BUDDHACARITA 4.44: Upward, Outward... Cuckoos Keep Cuckooing

−⏑−−¦⏑−−−¦¦⏑⏑−⏑¦⏑−⏑−

paśya bhartaś-citaṁ cūtaṁ kusumair-madhu-gandhibhiḥ |

−⏑−⏑¦⏑−−−¦¦−⏑−−¦⏑−⏑−

hema-pañjara-ruddho vā kokilo yatra kūjati || 4.44

4.44

"Observe, master, the mango tree

Covered with honey-scented blossoms

Where, as if confined in a golden cage,

The cuckoo keeps on calling.

COMMENT:

In today's verse Aśvaghoṣa is turning the wheel of the Buddha's dharma. In every verse Aśvaghoṣa is turning the wheel of the Buddha's dharma. That being so, the 1^st pāda is saying, in other words: Observe, how real a fruit tree is.

This morning I got up very early with a head-ache. It had snowed in the night, so that the combination of the quietness of the night and my head-ache made the clock sound very loud...

tick, tock;

tick, tock;

tick, tock.

After some time, under the influence of the 2^nd pāda of today's verse, the clock's ticks and tocks seemed to be saying...

up, out;

up, out;

up, out.

A fruit tree in spring is a very conspicuous manifestation of the tree's direction of its energy, as it takes energy from the sun and grows, up and out, up and out, until fragrant blossoms open up and temporarily cover the tree in gold... and then, inevitably, drop off. 

The 3rd pāda of today's verse relates to the principle of knowing what within oneself requires to be suppressed, or inhibited, or confined. That principle includes, as I understand it, keeping the gap closed between what I practise and what I preach. This, in turn, involves (a) being conscientuous almost to the point of an obsessive compulsive disorder about sitting four times a day, (b) being very reticent to preach anything else. 

The 3^rd pāda of today's verse expresses the 3^rd noble truth, the truth of inhibition, as something beautiful and valuable, like a golden cage. The word that expresses the cuckoo's state of containment in the golden cage is ruddha, past participle of the root √rudh, which means to obstruct, stop, restrain or confine. The 3^rd noble truth, when it is expressed as nirodha-satya, or the truth of confinement/stopping/cessation, is from this same root, √rudh.

In the two verses of Saundara-nanda in which the Buddha most concisely summarizes the four noble truths, he uses not the word nirodha (confinement/stopping) but the words śānti (peace/cessation; SN3.12) and kṣaya (destruction/termination/cessation):

This is suffering; this is the tangled mass of causes producing it; / This is cessation (śāntir-iyam); and here is a means. (SN3.12).

This is suffering, which is constant and akin to trouble; this is the cause of suffering, akin to starting it; / This is cessation of suffering, akin to walking away (duḥkha-kṣayo niḥsaraṇātmako 'yaṃ). And this, akin to a refuge, is a peaceable path. // SN16.4 //

Later in Canto 16, however, the Buddha is quoted as using the word nirodha in the sense of stopping or confinement:

For he who knows suffering as it really is, who knows its starting and its stopping: (yāthātmyato vindati yo hi duḥkhaṃ tasyodbhavaṃ tasya ca yo nirodham) / It is he who reaches peace by the noble path -- going along with friends in the good. // SN16.39 //

The 4^th pāda of today's verse, like the 4^th line of a poem by Tendo Nyojo quoted in Shobogenzo Chap. 50, Shoho-jisso, All Dharmas are Real Form, points to an ineffable reality that could be witnessed in northern India around 500 BC, that could also be witnessed in China around 1200 CE, and that I have been fortunate enough to witness in several springs and summers since 2000, while sitting by a forest in northern France.

I think one reason the call of a cuckoo is evoked, in today's verse as in Master Tendo's verse below, is that the call of a cuckoo tends to be both beautiful and persistent...

There are calves on Tendo mountain tonight,

And golden-faced Gautama is manifesting real form.

If we wanted to buy it, how could we afford the impossible price?

The cry of a cuckoo above a lonely cloud.

VOCABULARY

paśya = 2^nd pers. sg. imperative paś: to see , behold , look at , observe , perceive , notice

bhartaḥ (voc. sg.): m. one who bears; a preserver , protector , maintainer , chief , lord , master ; a husband

citam (acc. sg. m.): : mfn. piled up , heaped ; forming a mass (hair) ; covered

cūtam (acc. sg.): m. the mango tree

kusumaiḥ (inst. pl.): n. a flower , blossom

madhu-gandhibhiḥ (inst. pl.): honey-scented ; sweet-smelling

madhu: mfn. sweet , delicious , pleasant , charming , delightful ; n. anything sweet (esp. if liquid) , mead &c ; n. honey

gandha: m. smell ; a fragrant substance , fragrance , scent , perfume (generally used in pl. ; in comp. = " fragrant "

mádhu-gandhika: mfn. sweet-smelling

hema-pañjara-ruddhaḥ (nom. sg. m.): held in a golden cage

hema: n. gold

pañjara: n. a cage , aviary , dove-cot , net

ruddha: mfn. obstructed , checked , stopped , suppressed , kept back , withheld

rudh: to obstruct , check , arrest , stop , restrain , prevent , keep back , withhold ; to shut , lock up , confine in (loc.) ;

nirodha: m. confinement , locking up , imprisonment ; restraint , check , control , suppression , destruction ; (with Buddh. ) suppression or annihilation of pain (one of the 4 principles)

vā: ind. as , like (= iva)

kokilaḥ (nom. sg.): m. cuckoo

yatra: ind. where

kūjati = 3^rd pers. sg. kūj: to make any inarticulate or monotonous sound , utter a cry (as a bird) , coo (as a pigeon) , caw (as a crow) , warble ,

[No corresponding Chinese]