Digest of Paramacharya's Discourses on Soundaryalahari(DPDS-50)

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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 -

50

(Digest of pp.1045 -1050 of Deivathin Kural, 6th volume,

4th imprn.)

 

We have not yet done with Shloka 34. The

Sheshha-SheshhI-bhAva (The Principal and the Accessory

concept) that comes in the third line of the verse has

tremendous conceptual significance.

 

“sharIraM tvaM shambhoH” indicates that ambaa is the body

and Shiva is the soul. Since the body is usually taken as

‘containing’ the soul one should not think that soul is a

property of the body. It is not like ‘the purse is in my

pocket; so the purse is my property’. By thinking like that

one commits the foolishness -- as the Acharya himself

mentions in his ShaTpadI-stotra – of thinking that the

Ocean is the property of the Waves; the Wave is not the

property of the Ocean! The fact that the waves are the

only thing visible from the outside and the calm water

beneath is not visible, does not mean that the waves

‘possess’ the ocean beneath them! So also with ‘body and

soul’. If the soul (life) leaves the body, the body becomes

rotten and decays. The soul goes and takes another body.

Therefore it is the body that is ‘possessed’ by the soul.

The soul is the possessee and the body is the property of

the possessee. In Sanskrit the word ‘svaM’ indicates the

possessed property. It is from this word ‘svaM’ the word

‘svat’ and the Tamil word ‘sottu’ (meaning ‘property’ or

‘possession’) are derived.

 

When ‘svam’ is the possessed property, the possessee is

‘svAmi’. It is the Lord who is the ‘svAmi’ for the whole

universe, because everything is His, in His possession, His

property. The possessor-Lord is called ‘SheshhI’.

‘Sheshha’ is the one ‘owned’ by the SheshI. Soul is the

sheshhI and body is sheshha.

 

This concept of jIvas and Universe as the body and the Lord

as the soul and on the same basis as sheshha and sheshhI

is an important tenet of the vishishhTAdvaita school of

Ramanujacharya.

 

If the Lord is taken to be the nirguNa brahman as per

advaita, then ambaa was first said to be the

I-consciousness of the Lord, by the Acharya. The first half

of the very first shloka meant only that. Then in shloka

#7, explicitly ambaa was said to be ‘Aho-purushhikA’. In

this kind of thing, there is no distinction between sheshha

and sheshhI; the shiva and shakti are in indivisible

unison. But looking at the phenomenal world of duality, the

talk arises about the divine Triad, and the divinities in

charge of the five cosmic functions. And in this state

they are able to function only with the help of a fragment

of Her Shakti. Just by the dust of Her feet they are able

to do what they have to do (shloka 2). Or by just the

winking of Her eyes (shloka 24). These shlokas point to the

fact that She is the Mistress of the whole show; in other

words, She is the SheshhI; and these divinities are the

sheshhas who do Her bidding. Even the alternates of Shiva,

namely, Rudra, Maheshvara and SadAshiva who belong to the

same category, are also sheshhas and She is the SheshhI for

them too.

 

Over and above all this, from the minutest earthworm all

the way up to the Cosmic Divinities of the five functions,

all of them have been created and given life by the

presence of Her Shakti within. So She is the SeshI to all

of them . In other words all of us are Sheshas,

accessories, for that SheshI, the principal.

 

This shloka also tells us in its second line how She is the

SheshI and He is the Shesha. Ishvara is nine-faceted –

these nine facets starting with Time and ending with jIva.

[Note by VK: The nine facets referred to here are:

KAla, Kula, nAma, jnAna,citta,

nAda, bindu, KalA and jIva]

That is the navAtmA that is mentioned in the shloka. For

all of these the life giving shakti is ambaa. So She is the

SharIrI or SheshhI. And Ishvara, who has the nine aspects,

is Sheshha.

 

Now change the viewpoint. You will see that He is the

SheshhI and She is the Sheshha. For, She being Shakti,

Energy, Power, there must be someone who wields that

Shakti, Power and Energy. That is the Lord Shiva! Even

when He is the saguna-brahman or the kArya-brahman, He is

the Ishvara who is the soul of everything in the universe

as the First Cause and the effects, namely, all that is

animate and inanimate, His body, that is, ambaa. So She

becomes the Sheshha.

 

The simple meaning of SheshhaM is ‘Remainder’. So the

original, which ought to be far more than the SheshhaM, is

the SheshhI. That is the paramAtman. From that fullness of

the paramAtman all this world has emerged, which appears to

be infinite and full. After emerging from fullness, what

has emerged seems to be full. This is what the upanishadic

mantra (pUrnamadaH pUrnamidaM) says. In other words it

only tells us that the paramAtman is the SheshhI and we are

all his Sheshha. Ambaa is manifesting as all the

multitudinous universe and the life within is the

Shambhu-brahman. Therefore “sharIram tvam shambhoH”. Ambaa

is the sheshha and He is the Sheshhi.

 

Thus the Acharya here does not make any distinction between

the different viewpoints of ShAktaM, ShaivaM,

VishishhTAdvaitam, Sankhyam and advaitam. The universe that

is discardable as mAyA in advaita is here talked of as the

body of the paramAtman. When you think of nirguNa-brahman,

the question of soul and body, sharirI and sharira, sheshhI

and sheshha does not arise. But in the phenomenal world

when we view things from our mundane angle, the universe is

said to be the body and the indwelling paramAtman the

sharirI – very much as in vishishhTAdvaita philosophy.

 

The Acharya says in this shloka that this Sheshha-SheshhI

bhAva is equally the characteristic of both. Already the

“samaya” school of ShAktaM talks of five equalities between

Shiva and Shakti.

[VK : See DPDS – 7]

And here the Acharya has added one more equality, namely

the Sheshha-SheshhI bhava!

 

Just as the universe is visible so also the body is

visible. So long as the mind is there both the body and the

universe will certainly be visible. When the mind is

inactive as in sleep, or in sedation or in samAdhi, there

is no universe, body or activity of the senses. Where is

the distinction in that state, between body and its life or

soul, who is the sharIrI, what is the sharIra, who is the

SheshhI, who is the Seshha? In sleep and in sedation, there

is no duality because nothing is cognized. For the jnAni

who is in the samAdhi state, again there is no universe or

phenomenal activity because of the absence of mind. There

is no jIvAtma being ‘monitored’ or ‘enlivened’ by the

ParamAtman. To comprehend the presence of these two,

function of the mind is necessary. Is it the state like

sleep or sedation where there is nothing? No. That is not a

state of complete void; it is a state of One-ness, namely

the presence of the One without a second! This is how

advaita has been established by the Acharya.

 

But other than that jnAni, the experience of every one else

has to see everything – starting from the mind and going

all the way to the five fundamental elements – as pervaded

by ambaa. And that is what the Acharya is training us to

do. As a beginning for this perception he says brahman

(shivam) is the soul and the unvierse (ambaa) is the body.

 

And he goes on to say in this next shloka (#35), that mind

itself, which is the cause for all duality, is ambaa.

(To be Continued)

Thus spake the Paramacharya

 

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.

Also see the webpages on Paramacharya's Soundaryalahari :

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