Information and Sāṅkhya

Alfred Borgmann’s Holding On To Reality opens with the provocative words:

Information can illuminate, transform, or displace reality. When failing health or a power failure deprives you of information, the world closes in on you; it becomes dark and oppressive. Without information about reality, without reports and records, the reach of experience quickly trails off into the shadows of ignorance and forgetfulness.

This is a very interesting and provocative passage, but I picked it up because of its uncanny resemblance to a famous verse from Īśvarakṛṣṇa’s Sāṃkhyakārikās:

prīty-aprīti-viṣādâtmakāḥ prakāśa-pravṛtti-niyamârthāḥ |
anyônyâ-’bhibhavâ-’’śraya-janana-mithuna-vṛttayaś ca guṇāḥ ||

“The three guṇas [which constitute all non-sentient reality] have the respective natures of joy, non-joy, and sorrow; they act to illuminate, transform, and restrain, respectively; and they have the capacity to ground, produce, combine, and suppress one another.”

I need to bone up on my Sāṃkhya and my Borgmann further before I stretch this analogy, but at least at first glance, it appears as if there is something potentially illuminating lurking in the shadows here. (One thing that strikes me: the three guṇas of Sāṅkhya are regarded as entirely distinct from the individual persons, puruṣas, who alone are conscious observers and actors. This suggests that information itself isn’t enough: it presupposes the existence of conscious observers who can recognize something as being information.)

Grammar and God

One of the most famous verses in Sanskrit is the opening verse of Kālidāsa’s Raghuvaṃśa:

vāg-arthāv iva sampṛktau vāg-artha-pratipattaye |

jagataḥ pitarau vande pārvatīparameśvarau ||

Here, Śiva and Pārvatī are seen to be inextricably intertwined like a word and its meaning.

Another verse I came across today expresses a similar relation, but between different pairs of upamānas and upameyas:

rāsa-vilāsa-vilolaṃ smarata murārer mano-haraṃ rūpam |

prakṛtiṣu yat pratyayavat praty-ekaṃ gopikāsu sammilitam ||

May you remember that enchanting form of Mura’s Conqueror,
        dancing around playfully in the Rāsa-līlā,
        united individually with all of the milkmaids,
                like a suffix with flexional bases.

As may be imagined, this is the opening verse of a grammatical text: the Prakriyā-sarvasva of Mēlpattūr Nārāyaṇa Bhaṭṭatiri, who is most famous for his composition of the Nārāyaṇīyam addressed to Kṛṣṇa. As to why Kṛṣṇa should be seen as a suffix (which, in English at least, sounds like it’s subordinate somehow to the word to which it’s added), it’s because the Pāṇinian tradition of grammar sees the suffix’s meaning as dominating the word’s meaning. Moreover, a suffix can be added to far more words than a word can take suffixes, and so it has greater “freedom of union” in that sense. Finally, and conveniently, the word for suffix, pratyaya, takes masculine gender, while the word for flexional base, prakṛti, takes the feminine gender.

Appayya Dīkṣita on figurative language

(This post is a draft, and I will likely edit my translations below, multiple times.)

In his Vṛttivārttika (“An Explication of Linguistic Operations”), Appayya Dīkṣita briefly outlines his theory of semantics, focusing on the processes by which words give rise to different meanings. As befits a good ālaṅkārika, literary theorist, in the post-Ānandavardhana universe, he accepts three such operations: 

• abhidhā, “denotation”,
• lakṣaṇā, “figuration” or something similar, and 
• vyañjanā, “suggestion”. 

This work of his, though, only defines abhidhā and lakṣaṇā. Does that mean the Vṛttivārttika is incomplete? Or is it the case that Appayya wanted to focus only on these two, postponing discussion of the often-problematic vyañjanā? Things are unclear, but what we do know is that in his other works (see the many articles by Yigal Bronner on Appayya) Appayya wants to reduce the role taken up by dhvani in poetics, and it is possible that this also means he wants to give abhidhā and lakṣaṇā more importance than post-Mammaṭa alaṅkāraśāstra permits.

Now, Appayya Dīkṣita argues that there are seven subtypes of lakṣaṇā. (This is one more than Mukulabhaṭṭa defines in his Abhidhāvṛttimātṛkā. One reason Mukulabhaṭṭa was so expansive was because he entirely denied the existence of a separate linguistic operation called vyañjanā, trying instead to bring it entirely under the domain of lakṣaṇā. I wonder what this says about Appayya’s intentions?) He offers examples for each of them, and some day I will try to list them all out systematically. For now, though, I restrict myself to his last two subtypes of lakṣaṇā, both of which he exemplifies using the single verse offered below.

ā pādam ā cikura-bhāram aśeṣam aṅgam 
ānanda-bṛnda-lasitaṃ sudṛśām asīmam |
antar mama sphuratu santatam antarātmann
ambhoja-locana tava śrita-hasti-śailam ||

śuddha-sâropa-lakṣaṇā yathā ‘ā pādam’ iti | atra bhagavad-aṅgeṣv ānanda-kāritvena ānanda-padasya sāropa-lakṣaṇā | ānanda-karaṇe itara-vailakṣaṇya-dyotanaṃ phalam |  ānanda-kāriṇi viṣaya-nigaraṇena “ānando ’yam” iti prayoge sâdhyavasāya-lakṣaṇā | ānandâvyabhicāra-dyotanaṃ phalam  ||

From feet up to thick, curly locks,
May Your entire body
        shimmering endlessly with clusters of pure bliss
        for those with blessed sight,
shine resplendent eternally within me,

O Indweller of my soul,
Lotus-eyed Lord 
         who lives atop Elephant Hill!

Śuddhā sâropā lakṣaṇā is exemplified in the verse that begins with the words ā pādam. Here, the word ānanda (“bliss”) refers to the Lord’s limbs through sâropā lakṣaṇā, because of their being causers of bliss. The result is the illumination of the impossibility of any other thing being an instrument of bliss.

The word ānanda refers to a causer of bliss through sâdhyavasāya-lakṣaṇā via the usage “it is bliss”, because in that case the topic at hand (i.e., the causer of bliss) gets wholly subsumed by the description (i.e., bliss). The result of this is the illumination of the total non-deviation of bliss from the causer of bliss.


What Appayya Dīkṣita does not mention is the source of his example verse. It turns out to be the 105th, and last, verse of the Śrī Varadarāja Stava, his long, highly poetically ornate praise-poem dedicated to Lord Varadarāja, the form of Viṣṇu manifested in the temple icon at Elephant Hill in the city of Kanchipuram, Appayya Dīkṣita’s hometown.

Lightness and heaviness

Re(re)ading Gwendolyn Lane’s translation of Bāṇabhaṭṭa’s masterpiece Kādambarī, I suddenly recalled a fascinating anecdote about how Bāṇa decided to permit his son Bhūṣaṇa to complete the work. I fear I cannot remember the source of the tale.

The story goes that Bāṇa was on his deathbed without having completed the Kādambarī, and wished to entrust one of his sons with the job of finishing it. But how to decide which one would be worthy of the challenge? He called them both to his bed, and, pointing to a small stack of firewood nearby, asked them to describe it.

The elder son (whose name escapes me, and perhaps history too) said: 

śuṣkaṃ kāṣṭhaṃ tiṣṭhaty agre

“A dry piece of wood stands in front.” 

The younger, by name Bhūṣaṇa, came up with this: 

nīrasa-tarur iha vilasati purataḥ

“A sapless tree manifests itself before me.”

Both statements are factually correct, but only Bhūṣaṇa’s possesses the lightness (lāghava) and multiplicity of meaning that Bāṇa so prized in his work. Specifically:

• The two statements are both 16 morae long, but Bhuṣaṇa’s version crams 14 syllables in by using light syllables throughout (except at the beginning and the end). His brother’s, on the other hand, uses 8 syllables, each one heavy.
• The elder brother’s statement attempts to repeat ṣ in three consonant clusters, but two of these are the same, being the heavy and somewhat unattractive ṣṭh cluster. Bhūṣaṇa does not have any clusters at all, but lightly dances amidst repetitions of s, t, l, and r.
• Bhūṣaṇa’s first word, nīrasa, evokes the literary concept of rasa (about which Amazons’ worth of paper and Superiors’ worth of ink have been spilled).
• Bhūṣaṇa’s statement can be understood as referring not just to the firewood that his father has asked about, but also to his elder brother who lacked literary judgement but who stood before him in time and in the hierarchy of the Indian family.

Bhūṣaṇa was given the privilege of completing Bāṇa’s work. Scholars hold, however, that his effort lacks the mastery of his father’s. History is the harshest critic of all.

Grammar and enclitic pronouns

natvā sarasvatīṃ devīṃ śuddhāṃ guṇyāṃ karomy aham |
pāṇinīya-praveśāya laghu-siddhānta-kaumudīm ||

Having bowed down to Goddess Sarasvatī,
        pure and virtuous,
I compose the Laghusiddāntakaumudī as an introduction to the Pāṇinian system.

With this invocation to Sarasvatī, Goddess of Knowledge, does Varadarāja begin his Laghusiddhāntakaumudī, the “Brief Moonlight of [Grammatical] Principles”. Varadarāja’s work is an annotated, abridged version of Bhaṭṭoji Dīkṣita’s Siddhāntakaumudī, which rearranges the whole of Pāṇini’s Aṣṭâdhyāyī into a format that is pedagogically usable by the student. The English translation of the invocation to Sarasvatī does not capture an interesting ambiguity in the original: the adjectives “pure and virtuous” could [and therefore did!] describe the Laghusiddhāntakaumudī itself.

Much can be said about this work, but for now I wish to note just one pair of verses from its haL-anta-puṃliṅga-prakaraṇa, the chapter on (the declension of) consonant-final masculine nouns:

śrîśas tvâvatu mâpîha dattāt te me ’pi śarma saḥ |
svāmī te me ’pi sa hariḥ pātu vām api nau vibhuḥ ||
sukhaṃ vāṃ nau dadātv īśaḥ patir vām api nau hariḥ |
so ’vyād vo naḥ śivaṃ vo no dadyāt sevyo ’tra vaḥ sa naḥ ||

May the Lord of Śrī protect you and me;
        may He give delight to you and me.
That Hari is the master of you and of me;
        may He, All-Pervading, guard you two and us two.

May the Lord grant happiness to you two and to us two;
        for Hari husbands you two and us two.
May He defend y’all and us;
        may He bestow auspiciousness to y’all and to us;
        He is to be served by y’all and us here.

Why would this verse show up in a grammar text? Because the underlined forms are the enclitic forms of the first- and second-person pronouns! This verse contains examples of the enclitic pronouns for the second, fourth, and sixth cases, in the singular, dual, and plural, in that order. These optional forms are permitted by a small set of Pāṇinian sūtras:

• yuṣmad-asmadoḥ ṣaṣṭhī-caturthī-dvitīyāsthayor vāṃ-nāvau [Pā 8.1.20]
• bahuvacanasya vas-nasau [Pā 8.1.21]
• te-mayāv ekavacanasya [Pā 8.1.22]
• tvā-mau dvitīyāyāḥ [Pā 8.1.23]

Pā 8.1.20 permits the use of vām and nau in place of the regular second- and first-person pronouns, respectively, in the sixth, fourth, and second cases. (As stated, this is a general rule, utsarga, that applies to all these pronominal forms regardless of number.)

Pā 8.1.21 then carves out an exception (apavāda) to this rule, saying that in the plural, the forms vas and nas, respectively, should be used. [These are indeed cognate with Spanish vosotros and nosotros and French vous and nous.]

Pā 8.1.22 carves out another apavāda, saying that te and me should be used in the singular. (Thus, taking these two exceptions together, we automatically restrict vām and nau to the dual.) But this rule, while being an apavāda to Pā 8.1.20, is in itself an utsarga.

Pā 8.1.23 is the apavāda to Pā 8.1.22 in turn, saying that tvā and mā should be used in place of te and me for the second-case forms of the singular pronouns. 

This is an extremely brief look at one of the ways in which the Pāṇinian system works, by creating utsargas and apavādas. One of the side-effects of this is that no Pāṇinian rule can be understood in isolation from all other rules, for everything interacts with everything else. 

To know the whole, know the parts; to know the parts, know the whole.

On hunting birds and God

I just came across Galway Kinnell’s beautiful To Christ Our Lord on this blog post by Alan Jacobs:

The legs of the elk punctured the snow’s crust

And wolves floated lightfooted on the land

Hunting Christmas elk living and frozen;

Inside snow melted in a basin, and a woman basted

A bird spread over coals by its wings and head.

Snow had sealed the windows; candles lit

The Christmas meal. The Christmas grace chilled

The cooked bird, being long-winded and the room cold.

During the words a boy thought, is it fitting

To eat this creature killed on the wing?

He had killed it himself, climbing out

Alone on snowshoes in the Christmas dawn,

The fallen snow swirling and the snowfall gone,

Heard its throat scream as the gunshot scattered,

Watched it drop, and fished from the snow the dead.

He had not wanted to shoot. The sound

Of wings beating into the hushed air

Had stirred his love, and his fingers

Froze in his gloves, and he wondered,

Famishing, could he fire? Then he fired.

Now the grace praised his wicked act. At its end

The bird on the plate

Stared at his stricken appetite.

There had been nothing to do but surrender,

To kill and to eat; he ate as he had killed, with wonder.

At night on snowshoes on the drifting field

He wondered again, for whom had love stirred?

The stars glittered on the snow and nothing answered.

Then the Swan spread her wings, cross of the cold north,

The pattern and mirror of the acts of earth.

Reading it on the first clear night after the first real snowfall of this winter, I could not help but think of the beginning of the Rāmāyaṇa and of the birth of poetry in Sanskrit. The great seer (and composer of the Rāmāyaṇa) Vālmīki witnesses a hunter killing one of a pair of birds mating. Appalled, and overtaken by grief, he curses the hunter with what forms the first poem in Sanskrit:

mā niṣāda pratiṣṭhāṃ tvam agamaḥ śāśvatīḥ samāḥ |

yat krauñca-mithunād ekam avadhīḥ kāma-mohitam ||

I wrote about this poem and about its ingenious re-reading by the medieval Śrīvaiṣṇava commentator Govindarāja earlier on this blog.

Appayya Dīkṣita on pratīpam (“upstream”)

Continuing our series on arthâlaṅkāras from Appayya Dīkṣita’s Kuvalayānanda, let’s look at the figure called pratīpam. It’s usually called “reversal” or “contradiction” or, perhaps most accurately, “inversion”, but I’ve chosen the etymologically accurate “upstream” instead. “Against the flow”, “against the grain” would all fit in with what the name means. But why is it used here?

[pratīpam]

[1]
pratīpam upamānasyôpameyatva-prakalpanam |
tval-locana-samaṃ padmaṃ tvad-vaktra-sadṛśo vidhuḥ ||

[2]
anyôpameya-lābhena varṇyasyânādaraś ca tat |
alaṃ garveṇa te vaktra kāntyā candro bhavādṛśaḥ ||

[3]
varṇyôpameya-lābhena tathânyasyâpy anādaraḥ |
kaḥ kraurya-darpas te mṛtyo tvat-tulyāḥ santi hi striyaḥ ||

[4]
varṇyenânyasyôpamāyā aniṣpatti-vacaś ca tat |
mithyā-vādo hi mugdhâkṣi tvan-mukhâbhaṃ kilâmbujam ||

[5]
pratīpam upamānasya kaimarthyam api manyate |
dṛṣṭaṃ ced vadanaṃ tanvyāḥ kiṃ padmena kim indunā ||

The figure called pratīpa has five different, but related, definitions:
[1] When the yardstick of comparison is imagined to be the thing being described. Thus: “the lotus is like your eye; the moon like your face.” Here the natural order of things (i.e., the thing being described is compared to the yardstick) is inverted.

[2] When the thing being described is treated with contempt because of another (i.e., the yardstick) being obtained. Thus: “Enough of your arrogance, o Face; the moon is your rival in terms of beauty.”

[3] When the other (i.e., the yardstick) is treated with contempt because of the thing being described. Thus: “What’s is your cruelty, Death? Women are your rivals.”

[4] When the impossibility of the other being a yardstick is established by the thing being described. Thus: “O girl with lovely eyes, it’s totally false that the lotus is like your face.” (This essentially comes down to negating an assertion of the type [1].)

[5] When the pointlessness of any yardstick is indicated. Thus: “when the slender girl’s face is seen, who cares about the lotus? who cares about the moon?”

The highest reality of all

vaṃśī-vibhūṣita-karān nava-nīradâbhāt

pītâmbarād aruṇa-bimba-phalâdharôṣṭhāt |

pūrṇêndu-sundara-mukhād aravinda-netrāt

kṛṣṇāt paraṃ kim api tattvam ahaṃ na jāne ||

This is an oft-recited verse in praise of Kṛṣṇa, but I stumbled across Pandit Jasraj’s version of it for the first time recently. The verse is quite straightforward, but possesses great beauty in its simplicity. Here is an attempt at a translation.

A hand ornamented by a bamboo-flute,
A complexion like a fresh monsoon rain-cloud,
A yellow garment,
A lower lip, red as the red bimba fruit,
A face, beautiful like the full moon,
A pair of eyes, like lotuses

        ——greater than that Kṛṣṇa,
        there’s simply nothing I know.



I was pleasantly surprised to learn that this verse was by the great Mughal-era Advaita scholar Madhusūdana Sarasvatī. Digging a little deeper, I found this verse to be part of his upasaṃhāra (conclusion) to his Gūḍârtha-dīpikā (“Lamp for Hidden Meanings”), a commentary on Śaṅkarācārya’s commentary on the Bhagavad Gītā. It turns out that Madhusūdana Sarasvatī, in addition to / despite his Advaitic leanings (depending on which way you swing), was a fervent devotee of Kṛṣṇa and held that bhakti to Kṛṣṇa was a path fully equal to, and distinct from, the renunciatory path leading to the Advaitic ideal of kaivalya. 

“The most beautiful verse in Sanskrit”

Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Years of Rice and Salt, towards its end, cites a verse from Kālidāsa’s Abhijñānaśākuntalam, accompanied by the Merton & Moussaief translation. The original Sanskrit reads:

ramyāṇi vīkṣya madhurāṃś ca niśamya śabdān

paryutsuko bhavati yat sukhito ’pi jantuḥ |

tac cetasā smarati nūnam abodha-pūrvam

bhāva-sthirāṇi jananântara-sauhṛdāni ||

In the words of Merton & Moussaief:

Even the man who is happy glimpses something

Or a thread of sound touches him

And his heart overflows with a longing

he does not recognize

Then it must be that he is remembering

a place out of reach people he loved

In a life before this their pattern

Still there in him waiting

I would translate it slightly differently:

    Seeing something beautiful,

    Hearing something sweet,

He begins to yearn for something—

although he was happy before this.

Surely he remembers something,

if only subconsciously:

        Loves from lost lives

        Indelibly imprinted in Being

We may call it nostalgia; the Germans, Sehnsucht; the Portuguese, saudade; the Persians, دلتنگی; Proust, a remembrance of things past that draws you into une recherche du temps perdu.  Kālidāsa sees in this form of recognition (which, not-so-incidentally, is fundamental to the plotline of the Śākuntalam) something deeply and fundamentally part of being human. Our old loves are never really lost; if they were true loves, sauhṛdāni, minglings of hearts, then they transform who we are for eternity. (And for Kālidāsa, it really is eternity!) They are fixed points within the flux of Being—within human beings, and within Being itself, shot through with human experiences.

What Kālidāsa does not say in this one verse is what we should do with this insight. We may choose to cling on to these points of stability, and to thus anchor ourselves in the past. Or we may choose to cast ourselves into the flow of being, while nonetheless retaining our knowledge of these fixed points, using them like stars to help us navigate uncharted waters.

“A Hymn to Śrī”: The Śrī Stuti of Śrī Vedānta Deśika

It is said that Śrī Vedānta Deśika composed his famous Śrī Stuti when a pious but poor young man came to him for help: he wanted to get married, and needed some money to convince his father-in-law-to-be that he was worth it. No sooner had Śrī Vedānta Deśika finished reciting the Śrī Stuti than a shower of gold coins poured down from the heavens, making the young man rich and making Śrī Vedānta Deśika even more famous than he had been.

What follows is a first draft at translating this most beautiful of hymns praising the Goddess Śrī. All that is good in this comes from the beauty of the original; whatever isn’t, stems from my own deficiencies. May I be forgiven my myriad faults!

|| Śrīḥ ||

The noble Veṅkaṭanātha,

        blessed with śrī,

        saffron-maned lion among poets and philosophers,

        teacher of the Vedānta—

may he be enshrined in my heart forever!

|| 1 || 

Magnificent beyond all measure,

Auspicious even to all things auspicious,

Resting on the chest of Madhu’s conqueror

Ornamenting it by Her lustre,

Felicity personified for all people

        who seek material and spiritual prosperity—

        to you, o Śrī, do I,

                who have no other refuge,

        surrender!

Appayya Dīkṣita on śleṣa (“paronomasia”)

We continue with our examination of select arthâlaṅkāras from the Kuvalayānanda of Appayya Dīkṣita. This time, we look at one of the greatest features of Sanskrit: śleṣa.

[XXVI. śleṣa]

nānârtha-saṃśrayaḥ śleṣo varṇyâvarṇyôbhayâspadaḥ |

[XXVI.1. varṇyâspada-śleṣa]
sarvadomādhavaḥ pāyāt sa yogaṃgām adīdharat ||
[XXVI.2. avarṇyâspada-śleṣa]
añjena tvan-mukhaṃ tulyaṃ hariṇāhitasaktinā |
[XXVI.3. ubhayâspada-śleṣa]
uccarad-bhūri-kīlālaḥ śuśubhe vāhinī-patiḥ ||

Appayya Dīkṣita on atiśayokti (“hyperbole”)

Continuing the Kuvalayānanda series: atiśayôkti , usually translated as “hyperbole”.

[XIII. atiśayôkti]

[XIII.1.a rūpakâtiśayôkti]
rūpakâtiśayôktiḥ syān nigīryâdhyavasānataḥ |
paśya nīlôtpala-dvandvān niḥsaranti śitāḥ śarāḥ ||

[XIII.1.b sâpahnuvā rūpakâtiśayôkti]
yady apahnuti-garbhatvaṃ saîva sâpahnavā matā |
tvat-sūktiṣu sudhā rājan bhrāntāḥ paśyanti tāṃ vidhau ||

[XIII.2. bhedakâtiśayôkti]
bhedakâtiśayôktis tu tasyaîvânyatva-varṇanam |
anyad evâsya gāmbhīryam anyad dhairyaṃ mahī-pateḥ ||

[XIII.3. sambandhâtiśayôkti]
sambandhâtiśayôktiḥ syād ayoge yoga-kalpanam |
saudhâgrāṇi purasyâsya spṛśanti vidhu-maṇḍalam ||

[XIII.4. asambandhâtiśayôkti]
yoge ’py ayogo ’sambandhâtiśayôktir itîryate |
tvayi dātari rājêndra svar-drumān nâdriyāmahe ||

[XIII.5. akramâtiśayôkti]
akramâtiśayôktiḥ syāt sahatve hetu-kāryayoḥ |
āliṅganti samaṃ deva jyāṃ śarāś ca parāś ca te ||

[XIII.6. capalâtiśayôkti]
capalâtiśayôktis tu kārye hetu-prasaktije |
yāsyāmîty udite tanvyā valayo ’bhavad ūrmikā ||

[XIII.7. atyantâtiśayôkti]
atyantâtiśayôktis tat-paurvâparya-vyatikrame |
agre māno gataḥ paścād anunītā priyeṇa sā ||

Appayya Dīkṣita on utprekṣā (“poetic fancy”)

More Kuvalayānanda here. (Earlier figures of speech: apahnuti and rūpaka.)

[XII. utprekṣā]

sambhāvanā syād utprekṣā vastu-hetu-phalâtmanā |
uktânuktâspadâdyâtra siddhâsiddhâspade pare ||

[XII.1. vastûtprekṣa / svarūpôtprekṣā]

[XII.1.a. uktâspadā vastûtprekṣā]
dhūma-stomaṃ tamaḥ śaṅke kokī-viraha-śuṣmaṇām |

[XII.1.b. anuktâspadā vastûtprekṣā]
limpatîva tamo’ṅgāni varṣatîvâñjanaṃ nabhaḥ ||

[XII.2. hetûtprekṣā]

[XII.2.a. siddhâspadā hetûtprekṣā]
raktau tavâṅghrī mṛdulau bhuvi vikṣepaṇād dhruvam |

[XII.2.b. asiddhâspadā hetûtprekṣā]
tvan-mukhâbhêcchayā nūnaṃ padmair vairāyate śaśī ||

[XII.3. phalôtprekṣā]

[XII.3.a. siddhâspadā phalôtprekṣā]
madhyaḥ kiṃ kucayor dhṛtyai baddhaḥ kanaka-dāmabhiḥ |

[XII.3.b. asiddhâspadā phalôtprekṣā]
prāyo ’ñjaṃ tvat-padenaîkyaṃ prāptuṃ toye tapasyati ||

Kṛṣṇa and the “field of vision”

cetaś cañcalatāṃ tyaja priya-sakhi vrīḍe na māṃ pīḍaya
bhrātar muñca dṛśau nimeṣa bhagavan kāma kṣaṇaṃ kṣamyatām |
barhaṃ mūrdhani karṇayoḥ kuvalayaṃ vaṃśaṃ dadhānaḥ kare
so ’yaṃ locana-gocaro bhavati me dāmodaraḥ sundaraḥ ||

Heart, stop fluttering;
Dear friend, stop torturing me!
Brother, let me see, just for a moment;
Cupid, spare me, just for a second:

        A peacock’s feather in His hair,
        water-lilies in His ears,
        bamboo flute in His hands—

He’s all I can see,
        Dāmodara the handsome.

This gorgeous verse, from the Rasamañjarī of Bhānudatta, has also been translated by Sheldon Pollock, although I cannot find my copy of the book right now.  What I love most about this verse—and what I find impossible to translate—is the compound locana-gocara. 

In terms of pure sound: its two halves are almost exactly identical prosodically, differing only in the third and sixth syllables (and that too only because the sixth must bear the added weight of the -sU case ending). Furthermore, the repetition of the -oca- sounds makes it delightfully delicate to recite. (Think “cellar door”.)

And in terms of meaning too, the two halves of the word work beautifully. The first, locana, can mean either the seeing organ, “eye”, or the sense itself, “eyesight”. It is also connected with such meanings as “illumination” and “lighting up”. The second, gocara, is even more fascinating. Etymologically, it is in fact a compound, go-cara, literally meaning “cow-pasture”. Through some considerable semantic drift, it comes to mean “field”, first literally and then metaphorically, encompassing such meanings as “scope”, “range”, sometimes even “topic”. A smart translation for locana-gocara would therefore be something like “range of vision” (taking into account the associations of “range” with cattle rearing).

But in the particular context of this verse, I really wanted something simpler. Kṛṣṇa isn’t just in the nāyikā’s range of vision, He becomes it. He is the pasture in which the cows that are her eyes roam, coming to rest at a few particularly succulent grazing spots—His peacock-feather, His ornaments, His flute. He is, simply put, all she can see.

Annambhaṭṭa on svârtha- and parârthânumāna

The Naiyāyikas, like every other philosophical “school” in India with the notable exception of the Cārvākas, accept that anumāna, the method of inference, is capable of giving rise to jñāna, an episode of knowledge—specifically, anumiti-jñāna, an inferential knowledge-episode. (Loosely translating jñāna as “knowledge” misrepresents the Naiyāyika position.) Interestingly, the Naiyāyikas hold that there are two kinds of anumāna: svârthânumāna (inferring for oneself) and parârthânumāna (literally, “inferring for another”). The latter makes no sense in English—how can one infer something for somebody else? It may make more sense to think of parârthânumāna as “proof” or “demonstration”.

Here is what Annambhaṭṭa has to say on the matter.

anumānaṃ dvividham — (1) svârthaṃ (2) parârthaṃ ca ||


(1) svârthaṃ svânumiti-hetuḥ, tathā hi svayam eva bhūyo darśanena “yatra yatra dhūmas tatra tatrâgnir” iti mahānasâdau vyāptiṃ gṛhītvā parvata-samīpaṃ tad-gate câgnau sandihānaḥ parvate dhūmaṃ paśyan vyāptiṃ smarati — “yatra yatra dhūmas tatra tatra vahnir” iti  | tad-anantaraṃ “vahni-vyāpya-dhūmavān ayaṃ parvataḥ” iti jñānam utpadyate | ayam eva liṅga-parāmarśa ity ucyate | tasmāt “parvato vahnimān” iti jñānânumitir utpadyate, tad etat svârthânumānam ||

(2) yat tu svayaṃ dhūmād agnim anumāya paraṃ prati bodhayituṃ pañcâvayava-vākyaṃ prayujyate tat parârthânumānam | yathā — 
(a) parvato vahnimān [pratijñā]
(b) dhūmavattvād [hetu]
(c) yo yo dhūmavān sa vahnimān yathā mahānasam [udāharaṇa]
(d) tathā câyaṃ [upanaya]
(e) tasmāt tathêti [nigamana] | 
anena pratipāditāl liṅgāt paro ’py agniṃ pratipadyate || 

Annambhaṭṭa on the types of perception

nidhāya hṛdi viśvêśaṃ vidhāya guru-vandanam |

bālānāṃ sukha-bodhāya kriyate tarka-saṅgrahaḥ ||

How do we perceive the world around us? What sort of semantic structure does the content of these perceptions possess? The Tarkasaṅgraha or Bālagādādharī of Annambhaṭṭa, a 17th century introduction to the school of logic known as Navya Nyāya, attempts to answer these questions, among many others, at a level suitable to “children”. (Looks like they used to have smart kids back in those days.) Annambhaṭṭa presents six kinds of relations between the senses of perception and objects of perception to account for the various features of our perceptual experiences. This sextet is a tradition that extends over a millennium before him to Udayana. (For what it’s worth, this sextet was criticized by some very prominent Naiyāyikas like Gaṅgeśa and Raghunātha Śiromaṇi.)

If that makes no sense, fear not. Navya Nyāya is regarded as impenetrably technical hair-splitting by most Sanskrit paṇḍits, who are themselves usually regarded by others as engaging in impenetrably technical hair-splitting. As a result, English translations of Navya Nyāya texts flourish in a special circle of Indological hell where even furiously sleeping colorless green ideas fear to tread.

Nevertheless, I shall try to translate this short excerpt from the Tarkasaṅgraha into English, fully aware that I resemble the man who wishes to speak in an assembly without knowledge of grammar, who in turn resembles the man who wishes to restrain a rutting elephant with a rope made from a lotus-stalk (śabda-śāstram anadhītya yaḥ pumān vaktum icchati vacaḥ sabhântare / bandhum icchati vane madôtkaṭaṃ kuñjaraṃ kamala-nāla-tantunā). If nothing else, my translation will show how wordy an English translation of Navya Nyāya will be if it wants to resemble idiomatic English. I make no claims of correctness or accuracy of translation. This is what I understand of Navya Nyāya for now.

[For those who actually want to know what objects of perception are in Navya Nyāya, I recommend Daniel H. H. Ingalls’ classic Materials for the Study of Navya Nyāya Logic, as well as Sibajiban Bhattacharya’s critical review of this book. I should add that I haven’t really read Ingalls as closely as I ought to, but am relying on āpta-vacana in recommending this book.]

pratyakṣa-jñāna-hetur indriyârtha-sannikarṣaḥ ṣaḍ-vidhaḥ (1a) saṃyogaḥ (1b) saṃyukta-samavāyaḥ (1c) saṃyukta-samaveta-samavāyaḥ (2a) samavāyaḥ (2b) samaveta-samavāyaḥ (3) viśeṣaṇa-viśeṣya-bhāvaś cêti ||

1. 
   
1. cakṣuṣā ghaṭa-pratyakṣa-janane, saṃyogaḥ sannikarṣaḥ ||
2. ghaṭa-rūpa-pratyakṣa-janane, saṃyukta-samavāyaḥ sannikarṣaḥ: cakṣuḥ-saṃyukte ghaṭe rūpasya samavāyāt ||
3. rūpatva-sāmānya-pratyakṣe, saṃyukta-samaveta-samavāyaḥ sannikarṣaḥ: cakṣuḥ-saṃyukte ghaṭe rūpaṃ samavetaṃ, tatra rūpatvasya samavāyāt ||
2. 
   
1. śrotreṇa śabda-sākṣāt-kāre, samavāyaḥ sannikarṣaḥ: karṇa-vivara-varty-ākāśasya śrotratvāc, chabdasyâ ’’kāśa-guṇatvād, guṇa-guṇinoś ca samavāyāt ||
2. śabdatva-sākṣāt-kāre, samaveta-samavāyaḥ sannikarṣaḥ: śrotra-samavete śabde śabdatvasya samavāyāt ||
3. abhāva-pratyakṣe, viśeṣaṇa-viśeṣya-bhāvaḥ sannikarṣaḥ: “ghaṭâbhāvavad bhū-talam” ity atra cakṣuḥ-samyukte bhū-tale ghaṭâbhāvasya viśeṣaṇatvāt ||

evaṃ sannikarṣa-ṣaṭka-janyaṃ jñānaṃ tat-karaṇam indriyaṃ tasmād indriyaṃ pratyakṣa-pramāṇam iti siddham ||

Appayya Dīkṣita on apahnuti (“denial”)

More kārikās from the Kuvalayānanda of Appayya Dīkṣita, this time on the arthâlaṅkāra known as apahnuti, which translates to “denial”. As before, my translation is loose and aims only to capture the sense, the artha, of the verses.

[apahnuti]

[1. śuddhâpahnuti ]
śuddhâpahnutir anyasyâropârtho dharma-nihnavaḥ |
nâyaṃ sudhâṃśuḥ kiṃ tarhi vyoma-gaṅgā-saroruham ||


[2. hetv-apahnuti]
sa eva yukti-pūrvaś ced ucyate hetv-apahnutiḥ |
nêndus tīvro na niśy arkaḥ sindhor aurvo ’yam utthitaḥ ||


[3. paryastâpahnuti]
anyatra tasyâropârthaḥ paryastâpahnutiś ca saḥ |
nâyaṃ sudhâṃśuḥ kiṃ tarhi sudhâṃśuḥ preyasī-mukham ||


[4. bhrāntâpahnuti]
bhrāntâpahnutir anyasya śaṅkāyāṃ bhrānti-vāraṇe |
tāpaṃ karoti sôtkampaṃ jvaraḥ kiṃ na sakhi smaraḥ ||


[5. chekâpahnuti]
chekâpahnutir anyasya śaṅkātas tathya-nihnave |
prajalpan mat-pade lagnaḥ kāntaḥ kiṃ na hi nūpuraḥ ||


[6. kaitavâpahnuti]
kaitavâpahnutir vyaktau vyājâdair nihnutaiḥ padaiḥ |
niryānti smara-nārācāḥ kāntā-dṛk-pāta-kāitavāt ||

“The Splendor of the Great Hero”: Śrī Raghuvīra Gadyam aka Śrī Mahāvīra Vaibhavam

Among the most remarkable compositions of Swami Śrīman Nigamānta Mahādeśikar is the Śrī Mahāvīra Vaibhavam, also known as the Raghuvīra Gadyam. In about 90 lines, it summarizes the entire story of the Rāmāyaṇa, paying special attention to the glory and heroism of Rāma. I have attempted to translate the work here while paying close attention to the poetic effects of the original.

|| Śrīḥ  ||

śrīmān veṅkaṭanāthâryaḥ kavi-tārkika-kesarī |
vedāntâcārya-varyo me sannidhattāṃ sadā hṛdi ||

The noble Veṅkaṭanātha,
endowed with śrī,
saffron-maned Lion among poets and philosophers,
supreme teacher of the Vedānta
—may he be established forever in my heart!

jayaty āśrita-saṃtrāsa-dhvānta-vidhvaṃsanôdayaḥ |
prabhāvān sītayā devyā parama-vyoma-bhāskaraḥ ||

He conquers all,
His dawn dispelling the darkness of His devotees’ dread;
Luminous,
Inseparable from the Goddess Sītā, 
The Sun of the Supreme Heaven!

jaya jaya mahāvīra! 
mahādhīra dhaureya! 

Victory, victory to the great hero! 
to the steadfast, resolute, bearer of all burdens!

Appayya Dīkṣita on rūpaka (“metaphor”)

Among the works of the great 16th century savant Appayya Dīkṣita is the Kuvalayānanda (“Joy of the Water-lily”), which became the standard introductory textbook on figures of speech throughout India, particularly in the South. The Kuvalayānanda focuses entirely on arthâlaṅkāras, “ornaments of meaning”. My non-existent knowledge of Western rhetoric prevents me from translating the term precisely, but I suspect it may correspond to trope.

Prof. Yigal Bronner has a series of articles on Appayya Dīkṣita’s prodigious œuvre in literary theory, of which “Back to the Future: Appayya Diksita's Kuvalayananda and the Rewriting of Sanskrit Poetics” describes the structure of the Kuvalayānanda. Specifically, the text is organized in three layers: (1) kārikās, around 170 easily memorizable verses in the anuṣṭubh meter that define and exemplify exactly 100 alaṅkāras; (2) examples of these alaṅkāras drawn from kāvya; and (3) an auto-commentary of sorts, in which Appayya Dīkṣita explains his motivation for defining the alaṅkāra in that fashion and sets it into its context of over a millennium of alaṅkāra-śāstra. I shall draw solely from layer (1), the kārikās, here.

For now, I want to focus on just one trope, rūpaka, usually translated “metaphor”. Its definition takes up one verse; examples of its subtypes each take up half a verse. I’m not going to translate the definition literally, because the compactness of Sanskrit technical writing does not render well in English. In what follows, [the stuff inside brackets] isn’t part of the Kuvalayānanda itself.

[rūpakam]

viṣayayy-abheda-tādrūpya-rañjanaṃ viṣayasya yat |
rūpakaṃ tat tridhâdhikya-nyūnatvânubhayôktibhiḥ ||

Verbal knowledge (śābda-bodha) in early modern India

(This is unlikely to be of interest to anybody but me, but then again most things on this blog fall into that category!)

In all things associated with language—grammar, semantics, exegesis, hermeneutics, literary theory, you name it—the Sanskritic intellectual tradition developed perhaps the most sophisticated toolkit available to pre-modern humans. One of the most substantial advances on this front was made by the Navya Naiyāyikas (the “New Logicians”), who came up with a formal terminology designed to make communication unambiguous (or at least as unambiguous as can be possible in a natural language). Their terminology was adopted by intellectuals with wide-ranging commitments and projects, such as Mīmāṃsā (hermeneutics), Vyākaraṇa (grammar), and Vedānta (philosophical theology, for lack of a better description).

Jan Houben’s article “‘Semantics’ in the Sanskrit tradition ‘on the eve of colonialism’” shows how Vaiyākaraṇas (grammarians), Naiyāyikas (logicians), and Mīmāṃsakas (exegetes) all used terminology borrowed from the Navya Naiyāyikas to precisely and unambiguously describe the kind of “verbal knowledge” (śābda-bodha) produced in a speaker of Sanskrit upon hearing the sentence:

rāmo ’nnaṃ pacati 

“Rāma cooks rice”

The question for all three groups of intellectuals is the same: what is the main meaning-bearing element of a sentence, and how does it relate to all the other elements? All three agree on what the sentence conveys to a speaker of Sanskrit; where they differ is on the “keystone” of the sentence.