Digest of Paramacharya's Discourses on Soundaryalahari (DPDS-36)

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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 -

36

(Digest of pp.942-950 of Deivathin Kural, 6th volume, 4th

imprn.)

 

In Soundaryalahari, as well as in many similar works, there

is mention about attaining of a most attractive form,

captivating women into submission by means of mantra, and

such matters. These should not be taken literally. What

does it mean to bring another into submission to you? It

only means that you are already submitting yourself to such

practices. To appropriate a lot of property simply means to

allow oneself to be appropriated by that thought of

proprietorship. To want to bring somebody else into

submission implies that you are already submissive to

such thoughts. Thereafter there is no question of bhakti

towards ambaal or of surrendering to Her. Our Acharya would

never have meant to make us slaves to such mean desires.

 

What he intended must therefore be to warn us well ahead so

that we can steer clear of such desires and aspirations.

Just as all rivers fall and get absorbed into the sea, so

also all desires should get absorbed in oneself, never to

rise up again – says the Gita. That is the kind of shAnti,

Peace, that our Acharya would have advocated. It is the

captivation by oneself of all desires and the absorption of

all of them into oneself that the Acharya must have meant

by the power of ‘vashyaM’, meaning, ‘captivation into

submission’. All the three worlds become a woman who

submits to the jnAni in submission – this is the vashyam

that he talks about in Sloka No.19; not the captivation of

a woman into submission for lustful objectives.

 

Now let me come, as I promised, to the importance of the

red colour of ambaal. It is the colour of the eastern sky

when the sun is just rising. Kameshvari is of that colour.

What is so great about it? There is some physics of light

here and there is also the philosophy of creation and

dissolution. Red is at one end of the spectrum. When a

colour is visible it means the light wave corresponding to

that colour is the only thing that has not been absorbed

by the medium that transmits the light. Whatever colour is

reflected, that shows up; and whatever colours are

absorbed, they do not show up. When white shows up it means

none of the colours is absorbed, all of them are

‘reflected’ and they merge into one colour, white. When

dark shows up it means all the waves of light are absorbed

and there is no ‘reflection’.

Of the three gunas, shuddha-satvam, or pure satvam, is the

one that does not keep any of the three for itself and

therefore it is pure white, like milk. It is taken to be

indicative of the para-brahman, though the latter

transcends all the colours and the gunas. On the other

side, the colour that keeps all the colours within itself

and does not let any reflection out is black and this is

the colour of ‘tamas’. It is pure Ignorance. The in-between

guna is rajas, the kriyA-shakti. It is red in colour

because it is the first colour that separates itself from

the pure white sunlight and forms the beginning of the

projection of the other colours and creations.

>From the pure white of satvam to the total darkness of

tamas, the entire spectrum and variety of creation -- all

of them have come from the parabrahman, through the first

emanation of the ‘red’ Kameshvari. The ‘kriyA’ (Action)

that projects the jIvas from brahman, and the ‘kriyA’ that

takes the jivas back to brahman – both the kriyAs are those

of the parA-shakti who rose up as the all-red Kameshvari

from the first ‘thought’ of the Ultimate.Therefore ‘red’ is

indicative of Creation and is therefore the colour of

Creator BrahmA. The activity of life is all due to the flow

of blood which is ‘red’ in colour. The Sanskrit word for

blood is ‘rakta’ which also means ‘red’. Creation is done

by a poet also; so the poetic talent, ‘kavitvam’ is also

taken to be ‘red.

 

There are differences in the redness of rajas. The seeds of

‘kundumani’, the fruit of bitter gourd, and

‘pAdirip-pazham’ are all red.

 

(Note by VK: (1) The botanical name for ‘kundumani’

is Abrus precatorius.

The seeds of this contain

poisonous proteins.

(2) I am not able to get the English name

for ‘pAdirippazham’).

 

But the first one is poisonous, the second is bitter

though good for health, while the third is sweet as well

as good for health. In rajas also, there is the rajas that

binds, the rajas that keeps a goal of moksha and the rajas

that lifts you up to moksha. The ‘redness’ of Kameshvari is

of the third type. It is that redness which has to be

meditated upon, says sloka #18, as the one that engulfs all

the region from the sky to the earth. The words ‘saraNi’

and ‘lahari’ both mean a flood. ‘ShrI’ stands for the

beauty of ambaal. ‘ShrI – saraNi’ mentioned in #18, is

therefore nothing but Her Soundarya-lahari, the flood of

Beauty.

The mention of ambaal’s Supreme Beauty (Slokas 12 and 18)

in this part of Ananda-lahari, in spite of its yantra,

mantra and esoteric occupations, is to tell us that all

this is to lead us on to the darshan of that supreme beauty

of ambaal’s form, described in the latter part, namely,

Soundaryalahari. That physical form of course is contained

in the ‘head-to-foot’ description; but the redness that

radiates from that form is a light that fills up the

universe!

(To be Continued)

Thus spake the Paramacharya

 

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.