[t'vengadam] "kim?": The 'What' of the Vishnu-Sahasranamam

[Guest guest]

SrI:

 

Dear SrIman Sudarshan:

 

What a brilliant inquiry in to the significance of

the SrI VishNu Sahasra Naamam of "Kim " !

 

You have touched many VedAnthic Chords and

woven them in to a brilliant essay .

The enjoyment is equivalent to the enjoyment

of SrI SadagOpan IyengAr's essays in depth

and connectivity to the central theme.

 

Thank you.

 

Your essay reminds me of the ancient manthrams of

Rg Vedam starting with the query of "Kim ".

There are a dozen Rks with the aarambham of "Kim ".

I will touch on a few of them in the near future.

 

After having queried with "Kim ", our hoary

Rg Vedam goes on to define the Parama Purushan

and responds with 100 plus manthrams , which

start with "Tamm" .I will also select a few of

those ManthrAs of the Vedam for illustration.

 

The indescribability of the " object under search "

has been referred to by Swamy Desikan in His sthOthrams

on Lord RanganAthA and other Dhivya Desa EmperumAns

 

You have started a cardinal and powerful thought process

through your essay on "Kim".

 

namO VenkatEsAya,

V.Sadagopan

 

 

At 12:32 AM 6/22/03 -0700, you wrote:

>

>

>Dear friends,

>

>The 735th 'nAmA' of Vishnu in the 'Vishnu-Sahasranamam' is the

>one-syllabled Sanskrit name -- "kim". It appears in the 78th

>'shlOkA':

>

> ekah naikah sah vah kah kim yat tat padama~nuttamam

> lOka bandhur lokA natha: mAdhavO bhaktavatsalah

>

>It's a rather unusual name indeed for anyone to have. Even God

>Almighty, one might say...

>

>In native India it is common for mothers and fathers to select a name

>for their new-born from the one-thousand hallowed 'nAmA-s' of God

>found in the 'SahasranAma'. Yet I doubt you will find a single soul

>anywhere in the country having "kim" as either first name or surname.

>

>

>I learn, on the other hand, that 'Kim' is a pretty common feminine

>first name in America and Europe. In Korea I understand every fourth

>man you pass on the street bears the name 'Kim'. My 13-year old

>daughter tells me there is a famous Hollywood actress by the name of

>'Kim Bassinger'; and my 15-year old son enlightens me about 'Kim'

>being the title of a lesser-known novel written by an English author

>of colonial fame, Sri.Rudyard Kipling.

>

>God bless children these days! How profoundly worldwide their

>knowledge of trivia is and how well they educate their ignorant

>parents indeed. Thanks to my two children, I have now made the

>important discovery that the western first name 'Kim' is actually

>short for 'Kimberly'. And since then, believe me, I have lived in

>secret dread of the day when 'Kim' might catch on fast amongst NRIs

>everywhere in the world, all clamouring to christen their new-borns

>with a 'tirunAma' found at last to be both hallowed by the

>'Sahasranamam' and glamourized by Hollywood!

>

>The Sanksrit "kim", however, is actually a very common, very ordinary

>interrogatory. The Sanskrit word for 'Question' or 'Query' is

>"prashna". A "prashna" cannot be framed without using an

>interrogatory like 'kim'. The whole of the Vishnu-Sahasranamam, if

>you have carefully noticed, is actually a response to Yudhishtara's

>"prashna" beginning with 2 simple but profound 'kim?':

>

> "kim Ekam daivatam lOkE? kim vyApEkam parAyaNam?"

>

> "Whither God? What is the path unto Him?"

>

>The Sanskrit 'kim' literally means "what?" or "which?". In a limited

>context, it can also be used as the English equivalent of

>"wherefore?" or "whither?". Most questions, most 'prashna-s' hence

>usually begin with this interrogatory.

>

>It is because the Sanskrit 'kim' is an interrogatory that in India it

>is considered unfit, in spite of being sacred 'nAmA', to christen

>one's child with it. Otherwise, one can easily imagine how endless

>the embarrassments in life would be for a child named 'kim' who when

>asked, "What's your name?" has to respond saying, "What?". And the

>questioner who, then thinking he hadn't been heard well, repeats, "I

>asked you for your name?". And the child, poor thing, insisting, "I

>already told you -- "What?""... And to this the bewildered questioner

>asking again, "Excuse me, what do you mean?". And the poor child

>having to retort, "I heard you. It's really "What?""...

>

>And on and on, so forth thus, would it all probably go -- a farcical

>chain in a theatre of the absurd called 'kim'!

>

> ***********

>

>Our ancient Vedic forbears (the great Sage Vyasa, for instance, the

>author of the 'Vishnu-Sahasranama') however had no compunction at all

>giving Lord Almighty the unusual "nAmA" of "kim" i.e. "What?",

>"Which?" and "Whither?". Even if one knew nothing whatsoever that is

>certain about God, the Vedic Masters said, one thing at least should

>be beyond Man's doubt: God remains and shall ever remain an eternally

>unanswered question... Hence, it is quite in order to call him,

>simply, 'kim?'.

>

>There is a widespread feeling in the world, even and especially

>amongst young Indians today, that the religion of the Vedas is one

>founded on blind, mechanical and credulous faith. It is thought that

>there is really nothing more to this religion called 'Hinduism' than

>ritual, pilgrimage, purificatory bath, breath-control and chanting

>Sanskrit litanies called 'stOtrA-s' that few understand and fewer

>still appreciate... Nothing could be further than the truth. The

>piety of the Vedantic religion does not lie in parroting. It has its

>springs deep in an age-old tradition of unceasing, relentless

>questioning about and after Truth.

>

>This tradition is called "pari-prashna" and it has been around in

>India for centuries. The word "prashna" means (as already explained)

>"questioning" and the adjective "pari" means "deep", "unrelenting".

>This Vedantic tradition of "pari-prashna" is perhaps even more

>rigorous, uncompromising and single-minded in its search for Truth

>than what we know modern sciences to be. It is this tradition

>precisely that Krishna recommends to Arjuna as a solution to the

>oppressive problems of life:

>

> "tadvidhi praNipAtEna pari-prashnEna sEvayA

> upadEshyanti tE gnyAnam gnyAninas-tattva-darshinah:"

> (B.Gita IV.34)

>

>"Seek out the wise men of knowledge", says Krishna in the

>'Bhagavath-Gita', "They will surely show you the Way if only they see

>you to be truly humble, devoted and unrelentingly questful".

>

>Although he embraced Krishna's prescription quickly enough, Arjuna

>seems to have lagged a bit in acting upon it. The suggestion of

>"pari-prashna" was made by Krishna towards the end of the 4th Chapter

>in the 'Bhagavath-Gita' but not very late thereafter, and not until

>the opening of the 8th Chapter, do we see Arjuna really acting upon

>the Lord's cue and counsel. But when Arjuna did indeed frame his

>first serious questions on the problems of life, it is all put, and

>quiet predictably so, with the inevitable "kim?"!

>

>kim tadh brahma? kim adhyAtmam? kim karma pUrUshOtama?

>adhibhutham cha kim? prOktam~adhidaivam kim achyutha?

> (bhagavath-gita VIII.1)

>

>"What is Brahman? What is soul? What is this world of ceaseless

>strife, O PurushOttama? What perishes? And what lives eternally, O

>Achyutha?"

>

>It is answers to Arjuna's 4 profound "kim-s" above that the rest of

>the "Bhagavath-Gita" -- Chapter 8 all through Chapter 18 -- is

>essentially all about...

>

> ************

>

>The religion of the Vedas has no age. It has survived time. It

>endures not simply because it is pre-historic but, more importantly,

>because it is seen to provide hard answers for the even harder

>questions of human existence. If there had been really nothing more

>to this religion than Sanskrit-chants and weaving incense-sticks in

>front of idols, it would have perished by the wayside of history long

>ago. This religion survives and thrives today only because it is a

>product, an invaluable distillant, of a long process of sublime human

>thought. The truths that this religion uncovers for us are universal

>and eternal. They are the fruit of centuries of honest, painstaking

>labour of mind, intellect and spirit. The sages of yore -- 'rshi-s'

>and 'muni-s'-- dedicated their whole lives to asking (as Arjuna did

>above) "kim", "kim", "kim"... again and again, solely in order to

>understand first and then finally intuit the Truth of God revealed in

>this ancient religion as 'Brahman'.

>

>It is precisely this hard and relentless 'spiritual labour' of the

>'rshi-s' that merits particular mention by Sri Parashara Bhattar

>(10th century CE) while commenting upon the 735th 'divya-nAmA' of

>"kim" -- in his famous "bhAshya" (commentary) on the

>'Vishnu-Sahasranama' titled "bhagavadh-guNa-darpaNam". Bhattar

>alludes to a fine expression from the Chandogya Upanishad which says

>one is obliged to seek and pursue Brahman before It can be known. And

>how is one to 'seek and pursue' Brahman? With ceaseless questions,

>"pari-prashna", of course, beginning with "kim":

>

>"so'nnvEshtavvyah sa vijnyAsitavyah..." (chAndOgya upanishad - 8-7-1)

>

>"One must set out in search of Brahman before He can be found and

>known".

>

>It is precisely this point, this theme of going about in life

>actively "looking for Brahman" -- in other words, by tirelessly

>asking "kim", "kim" and "kim" in order to get to the final truth

>about Brahman -- it is precisely the same leitmotif that we come

>across underlying several scriptural passages that are familiar to us

>and found in both other Upanishads as well as in the Vedantic

>"purAnA-s".

>

>In the story of Srimadh Bhagavatham, we see for example, the child

>Dhruva going away into the forest only to "look for 'nArAyaNa'". We

>see the child Nachiketas in the 'Katopanishad' travelling all the way

>to the kingdom of Death to engage Yama, the God of Death himself, in

>a gruelling session of "pari-prashna" (intense 'Q&A' dialogue) on

>matters very similar to the ones we saw Arjuna raise with Krishna in

>the 'Bhagavath-Gita' above. We see that the whole of a rather lengthy

>Upanishad, called "PrashnOpanishad", is devoted to an account of the

>wide-ranging "pari-prashna" to which the Sage PippalAda was subjected

>to by six of his keenest students. On reading this Upanishad today we

>see that their probing questions to the Master were as formidable as

>their names: (1) Kabandhi Katyayana (2) Bhargava Vaidarbhi (3)

>Kausalya Asvalayana (4) SouryAyani Gargya (5) Shaibhya Satyakama and

>(6) Sukesha Bharadhwaja! And again, in the Mahabharatha, we come

>across another popular example: the "yaksha-prashna", the famous

>"Q&A" engagement between Yudhishtara and a visitor from the celestial

>realms (the "yaksha").

>

> *************

>

>He who asks unending questions about the reality of 'Brahman', he who

>is seen to have the word "kim" ever ready upon his lips, is said

>therefore to be eminently fit to remain and rejoice in the presence

>and company of those whom the Upanishad calls -- "brahmavAdin" i.e.

>those Vedic seers and sages of yore. "kim" is verily the trade-mark

>of such noble "brahmavAdins". Which is why the famous Svetasvatara

>Upanishad's very first, grand opening verse begins with the dramatic

>line -- "kim kAraNam brahmA ...?":

>

> "brahmavAdinO vadanti:

> kim kAraNam brahma kutha: sma jAthA: jeevAma kEna kva cha

> sampratIshtAh I

> adhishTitAh: kEna sukhEtarEshu vartAmahE brahmavidO vyavasthAm II

>

>"Sages who seek Brahman ask: O knowers of Brahman, of what form is

>Brahman, the cause of this universe? On acount of which are we born

>and by which do we live? In which are we placed in the end? Being

>presided over by which do we function in acts of joy and sorrow

>following the prescribed order?"

>

>The word "kim", we thus gradually realize after reading all the

>above, is a supremely sacred word indeed. It is a "mantra-shabdha" in

>itself and that is why a simple syllable like it finds pride of place

>in the holy roll-call of God's 1000 'nAmA-s' in the

>'Vishnu-Sahasranamam'. "kim" can therefore be rightly said to be the

>"magic word" that can throw open the Doors of the Kingdom of Heaven

>for us. It is the all-important "password" to be uttered by any

>God-seeker. Without it his admission and welcome into the presence of

>"brahmavAdins" or "gnyAni-s" is unlikely; without it his journey in

>quest of the Almighty too might well never begin...

>

> **************

>

>"samsArE kim sAram?", Adi Sankara bhagavathpAdA is said to have once

>asked. "What is the meaning of worldly existence?".

>

>They say that the 'AchArya' himself provided a pithy but cryptic

>answer:

>

> "bahusah: abhi vichintyamAnam idam eva"

>

>Meaning, "You have asked the question. Keep asking it. And that is in

>itself the answer".

>

>The message of Sankara's "prashna" and his own answer to it is this:

>

>"Do not duck but squarely face the difficult questions of existence

>such as "Who am I? Why was I born? Where do I come from? Where am I

>going? How can I be free? How can I be fearless? Can I rid myself of

>desire and anger? Can I conquer my self…?".

>

>Sankara urges us to ceaselessly confront such questions at every

>phase in our lives even if we do not immediately find answers for

>them. If the answers are not found in this lifetime, they will be

>found in the next one… And if not in the next, then perhaps in the

>following one… But never relent, Sankara advises, never give up the

>unending inquiry -- "samsArE kim sAram?". The indefatigable quest of

>the Truth about God and ourselves will one day surely meet with

>success.

>

>"The journey of a thousand miles", it is said, "begins with the first

>step". The first step on the pathway of the great Vedantic journey

>unto Brahman begins with this simple question -- "kim?"...

>

> ***************

>Thanks and regards,

>

>dAsan,

>Sudarshan