lakshmi-nrsimha karavalamba stotram-7

[Guest guest]

Dear bhAgavatOttamA-s,

 

"samsAra-dAva-dahanAtura-BhikarOru-jwAlAvalee-Bhirati-dagDha-tanuruhas

ya ….".

"lakshmi-nrsimha mama dEhi karAvalambam !" (Verse#3 of LNKS)

 

Like hapless strands of hair inflamed,

I burn, I burn, I burn…

In searing blaze ringin' this forest…

This infernal life of mine.

 

"Lend me Thy Hand and set me free, Lakshmi-nrsimha!".

 

********** ************ *************

 

In this stanza the first of Man's 9 primal fears … "kAmA", desire or

lust … is described through the metaphoric symbol of a raging

forest-fire… "jwAlAvalee".

 

"jwAla" in Sanskrit refers to "flames" and "jwAlAvalee" approximates

to the fiery extreme of, say, "a flaming torrent" or "a raging

inferno". The lament of this verse, thus, is that the great and raging

inferno of human Desire i.e. "kAmA" consumes up everything in its

wake.

 

Now, how many of us have personally witnessed a forest-fire? Not many,

I suppose, since we are all denizens of the concrete jungle and have

few opportunities to experience, at first hand, rare phenomena like

the fires of the great natural jungles.

 

To get a second-hand but graphic picture of what an unmitigated horror

a forest-fire really is and can be … to get some idea of a forest

inferno …all that we need to do is to read the accounts of the great

fires that broke out in Indonesia in 1997.

 

Sometime in late October, 1997, after months of what had been in

Indonesia an exceptionally long and torrid summer season, fires broke

out in the great tropical jungles of Sumatra and Borneo. In the space

of just a few weeks, they simply destroyed everything within the

radius of an area equal to, say, the State of New Jersey in the USA.

 

No one knew for certain how the devastation was caused and why it

spread so quickly. For weeks the great fires raged and roared.

Mammoth clouds of smoke billowed out of those flaming forests and

filled and darkened the skies over not only Indonesia but neighbouring

Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand as well. For several weeks on end,

ships and air-planes could navigate neither the seas nor the skies of

those countries. The air over cities was scorched and the winds blew

searing heat. The overhanging pall of smoke poured down deadly,

poisonous smog … columns of black, noxious carbon fume… on their

populations causing sudden bronchial and respiratory failures.

 

The disaster continued into the months of November and early December

causing widespread panic and untold misery amongst governments and

peoples. Affairs were getting beyond human control or organisation.

The combined might of fire-fighting agencies of the governments of

Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore could do little to contain or

subdue the advancing holocaust. The more they tried to quell the fires

the more irrepressible they seemed to grow. (Readers of the famous

pictorial magazine, "National Geographic", can get a full and vivid

account of the events of those terrible days in Indonesia.)

 

Then mercifully, in the second week of December, the first showers of

an on-setting monsoon rained down and doused out the fearful fires and

dissipated the smog-clouds.

 

A full year after the fires had wrought havoc on them, the Indonesian

peoples in the forest-districts were reportedly still limping back to

normal life.

 

********** ************* ***********

 

We know little about the details of Sankara bhagavatpAdA's personal

life. There is certainly no known historical record to show Sankara

actually witnessed a great forest-fire. But we do know that for the

most part of his short and eventful time on earth … a mere 32 or 33

years in all… Sankara was a peripatetic religious mendicant

("sanyAsi") who journeyed extensively on foot through the jungles of

the Western Ghats, middle-India and the high woods in the lower

Himalayan reaches. It is therefore not too far-fetched for us to

assume that at sometime or other during his "digvijayam" … his

extensive travels… Sankara may have indeed walked into or chanced upon

a blazing forest-fire and actually watched at close quarters its

awesome splendour and devastative power.

 

The clarity of imagery and the intensity of phrase used in the

"karAvalamba-stOtram" to describe Fire as the archetype of human

lust… and particularly the line

"samsAra-dAva-dahanAtura-BhikarOru-jwAlAvalee-Bhirati-dagDha-tanuruhas

ya …" certainly suggests to us that Sankara's poetry rings singularly

true in relating the nature of Fire to the nature of human Desire.

Gazing from a distance one night at a great ball of fire

("jwAlAvalee") enveloping a stretch of forest land he'd happened to be

journeying through, Sankara bhagavatpAdA, we are tempted to imagine,

in all probability reflected silently within himself:

 

"Fearful indeed is this tempest of fire! And yet how puny when

compared to the flames of "kAmA"… desire… burning inside an ordinary

human heart?".

 

********** ************** *************

 

In the 3rd verse of the "karAvalmba-stOtrA", Sankara's use of the

metaphor of "jwAlAvalee" or forest-fire to symbolise "kAmA" must

indeed be regarded as particularly significant for yet another reason.

It is exactly the same metaphor Lord Krishna Himself used in a famous

verse in the Bhagavath-Gita:

 

"Avrtam gnyAna-maythEna gnyAninO nityavairiNa I

kAmarupENa kounthEya dushpurENa-analEna cha II" ( Ch 3 Verse 39)

 

 

We must continue with our discussion in the next post.

 

adiyEn dAsAnu-dAsan,

Sudarshan

 

 

____

Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com