Digest of Paramacharya's Discourses on Soundaryalahari (DPDS-63)

[Guest guest]

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 -

63

(Digest of pp.1159 - 1163 of Deivathin Kural, 6th volume,

4th imprn.)

 

Here is a shloka which combines, by a poetic artifice of

metaphorical meanings, the divine glance of ambaaL with

several (actually, eight) meritorious locations (kshetras)

in the land of Bharat.

 

vishAlA kalyANI spuTa-rucir-ayodhyA kuvalayaiH

kRpAdhArA’dhArA kimapi madhurA’’bhogavatikA /

avantI dRshhTis-te bahu-nagara-vistAra-vijayA

dhruvaM tat-tan-nAma-vyavaharaNa-yogyA vijayate // 49 //

 

te dRshhTiH : Your eye-glance

vijayate : excels in glory (with qualities of being ---)

vishAla : broad,

kalyANI : auspicious,

ayodhyA kuvalayaiH : invincible (even) by the blue lilies

spuTa-ruciH : (in) brilliant clarity,

AdhArA kRpAdhArA :the basis for the flood of compassion,

kimapi madhurA: indescribably sweet,

bhogavatikA: pleasurable,

avantI : protective, and

bahunagara-vistAra-vijayA : with victories spread over

several cities,

tat-tan-nAma-vyavaharaNa-yogyA : well befitting the names

of cities indicated by those qualities,

dhruvaM : certainly.

 

Of these, the four names ‘ayodhyA’, ‘dhArA’ (Bhoja’s

capital), ‘madhurA’, ‘avantI’ (Ujjain) are well known as

the names of cities.

‘VishAlA’ (coming at the beginning of the verse) is also

one such; it is the other name of Badrinath. Recall the

slogan-cry of devotees: ‘Jai bhadri-vishAl’! In the

Valmiki Ramayana when Rama and Lakshmana are taken by

Vishvamitra to Mithila, on the way they pass through the

city of ‘VishAlA’.

In the Kannada region, there is a ‘KalyANi’ in the

district of Bidar. In the days of the Acharya that region

was called ‘Kuntala’, with its capital at Kalyani. In later

days when the Chalukya dynasty of Vatapi came to an end,

but again emerged as a powerful influence, it came to be

known as the ‘Kalyani Chalukya dynasty’.

 

BogavatI is another city. This is known as ‘kambath’ in

Gujarat. The Englishmen called it Cambay. That is why the

name of ‘Gulf of Cambay’ came up.

VijayA is another city. It is not the Vijayanagar of Hampi

in Bellary District of Karnataka. Nor is it the

Vijayanagaram of Srikakulam District of Andhra, where the

famous Gajapati kings ruled. In order to distinguish these

two Vijayanagara’s, the Hampi Vijayanagara was called

‘Vijaya’ and the Andhra Vijayanagara was called ‘Viziya’ by

later English Historians. It was the Hampi Vijayanagara

that became the seat of the famous Vijayanagara Empire in

later days; because the city was named ‘VidyA-nagara’ by

Bhukkaraya. But that was in the 14th century. Neither this

nor the Andhra Viziya was there at the time of the Acharya.

So the ‘Vijaya’ that he has immortalised in this verse must

be something else, probably the Kurukshetra of the

Mahabharata. The last shloka of the Gita says: “Where there

are Krishna and Arjuna, there rules Vijaya also”!. It may

be this Vijaya is referring to Kurukshetra. It is

interesting to note that Arjuna was himself also known as

‘Vijaya’.

 

These eight cities are not ordinary places. The

relationship of ambaaL to them all is because of the fact

that Her eye-glance (dRshhTi) while falling on the

entire universe fell in addition with an extra force on

these eight places. And, to boot, the meanings embedded in

the names of these eight cities, also fit as a

characteristic of the dRshhTi of ambaaL. This is shown by

the extra meaning imbedded in these words in addition to

them being simple proper names of cities.

 

The Commentators wax eloquent on the precise meanings of

‘vishAlA dRshhTi’, kalyANI dRshhTi’ and so on for all the

eight epithets for the glance of ambaaL. I do not remember

them all. But let me now tell you generally what all this

means.

 

At this point, Ra. Ganapathy, the writer of these records,

 

supplies the following footnote.

“Lakshmidhara’s bhashya on Soundaryalahari

describes these eight kinds of eye-glances thus.

‘vishAlA dRshhTi’ shows an inner satisfaction.

‘kalyANI’ shows the miraculous nature of the dRshhTi.

‘ayodhyA’ is the smile shown by the very eyeballs.

‘dhArA’ is that enchanting glance of the lover.

‘madhurA’ is what is shown by contracted eyes.

‘bhogavatI’ is the glance shown by friendly affection.

‘avantI’ is the innocent look.

‘vijayA’ is the side glance emanating from the position of

the eyeball moving to the extreme corner of the eye”.

 

The breadth of coverage of the glance of ambaal is vast and

so it is vishAlA. It also generates auspiciousness for the

whole world; so it is kalyANI.

Now let us come to ‘ayodhyA’. This name could have come to

the capital of the state ruled by the Ikshvaku kings by one

of two reasons. Their headquarters must have been so well

protected by moats and fortresses that they were

invincible. Or perhaps, they were considered so

invulnerable that nobody came to fight with them. On both

contacts their place is ‘ayodhyA’! But the point here is,

in what way the name fits ambaal’s eye-glance? First of

all, dRshhTi itself is a word for ‘eyes’. Poetic liberty

with ‘eyes’ compares it with blue lilies. Going one step

higher, poetic licence even plays havoc with the roles of

‘upamAna’ (example) and ‘upameya’ (that which is

exemplified); thus they interchange the roles of ‘upamAna’

and ‘upameya’. In the current context, it is not uncommon

to say ‘the eyes which belittle the blue lilies’. And then

one gets to be more aggressive and says ‘ in the war of

comparison, the eyes are the winners over the blue lilies’.

It is in this strain the Acharya says ‘eyes which are

invincible by the blue lilies’. And this invincibility is

what is built into the word ‘ayodhyA’!

 

It is ambaal’s eye-glance that bestows the rain of

compassion, that is, it is the basis (‘AdhAra’) for the

rain (‘dhArA’) of compassion (‘kRpA’). Therefore it is

‘kRpA-dhArA AdhArA’, thereby doubling the use of the sound

‘dhArA’ which is the name of the famous capital of Bhoja.

And does it not indicate also the generosity of King Bhoja

whose awards always excelled in their profusion because

they were always given with both hands rather than a single

hand, thus doubling the size of the benefaction?

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