AdvaitaVedanta

bhruvau bhagne kincid bhuvana bhayabhanga vyasanini
tvadiye netrabhyam madhukara rucibhyam dhrtagunam
dhanur manye savyetarakara grhitam ratipateh
prakosthe mustau ca sthagayati nigudhantaram ume.

Oh Uma, ever pained in concern for banishing the fear of all creatures,
And thus with eyebrows somewhat arched, with eyes of bee-like beauty below,
I surmise that they make up the bowstring for the bow
Of the Lord of Love, held by his other hand, his arm and fist hiding the middle part.

We have explained that in this second half of the work, Sankara depends more on constructing and superimposing new imagery on the beauty of the Goddess as given to the senses in a more primary sense. Thus, we have seen that the twelve suns had to be fused into a ruby-coloured gem and Indra´s bow was made to dominate such a gem in Verse 42. In Verse 43, two sets of flowers had to occupy the same tresses of the Goddess. The parted hairline became the prolongation of the vertical axis in Verse 44, while a row of honey-licking bees was suggested as a perimeter-like line of reference in Verse 45. Two crescents were requisitioned again in Verse 46 so that, like brackets turned inversely, they could contain an Absolute Value, both real and imaginary at once. This complex metaphor, developed stage by stage, is carried over here into Verse 47 and the same structural pattern is to be respected in the remaining verses, the evidence of which will be found explicitly in Verses 58 and 59.

The darts of the God of Love that can pierce the hearts of persons involved in an erotic world of love are an image not peculiar only to Sanskrit literature. The celebrations of Saint Valentine´s Day, as known to the West, use the same imagery. Eroticism is the natural setting for the appreciation of beauty. Masculine beauty and feminine beauty belong to the same context of Absolute Beauty. Shiva represents the eternal masculine aspect while Parvati represents the eternal feminine. The function or operation of love has to have its instruments. Statically viewed, we get only non-living perspectives, as in the case of physiology studied by the dissection of dead bodies. The functioning of the living nerves comes to light only when we examine living bodies. This distinction could be said to be the same as that which can be assumed to exist between psychostatics and psychodynamics. Here the static picture has first to be understood in dim outline on the basis of this given empirically-based picture and it is for us to superimpose another picture more mathematically understood. There are subtle parameters and perimeters to be kept in mind if we are to visualize Absolute Beauty with all its living or dynamic implications. This is a difficult task and any poet or author who can take up this challenge will have to respect the rules or norms of both mathematics and mysticism at the same time.

One could look at the locomotive of any express train and recognise the cylinder, piston rod and big weighted engine wheels, as the train starts or slows down. Instead of watching the engine from the platform, from inside the compartment one could feel the jolting alternating movements in terms of one´s own life movement. One could sympathize with eyes shut, establishing a bipolar sympathy between the engine and its troubles on the one hand and keeping steady in one´s seat on the other. We have to superimpose on the mechanical picture another dynamic structural image in which movement is understood by empathic intuition. Thus we can have two pictures which we treat with a certain degree of subjectivity, without which they would refuse to belong together or make any meaning. These are some of the requirements for understanding this verse and the many that follow. The laws of nature could be treated in the form of propositions or predications, or we could use the language of graph paper. Every formula has its corresponding graph; the graph verifies the formula and vice versa.

Sankara is faced with the task of revealing the dynamism of Absolute Beauty. In the first half of the verse, we notice that it is not just erotic love that is the basis of the emotional life reflected in the face of the Goddess. Her eyebrows are said to be slightly arched. Because Shiva represents the positive side of the process of universal becoming, the Goddess has to represent the negative counterpart of the same function. If Shiva is the God of the universe, it follows that Parvati is the Goddess who ensures that all living creatures have the chance of a more abundant life. She does not love one creature more than another. This absolute Love at the basis of her eroticism is not a mere preference for her husband. God is good and generous, while being the principle of light or intelligence. The Quran insists in bringing these two aspects of generosity and logical truth together in every one of its chapters by the epithets rahman and rahim, which are to be repeated together before each chapter is read. The kindness of God or his goodness could be understood as an adjective or as a noun, as when we say “God is good” or “God is Goodness itself”. The predicative and nominative aspect belong to the same Absolute Value represented by Shiva and Parvati thought of as one non-dual life value, which was the starting postulate from the very first verse of this work. The duality between the functions of Shiva and Parvati, if it comes into evidence here and there in these verses, is meant to be for purposes of discussion only and the intelligent reader must cancel out these dialectical functions in terms of Absolute Beauty, of which the Goddess is a more fitting custodian than the God. However, the same Beauty could be discussed from a perspective more pronouncedly in favour of Shiva, as has been done by Sankara in the conjugate of this composition, the “Shivananda Lahari”. The arched eyebrows constitute the perimeter indicating the concern and anxiety of the Goddess. Her beauty is enhanced by such a concern for living beings.

No beauty can be said to exist without somebody to enjoy it. The rows of bees as a bowstring represent a parameter with is related to the perimeter of the bow. The analogy becomes more apt when we know that the bow of Kama (Eros) is not merely one of wood or metal but consists of all the best flowers of the season. The desire of the bees to drink the honey of such a beautiful rainbow-like festival of flowers develops a vertical tension between the two counterparts, viewed in abstracted and generalized terms. If there is no summer, there is no lovemaking, and the cuckoos cannot mark the arrows flying between the two sides that represent the highly emotional state of mystical eroticism. We have to imagine in this verse the arrow which the right hand of the God of Love is supposed to be secretly fixing onto the bowstring. This part is hidden by the left fist and the forearm with the elbow which together mark the nose-ridge and centre of the eyebrows. One can pull the string downward along this line with more or less force, depending upon the tension belonging to the situation. Psychodynamic aspects become revealed in this manner. To try to describe them through definitions or predications would only give us various static clichés instead of the real process with all its vitalistic implications. The bow could be fixed vertically when aimed toward Shiva at the Omega Point, or it could be aimed horizontally through the side glances of the Goddess, when and if she condescends to grant her grace to some supplicant like Vishnu or Kama, or even Sankara, all of whom are mentioned as votaries of Absolute Beauty in the different verses of this work. In Verse 75 and again in Verse 98, Sankara himself prays for this kind of horizontal side-glance recognition from the Devi. Vishnu does the same more directly in Verse 5, and Kama triumphs over the world because of the same light falling on his body from the Devi´s side glance in Verse 6. We have to notice also that the eyes of the Goddess are sometimes compared to bees in a row and sometimes to highly active bees that are agitated because of the absolute compassion or love which constitutes their motivating function in the context of the Absolute. In Verse 45 the Devi´s eyes were seen to be interchangeable with those of Shiva, because he, as her husband, is the final enjoyer of the Beauty of the lotus face of his beloved.

One could ask here how two eyes could form a string for a bow. The two eyebrows have to be joined together in the imagination and the horizontal movements of the two eyes are to be seen intuitively as the string, completing the picture which poetic convention, respected by a long line of Sanskrit poets, permits. The line could be hyperbolic or parabolic, an incomplete conic section - like a comet´s orbit round the sun - when the bowstring is pulled downward, but it is not necessary to suppose any such intention in the image presented here. A normalized concern uniformly maintained is all that we have to associate with this picture.

The eyebrows are somewhat, but not fully, arched. If they were fully arched, it would imply some conflict or dissention. As they are only somewhat arched, it is not personal passion with its preference that is to be supposed, but rather a general state of pity or mercy, called miséricorde in French.

To understand the phrase “bee-like beauty” we must understand that a bee has to look at something, because its function is intimately connected with beauty.

The use of the name “Uma” as the Goddess here means that she has no equal or rival. Uma is very superior, the nearest to the Brahman of Vedanta. She is the one in charge of all life functions, and is not limited to the Tantric context of falling in love with her beauty, as corrected here by Sankara.

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