⏑−⏑−−⏑⏑¦−⏑−⏑−¦¦⏑−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−⏑− Vaṁśastha
anārya-karmā
bhśam-adya heṣate narendra-dhiṣṇyaṁ pratipūrayann-iva |
⏑−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−⏑−¦¦⏑−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−⏑−
yadā
tu nirvāhayati sma me priyaṁ tadā hi mūkas-turagādhamo 'bhavat
|| 8.40
8.40
Now
the doer of un-āryan deeds is neighing loudly,
As
if filling with sound the seat of a first among men;
But
when he carried away my love,
Then the low-down donkey was dumb.
COMMENT:
Yesterday George Soros published an op-ed piece in The Guardian which contained the
following sentence:
Let's be honest: there
is a Roma problem in Europe, and it is getting worse.
When I read the
sentence I knew I wanted to connect it to today's verse – even
though, at time of reading the Soros article, I had actually
forgotten what today's verse was about.
But indeed there is a
profound connection, and the connection relates to the taste Soros
has cultivated through his life for dealing with harsh reality
– not noble reality, not Āryan reality, not upper-middle class
intellectual reality, not reality as we would like it to be.
Ostensibly in today's verse anārya-karmā
is an insult that Yaśodharā is hurling at the horse Kanthaka in her
rage – “That doer of ignoble deeds!” But if we follow the
dictionary definition of an-ārya-karmin, “doing work becoming only a non-āryan,”
that opens the way to a reading which does make very well the connection I wish to make. “Doing work becoming only a non-āryan,” describes George Soros very
well, considering that (a) his Hungarian Jewish family escaped the Nazi
holocaust in WWII, and (b) Soros is not above, but actively seeks out, the most apparently intractable and messy of problems.
Read in this ironic sense, anārya-karmā might also fit very well with Aśvaghoṣa's
purposes which, as I read them, are both ironic and
auto-biographical.
Anārya-karmā
might be auto-biographical in many ways. Who knows what history
Aśvaghoṣa had of doing low-down and dirty donkey work? Was
Aśvaghoṣa the kind of horse-whisperer, for example, like Monty Roberts, who knew well
from his own experience what a hard-working donkey goes through when he ought to
be given carrots but instead gets the stick?
One
thing we do know is that Aśvaghoṣa was not above investigating in
detail the physical manifestations of human grief, in terms of arm
movements, changes in skin colour, sounds of breathing, and so on.
Far from being content to discuss suffering in the abstract, and much
less enlightenment in the abstract, in a high-faluting or snobbish
manner, Aśvaghoṣa in cantos like the present canto, as I hear him,
is anārya-karmā, doing
work becoming only a non-āryan.
Again,
bhṛśam-adya heṣate, “today he neighs loudly” is an apt
description of one whose name aśva (horse) + ghoṣa (indistinct sound, roar) could literally mean “The
Horse-Whinnier/Whisperer” or could mean “The Neighing of a Horse”
or could mean “The Horse's Roar.”
In
the 2nd pāda, narendra-dhiṣṇyam (lit. “the abode of
a prince [indra] among men”) could also be taken, from what little we know
of Aśvaghoṣa's history, as an auto-biographical element. There is
some evidence that Aśvaghoṣa was asked by the Northern Indian King
Kaniṣka to preside over his imperial court, in which case Aśvaghoṣa
himself, in a very real sense, as the principal teacher of the king,
would have been a first among men. In that case, narendra-dhiṣṇyam
might describe a Dharma-Hall built at Kaniṣka's court for the
purpose of listening to the preaching of Aśvaghoṣa. Or Kaniṣka's
royal palace itself, with Aśvaghoṣa teaching there, might have become a Dharma-Hall filled by the
Horse's Roar.
Finally
in the 4th pāda, mūkaḥ (dumb, speechless, mute) might
be an apt description of a horse whose neighing was rooted in the
silence of a Zazen Hall. So the Zen patriarch Aśvaghoṣa – in
spite of all his poetic verbal outpourings – might have had good
reason to describe himself originally as mūkaḥ, dumb.
But why
turagādhamaḥ,
lit. “the lowest of horses”?
Adhama,
“lowest,” is a superlative form from adhara, which means “tending
downwards.” As a suffix at the end of a compound, -adhama is
ostensibly very pejorative; hence EBC: “this vilest of horses”;
EHJ: “the wretched horse”; PO: “this vile horse.”
But
it may be that Aśvaghoṣa is using this most pejorative of terms to
express his own unshakeable self-confidence. How so?
They
say that it is the most low-down of voices which – paradoxically –
are richest in the kind of high-frequency overtones that best fill up
a place with good acoustics, like a magnificent royal palace, or like
an old wooden temple.
Again,
to quote a famous saying in Chinese Zen:
Flowers
in space open on the ground.
But
why refer to Chinese Zen when we have already got it here, direct
from the source, straight from the horse's mouth...
A dirt-washer (pāṃsu-dhāvakaḥ) in pursuit of gold washes away first the coarse grains of dirt, / Then the finer granules, so that the material is cleansed; and by the cleansing he retains the rudiments of gold. // SN15.66 //
So if
anybody asks me what I would like to be when I grow up, the answer I
have been looking for these past 50 years might be here in
Aśvaghoṣa's words pāṃsu-dhāvakaḥ and mūkas-turagādhamaḥ
– a dumb, low-down, dirt-washing donkey.
VOCABULARY
anārya-karmā
(nom. sg. m.): the doer of non-āryan work
anārya:
mfn. not honourable or respectable , vulgar , inferior; destitute of
āryans ; m. not an āryan
karman:
n. act , action ; (frequently ifc. , the first member of the compound
being either the person who performs the action [e.g. vaṇik-k°,
trade] or the person or thing for or towards whom the action is
performed [e.g. rāja-k° , business of a king] or a specification of
the action [e.g. prīti-k° , kind action]); work , labour , activity
an-ārya-karmin:
m. doing work unbecoming an ārya or becoming only a non-ārya.
bhṛśam:
ind. strongly , violently , vehemently , excessively , greatly , very
adya:
ind. today, now
heṣate
= 3rd pers. sg. heṣ: to neigh
narendra-dhiṣṇyam
(acc. sg.): the abode of the man-lord; the palace
narendra:
m. 'man-lord' ; king
indra:
ifc. best , excellent , the first , the chief (of any class of
objects )
dhiṣṇya:
mfn. mindful , attentive , benevolent , liberal ; n. site , place ,
abode , region , house ; n. the seat of a god i.e. a quarter of the
sky ; n. power , strength
pratipūrayan
= nom. sg. m. causative pres. part. prati- √ pṝ : to fill (said
of a noise)
iva:
like, as if
yadā:
ind. when
tu:
but
nirvāhayati
= 3rd pers. sg. causative nir- √ vah: , to lead out of ,
save from (abl.) ; to carry off , remove ; to attain one's object ,
be successful , overcome obstacles
sma:
ind. (joined with a pres. tense or pres. participle to give them a
past sense)
me
(gen. sg.): my
priyam
(acc. sg.): m. a lover , husband
tadā:
ind. then, at that time
hi:
for
mūkaḥ
(nom. sg. m.): mfn. " tied or bound " (scil. tongue-tied)
, dumb , speechless , mute , silent ; wretched , poor ; m. the
offspring of a mule and mare
turagādhamaḥ
(nom. sg. m.): the lowest of horses
turaga:
m. " going quickly " , a horse ; the mind , thought
adhama:
mfn. (from adhara) lowest , vilest , worst , very low or vile or bad
(often ifc. , as in narādhama , the vilest or worst of men)
adhara:
mfn. (connected with adhas) , lower , inferior , tending downwards
adhas:
ind. below , down ; in the lower region
abhavat
= 3rd pers. sg. imperfect bhū: to be
汝是弊惡蟲 造諸不正業
今日大嗚呼 聲滿於王宮
先劫我所念 爾時何以唖
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