एहि पुत्रेति मामुक्त्वा स स्वाब्जस्योत्तरे दले । शुक्लाभ्र इव शीतांशुं योजयामास पाणिना ॥ २७ ॥
ēhi putrēti māmuktvā sa svābjasyōttarē dalē | śuklābhra iva śītāṁśuṁ yōjayāmāsa pāṇinā || 27 ||
Translation
"Come, son," he said to me, and with his hand he placed me on the northern petal of his own lotus, as the cool moon is set on a white cloud.
Word by word
- ēhi
- come
- putra
- son
- iti
- thus
- mām
- to me
- uktvā
- saying
- sa
- he
- sva
- his own
- abjasya
- of the lotus
- uttarē
- on the northern
- dalē
- petal
- śukla
- white
- abhra
- on a cloud
- iva
- as
- śītāṁśuṁ
- the cool moon
- yōjayāmāsa
- placed
- pāṇinā
- with his hand
Meaning
The tenderness of this is easy to miss. The creator of the worlds takes his son by the hand and sits him down at his side. A white cloud carrying the moon: Vasiṣṭha remembers his own pale radiance against the petal, from very long ago. The whole account of the descent of knowledge, which could have been a cold cosmology, is told as a son's memory of his father. It is worth noticing how often in this tradition the deepest teaching is handed over inside a relationship, and rarely in the abstract.