[Advaita-l] mRtyunjaya mantra commentary

[Raghav Kumar Dwivedula]

Thanks again for the detailed context. What you wrote about urvAruka being
the Indian ber/badari (Zizyphus Mauritania) is the best bet. And so the
usual translations of urvAruka being cucumber, gourd or melon are
incorrect.

Even gourds like squash do not drop off the vine. Their stalk is so thick
and hard that it's used in southern Indian cuisine as an applicator for
smearing old on a flat frying pan etc., prior to pouring dosa batter for
example.

Regarding the second meaning  of tryambaka as referring to ambA, ambikA and
ambAlikA - is Shiva being praised as the consort of all the three feminine
Shaktis ? Usually (unlike Mahavishnu), Shiva is regarded as associated only
with a single consort Devi (who may have many manifestations): but Shiva
himself is not usually depicted as having three consorts.

Om

Raghav

P S. Earlier (even in the 1980s) only the smaller badaris (Zizyphus
Mauritania or rEgi in telugu) were around, sold by roadside vendors. They
are smaller, have less flesh and are more seed and have a tangy taste.

Of late, we seem to get only Zizyphus Jujube, which are larger and more
fleshy and sweeter, but lack a certain distinct taste and flavour of the
Indian variety.



On Tue, 23 Apr, 2024, 9:56 pm , <jaldhar at braincells.com> wrote:

> <On Sat, 20 Apr 2024, Raghav Kumar Dwivedula wrote:
>
> > Thank you for the references of Uvatacharya and Mahidharacharya who say
> > that, उर्वारुक has to be (by implication) some fruit like the jujube or
> badari
> > (ber) which fall of by themselves when ripe (Since cucumbers as a matter
> of
> > common experience do not fall off on their own.)
> >
>
> Some additional comments on this.
>
> My mother told me that when she was young they used to pick the bor that
> fell on the ground.  Some of the more intrepid girls would climb the trees
> to pick the fruit but you could also just shake it and they would fall if
> ripe.
>
>
> I was wrong about the amarakoSha because I was looking at the completely
> wrong bit.  In fact in vanauShadhi varga 36 it gives karkandhUrbadarI kolI
> as three synonyms.
>
> The amarakoSha also has the word iravAru in vanauShadhi varga 155:
> iravAruH karkaTI striyau.  The rAmAshramI TikA adds uravAru and eravAru as
> synonyms and for the former says "iti shruteH" quoting the exact text we
> are discussing.  The author Swami RamAshrama (in his pUrvAshrama he was
> BhAnuji dikShita the brother of bhaTToji dikShita and father of nAgoji or
> nAgeSha bhaTTa) was a Mahratta Brahmana living in Kashi. He says all these
> words are synonyms for kAkaDI which in Marathi (and Gujarati) definitely
> means cucumber.
>
> The western dictionaries mistakenly refer to karkandhU/badarI as Zizyphus
> jujuba.  This the Black Jujube which is cultivated in India now (and what
> the jujube candy is made from) but is actually indigenous to Arabia and
> Persia.  The Indian jujube or Bor/Ber is Zizyphus Mauritania a related
> species.  In fact there are many species of Jujube and many words for the
> different varieties in Sanskrit which are sometimes used indiscriminately.
> However it is far too much of a stretch to equate cucumber with jujube.
> One or the other must be correct but which one remains a mystery.
>
> One more note, I was surprised to know this mantra is in the arANyaka
> portion of KYV.  Given its' importance in shrauta (as we discussed some
> time back[1]) I would have expected it to be in the saMhitA.
>
> One more one more note! :-) Looking at that earlier post again, I see in
> footnote 4, I touch upon this subject and speculate that urvAru might mean
> gourd. This is probably wrong too though amarakoSha vanauShadhi varga 155
> immediately before the words for karkaTI gives kuShmANDa and karkAra as
> words meaning gourd.  I don't know if gourd easily separates from the
> stem.
>
>
> [1]
> https://lists.advaita-vedanta.org/archives/advaita-l/2017-March/044786.html
> --
> Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>