श्रीराम उवाच । मांसपाञ्चालिकायास्तु यन्त्रलोलेऽङ्गपञ्जरे । स्नाय्वस्थिग्रन्थिशालिन्याः स्त्रियाः किमिव शोभनम् ॥ १ ॥
śrīrāma uvāca | māṁsapāñcālikāyāstu yantralōlē’ṅgapañjarē | snāyvasthigranthiśālinyāḥ striyāḥ kimiva śōbhanam || 1 ||
Translation
Śrī Rāma said: In the cage of limbs, shaking like a machine, of a woman, a puppet of flesh adorned with knots of sinew and bone, what is there that is beautiful?
Word by word
- śrī
- Śrī
- rāma
- Rāma
- uvāca
- said
- māṁsa
- of flesh
- pāñcālikāyās
- (pāñcālikāyāḥ) a puppet
- tu
- but
- yantra
- like a machine
- lōlē
- shaking
- aṅga
- of limbs
- pañjarē
- in the cage
- snāyu
- of sinew
- asthi
- and bone
- granthi
- with knots
- śālinyāḥ
- adorned
- striyāḥ
- of a woman
- kim
- what
- iva
- indeed
- śōbhanam
- is beautiful
Meaning
Youth's strongest pull is the desire of a young man for a woman's body, and Rāma now turns on it the same plain look he turned on the body in sarga 1.18. The commentary: since young men imagine beauty in a woman's body, this sarga examines its nature. It should be read for what it is: a young prince speaking to sages about his own desire. Its subject is not women but lust, and the method, taking the desired body apart into what it is made of, works for any reader on any body they crave. The Yoga Vāsiṣṭha itself will later make a woman, the queen Cūḍālā, one of its wisest teachers. Here the body is a puppet (pāñcālikā) of flesh, a cage of limbs that jerk like a mechanism. The question "what is beautiful in it?" is meant to be answered by looking, not by feeling.