Obscure Religious Cults as Background of Bengali Literature c8.71

c8.71

In the Caryā-padas and their commentary we find occasional reference to this theory of the four Śūnyas and the impurities of nature (*prakṛti-doṣa*), which are the cause of the cycle of birth and death and all the resulting sufferings, and they have always been prescribed to be eradicated. There is a song of Dheṇḍhaṇa-pāda, which may be literally translated thus,—“On a lofty height is situated my house; no neighbour have I. There is no rice in the earthen pot,—(guests) come every day. .....The bull has given birth, but the cow is barren. The milk-pot is being filled with milk thrice in the day.”⁵ The esoteric significance of the lines (in light of the commentary) is that when all the hundred and sixty impurities of nature pertaining to the body, word and mind all vanish away in the Mahā-sukha-cakra⁶ (which is compared to the house on the height), the neighbours, *viz.*, the sun and the moon are gone;¹ *i.e.*, with the destruction of the *prakṛti-doṣas* all the functions of the sun and the moon are also destroyed.² The mind with the three principles of impurity (*ābhāsa-traya*), compared, to the bull, gives rise to the notion of the external world, but barren is the non-essential void (compared to the cow).³ The Yogin always tries to destroy all these impurities (*pīṭa = pīṭhakam, ābhāsa-doṣam*).⁴ In another place Dārika-pāda says,—‘Dārika revels on the other side of the sky;’⁵ and this sky (*gaana = gagana*) has been explained in the commentary as the three-fold void or light discussed above.⁶ The final stage is the other side of the three-fold Śūnya. In one song of Kāṇha-pāda it is said,—“On the arm of the void I strike with the ‘thatness’ and I plunder the whole storage of attachment and take away (all it contains)”.⁷ The image may be explained thus:—The whole storage of attachment was in possession of the three-fold Śūnya; the arms of this three-fold Śūnya are struck with the perfect-void (*sarva-śūnya*) which is ‘thatness’, and the Śūnya is thereby undone; then the whole storage of illusory attachment is plundered and all that it contained is taken possession of. In the commentary this three-fold Śūnya has been explained as the storage of the Vāsanās,⁸ which are responsible for the illusory world. In another song of Kānha-pāda it is said,—‘ Split up the two ; O lord, you are also dead.’¹ According to the commentary the two refers to the first two principles of impure knowledge (ābhāsa-dvayam), i.e., Śūnya and Ati-śūnya; the lord (ṭhākura) represents the third stage of Mahā-śūnya or the ignorant mind (avidyā-citta). After splitting up or destroying the two principles of the defiled void, the third or the avidyā-citta is also to be killed. It is further said in the same song,—“ First I took the vaḍiā and killed it by a dash and then taking the great elephant destroyed the five.”² Here the esoteric doctrine is explained in terms of the game of chess. The vaḍiā in the game represents the infantry, but here it represents the hundred and sixty kinds of impurities.³ First the impurities must be shaken off and then raising the mind (gaavara = gaja-vara = citta-gajendra) the five Skandhas are destroyed. Again in a song of Śavara-pāda we find that he has awakened the Nairātmā damsel by destroying Śūnya, Ati-śūnya and also the adjoining house (i.e., Mahā-śūnya) by the stroke of the fourth Śūnya of his heart,⁴ and by the side of the adjoining house (i.e., Mahā-śūnya) shines another house lit with moon-rays, and when all the mass of darkness is driven away—the sky shines with lustre.¹ This last house is the Sarva-śūnya (all-void).