[Advaita-l] mRtyunjaya mantra commentary

[jaldhar at braincells.com]

On Mon, 1 Apr 2024, Raghav Kumar Dwivedula via Advaita-l wrote:

> Namaste
> Is there any commentary on the mRtyunjaya mantra - "त्र्यम्बकं यजामहे ..."
>
> In particular does the उर्वारुक refer to the yellow cucumber which needs to
> be manually cut from it's vine. (It does not "fall off by itself" as is
> often wrongly assumed esp. in the context of the mantra). Ishvara's
> intervention/grace is this required for mukti - that is the idea. There is
> a common mistranslation which says that the mRtyunjaya mantra refers to the
> "automatic/natural falling off of the उर्वारुक" - something that in fact
> never happens.
>
> In view of the above, I was trying to locate an accurate commentary or
> reference about what exactly is the उर्वारुक fruit and why it's analogy is
> invoked.
>

In the shuklayajurvedic tradition, the two principal commentators on the 
Vajasaneyi Samhita (this mantra is VS 3.60) are Uvatacharya and 
Mahidharacharya.

Uvatacharya says:

urvArukaH phalavisheShaH | sa yathA pakkaH svabandhanAdviyujyate evaM 
mR^ityormukShiya mochaya mochayatu |

Mahidharacharya says:

mR^ityormochane dR^iShtAntaH urvArukamivabandhanAditi | yathorvArukaM 
karkandhvAdeH  phalamatyantapakkaM sat bandhanAt svasya vR^intAt 
pramuchyate tadvat |

So both of them believe the defining characteristic of the urvAruka is 
that it naturally falls off the stem when ripe and this is a metaphor for 
freedom from death.  Uvatacharya just says it is a kind of fruit. 
Mahidharacharya says "fruits like karkandhu". Apte and Monier-Williams 
dictionaries both suggest karkandhu should be translated as 
jujube.  This jujube is a small fruit called bor in Gujarati and bor 
does in fact fall from the tree though they are picked too.

Complicating this is that e,g, amarakosha does describe urvAru as cucumber 
and gives badari and several other words for jujube but not karkandhu.

-- 
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>