[Advaita-l] mRtyunjaya mantra commentary

[Raghav Kumar Dwivedula]

Typo in my last mail - it should read "smearing oil" rather than "smearing
old".

On Wed, 24 Apr, 2024, 5:18 am Raghav Kumar Dwivedula, <
raghavkumar00 at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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>
>
>