Saraha - Songs and Poetry

Songs and Poetry

The following song and poem of Saraha was cited in Jackson, et al. (2004: p. 59) for which the original Apabhramsa or Aangi or Modern Angika (the language Saraha most often wrote in) is no longer extant but we have the Tibetan translation:

Tibetan in Wylie transcription:
la la nam mkha'i khams la rtog par snang
gzhan yang stong nyid ldan par byed pa de
phal cher mi mthun phyogs la zhugs pa yin

English translation by Jackson:
Some think it's
in the realm of space,
others connect it
with emptiness:
mostly, they dwell
in contradiction.

Jackson, et al. (2004: p. 59) goes to provide the following salience in parsing the import of the verse:

"space: In Indian thought, especially Buddhist, a common metaphor for the objective nature of reality as empty or unlimited, and the subjective quality of the mind that experiences that emptiness...Space also is one of the five elements recognized in most Indian cosmologies, along with earth, water, fire, and air. In certain contexts... "sky" is a more appropriate translation for the Apabhramsa or Tibetan original. emptiness: According to most Mahayana Buddhist schools, the ultimate nature of all entities and concepts in the cosmos, realization of which is required for attaining liberation. Emptiness (Skt. śūnyatā) may be regarded negatively as the absence, anywhere, of anything resembling a permanent, independent substance or nature...more positively, it is regarded as the mind's natural luminosity, which is "empty" of the defilements that temporarily obscure...The critical remarks directed here at those who think "it" (i.e., reality) is connected with emptiness presumably are meant to correct a one-sided obsession with negation, which is one of Saraha's major targets."

The point of Saraha in this poem is clearly to ensure that the aspirant on way to becoming adept, does not get trapped by the metaphor and soteriological lexicon. This was a recurrent motif in Saraha's teachings and is key for why he is depicted in Tibetan iconography with an 'arrow' or 'dadar' (Tibetan: mda' dar). Further to this, the comment of Simmer-Brown (2001: p. 359) as follows is sage:

The word for arrow is mda', which is identical in pronunciation to the word for symbol, brda'.