Digest of Paramacharya's Discourses on Soundaryalahari (DPDS-41)

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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 -

41

(Digest of pp.974- 979 of Deivathin Kural, 6th volume, 4th

imprn.)

 

The waving of lights that is mentioned in the last shloka,

the third nIrAjana of the whole work, has a specific

reason. The Acharya says that the entire work is actually

Hers, and therefore it is fitting, he says, to visualise

the work itself as a nIrAjana to the goddess. Mother

Goddess created this universe out of Her own wish and

imagination. In the same way though the poet may have

created this work, the words are actually Hers and so She

is the Origin for the work. So from that Infinite source of

Light, a fragment of a camphor is taken out and used as

nIrAjana to Her, through this work. In other words the

whole work shows only a fragment of Her Infiniteness. And

that is why the third nIrAjana (Shloka 100) corresponds to

Creation.

Thus Soundaryalahari has three wonderful nIrAjanams built

into it.

 

Let us now come back to shloka 22, where the first

nIrAjanam is taking place. The nIrAjanam here is nothing

but the dazzle of the crowns in the heads of BrahmA, VishNu

and Indra.

The interesting point here is the omission of Rudra, the

third of the Divine Triad. If you are talking of the divine

cosmic functions, the triad must include Rudra, certainly.

But the purpose here is different. It is to show the

supremacy of Mother Goddess over everything. The three

divines mentioned here are, the King who maintains the

divine world, the One who maintains the entire world,

and the One Creator to whom all the divines and all the

universe make their first appeal, whenever there is a

universal crisis. So the maintenance of the created world

is the thing in question here. That is why I told you

earlier that this nIrAjana is the ‘sthiti-nIrAjanaM’ (the

waving of lights corresponding to the Sustenance function).

For that very reason also, Rudra, the God of Dissolution

function, is not mentioned.

 

Further there is an esoteric purpose. The attributeless

brahman transcends the three qualities satva, rajas and

tamas. Of these three, the first is usally associated with

the Sustenance Function and with Vishnu. The second, with

the Creation function and BrahmA. The third is associated

with the Dissolution function and with Rudra. In the case

of jIva, the same three are the waking state (where we do

the maintenanace function of carrying on the activities of

life), the dream state (wherein we, out of our own mind,

create endless varieties) and the deep sleep state (wherein

all is quiet and is dissolved). But even in that deep

sleep state, there is a life within, which is unaffected by

any of the three; that is the turIyam, familiarly called

‘caturtham’ (the fourth) in Mandukya Upanishad. The three

states of awareness – waking, dream, sleep – pertain to the

jIva; therefore it is what happens in the microcosm (the

‘pinDa’). The three states of Creation, Sustenance and

Dissolution, pertain to the Ishvara; this is what happens

in the macrocosm (the ‘aNDa’).

 

The fourth, ‘turIyam’, is common to both. That ‘turIyam’ or

attributeless brahman, which is the substratum behind the

saguNa-brahman, that is Ishvara, is the very same ‘turIyam’

that lies as the ‘Atman’ , the substratum of the three

states of the jIva.

 

Why did I get into all this metaphysics? It is to tell you

that the ‘samhAra’ state, namely ‘Dissolution’ is what is

nearest to the turIya, the Brahman. Neither in the jAgrat

(waking) nor in the svapna (dream) is the jIva as restful

and unperturbed as in the turIya-samAdhi state. But he is

so in the sushupti (deep sleep) state. But again that calm

that he obtains in the sushupti state is not an

‘experiential’ calm. It is so only in the ‘samAdhi’ state.

That is of course true. However, when compared to the

jAgrat and svapna states, the sushupti state is the one

nearest to the turIya-samAdhi state. In the Cosmic level

also, it is the samhAra-rudra that is nearer to the peace

of para-brahman than the Creator BrahmA or the Maintainer

Vishnu. It is that para-brahman that is called ‘Shivam’ in

the ShAkta literature. Rudra is samhAra-mUrti, Ishvara is

the tirodhAna-mUrti who is responsible for the mAyA

phenomenon and SadAshiva is the anugraha-mUrti, responsible

for the grant of moksha. And then beyond the three there is

the para-brahman that is shivaM. In spite of this

classification, in general parlance and tradition, rudra,

Ishvara, SadAshiva and Shivam are usually identified as the

same whereas the creator brahmA and the sthiti-kartA Vishnu

are taken only as brahmA and VishNu.

 

What we have said about Shiva also applies to Mother

Goddess. The parA-shakti which is the fullest dynamic

expression (shakti) of para-brahman, is usually talked

about as identical with Parvati, the consort of Rudra but

not Sarasvati or Lakshmi. Even in Soundaryalahari She is

addressed as ‘hima-giri-sute’ or ‘tuhina-giri-tanaye’ and

not as Sarasvati or Lakshmi.

The bottomline of it all is this. It is only for Rudra

there is an identity with Shiva; not for the murtis BrahmA

or VishNu. Here the context is the nirAjana in the form of

the crowns falling at the feet of ambaa. And in this

context it was not decent to bring in Shiva or Rudrain this

part of Soundaryalahari where the emphasis is on philosophy

and tantra. In the later part, where there is a free

licence for poetic imagination, we have instances where

even Shiva falls at the feet of the Goddess, the context

however being that of Love.

 

It may be pointed out, in objection to what I have said

above, that even in this first part, in shloka 25, it says:

“It is enough to make one offering at Your feet. That

itself is equivalent to an offering to the divine triad.

Because they have placed their heads at your feet in

obeisance, the offering at your feet to your feet is also

automatically made to those three.”

But a careful study of shloka 25 tells us it is not so.

 

(Thus spake the Paramacharya)

To be Continued.

 

PraNAms to all advaitins and Devotees of Molther 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.

Also see the webpages on Paramacharya's Soundaryalahari :

http://www.geocities.com/profvk/gohitvip/DPDS.html