Digest of Paramacharya's Discourses on Soundaryalahari (DPDS - 10)

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Recall the Note about the organization of the ‘Digest’, from

DPDS – 6 or the earlier ones.

V. Krishnamurthy

 

A Digest of Paramacharya’s Discourses on Soundaryalahari - 10

 

 

The first evolute from brahman is the ‘desire’ (kAmam) that the

leela of the manifestation of the universe should take place. So

the ‘Kameshvara-Kameshvari’ evolute is the first couple. She

(Kameshvari) might later be called ‘Lalitambaal’ or

‘Raja-Rajeshvari’ but He (Kameshvara) is never called

‘Laliteshvara’ or ‘Raja-Rajeshvara’. Again She is

‘Tripura-sundari’ – which name is the origin for the titling of

this composition as ‘Soundaryalahari’ , but there is no

‘Tripurasundara’ .

All these latter names of Shakti have come because She is the

Creator, Monitor and Queen of this entire universe. That is why,

as soon as the lalitA-sahasranAma begins with the name

‘ShrI-mAta’, the next two names are ‘Shri-mahArAjnI’, and

‘ShrImat-simhAsaneshvarI’. For these two names there is no

masculine counterpart of the name.

 

When brahman ‘chose’ to become saguNa-brahman, the initial

spark was that ‘desire’ to become. So the Kameshvari-Kameshvara

couple arose and is rightly named so. The panchakRtya is for the

world to arise and go on from there. Thus the desire to produce

multiplicity out of Herself is the kAmam. But along with this

desire is also the act (in the form of mAyA) of ‘separating’ the

created multiplicity from the reality of the Creator. Is this

not then a cruel desire? No. The ultimate aim is to bring back

everything into the source. Then why do it at all? That is the

Cosmic Play. The very ‘desire’ to exhibit into a multiplicity is

based on the joy of bringing back everything together into the

one and only source.

 

The para-brahma-Shakti exhibits itself into five functions. Thus

we have a five-fold aspect of brahma-Shakti, created by itself

from itself. So these five aspects are represented in a peculiar

form where Kameshvari is sitting on the left lap of Kameshvara.

The seat on which they are sitting facing the East, has four

legs, namely Brahma (Creation), Vishnu (Sustenance), Shiva

(Dissolution), and Ishvara (mAyic curtain); the seat itself is

SadAshiva (moksha-anugraha). These five are called the five

‘brahman-s’ . And this explains the name

‘panca-brahma-Asana-sthitA’ for the Goddess.

There is also another name ‘panca-preta-Asana-Aseena’ meaning

‘She who is seated on the seat of five ‘preta-s’ – preta,

meaning ‘dead body’ --. The ‘brahman-s’ of the earlier name are

here called ‘preta-s, because, if the five functions had not

been assigned to them, they are nothing, - like the motor

without the horsepower ! Even for Kameshvara, she is the

life-giving Shakti and therefore the name

‘Kameshvara-prANa-nADI’ which occurs both in Lalita-sahasranama

and in Trishati.

 

Now let us come to the word ‘spanditum’. The hara-rudra has been

assigned the duty of samhAra, this is a ‘full duty’, so to say.

On the other hand, the Shiva that is the absolute brahman has

just been ‘moved’ – moved from within! This movement is the

‘spandanam’. The Shivam was like a calm, ripple-less,

vibration-less peaceful lake; and in that lake, the first

ripple, the first vibration, the first movement took place in

the form of ‘kAmam’. The agent for this was the cit-Shakti of

brahman itself. She, the cit-Shakti, not only became two, namely

the willing power (icchA-Sakti), and the acting power

(kriyA-Shakti), but made the icchA rise in brahman itself and

this ‘making’ was itself Her first act of creation!

 

Let us analyze this still further. Before someone ‘desires’ he

should first recognize that he ‘is’. When we are in deep sleep

we don’t desire. So the event of ‘desire’ rising in brahman,

must be preceded by the awareness of self-existence. Brahman was

just existing in itself, but was it ‘aware’ that it was existing

as such? The very event of cognition – by brahman, as it were -

that ‘I am brahman’ is itself an act of the ‘spandana’-effect

of Shakti.

 

This ‘experience’ of brahman of the act of recognizing itself

has a technical name in Vedanta. It is ‘parAhantA’. ‘ahantA’ is

the thought ‘I am’. When we wrongly think that our real ‘I’ is

body-mind-intellect, it is called ‘ahantA’ – the word derived

from ‘aham’. When the supreme Absolute, which is the origin of

all the ‘aham’s in the world, thinks of itself as ‘I’ it is

supreme ‘ahantA’, that is, para-ahantA. In devotional

literature, it is customary to call parAShakti the parAhantA

form of Shivam and thus arises the name ‘parAhantA-svarUpiNI’

for ambaal.

Indeed the ‘feeling of I-ness’ that arises in the immutable

brahman, is the spandana caused by Shakti and that is what

personifies her. Our Acharya brings this effectively by using

the word ‘Aho-purushhikA’ in Sloka No.7. The word means that She

is the personification of the thought ‘I am brahman’ of brahman

!

 

The ShAkta school conception of Shiva and Shakti sometimes

appears to involve a duality there. Thus they contend that it is

Shakti that caused the movement. Acharya’s sloka also seems to

say so. But the Acharya, while appearing to be talking ‘dvaita’

he has built his advaita into it by using the word spandanam. In

what was Knowledge-Absolute, the thought of ‘I’ arose from

within. This internal pulsation is the spandanam. The word is

very precisely placed here. Because ‘spandanam’ by its very

meaning negates anything external. It is internally caused.

Something like what you say in modern science about the central

nucleus bursting of its own accord.

 

But even the ShAkta schools cannot place Shiva and Shakti as two

separate things. Because Shiva and Shakti are like the lamp and

its light, the flower and its fragrance, honey and its

sweetness, milk and its whiteness, word and its meaning. Thus

they cannot be separated from each other. Even though the credit

for the spandanam is given to Shakti, it is not as if She and He

are separate. This mutual dependence of the two should be kept

in our mind always.

(To be Continued)

PraNAms to all advaitins and Devotees of Mother Goddess.

profvk

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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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.