DEIVATHIN KURAL # 100 (Vol # 5) Dated 21 Dec 2011

DEIVATHIN KURAL # 100 (Vol # 5) Dated 21 Dec 2011

(These e-mails are translations of talks given by PeriyavaaL of Kanchi Kaamakoti 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 No 615 of Vol 5 of the Tamil original. The readers may note that here in 'man/he' includes 'woman/she' too mostly. These e-mails are all available at http://Advaitham.blogspot.com updated constantly)
483. Having placed a curtain around his self with the instruction that no one is to leave without his permission, Patanjali Muni was conducting classes on the Maha Bhashyam for a long time. Each student was in direct communication with the teacher individually. He had given instructions that the curtain was not to be lifted to obviate the fire hazard. The classes went on smoothly for quite some time. Then one of the students got curious to see as to how this one man behind the screen is ‘multi tasking himself’, to be able to teach so many students! ‘There must be some magic involved here’, he thought! Breaking the Guru’s orders, he lifted the curtain. The effulgent brilliance of his being, Laser like eye sight and poisonous breath reduced all the students into ashes instantly! If you break the teacher’s orders, much harm is in store for you, says the Patanjali Charitam; ‘guru vachana-vyati-langanam-hi –anartha:’.
484. Thus the class on VyakaraNam ended in complete chaos! Instead of total chaos, there was one exception. Instead of all 1,000 students being burnt off one escaped! In all, out of the students 999 were reduced to ashes. That was one in a thousand saved! I do not know if the quote, ‘aayiraththil oruvan or hazaron me ek’ came from that incident! How was he saved? He was slightly dull witted. The subject was not very clear to him. Somehow he was controlling himself all these days. He had come from thousands of miles away from Bengal known as Gowda Desam.
485. In India, all lands north of the Vindya Hills were known as Gowda Desam and areas south of it were called the Dravida Desam. Gowda Desam was in five parts and so was the Dravida Desam in five parts. The Pancha Gowdas were inclusive of people of Kashmir called the Saraswaths, people of present day Punjab and Uttar Pradesh were known as Kanya Gubjas, present Nepal and Bihar were Mythilas, people of Orissa were known as Utkalas and Bengal and east of it were together retained the name of Gowdas. Pancha Dravidas included Kurjara of present day Gujarat, Maharashtra, Andhra, Karnataka and the Tmilians of the south. Malayalam as a language evolved out of Sanskrit and Tamil, only some thousand years back. They were part of Dravida Desam. It may be noted that when the Britishers became the rulers in this country, it is these Gowdas from Bengal and Dravidas from south who picked up their language fast and started filling up the vacancies from the clerical to the I.C.S. level of the bureaucracy.
486. Let us come back to our ‘one in a thousand’ who escaped being reduced to ashes, when patanjali was teaching his Bhashyam for VyakaraNam! He had felt like going for a pee. With that excuse he had just slipped out. Then when he came back none of the other students were to be seen! Guru Patanjali was feeling very sad that children from various part of the country had just disappeared! His aim was to finish the teaching quickly and go back to stand beside Nataraja. He was in a very bad state of grief! This student who had gone away without permission hesitatingly approached his teacher. Seeing him Patanjali was happy that at least one had been saved and so invited him back with a smile on his face.
487. Since all his plans to teach a thousand students had been annulled, he decided to teach at least this one student properly. But this student was rather a dullard and he was wondering as to how long the process of teaching is going to take! Already so much effort had been wasted. This boy being slow on the uptake, we have to be prepared for a long slog, he thought. Then it occurred to him that he may have recourse to a short cut! What the father earns over a life time, don’t the son inherit in one go? So we should simply grant him all that knowledge in a flash, he thought.
488. Divine people can do much with their ‘Anugraha Sakti’. What is sung in some distant place is converted in to radio waves broad cast over the skies and received here and reconverted in to sound waves instantly and heard isn’t it? Much more magical transmissions can be done by such Mahatmas by using their super human powers. All their knowledge acquired over a life time could be transmitted to their disciple in one concentrated dose with utter clarity, if they wish so! Ramakrishna Parama Hamsa is supposed to have done that to Vivekananda, in recent times. Human beings by using their limited mortal powers could first of all live a life of Dharma. As they refine themselves and progress, they could become worthy of divine experiences and even attain to the highest of all Gnaana! Motivating people on such lines becomes one of the duties of Avatara Purushas. Controlling their divine powers, mostly they will try and do things with their human capabilities only. Only when it becomes absolutely necessary, they will resort to their divine powers. That is how initially Patanjali started teaching his thousand students with the idea of giving individual attention to each of the students. That is why he took the Adisesha Roopa. But having come upon this accidental fiasco, he had to fall back on his divine powers.
489. Patanjali looked at Gowda and blessed him saying, “Whatever I know in VyakaraNam may become known to you too”. At once Gowda was knowledgeable of it all! Teaching of Maha Bhashyam was done. But there was a problem too. Having gone out without permission, he was due to become a Brhma Raakshasa as per Patanjali’s original orders, isn’t it? Their words can never go waste. You cannot take it back also. The only way their words can be retraced or undone is by adding some conditions for the lifting of the earlier curse! This Gowda has to become a Brhma Raakshasa anyhow. We can now lay the conditions on which he could be relieved, Patanjali thought.
490. The Condition for the Lifting of the Curse: A Novel Method for Selection for a Job! The Brhma Raakshasa will pose questions only to those who have done Veda Adhyayanam, and kill and eat those who do not reply correctly, isn’t it? So now this Gowda, after he becomes a Brhma Raakshasa is to ask a question related to VyakaraNa. If that person gives a correct reply, he is fit enough to learn everything about the Maha Bhashyam. So, all that Gowda has now learnt about Maha Bhashyam by Anugraha Shakti, will have to be taught in a humane manner to that worthy student. Once he has completed the coaching, he will be relieved of the effects of the curse and cease to be a Brhma Raakshasa anymore and become the same Gowda as before! Having so decided, Patanjali taught him the question he is to ask and the correct answer for that.
491. Now, I will try to explain the question asked by the Brhma Raakshasa and the correct answer for that, for which I have to tell you some details of Sanskrit grammer. In Sanskrit, there is something known as ‘pratyaya’. With a word, we add some ‘viguthi’ as we say in Tamil or ‘suffix’ as it is called in English. So, ‘pratyaya’, ‘viguthi’ and ‘suffix’ are synonyms. There are many types of ‘pratyaya’ such as. ‘tatidam, krut, sup, thing, and nishta’. In this question asked by the Brhma Raakshasa, we are concerned with the ‘nishta’ pratyaya. The root word (Prakruti) in this should be the Dhatu (or source) of a verb. When you add the ‘nishta pratyaya’ the verb becomes a noun. For example if you take the word ‘buj’ (to mean ‘eat’) and you add the pratyaya it becomes ‘bukta’, to mean ‘edible or eatable or the food eaten’. Similarly, ‘rakta’ is reddened and ‘sikta’ is wetted. From this you can make out that when for a verb the Nishta pratyayam is added at the end, the word ends in ‘...kta’. There is one exception. That dhatu or verb is ‘pach’. With nishta pratyaya, instead of ‘pakta’, it becomes ‘pakva’ to mean cooked. When we say in Tamil that the food is ‘pakkuvam’, what we mean is that the food is ‘soft and well cooked’! Similarly when we talk about a refined person we say in Tamil the he is a ‘pakkuvam aanavar’, to mean that he is a very well behaved and ripened person! To convey this fact that only when joining the ‘pach’ dhatu, the nishta pratyaya, instead of ending in ‘kta’ ends in ‘kva’; there is a Sutra in PaaNini’s VyaakaraNa, “pacho va:”!
492. Many people do not know this exception to the rule. So Patanjali decided that Gowda after he becomes a Brhma Raakshasa, he should ask this question about the exception to the rule regarding pratyaya of nishta to verbal root words. So, he told Gowda, “Since you took a break without permission, you have to suffer being a Brhma Raakshasa for a period. You can ask those whom you catch as to what is the exception to rule regarding nishta pratyaya to verb root words. Anybody giving a wrong answer will become your food. The moment somebody answers correctly, teach him the whole of Maha Bhashyam and by that PuNya you will get the relief from this curse of becoming a Brhma Raakshasa and regain your original roopa”.
493. Gowda’s Later History. Gowda became a Brhma Raakshasa and flew off in the sky. We do not know his real name and know him only from the place he belonged to. Like we have in the music world, people with place names such as, ‘Semmangudi’ and Ariyakkudi’, we know him only as Gowda. May be because he was not so noticeable for brilliance of brains, he might have been considered as one amongst many. Since he had come from a very far off place, for learning grammer, he just might have been referred by the place of his origin as Gowda and it stuck to him. He came by the sky route to the banks of Narmada River and appropriated an Arasa Maram (a fig tree considered as a king amongst trees), as his residence!
(To be continued.)
Sambhomahadeva.