Digest of Paramacharya's Discourses on Soundaryalahari (DPDS-75)

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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 -

75

(Digest of pp.1236 -1243 of Deivathin Kural, 6th volume,

4th imprn.)

 

gale rekhAs-tisro gati-gamaka-gItaika-nipuNe

vivAha-vyAnaddha-praguNa-guNa-sankhyA-pratibhuvaH /

virAjante nAnAvidha-madhura-rAgAkara-bhuvAM

trayANAM grAmANAM sthiti-niyama-sImAna iva te // 69 //

 

The intensive knowledge in music and musical technicalities

of the Acharya is manifest in this shloka. The words

‘gati’, ‘gamakaM’, ‘gItaM’ and ‘grAmaM’ are technical words

understood well only by musicologists. One should actually

refer to the latter part of Bharata’s ‘nATya-shAstra’,

‘SangIta-ratnAkaraM’ of Sarangadeva and

‘caturdaNDi-prakAshika’ of Venkata-makhi. I have only an

incomplete knowledge of these.

 

‘Gati’ is procedure or path. It denotes one of two kinds:

‘deshi’ and ‘mArgaM’. The former is more regimented like

a train on its rails. The latter keeps changing with the

times and caters to latest tastes.

‘GamakaM’ is undulation. It has five subtly different

varieties in it.

‘GItaM’ of course is song. But it is not just the text

(sAhitya) of the song; it also includes the svaras.

‘Eka-nipuNa’ is unequalled excellence. So ambaa is the

‘Gati-gamaka-gItaika-nipuNA’ that is, unequalled Mistress

of the musical technicalities of ‘gati’, ‘gamakaM’ and

‘gItaM’.

 

‘GrAmaM’ –the word occurs in the fourth line of the shloka

– means the three-fold classification of rAgas, according

to the shatja, madhyama and gAndhAra svaras. As music

arises in the voice box of the body and as the voice box is

situated in the neck, the Acharya is saying that these

three ‘grAmas’ are manifesting themselves as the three

lines in the neck of ambaal. Of course all women would have

these three lines or folds in their neck. But that is

because originally ambaal is having these three lines in

Her neck! Men have ‘Adam’s apple’ in their neck, which is

absent in women. The western story is that the original man

ate the Eden Garden apple and that started his involvement

in the samsAra of the world. The Indian story is that the

Lord swallowed the KAlakuTa poison which was, according to

ambaal’s request, stifled at the position of the throat of

the Lord and that is why the bulge is showing in all male

human necks. Both the stories only go to show that we all

have the same origin and we are all brothers born of the

same Father, irrespective of the religion we may profess.

In one case the very nutritious apple that ‘keeps the

doctor away’ becomes the original source of this dreadful

samsAra. In the other case the dreadful poison sits there

in the throat of the Lord without harming anyone. Both are

cosmic mysteries.

 

All forms of men are nothing but the Lord and all forms of

women are just ambaal. This is what the Adam’s apple of the

male neck and the three lines in the female neck tell us.

 

The great saint Appar has sung a song beginning with the

words ‘mAdar piRaikkaNNiyAn’ in the kshetra of Tiruvaiyaru.

He saw the male and female forms of the elephant, chicken,

peacock, swan and parrot and had the spiritual experience

of visualising all of them as the divine couple,

Shiva-Shakti. ‘kaNDen-avar tiruppAdam, kaNDaRiyAdana

kaNDen’, says he – ‘His divine feet did I see; things that

had never been visualised, did I witness’. If we care to

use our intelligence and look for the Divine around us with

intense Bhakti we can also have this darshan of

Shiva-Shakti always and everywhere.

 

Shiva is white; Shakti is red – that is the way we have

explained how the changeless White Shivam (Cause) sprouted

out as the Red Kameshvari (Effect). Just like this

Shiva-Shakti, the white-red coexistence can be seen in many

of our worldly matters. In fact once we begin to recognize

this spectacle in all matters of this world as well as of

the other world, we would be amazed as if we have had the

very darshan of Shiva-Shakti. Particularly, what pertains

to the male is white and what pertains to the female is red

– this principle will help us get into the spiritual

sAdhanA of witnessing Shiva-Shakti all around us.

 

The ‘tejas’ of man is called ‘shuklaM’ (white) and that of

woman is called ‘shoNitaM’ (red). What he wears on his

forehead is white ‘vibhUti’ and what she wears is red

‘kunkumam’. In the ‘nAmaM’ of the Vaishnavas, it is the

white part that belongs to the Lord, whereas the red part

is that of the Mother Goddess. In fact that is why it is

called ‘Shri-chUrNaM’ – the powder of the Goddess. What

man dons is white ‘veshti’ and what she does is the saree,

which is ‘kusumbA’ (red). The word ‘kusumbA’ means saffron.

That is the ideal colour for the wedding saree

(kUraip-puDavai). ‘aruNaruNa-kausumbaM’, where ambaal’s

saree is described as the reddest of the red.

 

Again, in this interplay of red and white, we have our own

blood which has both red cells and white cells. Just as in

ambaal’s red, the white of Shivam is merged, so also the

red corpuscles of the blood dominate the whiteness of the

white corpuscles and show the colour of blood as red!

 

In the ordinary decorative drawings (kolam, in Tamil) in

front of the house or the deity, though the kolam is in

white, it is usually bordered by red. For the same reason

the markings on the outside walls of temples are in red and

white. Even though the inside deity may be a Vishnu deity

(whose colour is blue), the outside walls are striped only

with white and red.

 

If it is an abhishekam of the deities, we have milk and

honey. If it is the fragrance we have ‘pachaik-karpuram’

(which is green) and saffron. If it is offering of flowers

through an archana, we have jasmine (white) and ‘arali’

(red). If it is food that is offered, we have curd rice

(called dadhyannam) and ‘sarkaraip-pongal’. Even with the

ordinary white idli, we combine the red chili powder or

sambar!

 

Here the idli is bland and peacefully white; whereas the

chili powder that goes with it is fearfully red! White is

Peace and Red is Power and Action. So when we want to stop

a war we show the white flag. A revolutionary activity is

manifested by a red flag. Thus Shiva-Shakti is all around

us in the forms of Peace and Rajas (activity). But again,

nor should we separate Shiva and Shakti as two different

entities; and that is what exactly is shown by the

symbiosis of red and white corpuscles in the blood. The

white corpuscles fight with the invasion of disease and the

red ones nurture us with oxygen. When there is bloodshed

in a battle, it is the red cross that brings relief and

cure!

 

Even in the ordinary colour spectrum, it is red that shows

up first on the side of white. The opposite colour that is

violet is on the other extreme. It is this violet (linked

with blue) that is the direct opposite of the peaceful

Shivam, that goes with Vishnu who denotes Vishnu-mAyA

sharing the colour with Vishnu-DurgA and MahA-kALi. It is

the Shiva-kAmeshvari that has contact with both the Peace

of Shiva on the one side and the dynamism of MAya on the

other side. For the same reason, in the apex work of

philosophy called ‘pAdukA-mantram’, the Light that is the

Cause of all that is gross as well as subtle is called

‘traipuram mahas’ and when one talks of the unfoldment of

the same as Jiva and the Universe it is mentioned as

“rakta-shukla-prabhA-mishraM” -- red and white confluent

effulgence – thereby indicating both the outward dynamism

of the Effect and the inward Peace of the Cause.

 

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