DEIVATHIN KURAL #163 (Vol #4) Dated 19 Mar 2011

DEIVATHIN KURAL #163 (Vol #4) Dated 19 Mar 2011

(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. Today we are proceeding from the page number 904 of Vol 4 of the Tamil original. The readers may note that herein 'man/he' includes 'woman/she' too mostly. These e-mails are all available at http://Advaitham.blogspot.com updated constantly)
11. We were talking about ‘Shat Padi’. Pada / padi / padam / paadam are words from the same Sanskrit root word, having a number of closely related meanings such as, a step, a word, a foot, a poetic meter, one fourth and so on. A poem with four lines became a padam and the word ‘padyam’ which means ‘poetry’ also evolved from there. The question may arise as to why only poetry should get the name Padyam as having evolved from the word (padam = word), when prose which is also full of words, is called Gadyam? Every song is in the form of poetry. Poems such as the songs sung traditionally in social get together like in a marriage for Nalangu and Oonjal are called ‘Pattiyam’, not to be mistaken with ‘pathyam’ meant to be restrictions on diet when undergoing treatment! ‘Paatti’ in Tamil stands for Grand Mother. So, since the varied songs in marriage functions are sung mainly by old women, may be those songs could better be called, ‘Paattiyam’ instead of ‘Pattiyam’.
12. Padam is one fourth of a Sloka. Let me give examples. Let us take what is normally well known or thought to be well known sloka ‘sukhlaam bharatharam’, which is in ‘Anushtup Chandas’ meter. It is supposed to have 32 letters divided into four parts of 8 letters each, as four Paadams. The counting in other languages may be different. In Sanskrit, individual single letters as well as composite letters combining more than one letter; are all one letter only. For example in the word ‘Suklaam’, in English it can be considered as seven letters; in Tamil as five letters. In Sanskrit, in ‘suklam’, su in one and klaam is one making it two akshar or letters only. The portion ‘klaam’ is a combination of ‘k + l + m’ with ‘aa’ giving it the Life as the ‘uyir’ aksharam! Similarly ‘vishnum’ is made up of vi + shnum; in this ‘shnum’ is ‘s + n + m’ with a ‘u’ giving it the Life as the ‘uyir’ aksharam! That is to say that while calculating the number of letters in a word in Sanskrit, we have to give attention to how the ‘vowels’ known as ‘swara:’ combines the consonants known as ‘vyanjanaani’.
13. Let us work out as to how many letters are there in the whole Stotra. Before that let us go into to preliminary grammer of Sanskrit, just a little bit. We see that in Sanskrit there are ‘Swaraa:’ which are Vowels; ‘Vyanjanaani’ which are Consonants; ‘Swara-Yukta Vyanjanaani’ which are Consonants with vowels and finally ‘Samyukta Vyanjanaani’ which are Conjunct Consonants. Each one of the Consonants with Swara will be counted as one letter. Thus the ‘klaam’ in ‘Suklaam’ and ‘shnum’ in ‘Vishnum’ (are both Conjunct Consonants and) will count as one letter each only, whatever may be the method of counting in the other languages.
14. su – klaam – bha – ra – tha – ram – vi – shnum / sa – si – var – Nam – cha – tur – bhu – jam / pra – san – na – va – da – nam – dya – yet / sar – va – vi – gna – upa – saan – ta – ye. That comes to 32 Aksharaas. First Paadam is, “sukhlaam bharatharam vishnum” ; the second Paadam is, “sasi varNam chaturbhujam” ; the third is, “prasanna vadanam dyaayet” ; and the fourth is, “sarva vignopa saantaye” ; each containing 8 letters or Aksharaas, totalling 32 Aksharaas in 4 Paadams. OK. That is all right. Now let us look at ‘Shat Padi’. Does it mean a poem having six Padis with eight Aksharaas each? No! Not necessarily. Each poem contains only four lines. That is the way they are. Then what is this ‘Shat Padi’?
15. Before we look at ‘Shat Padi’ Stotram let me explain some more subtle differences between Sanskrit / Tamil grammer as well as between Vaishnavas and Saiva Siddhantis view points. I told you about ‘Swara:’, ‘Vyanjanaani’, ‘Swara-Yukta Vyanjanaani and Samyukta Vyanjanaani’; in para 13 above. In Tamil the Vowels are known as Uyir letters and the consonants are known as Mei letters. Uyir has a meaning of Life and Mei has a meaning of Body. Mei also means True. Till there is Life in the body, it is real and so it is Mei and True! The moment Uyir that is Life goes out, this body which was till now Mei / true becomes Poi or Untrue! Similarly Vaishnavas, who believe in Ramanujacharya as their AachaaryaaL, call the body as Sareeram and the Life in the body as Sareeri. All the worlds and people are God’s body, the Sareeram. The Life in all of them is the Sareeri that is God! As the Life in the individual body, the Life in all of them is that one God only. That is Maha Vishnu as per the Vaishnavas and that is Siva as per the Saiva Siddhantis.
16. What we see everywhere is only the body. We do not see the Life. That is why the Sareeram / body itself was called the Mei or True Life. But, when the unseen Life goes out, the body that was called the Mei becomes dead or good for nothing, untrue. There is a song which says, “When even the mei becomes untrue”! Similarly, this Jeeva Loka peopled with all sorts of Life Forms becomes a Lie without God in it! But, the Vaishnavite and Saiva Siddhantis do not call the whole world as Maya as Adwaitins do. Here they make use the concept of ‘Uyir – Mei – Uyirmei’ letters as in Tamil Grammer, for understanding the relationship.
17. Uyir Ezhuththu are the Vowels. Mei Ezhuththu are the consonants. Uyir-Mei are the combined ones namely Consonants with vowels and Conjunct consonants. By this separation as Uyir Ezhuthu and Mei Ezhuthu; it means that letters with Uyir or Life in them are the living ones and it is they which impart life into the lifeless consonants. So also this Sareeram or the body without life is as good as dead wood and so also the consonants without vowels are lifeless! However, the consonants with or without life of the vowels do exist, do not they? So they cannot be said to be totally ‘persona non grata’, that is that, they cannot be said to be non-existing! They do have existence but, may not be as alive. Similarly all the bodies do have some relative reality and so cannot be totally discarded. Even dead wood does exist, does it not? Instead of calling it all Maya as non-existing appearances; they the Saiva Siddhantis give this above logic. Instead of all as one Aatma, they give some such explanation for relative existence of the dual world.
18. In truth Adi Sankara too does not say that all Jeevas and the whole Lokam is all a lie. In truth itself he talks of many levels. But here I have not come to fight about Truth and Siddhaantam. AachaaryaaL himself has forbidden us from fighting on such differences of views. That is why he has taught us this Shat Padi Stotram, which I started explaining. In trying to tell you about how the sloka has six feet and as to how it came to be called the Vandu Stotram, I have gone far afield. Let us anoint Lord Ganesha with ‘Sukhlaam Bharatharam’ and start all over again!
18. Now let us come back to the Shat Padi Stotram. In ‘Sthapadi’ Stotram each line does not have equal number of eight Aksharaas, as in the ‘Suklaam bharatharam’ Sloka that we have seen earlier. There is a ‘Chandas Saastram’ which is like an authority on Grammer governing the rules and regulations about poetry in Sanskrit, especially about the Meters. It talks of two different kinds of Meters. In one Meter, each letter with a vowel or Uyir Ezhuthu is one Akshara. Such a Meter is called the Vruttam. In Tamil when they sing with ‘Raga’ intonations less the timing of ‘Taal’, it is called singing in Vruttam. May be that system evolved from here. The meter other than Vruttam is called the Jaati.
(To be continued.)
Sambhomahadeva.