BUDDHACARITA 4.36: It's All Too Beautiful

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kā-cit-padma-vanād-etya sa-padmā padma-locanā |

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padma-vaktrasya pārśve 'sya padmaśrīr-iva tasthuṣī || 4.36

4.36

One girl, from out of a bed of lotuses,

Bearing a lotus and looking through lotus eyes,

Came and stood by the side of the lotus-faced one,

Like Śrī, the lotus-hued goddess of beauty.

COMMENT:

A lotus flower, to begin by stating the obvious, is a symbol of beauty – a concrete and vivid symbol. Today's verse contains both the Sanskrit word for lotus (padma) and for beauty (śrī), but the scales are weighted heavily in favour of the vivid and the concrete, in a ratio of 5 : 1.

At the end of chapter 17 of Shobogenzo, Hokke-ten-hokke (The Flower of Dharma Turns Itself), which I mentioned in commenting on yesterday's verse, Dogen wrote:

The past was exhalation and inhalation, and the present is exhalation and inhalation. This we should maintain and rely upon, as the Flower of Dharma [aka, the Lotus Universe, the beautiful reality celebrated in the Lotus Sutra] which is too fine to think about.

In these two sentences, as I read them, a relationship is hinted at between appreciation of beauty and non-doing.

Dogen is not asking us to do any kind of breathing exercise. On the contrary, he is just stating as a bare fact that our whole life has been and continues to be exhalation and inhalation. To maintain it as such, as something unthinkably beautiful, does not require us to fiddle about with this or that, like a flower arranger, pushing ground and sky with knees and head, continually breathing out like a mooing cow, pulling in the chin to straighten the neck, or other such nonsense. On the contrary, the point might be to stop fiddling about with anything. Not to do. To allow.

In the Buddha's teaching, the universe is originally unspeakably beautiful. We fail to experience it as such because of the befouling faults (doṣair malinī-karaiḥ; SN18.34), which are activated by the idea of doing something.

Would anybody like to have a discussion along these lines about Buddhist aesthetics? I hope not.

This work, let us remind ourselves, let me remind myself at least, is not about trying to be right. It is not even about trying to be free from wrongness, aka, the befouling faults. Rather, “Being wrong is the best friend we have got in this work.” How so? Because wrong-doing is our basic raw material, the thing we have to work with.

When David Smith wrote in the Oxford Journal of Hindu Studies that “Aśvaghoṣa's poems, as Buddhist texts, are necessarily anti-beauty,” he was totally and utterly wrong. But by expressing a wrong view so clearly and succinctly he was really doing everybody a favour – like an Alexander pupil who conspicuously fails to inhibit his idea of getting out of a chair and thereby provides an opportunity for teacher and pupil to revisit one of FM Alexander's main discoveries, which is that the root of all troubles is the idea of doing something.

When David Smith wrote “Aśvaghoṣa's poems, as Buddhist texts, are necessarily anti-beauty,” that was Māra speaking, through the innocent mouth of an unwitting academic. Māra is the king of fear, and when people like the striver in Saundara-nanda espouse a jaundiced view of women's beauty, what they are really expressing is only their own fear – fear of their own reactions. It is the fear of our own reactions which causes deluded Zen practitioners to try to 'do' the right thing. I know whereof I speak. 

Gullible people listen to the words of sincere but deluded veteran practitioners, like the striver, and accept those words as if they were the Buddha's own teaching. As a result, confusion reigns as to what the Buddha's teaching really is. One way out of that mess is for people to study, each for himself or herself, what Aśvaghoṣa actually wrote, and each making up his or her own mind, in a non-gullible manner. That is what David Smith, even though he knows Sanskrit, singularly failed to do. But that is what I am facilitating on this blog. Don't take my word for anything! 

In the same way that the title of the present chapter, strī-vighātanaḥ, could be translated as Eschewing 'Women', an argument could be made that Aśvaghoṣa's poems, as antithetical to all views and opinions, are necessarily opposed to aestheticism. In other words, they eschew discussion of 'beauty.' 

But Aśvaghoṣa's writing is never anti-beauty. On the contrary, one way of reading today's verse is that Aśvaghoṣa went out of his way not to discuss beauty in the abstract, eschewing talk of beauty (śrī) in favour of the lotus (padma). The strong impression one is left with at the end of the verse, however, is that five petals can't help but make a flower...

1, 2, 3, 4, 5 petals.... a flower.

padma, padma, padma, padma, padma.... śrī.

lotus, lotus, lotus, lotus, lotus.... beauty.

Much closer to the truth of today's verse than any opinion about alleged Buddhist aestheticism, is the gospel according to the 60s mod-band the Small Faces. Neither Steve Marriot nor Ronnie Lane made old bones, and both were doubtless ingesting too many drugs even in their pomp. Still, even if theirs was an unduly psychedelic dharma, they succeeding in seeing what any of us is liable to see when, even if only for a moment, we really give up all idea of getting anything or getting anywhere – It's all too beautiful.

VOCABULARY

kā-cit (nom. sg. f.): somebody ; one of the women

padma-vanāt (abl. sg. n.): from the lotus grove

vana: n. a forest , wood , grove , thicket , quantity of lotuses or other plants growing in a thick cluster

etya = abs. ā- √i: to come near or towards , go near , approach

sa-padmā (nom. sg. f.): mfn. having a lotus

padma-locanā (nom. sg. f.): mfn. lotus-eyed

locana: n. " organ of sight " , the eye

loc: to see, behold

padma-vaktrasya (gen. sg.): lotus-faced

vaktra: n. " organ of speech " , the mouth , face

pārśve (loc. sg.): side

asya (gen. sg.): of him

padma-śrīḥ (nom. sg.): f. " beautiful as a lotus flower ", N. of avalokiteśvara

padmā: f. " the lotus-hued one " , N. of śrī / lakṣmī (as goddess of prosperity or beauty)

iva: like

tasthuṣī = nom. sg. f. perfect active participle sthā: to stand

[No corresponding Chinese] 

BUDDHACARITA 4.35: Hanging Onto a Flowering Mango Branch

−⏑−−¦⏑⏑⏑−¦¦⏑−−−¦⏑−⏑−   navipulā

cūta-śākhāṁ kusumitāṁ praghyānyā lalaṁbire |

⏑−⏑⏑¦⏑−−−¦¦−⏑−−¦⏑−⏑−

su-varṇa-kalaśa-prakhyān darśayantyaḥ payodharān || 4.35

4.35

Ones who were different held and hung onto

A flowering mango branch,

Causing others to see

Breasts, resembling golden jugs,

which would bear milk.

[Or clouds, set off by the golden pinnacles of stūpas,

which would bear water.]

[[Or containers, resembling golden jars, of the lifeblood.]]

COMMENT:

The mango flowers mentioned in the 1^st pāda bring to mind four chapters of Master Dogen's Shobogenzo which have flowers in their title, namely: chap. 17, Hokke-ten-hokke (The Flower of Dharma Turns Itself); chap. 42, Kuge (Flowers in Space), chap. 59, Baike (Plum Flowers), and chap. 68 Udonge (The Udumbara Flower).

At the same time, the description of the women as hanging onto a branch brings to mind a story discussed in chap. 67, Soshi-sairai-no-i (The Ancestral Master's Intention in Coming from the West), about a man hanging onto a branch of a tree without using his hands, but only by biting the branch.

These women, then, were different (anyā) not in the sense of being just another group of women. For one thing, they were different from the women described in yesterday's verse as barging noisily about. For another thing they might have been different in the sense of not conforming to anybody's expectation -- in the sense, that is, of being an individual oddball.

Because these women were different, because they were no ordinary women, we are required to look behind the ostensible meaning of Aśvaghoṣa's descriptions of their actions.

The ostensible meaning is as rendered by the following previous translations:

“Others leaned, holding a mango-bough in full flower, displaying their bosoms like golden jars.” (EBC)

“Others grasped mango-boughs in full flower and leaned so as to display bosoms like golden jars.” (EHJ)

“Others, grasping branches of mango in full bloom, bent down to expose breasts resembling golden pots.” (PO)

The hidden meaning is a play on the ambiguity of payo-dharān, which literally means “fluid-bearers” and hence breasts (as containing milk), or clouds (as containing water), or even the women themselves (as containing vital spirit, or the lifeblood).

If payo-dharān in the 4^th pāda is understood to mean breasts, then kalaśa in the 3^rd pāda is naturally understood to mean jugs or jars, to which women's breasts were compared.

If payo-dharān is understood to mean clouds, then a secondary meaning of kalaśa comes into play, namely: a round pinnacle on the top of a temple (especially the pinnacle crowning a Buddhist caitya or stūpa).

If payo-dharān is understood to mean containers of the lifeblood, then golden jugs or golden jars are being used not only to symbolize beautiful female breasts: golden jugs are being used by Aśvaghoṣa, wickedly and subversively, to symbolize the eleven patriarchs who preceded him, namely:

[Ṣākya-muni (Sage of the Śākyas)]

Mahā-kāśyapa (Great Descendant of Kaśyapa)
Ānanda (Happiness)

Śāṇa-vāsa ([Whetstone?]-Robe)

Upa-gupta (Hidden)

Dītaka (?)

Micchaka (?)

Vasu-mitra (Good Friend)

Buddha-nandi (Joy in Buddha)

Buddha-mitra (Friend of Buddha)
Pārśva (Side)

Puṇya-yaśas (Beauty of Good Work)

[Aśva-ghoṣa (Horse Whinnying)]

 Is Aśva-ghoṣa really suggesting that each of these ancestors was an oddball clinging for dear life onto a flowering mango branch? Or am I reading too much into a description of women leaning on a branch in such a way as to show off their jug-like breasts?

To me, for one, Dogen's Shobogenzo was just a flowering mango branch, and every line of Aśvaghoṣa's poetry is a flower flowering on a flowering mango branch.

I have posed the question in previous comments about why Aśvaghoṣa seems to be concerned almost to the point of obsession with the female breast. Today I have gone some way to answering that question, at least to my own satisfaction.

In the compound payo-dhara, which means both breast and cloud, payas is derived from the root √pī, to drink, and it suggests a fluid that flows, like milk, or water, or lifeblood. And dhara is cognate with dharma, both words being derived from the root √dhṛ, which means to bear.

To Aśvaghoṣa, then, it may have been that the milk-bearing mammalian breast, known in Sanskrit as payo-dhara, “fluid bearer,” was a vivid and real symbol of that which bears the Buddha's lifeblood, the Buddha-dharma.

For Dogen, the Buddha-dharma was just to sit in full lotus – not in a fixed or rigid way, but in a non-doing way (無為) in which spontaneous flow is consciously allowed.

Are the teachings of Aśvaghoṣa and Dogen subtly different, or are they exactly the same?

I think they are exactly the same. At the same time, as a matter of historical fact, Aśvaghoṣa was many generations closer to the original source, and the language he wrote in was much closer to the original language used by the Buddha. 

For the present, anyway, as long as the feeling (delusory though the feeling may be) persists in me that I was betrayed by a Japanese Zen patriarch who turned the original teaching of non-doing into its opposite, I am grateful to have something onto which I can cling for dear life, in the form of this non-Japanese branch of beautiful mango flowers.

Mango flowers may be equally beautiful wherever they bloom, but if one is going to cling for dear life onto a flowering mango branch, then it may be that the closer the branch is to the trunk the better. 

VOCABULARY

cūta-śākhām (acc. sg. f.): a mango branch

cūta: m. the mango tree

śākhā: f. a branch (lit. and fig.)

kusumitām (acc. sg. f.): mfn. furnished with flowers , in flower

pragṛhya = abs. pra- √ grah : to hold or stretch forth , hold ; to seize , grasp , take hold of , take ; to draw up , tighten (reins) , stop (horses) ; to befriend , favour , further , promote

anyāḥ (nom. pl. f.): others; other of the women; different ones

lalaṁbire = 3^rd pers. pl. perf. lamb: to hang down , depend , dangle , hang from or on (loc.) ; to sink , go down , decline , fall , set (as the sun) ; to be fastened or attached to , cling to , hold or rest on (loc.) ; to fall or stay behind , be retarded ; to tag , loiter , delay , tarry

su-varṇa-kalaśa-prakhyān (acc. pl. m.): resembling golden jugs

su-varṇa: mfn.of a good or beautiful colour , brilliant in hue , bright , golden , yellow ; gold , made of gold ; m. a good colour

kalaśa: m. a water-pot , pitcher , jar , dish RV. &c S3ak. Hit. &c (the breasts of a woman are frequently compared to jars); m. a butter-tub , churn ; m. a round pinnacle on the top of a temple (esp. the pinnacle crowning a Buddhist caitya or stūpa)

prakhya: mfn. visible , clear , bright ; f. look , appearance (only ifc. = resembling , like); f. brightness , splendour (only ifc.) ; f. perceptibility , visibility ; f. making manifest , disclosure

darśayantyaḥ = nom. pl. f. pres. part. causative dṛś: to cause to see or be seen , to show a thing (A1. esp. of something belonging to one's self) or person ; to show = prove , demonstrate

payo-dharān (acc. pl.): m. " containing water or milk " , a cloud ; a woman's breast or an udder

payas: n. ( √1. pī) any fluid or juice , (esp.) milk , water , rain ; semen virile , (met.) vital spirit , power , strength

√1. pī: to drink

√2. pī: to swell , overflow , be exuberant , abound , increase , grow

√ dhṛ: to hold , bear (also bring forth) , carry , maintain , preserve , keep , possess , have , use , employ , practise

或以華嚴飾

[Relation with Sanskrit tenuous] 

BUDDHACARITA 4.34: Screening Misuse of the Hips with a Robe

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kāś-cit-kanaka-kāñcībhir-mukharābhir-itas-tataḥ |

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babhramur-darśayantyo 'sya śroṇīs-tanv-aṁśukāvtāḥ || 4.34

4.34

Some women wobbled from here to there,

Their golden girdle-trinkets tinkling noisily,

As they exhibited to him swaying hips

Thinly veiled by a robe of fine cloth.

COMMENT:

Today's verse is another one which ostensibly describes the seductive movements of sexy courtesans but which below the surface describes the movements of Zen practitioners.

The difference is that the girls in today's verse are not demonstrating enlightened behaviour. On the contrary, they are demonstrating the essence of unenlightened behaviour, as already discussed in Buddhacarita Canto 3 under the heading “barging about,” viz:

With the banging of feet on platform steps, with jingling of girdles and jangling of anklets, / They sent congregations of house sparrows fluttering, and each derided the others for their haste. //BC3.15 //

And again:

“This, for sentient creatures, is a certain conclusion, and yet the world barges heedlessly about, disregarding danger.” (BC3.61)

See also, for example, comments on this verse from Saundara-nanda Canto 6. 

So while today's verse ostensibly describes the seductive swaying of women's hips, Aśvaghoṣa's ironic intention might be to let some of us see ourselves in his description, and possibly to have a chuckle at this depiction of the kind of faulty behaviour that is rooted in our own end-gaining. 

The juxtaposition of today's verse and yesterday's verse thus makes perfect sense, insofar as discussion of the duration of a moment easily encourages in the unenlightened mind the delusory tendency to try to be more present (speaking here from very recent experience).

“Don't end-gain to be present! Be present to your end-gaining!” I once encouraged a pupil during an Alexander lesson.

It is the old story of the mote and the beam.

Thus, in light of the mirror principle, I should perhaps tread carefully when wishing to point out faults in the teaching of Zen teachers. Or carelessly just run with it.

When Zen teachers in Europe in the lineage of Taisen Deshimaru talk about pushing the ground with the knees they have totally misunderstood how to use the legs in relation to the back when sitting in lotus. Sitting-zen as transmitted to Dogen (though not always as transmitted from Dogen) is a practice of non-doing, or spontaneity (無為 Jap: MU-I).

When teachers taught by Deshimaru teach, as also my teacher Gudo Nishijima taught, that we should do this and that in order to maintain correct posture, they are full of shit. They are liable to be full of shit quite literally, since trying to push the ground with the knees in a doing way is bound to be associated with interference with the natural functioning of the digestive system.

“Pushing the ground with the knees” is a totally wrong direction which has a disastrous effect on the natural relation between the pelvis/lower back and legs, so that the backside sticks out unduly, both in sitting and in walking.

Since, along with the false direction to push down to the ground with the knees and up to the sky with the head, Deshimaru transmitted great reverence for the traditionally-sewn robe, however, Zen practitioners in his lineage are able to use the robe as a kind of curtain to screen their misuse of the hips in sitting. Thanks to their uniform, some of them look quite impressive. But beneath the veil of their "o-kesa," they are liable to be a mess. 

Did such craziness also exist in Aśvaghoṣa's day? I guess it must have done. Because I venture to suggest that using clothing to thinly veil underlying misuse of the self is just what Aśvaghoṣa, subversively, is alluding to in today's verse.

VOCABULARY

kāś-cit (nom. pl. f.): some women

kanaka-kāñcībhiḥ (inst. pl. f.): with golden girdles

kanaka: n. gold

kāñcī f. (fr. √kac ; cf. kāñci) a girdle (especially a woman's zone or girdle furnished with small bells and other ornaments

mukharābhiḥ (inst. pl. f.): mfn. (fr. mukha, mouth) talkative , garrulous , loquacious (said also of birds and bees) ; noisy , tinkling (as an anklet &c )

itas-tataḥ: ind. from here to there

babhramur = 3^rd pers. pl. perf. bhram: to wander or roam about , rove , ramble ; to move to and fro or unsteadily , flicker , flutter , reel , totter

darśayantyaḥ = nom. pl. f. pres. part. causative dṛś: to cause to see or be seen , to show a thing (A1. esp. of something belonging to one's self) or person ; to show = prove , demonstrate

asya (gen. sg.): of/for him

śroṇīḥ (acc. pl.): f. the hip and loins , buttocks

tanv-aṁśukāvṛtāḥ (acc. p. f.): overspread with fine cloth

tanu: mfn. thin , slender , attenuated , emaciated , small , little , minute , delicate , fine

aṁśuka: n. cloth ; fine or white cloth , muslin ; garment

āvṛta: mfn. covered , concealed , hid ; screened; enclosed , encompassed , surrounded (by a ditch , wall , &c ) ; overspread

[No corresponding Chinese] 

BUDDHACARITA 4.33: Scarcely Observable Flashes

⏑−⏑−¦⏑−−−¦¦−⏑−−¦⏑−⏑−

muhur-muhur-mada-vyāja-srasta-nīlāṁśukāparā |

−−⏑⏑¦⏑−−−¦¦⏑−−⏑¦⏑−⏑−

ālakṣya-rasanā reje sphurad-vidyud-iva kṣapā || 4.33

4.33

A different girl, as she repeatedly simulated intoxication,

And let her dark blue robe, made of fine cloth, slip down,

Showed scarcely observable glimmers of sensibility,

Like a night lit by lightning, in flashes.

COMMENT:

In the 1st pāda of today's verse I think Aśvaghoṣa's secret intention was to describe his own creative work as the repeated simulation of intoxication/inspiration – a line of poetry inevitably being the representation of the teaching rather than the teaching itself.  A parallel in Saundara-nanda could be verse SN10.20, where trees producing garlands (mālāḥ) and wreaths (srajaḥ), seem to symbolize poets producing verse in the metres known as mālā and sraj:

There one by one, season by season, and moment by moment, trees convey their individual form; / While some odd ones (anye) also bring out the combined manifold glory of all six seasons. // SN10.19 // Some produce garlands (mālāḥ) and wreaths (srajaḥ) which are fragrant and affecting, with variously interwoven strands, / And small round creations suited to the ear which are akin to earrings' opponents. // SN10.20 //

In the 2nd pāda of today's verse, I think that aparā, “a different girl,” means the same as anyā in SN10.19 above. Aśvaghoṣa uses anya and apara not only to mean “another one” but also to point to an individual who is odd, different, non-. That the subject of today's verse repeatedly let her robe slip down can be understood in the spirit of Dogen's famous remark that his life felt like the making of one mistake after another. As a matter of fact, anybody who has ever done a prostration wearing a traditionally-sewn robe worn in the traditional way, with one corner tucked in over the left shoulder, knows that this corner does tend repeatedly to slip off the shoulder.

In the 3rd pāda, the Old Nepalese manuscript has ālakṣya-rasanā, as does EBC, who translated “with her tongue visible.” (“Another, with her blue garments continually slipping down in pretended intoxication, stood conspicuous with her tongue visible like the night with its lightning flashing.”) EHJ doubtless felt, with some justification, that EBC's tongue was sticking out like a sore thumb, and so he amended ālakṣya-rasanā to ālakṣya-raśanā, and translated as “with her girdle partly seen.”

Before it means tongue, however, rasana means “tasting” and hence “sensing” and “being sensible.” So I think that ostensibly the 3rd pāda means that the girl was doing such a good job of pretending to be drunk that her true sensibility/sobriety was barely perceptible. But what Aśvaghoṣa is really interested in is the Buddha's teaching of the instantaneous appearance and disappearance of the universe, according to which sensibility/awareness can only ever be instantaneous flickers, even though we experience it as continuous. We feel it to be continuous because we are unable to observe the duration of a moment. The duration of a moment of the present, Dogen wrote, probably using a dash of poetic license, has only ever been known by the Buddha himself.

The 4th pāda, then, can be read as a metaphor that challenges our general notion of what a buddha's enlightenment might be like – not so much eternal sunshine, the suggestion seems to be, as intermittent flashes in the dark.

Around December 25^th it is easy to think about past Christmases, and in the New Year one tends to look ahead to the year one supposes will come, but today's verse as I read it is intended to bring us back to intermittent flashing of moments of the present, for it is only in such moments that stuff actually happens – or, on a good day, stuff is prevented from happening. 

VOCABULARY

muhur-muhur: ind. now and again , at one moment and at another , again and again

mada-vyāja-srasta-nīlāṁśukā (nom. sg. f.): her dark-blue upper garment slipping off, under the pretext of intoxication

mada: m. hilarity , rapture , excitement , inspiration , intoxication

vyāja: m. deceit , fraud , deception , semblance , appearance , imitation , disguise , pretext , pretence (ibc. " treacherously , falsely " , also = ifc. " having only the appearance of , appearing as , simulated , deceitful , false ")

srasta: mfn. fallen , dropped , slipped off , fallen from (abl. or comp.); loosened , relaxed , hanging down , pendent , pendulous ; separated , disjoined

nīla: mfn. n. of a dark colour , (esp.) dark-blue or dark-green or black ; m. the Indian fig-tree ; m. an ox or bull of a dark colour

aṁśuka: n. cloth ; fine or white cloth , muslin; garment , upper garment

aparā (nom. sg. f.): mfn. other, another; different

ālakṣya-rasanā (nom. sg. f.): her sensibility being barely observable ; with barely perceptible flickers of sensibility

ālakṣya-raśanā (nom. sg. f.): having her girdle/light just visible

ālakṣya: mfn. to be observed , visible , apparent; mfn. scarcely visible , just visible

ā-√lakṣ : to descry , behold , see

√lakṣ: to perceive , observe; recognize

rasana: n. tasting , taste , flavour , savour ; n. the tongue as organ of taste ; n. the being sensible of (anything) , perception , apprehension , sense

raśanā: f. a rope , cord , strap ; rein, bridle ; girth , girdle , zone (esp. of woman) (also fig. applied to the fingers); a ray of light , beam ; the tongue (w.r. for rasanā) ; (ifc.) girt by , dependent on

reje = 3^rd pers. sg. perf. raj: to reign , be king or chief , rule over (gen.) , direct , govern (acc.); to be illustrious or resplendent , shine , glitter ; to appear as or like (iva)

sphurad-vidyut (nom. sg. f.): with her lightning flashing

sphurat: mfn. trembling , shaking &c

sphur: to spurn ; to dart , bound , rebound , spring ; to tremble , throb , quiver , palpitate , twitch (as the nerves of the arm ); struggle ; to flash , glitter , gleam , glisten , twinkle , sparkle ; to shine , be brilliant or distinguished ; to break forth , burst out plainly or visibly , start into view , be evident or manifest , become displayed or expanded

vidyut: mfn. flashing , shining , glittering ; f. lightning (rarely n.) , a flashing thunderbolt (as the weapon of the maruts) ; f. the dawn

iva: like

kṣapā (nom. sg.): f. night

[No corresponding Chinese] 

BUDDHACARITA 4.32: Wanting It

−⏑−−¦⏑−−−¦¦−−−−¦⏑−⏑−

kā-cid-ājñāpayantīva provācārdrānulepanā |

⏑⏑−−¦⏑−−−¦¦−−−−¦⏑−⏑−

iha bhaktiṁ kuruṣveti hastaṁ saṁśliṣya lipsayā || 4.32

4.32

As if she were giving an order,

One girl who was moist with body oils insisted:

“Perform the act of devotion here!”

As – wanting it – she closely attached herself to a hand.

COMMENT:

In the 1st line, ājñāpayantī (“ordering”) is a causative form of ā-√jñā (“to understand, notice, realize”), and is related to the noun ā-jñā, which the dictionary gives as 1. order , command; and 2. authority , unlimited power. Ānandajoti Bhikku informed me, from his familiarity with its equivalent in the Pali suttas, that ā-√jñā means deep knowledge, or knowledge of final liberation. The final canto of Saundara-nanda is titled,  ājñā-vyākaraṇaḥ, which I tentatively translated as “Knowing Affirmation.”

The ostensible meaning of ājñāpayantīva, then, is “as if giving an order” or “bossily,” but I think the hidden meaning that Aśvaghoṣa intended to convey by ājñāpayantīva, has nothing to do with bossing others about. It might have to do with obeying or conveying the Buddha's commandment which, in the first instance, is not to do the wrong thing. Equally, it might be related to the preventive process that FM Alexander called ordering, using words like “Let” and “Allow” as a means of directing one's own energy – causing one's energy definitely not to flow there but rather allowing it to flow where nature intended it to flow.

In the 2^nd line, by describing the woman in today's verse as “moist with body oils,” Aśvaghoṣa might be intending to give a concrete indication (at the 2^nd of Gudo Nishijima's “four phases”), of the sparkling health of a woman whose autonomic nervous system is balanced.

In the 3^rd line, bhakti means (1) a line or a streak, like the lines and streaks which Sundarī painted on herself in the 4^th Canto of Saundara-nanda, and (2) devotion. In light of this ambiguity, if the ostensible meaning of today's verse is paraphrased in BBC Radio 4 English, iha bhaktiṁ kuruṣva could be translated either as “Paint a line here, on my make-up,” or as “Have sex with me (= perform the act of devotion) right here.”

So either:

One girl, her body moist with unguents, bossily insisted, “Make a line here in my make-up,” as – full of desire for sex – she clasped his hand.

Or:
One girl, her body moist with oils, bossily insisted, “Fuck me right here,” as – full of desire for sex – she clasped his hand.

If we follow the hidden meaning of ājñāpayanti, however, performance of the/an act of devotion obviously means something very different. If devotion means devotion to the principle of not doing wrong, it might mean playing Marjory Barlow's game of lying down on one's back and being clear in one's decision NOT to move a leg, in order to be free to move it. Equally it might mean a prostration, or an hour or half an hour intelligently spent sitting in lotus.

For the 4th pāda, the old Nepalese manuscript has hasta-saṁśliṣya-lipsayā. EH Johnston amended this, based on his own conjecture, to hasta-saṁśleṣa-lipsayā (“in the hope of winning the touch of his hand”). But I have followed EB Cowell's text which has hastaṁ saṁśliṣya lipsayā.

In EHJ's reading, the object that the woman wants to get is hasta-saṁśleṣa, “close contact with [his] hand.” With the latter reading (which is as per the old Nepalese manuscript before the probable disappearance of one dot), what the woman wants to get is not specified. Ostensibly, what she desires is sex. But I think Aśvaghoṣa's real intention is to describe a practitioner who wants to get what Zen practitioners of the past famously wanted to get – namely, it.

EBC understood hastaṁ saṁśliṣya lipsayā to mean “eagerly clasping his hand.” Though the apparent meaning of hastaṁ (or hasta) is thus “his hand,” there is originally no “his” – the owner of the hand in question, though it is ostensibly the prince, is not specified.

What hidden meaning, then, might Aśvaghoṣa have implied by hastaṁ saṁ-√śliṣ, “to attach oneself to a hand”?

My first thought relates to a hymn that I sang many times in my youth, usually in the irreligious, beer-besotted context of watching Wales play rugby:

Guide me O thy great redeemer,

Pilgrim through this barren land.

I am weak but thou art mighty –

Hold me in thy powerful hand....

But, on second thoughts, Aśvaghoṣa is more likely to have had in mind another kind of metaphorical hand, such as the one discussed by the Buddha in Saundara-nanda canto 12:

And so I call this confidence the Hand, because it is this confidence, above all, / That grasps true dharma, as a hand naturally takes a gift. // SN12.36 //

This being so, I have found it difficult in the 4^th pāda to find a translation that conveys both the overt sexual meaning of clasping a prospective lover's hand, and the hidden non-sexual meaning of putting oneself in the assured hand of a good teacher or true process. 

In the end, when teachers say that one has really got to want it, wanting it means wanting what?

I find it easier to answer the question for my own satisfaction in the negative. I don't always know what I do want. Sometimes I want nothing more than a bacon and egg sandwich and a cup of hot coffee. Sometimes solitude and fresh air. Often the absence of noise. 

What has become more clear and more constant over the years is what I don't want. I don't want to pull myself down while deluding myself that I am directing myself up. I don't want to delude myself that I am “letting nature work,” when in fact I am holding my breath. I don't want to go into battle with the kind of bloke that Jordan calls “a buddy fucker,” and certainly don't want to go into battle as a buddy fucker. I don't want to preach anything that I don't practise. The world of Buddhism and Buddhist studies is full of hypocrisy. I don't want to be part of that problem. Or if I already am, I don't want to make it worse. 

A couple of days ago I read the first few pages (a sample on a Kindle I got for my birthday) of a book by Charles Allen on King Aśoka. Reading about the destruction of the great monastic libraries in India which doubtless contained pristine copies, if not the originals, of Aśvaghoṣa's writing, something in me would like to help the wheel of karma turn by showing some angry intolerance right back towards Islaamic intolerance. Is there any mullah out there, I wonder, who would like to apologize to us on behalf of his religion for the missing 14 chapters of Buddha-carita?

If I inhibit my own instinctual responses, however, so that reason might intervene, I see with renewed clarity that my job is not to stiffen my neck (via the mirror principle) against Islaamic and other religious intolerance. My job – the thing I really ought to want – is to allow Aśvaghoṣa to wield his weapon of choice, against hypocrisy and against intolerance. And that weapon of choice is irony.

I repeat: Aśvaghoṣa weapon of choice, against hypocrisy and against intolerance, is irony. Thus have I decreed. And to any sanctimonious Buddhist so-and-so, or view-laden Buddhist scholar, who doubts my decree, I can only say, in all humility, "Death to the infidel!"

VOCABULARY

kā-cid (nom. sg. f.): somebody; one of the women

ājñāpayantī = 3^rd pers. sg. nom. sg. f. pres. part. causative ā- √ jñā: to order , command , direct ; to assure

iva: like, as if

provāca = 3^rd pers. sg. perf. pra- √ vac: to proclaim , announce , praise , commend , mention , teach , impart , explain ; to speak , say , tell (with acc. , rarely dat. of person , and acc. of thing)

ārdrānulepanā (nom. sg. f.): moist with body-oils

ārdra: ( √ard, to dissolve) wet , moist , damp ; fresh , not dry , succulent , green (as a plant) , living ; soft , tender , full of feeling , warm ; loose, flacid ; n. fresh ginger ; n. dampness , moisture

anulepana: n. anointing the body: unguent so used ; oily or emollient application

anulepa: m. unction , anointing , bedaubing

lepana: n. the act of smearing , anointing , plastering , spreading on ; ointment , plaster , mortar (ifc. = smeared or plastered with) ; flesh, meat ; m. olibanum , incense

iha: ind. in this place , here ; in this world

bhaktim (acc. sg.): f. distribution , partition , separation; division by streaks or lines ; a streak , line , variegated decoration; f. attachment , devotion , fondness for , devotion to (with loc. , gen. or ifc.) , trust , homage , worship , piety , faith or love or devotion (as a religious principle or means of salvation , together with karman , " works " , and jñāna , " spiritual knowledge ")

kuruṣva = 2^nd pers. sg. imperative kṛ: to do, make

iti: “...,” thus

hastam (acc. sg.): m. the hand (ifc. = " holding in or by the hand " ; haste √ kṛ [as two words] , " to take into the hand " , " get possession of " ; haste- √ kṛ [as a comp.] , " to take by the hand , marry " ; śatru-hastaṁ √ gam , " to fall into the hand of the enemy ")

saṁśliṣya = abs. saṁ- √ śliṣ: to stick or attach one's self to (acc.) ; to clasp , embrace ; to bring into close contact or immediate connection with (instr.)

√ śliṣ: to adhere , attach , cling to ; to clasp , embrace ; to unite , join (trans. or intrans.)

lipsayā (inst. sg.): f. (fr. desid. labh) the desire to gain , wish to acquire or obtain , longing for (loc. or comp.)

labh: to take , seize , catch ; catch sight of , meet with , find ; to gain possession of , obtain , receive , conceive , get , receive ; to gain the power of (doing anything) , succeed in , be permitted or allowed to ; to perceive , know , understand , learn , find out

[EHJ:] hasta-saṁśleṣa-lipsayā (inst. sg. f.): with the desire to obtain connection via the hand / longing to win the touch of his hand

saṁśleṣa: m. junction , union , connection , close contact with (instr. or comp.) ; embracing , an embrace

或以香塗身

BUDDHACARITA 4.31: Let the Secret Reveal Itself

−−−−¦⏑−−−¦¦⏑−−⏑¦⏑−⏑−

kā-cit tāmrādharoṣṭhena mukhenāsava-gandhinā |

⏑⏑−−¦⏑−−−¦¦⏑−−−¦⏑−⏑−

viniśaśvāsa karṇe 'sya rahasyaṁ śrūyatām-iti || 4.31

4.31

One girl, whose mouth with copper-red lower lip

Betrayed a whiff of distilled nectar,

Whispered in his ear,

“Let the secret be revealed!”

COMMENT:

If a flirting woman wished to say, in a coquettish way, “Listen to a secret,” then rahasyaṁ śrūyatām would be one way of saying it. At the same time, a Sanskrit-speaking practitioner who wished to encourage another Sanskrit-speaking practitioner in the practice of non-doing might use the exact same words rahasyaṁ śrūyatām to mean “Let the mystery be revealed” – in other words “Don't keep trying to nail jelly to the wall, you moron! Let the mystery reveal itself.”

Was Aśvaghoṣa conscious of the double-entendre? You can bet your bottom dollar he was.

What we are getting here, then, is a kind of ironic reversal of ordinary sexual innuendo. In ordinary sexual innuendo ostensibly innocent language has a covert sexual meaning. In Aśvaghoṣan innuendo, overtly sexual language has a covert meaning related to sitting-Zen.

That being so, the girl's lower lip is described as copper red ostensibly because of the lingering presence of licqour, that is, distilled spirit of the alcoholic variety; or because of the presence of the natural nectar of a woman's lips. But the hidden meaning may be that the girl's moist lip is an indication of the presence in her of concentrated vital spirit, or maybe even of amṛta, the nectar of immortality.

VOCABULARY

kā-cit (nom. sg. f.): somebody, one of the women

tāmrādharoṣṭhena (inst. sg.): with a copper[-coloured] lower lip

tāmra: mfn. of a coppery red colour ; made of copper ; n. copper ; n. a coppery receptacle

adhara: mfn. lower , inferior , tending downwards; m. the lower lip , the lip

oṣṭha: m. the lip

mukhena (inst. sg.): n. the mouth , face , countenance ;

āsava-gandhinā (nom. sg. f.): smelling of licquor ; betraying a whiff of distilled spirit / a woman's nectar

āsava: m. distilling , distillation ; rum , spirit distilled from sugar or molasses , spirituous liquor in general ; the nectar or juice of a flower ; the nectar or juice of the lips (of a woman) ; m. exciting , enlivening

gandhin: mfn. smelling of (in comp.); ifc. having (only the smell i.e.) a very little of anything

viniśaśvāsa = 3^rd pers. sg. perf. vi-ni- √ śvas: to breathe hard , snort , hiss ; to sigh deeply

karṇe (loc. sg.): m. the ear (karṇe [in drama] into the ear , in a low voice , aside)

asya (gen. sg.): his

rahasyam (nom. sg.): n. a secret , any secret doctrine or mystery , any subtle or recondite point , mystical or esoteric teaching

śrūyatām = 3^rd pers. sg. passive imperative śru: to be heard or perceived or learnt ; to be celebrated or renowned , be known as , pass for , be called (nom.) ; to be heard or learnt (from a teacher) ; to be taught or stated (in a book) ; to be heard i.e. pronounced or employed (as a sound or word)

iti: “...,” thus

[No corresponding Chinese]