khela-gaamii mahaa-baahur
gaj'-endra iva nir-madaH
so 'bhyagacchad guruM kaale
vivakShur bhaavam aatmanaH
12.11
Trembling went he of mighty arm,
Like a top bull elephant, through with rut:
At a suitable moment, he approached the guru,
Wishing to communicate his intention.
COMMENT:
What Nanda wishes to communicate he communicates exactly in 12.16 and 12.17. What he communicates in those verses is his desire to listen. His desire to listen is not the desire to listen to any old rubbish, like somebody’s opinionated viewpoints on true Buddhism, realism, humanism, optimism, and the like. His desire is the desire to listen to the Best of Voices, belonging to the Best of Listeners.
A human being has a listening body. When I sit my skin, bones, nerves, and muscles are all an extension of my listening ear. Sadly, Nature endowed me with a particularly defective one. On the other hand, she compensated by giving me a top two inches that was relatively well adapted for thinking about my ear-centric problem. So year by year I am increasingly attentive to avoiding the stimulus of noise that I struggle to filter out. As I write, I am once more surveying greenery by the forest in France.
Because the human ear is intimately connected with human skin, flesh, bones and marrow, when a male of the species is in rut (or “in love” as we conventionally call it), the voice of a female of a species can churn our stomach and make our knees go weak -- at which time we are more or less deaf to the voice of Buddha.
It has taken Nanda the first eleven Cantos of this poem to get to the point where he is truly through with rutting. Rutting takes a lot of energy. A rutting stag, for example, loses a huge proportion of its body weight during the rutting season. A stag at the end of the rutting season is not conspicuously full of beans. Nanda, similarly, though a big strong bloke by nature, does not now approach the Buddha all full of himself. This verse, as I read it, does not describe a swaying or stately gait. The point may rather be that Nanda goes trembling, eyes filled with tears, mind filled with shame. But he is finally ready to listen to the voice of Buddha. Not only is he ready to listen; he intends to listen.
To listen to the Best of Listeners
Nanda intends.
His wrong inner patterns are the doing
that Buddha intends him to stop.
Negation of intention is not it.
EH Johnston:
Mighty in the arms and freed from conceit, with swaying gait like an elephant with mighty trunk and freed from rut, he went to the Guru at the proper time to explain his feelings.
Linda Covill:
With stately gait and strong in arm, like a princely elephant out of rut, he came to the guru at an appropriate time to tell him of his disposition.
VOCABULARY:
khela: moving , shaking , trembling
gaamii = nominative, singular of gaamin: going ; going or moving on or in or towards or in any peculiar manner
mahaa: great, large
baahuH (nominative, singular): the arm , (esp.) the fore-arm
gaja: an elephant
indra: ifc. best , excellent , the first , the chief (of any class of objects
iva: like
nirmada: mfn. unintoxicated , sober , quiet , humble , modest
nirmadaH (nominative, singular): [an elephant] not in rut
saH (nominative, singular): he
abhyagacchad = imperfect of abhi-√gam: to go near to , approach (with acc.)
gurum (accusative): to the guru
kaale (locative): at an appropriate time
vivakShuH (nominative, singular): mfn. wishing to speak to (acc.)
bhaavam = accusative of bhaava: being, state, condition; true condition or state , truth , reality; manner of being , nature , temperament , character ; any state of mind or body , way of thinking or feeling , sentiment , opinion , disposition , intention
aatmanaH (genitive): of himself
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