DEIVATHIN KURAL #168 (Vol #4) Dated 29 Mar 2011

DEIVATHIN KURAL #168 (Vol #4) Dated 29 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 page number 940 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)
60. There is a pot let us say looking beautiful from the outside but, if it has four small holes underneath or even one hole, if it is filled with Amrit or Nectar, it will all ooze out, will it not? That is how, for the outer look we may seem alright, to even ourselves! We may have enough of money, education and other attainments. Still we may have some four holes of dissatisfaction, anger, jealousy and hate; good enough to deny us the Amrit of happiness.
61. That is the reason why, AachaaryaaL has pointed out that as we start the ‘Shatpadi Stotra’, we should be void of these hazards from our minds. For that all that we have to do is to pray to God to do the needful. He shows us the way how. “avinayam apanaya Vishno dhamaya mana: samaya vishaya trushNaam I bhoota dayaam vistaaraya taaraya samsaara saagarata: II”
62. First it is starting with ‘avinaya apanaya’. All of you must be knowing the word ‘vinayam’ which means ‘respectful humility’, the most loveable quality in a student as well as a devotee! ‘Avinaya’ means the opposite of ‘vinayam’ meaning, haughtiness and head weight. This may please be erased he says, ‘apanaya’. We use a word ‘Upanayanam’, which means ‘fetching near’. Nayanam means to fetch. When we give a young boy around the age of five, the ‘PooNool’, which is the holy thread to be worn across the chest from the left shoulder under the right arm pit; we take the boy near the Guru and hand over. The opposite of Upanayanam is ‘apanayanam’. That is to separate and remove. Now we have pride, haughtiness and high headedness. These are to be removed from us. So, we are praying to Maha Vishnu to erase such qualities from us in the very first sentence of the Shatpadi. “avinaya apanaya Vishno!”
63. He is praying as though directly ringing up Vishnu and saying, “Hi! Vishnu, please remove all my negative qualities!” He is not praying as though he is different from the people for whom he is requesting God. He talks as one of us, as though he is praying for himself that his haughtiness may be erased. It automatically means that he is requesting God to “Grant humbleness by removing haughtiness”. What we all have in plenty is ‘avinayam’ is it not so? So, instead of saying give me humility which we do not have, he is saying remove this high headedness.
64. Nowadays, when we speak of culture and being civil, words such as class, courtesy, grace and dignity are much bandied about. We somehow do not include humbleness and humility in them as an essential and noble quality. In the olden times this was not so. The word ‘culture’ in English is very close to the Sanskrit words, ‘Kalaa + Aachaaram = Kalaachaaram’, which meant that you were well educated and had the humbleness that went with it, instead of being conceited and imperious about it! Here education does not mean that you simply knew how to read and write. It meant that you had knowledge of real worth. When you know much, you also know that your knowledge is limited! Saraswathi who is the Goddess for all learning is saying that “kartradu kaimaNNaLavu kallaadadu ulagaLavu” meaning, ‘what I have learnt is a handful and what I have not learnt is as vast as this world”! That is to show how humble we should become with more learning.
65. In the bygone days, the disciple had respectful ‘Vinayam’ towards his preceptor, towards the subject he learnt, towards God and the world. That is the reason why, he could rise to unattainable peaks of excellence in learning about Aatma Vidya. When they were students in the Gurukulam, even if you were the son of the king or a rich merchant or well to do, all the students were required to go and beg for their days rations and hand them over to Guru Patni (wife) to cook. The aim was to inculcate utmost humility in the disciple.
66. Those days, the Guru taught Vinayam as the first lesson in the syllabus! He taught this to his students by being a model of the qualities the student was to absorb in truthfulness, studiousness, sincerity and integrity. Nowadays the situation is quite the contrary in which, the pot is also leaking and the rope used to lift the pot from the depths of the water well is also threadbare!
67. Similarly the king of the land too gave special attention to inculcate the quality of Vinayam in his citizens more than anything else. The Saastraas while talking of the duties of a king have given the pride of place to this important quality to be imparted to his people more than his other duties of governance such as protection and administration (vinaya daanam first and then rakshaNam and bharaNam). This was done by ensuring good education, instructions on justice and morality, abiding with religious tenets and beliefs and trust in God. Self contentedness, self control, soft and pleasant behaviour, accommodation for others needs and view points and being kindly to others are all part of this essential human trait of what we call gentlemanliness! True education is to impart this to students. That is why the student was known as, ‘Vineyan’.
68. Adi Sankara Our AachaaryaaL, His Sishyas and Their Vinayam. One of Adi Sankara’s students by the name of PadmapadaachaaryaaL has written a slokam on his Guru. It starts with the words, “yat vaktra maanasa sara: ”. I am not going to go into all the details of the sloka. Suffice it to quote the fourth line where it says, “vineeta vineya brungaa:” the portion connected with what I am saying here.
69. How is the mind of Adi Sankara Bhagawat PaadaaL? Adi Sankara’s sishya Padmapaada, who lived with his Guru all the time during the voyage, covering the length and breadth of this country Bharatvarsh by foot, describes his Guru’s face thus. It is as expansive as an ocean whose shores cannot be seen, whose waters are pellucid, cool and nice, like the ‘maanasa saras or maanasarovar’ in the Himalayas. We cannot see the mind. We can see only the face which is a mirror of the mind as it is said that, ‘face is the index of the mind’! We may hide our minds without showing it on our face, like an actor on the stage. But Great people like our Acharyal have no reservation about being like an open book. His face is also like the ‘maanasarovar’. If there is a lake, there has to be lotus flowers. Which is that lotus on his face? It is his mouth which is all the time talking of the highest truths, ennobling thoughts, intricately beautiful principles and which treats the drained and spent populace approaching him with words of solace with extreme compassion. It is that mouth which is the lotus flower in the face of his that is like the ‘maanasarovar’ lake!
70. When you have a lotus flower, there has to be pollen and nectar. Which are these from the lotus mouth of AachaaryaaL? His Upadesas which were basically so many spoken words (later came to be recorded as ‘bhashyams’), are the nectar and the important messages in them for the future and eternity are the pollen. The root word ‘bhaash’ is the spoken word, while ‘bhaasha’ is language and ‘sambhashaN’ is conversation.
71. As the sloka starts with ‘yat vaktra’, the word ‘vaktra’ means ‘face’. Face is the ‘maanasa saras’. The bhaashyam emerging from the face is the nectar from the flower. Still, in the sloka, the face has been directly compared with the ‘maanasa saras’ and the spoken words of have been directly related to the nectar and pollen by the phrase, ‘bhaashya aravinda makarandam’. It is not mentioned that the mouth is that lotus flower but, left to our imagination. I can think of a reason for this.
72. In Sanskrit and Tamil languages there is an amusing co-incidence. There is no separate word for the part of the face known as the mouth in Sanskrit. There are many synonyms for the face such as, ‘mukha, vaktra, aananam and aasyam’. The name for face also is used for the word ‘mouth’ in Sanskrit. In Tamil there is no word for ‘face’, it has ‘mugam’ which is derived from the Sanskrit ‘Mukha’. You can say in a lighter vein that there is no ‘mouth’ in Sanskrit and that there is no ‘face’ in Tamil!
73. So, it seems that in the olden days, the students studying Sanskrit in ‘Gatika Sthanam’ and Tamil in ‘PaLLis’ used to make fun of each other mutually. (Like it happens nowadays when people form virulently political Parties in the name of Languages and fight pitched battles, it never happened those days. It was done more in fun than in a serious attitude.) The Tamil student used to have a dig at the Sanskrit student that he has no ‘mouth’ and the retort from the student of Sanskrit was that the Tamil student had no ‘face’!
(To be continued.)
Sambhomahadeva.