Digest of Paramacharya's Discourses on Soundaryalahari (DPDS-46)

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Namaste.

Recall the Note about the organization of the ‘Digest’,

from DPDS – 26 or the earlier ones.

V. Krishnamurthy

A Digest of Paramacharya’s Discourses on Soundaryalahari -

46

(Digest of pp.1015 -1027 of Deivathin Kural, 6th volume,

4th imprn.)

 

The very beginning of the shloka “tvayA hRtvA” brands ambaa

as a ‘thief’! You have already appropriated half of His

body. And you were not satisfied. Now You have appropriated

the other half also.

 

The gymnastics of words is delightful. In ‘aparitRptena’

there is an ‘apari’. This is is in the first line. In the

second line there is ‘aparam. This latter means ‘other’.

But ‘apari’ is the opposite of ‘pari’. ‘pari-tRptena’ means

by one who is fully satisfied. The ‘pari’ stands for

‘fully’. So ‘apari-tRptena’ means by one who is not

satisfied fully. Having taken only half the body how can

She have a ‘full’ satisfaction? She had only a partial

satisfaction ! That is what is indicated by the

‘apari-tRptena’.

 

It is the left side of the Lord’s body that belongs to

ambaa. This is the age-old tradition. That is how the

Acharya expected to see ambaa when he sought Her darshan.

But what did he see? He expected to have a darshan of

Father and Mother in the ardha-nArishvara form. But what he

saw was the Mother’s form, including the right side. Father

is crystal-white and Mother is crimson-red. But what he saw

was “sakalam aruNAbham” – fully crimson-red. He expected to

see a masculine form on the right side, but what he saw was

“kuchAbhyAm-Anamram”. So the Acharya concludes -- in

poetic fancy, of course – that the other (right) half of

Shiva’s masculine body also has been taken over by ambaa.

Note that Shiva Himself is described in the vedas as

“taskarANAm patiH” – the head of all the thiefs! But ambaa

has executed a theft on Himself, by stealing the other

remaining half of His body – though She had been, with

great condescension, given half of His body (the left side)

already!

 

And it is delightfully interesting to note that the poet in

the Acharya does not say that “the other half of the body

has also been captured”. He dares not, even in poetic

fancy, make that charge assertively against ambaa. He only

says “shangke” – ‘I suspect’ !

 

Let us analyse it still further. When one says ‘I

suspect’, one should give reasons. He has already given two

reasons: ‘Wholly crimson-red’ is one; ‘the features of the

chest’ is another. But this is not enough. To support his

charge further, he gives two more, which clinch the issue.

These are the two features: “trinayanam” (three eyes) and

“kuTila-shashi-chUDAla-makuTaM” (crown that includes the

half moon in it). These two are exclusively the features of

Lord Shiva. His name, even according to the vedas is

‘tryambaka’. In the preliminary mantras to the

rudra-prashna, the dhyAna-shloka beginning with

“ApAtALa-nabhasthalAntha ...” the second line describes

Him as “jyoti-sphATika-linga-mouli-vilasat-pUrnendu ..”

which means that as the shiva-linga, He has the full moon

on His top. When the same devatA is figured

anthropomorphically as a Person, He would have on His

head, only a half moon . Thus the three eyes and the

crescent moon ‘belong’ to the Lord. But when the Acharya

had the darshan he saw both these in ambaa Herself!

 

In fact the darshan he had was of Kameshvari, the devatA of

Soundaryalahari. Kameshvari has a third eye in Her

forehead. In the meditating shloka of LalitA-sahasranAma,

the shloka begins with ‘sindhUra-aruNa-vigrahAM’. The

sindhUra colour ascribed to the form here is the

crimson-red colour, indicated by ‘sakalaM aruNAbhaM’ in our

current shloka. Following that, the dhyAna-shloka goes on

next to “trinayanam” (three eyed). Thus the red colour

and the three eyes are natural to the form of Kameshvari.

But in the present shloka (#23) the Acharya takes the

stance, in his poetry, that the former (namely, the red

colour) is naturally Hers, whereas the latter (namely, the

three eyes) has been appropriated from the Lord’s form!

 

Continuing the dhyAna-shloka, we have the expression

“tArA-nAyaka-shekharAm” meaning, ‘who has the Moon on Her

head’. This the Acharya has used in his shloka as

‘kuTila-shashi-chUDAla-makuTAM’.

 

Thus the Acharya has made a nindA-stuti (Praise by pointing

out faults) of ambaa by using the same four characteristics

which ambaa has, according to the dhyAna-shloka, namely,

red colour, three eyes, crescent moon on the head and the

feminine form. But two of them he says ambaa has

appropriated from the Lord. In fact it is the Acharya who

has appropriated two of the four all of which rightfully

belong to Her, by accusing Her of appropriating those two

from Her Lord.

 

It is not that the Acharya did not know. He certainly would

know that all four are natural characteristics of

LalitAmbA. “trinayanA” (‘The three-eyed’) is one of Her

names occurring in the LalitA-sahasranAma.

“chAru-chandra-kalAdharA” is also another. In

ShymALA-danDaka of Kalidasa, we have him addressing Her as

“chandra-kalAvatamse” (She who has ornamented Her head with

the Crescent Moon). Thus ambaa does have these two

characteristics as Her own. In pictures of olden times I

have myself seen Her being depicted thus. But the ordinary

commonfolk still think that the concepts of ‘three eyes’

and ‘crescent moon on the head’ are exclusively those of

Lord Shiva. And, the Acharya, in his poetic excitement,

joins the commonfolk and creates a ‘nindA-stuti’!

 

There is still another angle! The shloka under discussion

revels in the idea of ambaa having appropriated the Lord’s

characteristics and also his right half. But the poetic

world knows that it is the other way round. It is the Lord

who has appropriated Her characteristics and legitimately

what is due to Her!

 

In the ardha-nArishvara form the third eye is common to

both the masculine and the feminine forms. It is by the

third eye He consumed Manmatha, the God of Love, to ashes.

So the credit of that consumption should go half and half

to both the Lord and ambaa. But who is known as

Kama-dahana-mUrti? It is He. Similarly when KAla, the God

of Death, was attempting to get the Shiva-devotee

MarkanDeya into his death-noose, he was vanquished by the

left leg of the Lord, and thus He has earned the name

‘Kala-samhAra-mUrti’ and known as such as the world over.

But the left leg in the ardha-nArIshvara form actually

belongs to ambaa and so the credit for vanquishing Kala

should go wholly to ambaa. Thus on both counts it is He

that should be faulted for appropriation and not She!

 

Well, we could go on like this. But the final essence of

all this discussion is that there is no appropriation on

either side. It is all One form and One Supreme. The Lord’s

form is totally in Her and Her form is totally in His.

LalitA Herself is ‘Siva-shakty-aikya-rUpiNI’; this advaita

is the bottomline of the whole thing.

 

[At this point the Paramacharya becomes silent

and starts talking in a measured low voice]

 

Alright, the form is totally red; it is ambaa. But if one

begins to look at the form in its various parts, amidst the

redness, there is visible only the third eye and the

crescent moon at the top. That reminds us of the Lord. But

if you look for Him He is not there. Nothing except those

two characteristics of His are visible. It is probably this

experience that prompted the Acharya to say:

[Now the Paramacharya raises his voice]

 

“ Oh! You got half the body as your own; and now you have

taken over the whole body”!

 

None can partition the Shiva-experience. You cannot have it

piecemeal; you have to have the whole of it. This is what

ambaa has done!

 

(To be Continued).

 

Thus spake the Paramacharya

 

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.

Also see the webpages on Paramacharya's Soundaryalahari :

http://www.geocities.com/profvk/gohitvip/DPDS.html