[INDOLOGY] Best wishes for a Peaceful Christmas and New Year...

Sun Jan 1 11:52:01 UTC 2023

Dear Bihani Sarkar, thanks for this precious detailed reference. Jan Houben

On Sunday, 1 January 2023, Bihani Sarkar <bihanisarkar at googlemail.com>
wrote:

> Dear Professor Houben,
> There is a reference to this in the text of the *Kumārasambhava*, as read
> and commented on by Aruṇagirinātha and Nārāyaṇapaṇḍita, in the section on
> Pārvatī's tapas. In Sarga 5, Pārvatī's asceticism to win Śiva is described,
> and its transformative, purifying power is said to have affected the
> surrounding environment, causing even animals usually at war to become
> gentle towards each other:
>
> *virodhisattvojjhitapūrvamatsaraṃ*
>
> *drumair abhīṣṭaprasavārcitātithi |*
>
> *navoṭajābhyantarasambhṛtānalaṃ*
>
> *tapovanaṃ tatra babhūva pāvanam ||* 5.17
>
>
>
> 'There [on Mount Gaurīśikhara], her [very] ascetic grove, in which, inside
> a newly built leaf hut, she had built the sacred fire, became purifying:
> even beasts there mutually at war were free of their ancient hostility (
> *virodhisattvojjhitapūrvamatsaraṃ*), and its trees worshipped guests with
> choice buds.'
>
>
> As the two commentators note, these--i.e. peaceful animals, and trees
> being hospitable to guests (just like the ascetic)--are the special,
> magical characteristics of the hermitage groves of great ascetics. Nārāyaṇa
> provides the following citation to a source I am not yet able to identify,
> thus:
>
>
> *'tapovanocitāni viśeṣaṇāny āha-- virodhisattvojjhitapūrvamatsaram
> ityādinā | 'spṛśati kalabhaḥ saiṃhīṃ daṃṣṭrāṃ mṛṇāladhiyā muhur' iti
> āditapovanavṛttānto' tra draṣṭavyaḥ |*
>
>
> [Kālidāsa] describes the qualities appropriate to hermitage groves with
> the compound 'even beasts there mutually at war were free of their ancient
> hostility'. "A baby elephant keeps touching a lion's fang thinking it to be
> a lotus stem"-- such a description of a hermitage grove is apparent in this
> case.'
>
>
> I am not sure which *tapovanavṛttānta* the quote about the baby elephant
> placing his trunk inside the lion's mouth with utmost ease is from. But
> evidently in such tales of hermitage groves, which the commentator was
> aware of, there is an idea that the dharma of such places is non-violence
> and generosity between man and beast, not to be witnessed in the real
> world. And that this dharma is a transposition of the ascetic's own quality
> onto the surrounding environment.
>
>
> It would be interesting to read the *Raghuvaṃśa* verses you mention below
> in a parenthesis in relation to this.
>
>
> Thank you
>
> Bihani Sarkar MA (English, First Class Hons.), MPhil DPhil (Sanskrit),
> (Oxon.)
>
> Lecturer in Comparative Non-Western Thought,
>
> Department of Politics, Philosophy and Religion,
>
> Lancaster University.
>
>
>
> On Sat, Dec 31, 2022 at 8:44 PM Jan E.M. Houben via INDOLOGY <
> indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
>
>> Dear All,
>> Thank you all who have reacted with precious references to passages
>> relevant to what is perhaps a kind of "radiance of peace" concept,
>> expressed briefly in Yoga-sūtra 2.35, अहिंसाप्रतिष्ठायां, तत्सन्निधौ
>> वैरत्यागः ।
>> It seems that only the extensive passages in the Rāmāyaṇa Kakawin to
>> which Andrea Acri referred extends the concept explicitly to human society.
>> I am grateful for the references to the Mahābhārata, Śākuntalopākhyāna
>> (famously elaborated also by Kālidāsa), and the Telugu commentary on it.
>> Also the reference to the Caitanya-caritāmṛta in Sanskritic Bengali bring
>> us beyond the scope of Sanskrit literature in the strict sense of the word.
>> The reference to Aśvaghoṣa’s Saundarānanda I find important because it
>> concerns the legendary sage Kapila, known as one of the founders of the
>> Sāṁkhya system of philosophy (as I have argued, Sāṁkhya was originally more
>> a movement, partly in protest to Vedic ritualism, and became a
>> philosophical system afterwards).
>> The scene described in this reference is almost a Sāṁkhya illustration of
>> the concept (later on?) formulated in YS 2.35.
>> One part of a similar formula is perhaps found in the saṁnyāsa-vidhi
>> attributed to a certain Kapila,  अभयं सर्वभूतेभ्यो मत्तस् स्वाहा
>> ।(Baudhāyana-Gṛhya-Śeṣa-Sūtra 4.16.4).
>> The other part remains here apparently unexpressed, namely: the
>> expectation that this declaration will lead to वैरत्यागः and to wild
>> animals etc. to provide, reciprocatively, abhayam to the ascetic (and, near
>> the ascetic, to each other).
>> A very similar or rather parallel concept, expressed in different terms,
>> is found, in my view, in the maitrī and maitrī-bhāvanā of Buddhism, as
>> discussed by Lambert Schmithausen in his *Maitrī and Magic : Aspects of
>> the Buddhist Attitude Toward the Dangerous in Nature*, Vienna, 1997.
>> As we know that nonviolence was and is an important religious duty in
>> JAINISM it would be interesting to know whether in that context, too, a
>> concept of a "radiance of peace" was known or developed...
>> With best wishes to all,
>>
>> On Sun, 25 Dec 2022 at 19:13, Jan E.M. Houben <jemhouben at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Dear All,
>>> According to Yoga-sūtra 2.35, अहिंसाप्रतिष्ठायां, तत्सन्निधौ वैरत्यागः ।
>>>
>>> which apparently means that when someone is thoroughly established in
>>> non-violence, (mutual) enmity disappears in his environment.
>>> Commentaries and references given for aphorism and referred to for
>>> instance in James Wood’s translation emphasize that in this situation
>>> *even* wild animals, no more attack their prey. An example is Kirāṭārjunīya
>>> 2.55 (meter viyoginī): Vyāsa is looked at by Yudhiṣṭhira:
>>> madhurair avaśāni lambhayann   api tiryañci śamaṃ nirīkṣitaiḥ  /
>>> paritaḥ paṭu bibhrad enasāṃ   dahanaṃ dhāma vilokanakṣamam  //
>>> “Calming even wild animals by his gentle looks, spreading a blazing
>>> radiance around which burns away guilt, (but which yet) can be gazed at
>>> (the sage, i.e., Vyāsa son of Parāśara, was seen by the king, Yudhiṣṭhira)”
>>> (tr. following Roodbergen 1984, p. 143; cp. also Raghuvaṁśa 13.50, 14.79.)
>>> Are any more convincing stories or anecdotes known in Sanskrit
>>> literature, in which the peace-creating influence suggested in YS 2.35
>>> inspires animals or *even* humans to behave in a more peaceful way ?
>>> With best wishes for a Peaceful Christmas New Year to all:
>>>
>>> शान्ते !  ऽस्मिन् लोक एधस्व   विद्यातः प्रेमतस्तथा ।
>>>
>>> तव भक्तजनानां च  कल्याणमस्तु सर्वदा ॥
>>>
>> --
>>
>> *Jan E.M. Houben*
>>
>> Directeur d'Études, Professor of South Asian History and Philology
>>
>> *Sources et histoire de la tradition sanskrite*
>>
>> École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE, Paris Sciences et Lettres)
>>
>> *Sciences historiques et philologiques *
>>
>> Groupe de recherches en études indiennes (EA 2120)
>>
>> *johannes.houben [at] ephe.psl.eu <johannes.houben at ephe.psl.eu>*
>>
>> *https://ephe-sorbonne.academia.edu/JanEMHouben
>> <https://ephe-sorbonne.academia.edu/JanEMHouben>*
>>
>> *https://www.classicalindia.info* <https://www.classicalindia.info>
>>
>> LabEx Hastec OS 2021 -- *L'Inde Classique* augmentée: construction,
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>>
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>>
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>>
>

-- 

*Jan E.M. Houben*

Directeur d'Études, Professor of South Asian History and Philology

*Sources et histoire de la tradition sanskrite*

École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE, Paris Sciences et Lettres)

*Sciences historiques et philologiques *

Groupe de recherches en études indiennes (EA 2120)

*johannes.houben [at] ephe.psl.eu <johannes.houben at ephe.psl.eu>*

*https://ephe-sorbonne.academia.edu/JanEMHouben
<https://ephe-sorbonne.academia.edu/JanEMHouben>*

*https://www.classicalindia.info* <https://www.classicalindia.info>

LabEx Hastec OS 2021 -- *L'Inde Classique* augmentée: construction,
transmission

et transformations d'un savoir scientifique
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