DEIVATHIN KURAL # 199 (Vol #3) Dated 18 Mar 2010.

DEIVATHIN KURAL # 199 (Vol #3) Dated 18 Mar 2010.

(These e-mails are translations of talks given by Periyaval of Kanchi Kamakoti Peetam, over a period of some 60 years while he was the pontiff in the earlier part of the last century. These have been published by Vanadi Padippagam, Chennai, in seven volumes of a thousand pages each as Deivathin Kural. To day we are proceeding from the last para on page 913 of Vol 3 of the Tamil original. The readers are reminded that herein 'man/he' includes 'woman/she' too, mostly. These e-mails are all available at http://Advaitam. blogspot. com constantly updated.)

15. The five Pandava brothers were doing ‘Agnaata Vaasa’ (living incognito) for a year, at the end of their 12 years stay in the forest, as per the mutually agreed conditions on the gambling table! If they complete one year thus without being recognized, Kaurava-s would have had to return the Rajyam (power of governance). Now 12 years were over and the one year of living incognito was also coming to an end. Before that, Duryodana was keen on exposing their identity so that, the cycle of 12 years of Vana Vaasa followed by one year of Agnaata Vaasa, will have to be gone through again!

16. So, he sent his spies in all directions trying to locate the where about of the five Pandavas. He got some indications that possibly they were hiding in Virata Desh. Now they hatched a plan. They knew that the Pandava-s were basically kind hearted. So now, if you take the army and attack the Virata Desh, the Pandava-s are likely to come forward to help the King of Virata. That would be a suitable moment to expose them and send them back to the forest for another 12 years!

17. Accordingly the Kaurava Sena entered in to the Virata territory and started driving away their cattle. In Maha Bharatha, this occurs in Virata Parva in the chapter on Gosha Yatra. To fight with them Uttara Kumara the son of Virata comes forward, with Brihannala, who is actually Arjuna dressed as a woman as the charioteer. Uttara Kumara who had initially boasted so much about his prowess, was frightened of being injured in battle and killed! He wishes to run away from battle. Arjuna, remaining in woman’s dress, props him up and starts displaying his capabilities with a bow and arrow!

18. Bhishma Pitamaha starts wondering as to who could this woman be, with such astounding skills in archery! Drona Achaarya replies him as to who this woman was. This is one of the Bharatha Kuttu. As Arjuna was not revealing his true identity and living incognito, this sloka talking about him as uttered by Drona, is also not easily understandable. This is the sloka:- “ nadeeja lankesavanaariketurnagaahvyo naama nagaarisoonu:I eshonganaaveshadhara: kireeti jitvaavayam neshyatichaadhya gaa va: II ”

19. The meaning:- nadeejalam = river water; kesava naari ketu = kesava’s woman’s indication; nagam = tree or hill; nagaahvyo naama = a man with the name of a nail; nagaarisoonu: = son of the enemy of nail; eshaanganaa veshadhara: kireeti = this woman who is wearing a crown is a dressed up in a garb; jitvaa = having won; vayam = we; neshyati = taking away; cha = also; adya: = now; gaava: = cows.

20. Now, that is only the word for word meaning, in one way of interpretation of the combo words! Let us put the meanings of the words together and see what we make of it! River water, Kesava’s woman’s identification tree or hill a man with the name of a nail son of the enemy of nail this woman who is wearing a crown is dressed up in a garb having won we taking away also now cows! Thus there is some meaning of the individual words, together it makes no sense!

21. This girl Bruhannala who teaches dance to the Prince of Virata, is not wearing a crown. Here she is the charioteer for Uttara. ‘Kiriti’ is normally indicative of a man wearing a crown. A woman wearing a crown should be called a ‘kiritini’. So there is an error in the meaning of the word and a mistake in grammar too. This is ‘kanna, pinna’!
22. This sloka is like a thoroughly twisted and knotted maze of imbroglio! To understand this, we have to thoroughly dissemble and reassemble each word and look at all possible combination of its meanings! Only very intelligent people with high power grasp can do that. Ganapathy Bhagawan could do that in a fraction of a second. What is that meaning? It is like this. Someone was asked to go to the shop and purchase 100 gms each of ‘Sukku, Milagu and Thippily’. He went and asked for 100 gms each of ‘Sukkumy, Laguthi and Ippily’. After breaking their heads in trying to decipher what he asked for, the shop keeper and his assistant out of sheer frustration, gave him a thorough thrashing, it seems!

23. The regrouping of the words are as under:- nadeeja = dear Mr River born, that is addressing Bhishma Pitamaha; lan(m)kesa = king of Lanka that is Ravana; vana ari becomes vanaari = destroyer of vana; here it would mean the Anjaneya who destroyed the Ashoka Vana; ketu: = what is on top; here it is the flag. So, so far the meaning is like this. “...nadeeja lankesavanaariketu:...”, means, “Dear river born Ganga Putra, Sir Bhishma Pitamaha! The one who has on his flag, the picture of Anjaneya who destroyed the Ashoka Vana of the Lankeswara Ravana, that is Arjuna!”

24. “...nagahvayo naama...” is to be interpreted. naga = nail or tree or hill; aahvayo naama = with a name of; together that would mean, ‘with the name of a tree’! Arjuna is that name of a tree as well as that of a Pandava. Arjuna is the name of a type of tree known as the ‘Marudam’ in Tamil. The three Siva Kshetra-s with the ‘Marudam or Arjuna’ tree as the Sthala Vruksha - namely, Sri Sailam is Mallikarjunam, Thiruvidai Maruthur is Madhyarjunam and Thirupudai Maruthur is Pudarjunam; have all got the name of Arjuna added to their name, the name of a tree!

25. Next we have to see the meaning of ‘nagarisoonu’! Here the word ‘naga’ means instead of a nail or a tree, a hill. Howzzat? Who is the enemy of hills and mountains? It is Indra! Once upon a time hills were mobile. They had feathered wings. They would fly from place to place and cause untold miseries to smaller forms of life! Indra cut their wings off with his Vajrayudha! Then only they got the name of ‘achalam’! Sanskrit root words for move is ‘gam’ or ‘chalam’. If you add ‘a’ or ‘na’ as a prefix to words, they will become antonyms. Thus, ‘a + chalam’ and ‘na + gam’ would mean the same ‘immobile or static‘! Here nagam means the static mountain. Now the word, ‘naga + ari + soonu:’ = the son of the enemy of hills i.e., the son of Indra, that is Arjuna!

26, ‘esha angana veshadhara: kiriti’ , if this is taken to mean ‘this woman wearing a crown is in disguise’, that would not be factually correct! ‘kiriti’ should not be taken to mean any one wearing a crown, as though it is a common noun. Here Bruhannala is not wearing a crown and a woman wearing a crown should be referred as ‘kiritini’, to be correct grammatically! Here ‘kiriti’ should be taken as a proper noun to mean a particular person, that is Arjuna, whose bravery was appreciated by Indra himself and given a special title as, ‘kiriti’! In this light, if we read this sentence again, ‘esha angana veshadara: kiriti’ now would mean, this person who is dressed up to look like a woman, is actually ‘kiriti’ that is Arjuna.

27. Once you have got this ‘kiriti’ as Arjuna, now you know the meaning of the jig-saw-puzzle! That he is the one in the disguise of a woman, doing the job of a charioteer for Uttara, Virata Raja Kumara as Bruhannala; having Hanuman Anjaneya in his flag; has the name of the Marudam or Arjuna tree in his name; who is also the son of Indra. That is the Indra, who had cut the wings of the mountains which used to fly! All this become crystal clear.

28. One line remains unsolved. ‘jitva vayam neshyati saadya gaava:’ makes no sense or it means that, ‘won - us - herds - now - he - too - cows’! As we did earlier, we have to cut and rejoin the words differently, as follows:- ‘jitva - (a)va - yam - neshyati - sadyaga: - va:’. This would mean, ‘that ‘kiriti’ Arjuna, yam = whom; jitva = having defeated, (that is Duryodana), va: = your; ga: = cows; neshyati = herds; ava = save him, that is save that Duryodana!

29. Now let us recap the meaning of the whole sloka. Dronacharya is telling Bhishma, who was appreciating the archery of this woman charioteer of Uttara, “Dear Sir, the Son of River Ganga, the one who has in his flag the Anjaneya who had once destroyed the Ashoka Vana of Ravana, and has a name as derived from the tree Arjuna, the son of the enemy of mountains, in the garb of a female, having defeated Duryodana, is now driving away the cattle which we had captured, hence save our king Duryodana.

30. We have been breaking our heads in trying to understand this all this while. Like Ganesha the Scribe of Maha Bharatha, Bhishma understood immediately. He had extremely sharp intelligence and grasp of understanding. Anjaneya is another brilliant Brhmachari, that is eternal celibate! Listening to this story, we are all fortunate to think of such great personages as Ganesha, Bhishma and Anjaneya! Many such Bharatha Kuttu-s, he could solve without even trying. Thinking of Him let us also put some ‘kuttu’ on our heads, praying for energizing our brains too!

(To be continued.)

Sambhomahadeva.