lakshmi-nrsimha-karAvalamba-stOtram-14

[Guest guest]

Dear bhAgavatOttamA-s,

 

In the last post we saw how Sankara's "Bheekara-kareendra"… ireful tusker…

made no distinction at all between Kaurava or Pandava as it strode through

the battle-grounds of Kurukshetra like a lethal juggernaut, dealing death to

one and all.

 

We saw how an enraged elephant did not pause… not for an instant… to notice

whom it was attacking when it simply picked up Subramanya Bharati, one of

the greatest Tamil poets of pre-Independence India, and with one vicious

lash of its trunk, left him dying in a Triplicane alley.

 

We saw too how Hiranyakashippu's elephants, goaded to boiling rage by palace

courtiers, rushed forth in a furious stampede to crush little Prahlada…. a

mere child of six or seven years.

 

In all the above instances, we see the blind, unbridled malevolence of a

tusker running amuck. And so very much like a rogue-tusker's is the

malevolence of Death too… the bhagavatpAdA vividly points this out to us in

verse#6 of the LNKS.

 

Like the crazed elephant, Death is no respecter of persons either. It

strikes everyone that comes its way. When it strikes…and strike it does,

sooner or later… it shows neither mercy nor clemency, it grants neither

concession nor reprieve. And none so far has yet been born in the world from

whom, it was said, Death flinched … Not kings and brave-warriors, not poets

and sages, neither infant nor cripple… Death simply performs what it has

unfailingly accomplished from time immemorial … and what it will always do

until the end of time, viz.: signal the irrevocable end of the "journey of

life"--- what Sankara bhagavathpAdA calls, "prANa-prAyaNa:"!

 

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Our foregoing examination (both in the previous post and in this one) of the

phrases "bheekara-kareendra" and "prAna-prayANa" in Verse#6 of the LNKS

invites us, next, to go a little further distance down the trajectory of

Sankara's poetic logic where our imagination probes the following questions:

 

* Man tames the wildest, the most fearsome of elephants in the forests. Can

he not likewise conquer Death?

 

* If the most fearsome of tuskers can, with time and effort, be domesticated

to serve him as mere beast of burden, can't Death too, likewise, be humbled

by man to lighten the burdens of Life?

 

* If the terrifying elephant can turn into a friendly, sometimes comic

performer on a circus stage, can't Death turn an amiable ally of ours too?

 

* If kings can ride in glory on elephant-back and parade themselves in

gilded palanquins through the streets of their kingdom, why can't we also

ride on the back of stately Death straight into the portals of the Kingdom

of God?

 

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At the end of Chapter 2 in the "bhagavath-gita", after a peroration in 60

majestic stanzas on the Vedantic doctrines of "gnyAna-yOga", "karma-yOga"

and, to a fleeting extent, on the principles of "bhakti-yOga", Lord Krishna

finally confides in Arjuna:

 

EshA brAmhi sthiti-hi pArthA nainAm prApya vimuhyati I

stithvAsyAm anta kAlE'api bramha nirvANam~ruchhati II (Ch.II.72)

 

It is a sparkling verse of extraordinary, deep and subtle significance.

 

"Having followed this exalted Way of Life ("EshA brAmhi sthiti-hi"), O

Partha", Krishna says in the above verse, "the Man of Wisdom attains the

state of being where there is no fear, no bewilderment ("na vimuhyati").

Having reached that state in the moment of Death even ("anta kalE'api"),

verily, he enters upon the Kingdom of God ("bramha nirvANam~ruchhati")!

 

Now, if you carefully read the Lord's words above, you draw the following

meanings:

 

· No, the conquest of Death is not impossible… not for the Man of Wisdom,

the Vedantic Man

· The conquest is made possible by the pursuit of the Vedantic Way of Life…

through "gnyAna-", "karma-" and "bhakti-yoga-mArgA-s"

· These "mArgA-s" lead to him to "bramha-stithi"… a state of being where

there is no fear, no bewilderment ("bhava-bheeti"!)

· It is the state in which, most certainly, he may look forward to riding

the last leg ("anta kAlE"-- Tamil pun intended here!) of his journey in life

("prANa-prAyaNa") atop the back of Death itself … (as if it were merely a

tamed "Bheekara-kareendra")… and soon enter upon the Kingdom of God …

"bramha nirvANam"!

 

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Writing an extremely moving sonnet on Death, and addressed to his own soul,

the great poet, William Shakespeare once exhorted himself in these splendid

lines which it is relevant to recall here:

 

"Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;

Within be fed, without be rich no more.

So shalt thou feed on Death, that feeds on men,

And, Death once dead, there's no more dying then."

(Sonnet CXLVI: "Poor Soul, the

Centre of my sinful Earth")

 

Now,

 

… if "buy terms divine" were taken to be a clarion call to pursue the

"yOga-mArgA-s" of Vedanta,

 

… if by "selling hours of dross" we take it that the poet means those

precious moments of a lifetime wasted away without Vedantic aspiration

 

… and if by "Within be fed, without be rich no more" we take it that the

poet urges his soul to care more for its inward condition than for bodily

want

 

… then doesn't it seem as though Shakespeare, in saying "So shalt thou feed

on Death, that feeds on men / And, Death once dead, there's no more dying

then."… in saying that, doesn't it seem as though Shakespeare was clearly

echoing the Vedantic strains of Verse#72, Chapter 2 of our Lord's

"bhagavath-gitA"?!

 

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In the last post, if you recall, we quoted lines from a famous poem of Lord

Byron just to illustrate the terrible mien of Sankara's metaphor of Death,

"Bheekara-kareendra". Byron's awesome "Angel of Death" was sought to be

shown as being the perfect mirror image of Sankara's death-dealing "tusker",

the archetypal nemesis of human life.

 

In this post, however, through the comforting words of the final verse of

the Second Chapter of the "bhagavath-gitA", we learnt how the Ways of

Vedanta, the ways of divine wisdom or "yOga-mArga", lead Man to the conquest

of death.

 

We then asked ourselves how Death too, like a tamed elephant, can be turned

into a friend rather than the nemesis of Man.

 

By way of a possible answer, another English poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge,

offered these words to show that the "Angel of Death" can be a benign one

too!

 

"What woulds't thou have a good great man obtain?

Palace? titles? salary? a gilded chain?

Or throne of corpses which his sword had slain?

Greatness and goodness are not means, but ends!

Hath he not always treasures, always friends,

The good great man? Three treasures, LOVE, and LIGHT,

And CALM THOUGHTS, regular as infant's breath:

And three firm friends, more sure than day and night,

HIMSELF, his MAKER, and the ANGEL OF DEATH !

(Samuel Taylor

Coleridge: "The Good Great Man")

 

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In the next post we shall proceed to the next stanza… Verse#7 …of the

"lakshmi-nrsimha-karAvalmba-stOtram" where the subject of Evil is dealt with

by Sankara bhagavathpAdA.

 

adiyEn dAsAnu-dAsan,

Sudarshan

 

 

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