Final follow-up on the "PPS"

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srimathE lakshmi-nrsumha parabrahmaNE namaha

sri vedanta desika guravE namaha

 

Dear 'bhAgavatOttamA-s',

 

Bhattar was known to often narrate to his disciples the story of a merchant

who left home to go abroad, sell his wares and make a fortune.

 

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The merchant left his wife behind who was in an advanced stage of pregnancy.

 

The merchant travelled to far-off lands and failed to return home for

several years.

 

Meanwhile unknown to him, his wife gave birth to a boy.

 

The boy grew up in the intervening years into a good merchant himself.

 

One day the son too took leave of his mother and set out into the world with

his own merchandise to sell them in distant markets and make a fortune.

 

During their travels, the son and the father, unknown to each other,

happened to cross paths in a small wayside pial on a rainy day.

 

The father and the son huddled together in the pial where there was hardly

place for one of them and his wares.

 

While both sat there cramped in the pial that sheltered them from the rain,

the father and son were reluctant to let go of their respective places even

for a moment lest the other should pilfer away his merchandise. So, however

uncomfortable they were in each other's presence, they continued to huddle

together, and kept an anxious and suspicious eye over each other's merchandise.

 

At such a moment another person arrived at the spot. This third person knew

the the true relationship between the merchants who had never met each other

before.

 

Surely enough the third man quickly narrated history,introduced the son to

his father and explained matters.

 

Both father and son were overjoyed.

 

In that moment of joyful re-union, the son remarked to the father,"Oh,

father, being ignorant of our relatiosnhip I had been fearful ("bheethi") of

you and anxious about my merchandise."

 

The father replied,"Anxious was I too, my son !".

 

"But now, father, I know our relationship. I have no fear ! What a great

relief! For my merchandise now is all yours too ! The burden of its custody

is yours, too, isn't it ?!"

 

"So it is, my dear son ! But can a son's cares be anything but a burden of

love to the father" said the older merchant and they embraced each other.

 

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Our Bhattar draws our attention here, dear 'bhAgavatOttamA-s', to how the

father and son behave before and after the awareness of their mutual

relationship dawned on them.

 

Before such awareness they regarded each other with mutual suspicion,

annoyance and even vague fear ("virakthi" and "bheethi"). But the moment

their bond became revealed, all fear vanished in a trice and was replaced

with a feeling of warmth, love and security.

 

Sri.Bhattar further explains that there is a similar unknown relationship of

"rakshya-rakshaka" (the Saviour & the saved) between "jivAtma-Iswara" which,

tragically, does not get easily revealed to to the mass of humanity in the

world. Hence in ignorance of such "sambhandha-gnyana" (relationship) we

mortals lead our lives in "a-vivEkam"; we are often blind to our KINSHIP

with the Lord.

 

Due to the rare grace of an "AchArya", however, (like the third man in

Bhattar's story above), we become aware of the true nature of the

"rakshya-rakshaka" bond. We then step onto the "prasadana-parva" of Swami

Desikan's "paramapada-sOpAnam" and then instantly our "bheethi" and

"virakthi" also transform into feelings of "wise and benign acceptance" of

the Lord's world ---- in exactly the same fashion as the father-son

merchants "magically" became reconciled to each other on discovering their

true kinship.....and also in exactly the way as Bharatha after the

'paduka-pattabhishEkam', reconciled himself to a distasteful Ayodhya from

which he had earlier fled away in disgust to Lord Rama's Chitrakoota !

 

It is such "sambhandham", the same CLOSE and ETERNAL KINSHIP, too, that

Swami Desikan celebrates in his exquisite hymn on Lord Narasimha which is

entitled, "kAmAsikAshtakam". In verse #4 he sings:

 

bandhumakhilasya janthoho

bandhura paryanka bandha ramaNIyam I

vishama-vilOchana mIDE

vEgavatI pUlina kEli narasimham II

 

Meaning :(free translation with my meagre sense of poetic rhyme)

Yonder on the banks of Vegavati,

Sits He sporting in mien of sheer majesty;

Ah, yonder sits, behold! the KIN of all that lives !!

Praise, O Narasimha, praise again do I Thee !

 

How apt and skillful of Swami Desikan in the above verse, through praise of

Lord Narasimha, to convey the cardinal SriVaishnava idea of

"rakshya-rakshaka" KINSHIP that determines relations between "jivAtma-Iswara".

 

What mightier "rakshakan" is there in all the worlds than our Magnificent

Lord of Ahobilam who rushed to the aid of 'prahlAdan' !

 

I trust, dear 'bhAgavatOttamA-s', that Bhattar's second "nirvAham" above

answers the question (A) raised last week in the context of our discussions

on my posts on Swami Desikan's "paramapada-sOpAnam".

 

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I would now like to conclude, dear friends, this series on the "PPS" and

move on. But not before adding the customary "E & OE" (errors and

ommissions, excepted!).

 

The "PPS" is a fascinating document which must be pursued by you all in your

own separate ways. As I have already opined, some of Swami Desikan's texts

can be easily approached in a contemporary sort of way without being awed or

"turned-off" by his difficult 14th-century Sanskrit or his awesome philosophy.

 

Swami Desikan, in his own time, was an extremely kind man who longed for his

teachings to reach the both the masses as well as the elite.

 

To me, personally, the "PPS" is not just a religious text.

 

If my understanding of it is correct, it is superb clinical analysis of

human psychology, and perhaps, human destiny, too !

 

We may perhaps, out of intellectual or spiritual inadequacy, fail to draw

answers out of it for the questions of the Great Hereafter. But there is no

doubt that the "PPS" offers very important and model lessons to us on how to

take control of our present lives in this world.... and lead it sensibly and

competently too.

 

srimathe srivan satagopa sri narayana yathindra mahadesikaya namaha

sudarshan