Pranam and welcome KR On Sat, 14 Jan 2023 at 18:38, Markendeya Yeddanapudi < [email protected]> wrote:
> Rajaram Sir, > What a wonderful and mighty phenomenon you are! > My God,there is just no end to the flow of lessons,and contemplation > triggers from you.I salute you. > YM > > On Sun, Jan 15, 2023 at 6:17 AM Rajaram Krishnamurthy < > [email protected]> wrote: > >> VEDANTA DESIKAN ON KALIDASAN AND HIS HAMSA SANDESAM >> >> A few days back I wrote about Hamsa sandesa of the Vedanrtha >> desikan. The desikan wrote the status of Sita and Rama in the journey of an >> Hamsa. The idea for him arose out of Mega santhesam of Kalidasa. The >> ignorant always speak of copy and paste as , originality is copying and >> pasting gossips. But, as I used to say, everything had been written >> already. There is no and there cannot be any originality, even if he were >> to write his own life story. Every TV serial is nothing but the reflections >> of the Ramayanam and Mahabharatham only. A research professor has written >> the book, and I have extracted a passage where vedantha desikan is compared >> to Kalidasan. >> >> I have been trying to understand why Vedantadesika, a writer who is first >> and foremost a religious thinker, would be as invested as he is in the >> poetry of Kalidasa, a poet who shows little interest in theology or >> religious sentiments. In section 1, I identified which aspects of >> Kalidasa’s poetry were most often taken up by Vedantadesika: surveying the >> references to Kalidasa scattered throughout his oeuvre, I argued that >> Vedantadesika isn’t primarily drawn to any viewpoint or “message” of >> Kalidasa but to pre-propositional fragments in Kalidasa’s poetry—fragments >> on the order of expressions, images, and metaphors—and more generally to >> the capacity of Kalidasa’s writing to conjure vivid sensations. However, it >> still wasn’t clear why Vedantadesika should be fascinated by this aspect of >> Kalidasa’s poetry. In reading Vedantadesika’s texts on devotional >> meditation (section 2) alongside Kalidasa’s depictions of daydreaming >> (section 3), certain thematic connections between the two writers have >> begun to emerge, which might be summed up as follows: >> >> (1) both Kalidasa and Vedantadesika are interested in the imagination’s >> potential to conjure a world whose reality rivals that of the everyday >> world; (2) both writers see the imagination reaching this potential in >> extreme states of mind, such as lovesickness; (3) both identify the >> imagination thus intensified as one of the sources of artistic creation. >> That these are facts born of our observation doesn’t make them any less >> true; however, their use as data for understanding Vedantadesika’s >> investment in Kalidasa would be more convincing if we could somehow confirm >> that Vedantadesika also saw them. We find such confirmation in the >> *Haṃsasandeśa >> *(“Message of the Goose”), where Vedantadesika’s interest in Kalidasa >> most visibly intersects with his religious thinking. For in this poem, >> Vedantadesika casts his reflections on devotional meditation into >> depictions of daydreaming similar to the ones we find in the *Meghadūta*. >> In what follows, I will be interested in what these depictions can tell us >> about Vedantadesika’s relation to Kalidasa. >> >> In both the *Haṃsasandeśa *and the *Meghadūta*, as in so many works of >> messenger poetry, we meet characters who are engaged in various imaginative >> exercises intended to make absent beloveds seem present. Late in the >> *Meghādūta*, for example, in a speech occurring entirely within the >> yaksha’s imagination, the cloud reports to the yaksha’s beloved one of the >> techniques by which the yaksha has simulated reuniting with her: >> >> “He enters (*viś*) your body with his: >> >> yours so thin and thin his, >> >> his too hot and hot yours, >> >> his welling with tears as you shed tears, >> >> yours ever longing just as his longs, >> >> yours releasing hot sighs and his even more sighs.” >> >> With these imaginings does your distant lover >> >> enter your body, his path blocked by cruel fate. 214 >> >> In the *Haṃsasandeśa*’s companion to this verse, Vedantadesika has >> Rama similarly “enter” (*nirviś*) Sita by a technique of the imagination: >> >> “Seeing that our bodies touch in the southern wind, >> >> our gazes unite (*dṛṣṭi-saṃyoga*) in the moon, >> >> we have one home in the world, >> >> on the earth we are joined in a single bed, >> >> we have the expanse of a beautiful canopy >> >> in the sky decorated with stars, >> >> O most beautiful one, I reach (or “delight in”; *nirviś*) you >> >> who have become distant.” 215 >> >> In both verses, the physical sense of entering another’s body is >> prohibited by the distance separating the two pairs, for just as the cloud >> refers to the yaksha as *dūravartin *(“one who is distant”), Sita is >> described as *dūrībhūtā *(“one who has become distant”). “Entering” must >> therefore take on another sense, which Rama and the yaksha arrive at in >> different ways. The yaksha enters his lover by supposing her body to host >> the same emotional responses as his, as though the two were connected in a >> mystical sympathy. For instance, when he cries, he supposes that his tears >> are an instinctive response to those shed by his distant beloved; or when >> he sighs, he supposes that each sigh is unconsciously repeated in her. Such >> mutual responsiveness is premised on the idea that to love someone is to >> take on her inner life, so that “entering” comes to mean something like >> >> 214 aṅgenāṅgaṃ pratanu tanunā gāḍhataptena taptaṃ >> >> sāsreṇāśrudrutam aviratotkaṇṭham utkaṇṭhitena | >> >> uṣṇocchvāsaṃ samadhikatarocchvāsinā dūravartī >> >> saṅkalpais tair viśati vidhinā vairiṇā ruddhamārgaḥ || *MD *2.42 || >> >> 215 dehasparśam malayapavane drṣṭisaṃbhedam indau >> >> dhāmaikatvam jagati bhuvi cābhinnaparyaṅkayogam | >> >> tārācitre viyati vitatiṃ śrīvitānasya paśyan >> >> dūribhūtām sutanu vidhinā tvām aham nirviśāmi || *H *2.40 || >> >> “accessing another’s mind.” In Vedantadesika’s poem, Rama still >> enters Sita in a way, but by means of a different movement of the >> imagination: he expands the meaning of the words “touch,” “contact,” >> “home,” “bed,” and “canopy” (*sparśa*, *saṃyoga*, *gṛha*, *talpa*, >> *vitāna*), allowing them through the power of metaphor to mean more than >> what they customarily signify. In doing so, the sentence “I enter (reach) >> you” ends up holding true, but only in a special sense. >> >> While the imaginative exercises recorded in these verses have >> presumably been performed sometime in the past—sometime before the yaksha >> spots the cloud and Rama the goose—the present of each poem is filled with >> the performance of yet another imaginative exercise; namely, the use of a >> messenger or intermediary as a substitute for oneself. The yaksha gives us >> his understanding of this exercise in *Meghadūta *2.43, where he >> imagines the cloud introducing his message to his beloved as follows: >> >> ‘Once he longed to say in your ear >> >> what could have been spoken aloud >> >> in front of your friends, >> >> for he desired to touch your face. >> >> Now, though he is beyond earshot >> >> and unviewable to your eyes, >> >> through my mouth >> >> he says to you the following words >> >> which have been composed with longing: …’ 217 >> >> In *Haṃsasandeśa *2.32, Rama has the goose greet Sita in >> similar fashion: >> >> ‘Once your ornaments and body lotions >> >> I am inspired by Yigal Bronner and David Shulman’s thought to read these >> verses together; however, my account of their differences slightly diverges >> from theirs. See “‘A Cloud Turned Goose’: Sanskrit in the Vernacular >> Millennium,” *The Indian Economic & Social History Review*43, no. 1 >> (March 1, 2006): 26–27. >> >> 217 śabdākhyeyaṃ yad api kila te yaḥ sakhīnāṃ purastāt >> >> karṇe lolaḥ kathayitum abhūd ānanasparśalobhāt | >> >> so’tikrāntaḥ śravaṇaviṣayaṃ locanābhyām adṛśyas >> >> tvām utkaṇṭhāviracitapadaṃ manmukhenedam āha || *M *2.43 || >> >> were an obstacle to him; now the power of fate >> >> has led you to a distant island. >> >> Having placed you in the path of his eyes, >> >> as though he were very close, >> >> he who is faring well speaks thus, my lady, >> >> by the mouth of his friend: …’ 218 >> >> Both verses begin by juxtaposing a past moment, when even a >> negligible distance from the beloved seemed significant, with a present in >> which the beloved is beyond the range of sight and hearing; both conclude >> with the suggestion that a messenger is capable of dulling the pain of >> separation. But in Vedantadesika’s version of the scenario, we are given an >> additional detail concerning the sender of the message: Rama has composed >> his words to Sita while visualizing her, “having placed Sita in the path of >> his eyes.” I take this detail to indicate the crucial role that >> visualization plays in this imaginative exercise as Vedantadesika >> understands it. For if the use of an intermediary is to succeed in >> simulating direct communication, both addresser and addressee must be made >> to feel they are in each other’s presence. For Sita, that feeling would >> arise by being addressed in the voice of Rama, as opposed to the mediating >> voice of indirect speech (as critics often point out, much lyric poetry >> derives its power from a first-person voicing which simulates the presence >> of a live speaker). For Rama, the feeling of presence is achieved by making >> Sita vivid to him through an act of visualization. >> >> Vedantadesika makes a similar specification about visualization in his >> version of *Meghadūta *2.22. There the yaksha describes his beloved to >> the cloud as follows: >> >> “One who is slender and dark, >> >> who has pointed teeth, >> >> whose lip is like a ripe red fruit, >> >> 218 yasyā yasmin vyavadhir abhavad bhūṣaṇālepanādiḥ >> >> nītām enāṃ niyativibhavād antarīpaṃ davīyaḥ | >> >> pratyāsīdanniva nayanayor vartmani sthāpayitvā >> >> sa tvām evaṃ vadati kuśalī devi sakhyā mukhena || *H *2.32 || >> >> who is emaciated, >> >> who has the trembling eyes of a fawn >> >> and a sunken navel, >> >> who walks slowly due to her heavy hips, >> >> who is slightly hunched over due to her breasts, >> >> who seems she could have been >> >> the very first woman that Brahma created…219 >> >> Here is how Vedantadesika rewrites Kalidasa’s verse in *Haṃsasandeśa >> *2.10: >> >> She is my seeing: >> >> her eyes are shaped like fish; >> >> her brows are curved; her hair is beautiful; >> >> she is thin; she bends over by the weight of her breasts; >> >> she is radiant as burning gold; she is young; >> >> her gait resembles yours; >> >> her waist is thin as a Vedic altar; >> >> her limbs are superlative; >> >> having learned the ocean called love, >> >> she seems the superior patron goddess for it. 220 >> >> That the particular adjectives used to describe the women are different >> should be unsurprising, since Sita and the yakshini are different >> characters. The more significant difference concerns the strange way >> Vedantadesika has Rama begin his description of Sita: *sā me dṛṣṭiḥ*—“she >> is my vision,” or even “she is my seeing.” One way of getting around the >> strangeness of this expression would be to take it as a hyperbolic metaphor >> meaning something like “she is as precious to me as my vision.” However, >> the emphasis placed throughout the poem on the actual sense of sight >> …..(contd below) >> >> { notes in sanskrit verse of vedantha desikan: >> >> 219 tanvī śyāmā śikharidaśanā pakvabimbādharoṣṭhī >> >> madhye kṣāmā cakitahariṇīprekṣaṇā nimnanābhiḥ | >> >> śroṇībhārād alasagamanā stokanamnā stanābhyāṃ >> >> yā tatra syād yuvativiṣaye sṛṣṭir ādyeva dhātuḥ || *M *2.22 || >> >> 220 sā me dṛṣṭiḥ śapharanayanā sannatabhrūḥ sukeśī >> >> tanvī tuṅgastanabharanatā taptajāmbūnadābhā | >> >> bālā yuṣmatpratimagamanā vedimadhyā varāṅgī >> >> śrṅgārākhyaṃ nidhim adhigatā śreyasī devateva || *H *2.10 || >> >> The idea here is that, since Sita is so beautiful, she seems a more >> suitable divinity of love than Kama himself.}}} >> >> …….. discourages such an interpretation. If instead we took it to mean >> something like “she is all that I see,” the sentence would tell us >> something about how Rama speaks the words that follow. It would suggest >> that Rama’s description of Sita isn’t just a list of words that he has kept >> stored in memory but issues from a visualization of Sita in the present >> moment; a visualization so intense, moreover, that Rama is moved to >> describe it as seeing. Vedantadesika’s insistence on visualization in both >> of these rewritings seems less to undermine Kalidasa’s depictions of >> daydreaming (at least we need not take it that way) than to render explicit >> the mental processes already at work in those depictions, offering >> something like a gloss on them. >> >> Perhaps the most complex explorations of the imagination in these poems >> appear in those verses where Rama and the yaksha imagine their beloveds >> imagining them. In *H *2.61, for instance, Rama imagines that Sita has >> been using his ring as a substitute for himself: >> >> “Again and again, by turns >> >> she puts my ring on her lotus-hand >> >> and her body thrills, >> >> hair standing on end; >> >> she keeps it on her head >> >> bereft of its jewel >> >> and enjoys it there; >> >> when her breasts >> >> grow burdened with pain >> >> from the grief inside, caringly >> >> she rests it upon them. 221” >> >> This verse recalls at least two moments in Kalidasa’s poetry. The first >> of these appears in *Raghuvamsa *12.65 (examined above in section 3), >> where Rama similarly uses Sita’s crest-jewel (choodamani) as a substitute >> for her. If we fancifully took Vedantadesika’s Rama as an extension of >> Kalidasa’s {{221 bhūyo bhūyaḥ karasarasije nyasya romāñcitāṅgīṃ >> >> maulau cūḍāmaṇivirahite nirviśantīṃ nidhāya >> >> antastāpād adhigatarujor ādarād arpayantīṃ >> >> paryāyeṇa stanakalaśayor aṅgulīyam madīyam || *H *2.16 || (to be taken >> with *manye *from *H *2.13)}} >> >> character, we could say that Rama here is imagining Sita as his >> emotional mirror. The second moment appears in *Meghadūta *2.27, where >> the yaksha imagines his beloved daydreaming about him in much the same way >> that he has been daydreaming about her: >> >> ‘Or she marks on the ground >> >> the remaining months of the term >> >> which was set on the day of our separation, >> >> counting them with flowers >> >> laid in the doorway; >> >> *or she delights in our lovemaking* >> >> *keeping in her heart how it begins*; >> >> such are women’s diversions >> >> when their lovers are away. “222 >> >> In such verses, Vedantadesika and Kalidasa depict daydreaming on two >> levels, showing us the beloved’s imaginative exercises while at the same >> time portraying imagining-one’s-belovedimagining- oneself as itself a kind >> of imaginative exercise. Throughout this chapter I have been using a >> variety of words to write about the imaginative life of humans, some of >> which may at first seem to clash (such as *daydream *and *exercise*). >> This variety is a consequence not of imprecision but of the range of >> genuine experiences of the imagination recorded in the works I’ve been >> examining. For instance, while the imagination overwhelms consciousness in >> characters like Maricha, Shakuntala, and Urvashi, the situation is reversed >> in Vedantadesika’s *Saṅkalpasūryodaya*, where Imagination answers to >> Will-Power (*vyavasāya*), obediently painting images on the mind’s wall. >> Accordingly, while expressions like *daydream*, *reverie*, >> *hallucination*, and *being carried away *correspond to experiences >> where the imagination assails us against our will, words like *technique*, >> *exercise*, *contemplation*, and *meditation *correspond to experiences >> where imaginative intensity is desired but must be effortfully sought out. >> Dushyanta’s experience fluctuates between these two extremes: his painting >> of Shakuntala owes its lifelikeness to his imaginative mastery, but that >> painting comes to assert a mastery of its own over Dushyanta, so thoroughly >> absorbing him that he can’t distinguish his mental creation from reality. >> >> The experience of characters in the messenger poems is similarly >> variable. The most obvious examples here are the yaksha and Rama: for each >> lover, lovesickness has so intensely activated his imagination that he >> starts speaking to a nonhuman; however, in the course of his monologue, he >> comes to describe a number of imaginative techniques he uses to shut out >> the harshness of his solitude. Less obvious but more illuminating (more >> illuminating on what is distinct in *Haṃsasandeśa*) is the example of >> Vedantadesika’s Sita. At times Sita seems completely passive to her >> imagination, as when she starts speaking to her ornaments (*H *2.12); at >> other times, she seems to be semiconsciously using her imagination to dull >> the pain of her grief, as when she rests Rama’s ring on different parts of >> her body (*H *2.16). While such instances find precedents in the *Meghadūta >> *(specifically in verses where Kalidasa depicts the yakshini’s pining), >> in *Haṃsasandeśa *2.22 Vedantadesika records an experience of the >> imagination that is entirely absent in Kalidasa’s poem: >> >> “When the restraining of all mental states >> >> has quelled her stream of >> >> thoughts on the world outside, >> >> her mind shall be fixed on me alone, >> >> as per the writings on love: >> >> by a high intensity of her imagination >> >> which heeds none else, >> >> she shall be practicing unwavering meditation >> >> with a mind pliant from dissolving within.223” >> >> Again we find Sita substituting an inner reality for the external >> world that grieves her. But here that substitution results neither from a >> cognitive error owing to delirium nor from a temporary coping tactic used >> to drown out the harsh conditions of her kidnapping. Rather, it is achieved >> in tranquility by an advanced yogic technique: Sita clears her mind of all >> its representations of “the world outside” (*bahiḥ*), allowing it to >> turn “within” (*antaḥ*) and, more pliant than before, to concentrate >> fully and lovingly on Rama. The second half of the verse specifies the >> nature of this concentration: it amounts to an “unwavering meditation” on >> Rama, and is brought about not only through the negative labor of >> restraining habitual patterns of thought but also through a positive >> ffort—as Vedantadesika writes, repeating almost verbatim an expression we >> encountered in Ramanuja’s *Śrībhāṣya*, “by a high intensity of the >> imagination (*bhāvanāyāḥ prakarṣāt*).” That Vedantadesika reproduces >> Ramanuja’s theological term in his description of Sita’s pining is crucial. >> It suggests that what Vedantadesika gives us in *Haṃsasandeśa *2.22 is >> an illustration not just of the lovesick imagination running on overdrive >> but indeed of devotional meditation; or, put differently, that >> Vedantadesika sees devotional meditation as continuous with the domain of >> imaginative experience that messenger poetry is in its very nature >> committed to exploring. Vedantadesika may even be suggesting that >> devotional meditation just is the lovesick imagination running on >> overdrive. Pursuing that line, we could venture the following shorthand >> notations: *To be a devotee is to be a lover-in-separation; to be a >> lover-in-separation is to be a daydreamer; and to be a daydreamer is to be >> a poet (that is, to be able to conjure a compelling inner reality by the >> power of one’s imagination). And these formulations wouldn’t be misleading >> either, so long as they were accompanied by two important qualifications. >> The first concerns the status of will: whereas lovers are assailed by >> daydreams against their will, devotees are to practice devotional >> meditation by a deliberate technique. Indeed, it is precisely because >> daydreams are so wayward that they often prove disastrous for Kalidasa’s >> characters: both Urvashi and Shakuntala are cursed for succumbing to them, >> and while Kalidasa doesn’t specify the negligence for which the yaksha has >> been doomed to solitary confinement, it is reasonable to surmise based on >> what we learn about the yaksha’s temperament, and as many traditional >> readers have surmised, that his* >> >> *negligence too was the result of attentional failure.225 By contrast, >> the kind of imaginative meditation that interests Vedantadesika is an ideal >> to be achieved.* >> >> *The second qualification concerns the epistemological value of the >> imagination: while the imagination distorts reality for sufferers of >> daydreams, in devotional meditation it delivers the devotee to a higher >> reality, as Vedantadesika notes in his remark on Maricha’s hallucinations. >> To me, this notion of a higher reality is key to understanding >> Vedantadesika’s counterintuitive claim in Haṃsasandeśa 1.4 that “finding a >> messenger is greater fortune than embracing the beloved.” While embracing >> the beloved is perhaps the highest form of intimacy possible in the world >> of everyday experience, for Vedantadesika the everyday world is to be >> distinguished from the ultimate reality of god. That reality is accessed >> not through our common ways of sensing and understanding but through a >> transcendental exercise of the imagination.* >> >> KR IRS 14 1 23 >> > > > -- > *Mar* > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Thatha_Patty" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/thatha_patty/CAL5XZooYbeRMBRwUEmSq%2BDAgMWUbrrNg5ejE4cNoj%2Bdk7gOQEQ%40mail.gmail.com.
