DEIVATHIN KURAL # 90 (Vol # 7) Dated 08 Jan 2014

DEIVATHIN KURAL # 90 (Vol # 7) Dated 08 Jan 2014

(These e-mails are translations of talks given by PeriyavãL 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 going ahead from the second paragraph on page No 679 of Volume 7 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 continually)

81.           'The left side of your body is that of AmbãL and so this lifted left leg is also hers.  After all who is she?  She is the one with the purest love for you.  When you were inert like an unfeeling piece of stone or log, she is the one who kindled the spark of love in you for her and so she is known as 'Sivakãmi'.  Though you are like a wooden block, she is like a creeper plant as, 'Sivakãma VaLLi' that is delicate and light.  But she is so powerful that she moves you to becoming lovingly dynamic!  The confluence of your love for each other causes your love to reach every corner of this world, like the creeper plant embraces all that it touches and that is essentially her doing.  Still seemingly she is only as delicate and soft like a creeper plant with its tendrils. 

82.          When she stands next to you also she is pityingly soft, fragile and tender.  So may be, so as not to let her very soft feet touch the hard ground, you are keeping her held high, is it?  As a dancer is required to stamp his feet in time with the 'Jati' or beat since you were hesitant of letting her feet hurt, I suppose that you have lifted the left foot high up towards the sky!'  This is what the poet is saying in Tamil, 'shakti sivakãma valli than pãdam nogumenre taraiyil adi vaikka tayangi ninraduvo' – 'சக்தி சிவகாமவல்லி தன் பாதம் நோகுமென்றே தரையில் அடிவைக்கத் தயங்கி நின்றதுவோ'?

83.          The last CharaNam, the end one about the feet themselves, for genuine reasons reveal the bare fact.  The author may have purposefully avoided making that question from being one of deep inner meaning, so that we may not feel bad and sad about the closure of the poem.  As Easwara is the Chief of Kailãsa and Vishnu is the Supreme Commander in Vaikundam, Brhma is the Adipathy of Satya Loka.  For this dance recital by Easwara, Brhma is the controller of the Tãla arrangement.  Vishnu can play on the Mrudang but, Brhma keeps the beat by his hands, by clapping them against each other and counting visibly with his fingers in consonance with which, Easwara is twisting, turning and jumping with either of the feet on the ground. 

84.          While dancing like that, once with the left leg held vertically high up, Siva must have thought, "It is not enough to dance like this today, but I must make a permanent impression on the people's minds and that pose should be eternally available as a photographic snap shot and as an icon to be treasured over thousands of years; he became a statue of the Nataraja as a Soundarya Vigraham.  That split-second lifting of his left leg has become a pose to be adored forever!  Thus the poet says, 'satya loka adipathy tãLattirku erka natam tãkkiye oru kãlai tookki ninraduvo' – 'சத்ய லோக அதிபதி தாளத்திற்(கு) ஏற்க நடம் தாக்கியே ஒரு காலைத் தூக்கி நின்றதுவோ'?  This is the end step in that song of the genre known as, 'padam' – 'பதம்', which also means the foot or 'adi' – 'அடி', the end!  In the end it is all meant to be talking about the greatness of those feet only, known as 'Thiruvadi', isn't it?

Happy Devotion with Felicity

85.          Thus two gems of songs about the Sri Rangam Sleeper and Chidambaram Dancer, by two poets, asking questions over questions end; which wakes up the Sleeper on the one hand and shakes and spins up the Dancer!  Instead of an idea of devotion as crying while clearing one's nose and or asking for this and that, with absolute independence and right to grill your God with a staccato array of questions, which make us laugh with love and happiness at once; these two songs give us wholesome satisfaction too!

(Next we go to the story of a great Rishi.)

Sambhomahadeva