kuruDu nAyi tA saMtege baMtaMte-muNDige by Sri Purandara Dasaru

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Hare Srinivasa ! Who am I ? Why am I here? Who is the controller behind this entire existence? Where am I going? What are the steps

I am taking to reach there? Purandara Dasaru wants one to awaken from the reverie of a mundane existence of earning, eating, sleeping and enjoying sensual pleasures without a single thought about the above questions. Human birth is all about asking the questions and seeking for the answers through a suitable guru. And for all the people who have been fortunate to be born in Madhva matha , the guru is already there. We have a lineage of gurus , Haridasas and others who have left behind a heritage of volumes of literary works in sanskrit and kannada for the benefit of the sincere seekers. Before making a study of any work if one surrenders to the mahAtma who had the inspiration to write it then the Lord is sure to grace one with sujNAna that can be obtained from it. But the underlying condition is complete

faith in this lineage and the siddhantha. Purandara Dasaru's muNDige shows the extent to which Dasaru feels about the wastage of a human birth without being used for the enquiry into the cause of creation, the master behind the creation and the extraordinary leelas of the creator. He wants to drive home to the layman the acute necessity for such thirst of knowledge of the Supreme being as advised by the Brahma Sutras. ||Om atAtO brahma jigNAsA Om|| He uses vivid metaphors and tries to catch the attention of the sadhaka. Dasaru being a literary master par excellence wanted to and was able to make use of the fact that if one does not understand something said in a straightforward way then sometimes it happens that the animated way of expressing something causes everyone to sit up and listen with open ears. kuruDu nAyi tA saMtege baMtaMte adu Etake baMto kaMda sakkare hitavillavaMte kaMDa eluvu

kaDithitaMte henDira makkala nechchItaMte koMDu hoguvAga yArillavaMte bharadi aMgaDi hokkitaMte tiruvi doNNeyali ikkidaraMte maretarinnu vyartavaMte narakadolage biddidaMte vEdavAdagalnOditaMte gAde mADi bittitaMte hAdi tappi neDadu yamana bAdege tA guriyAyitaMte nAnA janmavanettitaMte mAnavanAgi huTTitaMte kAnana kAnana tirugItaMte tAnutannane mareyitaMte maMgana kaiyali mAnikyavaMte hAMgo hIMgo kaledItaMte raMga puraMdara viTTalana maretu

baMga bahala paTTitaMte In this twisted devurunama also called as a muNDige , Purandara Dasaru is describing the plight of the jiva immersed in varied sense inputs as it traverses through the whirl of samsaara . Dasaru uses his excellent literary skills to make the composition rhyme at every padya's end and at the same time he also animates the entire theme using the plight of a blind dog as a metaphor. Dasaru says , "A blind dog came to the weekly village fair, and he exclaims as to why it came." One may ask ,"Who is this blind dog and why am I being told about it?" To this, In another Devurunama Purandara Dasaru himself answers: "nAyi baMdadappa aNNa attalAgiri nAyi aMdare nAyi alla mAnava janmada hIna nAyi" He talks of the birth of human life proclaiming that with a birth the relationships like brother, aunty etc begin then says ,"Mistake me not! I am not talking of a dog but of the lowly human being who is comparable to a contemtable stray dog. " One may ask "Why is Dasaru humilating a dog by saying hInA nAyi?" Actually Dasaru is not using "nAyi" in the physical sense but he is using the nature of the stray dog here. A stray dog has the nature to go from house to house eating whatever is thrown to it. It tries to get at food that is forbidden

.. It tries to bark at people irrespective of who they are? In other words it is just interested in filling its stomach and reproducing. It does nothing worthwhile because it does not even have anything to guard being a stray. A dog's only quality is faithfulness , but that too is not there in a stray because it has no one to be faithful to. Faithfulness comes as a result of constant fulfillment of one's trust and since there is none who really cares for a stray dog, the dog never gets a chance to show its faithfulness. Dasaru is saying that one who never realises the importance of a human birth and just whiles it away by meeting only the physical and emotional demands and completely neglecting the spiritual aspects of life, then it is definitely comparable to a

stray dog's life. Here firstly the word saMte is not just market or fair but that which appears at regular intervals in villages where people buy and sell products. It consists of various attractions including treats for the eyes, ear, nose and mouth. All our sense organs are entertained when we go to a fair. Similarly a jiva comes to the world and not just once, but periodically , it is repeated again and again and each time the jiva comes, he is like a blind dog in a village market. The blind dog cannot see its

way neither can it put up a defense against any attacks. Such is the case of a jiva in samsaara . One often does not know one's destination and even of one knows the destination one does not know the way to reach it. Being drawn by the smells of the previous samskaaras the jiva hurtles from one attraction to the other without any fixed objective except momentary pleasure and there by wastes away an entire lifetime. kaMda sakkare hitavillavaMte kaMDa eluvu kaDithitaMte henDira makkala nechchItaMte koMDu hoguvAga yArillavaMte A word which draws one's attention is a blind dog and the word 'kaMDa" which means to see as well as meat or peices. Dasaru both the meanings of this word in seperate instances. Even if a blind dog comes accross sugar which it is able to know as sugar it does not feel happy to have it, instead it overlooks this and goes towards a wayward meat or bone and tries to gnaw at it thinking that it is the most pleasurable activity. This draws our attention to the plight of most souls in samsaara who are not pleased with what they have but hanker for something they don't possess. It may be wealth, it may be position or any other thing. Dasaru says in a sarcastic tone ," Not wanting the sugar which is has percieved even though it is blind(implies that is must have tasted it), the dog goes on to search for and bite discarded meat and bones. The dog gets totally involved with its family life and when the time of leaving comes, none of the members with whom it was involved completely to the exclusion of everything came with it." This is a warning to do the work prescribed in the shAstrAs and not do prohibited acts. One should do one's work to the best of one's ability and not hanker after the work or position of another. In the IshAvAsya Upanishad Manu gets the flash of the following sloka , kurvanEvEha karmANi jijIvishet shataMsamAhA Evam tvayi nAnyathEtOsti na karma lipyathe nerEH || "One should do one's prescirbed duties and offer it to the Lord and should wish to live a hundred years in order to do the work assigned to one by the Lord and then such karma does not tend towards bondage." Here "ihA karMANi" means to this Lord YagNa namaka paramAtma who was right in front of Manu while he was visualising the IshAvAsya upanishad. Doing karma with the attritude of dedication to the Lord is absolutely essential to unshackle one from bondage. Also the warning that Dasaru wants to give is that one thinks that one is doing all this for ones near and dear ones. If one just does everything only for that then one fails to see the truth of the temproary nature of all relationships which end with death. The moment the icy hand of death completes its job, the soul is required to traverse further and further on its lonely journey. It is a lonely journey for souls in samsaara because even though the Lord is its constant companion it is unaware of that and thinks of

itself as a seperate entity reponsible for itself. The concept of the Lord being there at every instant comes to realisation only at the time of aparOXa. So, Dasaru proclaims it in very matter of fact way when he says that when the soul was taken on its forward journey away from everything that he/she thought belong to him/her permanently, there was no one and no thing which came along. Serving our relations and friends, and being responsible for our family is an indispensable part of our karma and becomes a part of our sadhana provided we are always mindful of the fact that this service is being done by the inspiration of the Lord as His service because He resides in the inner recesses of the hearts of all beings. All work should be done for pleasing the Lord as He has advised time and again that doing the duty is our forte and not hankering after the result. Doing the work alloted to one with the sole intention to please the Lord is duty. bharadi aMgaDi hokkitaMte tiruvi doNNeyali ikkidaraMte maretarinnu vyartavaMte narakadolage biddidaMte bharadi -full to the brim aMgaDi - bazaar or display or outward show tiruvi- turn upside down or go around doNNe - cudgel,staff ikkidaraMte - smashed, placed Dasaru says ,"The blind dog entered the shop/bazzar full to the brim with many wonderful things and it tried to get at these things. It had no aim but just to taste anything that came its way . It even went exploring inside the shop and when it was shooed away by the people in the shop, it did not stop. Finally they beat it up with a cudgel. Even after all this misery and suffering again it just continues to do the same thing. Even though it knows it is going to be beaten it continues its behaviour of entering another shop and repeating the scene again and again." Continuing with his comparison of the

world as a village fair, Dasaru proceeds to describe the situation of a soul in the world. He says the attractions in the world are so mesmerising to the soul in the body that it just gets carried away with one enjoyment after the other and even after being beaten hard with worries, miseries and grief which should make a sincere seeker question about the necessity of the temproary nature of any pleasurable experiences. if one does not realise that one is not doing what one came here for, then such a soul is really not worthy of better things and just falls into the lower worlds of naraka. The fact that all our relationships, wealth, property, intellectual prowess and other skills are bestowed on us by the Lord and He is the master of it all. If He so

wishes He can takem them away at any instant. So one should always remember His benevolence and seek to feel His presence in every experience. Vijaya Dasaru in one devaranama says, manave mAdhavanolu mamatheirali tanumanadhanaMgalanu nAte niDida myAle "Oh mind, let your love ,

affection and adoration be for Madhava and none else." Why? "After all, He is the benevolent master who has given you this body, the mind, wealth ......" vEdavAdagalnOditaMte gAde mADi bittitaMte hAdi tappi neDadu yamana bAdege tA guriyAyitaMte In the BG 2.42 to 45 Lord Krishna warns us of the impact of not understanding the real meaning of the Vedas. Those who accept only the surface meaning of the Vedas that uphold sacrifices and proclaim heavenly pleasures as the highest ideal of life, miss its underlying meaning and complacently contend that it neither contains any inner meaning which describes the Paramatma nor of the pathway to release the soul from the shackles of bondage. Hence they never think or contemplate about these higher ideals and lose the pathway to eternal bliss. They get entangled in the emphemeral pleasures and perform one karma after another to get more affluence, to get more enjoyment, to get more of something else and hence fail to attain the concentration required for the intense uninterrupted contemplation of the infinite auspicious attributes of the Supreme Lord which is the invisible key to salvation. They interprete the Vedas and make adages out of them stressing on the importance of performing karma to earn heavenly as well as worldly pleasures. They stop at that and never go deeper. DAsaru is talking ot the consequences of one who has started following this flowery interpretation of the Vedas and thereby loses the in-depth meaning not only because they don't know but because they think they know better . So they stop seeking the true path and are condemned to repeated births and deaths . They experience the travails of samsaara again and again . Dasaru is putting it up boldly to the layman not to do this mistake for if one does this then the spiritual pathway will dissappear and one gets mired in the mesh of samsaara without even knowing that there exists something more than this. Unfortunate is the one who has not begun one's search , but this person is more fortunate than the one who began his search but then got into the

track of the VedavAdarathas. His intellect is convinced about the flowery meaning that he has obtained from the Vedas and therefore once the intellect is convinced it is almost next to impossible to change the opinion of such a person. He refuses to listen to better advice or teachings and insists that he has found the actual meaning. nAnA janmavanettitaMte mAnavanAgi huTTitaMte kAnana kAnana tirugItaMte tAnutannane mareyitaMte As a

consequence of performing karma with the sole intention of gaining fruits and not accepting that there exists something or someone greater who controls the entire creation , the jiva moves from one birth to another and upon securing the human birth the jiva just wanders aimlessly lost in the forest of experiences without any contemplation on the questions that were posted in the beginning. Who am I ? Why am I here? Who is the controller behind this entire existence? Where am I going? What are the steps I am taking to reach there? maMgana kaiyali mAnikyavaMte hAMgo hIMgo kaledItaMte raMga puraMdara viTTalana maretu baMga bahala paTTitaMte Dasaru says " This human birth which is not utilised in the ordained manner is like giving a precious stone to a monkey. The adage 'maMgana kaiyalli mAnikyA" is a metaphor to indicate that just as a monkey is unaware of the treasure in its hands but treats it just like a toy, similarly the human birth is a precious treasure in the hands of the jiva and it is using this just to entertain itself. Dasaru deplores the situation and hints at the way of getting out of this cycle. He says ,"Remembering the Lord Ranga Purandara vittala was what one needed to do and instead of doing this all other things were done and as a result the jiva has to endure endless adversities . The Bhagavatham proclaims that the body of a

human being is precious as it contains essential equipment like the mind and intellect for the realization of Brahman. labdhvA sudurlabhamidam bahusambhavAte mAnushyamarthadamanityamapIha dhIraH tUrNa yateta na patedanumrityu yAvanniHshreyasAya vishayaH khalu sarvataH syAt || Embodied in human form after foregoing many lives, the sincere one should in all haste endeavour for emanicipation before he embraces death. The ephemeral earthly

delights can be had in every life. In another devarunama Purandara Dasaru asks the jivas in human brith. "Narajanama baMdAga nAlige iruvAga krishnA ena bArade?When you have obtained the human birth and one has the power of speech and intellect to decide what to say, then why can't you say krishNA?" In another devarunama he

asks, "hariya neneyada narajanmavEke narahairya koMDADada nAlige yEke?What is the use of a human birth if it is not utilised for contemplating on the Lord Narahari and what is the use of the tongue in the human birth if one does not sing the glories of the Lord Narahari?" Vyasarajaru denounces a human being who does not use his indiryas to see , hear, read, write, contemplate on the Lord and His leelas. He says ," aMtaraMgadali hariya kAnadava huTTu kuruDanO saMtata srikrishNa katheya keladavane kivuDanO" Vyasarajaru says ,"One who does not visualise the Lord in his heart is blind by birth,a man who does not listen to the glories of the Lord uninterruptedly is a deaf person." He continues condemning this wastage of a human birth by specifically exclaiming against the non-usage of one's sense organs

to gain knowledge about the Supreme. His strong words are meant to be like a whiplash to the mukthi yogya soul who has settled into life with complacency. Many more devaranamas are there with the same theme. I request other people on the list to share more devaranamas or ugabhogas which stress on the importance of the human birth in doing sadhana. Sri krishNArpaNamastu I am not

the doer, Lord Hari is the doer Whatever He makes me do is His worship by His grace R.Parimala

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