, is strī-vighātanaḥ
(EHJ: “The Women Rejected;” PO: “Rebuffing the Women”), which
ostensibly describes the prince's effort to ward women away. However,
vighātana is also given in the dictionary as “impeding,
interrupting, disturbing,” and its root is √han, whose meanings
include “to ward off,” but which originally means to strike or –
worse -- to slay, kill, mar, destroy. I suspect that in the canto
title Aśvaghoṣa intended to suggest not only the action of the
prince but also the view of Udāyin, in which case strī-vighātanaḥ
might include the sense of “Doing a Disservice to Women.”
Strī-vighātanaḥ might be intended to mean, in other words, not only “Warding
Women Away” but also “Getting in Women's Way.”
A
woman who transmitted something (or a bit of nothing) to me used to
teach, with unmatched clarity, a method for working on oneself, so as
to cultivate what she liked to call (being a fan of TS Elliot)
“stillness without fixity.”
The
method began with giving oneself a stimulus to go into movement, and
then “Say No, give your directions, and go into movement without a
care in the world.”
The
saying No is not saying No to the movement, and not saying No to the
habitual reaction which is triggered by the idea of going into
movement – because my habitual reactions do not have ears to listen
to the word No. The saying No is not even saying No to the stimulus – whch is also liable to be deaf. The saying No is saying No to whoever has the bright idea of doing
anything, or achieving anything, or being anything. The
saying No, in short, corresponds to what the Buddha/Aśvaghoṣa call
vitarka-prahāṇaḥ, “abandoning ideas.”
Going into movement
means going into movement. That is the end in view, without the gaining of which the whole procedure is neither real nor complete. The spur to movement is a spur to movement.
But in giving up the idea of going into
movement, or of doing or achieving or being anything, depending on
how real the abandonment is, a stillness is liable to be discovered which is quite
different from trying to keep still.
I would say, in conclusion, that I was taught by a woman a method for holding myself transfixed which has nothing to do with fixity nor anything to do with sexuality – but a bloke like Udāyin, clever though he is, has never heard of the method even in a dream. He is strikingly unaware of it. But if I criticized Hurry Up Udāyin too harshly, that would only be the result of using him as a mirror for my own stupidly hasty and end-gaining self.
VOCABULARY
śaktāḥ
(nom. pl. f.): mfn. able
cālayitum
= inf. causative cal: to cause to move , shake , jog , push ,
agitate; to drive , drive away ; to disturb , make confused or
disordered ; to cherish , foster
yūyam
(nom. pl.): you
vīta-rāgān
(acc. pl. m.): mfn. free from passions or affections , dispassionate
, desireless , calm , tranquil; colourless , bleached ; m. a sage
with subdued passions (esp. applied to a Buddhist or jaina saint)
ṛṣīn
(acc. pl.): m. seer
api:
even
apsarobhiḥ
(inst. pl.): f. an apasaras, celestial nymph
ca:
and
kalitān
(acc. pl. m.): mfn. impelled , driven &c ; furnished or
provided with
√ kal:
to impel , incite , urge on
grahītum
= inf. grah: to seize, take ; grasp , lay hold of ; to arrest , stop
; to catch , take captive , take prisoner , capture , imprison ; to
take possession of , gain over , captivate ; to eclipse
vibudhān
(acc. pl.): m. 'very wise or learned,' a wise or learned man ,
teacher , Pandit ; a god ; the moon
api:
even
容色世希有 状如王女形
[Relation
to Sanskrit tenuous]
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