Digest of Paramacharya's Discourses on Soundaryalahari(DPDS-51)

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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 -

51

(Digest of pp.1050 -1055 of Deivathin Kural, 6th volume,

4th imprn.)

 

manas-tvaM vyoma tvaM marud-asi marut-sArathir-asi

tvam-Apas-tvaM bhUmis-tvayi pariNatAyAM na hi paraM /

tvameva svAtmAnaM pariNamayituM vishva-vapushhA

cid-AnandA-kAraM shiva-yuvati-bhAvena bibhRshhe //35//

 

“manaH tvaM” – You are the mind. Mother, it is this mind

that is responsible for all the truant behaviour and all

the consequent troubles; but even that mind is You

yourself. ‘I may ask you, O Mother; Who are you?’ – even

this question is rising only in my mind and that again is

You!

 

In the path of jnAna, they talk of the destruction of the

mind. But here we are told that the mind itself is ambaa.

The advantage in convincing oneself that the Mother Goddess

Herself is our mind, is that it paves the way for stopping

all further truant behaviour and thus inviting further

troubles. It is by such practice one ends up with the void

where there is no mind; it is actually not void, but is

called jnAna-AkAsha, that is, Knowledge-space. Maybe it is

not visible now. So what? Right now what you are able to

see is the blue vast sky; learn to see that it is also

ambaa.

 

“Vyoma tvaM” -- You are Space. Not only just Space. You

are the five elements. The thing next to AkAsha is air; and

that is also You. “marud-asi” – air are you. “marut”

means ‘air’ (Vayu). Hanuman is called ‘Maruti’ because He

is the son of ‘marut’.

 

At the next level there is agni, fire. That is also your

another form. Even the Veda says: “agni-varnAM, tapasA

jvalantIM”, -- ‘of the colour of agni, shining by the fire

of penance’. Fire travels the way the wind blows, therefore

it is called ‘marut-sArathiH’. Fire has marut (Wind) as its

pilot!

 

“tvaM ApaH. tvaM bhUmiH” – You are Water. You are the

Earth.

 

Ambaa is in the form of the five fundamental elements and

so manifests Herself in the five chakras in the body, from

mUlAdhAra to Vishuddhi.

 

Where is the need for elaboration one by one? There is

nothing where You are not manifest. “ tvayi pariNatayAM na

hi paraM”. The ‘pariNatAyAM’ means that ambaa Herself has

become all this. ‘na hi paraM’ shows that there is nothing

more supreme (paraM) than Her.

 

All that was said so far constitute the first two lines of

the shloka. In the latter two lines, it says: “In order to

make yourself pervade the whole universe, You Yourself as

the consort of Lord Shiva manifest in the form of

Knowledge-Bliss’.

 

The fullness is Existence-Knowledge-Bliss

(sat-cid-AnandaM). Shiva is not only just ‘sat’

(Existence), but also Knowledge and Bliss. As Knowledge it

‘knows’. As Bliss it is ‘blissfully happy’. This knowing

and being happy are the effects of ambaa. That is why She

is called ‘cid-Ananda-lahari’ (Shloka 8). What is the

reason for this expression of knowledge and Bliss? The

third line of the shloka answers this.

 

“tvaM eva svAtmAnaM pariNamayituM vishva-vapushhA” –

meaning, ‘For the purpose of your pervasion as the entire

universe, You took the Knowledge-Bliss Expression in the

role of the consort of Shiva’.

 

‘The brahman knowing itself and revelling in the Bliss of

that Knowledge does not just end there; the expansion as

Knowledge and Bliss is for the purpose of manifesting

itself as the Universe’ – This is the kind of thought in

this shloka. It is out and out a ShAkta doctrine. It is not

there in advaita. When advaita school dwells on Creation,

they say: “It is all because of mAyA; the questions of How

and Why do not lead us anywhere. The whole business is to

discard this mAyA and rest in the base, the substratum . So

where is the need for research about How this came and for

what purpose?’

 

On the other hand, in the traditions of Bhakti, like

ShAktam, they give you reasons for Creation – that the same

Cit (that is, Supreme Consciousness) manifests as several

fragments of consciousness and the same Ananda (that is,

Supreme Bliss) manifests as several fragments of Bliss, and

that Creation is enable us to watch the play of that

Universe. According to them it is that drama that we take

to be wholly real and we consequently are immersed in that

mAyA. ‘Even in this mAyic universe what flows is only that

Consciousness-Bliss (cidAnanda-rasam); in the same way as

the substratum of existence being called ‘shiva-yuvati’.

If only we realise that all this creation of universe is to

make us enjoy Her play, Her drama, Her expansion, then we

can delight in that blissful view of the miracle, and in

turn, be immersed in that CidAnanda.

 

Note that the word ‘pariNAma’ (transformation) has been

used twice. There is no ‘transformation’ concept in

advaita. In advaita, Brahman does not get transformed, as

milk does into curd. The changeless brahman appears as the

universe through mAyA – that is the advaitic contention. It

is Sankhya that talks of the universe as the transformation

of PrakRti. Even there they don’t say that it is the

transformation of the Purusha, but it is so only of

PrakRti. Our Acharya has adopted that tenet here and used

the form of that tenet as given by the ShAkta tantra.

 

It will be interesting to research into how much the

Acharya condescends to stray away from advaita in order to

accommodate the various tastes of people with the purpose

of lifting them up. One may question: ‘Could he do such

things, ever?’. The only answer could be: ‘Only a

compassionate one such as the Acharya can’!

 

There is a branch of Kaula called Uttara-kaula. They

interpret ‘shiva-yuvati’ as follows. ‘Shiva-yuvati’ does

not mean ‘the consort of Shiva’. It is Shivam itself that

encompasses the Shiva-tattva within itself and manifests as

the ‘yuvati’, the feminine consort. The SahasranAmam also

has ‘svAdhIna-vallabhA’ which means ‘She who has her

husband in her control’. A little stretching of that

meaning will indicate that She has Him within Herself. And

this will help us to be confirmed of the Acharya’s words

‘na hi paraM’ (there is nothing other than Herself) in this

shloka.

 

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.

Also see the webpages on Paramacharya's Soundaryalahari :

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