Digest of Paramacharya's Discourses on Soundaryalahari (DPDS - 28)

[Guest guest]

Namaste.

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

from DPDS – 26 or the earlier ones.

V. Krishnamurthy

A Digest of Paramacharya’s Discourses on Soundaryalahari -

28

(Digest of pp.898-903 of Deivathin Kural, 6th volume, 4th

imprn.)

 

Shloka 12 talks about the extraordinary beauty and charm of

the Devi. With a poetic excellence it says: “Much has been

said in detail and with precision about Your yantra – the

lines, the planes, the circles and the squares. But to

describe You and Your physical feature excellences, it

doesn’t seem to be possible. No poet has ever succeeded in

that task!”.

 

BrahmA is the Adi-kavi, the most ancient poet. The

Bhagavatam refers to him in this fashion in the very first

Shloka. The Goddess of Learning, Sarasvati, is his Shakti.

Who can therefore be a greater poet? He has composed

stotras on every devatA you can imagine. All the divines

usually go to him for redress of their grievances. He takes

them to the concerned God, either Shiva, or Vishnu or Devi,

etc. Every time he sings praise of the particular God whom

they are approaching for help. His stotra on ambaal in the

work called sapta-shati is famous. But even he could not

describe the beauty of ambaal as it is. The first half of

Shloka 12 goes as follows:

 

tvadIyam soundaryam tuhina-giri-kanye tulayitum

kavIndrAH kalpante kathamapi virinchi-prabhRtayaH /

 

tuhina-giri-kanye: Oh Goddess, Daughter of the Himalayas

tulayitum: to weigh (or assess)

tvadIyam: Your

soundaryam: beauty

kavIndrAH: great poets

virinchi-prabhRtayaH: (like) Brahma and others

kalpante: (only) imagine

kathamapi: somehow (in feeble ways).

 

Virinchi means BrahmA. prabHRtayaH: and the others of the

kind. They tried to describe Your beauty ‘tvadIyam

soundaryam’. The word ‘tulA’ stands for a pair of weighing

scales. In one pan of the scales we put the object to be

weighed and in the other pan we place the ‘weight’ whose

weight we know. In other words when we don’t know the

weight of something we calculate it by comparing it with

something whose weight we know. So when you don’t know how

to describe the beauty of ambaal, what we do is to look for

something whose beauty we know. Such a ‘weight’ we know is

known by the name of ‘analogy’ or ‘example’. The face is

like the moon, the eyes are like lotuses, the hair on the

head is like a beehive – all these are examples and

analogies, which help us to comprehend the ‘weight’ of the

beauty of ambaal, in terms of known ‘weights’.

 

So what the poets do is to imagine newer and newer

examples with great effort. This effort of imagination by

the poet is denoted by the word ‘kalpante’ in the Shloka.

‘kalpanA’ is imagination. They only imagine an example.

They are not able to arrive at the real thing, is what the

Shloka says. The fact they are not able to do it, is

gracefully hinted at by the Shloka in the words ‘kathamapi

kalpante’.

 

The yantra-form of the Goddess has been outlined with

precision. But Her physical form eludes imagination.

Attempts by even the great Brahma and others to find

suitable examples have only failed.

 

To describe the form, somebody should have seen it in full.

Has anybody seen it? No. Of course it is not right to say

that She has never been seen at all. Because we have

several poet-devotees who have had a flash of Her and in

the wake of that flash have composed wonderful devotional

poetry. Even in the case of the greatest of devotees, to

whom She might have given darshan, maybe one got to see Her

lotus feet, another the Graceful eyes, and another the

bewitching smile in the face. Like that some part of Her

may have caught the eyes of even these devotees; but never

the full form!

 

Then who has seen Her full beauty? Only the Lord, Her

husband, Lord Shiva. Indeed She took this very beautiful

form in order that He may be involved in the leelA of

Creation. And thus She became Tripura-sundari, the

beautiful. So Her physical form has been totally dedicated

to Him. Though Her full beauty is not visible for our

perception Her fullest Grace and Compassion are available

for every one of us.

 

That Her full beauty is perceptible only to Her Lord is not

said in so many blunt words. It is nicely couched in a

subtle poetic extravaganza which comes in the next two

lines of the same Shloka. (Shloka #12):

 

Yad-AlokautsukyAd-amara-lalanA yAnti manasA

tapobhir-dushhprApAm-api girisha-sAyujya-padavIm //12 //

 

yat : (of) which (beauty) (This goes with ‘Your beauty’ in

the first half).

amara-lalanAH : the divine damsels

Aloka-autsukyAt : because of their curiosity to have a

complete look

yAnti : reach

manasA : mentally

girisha-sAyujya-padavIm : the unity status with Lord Shiva

dushhprApAm : that is inaccessible

tapobhir-api : even by great penances.

 

The divine damsels who are particularly thought of here are

the famous quadret: RambhA, Urvashi, tilottamA and MenakA.

They are supposed to be superlatively beautiful. Even they,

having seen a little of the beauty of ambaaL, have

considered themselves insignificant, in relation to

ambaal’s beauty. They are naturally curious to get a look

at the complete beauty of Mother Goddess. But they also

know they cannot have that complete picture, because the

Goddess is totally dedicated to the Lord and Her complete

beauty is not perceptible to any one else. So what do they

do? Only the Lord knows Her fullest beauty. So they want

to be one with Him, the Lord Shiva. This is the

Shiva-sAyujya-padavI. Then and only then, they can have an

idea of the complete beauty of ambaaL.

 

But that Shiva-sAyujya status is not so easy to obtain. And

what exactly is this sAyujya?

 

Thus spake the Paramacharya.

To be Continued.

 

PraNAms to all advaitins and Devotees of Mother Goddess

profvk

 

 

 

 

=====

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.