Sri Aurobindo. Skeleton Notes on the Kumarasambhavam // The Harmony of Virtue: Early Cultural Writings (1890-1910)

1. Thus by Pinaka's wielder burning the mind-born before her eyes, baffled of her soul's desire, the Mountain's daughter blamed her own beauty in her heart; for loveliness has then only fruit when it gives happiness in the beloved.

Tathā may go either with dahatā or bhagnamanorathā but it has more point with the latter.

samakṣam : The Avachuri takes singularly jayā-vijayāpratyakṣam i.e., before Jaya and Vijaya, her friends. The point would then be that the humiliation of her beauty was rendered still more poignant by occurring before witnesses. In this case, however, the obscurity caused by the omission of the names would be the grossest of rhetorical faults. Samakṣam by itself can mean nothing but “before her (Parvati's) very eyes”, akṣṇoḥ samīpam, as Mallinath rightly renders it.

hi : S. takes this as the emphatic hi (niścitam). It is more appropriate and natural to take it in the usual sense of for, giving the reason or justification (Mallinath) for her finding fault with her own beauty.

saubhāgya: The “felicity” of women consists in the love and welfare of those they love. Here only the first element is intended; so here priyavāllabhyam = the affection of the beloved.

2. By asceticisms she wished, embracing mind-centred meditation,

to make her beauty bear its fruit of love; for how else should these two be one, such love and such a husband.

avandhyarūpatām : literally the “unsterile beautiness of herself”. Notice the extraordinary terseness which Kalidasa has imparted to his style by utilising every element of pithiness the Sanskrit language possesses.

samādhim : the bringing (dhā) together (sam) and centring on (ā) a single subject of all the faculties; used technically of the stage of dhyāna, meditation, in which the mind with all the senses gathered into it is centred on God within itself and insensible to outside impressions.

tapobhiḥ : to translate this word “penances”, as is frequently done, is altogether improper. The idea of “self-imposed or priest-imposed penalty for sin” which the English word contains does not enter even in the slightest degree into the idea of tapaḥ which implies no more than a fierce and strong effort of all the human powers towards any given end. According to Hindu ideas this could only be done to its best effect by conquering the body for the mind; hence the word finally came to be confined to the sense of ascetic practices having this object. See Introduction for the history and philosophy of this word.

vā : “or”, answering an implied objection; “she had to do this, or (if you say she had not) how else could she succeed?” vā in this use comes to mean “for” in its argumentative, not in its causative or explanatory sense.

anyathā : otherwise, i.e., by any less strenuous means. Cf. Manu quoted by Mallinath:

tathāvidhaṁ prema : anticipating the result of the tapaḥ. The love of Siva for Uma was so great that he made himself “one body with his beloved”, one half male, the other half female. See Introduction for the Haragauri image.

tādṛśaḥ : Mallinath glosses: i.e., “Mrityunjaya death-conquering (an epithet of Siva). For the two things desired of women are that their husbands should love them and that they should

not die before them.” This may have been Kalidasa's drift, but it is surely more natural to take tādṛśaḥ of Siva's qualities and greatness generally; “such a lord as the Almighty Lord of the Universe”, tādṛśaḥ jagadīśaḥ, (Kv.).

3. But hearing of her daughter soul-compelled towards the Mountain-Lord, towards asceticism endeavouring, said Mena to her, embracing her to her bosom, forbidding from that great eremite.

C. gives this verse as kṣepaka; it could certainly be omitted without loss to the sense but not without great loss to the emotional beauty of the passage. Is there any other authority for supposing this to be an interpolation?

kṛtodyamāṁ : udyamaḥ here in the sense of udyogaḥ, preparatory action or efforts. Apte takes udyamaḥ in the sense of “exertion or perseverance”; the commentator, X, of “fixed resolve”, the sense in which Apte takes it in the…¹ Sloka. The word really means “active steps”, “active efforts”.

Whose mind is not shaken in sorrows, who has banished the craving for delights, who has passed beyond joy and terror, fear and wrath, whose thought is calm and firm, he is called a saint.

4. There are Gods desired that dwell in homes. Oh my child, how alien is austerity from this body of thine; the delicate Shirisha flower may bear the foot-fall of the bee, but not of the winged bird.

manīṣitāḥ : formed from manīṣā, desire (manaḥ + īṣa + ā) by the application of the passive suffix ita = desired, abhīṣṭāḥ, abhilaṣitāḥ. I do not understand on what principle of grammar the Avachuri followed by Deshpande takes this form as mano'bhilāṣadātryaḥ “desired” taking the sense of “able” or “thought able to fulfil desire”. This is but one more instance of the blamable slovenliness of this commentary. Adopting this untenable rendering these commentators further suppose that the gods in the house are to be worshipped by Parvati for the purpose of gaining Siva as her husband, but it is difficult to see how other gods could give her the Supreme, and in any case manīṣitā can only mean “desired” which renders this version impossible. But desired by whom? If by Parvati, we must suppose Mena to imagine her daughter aiming simply at making a good match in the celestial world. The sense will then be “Thou desirest a God in marriage; well, there are gods in our home whom thou canst win by easy adoration, while Siva must be wooed by harsh asceticism in the woods.” Or it may signify “desired generally, desired by others”, when it will have the force of desirable. I prefer therefore this latter interpretation.

This is supported by the later iyaṁ mahendraprabhṛtīnadhiśrayaścaturdigīśānavamanya māninī and Siva Purana.

gṛheṣu : The plural may here be used in the sense of a great mansion. The old Aryan house seems to have many storeys, each storey consisting of several flats, and in the palaces of princes and great nobles it was composed of several wings and even several piles of buildings. The female apartments specially formed a piece apart. Cf. the Siva Purana where Mena says

Wherefore goest thou forth to practise austerities; gods are there in my house and wondrous holinesses, and are there none in thy father's mansion?

It is perhaps a reminiscence of these lines that induces the Avachuri and Deshpande to render “worships the gods in the house to gain Siva for husband”; but this is incompatible with manīṣitāḥ. If Siva Purana then were Kalidasa's authority, we should have no choice as to our interpretation, but I have tried to show that the Siva Purana and not Kalidasa was the borrower. It is possible therefore that the former may in borrowing have misinterpreted gṛheṣu and that the word has a strictly plural sense. “There are gods desired that dwell in homes”, i.e., not like the undesirable and homeless Siva, who must be sought by austerity in wild woods and desolate mountains. The only objection to this rendering which certainly gives the best and most poetic sense, is that the contrast with Siva is implied, and not expressed, while tapaḥ immediately following seems to be opposed to household worship. But Mena under the circumstances would not venture openly to dispraise Siva; implied dispraise therefore is what we should naturally expect. Such suppression of the implied contrast one term expressed and the other left to be gathered is not in itself unpoetic and might be expected in a work written under the strong influence of the elliptical and suggestive style of the Mahabharata.

The reading gṛhe'pi would of course leave no doubt; it confines us to our first rendering.

kva kva : Again the characteristic Sanskrit idiom implying mahadantaram, “a far cry”. It is a far cry from your tender body to the harshness of ascetic austerities. Notice again the fine precision, the netteté of Kalidasa's style; there are no epithets with tapaḥ and vapuḥ, these being sufficiently implied in the contrasting kva kva and in the simile that follows.

“Harsh is this austerity of thy choosing; thy body again is tender as a Shirish flower; yet iron-firm is thy resolve, O Parvati, a hard thing truly this seemeth.” Who is here the

borrower, if loan there has been?

pelavaṁ : the other readings komalaṁ and peṣalaṁ are less commendable and not supported by Mallinath.

5. Thus though she urged her, yet could not Mena rein in her daughter's fixed purpose from action; for who can turn back (resist) a mind steadfastly resolved on the object of its desire, or a downward moving stream?

dhruvecchām : the reading vratecchām is weak and śrutecchām absolutely without force. Neither is noticed by Mallinath. The point of course is the unspeakable fixity of her resolve and not its object.

niyantumudyamāt : the delicate etymological assonance is a fine survival of one of Kalidasa's favourite rhetorical artifices.

udyamāt : this word is variously taken in various contexts. S. here renders by utsāha, Apte by “fixed resolve” and Deshpande by “undertaking”, whereas Mallinath consistently renders by udyoga. It is as well therefore to fix its exact meaning. The root yam meaning “to put a strain on” with ud “up” in an intensive, implies the strain put on the faculties in preparing for or making a great effort. It means therefore “active effort” or “endeavour” or else “active preparation”. In this latter sense Apte quotes gatumudyamo vihitaḥ = preparations to go were taken order for. In Sloka 3 the dative tapase having the same force as an infinitive leads us to prefer this meaning; “effort towards austerity” has no meaning in the context. I think in this Sloka, it has as Mallinath perceived, the same sense. Uma is still in the stage of preparation, and is not yet even ready to ask her father's consent. Effort or endeavour would therefore be obviously out of place. Now these are the only two ascertained senses of udyama. The sense of utsāha or undertaking cannot be established and is not recognised by Apte. That of “perseverance”, “fixed resolve” given to it by A. in Sloka 3 and by Apte here seems to me equally without

authority; I believe there is no passage in which udyama occurs where it cannot be rendered by “effort”, “labour” or “preparation”. Here moreover Mr. Apte is obviously wrong, for the sense of “fixed resolve” has already been given by dhruvecchām and Kalidasa is never tautologous, never expresses the same thing twice over in a line. Perhaps he intends us to take his next quotation, from the Panchatantra, in this sense udyamena hi sidhyanti kāryāṇi na manorathaiḥ. But the opposite to manorathāḥ, desires, is obviously not “perseverance” but “effort”. “It is by active effort and not by mere desires that accomplishment is reached.” For a more detailed discussion of this subject see Excursus.

payaśca nimnābhimukham : Water which has set its face towards descent. Payaḥ the general is here obviously used for pravāha the particular.

pratīpayet : the commentaries take in the sense of “turn back”, most definitely expressed by S. paścāt pracālayet. Mallinath recognising that pratīpayet primarily means upratikūlayet “oppose”, gives that sense and deduces from it pratinivartayet. Apte also quotes this passage to establish this sense of pratīpaya. This of course is taking pratīpaya = pratīyaṁ kṛ, pratīpa being “reverse, inverted”, e.g. in ambhasāmoghasaṁrodhaḥ pratīpagamanādiva (anumīyate), Canto 2. 25. But pratīpa also and primarily means “adverse, hostile”, so pratīpayati, pratīpaḥ bhavati, “be hostile to, oppose”. It might possibly be taken in this sense here without Mallinath's deduction of “turn back”; the general nature of the proposition justifying the more general sense.

6. Once she, the clear-minded, by the mouth of her personal friend begged of her father not ignorant of her longing, that she might dwell in the forests there to practise austerity and meditation until she saw fruit of her desire.

kadācit... manasvinī : Once, at a certain time. kasmiṁścit kāle gate sati says V. It certainly means that; but that is not the precise shade of expression used by Kalidasa. kadācit means “at a certain time”, and its full force is brought out by manasvinī. The commentators

are all astray in their rendering of this word, even Mallinath rendering sthiracittā while Avachuri and C. give māninī and sābhimānā, meaning proud, ambitious which is ludicrously wrong. Manīṣī can mean nothing but wise, intellectual, a thinker. The wisdom of Parvati lay in her choice of a time, hence Kalidasa's use of kadācit which at first seems awkward and vague, but in relation to manasvinī takes force and body. The wisdom is further specified by manorathajñaḥ. The commentators take this as meaning “knowing of her desire to marry Hara”, but this was very old news to Himalaya and there would be no point in recording his knowledge here; V.'s explanation “for he who does not know the desire, does not give his consent”, is inexpressibly feeble. Manoratha means here not her desire for Siva but her desire to practise austerity as a means of winning Siva. Parvati wisely waited till the news of this intention had travelled to her father and he had time to get accustomed to it and think it over. If she had hastily sprung it on him his tenderness for her might have led him to join Mena in forbidding the step, which would have been fatal to her plans.

āsannasakhī : The Avachuri absurdly says taṭastha, a mediating friend. Mallinath is obviously right āptasalhī, a friend who is always near one, i.e., a personal or intimate friend. Cf. āsannaparicārikā.

tapaḥsamādhaye : Mallinath says taponiyamārthaṁ, and the commentators generally follow him. Apte also takes samādhi = penance (meaning, of course, austerity), religious obligation (?), devotion to penance. I fail to see why we should foist this sense on samādhi. There is none of the passages quoted by Apte in support of it which cannot be as well or better translated by concentration. Here we may take as a Dwandwa-compound “austerity and concentration” or even better in accordance with Sloka 2 tapobhiḥ samādhaye, “concentration to be gained by austerities”. See Excursus.

ayācata : only ātmane, having the middle sense “to ask for oneself”. Notice the skilful use of compounds in this verse getting its full value out of this element of the language without overdoing it like Bhavabhuti and other late writers.

7. Then by her graver parent permitted, for pleased was he at passion so worthy of her, she went to the peacock-haunted peaks of the white mother famed afterwards among the people by her name.

abhiniveśa is anything that takes possession of the mind or the nature, “passion”, “engrossing resolve”. The first seems to me more appropriate here.

śikhaṇḍimat : V. considers this merely an ornamental epithet expressing the beauty of the hill; but ornamental epithets find little place in the Kumarasambhava. Mallinath explains “not full of wild beasts of prey”, which is forced and difficult to reconcile with virodhi-sattvojjhita-pūrvamatsaram in Sloka 17. The Avachuri is characteristically inane; it says “peacocks are without attachment saňga = attachment to worldly objects), the sight of attachment breaks Samadhi”. I have reared peacocks myself and I can assure the reader that they have as much attachment as any other creature. I believe that this is a very beautiful and delicate allusion to the destined fruit of Uma's journey and consummation of the poem, the birth of the Kumara, Skanda being always associated with the peacock. Kalidasa thus skilfully introduces a beautifying epithet without allowing it to be otiose.

8. In her irremovable resolve she put off the necklace whose restless string had rubbed off the sandal smeared and fastened on the bark tawny-red like the young dawn though ever her high swelling breasts rent (broke) its firm compactness.

vilolayaṣṭi etc. : The meaning conveyed is that the movements of the necklace had already rubbed off the sandal paste from her breasts which otherwise she would have had to refuse herself as being a piece of luxury incompatible with tapaḥ. Some of the commentators take yaṣṭi as meaning “her slender figure”; “the necklace

which owing to the restlessness of her slender body had rubbed off the sandal-paste”. But to take vilolayaṣṭi = yaṣṭivilolatā (cañcalāňgatayā) is very awkward and in any case it is extremely doubtful whether yaṣṭi by itself could mean aňgayaṣṭiḥ. I should therefore reject this rendering which as far as significance goes one might perhaps prefer. If we take yaṣṭi in this sense, it is better to adopt the reading ahāryaniścayā vilolayaṣṭiḥ, understand not vilolayaṣṭiḥ with J. for that would be merely an ornamental epithet, but avilokayaṣṭiḥ “She put off her necklace having rubbed off the sandal-paste, and her slender body forgot its swaying”, i.e., the amorous beauty of motion attributed by the Kalidasian poets to beautiful women. praviluptacandanam will be in this rendering an adverbial (...............) ² compound. The reading however has little authority.

bālāruṇababhru : Mallinath curiously translates aruṇa by arka, sun; but aruṇa means “dawn” and not “sun”; moreover, the young sun is not tawny-red unless seen through mist.

payodharaḥ : lit. “whose compactness is rent by the loftiness of her breasts”. The Avachuri is even more amazingly foolish than usual on this line. It construes ahāryaniścayā by āhāraṁ tyaktvā “abandoning food”, a rendering which makes one suspect the sanity of the commentator and payodharotsedhaviśīrṇasaṁhati by meghodayena vistāritaḥ samavāyo yasya, “the close composition of which is spread out by the rising of the clouds”; perhaps an unequalled instance of perverted scholastic ingenuity, though Mallinath's interpretation of the Dingnagian stanza of the Meghaduta runs it close. It is needless to say that utsedha and viśīrṇa will not bear the strained meanings put on them and that even if they could, Kalidasa's fine taste in the choice of words would never have employed such out of the way expressions. He would have said plainly udaya and vistīrṇa. The sense arrived at by these unnecessary violences is the most prosaic, pointless and inept possible.

so was it even with the ascetic's tangled crown; not set with lines of bees alone the lotus has splendour but also coated with moss.

prasiddhaiḥ : X strangely takes “famous”. The meaning of course is “dressed and adorned” as opposed to the neglected jaṭā. Prasiddhau khyātabhūṣitau (Amara). Prasiddha means “famous” or “adorned”.

ṣaṭpadaśreṇibhireva : eva = alone, in its limiting sense. Note the implied comparison, favourite form in Sanskrit classic poetry.

10. The triple plaited girdle of rough grass she wore — for her vow she wore it though every moment it caused discomfort, now first tied on reddened the seat of her zone.

kṛtaromavikriyām : the turning of the hair on the body is used by the concrete Sanskrit for the sense of discomfort caused by the contact of anything rough and uncomfortable. The same symptom also denotes in other circumstances great sensuous delight.

akāri : the passive aorist; notice the tendency of later Sanskrit towards passive constructions in past time, prevalent in prose (see the Panchatantra passim) and breaking its way occasionally into poetry. The ripe and mature style of the Kumarasambhava specially shows this tendency to approximate to prose construction. So also kṛto'kṣasūtrapraṇayī tayā karaḥ.

11. Her hand ceased from her lip from which the colouring was effaced and the ball all reddened with her breasts' vermillion, and its fingers wounded with the plucking of Kusha grass, she made it a lover of the rosary.

nivartitaḥ : Deshpande singularly supposes that this may mean formerly, i.e., always kept away from. Such a rendering if possible would be wholly out of place and meaningless. The difficulty as regards the first line is avoided by supposing it meant that her lip was naturally too red to need artificial colouring or that her maidens did the colouring for her. This is most jejune and artificial, nor has such a detail the slightest appropriateness in the context. As regards the ball, it is explained that her hand was too tender to play with it! This is not only jejune, it is laughable. Kalidasa would never have perpetrated such an absurd conceit even if there were no other objections; the absence of a word indicating past time would dispose of the rendering; for nivartita is the causal of vṛt with ni. Now the simple nivṛttaḥ means “cessation from pravṛtti, i.e., from any habit of mind, practice or course of action”, “Turning away from something it had been turned to”. Nivartita therefore obviously means “caused to cease from, turned from”. It cannot possibly have the sense of “never busied with”; but means “ceasing to be busy with”. Kalidasa is speaking in these stanzas of Uma putting off all her former girlish habits for those appropriate to asceticism; to suppose that he brings in matter foreign to the idea in hand is to suppose that he is not Kalidasa. And to interpret “she never used to colour her lips or play at ball and she now plucked Kusha grass and counted a rosary” introduces such foreign matter, substitutes non-sequence for sequence and ruins the balanced Kalidasian structure of these stanzas. Such commentary falls well under Mallinath's vigorous censure that the muse of Kalidasa swoons to death under the weight of bad commentaries.

The poet's meaning is plain. Her hand no longer as before was employed in colouring her lip, she had put that away from her; neither did it play with the ball all reddened with the vermilion of her breasts; for both the vermilion was banished from her breasts and the ball from her hand; it was only used now to pluck Kusha grass and count the rosary.

stanāňgarāgāt : resolve the compound stana + aňgarāgāt, the body-colour of the breast. For the toilet of women in Kalidasa's time, see Appendix.

akṣasūtra : String of beads, rosary. The use of the rosary, to this day a Hindu practice with devotees and pious women, is thus more than two thousand years old. The use of the rosary among the Roman Catholics is an unmistakable sign of Hindu influence, as with the Hindus it has a distinct meaning, with the Christians none. See Excursus.

12. She who would be tormented by the flowers shaken by her own hair, by her tumbling on some costliest couch, now lay with her fair soft arm for pillow reclining (sunk) on the bare altar-ground.

puṣpairapi : like the lady of the fairy tale who was discovered to be a princess and no maid-servant when she could not sleep all night for the pain of a single flower which had been surreptitiously introduced into her bed.

bāhulatopadhāyinī : the appropriateness of the creeper-like arm rests in the rounded softness and supple willowy grace of the arm. It is the Indian creeper and not the English, be it remembered, that is intended. There is therefore no idea of slenderness.

upadhāyinī : this is the verbal adjective (cf. dāyinī) from dhā and upa in the sense of “lay upon”, so “lie upon” upadhāya vāmabhujaśāyinī D. K. Ill, lay pillowed on her left arm. For the full form compare vāmahastopahitavadanā (quoted by Apte) and numerous other instances.

niṣeduṣī : S. strangely construes “slept sitting on the bare ground”. It is obvious that she could not at the same time sleep sitting and sleep with her arm as her pillow; if we are to render niṣeduṣī = upaviṣṭā we must follow Mallinath “slept pillowed on her arm and sat on the bare ground”; but this is not justified by the Sanskrit; the word being a participle and not as it then should be, a finite tense like aśeta with or without ca. Moreover the idea of sitting is foreign to the contrast between her former bed and her present, and therefore would not be introduced by Kalidasa. We must take niṣad in its primary sense of “sink down”, “recline”;

it implies “entire recumbence”, and is opposed to parivartana in the first line. “She who was formerly restless on softest couches, now lay restfully on the hard bare ground.”

sthaṇḍile... kevale : Kevale means “without any covering”, not merely of grass as some have it but of either grass or any sheet or coverlet. sthaṇḍila is the vedikā, a level and bare platform of earth used as sacred ground for sacrifice.

13. She while busied her vow seemed to lay by as a deposit, for after resuming her duet (of graces) in a duet (of forms) in the slender creepers her amorous movements and her wantoning glance in the hinds.

punargrahītum : notice the strict supine use which is the proper function of the infinitive in Sanskrit. It has of course the dative force = punargrahaṇāya.

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