No honey in thorny sun-plants

[Somdev Vasudeva]

On Wed, 30 Aug 1995, D.Goodall wrote:

> If, however, arka is really correct, the verse is still puzzling. 
> Is the situation hypothetical?  I can hardly imagine that honey
> could ever be found in the wasteland shrub.  On the other hand the
> contexts in which the verse is usually quoted are about avoiding
> complicated ways of doing things when much simpler ones actually
> exist.

There seems little doubt that the situation must be hypothetical. "If 
honey could be found in mere thorny sun-plants, who would bother seeking 
it in the mountains". Here is a subhaa.sita which explicitly denies the 
existence of makaranda in Arka plants:

	arkaa.h kecana kecid ak.satarava.h kecid dalak.smaaruhaa.h
	nimbaa.h kecana kecid atra vipine kruuraa.h kariiradrumaa.h 	
	maakando makarandatundilamiladbh.r"ngaali"s.r"ngaarita.h 
	ko 'py atraasti na mitra yatra tanute kar.naam.rta.m kokila.h 

The (thorny) Arka-, Ak.sa-, (bitter) Nimbaa- and harsh Kariira-trees are 
clearly quite different from the honeydripping Maakanda-mango. 

Somdev Vasudeva