[INDOLOGY] Help with a simile

Sun May 30 07:09:13 UTC 2021

I found the following discussion of this verse in

Meaning of haṭha in Early Haṭhayoga
by Jason Birch

https://www.academia.edu/1539699/Meaning_of_ha%E1%B9%ADha_in_Early_Ha%E1%B9%ADhayoga

In the Vivekamartanda there are only two instances where the adverb hathat
is used and both imply that Hathayogic techniques have a forceful effect,
rather than requiring forceful effort. In the first instance the Yogin
applies what appears to be khecarimudra and, while meditating on kundalini,
he drinks the liquid (jala) that trickles from a sixteen-petalled lotus in
the head and is obtained forcibly (ha!hat). 86 Here, the combination of
three techniques (i.e., khecarimudra, meditation, and possibly some kind of
pranayama 87) enables the Yogin to forcibly retain his nectar, which would
otherwise trickle away. The second instance occurs in a verse that was
appropriated by at least five later Hatha texts. 88 It reads “as one
might forcibly (hathat) open a door with a key, so a Yogin breaks open the
door to liberation with kundalini ” (udghatayet kapatam tu yatha kuñcikaya
hathat | kundalinya tatha yogi moksadvaram prabhedayet). As Brahmananda
notes, 89 the most important word in this verse
is hathat because it serves as the proverbial “lamp on a threshold” to
illuminate both the simile and the statement. He understands hathat as both
balat and hathabhyasat, and the implication of this is that the practice of
Hathayoga causes kundalini to rise, which, like a key, forces the door of
liberation to open. When coupled with other images that are used to convey
the effect of Hathayoga on kundalini, such as that of a stick (danda)
beating a snake (e.g., Hathapradipika 3.10, 3.67), the implication is that
the force of Hathayoga is the forceful effect of its practice on kundalini.

Here he mentions one Brahmananda and the footnote 89 takes us to Jyotsnaa
3.105 of that author.

On Sun, May 16, 2021 at 10:30 PM James Mallinson <jm63 at soas.ac.uk> wrote:

> Many thanks indeed to Jonathan Silk from whom I have received the needful.
>
> All the best,
>
> Jim
>
> On 16 May 2021, at 16:40, James Mallinson <jm63 at soas.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> Dear colleagues,
>
> Many thanks to all those who replied to me, on and off the list, with
> their valuable suggestions. Having been altogether unable to make sense of
> the simile I now find myself with a surfeit of possible solutions.
>
> In particular I thank Andrea Acri for reminding me that I myself have
> written about *kuñcikā*s. Chasing up that lead led me to a half-verse in
> the *Khecarīvidyā *(2.105ab) in which *udghāṭya* refers to removing an
> *argala* or “bolt”:
>
> udghāṭyārgalam ākāśe jihvām ūrdhvaṃ prasārayet |
>
> I find a similar usage in the *Haṭhasaṃketacandrikā. *Because of these
> usages, and the suggestions from colleagues that *udghāṭayet* and
> *vibhedayet* might have subtly different meanings in the *Vivekamārtaṇḍa*
> verse, I now suspect that *udghāṭayet* is being used in the sense of
> “unlock”. And that *haṭhāt*, as some colleagues suggested, gives a sense
> of certainty or inevitability. (By the way, I should have noted that the
> *Vivekamārtaṇḍa* does not call its yoga *haṭha*, so it is unlikely that
> there is any connotation of a particular type of yoga in *haṭhāt*.)
>
> My latest translation of the verse is: “In the same way that by means of
> a key one may be sure to unlock a door, by means of Kuṇḍalinī the yogi
> may [be sure to] break open the doorway to liberation ”
>
> But I feel a long footnote coming on. To help with that, would any
> colleagues be able to point me towards a pdf of the book by von Hinüber
> that Sven Sellmer kindly mentioned (or provide just the relevant pages)?
> Here are the details again:
>
> 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.
>
> All the best,
>
> Jim
>
> On 15 May 2021, at 14:37, Ananya Vajpeyi <vajpeyi at csds.in> wrote:
>
> Jim, picking up from Prof. Kapstein and Andrea Acri, I am reminded that in
> Hindi, the "key" or "Cliff Notes" that people use to study for exams here
> in India is called a kuñjī. Basically, with the right kuñjī, you can
> "crack" an entrance exam. I realize that the door-key-opening-breaking
> through metaphor is continuing here, from kuṇḍalinī yoga to the IIT
> qualifying test, which yields its own version of mokṣa for the successful
> candidates. And certainly getting through such ordeals to breach the
> portals of these vaunted institutions -- engineering / medical /
> architecture / management / law colleges -- requires a certain haṭha,
> determination, force, effort, discipline, rigour, zor-zabardastī!
>
> I see you don't really need our help, except as a form of "time-pass" in
> this unending lockdown...
>
> Yours,
>
> AV.
>
>
> On Sat, May 15, 2021 at 10:38 AM alakendu das via INDOLOGY <
> indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
>
>> Dr.Mallimson,
>> I find "Kunchika" may be loosely translated as "Ripper" i.e a tool to rip
>> open something.
>>
>> Alakendu Das.
>>
>> Sent from RediffmailNG on Android
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> From: James Mallinson <jm63 at soas.ac.uk>
>> Sent: Sat, 15 May 2021 02:14:28 GMT+0530
>> To: Indology <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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>>
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>
>
> --
> *Ananya Vajpeyi*
> https://www.csds.in/ananya_vajpeyi
> http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/people/profile/ananya-vajpeyi
>
>
>
>
>
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>

-- 
Nagaraj Paturi

Hyderabad, Telangana, INDIA.

Director, Indic Academy
BoS, MIT School of Vedic Sciences, Pune, Maharashtra
BoS Kavikulaguru Kalidasa Sanskrit University, Ramtek, Maharashtra
BoS Veda Vijnana Gurukula, Bengaluru.
Member, Advisory Council, Veda Vijnana Shodha Samsthanam, Bengaluru
BoS Rashtram School of Public Leadership
Editor-in-Chief, International Journal of Studies in Public Leadership
Former Senior Professor of Cultural Studies,
FLAME School of Communication and FLAME School of  Liberal Education,
Hyderabad, Telangana, INDIA.
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