A Digest of Paramacharya's Discourses on Soundaryalahari (DPDS - 05)

[Guest guest]

Namaste.

Recall: About the organization of the ‘Digest’: THE ENTIRE

EXPOSITION IS BY THE PARAMACHARYA. SO THE FIRST PERSON PRONOUN,

WHEREVER IT OCCURS, IS HIS. The ‘I’ of advaita-vedanta is always

within quotes. ALL THE THOUGHTS AND OPINIONS EXPRESSED ARE

THOSE OF THE PARAMACHARYA, EXCEPT WHEN ACKNOWLEDGED OTHERWISE.

Additional explanations given by Ra. Ganapathi are so

acknowledged. Parenthetical remarks by him, like ‘with a smile’,

‘after a small pause’ etc. that all refer to the speaker, the

Paramacharya, are repeated, if at all, as they are in the

original, within parentheses. My own remarks, if any, shall be

properly demarcated. And note that the Paramacharya most often

refers to Adi Sankaracharya as ‘Our Acharya’.

V. Krishnamurthy

A Digest of Paramacharya’s Discourses on Soundaryalahari - 5

 

 

Of Soundaryalahari it may be said that there never was one like

it, nor ever will be. It has a perennial charm that does not

satiate. And its majestic eloquence is unbeatable. In his

bhaja-govindam our Acharya uses very elementary words because it

happens to be the alphabet of Vedanta. But here he is

describing the undescribable. So he uses words very precisely.

Consequently the vocabulary turns out to be difficult. But the

words chosen only add to the lilting charm of the poetry that

he weaves. The metre used is ‘shikariNI’, meaning ‘that which

is at the apex’. It has 17 syllables for each of the four lines.

 

Through the descriptions of the Goddess’s form that make up the

latter 59 slokas, he brings ambaal right before our mental eyes

in all Her majesty, grace and splendour and overwhelms us by the

bliss which the very words and metaphors pour on us. Just as a

master-sculptor dedicates each movement of his chisel to the

object of his sculpture, he transforms each word, as it were,

by his own spiritual experience of the Goddess and thus in turn

we readers feel the words themselves constitute the Goddess.

 

It is not only blissful poetry, but blessed poetry. Such

blessedness arises not because of any flowery language, but by

the fact the Acharya is himself blessed ! ‘Mother, this hymn is

nothing but a composition of yours in your own words’

(‘tvadIyAbhir-vAgbhiH tava janani vAcAm stutir-iyam’ – Verse

no.100), says he in the concluding line. Inspirations of great

saints and sages, not only benefit mankind by their inspired

poetry, but bring to successive generations, an inspired contact

with the great men, even long after they have passed away. Thus

our Acharya in enabling us to have a ‘darshan’ of the Goddess

herself, gives us, in addition, a ‘darshan’ of himself !

 

The concept of ‘intense’ devotion does not care for the

language used, or for the manner of worship. It is the

intensity of devotion and depth of feeling that matter. But

getting that intensity and depth is the most difficult thing.

That is exactly what eludes us. Now that is where the beauty of

such blessed poetry like ‘Soundaryalahari’ excels. Whether you

understand it or not, whether you pronounce the words correctly

or not, the very attempt itself of reciting it produces in you

the needed bhakti! This is the word-power of the words of such

blessed poetry. The vibrations of the words give us all the

material and spiritual success. We have only to keep the

objective of bhakti steadfast in our minds. Everything else just

follows.

 

Of all the stotras that our Acharya has done, it is the

Soundaryalahari that is the topmost. The aShTottara-nAmAvaLi of

the Acharya has the nAmA ‘soundarya-laharI-mukhya-bahu-stotra-

vidhAyakAya namaH’ meaning: ‘prostrations to the one who

composed many stotras with soundaryalaharI as the prime one’. Of

the bhAshyas that he wrote, ‘brahma-sUtra-bhAshya’ towers

supreme; of his expository works, ‘viveka-chUDAmaNi’ is prime

and of all his works of bhakti, the Soundarya-laharI tops the

list.

--\

----------

SundarI, the beautiful, is Her name. Tripura-sundari or

mahA-tripura-sundari both derived from the root name, SundarI,

is the Goddess propitiated by the great mantra called

‘shri-vidyA’. Of the many names of ambaal, such as PArvatI,

durgA, KALI, BAlA, BhuvaneshvarI, etc., it is the sundari name

that goes with ‘RAja-rAjesvari’, the Queen-name of all the

scriptures that talk of and dwell on the Mother Goddess. Sage

Ramakrishna has said: I have seen many forms of Gods and

Goddesses; but I have never seen one more charming than

‘Tripura-sundari’ ! The word ‘soundaryam’ pertains to SundarI

and means ‘The Beauty’.

 

But the beauty of it all is, that the name ‘Tripura-sundarI’ or

any of the other (synonymous) names of the same form, namely,

‘LalitA’, ‘RAja-rAjeshvarI’, ‘KAmAkshI’ or ‘KaAmeshvarI’ do not

occur anywhere in the text, including its title ! Even the other

descriptive names of the Goddess like ‘hima-giri-sutA’ (daughter

of Himalaya mountain), or simply, giri-sutA, shivA, bhavAnI,

umA, satI, pArvatI, chanDI – occur only at one or two places.

General attributed names, like ‘jananI’, ‘mAtA’, ‘ambA’, ‘devI’

meaning either ‘mother’ or ‘goddess’, -- which commonly go with

all feminine deities -- occur at a few more places, but even

they are few.

 

While he begins with ‘shivaH-shaktyA’, the most potent name of

ambaal, namely ‘shakti’, gets mentioned. ‘Shakti’ means

‘power’. It is the absolute brahman’s power or energy that

ambaal personifies. So this name tells everything about the

Goddess. And it comes in the very beginning, but never after.

(In sloka no.32, the word ‘shakti’ appears

but there it is a code-word for a syllable in ambaal’s mantra).

 

Finally, one more point regarding occurrence of names. The role

of a woman has three stages: as daughter, as wife, as mother.

The last two roles certainly do get mentioned very often in

stotras pertaining to a feminine deity. But the Soundaryalahari

uses the daughter-reference such as ‘himagiri-sute’,

‘tuhina-giri-kanye’, more often. And again, when the first

part of 41 slokas ends, he ends by referring to ‘janaka-jananI’

, the mother-father role of both Isvara and IsvarI of the whole

universe.

(To be continued).

PraNAms to all advaitins and Devotees of Mother Goddess

profvk

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

=====

Prof. V. Krishnamurthy

My website on Science and Spirituality is http://www.geocities.com/profvk/

You can access my book on Gems from the Ocean of Hindu Thought Vision and

Practice, and my father R. Visvanatha Sastri's manuscripts from the site.