Soundarya Lahari--Verse 62

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PrakrtyA'raktAyAs tava sudati danta-cchada-ruceh

pravaksye sAdrsyam janayatu phalam vidrum-latA,

na bimbam tad-bimba-pratiphalana-rAgAd arunitam

tulAm adhyA'rodhum katham iva na lajjeta kalayA

 

O [Goddess] with beautiful [rows of ]teeth! I shall presently name

what equals the lustre of Thy naturally red lips. Let the coral

creeper bear fruit. It is not the Bimba fruit. Having turned red

because of the redness caused by the reflection of Thy form, how will

it not feel ashamed to be weighed in the balance, even to the

slightest extent?

 

Having described the nose of Devi, the poet next proceeds to describe

her lips, but finds himself baffled in calling to mind any object in

Nature, which, like the Devi's body, from head to foot, is of a

naturally red colour and at the same time has a part redder still

corresponding to her lips. In the first flush, he lands on the coral

creeper, which is of a similar hue, root and branch, and as he could

not conceive of any part of it comparable to the Devi's lips, he

fancies that, possibly, when the creeper bears fruit, the latter

might be redder still and on that account resemble the Devi's lips.

 

But as he has not heard of or seen the coral fruit, he pauses and is

forced to say, " Let the coral-creepr bear fruit'. Then he lights on

the Bimba fruit as an alternative, but has to reject that also for

the reasons stated in the stanza. The reading 'Drg-bimba-

pratiphalana' means, 'caused by the reflection of the sun [one of the

Devi's eyes] thereon', the underlying idea being apparently that the

Bimba fruit has its colour turned to red only as it ripens under the

influence of the Sun's rays; while the reading 'Tad-bimba', etc.

means 'caused by the reflection of the lips themselves,' the

word 'Tad' indicatng 'Dantacchada', ie lips.

 

How will it not feel ashamed etc?- as the Bimba fruit does not make

the slightest approach in point of colour to the Devi's lips, it is

bound to feel ashamed at the very suggestion that it should stand

such a comparison.

 

 

 

Yantra image in : SS homepage.

 

http://www.shaktisadhana.org/Newhomepage/sadhana/Commentaries.html

 

The Saundarya-Lahari of Sri Samkara-Bhagavatpada.

By Pandit S. Subrahmanya Sastri and T.R Srinivasa Ayyangar.