INTRODUCTION
Sigiriya
is a magic place. The Buddhists arrived
in Sri Lanka around the third century
BC and got settled in caves they transformed
into some habitable retreats. Sigiriya's
Rock, and other caves in the area, like
Dambulla's caves, was occupied like that
quite early after the arrival of these
Buddhists. But the great chance of Sigiriya,
a chance that will give it its name which
means the Rock of the Lion, came with
King Kasyapa who seized power from his
father in 477 because his father wanted
to give the throne to his younger son,
the son of his second wife, instead of
to Kasyapa, his older son, the son of
his first wife. As soon as he had conquered
power he decided for unclear reasons to
move the capital city from Anaradhapura
to this Rock that he took from the monks
who were there. The monks were moved to
another rock in Pidurangala, about one
kilometer away, keeping here a token presence
with the bodhighara integrated in the
citadel. Then he built a Palace on top
of the Rock, a full city with all administrations
around the Rock and on the boulders at
its foot, and further on the western Precinct
dedicated to water-gardens and smaller
pleasure buildings, and the eastern precinct
for various commercial and administrative
services. The whole complex was fortified
as a citadel. Kasyapa was ousted from
power by his younger half brother in 495.
Sigiriya lost its status and went back
to Buddhist occupation.
On
the west face of the Rock and in lower
caves as well as on the outside face of
the Mirror Wall along the gallery that
runs the west face at one third of its
height, Kasyapa had some five hundred
women painted. They are extremely debated
as for their meanings. We are not going
to enter the debate and we will just say
they are most often called Apsaras, meaning
Heavenly Nymphs. They are both high-society
ladies and their maids. About twenty odd
women have survived the monsoon and other
difficult weather conditions. The ladies
are bare down to the waist, wear a lot
of jewels and scatter or hold flowers.
The maids have some kind of wrapper around
their breasts and hold the flower trays
for their ladies. Dr Benille Priyanka,
in his most recent publication, demonstrate
how these paintings have antecedents,
and hence 'models', from Persia to Siberia
from the 5th century BC to the 5th century
CE.
From
the 9th century CE to the 13th century
CE (essentially 9th-10th-11th centuries)
many visitors who were probably pilgrims
came to visit the Rock and the Buddhist
settlements. They also took advantage
of their visit to give a look at the Apsaras.
They wrote graffiti on the inside surface
of the Mirror Wall down on the gallery
running under the frescoes. 685 were published
in 1956, edited by Dr Paranavitana. Then
150 more were published in 1990 and 1994
within the archaelogical project managed
by UNESCO on this site, classified as
a World Heritage Site, by Dr Benille Priyanka,
a Sri Lankan himself who holds a position
of associate researcher at the University
of California at Los Angeles along with
that of archaeological counsellor in Sigiriya,
who is working on 300 more to finish the
job.
These
Sigiri Graffiti, as they are known are
in standard poetic form for the time of
Sinhala poetry : poem of two or four lines,
each line divided in two unequal halves,
the first one being slightly shorter than
the second. It is a syllabic poetry since
Sinhala is no longer a stressed language
as Pâli or Sanskrt were . These
graffiti are of great interest because
most of them are signed and thus we can
study both the semiological impact of
the paintings on the visitors, but also
take into account the elements we can
gather from the signatures about the sexes,
social or political positions, and religious
statuses of the authors. It is a rare
example of such reactions from a rather
wide public confronted to a work of art.
At least such a great number of poems
is a rare and remarkable element. They
are in their very existence the proof
that these paintings are of great interest
and great quality.
When
I examined the 685 graffiti collected
by Dr S. Paranavitana in his book Sigiri
Graffiti, Oxford University Press, London,
1956 (I had had an inkling about the problem
when I first read the 150 extra graffiti
collected and published by Dr Benille
Priyanka in 1990 and 1994 in the UNESCO
reports on the archaeological site, and
when I discovered the conceptual model
of present studies for regional inscriptions
proposed by Raj Somadeva in his article
« Epigraphy of the Sigiriya-Dambulla
Region » published in these reports),
I felt there was an important religious
dimension and discussion in them, though
the translations seemed rather neutral.
I looked more closely at the original
text and found three (there are maybe
more) words for the heart : 'mana', 'sita'
and 'la'. The last one being associated,
by Dr Patanavitana, to the 'breast' meaning
probably the 'chest', seems to designate
the organ. The other two are given by
Dr Paranavitana as meaning equally the
'mind' and the 'heart'. I intensively
checked these two words in the poems and
could not find any system, not even contextu-
al, except if we understand a context
as being a feeling or an intuition. It
is true that Dr Paranavitana considers
intuition, from a Buddhist point of view,
as being the highest level of intellectual
or artistic activity, when, in point 633
of his extensive introduction, he sets
the 'patibhana-kavi' at the top of his
classification of poets and he defines
him as « a poet whose imagination
is controlled by his intuition. »
It is not enough to say that intuition
leads to the knowledge of « real
nature ». So I am going to discuss
first what is at stake behind the translation
of these two words from an ideological
point of view (Buddhist for the words
in Sinhala and judeo-christian for the
words in English, 'mind' and 'heart').
Then I will consider a selection of eight
poems that represent the various points
of view encountered on or around that
subject : what religious attitude, or
philosophical attitude can a Buddhist
by belief or uinfluence adopt in front
of the Sigiri paintings.
'MIND'-'HEART'
VERSUS 'MANA'-'SITA'
If
we translate anything from a language
to another the translation must reflect
as faithfully as possible the original
meaning. When we deal with poetry it is
even more complex because the prosody,
the linguistic form (sounds, rhythm, etc)
are also essential in the building of
the meaning.
Not
being fluent in Sinhala, what's more Old
Sinhala, I will not emphasize the formal
side of these poems. I will essentially
concentrate on the meaning/meanings of
words, though I may also consider some
linguistic aspects of the poems when significant
and/or necessary.
Let's start with English.
The
mind is the intellectual machine that
enables man to think. The seat of the
mind is in the brain, essentially because
thinking is centered on the brain's activity,
though the brain is also the seat of all
sensory, motor and sensory-motor activities.
The
heart is the seat of sentiments, passions,
like love, hatred and so many more. Sentiments
and passions are stated in the west as
being uncontrollable, at least by reason,
by intelligence, by the mind. A common
saying is : the heart has reasons that
reason itself ignores (with the two meanings
of « ignore »).
So
the translation will necessarily convey
these two meanings for these two words
in agreement with the word used in English,
no matter what the meaning of the Sinhala
words behind are : the words of a language
necessarily have the meanings these words
commonly have in this language for the
users of the language.
Just
to emphasize the complexity of the problem,
let me quote a passage of the Gospel according
to Mary Magdalene: “I said to him, Lord,
how does he who sees the vision see it,
through the soul or through the spirit
? The savior answered and said, He does
not see through the soul nor through the
spirit, but the mind that is between the
two that is what sees the vision and it
is [ . . . the sequence of this quotation
is missing in the original due to a missing
section of the document] (5:10-11). The
soul is the divine part of man. The spirit
is the second dimension of God, and man,
as a divine creature, has access to that
spirit, at least in this approach of Jesus'
teaching, the gnostic approach. For the
standard pauline approach, the spirit
is always the second dimension of God
and that spirit or Holy Spirit, or Holy
Ghost is totally out of reach for man
and can only be accessed through Jesus
Christ, the supreme intercessor. The mind
then is seen here as in-between the soul
and the spirit, between the divine part
of man and the Holy Spirit of God, the
mind thus being the medium through which
the contact with God's spirit is possible
and thus it enables man to get visions
from this Holy Spirit, from God. This
is of course once again a gnostic approach
with which Paul would absolutely disagree.
For him man can only get in contact with
the Son, Jesus, the thrid part of God,
who is the intercessor. Here Man has a
mind that is the intercessor between man
and his soul on one hand, and the Holy
Spirit on the other, and that is divine
in nature since it stands between two
divine elements. Add to that the 'reason'
I have already spoken of, the 'mind' in
its ordinary meaning that I have explained
before as the thinking machine of man,
then the 'brain' which is the organ of
thinking, of the mind, and the 'heart'.
All those words have clear meanings and
some are the locales of difficult and
even at times harsh debates and polemics
(some of these have led to the hereticization
and destruction of one side).
The
situation is completely different in Sinhala.
'Mana' and 'sita' seem to be interchangeable.
Both mean the mind in the Buddhist meaning,
as the sixth sense-door that gives rise
to the sixth perception. The mind deals
with mind objects : non-tangible objects,
objects that cannot be sensed and perceived
by the other five sense-doors of the eyes,
the ears, the nose, the tongue, and the
body, hence dealing with thoughts and
ideas, plus the abstract sense-objects
produced by the other five sense-doors
before they are processed - by the mind
- into analyzed, recognized and identified
objects, before they become full perceptions
that may imply them getting a name.
We
must note here that what we commonly call
feelings are from the next 'aggregate
of Dukkha', the 'aggregate of mental formations'
that have in no way a permanent existence
in the subject or his mind, but only the
transient existence between the moment
a stimulus prompts this mental reactive
attitude and the moment when this mental
attitude will no longer be necessary and
will vanish because the stimulus that
prompted it has disappeared.
The
problem comes from the fact that the seat
of the mind is traditionally stated as
being the heart, though the Buddha himself
never committed himself on the subject,
though this latter fact does not solve
the problem. Hence the heart is both the
seat of the mind and of most of the «
volitional actions » or «
mental formations » or « mental
states » we have just spoken of.
It is clear that the mind in this approach
is quite close to the mind in English.
But since 'mana' and 'sita' have their
seat in the heart we can (through a metonymy,
a transfer of meaning from the whole to
the part, from the internal faculty to
its seat) consider that 'mana' and 'sita'
may mean the heart, just like Dr Paranavitana
considers 'la' which obviously designates
the organ may also be used to designate
the mind (there we have a reverse metonymy,
the organ that is seen as the seat of
an internal faculty extended to mean that
faculty).
But that neglects the ambiguity of the
heart in Buddhist thought when we translate
'mana' and 'sita' into English and use
the word 'heart'. We reduce the meaning
from the organ that is the seat of two
things, an internal faculty and most volitional
activities which by the way reduces the
brain to a simple computing machine to
only the seat of sentiments and passions.
The
consequences are enormous.
Love
is only a passion in western Indo-European
languages. Love is also a mind-object
in Sinhala and probably many Indo-Aryan
languages (Indo- European and Indo-Aryan
languages are all derived from Sanskrit,
but the two branches don't seem to have
followed the same lines of development
and thinking, at least for the words we
are discussing). If we speak of the heart
being captivated by the pictures, in English
we mean love and nothing else.
If we speak of the 'mana' or 'sita' being
captivated by the pictures, in Sinhala
we mean first the mind, and eventually,
through a metonymic unexpressed transfer,
the volitional activities that could be
love, desire, and for some openly erotic
poems, a sentiment that has a sexual and
even physical dimension. But only the
context could tell us that this metonymic
transfer has taken place. Otherwise the
basic meaning would be the mind, the internal
faculty that processes abstract object
or the virtual objects produced by the
senses, in other words the controlling
device of the subject.
From
what I have observed in the 685 graffiti
translated by Dr Paranavitana, there is
no system in the choice between mind and
heart in English.
And
anyway we should look for a word that
may convey the two dimensions. There does
not seem to be one, so we should systematically
translate 'mana' and 'sita' by the compound
mind-heart, and in that order, leaving
the task of finding or inventing a poetical
equivalent to poets. I am all the more
in favor of such prudence, because these
Indo-Aryan languages have a dimension
Indo-European languages don't have. If
I consider the number of words in Pâli
to designate the acquisition of some knowledge
or its possession, as Shane Blok explained
in her recent article 'Mind, its nature
and function as described in Buddhism',
published in the Daily News in August
2005, I have eight verbs built on janati,
third person singular present, and eight
prefixes including the prefix zero. Here
are these eight words along with their
translations:
Janati
> knows
Vijanati > knows with discrimination
Sanjanati > recognizes [as in «
I recognize this person » that could
be seen as equivalent to « I know
this person » when I meet someone
I seem to recognize]
Pajanati > knows with wisdom
Parijanati > knows comprehensively
Abhijanati > knows with extra-sensory
perception (note the prefix abhi- that
we find in Abhidhamma, the main reference
on Buddhist philosophy, in which 'dhamma'
meanings 'the teaching' of the Buddha
: this gives you an inkling of the supreme
knowledge Buddhism is aiming at : a knowledge
that is beyond the simple sensations and
perceptions we can get from the six sensedoors,
thus including the mind itself in 'sensory
perceptions'.)
Ajanati > learns or grasp
Patijanati > admits or approves
The
least we can say is that English is poor
at this level and Pâli is rich.
Just as there is a multitude (more than
twenty) words in English to express the
idea carried by the general verb 'to shine',
showing thus the extreme visuality of
English, and yet most of them come from
different roots (that is an important
difference with Pâli if we want
to compare and assess the two languages),
there is a great number of verbs expressing
the possession or acquisition of knowledge
in Pâli, showing thus the extreme
development of intellectual activity in
this language, what's more all derived
from the same root, in short this demonstrates
the central value of the mind, 'mana'
or 'sita'.
POEM
N° 56-536
Pi[ya].paha[sa
me] digäsa sandehi lat vemi suvapat
Saga-van [beyand] â kala [va]nnemi
balay [sita to]s
Translation
1
When
the loving embrace of this long-eyed one
is obtained by me, I shall become
happy. (And), when I am come to this
mountainside, which is like unto heaven,
I shall become rejoiced in the
mind, having looked at (it). (Translation
given by Dr Paranavitana. The word 'mind'
translates the word 'sita' added in the
poem (reconstructed) by Dr Paranavitana.)
This
poem represents the reaction of most visitors.
They treat these pictures as real women.
They can envisage a physical contact with
them and the pleasure or happiness they
will (not 'would' that would hypothesize
the pleasure that they do not hypothesize
at all) get out of it. This poem, like
so many others, has an erotic dimension
if we take the words 'embrace' and 'happy'
for what they are, modest understatements.
So we could easily imagine that the recollection
he will keep after the visit will have
this erotic dimension. The word 'sita'
is then problematic. Is he speaking of
the passion he feels for this woman or
these women, or is he really going back
to his mind, after having lost it, and
thus makes his recollection « sexually-correct
», that is to say unsexual, hence
aesthetic only ?
I am not sure. Though we could say, since
this mountainside was like heaven (a big
word though for sexual pleasure, though
the ladies are seen as Apsaras or heavenly
nymphs), when he is back home he will
have to come back to reason : heaven was
there and home is not heaven, the pleasure
of that heaven can no longer be obtained
at home. Hence the mind takes over and
controls the passion.
The
translation seems to imply that meaning.
This
poem is typical because of the pictural
trap into which the author falls. How
can anyone take a picture for a real human
being, or rather for the real human being
it is an image of ? It is that enslavement
to the picture that would make me think
that the subsequent recollection will
keep that erotic dimension and that we
are dealing with a passion of the heart.
'Sita' can metonymically also carry this
meaning, a meaning that is conveyed by
the last word, 'os' translated by 'rejoiced'.
In
fact the last quarter of this gâ
or depada is the perfect oxymoron that
plays on the ambiguity of 'sita' which
is surrounded on its left by the absolutive
of 'look at' = 'balay', and on its right
the noun 'tos' meaning 'pleasure' (if
it were the verb 'tos' it would mean 'to
feel pleasure'), on one side a physical
sense-door and on the other side pleasure
which may have a physical dimension, whereas
'sita' may be purely mental : the oxymoron
is thus either antagonistic if 'sita'
is stated as mental, or non-antagonistic,
hence nearly non-oxymoronic, if 'sita'
is stated as being only the sensual heart.
This last remark shows the value of the
poem because of this skilful construction
of an eventually antagonistic oxymoron.
It is also the best expression of the
passion for the women in the picture that
so many touch with their own bodies.
Translation
2
Happy
will I be having you Eyes so long you
embrace my heart This mountainside climbs
to Heaven My joyful mind saw her radiance
[J.C.]
Translation
3
Combien
heureux je suis De vous détenir
Vous embrassez mon coeur De vos yeux si
long Ce flanc de rocher Nous porte en
paradis Mon esprit serein Savoure sa splendeur
[J.C.]
Notes
on Translations 2 & 3
En
anglais j'ai choisi de privilégier
la rythmique accentuée et en français
la rythmique syllabaire. Comme
la forme standard de ces poèmes
en Sinhala est fondée sur des
vers coupés en deux parties
inégales, j'ai choisi de créer
le déséquilibre en anglais
à la fois dans chaque vers
avec un renversement d'accentuation à
la césure et entre la première
moitié de la traduction d'un
poème et la deuxième en
inversant les moitiés de vers
dans la deuxième moitié
de la traduction. La langue Sinhala étant
très synthétique, la
traduction est nécessairement nettement
plus longue. Ainsi un poème de
deux vers (en anglais) sera construit
comme suit :
-
' - ' | ' - ' -
'
- ' - |
- ' - '
Il
suffit de multiplier le modèle
pour passer à des traductions qui
peuvent, maximum rare atteindre
dix vers, mais sont couramment de quatre
vers ou de six vers. Les poèmes
de ma composition (entre les actes) reprennent
ce modèle mais avec des strophes
qui peuvent être de douze vers
ou plus, toujours coupées en deux
parties égales et au schéma
inversé.
En
français j'ai gardé le déséquilibre
syllabaire (comme en Sinhala qui est une
langue à poétique syllabaire)
en ayant des vers (correspondants parfaitement
ou presque à l'anglais coupés
en deux parties, et des poèmes
de même. Dans la première
partie du poème un vers se décompose
en 6 puis 5 syllabes, et dans la deuxième
partie l'inverse, 5 puis 6 syllabes.
J'ai en plus imposé une contrainte
sur les demi-vers de cinq syllabes
pour éviter le flou entre le cinq
et le six : les demi-vers de cinq syllabes
ont tous des terminaisons masculines,
refusant toute terminaison féminine.
Par contre les demivers de six
syllabes n'ont pas de contrainte.
En
anglais comme en français les traductions
ne sont pas rimées, comme d'ailleurs
en Sinhala, ces poèmes n'ayant
aucune obligation de porter des rimes.
I
chose to stick to the standard poetical
forms of English and French. In English
poetry is based on alternating stressed
and unstressed syllables, whereas in French
poetry only considers the number of syllables.
Since
in Sinhala poetry, and it is the case
here, is shaped in lines that are cut
in two unequal halves measured in number
of syllables (Sinhala is an unstressed
language like French), I chose to render
that unbalance both with each line and
within the succession of lines. In English
I inverted the stressing pattern from
one half of a line to the next half and
I inverted that line pattern from one
line to the next line. Sinhala being an
extremely dense language a line may be
translated by two or more in English.
Then these English lines corresponding
to one Sinhala line are on the same pattern,
whereas the corresponding number of English
lines translating the second Sinhala line
will be on the inverted pattern. The basic
English pattern with a two line translation
is then:
'
- ' - | - ' - '
-
' - ' | ' - ' -
You
just multiply the number of lines and
you have the full pattern of a translated
poem. The standard size is two lines +
two lines, but it may reach six or eight
lines altogether in some longer cases.
In French I kept the syllabic unbalance
of Sinhala poetry but cutting the lines
in the same way as in English. Here too
the translations are generally longer
as for the number of lines than the Sinhala
originals and I made them of the same
length as in English. The first part of
the translation corresponding to the first
Sinhala line will oppose a first six foot
half and a second five foot half. The
second part of the translation corresponding
to the second Sinhala line will oppose
a first five foot half and a second six
foot half. However I met another difficulty
there. To avoid any fuzzy count I decided
to ban feminine endings on five foot half
lines that thus always end with a masculine
ending (refusing a final "mute e"
that is traditionally not counted as a
syllable in French poetry but in a way
lengthens the line with a suspended -
even if uncounted - delay. I did not impose
this restraint onto the six foot half
lines.
The
translations are not rhymed, neither in
English nor in French, because Sinhala
poetry does not use rhymes.
As
one can see the main problem here was
to transfer a certain rhythmic pattern
from Sinhala to English and French knowing
that English poetry is different from
Sinhala poetry as for measuring meter,
whereas French poetry uses the same device."
CONCLUSION
There
is little to conclude. The poems are their
own conclusion. There is an obvious Buddhist
debate among the visitors and among the
graffiti, a debate that has been neglected
if not pushed aside for unknown reasons
by Dr S. Paranavitana. But to conclude
along another line, I want to thank those
who gave me the opportunity to discover
this immense cultural heritage under the
governance of UNESCO. First I will thank
the Centre for Eco-Cultural Studies who
brought me to Sigiriya. All of them as
a collective body that a non-governmental-organization
(NGO) is and is to be, if not has to be.
Second I will thank the Venerable Doctor
Daniyagama Ananda Thera, High Priest of
the Pidurangala Temple who accepted my
teaching the English of Buddhism to his
yound monks and other students of and
in the monastery. That was a challenge
: to get into Buddhism in exactly two
weeks, at least enough to have an intelligent
attitude with the concerned students in
the following two months and a half. And
this enabled me to dive into the next
stage.
Third
I will thank the managing body in its
entirety of the Sigiriya Rock Site, Museum
and Complex, who entrusted me with their
original copy of Dr Paranavitana's Sigiri
Graffiti that provided me with four or
five days of sheer pleasure of the mind,
discovering a precious treasure, an Indo-Aryan
language and some of the deepest insight
I have experienced in more than thirty-five
years of linguistic studies. Among them,
the personnel of this managing body, one
stands out more than the others, Dr Benille
Priyanka, for the enlightenment and help
he provided me with every time I pounced
upon him with my questions and my lack
of answers.
As
a last note I have to thank the accomplice,
the accessory of all that, I mean Sujeewa
Jasinghe, and my thanks come from my deepest
mind and is wrapped in both the darkest
and most luminous recollections. Nights
are very dark and days are very luminous
in Sri Lanka, at least in the dry season.
I should probably also thank my pupils
or students at the monastery and my colleague,
their regular English teacher, for their
patience, forbearance and tremendous open-mindedness.
They are keen to learn, keen to share,
keen to enlighten themselves and those
that surround them with the fire of their
personal thinking.
I
hope I have not been too ignorant, because
ignorant people get stuck in words like
an elephant in mud. And I definitely do
not have a long trunk in the shape of
a nose and I don't like mud.
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Dambulla Region, University of Kelaniya,
1994
Bandaranayake,
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Mahâ Thera, A Manual of Abhidhamma
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