[INDOLOGY] Help with a simile

[Dan Lusthaus]

Dear Jim,

Please disregard if you find this silly, but my thinking went in a different direction. Kuñcikā = a key, but it evokes a sense of similar terms, such as kuñcana, “curving, bending, contracting; contraction (of a vein)” (MW), and kuñcita “crooked, curved, bent, contracted; curled (MW), i.e., an image of a coiled snake; keys do force locks to unlock by exerting pressure on tumblers, etc., so just as a key “snakes” its way to open a door, Kuṇḍalinī breaks through the doorway to liberation for a Yogi. The violence of the snake is implicit in the imagery.

best wishes,
Dan

> On May 14, 2021, at 5:33 PM, Sven Sellmer via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
> 
> Dear Jim!
> 
> It seems to be possible that the kuñcikā might be either a massive key, as Matthew suggested, or perhaps even rather a kind of special stick. Some details on Indian keys and locks can be found in:
> 
> Oskar v. Hinüber: Sprachentwicklung und Kulturgeschichte. Ein Beitrag zur materiellen Kultur des buddhistischen Klosterwesens. Stuttgart: Steiner (Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur. Geistes- und Sozialwiss. Klasse. Jg. 1992, Nr. 6)., esp. pp. 14–⁠24, 30–⁠34.
> 
> Best wishes,
> Sven
> 
> 
> 
>> Am 14.05.2021 um 23:12 schrieb Matthew Kapstein via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info <mailto:indology at list.indology.info>>:
>> 
>> Dear Jim,
>> 
>> Perhaps try thinking of a heavy medieval lock opened by a very large metal key, requiring rather a lot of force to turn or slide, depending upon the type of lock being used. Maybe my imagination is too influenced by images of huge Tibetan locks and keys that served also as lethal weapons. Might not some old Indian locks be preserved in one or another of the palace museums?
>> 
>> best ever,
>> Matthew
>> 
>> Matthew Kapstein
>> Directeur d'études, émérite
>> Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris
>> 
>> Numata Visiting Professor of Buddhist Studies,
>> The University of Chicago
>> From: INDOLOGY <indology-bounces at list.indology.info <mailto:indology-bounces at list.indology.info>> on behalf of James Mallinson <jm63 at soas.ac.uk <mailto:jm63 at soas.ac.uk>>
>> Sent: Friday, May 14, 2021 3:44 PM
>> To: Indology <indology at list.indology.info <mailto:indology at list.indology.info>>
>> Subject: [INDOLOGY] Help with a simile
>>  
>> Dear colleagues,
>> 
>> I wonder if anybody can help me understand a simile in a haṭhayoga text I’m editing, the Vivekamārtaṇḍa. Verse 34 reads:
>> 
>> udghāṭayet kapāṭaṃ tu yathā kuñcikayā haṭhāt |
>> kuṇḍalinyā tathā yogī mokṣadvāraṃ vibhedayet ||
>> 
>> My incomplete translation is as follows: “The yogi should use Kuṇḍalinī to break open the doorway to liberation in the same way that one might use a kuñcikā to force open a kapāṭa.” I had been translating kuñcikā as “key” and kapāṭa as “door”, but this isn’t altogether satisfactory. A key does not force a door to open. But I am unable to think of what this kuñcikā and kapāṭa might be. I am aware that a kapāṭa is usually a double door (I think of saloon doors in cowboy films) but what then is the kuñcikā? Of course it is quite possible that it is just a rather sloppy simile.
>> 
>> All the best,
>> 
>> Jim
>> 
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