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@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@soas.ac.uk>
Sent: Sat, 15 May 2021 02:14:28 GMT+0530
To: Indology <indology@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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