lakshmi-nrsimha-karAvalamba-stOtram-15

[Guest guest]

Dear bhAgavatOttamA-s,

 

In the 7th verse of the "lakshmi-nrsimha-karAvalamba-stOtram", Sankara

bhagavatpAdA describes the world … "samsAra"… as the "yawning mouth of a

hideous serpent":

 

"samsAra-sarpaGana-vaktra-BhayOgra-teevra-damshtrA-karAla-vishadagDha-vinashta-m\

urthEhE…".

 

This life my world is a serpent's mouth

The fount of human bane

Venom and vile, ruin and dread

Fangs of doom've devoured me.

 

The "serpent" is a very common metaphor of Evil in all the literature and

cultures of the world. The archetype of Original Sin in the Holy Bible is

the evil serpent that drew Adam and Eve to eat the forbidden Fruit of

Knowledge. In the oriental mythologies of the Far-East the fire-spitting

serpent symbolises the principle of Evil on earth. In our own "purAnA" of

the Srimad Bhagavatam, as we know, the serpent 'kALiyan' infested the

streams in the district of Brindavan and represented the elemental force of

Evil.

 

Right across the world, Evil and the serpent have become inseparable,

idiomatic associates. In the English language we have an expression, "snake

in the grass" … which one uses to characterise a person considered

sinisterly treacherous. Similarly there is another expression,

"serpent-tongued": when you want to call a person a "dangerous liar" you

call him that! In Tamil there is a common proverb, "pAmbin kaal

pAmb-ariyUm!"… "Only snakes recognise each other's limbs!"… which is to say

that a simple-hearted person might never discover the real evil intended him

by another who is ill-disposed to him; that it takes one perfidious person

to spot the heinous designs of another!

 

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

 

The perfidy of the evil serpent is actually, however, a gross exaggeration

of human imagination. In truth, the serpent is not even half as terrible as

the fear it evokes in men's hearts. The chilling shadow of Pure Evil that

serpents are said to cast upon this world is really a phantom inside Man's

own mind rather than the handiwork of the creature's supposedly devilish

nature. Venom is the serpent's weapon of defence, survival and retaliation…

not of cold-blooded, pre-meditated sadism as is commonly portrayed in human

folk-tale, myth and fiction.

 

The snake is a very vulnerable species. It is not at all what one would call

a "first-level predator" of the wilds… like, say, the great cats such as

lions and panthers or carrion-eaters like hyenas which by virtue of size,

strength and being fleet-of-foot easily dominate the animal kingdom, staving

off attacks from foes larger and more ferocious than themselves.

 

The snake, on the other hand, is a physically weak creature. It has no

limbs; it can neither run nor crawl; it has to slither. It has an extremely

faulty sense of sight and hearing; often it does not even notice the eagle

("garuda") swooping down upon it from the skies until it is already in the

grip of the great bird's deadly talons. It has no eyelids. It has only one

functional lung. So unclean does it feel about itself that it undergoes the

painful rigour of periodic skin shedding. It lives in constant fear of being

attacked by creatures of and outside the forest and more powerful than

itself … baboon, mongoose, man and other snakes. It thus lives a covert

life… cowering in the shadows and slinking away into filthy pits under

rocks, and into dark, smelly holes beneath the ground, amidst bushes and

wild reeds…

 

When the snake hunts it does so primarily to gratify the most fundamental of

biological urges: to quell the pangs of hunger. It stalks prey …rats, frogs,

rabbits, baby baboons etc… that constitute staple diet. Because it is such a

vulnerable species the serpent actually finds food extremely hard to come

by. Survival and subsistence are the sole pre-occupation of the snake,

consuming, they say, almost 70% of its entire lifetime.

 

All that a serpent wants from this world is alimentary gratification… and a

bit of private space in a dark pit where it can coil itself and go to

slumber… But the world at large only grudges it its simplest wants. The

world is endlessly fascinated with serpents in a morbid sort of way. The

world constantly seeks out serpents and pitilessly hunts it down … for its

skin, its venom, for its value as a snake-charmer's showpiece, and most

often for nothing but the pleasure of seeing it slaughtered as a creature of

sheer evil … The world is certainly more inimical to snakes than less.

 

Its desperate and dire need of food, the shadowy and lonely life-style it is

compelled to adopt and the morbid fascination an intrusive and unfriendly

world has for it… all these combine to make the serpent a notoriously

ill-tempered creature. By nature the serpent is a very solitary, very

unintelligent creature. But often it turns into a vengeful "serial killer"

simply because the world won't respect its natural need to be left alone.

 

Leave the serpent well alone… and it will surely reciprocate your

thoughtfulness. But needlessly give in to your fascination for the strange

creature and intrude into its life … you will immediately be in danger of

crossing its forlorn path…

 

And that's when all your terrifying notions and nightmares of the serpent's

Evil pre-disposition turn out to be absolutely true!

 

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

 

Deep inside Man's nature there lurk certain dark and Evil tendencies so very

much like a colony of venomous serpents all coiled and hooded inside a dark

pit …

 

It is precisely that dark and gruesome side of Man that Sankara

bhagavathpAdA refers to in the lines of the LNKS,

"samsAra-sarpaGana-vaktra-BhayOgra-teevra-damshtrA-karAla-vishadagDha-vinashta-m\

urthEhE…"

 

We must explore that hooded side of Man's nature in the next post.

 

adiyEn dAsAnu-dAsan,

Sudarshan

 

 

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