Random Meditations on Her 1000 Names- X

Read part nine here.

Manorupeksukodanda - She who holds as sugarcane bow the sense-mind (which is manas in Indic psychology).

In the famous chariot metaphor of Katha Upanishad (1.3.3), the body is the chariot, the buddhi - intelligence is the driver, and sense-mind (manas) is the rein held by the buddhi and the sense organs are the horses. The sense-mind then becomes the reins which connect the sense organs to the intelligence aspect. Brihadaranyaka-Upanishad speaks of the manas as ‘the single resting-place of all concepts’ (2.4.11)

In Sankhya Darshana, when prakrti is churned by the gunas (specially sattva), buddhi or the intelligence emerges. This forms the faculty that does 'judgment, discrimination, knowledge, ascertainment, will, virtue and detachment.' From buddhi, ahamkara emerges which is 'the cognitive aspect that processes and appropriates external reality from the perspective of an individualized sense of self or ego.' When this ego is churned with sattva then manas emerges.*

The sense-mind is indeed a point where the external sensory data are acquired. But it is not a passive collector. Manas serves as the liaison between the activities of the senses transmitting data from the external world. The data is then subjected to emotional and conceptual filters and then passed on to buddhi or intelligence. Internally, it has the quasi-intelligent ability of sankalpa (decisive reflection - ‘must do’ and ‘must avoid’) and vikalpa (oscillating reflection - ‘to do or not to do’). At the same time, it can also be considered the sense organ as it receives the data from the external sense organs.

Adi Shankaracharya (7th century CE) has described the manas from both these angles. Sengaku Mayeda, a renowned scholar of Shankara-advaita school finds the attitude of Shankara in this regard as baffling. While in 'most of the cases' in the works of Shankara 'manas is merely another name of the buddhi or at least it is indistinguishable from the latter', there are also significant number of places where he says that buddhi is distinct from, and superior to, manas. 'In these instances', says Mayeda, 'the manasa and the buddhi are distinct from each other as in the Sankhya system.' In his famous Soundarya Lahari, Shankara visualises the sense-mind along with the five senses as the six legs of the bee of the human self (verse-90).

While it may look superficially that Shankara was not decisive about the nature of the manas or sense-mind, in reality this may be more because Shankara has correctly grasped the dual-superimposed nature of the sense-mind which can fall either way - more towards the less-intelligent sense organs or become more an instrument of the higher intelligence - buddhi.

In an approach similar to that of Sankhya Darshana, Sri Aurobindo also considers manas to be 'the sixth sense of our Indian psychology'. It is here that all the others are gathered. Then he points out why the understanding and cultivation of this mind is very important for educational psychologists:

All these make it clear at the psychological level why the manas becomes the bow of the Goddess. However, this bow is sugarcane. One can tell the difference here between this bow and the similar sugarcane bow of Manmatha (he who churns the mind) which immerses the seeker into sensual world while the sugarcane bow of the Goddess does the different job of liberation. This is important because the Puranic context has Bandasura arise from the ashes of Manmatha. The arrows of Manmatha are shown as coming from outside into the mind. But in the hands of the Goddess the mind becomes a sweet bow from which arrows go out. As a bow, then it is held steady. What Manmatha churns and makes unsteady, in the hand of the Goddess it becomes steady. Just like Ashwarooda and Sampatkari, from the bow emerges Mantrini. The importance of Her in a very ontological sense can be seen in the next name.

*In this I have mostly used Edwin Bryant’s Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, (2009): this is an excellent book which shines light on the commentaries from various darshanas in a comprehensive manner.