Dakshinamurti and Bhagavan

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indicates he is in harmony with time and creation because it is vibration which

manifests as form. His upper left hand holds a flame, the fire of knowledge

which destroys ignorance. The word Dakshinamurti can be divided into two parts:

dakshina and murti. The more familiar meaning is that dakshina means south and

right and murti means form. In other words, that form which faces south. In

Hindu mythology Yama, the god of death faces north, so that when Dakshinamurti

faces south, there is no death. He is immortal; he triumphs over death - he is

Mrutyunjaya. There is another meaning also based on Sanskrit roots. Dakshina

means clever, skilful, right-hand. Daksa meant at one time discernment,

judgement, discriminative thought-power. There is a sense of mental capacity

derived from the sense of division, or discrimination, viveka. There are

several variations

on ds which means to hurt but in positive sense it also means competent and

able. It is akin to the root dis: competent, fit, careful, attentive.

Discrimination is a force and it is where advaita or the enquiry into what is

true and what is false, begins. There is a further esoteric meaning,

"Dakshinamurti is experienced at the centre on the right side (dakshina) and

yet he is formless (amurti) that is, limitless. Dakshinamurti is the very form

of awareness (dakshina)... We find this interpretation in the Dakshinamurthi

Upanishad (semushee dakshina proktha)." Finally, Alain Danielou relates

Dakshinamurti to the five components (kala) of Siva and the manifestation of

speech. He says that Dakshinamurti who represents the being-in-knowledge

or-intellect (vijnana-maya-murti), is equated with the root of knowledge which

streams forth like rays of the

sun. The sun is the sum total of knowledge and is at the centre of the solar

world. In symbolic orientation, the centre, the point of origin, is called the

north. The aim of knowledge is the flow toward the south, that is, creation:

thus the Southern Image, Dakshinamurti. This is all very well in an academic

sense but to those of us who want to understand the close relationship of

Bhagavan to Dakshinamurti we need to turn to Bhagavan for clarification.

.......... Unquote ( the passages pertaining to - why do Bhagavan's devotees

identify Dakshinamurti with Sri Ramana? - will be continued in the next post )

Source : Mountain Path Vol.43,No.2 ; Editor & Publisher V.S.Ramanan, Sri

Ramanasramam P.O, Tiruvannamalai. email: m_path (AT) ramana-maharshi (DOT) org . (Please

note that the passage quoted above is only an excerpt and not the full

editorial.) Shri ramaNaarpaNamasthu.

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