Digest of Paramacharya's Discourses on Soundaryalahari (DPDS-62)

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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 -

62

(Digest of pp.1152 - 1158 of Deivathin Kural, 6th volume,

4th imprn.)

 

I said there is a special significance for shloka #47,

beyond the gymnastics of its imagery.

 

Among the several great achievements of ambaaL is the fact

that She gave life to Manmatha who was earlier burnt to

ashes by the Lord Himself. She did it so that the play of

Creation could go on. But then She also was concerned about

the welfare of the created world. The waywardness and

indiscipline of people of the world, did bother Her. As the

Mother of the Universe She wanted the Father also should

join Her in the activity of redeeming the millions of the

world. Instead of helping Her in this direction He, the

Lord, had the propensity to retire into seclusion for

penance. She knitted her eyebrows at the thought of this.

 

That very frown of Hers became an encouraging factor for

Manmatha who was now alive by Her Grace. Making Her own

knitted eyebrows his bow, He came to Her help. He assured

Her that he (Manmatha) will keep the bow (of Her eyebrows)

in readiness so that the very moment Lord Shiva shows any

propensity to retire into aloofness, he can release his

arrow and change His mind. During that earlier time when he

tried this he was burnt to ashes by the Lord; this happened

because He was at that time trying it on his own, with a

great air of confidence built by his own ego. But now, in

all humility, he says that he will take refuge in Her own

face and use Her own eyebrows and eyes for his equipment

of bow and bowstring. By the very fact that it is now Her

own divine act, it won’t result in failure as in the

earlier case!

 

Thus it is the frown of the eyebrows that causes

everything. It is at the control of that frown that the

entire Universe and its divine functionaries are all

functioning. No doubt therefore, that if we take refuge in

the same eyebrows by meditating on them, the bad effects

of manmatha will not be on us!

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Now the Acharya comes, in the description of ambaaL from

head to foot, to Her eyes. In the previous shloka (#47)

itself, there was a casual mention of the black

honey-bee-like eyes. But in that shloka the dominant factor

was the eyebrows. Now we come to the eyes proper. This

shloka #48 talks about the three eyes of ambaal and the

importance of the third eye.

 

ahas-sUte savyaM tava nayanaM arkAtmakatayA

triyAmAM vAmaM te sRjati rajanI-nAyakatayA /

tRtIyA te dRshhTiH dara-dalita-hemAmbuja-ruciH

samAdhatte sandhyAM divasa-nicayor-antaracarIM //48 //

 

tava: Your

savyaM nayanaM: right eye

sUte: causes

ahaH: the day

arkAtmakatayA: it being of the form of the Sun, (or)

possessing the definitive characteristic of the Sun

rajanI-nAyakatayA: Being of the form of the Moon (the Lord

of night)

te vAmaM (nayanaM): Your left eye

sRjati: creates

triyAmaM: the night.

te: Your

tRtIyA dRshhTiH: third eye

dara-dalita-hemAmbuja-ruciH: (which resembles) the red

golden lotus slightly in bloom

samAdhatte: beautifully generates

sandhyAM: the two sandhyAs, i.e. the two twilights

antaracarIM: which come in between

divasa-nishayoH: day and night.

 

The eye-balls of the right and left eyes of ambaaL are

like black honey-bees. The third eye however is different;

it is crimson-red like melted gold. This is the agni-netra

of the Mother. The first two eyes are, according to all

shAstras and purANas – except of course the Purushha-sUkta

– the Sun and the Moon. The central eye, usually referred

to as ‘lalATa-netra’ is agni, Fire.

 

The first line says: Because your right eye is of the form

of the Sun, it generates the day-time. Note that the word

‘savyaM’ is used here for ‘right’ as opposed to ‘vAmaM’ for

left (see the second line).

 

‘hemAmbuja’ is golden lotus. The Meenakshi temple in

Madurai has the sacred tank called the tank of the golden

lotus. It is ambaal’s third eye that is the golden lotus

there.

 

It is interesting to note that while the two eyes denote

the progenitors of ‘day’ and ‘night’, the third eye – which

is between the two eyes –must generate the intervening time

(sandhyA) between day and night. And, incidentally, this

shloka therefore establishes that ambaaL is Time itself;

‘kAla-svarUpiNi’.

 

The Mother does not stop by just creating ‘day’, ‘night’

and the two sandhyAs. The three Cosmic Functionaries who

take care of the triple acts of creation, protection and

dissolution, are created by Her (shloka #53). Without

distinguishing between the colours of the three eyes, the

lines of red, white and black are depicted as rajas, satva

and tamas and these originate the three functionaries,

Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, who, at Her bidding, do the acts

of creation, protection and dissolution.

 

But Shloka 55 presents the Compassionate aspect of the

Mother and compensates for the possible impression of Her

as the ultimate progenitor of Destruction at the

Dissolution time. “If You close Your eyes, the world gets

destroyed. And when You open them, the world is created

again. The presently created world should not be destroyed

– that is what Your Mother instinct feels. That is why

perhaps, Oh Mother, You are not winking Your eyes” says the

Acharya in the 55th shloka – thus echoing the general

understanding in the Hindu world that the divines don’t

wink their eyes at all.

 

In another shloka #54, the three colours white, red and

black which stand for satva, rajas and tamas are presented

from a different perspective. The river Ganga is white. It

comes from Shiva’s matted hair. Yamuna river is black,

because it has an inseparable relationship with Krishna.

The third one is Saraswati which is invisible but flows

under Ganga and Yamuna as an underground current. In stead

of Saraswati, the Acharya takes the Sone river, which is

red. The meaning of SoNa is red. If Ganga is taken as Shiva

and Yamuna is taken as Vishnu, then the SoNa river is to be

taken as ambaaL. It is ambaal’s favourite son Vighneshvara

who presents Himself as the red Sona-bhadra stones that are

available in plenty in the Sone river-bed. The three lines,

white, black and red, in ambaal’s eyes represent the

Triveni of Ganga, Yamuna and SoNa. Therefore it is ‘anaghA’

that is, sinless. The dRshhTi, glance that emanates from

that ‘sinless’ confluence of the three great rivers will

eradicate all our sins. “Let it sanctify us”, winds up the

Acharya, as a prayer that benefits, in his usual style,

not only the one who says this but all of us!

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