Best wishes for a Peaceful Christmas and New Year...

[Jan E.M. Houben]

Dear All, 

According to Yoga-sūtra 2.35, अहिंसाप्रतिष्ठायां, तत्सन्निधौ वैरत्यागः ।  
which apparently means that when someone is thoroughly established in non-violence, (mutual) enmity disappears in his environment.
Commentaries and references given for aphorism and referred to for instance in James Wood’s translation emphasize that in this situation *even* wild animals, no more attack their prey. An example is Kirāṭārjunīya 2.55 (meter viyoginī): Vyāsa is looked at by Yudhiṣṭhira:
madhurair avaśāni lambhayann   api tiryañci śamaṃ nirīkṣitaiḥ  /
paritaḥ paṭu bibhrad enasāṃ   dahanaṃ dhāma vilokanakṣamam  //

“Calming even wild animals by his gentle looks, spreading a blazing radiance around which burns away guilt, (but which yet) can be gazed at (the sage, i.e., Vyāsa son of Parāśara, was seen by the king, Yudhiṣṭhira)” (tr. following Roodbergen 1984, p. 143; cp. also Raghuvaṁśa 13.50, 14.79.)
Are any more convincing stories or anecdotes known in Sanskrit literature, in which the peace-creating influence suggested in YS 2.35 inspires animals or *even* humans to behave in a more peaceful way ? 

With best wishes for a Peaceful Christmas New Year to all:

शान्ते !  ऽस्मिन् लोक एधस्व   विद्यातः प्रेमतस्तथा ।

तव भक्तजनानां च  कल्याणमस्तु सर्वदा ॥

--

Jan E.M. Houben

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

Sources et histoire de la tradition sanskrite

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

Sciences historiques et philologiques 

Groupe de recherches en études indiennes (EA 2120)

johannes.houben [at] ephe.psl.eu

https://ephe-sorbonne.academia.edu/JanEMHouben

https://www.classicalindia.info

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

et transformations d'un savoir scientifique

[Nagaraj Paturi]

In Mahabharata's Adiparva, Sambhavaparva, Shakuntalopaakhyaanam Chapter 64, 

Kanva's Ashrama  as entered by Dushyanta is described. 

There we have, 

तत्र व्यालमृगान्सौम्यान्पश्यन्प्रीतिमवाप सः ||१८||

Translating/transcreating this part of Mahabharata, the 11th century Telugu poet Nannaya gives a detailed description of sahavaasa of

sahajavairi animals in that Aashrama.

" Elephants that stood engrossed in hearing the ear-comforting Saamagaanas by the parrots. Lions that rested below

the trunks of these elephants enjoying the cooling the shower from the mouths of the elephants. Cats and mice

that were playing with each other while eating the rice bowls placed there as bhuutabali by the sages performing their daily

havanakaarya. Dushyanta, looking at this power of (Ahimsaa ) of Kanva, Dushyanta ......... "

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Nagaraj Paturi

 

Hyderabad, Telangana, INDIA.

Senior Director, IndicA

BoS, MIT School of Vedic Sciences, Pune, Maharashtra

BoS Kavikulaguru Kalidasa Sanskrit University, Ramtek, Maharashtra

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Former Senior Professor of Cultural Studies, 

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Hyderabad, Telangana, INDIA.

 

 

 

[Nagaraj Paturi]

" Elephants that stood engrossed in hearing the ear-comforting Saamagaanas by the parrots. Lions that rested below

the trunks of these elephants enjoying the cooling shower from the mouths of the elephants. Cats and mice

that were playing with each other while eating the rice bowls placed there as bhuutabali by the sages performing their daily

havanakaarya. Dushyanta, looking at this sahavaasa = living together of sahajavairi = naturally enemetic animals as the power

of (Ahimsaa ) of Kanva, Dushyanta ......... "

[Dr G Surya Prasad]

Respected Nagaraj Sir, Humble Pranams.

I wish to know the Telugu Padyam of the following meaning that you mentioned.....

 " Elephants that stood engrossed in hearing the ear-comforting Saamagaanas by the parrots. Lions that rested below

the trunks of these elephants enjoying the cooling shower from the mouths of the elephants. Cats and mice

that were playing with each other while eating the rice bowls placed there as bhuutabali by the sages performing their daily

havanakaarya. Dushyanta, looking at this sahavaasa = living together of sahajavairi = naturally enemetic animals as the power

of (Ahimsaa ) of Kanva, Dushyanta ......... "

WIth regards

G Surya Prasad

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[Nagaraj Paturi]

https://ebooks.tirumala.org/downloads/maha_bharatham_vol_1_adi_parvam_p-1.pdf

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[Dr G Surya Prasad]

धन्यवादाः महोदयाः।

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[Mathukumalli Vidyasagar]

Thank you Nagaraj garu!  I was planning to dig out my copy of the Mahabharatam and post the poem, but you were quicker.

Best wishes.

Sagar

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[Dhiren N. Sheth]

Hello Jan E. M. Houben,

 

The Mahakavya Soundarananda of Ashvaghosha has the 13^th shloka of its 1^st Sarga referring to wild animals living peacefully in the Ashram of Kapila Gautama.

 

 

अपि क्षुद्रमृगा यत्र शान्ताश्चेरुः समं मृगैः ।

 

शरण्येभ्यस्तपरोस्वभ्यो विनयं शिक्षिता इव ॥

 

 

Unfortunately I currently seem to only have access to a Hindi translation which may not work for you. Will look for an English translation and try and share.

 

 

Best Regards

Dhiren N. Sheth

--

[Nagaraj Paturi]

The following response on Indology list added more references :

Dear Jan,

while not belonging to Sanskrit literature, it seems worth mentioning an extensive passage in the Old Javanese Rāmāyaṇa, sargas 24 and 25. The former sarga describes the idyll in Laṅkā after Vibhīṣaṇa had succeeded Rāvaṇa, where both nature and human society are dominated by harmony (and yet, various animals allegorically representing ascetics take the opportunity to tease one another about their respective behaviours and religious observances). The latter describes sage Bharadvāja’s hermitage and the banks of the river Sarayū, populated by all kinds of birds and plants.

See e.g. 24.107:

The animals shared harmony together and a mind dominated by purity; not much time after, the people [too] became bright [in their minds].
The lions, all of them, were suddenly lovable; like relatives, like brothers, were the barking deer, feeling secure.
That is why the paramount effort of Him who protects the world was effective:
it is not difficult to achieve for the mind that has love as its rudder in the boat of compassion.

And 24.125:

Thus the animals were very faithful, staying together and licking [one another] as if they were taking an oath.
Wild dogs, tigers, bears, every wild animal had a gentle character at last.
That which flows out from the heart of the ruler of the world causes every animal that [formerly] fought each other to be companions.
How much more the people of the palace: with a firm heart they were fervently devoted to him.

The motif of ferocious animals becoming tame and living peacefully together with their habitual preys is widespread in Sanskrit literature. The reason for such gentle behaviour of animals in hermitages is due to the soothing and beneficial influence of the holy sages dwelling there. See e.g. the  Candrehe stone inscription of Prabodhaśiva (724 AD) which describes a hermitage inhabited by holy ascetics in the following manner:

‘In this place herds of monkeys kiss the cubs of lions, [and] the young one of a deer sucks at the breast of the lioness. Other hostile animals forget their [natural] antipathy [to one another]; for the minds of all become tranquil in penance-groves’ (v. 15, translation Banerji 1930-31).

See also AVālmīki’s Rāmāyaṇa, Ayodhyākāṇḍa 88.7, describing the Citrakūṭa mountain inhabited by holy ascetics:

nānāmṛgagaṇadvīpitarakṣvṛkṣagaṇair vṛtaḥ /
aduṣṭair bhāty ayaṃ śailo bahupakṣisamākulaḥ

 ‘What a sight the mountain makes, swarming with birds and teeming with herds of beasts, panthers, hyenas, and monkeys, all of them tame’ (transl. Pollock 1986:269).

Other instances of this topos in the Mahābhārata and in Kālidāsa’s works are discussed in Pontillo 2009.

All the above references are mentioned in a 2010 article by myself, freely accessible at https://doi.org/10.1163/22134379-90003611

Best,

Andrea Acri

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[Jan E.M. Houben]

Dear All, 

Thank you all who have reacted with precious references to passages relevant to what is perhaps a kind of "radiance of peace" concept, expressed briefly in Yoga-sūtra 2.35, अहिंसाप्रतिष्ठायां, तत्सन्निधौ वैरत्यागः ।  

It seems that only the extensive passages in the Rāmāyaṇa Kakawin to which Andrea Acri referred extends the concept explicitly to human society. 

I am grateful for the references to the Mahābhārata, Śākuntalopākhyāna (famously elaborated also by Kālidāsa), and the Telugu commentary on it.

Also the reference to the Caitanya-caritāmṛta in Sanskritic Bengali bring us beyond the scope of Sanskrit literature in the strict sense of the word.

The reference to Aśvaghoṣa’s Saundarānanda I find important because it concerns the legendary sage Kapila, known as one of the founders of the Sāṁkhya system of philosophy (as I have argued, Sāṁkhya was originally more a movement, partly in protest to Vedic ritualism, and became a philosophical system afterwards). 

The scene described in this reference is almost a Sāṁkhya illustration of the concept (later on?) formulated in YS 2.35. 

One part of a similar formula is perhaps found in the saṁnyāsa-vidhi attributed to a certain Kapila,  अभयं सर्वभूतेभ्यो मत्तस् स्वाहा ।(Baudhāyana-Gṛhya-Śeṣa-Sūtra 4.16.4). 

The other part remains here apparently unexpressed, namely: the expectation that this declaration will lead to वैरत्यागः and to wild animals etc. to provide, reciprocatively, abhayam to the ascetic (and, near the ascetic, to each other). 

A very similar or rather parallel concept, expressed in different terms, is found, in my view, in the maitrī and maitrī-bhāvanā of Buddhism, as discussed by Lambert Schmithausen in his Maitrī and Magic : Aspects of the Buddhist Attitude Toward the Dangerous in Nature, Vienna, 1997.

As we know that nonviolence was and is an important religious duty in JAINISM it would be interesting to know whether in that context, too, a concept of a "radiance of peace" was known or developed... 

With best wishes to all, 

[Jan E.M. Houben]

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

On Sunday, 1 January 2023, Bihani Sarkar <bihani...@googlemail.com> wrote:

Dear Professor Houben,

There is a reference to this in the text of the Kumārasambhava, as read and commented on by Aruṇagirinātha and Nārāyaṇapaṇḍita, in the section on Pārvatī's tapas. In Sarga 5, Pārvatī's asceticism to win Śiva is described, and its transformative, purifying power is said to have affected the surrounding environment, causing even animals usually at war to become gentle towards each other:

virodhisattvojjhitapūrvamatsaraṃ

drumair abhīṣṭaprasavārcitātithi |

navoṭajābhyantarasambhṛtānalaṃ

tapovanaṃ tatra babhūva pāvanam || 5.17

 

'There [on Mount Gaurīśikhara], her [very] ascetic grove, in which, inside a newly built leaf hut, she had built the sacred fire, became purifying: even beasts there mutually at war were free of their ancient hostility (virodhisattvojjhitapūrvamatsaraṃ), and its trees worshipped guests with choice buds.'

As the two commentators note, these--i.e. peaceful animals, and trees being hospitable to guests (just like the ascetic)--are the special, magical characteristics of the hermitage groves of great ascetics. Nārāyaṇa provides the following citation to a source I am not yet able to identify, thus:

'tapovanocitāni viśeṣaṇāny āha-- virodhisattvojjhitapūrvamatsaram ityādinā | 'spṛśati kalabhaḥ saiṃhīṃ daṃṣṭrāṃ mṛṇāladhiyā muhur' iti āditapovanavṛttānto' tra draṣṭavyaḥ |

[Kālidāsa] describes the qualities appropriate to hermitage groves with the compound 'even beasts there mutually at war were free of their ancient hostility'. "A baby elephant keeps touching a lion's fang thinking it to be a lotus stem"-- such a description of a hermitage grove is apparent in this case.'

I am not sure which tapovanavṛttānta the quote about the baby elephant placing his trunk inside the lion's mouth with utmost ease is from. But evidently in such tales of hermitage groves, which the commentator was aware of, there is an idea that the dharma of such places is non-violence and generosity between man and beast, not to be witnessed in the real world. And that this dharma is a transposition of the ascetic's own quality onto the surrounding environment.

It would be interesting to read the Raghuvaṃśa verses you mention below in a parenthesis in relation to this.

Thank you

Bihani Sarkar MA (English, First Class Hons.), MPhil DPhil (Sanskrit), (Oxon.)

Lecturer in Comparative Non-Western Thought,

Department of Politics, Philosophy and Religion,

Lancaster University.

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