ज्ञानयुक्तिप्लवेनैव संसाराब्धिं सुदुस्तरम् । महाधियः समुत्तीर्णा निमेषेण रघूद्वह ॥ ३६ ॥
jñānayuktiplavēnaiva saṁsārābdhiṁ sudustaram | mahādhiyaḥ samuttīrṇā nimēṣēṇa raghūdvaha || 36 ||
Translation
By the raft of the means of knowledge alone, O bearer of the Raghu line, have the great-minded crossed in the blink of an eye the ocean of saṁsāra, so hard to cross.
Word by word
- jñāna
- of knowledge
- yukti
- of the means
- plavēna
- by the raft
- ēva
- alone
- saṁsāra
- of saṁsāra
- abdhiṁ
- the ocean
- sudustaram
- so hard to cross
- mahādhiyaḥ
- the great-minded
- samuttīrṇā
- (samuttīrṇāḥ) have crossed
- nimēṣēṇa
- in the blink of an eye
- raghūdvaha
- O bearer of the Raghu line
Meaning
Ocean, raft, the blink of an eye. The last phrase may look like exaggeration after so much talk of long discipline. But preparation may be long while the waking itself is sudden. Someone who has been asleep for hours wakes in a moment, and the ocean, in this imagery, was never as wide as it seemed. Yukti is a key word in the Yoga Vāsiṣṭha: a skilful means, an applied insight, and it is more than a body of doctrine.