Mar 23, 2008

Signs of blamable guru in Bṛhattantrasāra

I have started to look through this text few days ago and picked the part that seemed at the moment an interesting one. In the mean time I changed my mind because of abundance of physical signs considered. A bit disappointing for my taste. The difficulty of the text, for me as a beginner, comes from the variety of styles employed by the texts quoted in this huge work.

Here is the Sanskrit text considered:
atha nindyagurulakṣaṇam :

kriyāsāra samuccaye :
śvitrī caiva galatkuṣṭho netrarogī ca vāmanaḥ |
kunakhī śyāvadantaśca strījitaścādhikāṅgakaḥ || 21 ||
hīnāṅgaḥ kapaṭo rogī bahvāśī bahujalpakaḥ |
etairdoṣairvimukto yaḥ sa guruḥ śiṣyasammataḥ || 22 ||

yāmale :
abhiśaptamaputrañca kadaryaṃ kitavaṃ tathā
kriyāhīnaṃ śaṭhañcāpi vāmanaṃ gurunindakam || 23 ||
jalaraktavikrārañca varjayenmatimān sadā |
sadā matsarasaṃyuktaṃ guruṃ tantreṇa varjayet || 24 ||

vaiśampāyana saṃhitām :
aputromṛtaputraśca kuṇṭhī ca vāmanastathā |
ityādyapi bodhyamiti || 25 ||

And the translation. I will not analyze the text word by word because is not much to analyze.

Now, the signs of blamable guru:
21-22
In The compendium on the essence (sāra) of rite:
[Having] white spots on skin or aggravated white spots and eye sickness and [is] dwarfish and having bad nails and dark(bad?) teeth and subdued by women and having some redundant member,
crippled, cheating, many sicknesses, very talkative he who is free of these vices [should be considered guru] by the disciple.

In yāmala:
23-24
Defamed and son-less, avaricious, gambler, in the same way having the business lost and even deceitful, dwarfish and who blame [other] gurus,
and [suffering of] alteration of blood or urine, the intelligent should always avoid. Always the guru attached to intoxicants he should avoid by [the prescriptions of this] tantra.

In vaiśampāyana saṃhitā
25. Son-less and with deceased sons and stupid and dwarfish this kind and others are to be considered.

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