Chicken

I have provided a translation, with no critical apparatus. Sigla and annotations will follow when text fragments are published.
....
"All living things are movers or non movers.
All movers are either flyers or walkers.
All flyers are feathered.

All feathered movers ought to fly.
(There is no reason to be feathered and not to fly)

You might speak of injured birds. Defective birds.
But these are accidental reasons. By nature however, these birds would have flown if not injured. By virtue of being injured and incapable of flight, they are defective.
(Besides, if you run the argument through that some accidents are inevitable for nature to provide essential natures to things, then you are stating that you wish to ingest a defect. But you hold to the princip that effects mirror the causes--what is the price you would pay for ingesting defects? Ah, of course, you want a better reason not to eat flesh).

Chickens do not fly, but not for accidental reasons. They are inherently non flyers. They hop.

Rabbits hop. But are not feathered.

The argument is: anything that is a bird can fly; the chicken is a bird, but it does not fly.

Perhaps all birds do not fly?

This would be a tedious and inelegant assumption and imply that nature does not work efficiently. Nature is not a potter, trying out one pot after another, squishing some too much in the processs. Accidents have to have a principled ground, and you, my dear friend, have proposed no such principle that gives reason for principled deviations from categorial natures.

...

But you say that a chicken not being a bird, and hence not flying, is not tedious and inelegant? Does not your assumption lead to the thought that nature does not work efficiently, as you have the same proposition: some birds do not fly?

Not at all; my proposition is that the chicken is not a bird.

But it is not a rabbit, no more than the horned-rabbit is a rabbit.

I do not say that the chicken is a rabbit, or any non-feathered animal. A feathered animal is as bad as a feathered non-flying bird.

But then you are refuting yourself. Recall: all movers are either feathered or non-feathered. The chicken is a mover, albeit a hopper, and it is neither bird nor animal, hence neither feathered nor non-feathered. This is ridiculous.

You my friend, suffer from the conceit typical of Buddhists that all movers are animals. Can you not admit of movers that are not animals?

But I do not see how plants, even if we grant you their moving of their own power in search of nutriment, can be considered feathered?

Surely plants can be hairy. And is not more reasonable to suppose, that what we take to be feathers on the chicken are really the same sort of hairy appendages disguised to look like feathers?

Disguised? Surely. For this would allow us to eschew the mad potter hypothesis. Nature has provided for a plant to look like a feathered creature, and so a logical conundrum. It just could not make it fly. Which is to our point--have you ever heard of a flying plant?

And why should it look like a silly bird?

So that you Buddhists won't eat it.

But we do not eat it with fore-knowledge that some animal will be killed for us.

Yes, but you eat it all the same. I am trying to tell you that your justifications for eating it are not required. You can go on to eat it now, and request it.

But are you are Jain? No, no. But I still wouldn't eat something this silly looking.

...

Extracts from a recently discovered Carvaka manuscript on Ethics. Dated roughly to 11th century; it was found in Nepal, preserved by suspiciously well-fed looking monks.

The General Theory of Not-Gardening

Here, without much ado, is a gem from L. Kolakowski: "The General Theory of Not-Gardening," which appeared in Harper's Magazine. Enjoy.




Those who hate gardening need a theory. Not-gardening without a theory is a shallow, unworthy way of life.

A theory must be convincing and scientific. Yet to different people, different theories are convincing and scientific. Therefore, we need a number of theories.

The alternative to not-gardening without a theory is to garden. However, it is much easier to have a theory than actually to garden.

Marxist Theory
"Capitalists try to corrupt the minds of the toiling masses and to poison them with their reactionary 'values.' They want to 'convince' workers that gardening is a great 'pleasure' and thereby keep them busy in their leisure time and prevent them from carrying out the proletarian revolution. Besides, they want to make them believe that with their miserable plot of land they are really 'owners' and not wage earners and in this way win them over to the side of the owners in the class struggle. To garden is therefore to participate in the great plot aiming at the ideological deception of the masses. Do not garden! Q.E.D.

Psychoanalytical Theory
"Fondness for gardening is a typically English quality. It is easy to see why this is so. England was the first country to take part in the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution killed the natural environment. Nature is the symbol of Mother. By killing Nature, the English people committed matricide. They are unconsciously haunted by feelings of guilt, and they try to expiate their crime by cultivating and worshiping their small, pseudonatural gardens. To garden is to take part in this gigantic self-deception. You must not garden. Q.E.D.

Existentialist Theory
"People garden in order to make Nature human, to 'civilize' it. This, however, is a desperate and futile attempt to transform being-in-itself into being-for-itself. This is not only ontologically impossible; it is a deceptive, morally inadmissible escape from reality, as the distinction between being-in-itself and being-for-itself cannot be abolished. To garden, or to imagine that one can 'humanize' Nature, is to try to efface this distinction and hopelessly to deny one's own irreducibly human ontological status. To garden is to live in bad faith. Gardening is wrong. Q.E.D.

Structuralist Theory
"In primitive societies life was divided into the pair of opposites work/leisure, which corresponded to the distinction field/house. People worked in the field and rested at home. In modern societies the axis of opposition has been reversed: People work in houses (factories, offices) and rest in the open (gardens, parks, forests, rivers, etc.). Such distinctions are crucial in maintaining the conceptual framework whereby people structure their lives. To garden is to confuse the distinction between house and field, between leisure and work; it is to blur, indeed to destroy, the oppositional structure that is the basis of thinking. Gardening is a blunder. Q.E.D.

Analytical Philosophy
"In spite of many attempts, no satisfactory definitions of 'garden' and of 'gardening' have been found; all existing definitions leave a large area of uncertainty about what belongs where. We simply do not know what exactly a garden and gardening are. To use these concepts is therefore intellectually irresponsible, and actually to garden would be even more so. Thou shalt not garden. Q.E.D."

Probinshializing Bengal:

Probinshializing Bengal:
[Manuscript shows Colon [= ':'], but no subtitle, at time of Current Resotaration].
Attributed: Nirad C. Chaudhuri

author of the famed:

“ To the memory of the British Empire in India,

Which conferred subjecthood upon us,
But withheld citizenship.
To which yet every one of us threw out the challenge:
"Civis Britannicus sum"
Because all that was good and living within us
Was made, shaped and quickened
By the same British rule.
”


(The attribution of this far-sighted hitherto lost work to N. C. Chaudhuri (Bill, to his friends) is contested by some scholars, two actually (of three) who know about it.

Unpublished Manuscript. 300.5 pages. Foolscap.

Contents:

PART I: Historicity and The Truth of The Past
chapter 1. The Artifice of Discursive Distances and the History of Post Colonialism
chapter 2. The Two Capitals in "the Two Histories"? The Metropole as the Center of History and Neo-Tory Ideology.
chapter 3. How I learnt to Love Untranslatable Life-Worlds and Stopped Worrying about why We got over Marx.
Chapter 4: Dominant Histories, Superaltern Futures

PART II: Myths of Exodus
Chapter 5: Trauma of Renunicant Ascetics (Natives) and Foreign Householders
Chapter 6: Nation, Narration, Alliteration: Now You Try: Hey Nonny, Nonny, Theory, Fa La La...
Chapter 7: The Forgotten History of Table Manners and the Loss of Adda: The Veiled Wife and the Oxbridge Camera
Chapter 8: Shah Rukh Khan, Zeenat Aman and Vinobha Bhave

Epilogue: Antidisestablishmentarianism and its Global Discontents




Initial Reviews:

"The great value of this book lies in Chaudhuri's (?) exceptional ability to bring to light what constantly is put forth and remembered when we can only speak the language of the colonizers and Tagore in translation. Chaudhuri makes me regret that which can no longer be said...."
--N.Ferguson, The New Right Review

"the in-choate in-fans ab-original para-subject cannot be theorised as functionally completely frozen in a world where teleology is schematised into geo-graphy"
--Gayatri Spivak, Critique of Post-Colonial Reason (Oh allright, you tell me what the bloody hell she is on about if not this unpublished book).

Sanjay Subrahmanyam (Not the Carnatic Violinist) could not be reached at this time. He is at Santa Monica Beach (Not an Adda) taking in the surf and suds with wide-eyed, overworked students. However see his forthcoming review for London Review of Books entitled "How can a Bengali be a Subaltern?" (2009j, LRB).

Esoteric Community Noble Meditation Practice (What is the Bobness of Bob)

A new practice, the Esoteric Noble Community Practice, said to originate from Columbia, has now been been made public. The practice is a simple enough practice, involving ready to hand materials: mirror, basin, shaving equipment, and Bob Thurman. The practice originated by asking, before shaving, the following question, repeatedly, while letting the light mysteriously illuminate only parts of one's face: "What is the Bob-ness of Bob?" Advanced practioners are encouraged to add a wrinkle to Bob's practice: by shaving in front of a mirror that has a picture of Bob posted on it,


and asking: "What is the Bob-ness of Bob?" followed by: "Who am I /he anyway, and how do I tell the difference?".

Highly advanced adepts from different thought systems have suggested that this is still only for those stuck on the dichotomy of disposable versus non-disposable razors. The true adept, realizing along with CU 2.1.154a-b that verily, this slipping world is like a Gillette blade (give or take an inch), and wishing to become the man with insight, must pass beyond the reification of shaving and not shaving, adopting a practice with a beard trimmer.

Junior practioners may also prefer pasting a picture of Bob's daughter,



and convincing themselves that indeed, the world sensibilia is, to put it mildly, disconcerting in its evident dissatisfactions. Such a path, however, has been considered unfit by some. The following mantra--Om Hey Ho DerriRoriWittywittywittgensteioohmymadhyamikawhichisbangbangcittybangbangbutwhyisshesohot svaha--will allow you to control Bob's daughter at the drop of a tibetan hat and a turn of a thrice blessed wheel thing which makes fun noises and can be rented out at children's parties.

All this, of course, is subject to correction, if it turns out that these highly visible esoteric traditions were not meant to be esoteric, nor describe anything, being instead a meta-comment on French post-structuralism.

Ms. Orientalist (Courtesy Manan Ahmed)

Ms. Orientalist
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Ah, at last. His and her's. If only I could have waited to get married in them.

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Suhrllekha

I thought it might be fun to have the SuhRllekha (Letter to A Friend) up for people to take a look at this genre. This one is attributed (along with the RatnAvali) to Nagarjuna, the author of the Mulamadhyamakakarikas, and the Vigrahavyavartani. I think the jury is still out on the attribution, and I think it damned hard to find clear and persuasive criteria for deciding, but myself lean (unjustifiably in the end I think) to the point of view that has it that it is not Nagarjuna of Mulamadhyamakakarikas--at the very least, I do not think it advances our understanding of those texts significantly.


The letter (or more formally, 'epistle') has been studied qua genre, along with its rhetorical conventions: Siglinde Dietz, Die Buddhistiche Briefliteratur Indiens: Nach dem Tibetischen Tanjur herausgegeben ubersetzt und erlautert (Asiatische Forschung, Bd. 84), Wiesbaden. Of 13 lekha-s preserved in Tibetan, only one survives in Sanskrit. Candragomin's siSyalekha.

There are other genres: parikathA, nirdeza, etc. (sermons, expositions, and the like).

J. Foucher, as expected, looked Westward to explain the genre conventions. (La viellie route de l'Inde de Bactres a Taxila," (Mem. Deleg arch. fr. Afghanistan, Paris. 1947, 297-301).

Letter to a Friend

(bShes-pa’i springs-yig, Skt. Suhrllekha)
by Nagarjuna

translated by Alexander Berzin, March 2006

(1) O you, with a nature of good qualities, who’ve become worthy
through constructive deeds,
Please listen to these (verses) in noble meter,
Which I’ve compiled in short for the sake of (instilling)
An intention for the positive force that comes from (following)
explanations of the Blissfully Gone (Buddha’s) speech.

(2) Just as the wise venerate a statue of the Blissfully Gone,
Even out of wood, regardless of how it’s been made;
Likewise, although this poetry of mine may be deficient,
please do not scorn it,
Since it’s based on expressions of the hallowed Dharma.

(3) Although a profusion of the resonant words
of the Great Sage (Buddha)
May already have entered your heart,
Isn’t something made of limestone made even whiter
By the light of a winter’s moon?

(4) The Triumphant has proclaimed six (objects)
for continual mindfulness:
The Buddhas, the Dharma, the Sangha,
Generous giving, ethical discipline, and the gods.
Be continually mindful of the mass of good qualities of these.

(5) Always entrust yourself, with body, speech, and mind,
To the ten pathways of constructive karma;
Turn away from intoxicants, and likewise
Delight as well in livelihoods that are constructive.

(6) Having realized that possessions are transient
and lack any essence,
Be generous, in a proper manner, toward
Monks, brahmins, the poor, and your kin;
For the hereafter, there’s no better friend besides generosity.

(7) You must entrust yourself to ethical disciplines
that are not compromised,
Not debased, not corrupted, and not transferred.
It’s been said that ethical discipline is the foundation
for all good qualities,
As is the earth for everything moving or unmoving.

( 8) Generosity, discipline, patience, perseverance, mental stability,
And likewise discriminating awareness
are the immeasurable far-reaching attitudes.
Expand them and make yourself into a Powerful Lord
of the Triumphant
Who has reached the far shore of the ocean of compulsive existence.

(9) Any family in which the father and mother are honored
Will be together with Brahma and together with teachers;
They’ll become renowned for honoring them
And afterwards, as well, will attain rebirths of higher status.

(10) When one gives up causing harm, thieving, sexual activity, lying,
Alcohol, and attachment to eating when it’s not time,
Delight in high beds and seats,
Songs, dance, and all sorts of jewelry,

(11) And takes on these eight branches that emulate
The ethical discipline of liberated arhats,
(These) one-day precepts will bestow on men and on women
An attractive body of a desire-realm god.

(12) View as enemies stinginess, guile, pretense,
Attachment, lethargy, false pride,
Lust, hatred, and conceit over greatness of caste,
Physique, education, youth, or power.

(13) The Sage has proclaimed that caring is the (mental) stand
for the nectar (of immortality),
While not caring is the stand for death.
Therefore, to boost your constructive Dharma measures,
You need to have a caring attitude, always, through being appreciative.

(14) Anyone who previously didn’t care,
And later develops a caring attitude,
Becomes as beautiful as the moon when parted from clouds,
Like Nanda, Angulimala, Ajatashatru, and Udayana.

(15) Thus, since there’s no trial equal to patience,
You must never open a chance for anger (to arise).
Buddha has declared that having rid yourself of anger
Brings attainment of a state of non-returning.

(16) By holding a grudge, thinking, “I’ve been insulted by this one;
stymied and defeated by this one;
My wealth’s been plundered by this one,”
Conflicts arise ever more.
Whoever rids himself of grudges goes to sleep at ease.

(17) Know that thoughts may be like figures drawn
On water, on earth, or on stone.
Among them, it’s best for those with disturbing emotions
to be like the first;
While those with wishes for the Dharma to be (like) the last.

(1 8) The Triumphant (Buddha) has proclaimed people’s words
to be of three types:
Like honey, (like) flowers, or (like) excrement –
(Namely,) those that fall (easily) on the heart, those that are truthful,
or those that convey what’s false.
Out of these, rid yourself of the last.

(19) There are four (types of) persons: those who from light,
End up in light; those who from darkness, end up in darkness;
Those who from light, end up in darkness;
and those who from darkness,
End up in light. Be like the first of these.

(20) People are like mango fruits: unripe, but seemingly ripe;
Ripe, but seemingly unripe; unripe appearing unripe;
And ripe appearing as ripe.
Understand (them) to be like that.

(21) Do not look at others’ wives; but if you happen to see (them),
Generate recognition (of them), in accord with (their) age,
As your mother, your daughter, or your sister. Should lust arise,
Think thoroughly about (their bodies having) the nature of filth.

(22) Hold your mind tightly when it (starts to) rove, as though it were
Like your learning, similar to your child, resembling a treasure,
or comparable to your life.
Recoil from the pleasures of sensory objects, as though they were like
Venom, poison, a weapon, an enemy, or fire.

(23) Sensory objects bring ruination! The Lord of the Triumphant
Has said that they’re like the kimpaka fruit –
(sweet on the outside, bitter within).
Abandon them! By their iron chains,
Worldly people are bound in the prison of recurring samsara.

(24) Of those who triumph over the objects
Of the ever-inconstant, roving six senses,
And those over a host of foes in battle,
The wise favor the first to be the best heroes.

(25) Look at the body of a young woman, separate on its own:
With a foul smell, it resembles a vessel for all filthy matter,
Leaking out from nine holes, difficult to be filled, and covered with skin,
And then (look) at its ornaments also, separate on their own.

(26) Realize, as well, that lust in those with desire (for sensory objects)
Is like (what happens with) a leper, tormented by maggots,
Who relies on a fire for the sake of some comfort,
And yet gets no relief.

(27) (So,) for the sake of seeing the deepest (truth), make it a habit
To pay attention to phenomena correctly.
No other preventive measure exists at all
That has such good qualities as that.

(2 8) Although a person may have a (good) caste, physique,
and education,
If he lacks discriminating awareness and ethical discipline,
he’s unworthy of esteem.
That being so, anyone having these two qualities,
Is to be honored, even if he lacks the other good qualities.

(29) O Realizer of the Transitory World. Don’t have
as objects of your mind
The eight transitory things of the world:
Namely, material gain and no gain, happiness and unhappiness,
Things nice to hear and not nice to hear, or praise and scorn.
Be indifferent (toward them).

(30) You mustn’t commit any negative acts,
Even for the sake of a brahmin, a monk, a god, or a guest,
Or your father, your mother, your child, your queen,
or your retinue.
They will not partake of even a share of their hellish ripening.

(31) Although any commitment of negative karmic acts
May not cut (you) immediately afterwards like a sword;
Nevertheless, when the time of death comes,
Whatever karmic results there will be will become manifest.

(32) The Sage (Buddha) has said that belief in fact,
ethical self-discipline, generous giving, listening,
Moral self-dignity, care for how your actions reflect on others,
And discriminating awareness are the seven stainless (arya) gems.
Understand that other, ordinary gems have no meaning.

(33) Gambling with dice, looking for (meaningless) gatherings,
Laziness, relying on misleading friends,
Intoxicants, and roaming around at night
Bring about worse rebirth states and your fame to decline.
Abandon these six.

(34) It has been excellently said by the Teacher of Gods and Men
That among all wealth, contentment is the best.
(So) be fully content. If you know contentment,
Even if you possess no wealth, you’ll be perfectly rich.

(35) Good sir, just as those with many possessions have problems,
That isn’t the case with those whose desires are few.
As many heads as the foremost nagas have,
That many problems arise from (the gems that they wear on) them.

(36) Avoid (taking) these three (types of) wives,
Those whose natures are: to associate with your enemies,
like assassins,
To be contemptuous of their husbands, like baronesses,
Or to rob and steal even little things, like thieves.

(37) But one who, like a sister, is compatible (with you),
Or like a female friend, goes straight to your heart,
Or like a mother, wishes for your welfare,
Or like a maid, is obedient – honor her like a family deity.

(3 8) Rely on food in the proper (measure), like a medicine,
Without greed or repulsion,
Not out of vanity, and not because of showing off,
And not because of obsession with health, but merely for the sake
of maintaining the body.

(39) O Lord of Propriety, having passed the whole day
And the first and last periods of the night (in constructive deeds),
Go to sleep with mindfulness in between these two (periods),
Without making your sleeping time fruitless.

(40) Always meditate properly on love,
Compassion, joy, and equanimity.
Even if you do not receive, like that, the highest (goal, nirvana),
You will (at least) attain a Brahma realm’s bliss.

(41) By means of the four dhyana states of mental constancy,
Which rid you of the experience of desire realm (objects), physical joy,
mental bliss, and suffering,
You achieve fortune equal to the gods of the celestial realms
of the Brahmas,
Brilliant Light, Full Virtue, and the Greatest Fruit.

(42) The mightiness of karmic actions,
whether constructive or destructive,
derives from five aspects:
Their frequency, (the motivating emotion) adhering to them,
the absence of opposing forces,
(The benefit or harm created by) the basis (at whom they’re aimed),
and the major good qualities possessed (by that basis).
Therefore, make effort in constructive behavior (having these five).

(43) Just as a few grams of salt can transform the taste
of a small quantity of water,
But not that of the Ganges River,
Realize that minor negative karmic actions are, in fact, like that
With respect to vast roots of constructive force.

(44) Flightiness of mind and regret, ill will, foggymindedness
and sleepiness,
Desirous intents, and indecisive wavering –
Realize that these five obstacles are the thieves
That plunder the gems of constructive (behavior).

(45) Belief in fact, joyful perseverance, and mindfulness,
Absorbed concentration, and discriminating awareness
are the five supreme Dharma measures.
Strive after them. These are known as the forces and the powers,
And also what brings you to the peak.

(46) “I have not gone beyond sickness, old age, or death,
or being parted from what’s pleasing,
Or beyond what my karma will do to me.”
Through the gateway of its antidote,
repeatedly thinking like that,
You won’t become smug.

(47) If you desire higher rebirth status or liberation,
Make into a habit a correct view.
For persons having a distorted view, even good deeds
Will all have unbearable ripening (results).

(4 8) Know that people, in actuality, have no happiness,
Are not permanent, do not have a self, and are not clean.
Those not having (these four) close placements of mindfulness
Regard (people) in the four reverse (ways)
and (thereby) are devastated.

(49) It has been said that forms are not the self,
The self is not the possessor of forms,
A self does not abide in forms,
and forms do not abide in a self.
Like that, understand that the remaining four aggregates
are (also) devoid (of an impossible self).

(50) The aggregates (come) not from a triumph of wishing,
not from (permanent) time,
Not from primal matter, not from an essential nature,
Not from the Powerful Creator Ishvara, and not from having no cause.
Know that they arise from unawareness, karmic actions, and craving.

(51) Holding deluded morality or conduct as supreme,
Viewing one’s body in a reverse way, and indecisive wavering –
Realize that these three yokes are barriers
Across the gateway to the city of liberation.

(52) Liberation depends on oneself. In this,
Since there’s nothing (to be gained) through assistance from others,
Make effort in (realizing) the four truths
Through (gaining) possession of listening, discipline,
and stability of mind.

(53) Always train in higher ethical discipline,
higher discriminating awareness,
And higher mental (concentration).
The hundred plus (a hundred) and fifty plus (three)
(monastic) trainings (constitute) the first (higher training),
And the three (higher trainings) are fully gathered in it.

(54) O Powerful Lord, the Blissfully Gone (Buddha) has indicated that
Mindfulness of the characteristic (behavior) of the body
is the singular path to traverse.
Holding it tightly, safeguard it (well).
Through a decline in mindfulness, all Dharma measures fall apart.

(55) Many things can damage your life: it’s more impermanent
Than a bubble on a river, tossed by the wind.
Any respite (from death) you may have –
to breathe out (after) breathing in,
And to awaken from having fallen asleep – that’s utterly amazing.

(56) The endpoint of the body is to wind up as ashes, or to wind up
dried out or putrefied,
Or in the end (to become) excrement. Realize that,
Having no essence, it’s something that’ll be consumed,
Desiccate, rot, or be chewed into bits.

(57) If even the earth, Mount Meru, and the oceans –
these (physical) bodies –
Will burn up through the shining of seven suns,
So that not even their ashes will remain,
What need is there to mention something extremely frail
like (the body of) a man?

(5 8) Thus, all these are impermanent, without a solid “soul,”
They’re not a refuge, not a protector, and not a resting place.
Therefore, Highest of Men, you must develop disgust
For recurring samsara: it has no essence, (like) a plantain tree.

(59) Since even more difficult than the meeting of a turtle
And the hole in a solitary yoke located on the ocean
Is the attainment of a human state from that of a creeping creature,
Make that (attainment) with human faculties be fruitful
through practicing the hallowed Dharma.

(60) Even more foolish than someone who uses
A golden vessel adorned with gems to collect his vomit,
Is someone who, having been born as a human,
Performs negative deeds.

(61) (Now,) you possess the four great wheels:
You live in a land that’s conducive (for Dharma),
You rely on hallowed beings, by nature you’re prayerful,
And in the past, as well, you’ve built up positive force.

(62) Sage (Buddha) has said that reliance on a spiritual master
(Brings) complete fulfillment of a spiritual life.
Therefore, rely on hallowed beings.
So many have attained the peace (of nirvana)
by having relied on the Triumphant Ones.

(63) Rebirth as someone holding a distorted, antagonistic outlook,
As a creeping creature, a clutching ghost, or in a joyless realm,
Or rebirth where the words of the Triumphant are absent,
or as a barbarian
In a savage border region, or stupid and dumb,

(64) Or as a long-lived god – rebirths as any (of these)
Are the eight faulty states that have no leisure.
Having found leisure, being parted from them,
Make effort for the sake of turning away from (further) rebirth.

(65) Good sir, develop disgust for recurring samsara,
The source of manifold sufferings, (such as) a poverty
of (getting) the things that you want,
Death, sickness, old age, and more.
Listen to even just some of its faults.

(66) Since a father (can be reborn) with the status of a son;
a mother, with the status of a wife;
Those who had been enemies, with the status of friends;
And the reverse situation can occur (as well),
Because of that, there’s no certainty at all in samsaric states.

(67) Each (being) has drunk more milk than in (all) the four oceans,
And still, with the succeeding samsaric
(Rebirths) of ordinary beings,
There’s a much greater amount than that to be drunk.

(6 8) For each (being), the pile of their own bones
would have been an amount
Equal to Mount Meru or would have surpassed (it).
And, with pellets merely the size of the stone of a juniper berry,
There’s not enough earth, in fact, for counting (how many times
each being has been each member of each one’s) maternal lines.

(69) Having become an Indra, fit to be honored by the world,
You fall back again upon the earth through the power of karma.
Even having changed to the status of a Universal Chakravartin King,
You transform into someone with the rank of a servant
in samsaric states.

(70) Having for a long time experienced the pleasure of the touch
Of the breasts and hips of maidens of the higher rebirth realms,
Once again you’ll have to entrust yourself to the unbearable touch
Of the implements for crushing, cutting, and subjugating in the hells.

(71) Having dwelled for long on the heights of Mount Meru,
With the (most) bearable pleasure of bouncing at the touch of your feet,
Once again, you’ll be struck with the unbearable pain
Of wading through smoldering embers and a putrefying swamp.
Think about that!

(72) Having been served by maidens of higher rebirths,
And having frolicked, staying in pleasurable and beautiful groves,
Once again you’ll get your legs, arms, ears, and nose cut off
Through grove-like places having leaves like swords.

(73) Having basked, with celestial maidens having beautiful faces,
In Gently Flowing (Heavenly Rivers) having lotuses of gold,
Once again you’ll be plunged into Uncrossable Infernal Rivers
With intolerably caustic boiling waters.

(74) Having attained the extremely great pleasures of
the desirable sense objects of the celestial realms,
And the pleasures of the state of a Brahma,
which are free of attachment, You’ll have to entrust yourself,
once again, to an unbroken continuum of sufferings
From having become the fuel of the flames
of (a joyless realm of) unrelenting pain.

(75) Having attained the state of a sun or a moon,
With the light of your body illuminating countless worlds,
Once again you’ll have arrived in the gloom of darkness,
And then won’t see even your outstretched hand.

(76) (So,) let the positive force from (knowing that samsara)
has come to have faults like those
Make the light of the lamp of your threefold (practice) advance,
(Otherwise,) you’ll be plunged all alone in an infinite darkness
That can’t be stamped out by the sun or the moon.

(77) For limited beings who commit faulty acts
There’ll be the constant suffering in joyless realms:
(Known as) reviving, black thread, intensely heating,
Crushing, howling, pain unrelenting, and the likes.

(7 8) Some are pressed like sesame, and likewise others
Are ground into powder like the finest flour.
Some are cut up with saws, and likewise others
Are split with unbearable sharp-bladed axes.

(79) Likewise, some are made to drink, till completely filled,
Flaming broths of melted, boiling liquid (iron);
And some are impaled straight through
On barbed iron stakes, blazing with flames.

(80) Some are overpowered by ferocious dogs having iron fangs
And throw their hands up to the sky;
And others, powerless, have ravens, with sharp iron beaks
And unbearable claws, peck out (their eyes).

(81) Some, by having maggots, assorted bugs, horseflies,
And tens of thousands of black hornets tremendously inflict
The kinds of wounds that are unbearable to be touched,
Are eaten up and, pillaged, cry out with screams.

(82) Some are burned in a mass of blazing coals, without relent,
Their mouths just gaping open;
And some are boiled in great cauldrons made from iron,
(Tumbling) topsy-turvy, like dumplings of rice.

(83) Anyone with negative karmic force, who’s not terrified,
in a thousand ways,
From hearing about the immeasurable sufferings in the joyless realms
That they are cut off from by merely the stopping of a single breath,
Must have a nature (as hard) as a diamond.

(84) (Because,) if even seeing paintings of the joyless realms,
Hearing (about them), holding (images of them) in your mind,
Reading about or (watching) physical enactments (of them)
makes you generate terror,
What need to mention when you’d actually have to experience (them)
as the unbearable ripening (of your negative karma)?

(85) Just as, from among all pleasures, that of the depletion of craving
Is set as the overlord of pleasures;
So too, from among all sufferings, the sufferings of the joyless realms
Of unrelenting pain are the most unbearable.

(86) However much suffering there might be in this (world)
From being violently stabbed for a day with three hundred spears,
That doesn’t even roughly (approach), it doesn’t even match a fraction
Of the tiniest sufferings in the joyless realms.

(87) Even if you experience extremely unbearable sufferings like that
For hundreds of millions of years,
So long as your destructive force has not been depleted,
You’ll not be parted from (that) life for that long.

(8 8) The seeds of these fruits of destructive force
Are the faulty actions of your body, speech, and mind.
(So,) with all your strength, make effort such that
You’ll not have had even a speck of them from anything whatsoever.

(89) Even when in the state of an animal rebirth,
there are all sorts of sufferings:
Being slaughtered, tied up, being beaten, and so on.
For those who’ve had to give up (the ability for) constructive behavior
leading to (a state of) peace,
There’s the extremely unbearable devouring of one another.

(90) Some are killed for the sake of (their) pearls or wool,
Or bones, meat, or pelts;
While others, being powerless, are forced into servitude,
Beaten with kicks, fists, or whips, or with hooks or with prods.

(91) Clutching ghosts also have an unbroken stream of sufferings,
Which flow from their being starved of what they long for.
They must entrust themselves to the extremely unbearable (state)
That builds up from being hungry, thirsty, cold, hot, and scared.

(92) Some, with bellies as (huge) in size as a mountain,
(Connected) to mouths, the mere eye of a needle,
Are tortured by hunger, not having the capacity
To eat even the tiniest lump of filth thrown away.

(93) Some, with bodies (just) skin and bones, and naked,
Are like the withered trunk-tops of palmyra palm trees;
While some blaze (flames) from their mouths in the sphere of the night,
Having to eat blazing sand as their food, poured into their mouths.

(94) Several lower classes cannot find even filth,
Such as pus, or excrement, or blood, or the likes;
They beat each other in the face and gobble down the oozing pus
That drips out from goiters on their necks.

(95) For them, in summertime, even the moon seems hot,
And in the winter, even the sun seems cold;
Trees seem to become barren of fruit,
by their merely having glanced (at them),
And rivers seem to become dried up.

(96) Some having bodies tightly bound
By the grappling rope of the karma of their faulty deeds
That have made them entrust themselves to sufferings, unbroken,
Never come to die for five thousand or ten thousand years.

(97) Whatever various sufferings there are, (all) of one taste,
That the clutching ghosts have received like those,
The cause for them is delighting in stinginess as a human;
And Buddha has said that misers are ignoble.

(9 8) Even though higher status (celestial beings have) great bliss,
The level of suffering at their death
and shift-down is much greater than that.
Having considered like that, respectable people would never crave after
Exhaustible higher status rebirth.

(99) “The color of your body turns ugly;
There’s no delight in your seat; your flower garlands wilt;
Your clothes become smelly; and sweat comes out on your body,
Which it never did before,”

(100) (These) five early signs that herald your death and shift-down
from a higher status
Appear to celestials in higher status rebirth states,
Just as signs of death (appear) to humans on earth,
Heralding impending death.

(101) If, at the shift-down from the celestial worlds,
they’ve no remainder
Left at all of constructive force, they transform, thereafter,
Without control, to a rebirth state as a creeping creature,
a clutching ghost,
Or a being trapped in a joyless realm, whichever it may be.

(102) The would-be divine also have great mental suffering
Because of hostility, by nature, toward the glory of the celestial ones.
Although having intelligence, they cannot see the truth
Because of obscurations of (their) rebirth state.

(103) Since recurring samsara’s like that, there’s no wonderful rebirth
As a celestial, a human, a joyless realm being, a clutching ghost,
or a creeping creature.
So know that rebirth is something that turns out to be
(No more than) a vessel for numerous harms.

(104) So, even if a fire has suddenly broken out on your head
or your clothing,
Give up trying to cast them off, and make effort instead
For the sake of trying to extinguish further compulsive rebirth.
There’s no other necessity more superior than that.

(105) With ethical self-disciplines, discriminating awareness,
and mental stability,
Attain a high state of nirvana, pacified, tamed, and without any stains,
With no aging, no dying, and never depleting,
Parted from earth, water, fire, and wind, sun, and moon.

(106) Mindfulness, differentiating-awareness of phenomena,
perseverance,
Joy, a sense of fitness, absorbed concentration, and equanimity –
These seven are the branch (causes) for a purified state:
They’re the network of constructive factors to bring about
an attainment of nirvana.

(107) Without discriminating awareness,
there can be no mental stability;
And without mental stability, as well,
there can be no discriminating awareness.
But, anyone having both of them will be able to make the ocean
of (their) compulsive existence
Like (a puddle in) the hoof print of an ox.

(10 8) (Buddha,) the Kinsman of the Sun, has declared that there are
Fourteen (questions for which) he wouldn’t specify (an answer)
to the world.
Whatever they are, don’t think about them.
A mind (that’s concerned) about them
isn’t one that can pacify (suffering).

(109) From unawareness, karmic impulses come forth;
From them, consciousness; from that, name and form;
From them, the cognitive stimulators are caused;
And from them, contacting awareness, the Able Sage has declared.

(110) From contacting awareness,
feelings (of a level of happiness) originate;
On the basis of feelings, craving comes to arise;
From craving, an obtainer emotion or attitude comes to develop;
From that, a survival impulse; and from a survival impulse, rebirth.

(111) When rebirth has occurred, then an extremely great mass
Of sufferings will have arisen, such as sorrow, sickness, aging,
Deprivation of what we desire, and fear of death;
But, by stopping rebirth, all of these (sufferings) will have been stopped.

(112) This dependent arising,
the (most) cherished (gem) in the treasure
Of the Triumphant One’s proclamations, is profound;
Whoever sees it correctly sees the Buddha,
The supreme Knower of Reality.

(113) Right view and livelihood and effort,
Mindfulness and absorbed concentration,
speech and boundary of actions,
And right thought are the eight branches of a pathway mind:
You need to meditate on them for the sake of bringing yourself
the peace (of nirvana).

(114) This rebirth is suffering; that which is called craving
Is the wide-ranging originator of that;
The stopping of this is liberation; and the pathway mind
For the attainment of that is eightfold:
those branches of an arya’s pathway mind.

(115) With it being like that, you need always to strive
For the sake of seeing the four truths of the aryas.
Even householders, in whose laps rest glory,
Can ford cross the rivers of the cognitive and emotional
(mental obscurations).

(116) Whoever’s made the Dharma manifest (in themselves) –
They’re not, in fact, (beings) who’ve fallen from the sky;
They aren’t (beings) who’ve sprung up, like crops,
from the womb of the earth;
They were merely (ordinary) people before, who were dependent
on their disturbing emotions; and so,

(117) What need to counsel (you) more, Fearless One?
The (most) important advice that’s of benefit is this:
Tame your mind! The Vanquishing Master has proclaimed,
“Mind is the root of (all preventive measures) of Dharma.”

(11 8) Whatever guidelines there are for you in those words
Would be difficult even for a monk to carry out perfectly.
(So, try to make as) the essential nature of your conduct
whatever (aspects) of these (that you can),
And by entrusting (yourself) to the good qualities (coming) from that,
make (this) lifetime meaningful.

(119) (Then,) having rejoiced in all the constructive (deeds) of everyone
And dedicated fully, for the sake of attaining the state of a Buddha,
The three aspects of your own good conduct as well;
And then, with this stockpile of positive (force) from that,

(120) You’ve mastered all the yogas, in countless rebirths
In the worlds of the gods and of men,
And have nurtured numerous wretched beings
With the conduct of an Arya Avalokiteshvara,

(121) (Then,) having taken a (final) rebirth, and rid yourself
Of sickness, old age, desire, and anger,
Make (that) lifetime immeasurably (long) as a guardian for the world,
Like the Vanquishing Master Amitabha in (his) Buddha-field.

(122, 123) (Then,) having spread throughout the celestial realms, space,
and on the face of the earth
The stainless great fame of discriminating awareness, ethical discipline,
and generous giving,
And subsequently, having attained the powerful state
of a Triumphant One –
Which, for men on the earth and celestials in higher status realms,
Completely and definitively quiets down their taking delight
in pleasures with outstanding young maidens and (other) delights,

In other words, which, for the masses of limited beings,
wretched through their disturbing emotions,
Quells their fears, their births and their deaths –
Then attain the high rank which is beyond the perishable world:
Name-only, fearless in its peace, unaging, never possessing a flaw.

~

"The Greatest Cheat": The Baniya (Courtesy Roy)

>>The Banyan: Follows the Soldier, though as contrary in Humour,
as the Antipodes in the same Meridian are opposite on to
another: These have forgot if ever they were Jews, or no, but
if any of these People are such, these are most likely; ad by
a double Right of Jew and Gentile, are a Compound of the
greates Cheat in the World, the fittest therefore to make
Brokers and Merchants of.<<

Source: Sir Thomas Roe and Dr. John Fryer, Travels in India in
the Seventeenth Century, London: Trübner and Co, 1873, p. 445
(the travel took place in 1615-18).

Note Courtesy of Roy, yet another overworked historian. He had to come up for air eventually.

As for the spelling 'Banyan', it is not, of course, a mistake. Though today we preserve this form for the tree, and use in Hindi 'Bania' for the tradesmen, the words are related.

Here is Hobson-Jobson to the rescue:


BANYAN-TREE, also elliptically Banyan , s. The Indian Fig-Tree (Ficus Indica, or Ficus bengalensis, L.), called in H. baṛ [or baṛgat, the latter the "Bourgade" of Bernier (ed. Constable, p. 309).] The name appears to have been first bestowed popularly on a famous tree of this species growing near Gombroon (q.v.), under which the Banyans or Hindu traders settled at that port, had built a little pagoda. So says Tavernier below. This original Banyan-tree is described by P. della Valle (ii. 453), and by Valentijn (v. 202). P. della Valle's account (1622) is extremely interesting, but too long for quotation. He calls it by the Persian name, lūl. The tree still stood, within half a mile of the English factory, in 1758, when it was visited by Ives, who quotes Tickell's verses given below. [Also see CUBEER BURR.]

(1) BANYAN, s. a. A Hindu trader, and especially of the Province of Guzerat; many of which class have for ages been settled in Arabian ports and known by this name; but the term is often applied by early travellers in Western India to persons of the Hindu religion generally. b. In Calcutta also it is (or perhaps rather was) specifically applied to the native brokers attached to houses of business, or to persons in the employment of a private gentleman doing analogous duties (now usually called sircar).

The word was adopted from Vāṇiya, a man of the trading caste (in Gujarāti vāṇiyo), and that comes from Skt. vaṇij, 'a merchant.' The terminal nasal may be a Portuguese addition (as in palanquin, mandarin, Bassein), or it may be taken from the plural form vāṇiyān. It is probable, however, that the Portuguese found the word already in use by the Arab traders. Sidi 'Ali, the Turkish Admiral, uses it in precisely the same form, applying it to the Hindus generally; and in the poem of Sassui and Panhu, the Sindian Romeo and Juliet, as given by Burton in his Sindh (p. 101), we have the form Wāniyān. P. F. Vincenzo Maria, who is quoted below absurdly alleges that the Portuguese called these Hindus of Guzerat Bagnani, because they were always washing themselves ". . . . chiamati da Portughesi Bagnani, per la frequenza e superstitione, con quale si lauano piu volte il giorno" (251). See also Luillier below. The men of this class proféss an extravagant respect for animal life; but after Stanley brought home Dr. Livingstone's letters they became notorious as chief promoters of slavetrade in Eastern Africa. A. K. Forbes speaks of the mediaeval Wānias at the Court of Anhilwāra as "equally gallant in the field (with Rajputs), and wiser in council . . . already in profession puritans of peace, but not yet drained enough of their fiery Kshatri blood." -- (Rās Māla, i. 240; [ed. 1878, 184].)

Bunya is the form in which vāṇiya appears in the Anglo-Indian use of Bengal, with a different shade of meaning, and generally indicating a graindealer.

1516. -- "There are three qualities of these Gentiles, that is to say, some are called Razbuts . . . others are called Banians, and are merchants and traders." -- Barbosa, 51.

1552. -- " . . . Among whom came cer- tain men who are called Baneanes of the same heathen of the Kingdom of Cambaia . . . coming on board the ship of Vasco da Gama, and seeing in his cabin a pictorial image of Our Lady, to which our people did reverence, they also made adoration with much more fervency. . . ."-<-> Barros, Dec., I. liv. iv. cap. 6.

1555. -- "We may mention that the in- habitants of Guzerat call the unbelievers Banyāns, whilst the inhabitants of Hindustan call them Hindū." -- Sidi 'Ali Kapudān, in J. As., 1ère S. ix. 197-8.

1563. -- "R. If the fruits were all as good as this (mango) it would be no such great matter in the Baneanes, as you tell me, not to eat flesh. And since I touch on this matter, tell me, prithee, who are these Baneanes . . . who do not eat flesh ? . . . " -- Garcia, f. 136.

1608. -- "The Gouernour of the Towne of Gandeuee is a Bannyan, and one of those kind of people that obserue the Law of Pythagoras." -- Jones, in Purchas, i. 231.

[1610. -- "Baneanes." See quotation under BANKSHALL, a.]

1623. -- "One of these races of Indians is that of those which call themselves Vanià, but who are called, somewhat corruptly by the Portuguese, and by all our other Franks, Banians; they are all, for the most part, traders and brokers." -- P. della Valle, i. 486 -- 7; [and see i. 78 Hak. Soc.].

1630. -- "A people presented themselves to mine eyes, cloathed in linnen garments, somewhat low descending, of a gesture and garbe, as I may say, maidenly and well nigh effeminate; of a countenance shy, and somewhat estranged; yet smiling out a glosed and bashful familiarity. . . . I
asked what manner of people these were, so strangely notable, and notably strange. Reply was made that they were Banians." -- Lord, Preface.

1665. -- "In trade these Banians are a thousand times worse than the Jews; more expert in all sorts of cunning tricks, and more maliciously mischievous in their revenge. " -- Tavernier, E. T. ii. 58; [ed. Ball, i. 136, and see i. 91].

c. 1666. -- "Aussi chacun a son Banian dans les Indes, et il y a des personnes de qualité qui leur confient tout ce qu'ils ont . . . ." -- Thevenot, v. 166. This passage shows in anticipation the transition to the Calcutta use (b., below).

1672. -- "The inhabitants are called Gui- zeratts and Benyans." -- Baldaeus, 2.

" "It is the custom to say that to make one Bagnan (so they call the Gentile Merchants) you need three Chinese, and to make one Chinese three Hebrews." -- P. F. Vincenzo di Maria, 114.

1673. -- "The Banyan follows the Soldier, though as contrary in Humour as the Antipodes in the same Meridian are opposite to one another. . . . In Cases of Trade they are not so hide-bound, giving their Consciences more Scope, and boggle at no Villainy for an Emolument." -- Fryer, 193.

1677. -- "In their letter to Ft. St. George, 15th March, the Court offer ₤20 reward to any of our servants or soldiers as shall be able to speak, write, and translate the Banian language, and to learn their arithmetic. " -- In Madras Notes and Exts., No. I. p. 18.

1705. -- " . . . ceux des premieres castes, comme les Baignans." -- Luillier, 106.

1813. -- " . . . it will, I believe, be gener- ally allowed by those who have dealt much with Banians and merchants in the larger trading towns of India, that their moral character cannot be held in high estimation. " -- Forbes, Or. Mem. ii. 456.

1877. -- "Of the Wani, Banyan, or trader- caste there are five great families in this country." -- Burton, Sind Revisited, ii. 281.

b.-

1761. -- "We expect and positively direct that if our servants employ Banians or black people under them, they shall be accountable for their conduct." -- The Court of Directors, in Long, 254.

1764. -- "Resolutions and Orders. That no Moonshee, Linguist, Banian, or Writer, be allowed to any officer, excepting the Commander-in-Chief." -- Ft. William Proc., in Long, 382.

1775. -- "We have reason to suspect that the intention was to make him (Nundcomar) Banyan to General Clavering, to surround the General and us with the Governor's creatures, and to keep us totally unacquainted with the real state of the Government. " -- Minute by Clavering, Monson, and Francis, Ft. William, 11th April. In Price's Tracts, ii. 138.

1780. -- "We are informed that the Juty Wallahs or Makers and Vendors of Bengal Shoes in and about Calcutta . . . intend sending a Joint Petition to the Supreme Council . . . on account of the great decay of their Trade, entirely owing to the Luxury of the Bengalies, chiefly the Bangans (sic) and Sarcars, as there are scarce any of them to be found who does not keep a Chariot, Phaeton, Buggy or Pallanquin, and some all four . . ." -- In Hicky's Bengal Gazette, June 24th.

1783. -- "Mr. Hastings' bannian was, after this auction, found possessed of territories yielding a rent of ₤140,000 a year." -- Burke, Speech on E. I. Bill, in Writings, &c., iii. 490.

1786. -- "The said Warren Hastings did permit and suffer his own banyan or principal black steward, named Canto Baboo, to hold farms . . . to the amount of 13 lacs of rupees per annum." -- Art. agst. Hastings, Burke, vii. 111.

" "A practice has gradually crept in among the Banians and other rich men of Calcutta, of dressing some of their servants . . . nearly in the uniform of the Honourable Company's Sepoys and Lascars. . . ." -- Notification, in Seton Karr, i. 122.

1788. -- "Banyan -- A Gentoo servant em- ployed in the management of commercial affairs. Every English gentleman at Bengal has a Banyan who either acts of himself, or as the substitute of some great man or black merchant." -- Indian Vocabulary (Stockdale).

1810. -- "The same person frequently was banian to several European gentlemen; all of whose concerns were of course accurately known to him, and thus became the subject of conversation at those meetings the banians of Calcutta invariably held. . . ." -- Williamson, V. M. i. 189.

1817. -- "The European functionary . . . has first his banyan or native secretary."-<-> Mill, Hist. (ed. 1840), iii. 14. Mr. Mill does not here accurately interpret the word.

(2). BANYAN, s. An undershirt, originally of muslin, and so called as resembling the body garment of the Hindus; but now commonly applied to under body-clothing of elastic cotton, woollen, or silk web. The following quotations illustrate the stages by which the word reached its present application. And they show that our predecessors in India used to adopt the native or Banyan costume in their hours of ease. C. P. Brown defines Banyan as "a loosedressinggown, such as Hindu tradesmen wear." Probably this may have been the original use; but it is never so employed in Northern India.

1672. -- "It is likewise ordered that both Officers and Souldiers in the Fort shall, both on every Sabbath Day, and on every day when they exercise, weare English apparel; in respect the garbe is most becoming as Souldiers, and correspondent to their profession. " -- Sir W. Langhorne's Standing Order, in Wheeler, iii. 426.

1731. -- "The Ensign (as it proved, for his first appearance, being undressed and in his banyon coat, I did not know him) came off from his cot, and in a very haughty manner cried out, 'None of your disturbance, Gentlemen. '" -- In Wheeler, iii. 109.

1781. -- "I am an Old Stager in this Country, having arrived in Calcutta in the Year 1736. . . . Those were the days, when Gentlemen studied Ease instead of Fashion; when even the Hon. Members of the Council met in Banyan Shirts, Long Drawers (q.v.), and Conjee (Congee) caps; with a Case Bottle of good old Arrack, and a Gouglet of Water placed on the Table, which the Secretary (a Skilful Hand) frequently converted into Punch . . ." -- Letter from An Old Country Captain, in India Gazette, Feb. 24th.

[1773. -- In a letter from Horace Walpole to the Countess of Upper Ossory, dated April 30th, 1773 (Cunningham's ed., v. 459) he describes a ball at Lord Stanley's, at which two of the dancers, Mr. Storer and Miss Wrottesley, were dressed "in banians with furs, for winter, cock and hen." It would be interesting to have further details of these garments, which were, it may be hoped, different from the modern Banyan.]

1810. -- " . . . an undershirt, commonly called a banian." -- Williamson, V.M. i. 19.

For more on the tree:


c. A.D. 70. -- "First and foremost, there is a Fig -- tree there (in India) which beareth very small and slender figges. The propertie of this Tree, is to plant and set it selfe without mans helpe. For it spreadeth out with mightie armes, and the lowest water-boughes underneath, do bend so downeward to the very earth, that they touch it againe, and lie upon it: whereby, within one years space they will take fast root in the ground, and put foorth a new Spring round about the Mother-tree: so as these braunches, thus growing, seeme like a traile or border of arbours most curiously and artificially made," &c. -- Plinies Nat. Historie, by Philemon Holland, i. 360.

1624.-
" . . . The goodly bole being got
To certain cubits' height, from every side
The boughs decline, which, taking root afresh,
Spring up new boles, and these spring new, and newer,
Till the whole tree become a porticus,
Or arched arbour, able to receive
A numerous troop."
Ben Jonson, Neptune's Triumph.


c. 1650. -- "Cet Arbre estoit de même espece que celuy qui est a une lieue du Bander, et qui passe pour une merveille; mais dans les Indes il y en a quantité. Les Persans l'appellent Lul, les Portugais Arber de Reys, et les Francais l'Arbre des Banianes; parce que les Banianes ont fait bâtir dessous une Pagode avec un carvansera accompagné de plusieurs petits étangs pour se laver." -- Tavernier, V. de Perse, liv. v. ch. 23. [Also see ed. Ball, ii. 198.]

c. 1650. -- "Near to the City of Ormus was a Bannians tree, being the only tree that grew in the Island." -- Tavernier, Eng. Tr. i. 255.

c. 1666. -- "Nous vimes à cent ou cent cinquante pas de ce jardin, l'arbre War dans toute son etenduë. On l'appelle aussi Ber, et arbre des Banians, et arbre des racines . . . ." -- Thevenot, v. 76.

1667.-
"The fig-tree, not that kind for fruit renown'd;
But such as at this day, to Indians known,
In Malabar or Decan spreads her arms
Branching so broad and long, that in the ground
The bended twigs take root, and daughters grow
About the mother-tree, a pillar'd shade
High over-arch'd, and echoing walks between. " Paradise Lost, ix. 1101.


[Warton points out that Milton must have had in view a description of the Banyantree in Gerard's Herbal under the heading "of the arched Indian fig-tree."]

1672. -- "Eastward of Surat two Courses, i.e. a League, we pitched our Tent under a Tree that besides its Leafs, the Branches bear its own Roots, therefore called by the Portugals, Arbor de Raiz; For the Adoration the Banyans pay it, the Banyan-Tree." -- Fryer, 105.

1691. -- "About a (Dutch) mile from Gamron . . . stands a tree, heretofore described by Mandelslo and others. . . . Beside this tree is an idol temple where the Banyans do their worship." -- Valentijn, v. 267-8.

1717.-
"The fair descendants of thy sacred bed
Wide -- branching o'er the Western World shall spread,
Like the fam'd Banian Tree, whose pliant shoot
To earth ward bending of itself takes root,
Till like their mother plant ten thousand stand
In verdant arches on the fertile land;
Beneath her shade the tawny Indians rove,
Or hunt at large through the wide-echoing grove."
Tickell, Epistle from a Lady in England tò a Lady in Avignon.


1726. -- "On the north side of the city (Sūrat) is there an uncommonly great Pichar or Waringin* tree. . . The Portuguese call this tree Albero de laiz, i.e. Root-tree. . . . Under it is a small chapel built by a Benyan. . . . Day and night lamps are alight there, and Benyans constantly come in pilgrimage, to offer their prayers to this saint."-<-> Valentijn, iv. 145.

1771. -- ". . . being employed to con- struct a military work at the fort of Triplasore (afterwards called Marsden's Bastion) it was necessary to cut down a banyan-tree which so incensed the brahmans of that place, that they found means to poison him" (i.e. Thomas Marsden of the Madras Engineers). -- Mem. of W. Marsden, 7-8.

1809. -- "Their greatest enemy (i.e. of the buildings) is the Banyan-Tree." -- Ld.Valentia, i. 396.

Waringin is the Javanese name of a sp. kindred to the banyan, Ficus benjamina, L.

1810.-
"In the midst an aged Banian grew.
It was a goodly sight to see
That venerable tree,
For o'er the lawn, irregularly spread,
Fifty straight columns propt its lofty head;
And many a long depending shoot,
Seeking to strike its root,
Straight like a plummet grew towards the ground,
Some on the lower boughs which crost their way,
Fixing their bearded fibres, round and round,
With many a ring and wild contortion wound;
Some to the passing wind at times, with sway
Of gentle motion swung;
Others of younger growth, unmoved, were hung
Like stone-drops from the cavern's fretted height."
Southey, Curse of Kehama, xiii. 51. [Southey takes his account from Williamson, Orient. Field Sports, ii. 113.]


1821.-
"Des banians touffus, par les brames adorés,
Depuis longtemps la langueur nous implore,
Courbés par le midi, dont l'ardeur les dévore,
Ils étendent vers nous leurs rameaux altérés."
Casimir Delavigne, Le Paria, iii. 6.


A note of the publishers on the preceding passage, in the edition of 1855, is diverting:

"Un journaliste allemand a accusé M. Casimir Delavigne d'avoir pris pour un arbre une secte religieuse de l'Inde. . . ." The German journalist was wrong here, but he might have found plenty of matter for ridicule in the play. Thus the Brahmins (men) are Akebar (!), Idamore (!!), and Empsael (!!!); their women Néala (?), Zaide (!), and Mirza (!!).

1825. -- "Near this village was the finest banyan-tree which I had ever seen, literally a grove rising from a single primary stem, whose massive secondary trunks, with their straightness, orderly arrangement, and evident connexion with the parent stock, gave the general effect of a vast vegetable organ. The first impression which I felt on coming under its shade was, 'What a noble place of worship!'" -- Heber, ii. 93 (ed. 1844).

1834. -- "Cast forth thy word into the everliving, everworking universe; it is a seed -- grain that cannot die; unnoticed today, it will be found flourishing as a banyangrove -- (perhaps alas! as a hemlock forest) after a thousand years." -- Sartor Resartus.

1856.-
". . . its pendant branches, rooting in the air,
Yearn to the parent earth and grappling fast,

Grow up huge stems again, which shooting forth
In massy branches, these again despatch
Their drooping heralds, till a labyrinth
Of root and stem and branch commingling, forms
A great cathedral, aisled and choired in wood."
The Banyan Tree, a Poem.


1865. -- "A family tends to multiply fami- lies around it, till it becomes the centre of a tribe, just as the banyan tends to surround itself with a forest of its own offspring."-<-> Maclennan, Primitive Marriage, 269.

1878. -- ". . . des banyans soutenus par des racines aëriennes et dont les branches tombantes engendrent en touchant terre des sujets nouveaux." -- Rev. des Deux Mondes, Oct. 15, p. 832.

The Dangers of Field Work

It can be dangerous to go to far afield for one's research, whatever one's motivations. Three students of the Ecole Normale, were driven to distraction by the following note they found one day while doing what they do best, reading for written exams--


"Because of their sharp intelligence, and as the only group
of Brahmins who took to the Muslim culture, they [=Kashimri
Pandits] soon distinguished themselves in their own land
and, after Akbar's annexation of Kashimir, in the Mughal
court and administration in which they rose to become an
influential element."

Aziz Ahmad, "Studies in Islamic cutlure in the Indian
environment", p.107.

This note was found in an envelope which also contained a set of keys, a library stub, and two tickets to an opera, but the ink seemed to have runneth dry at this point, and no more can be made of this final document.

Nevertheless, these students, who disappeared, never to be seen again, have subsequently been identified as the men in this photograph:




shamelessly masquerading as Kashmiri Pandits masquerading as Dards. Whatever the guidebooks say, these are not Kashmiri Pandits, and the tag should be revised. It is also suspected that the gentlemen in the following picture



are deserters from Napolean's army who managed to set themselves up in the shawl business. Either that, or they were research assistants for Slyvain Levi. We cannot be sure, but the connection with the covert Shawl takeover bid of 1793, a dasdardly conspiracy of the Colonial Peripheral Metropoles recently uncovered by a Student of the Post-Post Collective, cannot be ignored. This organization united the peripheries of two empires in a mobile blue-water center, a blue-water center, centred in hegemonic Central Asia, and assorted subalternized and alternizing hookah dens along the suppressed trade routes into depressed Kashmir.

It might also be a brilliant bit of subversive reinscription of reticulated articulations--an intervention in fact, fucking with the archive. As the French do so well.

Buy This Book

Nyayakosa or Dictionary of Technical Terms of Indian Philosophy
Mahamabopadhyaya Bhimacarya Jhalakikar

Format: Hardcover, iv+32+1028p., 22cm.
Pub. Date: Jan 1996 , 4th Revised ed.
Publisher: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute
Language: Sanskrit
Series: Bombay Sanskrit And Prakrit Series No. XLIX




This dictionary is quite simply the best reference for technical terms in the Nyaya-Vaisesika tradition I know. It also clarifies usage in Samkhya and the Grammatical tradition. Lists them by text, and gives citations which exemplify the use to which they are put. Seriously: don't read another philosophical text without it. This one makes the pathetic attempts by the Moderns quite inexcusable. Someone ought to (a) translate this from Sanskrit (b) extend it by adding in Jaina, BauddhAdi terms.

Not Your Mother's Epic

Seeing Asoka in the game Civilization 4, I could not but feel happy. At last, they got something right. I cringed at the "spiritual" (I mean, this is, whatever the pillars say, a man who managed to conquer his way to history), but still, at least they knew someone besides Gandhi. And then I noticed, of course, that Gandhi was still "our" leader. And spiritual.


And that instead of SEALS, or horse archers, we get a "fast worker" as our special unit:


Don't worry for long. Virgin comics seems hell bent on making our stories safe for teenagers again. We won't get beat in school. After all, these are not the gods you remember. Can you recognize Rama, Ravana, or the fiercely realized Raksasas (who owe quite a lot to Orcs in the latest offering?)

Bsgrubs the Word (from the D-Mac)

Further thoughts on the etymology of “Tibet”...

The absence, previously passed over in silence, of any
etymology or even explanation of the word “bod” in the
otherwise insanely rigorous White Conch Encyclopedia (Dung
dkar tshig mdzod chen mo), is very noteworthy. Its complier,
Dungkar Rinpoche, is extremely exacting in his entries, and
the absence of any attempt at an etymology of Tibet is quite
odd. It can only mean that Dungkar himself was neither
interested, nor perceived an interest amongst his Tibetan
readership, in the origins of this word. To give the reader a
sense of this glaring omission: the first of many entries
concerning “bod” in this massive encyclopedia occurs in vol 2,
p. 1405: “bod kyi khos drug” (the six Tibetan administrative
units”). The last entry, “bod sa gnas srid gzhung ‘og gi sa
gnas rim pa’i spyi sgrig gzhi” - the “composition of
governors-general of the regions inferior to the (central)
Tibetan Government” - a rather high-fallootin’ term for
“states” - occurs on page 1461. So we have 56 pages,
including a full six on bod sa gnas srid gzhung
(“principalities of Tibet”), over four on bod gyi lo gsar
(“Tibetan new year”), etc - you get the picture. It is
distinctly possible that, this section having mainly to do
with contemporary (ie, Chinese-institutional) governance,
Dungkar was reluctant to write on possibly “separatist”
topics. I am not familiar with any etymology of Tibet which
has it owing everything in its entire history to China, but I
have no doubt that there are several, and Dungkar probably
chose silence over the less desirable options of acquiescing
to absurd propaganda, or printing something that might get him
into significant trouble.

It is somewhat surprising that Dungkar has equally little to
say about another possible etymology, “bon,” the name given to
the pre-Buddhist Tibetan religion, which apparently originated
in/from Central Asian influence.
On a completely different register: Dr Abu Bakr Amir-uddin
Nadwi relates the etymology of “Tibet,” which is generally
attributed to Persian sources earlier than any others, as
follows: In ancient times, the Turkish-based Tubba dynasty
ruled over Yemen, coinciding with a title given to old Tibetan
kings (i have no frame of reference for the truth of this
claim). He relates the story as follows, citing the Arabic
historian Yaqut Hamir:

"It is said that Tubba ul-Agran started from Yemen, crossed
the Jihun river and marched up to Samarkand. Finding the area
uninhabited, he founded a city there, rested for a few days
and then proceeded toward China. After a month’s journey he
reached a fertile land with an abundance of water. Here too
he founded another city and thirty thousand of his men, who
were not fit to travel onwards to China, were left behind to
colonize the place. He named this place ‘Tibet.’" (Tibet and
Tibetan Muslims, 6).

The idea of ‘leftover’ Yemeni soldiers providing the primal
stock of the Tibetan people seems... counterintuitive. Still,
the story is intriguing - and, unfortunately, not less bizarre
than any other account we have of Tibet’s etymology.

Despite its not-particularly-credible status, the account has
interesting consequences:

"The word ‘tubba,’ according to the dictionary (sic), is
connnected with the Arabic ‘tubba’ or ‘tabiat’ and may be
linked with the Arabic word ‘matbuh,’ that is, he who commands
obedience. However, according to latest research, ‘tubba’ is
a Hebrew word which means dominant, aggressive, powerful. It
is the equivalent of the word ‘sultan’ in Islamic parlance."
(Ibid, 8)

Dr. Nadwi concludes from all this, and other quotations, that
“the earliest settlers in Tibet were those Arabs who had
migrated there several centuries before Christ” (9).
I personally find this extremely difficult to believe, mainly
for linguistic reasons. For example, the Tibeto-Burman
language family is much closer to Chinese than to Arabic, and
these accounts do not mention these stout-hearted early Arabs
settling across the broad swath of Tibetan linguistic/cultural
influence, which ranges (and ranged, at the least) from
Tajikistan to Gansu down to Hunan provinces in China, and into
northern Thailand and Burma

It is also unclear exactly when these Yemeni forces might have
entered Tibet, but archaeological evidence suggests
settlements in Tibet proper (i.e., not Kashmir or Tajik, etc,
but part of the contemporary TAR) as early as 1500 BCE, and
certainly by 1000 BCE. Adding to the mystery is the origin of
the peoples of Shang-Shung, who settled between Tibet proper
and Persia, and who seemed to be have been deeply influenced
by Zoroastrian beliefs (cf. John Bellezza, _Antiquities of
Upper Tibet_).
As of now, I am struck with the thought that ‘Tibet’ seemed to some first and foremost a Persian word, and left without a satisfactory etymology.
Perhaps it will be solved when you, the intrepid reader, Tune
In Next Time.


DMac, the benign face of Orientalism.