⏑−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−⏑−¦¦⏑−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−⏑− Vaṁśastha
niśi
prasuptām-avaśāṁ vihāya māṁ
gataḥ kva sa chandaka man-mano-rathaḥ |
⏑−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−⏑−¦¦⏑−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−⏑−
upāgate
ca tvayi
kanthake ca me samaṁ gateṣu triṣu kampate manaḥ || 8.32
8.32
“Leaving
me helplessly asleep in the night,
Where,
Chandaka, has the joy of my heart gone?
Seeing you and Kanthaka come back,
When
three departed, my mind, in all honesty, wavers.
COMMENT:
Samādhi,
it has been said since ancient times, is a state like the sea, on the
surface of which there may be all kinds of waves, but the deeper you
go the stiller it gets.
Aśvaghoṣa's
poetry, in that sense, is like samādhi, and like the sea.
Something else
Aśvaghoṣa poetry is like, it occurred to me this morning as I lay
lazily in bed, is the puzzles I used to seek out in Beano and Dandy annuals where
you were challenged to find a number of images hidden in a picture.
For example:
In this big picture
find the baseball cap, turtle, fish, duck, needle, nail, ice-cream
cone, butterfly, boot, spoon, cane, ring, and scissors.
Can you find 5 horses
in this picture?
In
the big picture of outward emotional suffering painted in today's verse can
you find 5 hidden depictions of deep inner peace?
For
a start, in the 1st pāda, both prasupta (asleep, far
gone) and avaśa (helpless), as discussed in connection with the
sleeping beauties in BC Canto 5 (see e.g. BC5.51, 5.55, 5.59), while
ostensibly describing a state of slumber, might be an ironic
description of sitting in which body and mind have totally dropped
off and something other than one's own intention has taken over.
In
the 2nd pāda mano-rathaḥ
is another expression whose ambiguity we have examined before, since
ratha can mean either, or both, a chariot (from √ṛ, to go), or a
joy or love (from √ram, to enjoy or love).
Hence
gataḥ kva sa chandaka man-mano-rathaḥ ostensibly means:
“Where,
Chandaka, has he, the joy of my heart, gone?”
But
if we wish to find a hidden meaning connected with body and mind
spontaneously dropping off in sitting-meditation, that reading might
be:
“Where,
Chandaka, is it, the chariot of my mind, going?”
Finally,
as reflected by the many definitions of sama and samam listed in the
MW dictionary, the meaning of samam is very open and changeable
depending on its context. That being so, it is possible in the
second half of today's verse to read samam in any number of ways.
EBC
and EHJ read samam as an indeclinable participle (or acc. sg. neuter
form) meaning “together” and modifying gateṣu triṣu; hence
samaṁ
gateṣu triṣu = “while three went
away together” (EBC); “while
three went forth together” (EHJ).
PO translated the second half
of today's verse: “As I see you and Kanthaka return, whereas
three had departed, my heart begins to tremble.”
Did PO neglect to translate samam? Or is samam + loc. taken as meaning “with regard to”
so that upāgate ca tvayi kanthake ca...
samaṁ
is equivalent to “as I see you and Kanthaka return”?
Another possible reading, and a reading that I guess that Aśvaghoṣa
may have wished us to consider for its ironic hidden meaning, is to
take samam as nom. sg. neuter, describing me manaḥ as “balanced”
or “flat”; so that me samaṁ kampate manaḥ means something
like “my balanced mind is vibrating” or, paradoxically, “my
balanced mind is wavering unsteadily.”
There
again, samam could be taken as an
indeclinable participle (or acc. sg. neuter form) meaning “in a
balanced manner” or “honestly”; so that me
samaṁ kampate manaḥ means something like "my wind is wobbling in a balanced manner" or “my mind is honestly
wobbling.”
Which
reading did Aśvaghoṣa intend us to decide on? I think Aśvaghoṣa's
intention, in general, is to cause us consider all the possibilities.
The point might be that Aśvaghoṣa does not wish us to attach to
any one reading – except when he does.
But what in conclusion I can report, not as opinion but as fact, is a conversation I
had with Gudo Nishijima many years ago, about how my attitude to
sitting and to translation work tended to change throughout the
course of 24 hours, so that a kind of red-raw sincerity in the early
morning was liable to give way to a certain insincere frivolity
during the course of the day. This prompted Gudo to say, “Yes,
it's true. Our mind goes in waves.”
There
again, according to an old surfer friend of mine, “Everything
goes in waves.”
VOCABULARY
niśi
(loc. sg.): in the night
prasuptām
(acc. sg. f.): mfn. fallen into sleep , fast asleep , sleeping ,
slumbering ; asleep i.e. insensible ; quiet , inactive , latent
avaśām
(acc. sg. f.): mfn. unsubmissive to another's will , independent ,
unrestrained , free ; not having one's own free will , doing
something against one's desire or unwillingly
vihāya
= abs. vi- √ hā: to leave behind, abandon
mām
(acc. sg.): me
gataḥ
(nom. sg. m.): mfn. gone, gone away, departed
kva:
where?
sa
(nom. sg. m.): he
chandaka
(voc. sg.): O Chandaka!
man-mano-rathaḥ
(nom. sg. m.): my heart's joy ;
mano-ratha:
'heart's joy' ; fancy , illusion; the heart compared to a car
mad:
me
manas:
n. mind, heart
ratha:
m. ( √ṛ) " goer " , a chariot , car ; m. ( √ ram)
pleasure , joy , delight ; love
upāgate
(loc. sg. m.): mfn. approached , arrived
[EHJ
footnote: Note upāgate in the singular with two subjects.]
ca:
and
tvayi
(loc. sg.): you
kanthake
(loc. sg.): Kanthaka
ca:
and
me
(gen. sg. n.): my
samam
(nom./acc. sg. n.): mfn. even , smooth , flat , plain , level ,
parallel ; same , equal , similar , like , equivalent , like to or
identical or homogeneous with (instr. e.g. mayā sama , " like
to me " ; or gen. , rarely abl.) , like in or with regard to
anything (instr. gen. loc.); always the same , constant , unchanged ,
fair , impartial ; having the right measure , regular , normal ,
right , straight ; equable , neutral , indifferent ; equally distant
from extremes , ordinary , common , middling ; just , upright , good
, straight , honest; ind. in like manner , alike , equally ,
similarly ; ind. together with or at the same time ; ind. just ,
exactly , precisely ; ind. honestly , fairly
gateṣu
(loc. pl.): mfn. gone, gone away, departed
triṣu
(loc. pl.): three
kampate
= 3rd pers. sg. kamp: to tremble , shake
kampana:
mfn. trembling , shaken , unsteady
kampin:
mfn. trembling , quivering
manaḥ
(nom. sg.): n. mind
生亡我所欽 今爲在何所
人馬三共行 今唯二來歸
我心極惶怖 戰慄不自安
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