Vasumitra and Sudhana

Yesterday I was watching South Korea's Director Kim Ki-duk's Samaritan Girl movie in which the adolescent Jae-yeong (Min-jeong Seo) tells her classmate and best friend Yeo-jin (Ji-min Kwak) the tale of an Indian prostitute named Vasumitra whose clients, as the curious legend goes, became devout Buddhists after their sexual encounter with her.

I too became curious about this legend as Buddhism, in particular, argued that the ultimate truth can be discovered only by those who awaken to the reality of desire and are able to transmute it. With the development of the Mahayana, the underground 'transgressive attitude' got official affirmation. Since emptiness implied the non-existence of sin and Two Truths implied the identity of desire and awakening Zen Buddhism could both repudiate and affirm desire while Tantric Buddhism could claim that “the energy of the passions is the necessary catalyst of awakening”. And this is what I gathered about Vasumitra.

In the "Gandavyuha Sutra" the last chapter of the Avatamsaka Sutra, one of East Asian Buddhism's most important Mahayana texts, we can read the story of the young Buddhist Sudhana as he seeks enlightenment on a pilgrimage that leads him through a sequence of 52 different masters. The twenty-fifth of these is the courtesan bodhisattva Vasumitra, from whose seductive powers, Sudhana must learn a lesson. In the Avatamsaka Sutra it is written: People in Ratnavyuha, the city of Vasumitra, who did not know of Vasumitra's virtues or the scope of her knowledge, said to Sudhana, "What has someone like you -- with senses so calm and subdued, so aware, so clear, without confusion or distraction, your gaze focused discreetly right before you, your mind not overwhelmed by sensations, not clinging to appearances, your eyes averted from involvement in all forms, your mind so cool and steady, your way of life profound, wise, oceanic, your mind free from agitation or despondency -- what have you to do with Vasumitra? You should not have any lust for her, your head should not be turned by her, you should not have any such impure thoughts, you should not be ravaged by such desires, you should not be under the power of a woman, you should not be so bewitched, you should not enter the realm of temptation, you should not sink into the mire of sensuality, you should not be bound by the snares of the devil, you should not do what should not be done."

Others, however, urging Sudhana to seek out Vasumitra, provide directions to a house that in its greatness resembles a castle. There, he sees her:

There he saw Vasumitra, who was beautiful, with golden skin and black hair, her limbs and body well-proportioned, more beautiful in form than all celestial and human beings in the realm of desire, her voice finer even than that of the god Brahma.

Vasumitra tells Sudhana:

"All who come to me with minds full of passion, I teach them so that they become free of passion."

She then adds:

"Some attain dispassion just by embracing me, and achieve an enlightening concentration called 'womb receiving all sentient beings without rejection.' Some attain dispassion just by kissing me, and attain an enlightening concentration called 'contact with the treasury of virtue of all beings.'"

This woman was settled in a polluted, fearsome realm, making it hard for people to believe in her; so the land was called Danger. By means of meditation, she entered into defiled realms and turned them all into spheres of knowledge; by virtue of great compassion, she remained in the ordinary world, and by virtue of knowledge she remained unaffected, so her city was called City of Jewel Arrays.

Her compassion and decision to remain in the ordinary world and lead others to enlightenment is, of course, characteristic of the bodhisattvas of Mahayana Buddhism. The commentary tells us how she leads others to enlightenment:

Vasumitra went on to speak of holding her hand, getting up on her couch, gazing at her, embracing her, and kissing her. Holding her hand means seeking salvation. Getting up on her couch means ascendancy of formless knowledge. Gazing at her means seeing truth, embracing her means not departing from it. Kissing her means receiving instruction.

This illustrates how all who come near enter a door of total knowledge, unlike those who only seek to get out of bondage and do not arrive at the ultimate dispassion -- supreme knowledge of the real universe that remains in the polluted world without being defiled, freely helping the living, neither bound nor freed.

In the end it is not clear whether Sudhana actually slept with Vasumitra or not. But one thing is clear- one can achieve dispassion by an encounter with passion and thereby attain fuller enlightenment.

The Tribal World of Verrier Elwin

I had made few notes from Verrier Elwin's book

The Tribal World of Verrier Elwin many years back. Recently I found that scrap book and here I share with you some of the points I noted down:


The Tribal World of Verrier Elwin
Oxford University Press, London, 1964
***
Now in relation to India I remembered how my family had made money, such as it was, out of India and my countrymen had gone to India to exploit it and to rule.
I though, therefore that I might go to India as an act of reperation, that from my family somebody should go to give instead of to get, to serve with the poorest people instead of ruling them, to become one with the country that we had helped to dominate and subdue (p.36).
***


For my first long stay there I was lucky to get a room in Gandhi's own house. From the cottage I looked out across the great expanse of sand and water of the Sabaramati river. On the further bank I could see in panorama many of the forces against which Gandhi was in revolt. There were the tall chimneys of the factories which were helping to destroy the hand- spinning industry. There was the palace of the Collector, syumbol of foreign domination which had sapped the manliness of India. There was the railway which, In Gandhi's view had done so much to ruin the quiet peasant life of the villages. Opposite were the low rooms of the simple dwellings of the ashram. The forces of the world and the forces of the spirit were here in vivid symbol arrayed against one another- machine force against soul- force, force of arms against love force (p.52).
***
Bapu regarded her (Mirabehn- Ms.Slade) as his daughter and I was greatly escited one day in 1930 when he said to me, 'As Mirabehn is my daughter, so you shall be my son.' From that day I regarded myself as a citizen of India (p.55).
***
This is the one great cultural interest of the people. A girl dancer is compared by the Gonds to a lovely tree moving to the unseen power of nature, and one of their riddles asks, 'There is a dumb bird that sits on a beautiful tree; shake the tree and bird awakes and sings'. The answer is, 'the anklets on the feet of a girl who goes to the dance' (p.104).
***
The attitude of the Gonds and Baigas to the war was interesting. an old woman put it very well. 'This', she said, 'is how God equalizes things. Our sons and daughters die young, of hunger or disease or the attacks of wild beasts. The sons and daughters of the English could grow in comfort and happiness. But God sends madness upon them and they destroy each other and so in the end their great knowledge and their religion is useless and we are all the same' (p.121).
***
I found the people talking poetry. An old woman speaks of fire as a flower blossoming on a dry tree, of an umpress as a peacock with one leg. Children playing around the fire at night ask each other riddles which are sometimes real poems; a lamp is a little sparrow that scatters its feathers about the house. A man speaking of his pregnant wife, says to me, 'She must be treated as a flower, or the light may fade from her bosom. The poorest copt has legs of gold and a frame of jewels when a lovely girl is sleeping on it' (p.144).
***
The Baigas are very fond of pigs. One day a man came to me complaining that his wife had run away with some one else. 'That', he said, 'I could have borne, but they took away my favourite pig' (p.149).
***
To the people a dance is not just an extra, a luxury to be indulged in or not as one feels inclines; where it has remained, it is an essential force in life, as natural as breathing or eating, and always done with passionate delight. The Acholi dancers never smiled; they were too intent, too keyed up; they were at serious business, they were entranced (p.216).
***

Verrier Elwin
Verrier Elwin, one of the most interesting Englishmen to have worked in India this century, came to his adopted country when he was only 25. A few years later, he moved to a tribal village in the heart of India. He lived most of the rest of his life among the tribals of India, whom he loved and worked for, and about whom he wrote beautifully, intensely and extensively.
Read more about him:
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=160678&sectioncode=6

But why he treated his tribal wife Kosi, the way he did? Read more about it:
http://www.indianexpress.com/ie/daily/19990305/ige05051.html