[[Mohan K.V 2014-09-28, 03:46:07 Source]]
सदास्वादः
66
ದೇವನಲ್ಲ – ಬರಿಯ ಬೊಂಬೆ! –
ಹಸೆಯೆ ಸೋಜಿಗ!
(dēvanu alla – bariya bombe! –
haseye sōjiga!)
Meaning
“The Deity is but a doll — the magic is in the rangoli!”
Context
We decided to try something special this time! Over the last few chapters, we’ve made a number of references to Kannada verses and works in our commentary (Kannada is our mother tongue). The implicit understanding was that Kannada being a daughter language of Sanskrit meant that its literature gels organically with Sanskrit’s corpus — from the level of words and sounds, to idioms and styles, even to ideals and worldviews. We thought of going one step further and featuring a beautiful Kannada poem that is perfectly resonant with our recent explorations of the Sanskrit thought-space, and yet distinct from it.
This chapter’s phrase is taken from P. T. Narasimhachar’s poem, Rangavalli. ‘Pu.ti.na’, as he came to be known, was born in Melkote, Karnataka, in 1905. (We had formerly come across Melkote as one of the bastions of Rāmānujācārya’s scholarship.) In the first half of the 20th century, there was a tremendous surge of creative output of Kannada, almost a re-birth after centuries of near-stagnation since the times of the Vijayanagara empire. This was termed the ‘Navodaya’ (renaissance) movement, and P. T. Narasimhachar was one of its most important figures.
Rangavalli appears in his collection Haṇate, and is among his finest Bhakti poems. We can find out why right away:
ಮಾಗಿ ಬಂದು, ಗಿರಿಗೆ ಹಗಲು
ಹಿತದ ಬಿಸಿಲ ಹೊದಿಸಿದಂದು
ಹಸುಳೆಗೂಡಿ ಬೆಟ್ಟ ತುದಿಯ
ಗುಡಿಗೆ ನಡೆದೆನು.
ಬಾಲ ಕೊಳಕೆ ಕಲ್ಲನೆಸೆದು
ಸುಳಿಯ ರಚಿಸಿ ನಲಿವ ತೆರದಿ
ಹಗಲ ಮೌನಕೆಸೆಯುತಿತ್ತು
ಹಕ್ಕಿ ಹಾಡನು. 1
māgi bandu, girige hagalu
hitada bisila hodisida andu
hasuḷe kūḍi beṭṭa tudiya
guḍige naḍedenu.
bāla koḷake kallanu esedu
suḷiya racisi naliva teradi
hagala maunake eseyutā ittu
hakki hāḍanu.
“As the winter morning blanketed gentle sunshine upon the hill, I went to the temple on top with my grandkid.
Like a child playfully throwing a stone onto a lake’s calm surface, a bird was calling out to the silence.”
The meter is a simple doubled-up caupadi with repeated 3-mātrāelements (‘lā-la’ or ‘la-la-la’):
3-3-3-3
3-3-3-3
3-3-3-3
3-4 Twice
Also of note is the gentleness of the flow — no harsh or even dissimilar half consonants, short words and a middle-Kannada style that is very close to the modern spoken tongue, but just distant enough to mark it out as special.
The temple being referred to is the Yoga Narasimha Swamy temple atop the hill in Melkote. The delight of writing about a near-contemporary author is that their sources of inspiration are close at hand – some pictures of the place:
By Mr. Prem Sagar:
The bird’s calling out is a gentle, apt token demonstration of the poet’s skills — one can almost hear its echoes as one imagines the ripples spreading out!
ಗಿರಿಯ ತುದಿಯ ಗುಡಿಯ ಸೇರಿ
ಹಸುಳೆಗೂಡಿ ನಿಂತೆನಂದು
ಮಂದಿಯೊಬ್ಬರಿಲ್ಲವಲ್ಲಿ —
ಮೌನವಾಳಿತು.
ಹೃದಯದಲ್ಲಿ ಭಕ್ತಿ ಮೂಡಿ
ಮನದೊಳುಚ್ಚ ಭಾವ ಹೂಡೆ
ಗುಡಿಯನೊಂದು ಬಳಸು ಬಂದು
ಒಳಗೆ ಹೊಕ್ಕೆನು. 2
giriya tudiya guḍiya sēri
hasuḷe kūḍi nintenu andu
mandiyu obbaru illa alli —
maunavu āḷitu.
hṛdayadalli bhakti mūḍi
manadoḷu ucca bhāva hūḍe
guḍiyanu ondu baḷasu bandu
oḷage hokkenu. 2
“I reached the temple and stood there with the kid. There wasn’t a soul there — stillness reigned.
Deep devotion arose in my heart, and lofty thoughts in my mind. I went around the temple once, and entered.”
It is remarkable how different the same place can seem when it’s crowded and when it’s not — it is almost as if it has a personality of its own, blending with or staying separate from a crowd and quietly, but profoundly, influencing our emotions.
Detailing the pradakṣiṇā custom of going round the temple gives the poem a relaxed pace – as if nodding to Wordsworth’s ‘emotion recollected in tranquility’, the poet is in no hurry!
ಅಲ್ಲಿ ವೇದ ಘೋಷವಿಲ್ಲ,
ತಮಿಳು ಪದ್ಯವೊರೆವರಿಲ್ಲ,
‘ಮಾನ ಸಲಿಸಲಿಲ್ಲ’ ವೆಂಬ
ಜಗಳವಿಲ್ಲವು.
ಇರವಿನಳಲನೆಲ್ಲ ಮರೆಸಿ
ಮನಕದೊಂದು ತಂಪನೀವ
ದಿವ್ಯ ಶಾಂತಿಯಂದು ಕಂಡೆ
ಗಿರಿಯ ಗುಡಿಯೊಳು. 3
alli vēda ghōṣavu illa,
tamiḷu padyava orevaru illa,
‘māna salisalilla’ vemba
jagaḷavu illavu.
iravina aḷalanu ella maresi
manake adondu tampanu īva
divya śāntiya andu kaṇḍe
giriya guḍiyoḷu. 3
“There was no Veda chanting there; nor the singing of Tamil hymns; nor any to quarrel about not being honoured enough.
As if washing away all the pains of being, and giving a kind of comfort to the mind, I found there in the temple a divine peace.”
‘andu’ (‘that day’) in the Kannada gives an additional shade that is hard to get across — that it was rare and special. We’ve all experienced the different moods the very same temple would have induced: the sense of majesty from the Vedic chanting; the outpouring of love in the Tamil hymns; and a feeling of discomfort and vague regret at the petty quarrels.
‘iravinaḷalu’ — ‘the pain of being’ captures an entire lifetime of experience in its 6 syllables!
ಗರ್ಭಗುಡಿಯ ಹೊಸಲ ಮುಂದೆ
ಭಕ್ತಿನಮ್ರನಾಗಿ ನಿಂತೆ;
ಹಸುಳೆ ನನ್ನ ಸೆರಗ ಜಗ್ಗಿ
ಬೆರಳ ತೋರಿತು –
ಅಲ್ಲಿ ಮುಸುಕು ಬೆಳಕಿನೊಳಗೆ
ಬಾಗಿದೊಂದು ವ್ಯಕ್ತಿ ಕಂಡೆ
ಹಣ್ಣು ಹಣ್ಣು ಮುದುಕಿಯಲ್ಲಿ!
ಬೆಟ್ಟತುದಿಯೊಳು! 4
garbha-guḍiya hosala munde
bhakti-namranāgi ninte;
hasuḷe nanna seraga jaggi
beraḷa tōritu –
alli musuku beḷakina oḷage
bāgida ondu vyakti kanḍe
haṇṇu haṇṇu mudukiyu alli!
beṭṭa-tudiyoḷu! 4
“I stood outside the sanctum, humble with devotion. The kid tugged at my shirt and pointed —
In the twilight I saw a drooping figure — an old, old woman!”
The use of the word ‘hasuḷe’ for ‘kid’, and the corresponding use of the neuter, automatically produces an impression that the kid is very small. The word ‘muduki’ ‘old woman’ is reserved for strangers and is somewhat disrespectful compared to alternatives like ‘ajji’. ‘old woman’, which has no emotional connotation at all, cannot convey that sense of mild disrespect – ‘hag’ or ‘crone’ would be too disrespectful and ‘grandma’ too soft! Such artistic choices are possibly the hardest to get across in a translation! Another class entirely are adjectives, like ‘haṇṇu haṇṇu muduki’, literally ‘ripe ripe old woman’. :-)
The poet expresses a sense of surprise at seeing such an old woman up there on the hill, as if asking, ‘How did she even get here?!’. Further unspoken suggestions might be inferred from the previous verses: is there a sense of deflated ego too? He made a poetic flourish, repeatedly mentioned his bhakti and even detailed his rituals. All these were subtly centered around him and his experience of being the first and the only one in the temple — and yet, here is the old woman, there before him!
ಮುದುಕಿಯುಟ್ಟ ಬಟ್ಟೆ ಚಿಂದಿ,
ನೆರತ ಹೆರಳು, ಸುಕ್ಕು ಮೋರೆ
ಮುಪ್ಪು ತನ್ನ ಮುದ್ರೆಯೊತ್ತಿ-
-ದಂಗವವಳದು.
ಆದರವಳ ಕಂಗಳೆರಡು
ಜರೆಯನಣಕಿಸುತ್ತ ಹೊಳೆದು
ಮುಖಕೆ ಕೊಡುತಲಿದ್ದುವೊಂದು
ಬಗೆಯ ಠೀವಿಯ. 5
mudukiyu uṭṭa baṭṭe cindi,
nerata heraḷu, sukku mōre
muppu tanna mudreya ottida
angavu avaḷadu.
ādare avaḷa kangaḷu eraḍu
jareyanu aṇakisutta hoḷedu
mukhake koḍutalidduvu ondu
bageya ṭhīviya.
“Her clothes were torn, her hair gray, her face haggard. Old Age had stamped its mark all over her.
But her eyes — as if taunting Old Age, shining bright, they gave her face a special dignity.”
Noticing how her eyes livened up her haggard face combines some of the most cherished poetic abilities: observation, succinct description, and articulating impressions that we’ve all felt but have probably not thought consciously.
ಬೆಟ್ಟ ಹತ್ತಿ ಬಂದಳೆಂತು?
ಚಿಂದಿಯುಟ್ಟ ತೀರ ಬಡವೆ
ಮಲೆಯ ನಾರಸಿಂಹಗೀವ-
-ಳಾವಕಾಣಿಕೆ?
“ಎಲ್ಲರೆದೆಯ ಹೊಗುವ ದೇವ
ಹೊನ್ನು ಹಣ್ಣೊಳಳೆಯನೊಲವ”
ಎನ್ನುವರಿವು ಆಕೆಗಿತ್ತೊ? —
ಎನಗೆ ತಿಳಿಯದು 6
beṭṭa hatti bandaḷu entu?
cindiyu uṭṭa tīra baḍave
maleya nārasiṃhage īvaḷu
āva kāṇike?
“ellara edeya hoguva dēva
honnu haṇṇoḷu aḷeyanu olava”
ennuva arivu ākege itto? —
enage tiḷiyadu
“How did she climb the hill? This poor old woman with torn clothes, what could she possibly offer the Lord?
“He who resides in all hearts
doesn’t measure love with gold or offerings” Perhaps she knew that – I don’t know.”
The poet is incredulous that she even made it up there! And then comes a more cruel thought — what for? The answer is resoundingly beautiful at multiple levels. At the basic level is the idea that the Lord welcomes all — one of the greatest lines of the Gīta is, ‘suhṛdaṃ sarva-bhūtānāṃ jñātvā māṃ śāntim ṛcchati’, ‘[The wise man] Knows me to be the friend of all beings, and is at peace’. Then, there is a delicious ambiguity about the present-tense phrase “I don’t know”: is the poet trying to tell us he does not know whether the old woman knew of the Lord’s all-acceptance, or is he telling us that he himself does not know?
ಸೆರಗಿನಿಂದ ನೆಲವ ಗುಡಿಸಿ
ಮಡಿಲೊಳಿಟ್ಟು ಮುಚ್ಚಿ ತಂದ
ರಂಗವಲ್ಲಿಯಿಂದ ಹಸೆಯ
ಮುದುಕಿ ಬರೆದಳು —
ಮೊದಲು ನೂರು ದಳದ ಪದ್ಮ
ಅದರ ಸುತ್ತ ಬಳ್ಳಿ ಹೆಣಿಗೆ
ಬಳ್ಳಿಯೆಲೆಯ ಮೇಲೆ ಪಕ್ಷಿ-
ಯುಗದ ಬೇಟವು. 7
seragininda nelava guḍisi
maḍiloḷu iṭṭu mucci tanda
rangavalliyinda haseya
muduki baredaḷu —
modalu nūru daḷada padma
adara sutta baḷḷi heṇige
baḷḷi eleya mēle pakṣi-
yugada bēṭavu.
“She cleared the floor with her own cloth, and taking out the rangoli powder she had carefully brought in her lap-pouch, she began to draw —
First a hundred-petaled lotus,
Then a vine around it,
and then a leaf on the vine,
and then a bird-couple on it!”
‘maḍilu’ is a very emotionally charged word, meaning ‘lap’. It is almost always used in the context of gently holding a child or a loved one. Just by using that word, the poet automatically conveys the care with which the old woman had brought the powder.
ಇಂತು ತನ್ನ ಮನಕೆ ಚೆಲುವು
ಹೊಳೆಯುವಂತ ರೂಪುಗೊಡುತ
ಹಸೆಯ ಬರೆಯುತಿರುವ ಮರೆತ-
-ಳಂದು ಮುದುಕಿಯು.
ಅವಳ ಕಲೆಗೆ ಮುಗ್ಧನಾದೆ;
ಒಂದು ಡೊಂಕು ಗೆರೆಯನೆಳೆಯ-
-ದವಳ ಕೈಯ ಚಳಕವೆನ್ನ
ಬೆರಗು ಮಾಡಿತು! 8
intu tanna manake celuvu
hoḷeyuva anta rūpu-goḍuta
haseya bareyuta iruva maretaḷu
andu mudukiyu.
avaḷa kalege mugdhanāde;
ondu ḍonku gereyanu eḷeyada
avaḷa kaiya caḷakavu enna
beragu māḍitu!
“She drew and drew as her mind fancied, and seemed to forget herself.
Her art made me tender; I was wonderstruck by her sheer skill — not a single line had a flaw!”
Art making one tender is again a very incisive observation. Isn’t that the hallmark of love as well?
‘eḷe’ literally means ‘pull’, but for lines it has idiomatically come to mean ‘draw’. Such idiomatic finesse can take years to even pick up on — ‘gere bari’ ‘draw a line’ is correct and most speakers can’t find anything wrong with it, but ‘gere eḷi’ ‘pull a line’ has that twang to it! On that same note, ‘kai caḷaka’ is literally ‘legerdemain’, but unlike the latter, which has gained connotations of trickery, it is mostly used in a positive sense.
ಹಣ್ಣು ಮುದುಕಿ ತೀರ ಬಡವೆ,
‘ಅಯ್ಯೋ’ ಎಂಬರಿಲ್ಲವೇನೊ —
ಮಲೆಯ ನಾರಸಿಂಹದೇವ
ನೊಬ್ಬನಲ್ಲದೆ ?
ಅವನು ಮೆಚ್ಚಲೆಂದು ತನ್ನ
ಮುಪ್ಪಿನಳಲ ಮೂಲೆಗೊತ್ತಿ
ಬೆಟ್ಟವೇರಿ ಹಸೆಯ ಬರೆವ
ಭಕ್ತಿ ಎಂಥದು? 9
haṇṇu muduki tīra baḍave,
‘ayyō’ eṃbaru illavēno —
maleya nārasiṃhadēvanu
obbanu allade ?
avanu meccaleṃdu tanna
muppina aḷala mūlege otti
beṭṭava ēri haseya bareva
bhakti enthadu? 9
“This very poor old woman, maybe there is no one to pity her other than the Lord of the hill?
Only to please him, she had kept aside all her troubles and climbed up so far to draw — what devotion must hers be!”
The first line is absolutely heartrending — ‘‘ayyō’ eṃbaru illavēno’ — literally, ‘No one to say ‘ayyo’’, no one to even lament her condition. That interjection of pity actually takes 4 mātras, breaking the rhythm a tiny bit, but emphasizing it with great pathos. Going from that deep trough, rapidly to the emotional peak where the poet is amazed at her devotion, would exhaust all our bolding and italicizing skills to capture!
ತೆರೆಯ ತೆಗೆಸಿ, ಹಣ್ಣು ಕಾಯ
ಪೂಜೆ ಸಲಿಸಿ, ಸೊಡರ ಬೆಳಗ-
-ಲವನ ಕಂಡೆ – ಹಸುಳೆ ಇತ್ತ
ಕಡೆಯೆ ತಿರುಗದು!
ಮುದುಕಿ ಬರೆವ ಹಸೆಯ ಮೇಲೆ
ಅದರ ಮನವು, ನೆಟ್ಟ ನೋಟ,
ದೇವಗೊಲಿದು ಕೈಯ ಮುಗಿಯು-
ವರಿವೆ ಇಲ್ಲವು! 10
tereya tegesi, haṇṇu kāya
pūje salisi, soḍara beḷagalu
avana kaṇḍe – hasuḷe itta
kaḍeye tirugadu!
muduki bareva haseya mēle
adara manavu, neṭṭa nōṭa,
dēvage olidu kaiya mugiyuva
arive illavu!
“I got the curtains to the sanctum opened, did my worship, lit a lamp, and saw the Lord – but the kid wouldn’t even glance at any of it!
His mind was entirely on the rangoli.
His eyes saw nothing but the old woman —
he wasn’t even aware of the deity!”
The poet’s worship is all in the material things he offers, whereas the old woman has only her service to give.
“ಕಿಟ್ಟು, ನೋಡು, ತಲೆಯ ಮೇಲೆ
ಹೊಳೆವ ಹೊನ್ನು ರನ್ನದೊಡವೆ,
ದೇವರುಟ್ಟ ಸೆರಿಗೆ ಪಂಚೆ
ಕೊರಳ ಪದಕವ;
ಮಲೆಯ ದೇವರೆಷ್ಟು ಚೆಲುವು!”
ಹಸುಳೆ ನೋಡದತ್ತ! ಅದಕೆ
ದೇವನಲ್ಲ — ಮುದುಕಿ ಬರೆವ
ಹಸೆಯೆ ಸೋಜಿಗ! 11
“kiṭṭu, nōḍu, taleya mēle
hoḷeva honnu rannada oḍave,
dēvaru uṭṭa serige pance
koraḷa padakava;
maleya dēvaru eṣṭu celuvu!”
hasuḷe nōḍadu atta! adake
dēvanu alla — muduki bareva
haseye sōjiga!
““Kittu, see! Those glittering jewels on the crown, the fine silk, the radiant pendant…
how fine the Lord looks!”. He didn’t even hear me –
to him, not the Lord, the magic was all in the old woman’s rangoli.”
ಅದರ ನಡತೆ ಹೊಳಿಸಿತಂದು
ಮನಕದೊಂದು ಹೊಸದು ನಿಜವ :
ದೇವನಲ್ಲ – ಬರಿಯ ಬೊಂಬೆ! –
ಹಸೆಯೆ ಸೋಜಿಗ!
ಭಕ್ತಿಮೂರ್ತಿ ಮುದುಕಿಯೊಮ್ಮೆ,
ದೇವನೊಮ್ಮೆ ನೋಡುತೆಂದೆ :
ದೇವ ಬೊಂಬೆ, ಪೂಜೆ ಆಟ,
ಭಕ್ತಿ ಸೋಜಿಗ! 12
adara naḍate hoḷisitu andu
manake adondu hosadu nijava :
dēvanu alla – bariya bombe! –
haseye sōjiga!
bhakti-mūrti mudukiya omme,
dēvana omme nōḍuta ende :
dēva bombe, pūje āṭa,
bhakti sōjiga!
“I saw a truth, looking at him that day:
The Deity is but a doll — the magic is in the rangoli!
I looked once at the old lady, that epitome of devotion,
and once again at the Deity, and it occurred to me:
the Deity is but a doll, worship is but play, the magic is in the bhakti!”
ದೇವನಿರುವು ದಿಟವೊ, ಸಟೆಯೊ –
“ಹೆರರು ತಿಳಿಯದಿರಿತಗಳನು,
ಹುದುಗಿ ಇರುವ ಪಾಪಗಳನು
ಗುಟ್ಟನೆಲ್ಲವ
ಎದೆಯ ಹೊಗುತಲೆಲ್ಲ ತಿಳಿದು
ಸಂತವಿಡುವನೊಬ್ಬನುಂಟು”
ಎನ್ನುವಚಲ ಭಕ್ತಿ ದಿಟವು
ಮತ್ತು ಸೋಜಿಗ! 13
dēvana iruvu diṭavo, saṭeyo –
“heraru tiḷiyada iritagaḷanu,
hudugi iruva pāpagaḷanu
guṭṭanu ellava
edeya hogutali ella tiḷidu
santa iḍuvanu obbanu uṇṭu”
ennuva acala bhakti diṭavu
mattu sōjiga!
“The Lord may exist, maybe he doesn’t.
“The pain others don’t understand,
the guilt suppressed inside,
all those secrets –
There’s someone who’s there to enter one’s heart,
understand,
and console” –
this unwavering belief, this bhakti, it is real, and it is even more a wonder!”
“That life is worth living is the most necessary of assumptions, and were it not assumed, the most impossible of conclusions.” – George Santayana
ಮುದುಕಿ ಇಹವ ಬಿಟ್ಟಳೇನೊ?
ಮಲೆಯ ದೇವ ಮೆಚ್ಚಲೆಂದು
ಇನ್ನು ಹಸೆಯ ಬರೆಯಳೇನೊ?
ಗಿರಿಯ ಗುಡಿಯೊಳು?
ಆದರವನನೋಲಿಸುವುದನೆ
ಬಾಳಿನೊಂದೆ ಗುರಿಯ ಮಾಡಿ-
ದವಳ ನೆನಪು ಎಂದು ಮನಕೆ
ತಂಪನೀವುದು. 14
muduki ihava biṭṭaḷēno?
maleya dēva meccali endu
innu haseya bareyaḷēno?
giriya guḍiyoḷu?
ādare avananu ōlisuvudane
bāḷina onde guriya māḍida
avaḷa nenapu endu manake
tampanu īvudu.
“Did the old woman pass on?
Or does she still practice her art,
so that the Lord of the Hill can appreciate it?
I don’t know. But her memory, of making it
her single-minded aim to please Him,
always gives me peace.”
What more can we say about reading this masterpiece, other than tallying it as an experience! A hundred streams of thought burst forth from this fount…
DVG begins his masterpiece, Manku Timmana Kagga, with this invocation:
ಶ್ರೀವಿಷ್ಣು ವಿಶ್ವಾದಿಮೂಲ ಮಾಯಾಲೋಲ
ದೇವ ಸರ್ವೇಶ ಪರಬೊಮ್ಮನೆಂದು ಜನಂ |
ಆವುದನು ಕಾಣದೊಡಮಳ್ತಿಯಿಂ ನಂಬಿಹುದೊ
ಆ ವಿಚಿತ್ರಕೆ ನಮಿಸೊ - ಮಂಕುತಿಮ್ಮ || 1
śrī-viṣṇu viśvādi-mūla māyālōla
dēva sarvēśa parabommanendu janaṃ |
āvudanu kāṇadoḍam aḷtiyiṃ naṃbi ihudo
ā vicitrake namiso - maṃkutimma ||
“Sri Vishnu, the source of the world, the wielder of Māya,
God, the lord of everything, the Supreme Brahman –
even though they see nothing, this world still believes:
bow to that wonder, my friend!”
The reverence is not as much toward any one particular object, but to the fact that something is held in such high regard. That is our poet’s wonder, too. This has striking parallels with a section in Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra:
A table of excellencies hangeth over every people. Lo! it is the table of their triumphs; lo! it is the voice of their Will to Power.
[…]
Valuing is creating: hear it, ye creating ones! Valuation itself is the treasure and jewel of the valued things.
Through valuation only is there value; and without valuation the nut of existence would be hollow. Hear it, ye creating ones!
Per Nietzsche, the essence of any group of people was not what they believed, but the act of valuing their beliefs and their collective will to see those values come to pass. It is perhaps not so much the Lord of the Hill himself, but the high regard that he’s held in for an old woman to trudge all the way to the top to draw a rangoli for him, that is magnificent. The ancient benediction, ‘balaṃ viṣṇoḥ pravardhatām’ ‘May the Lord’s power grow’ takes on a whole new dimension!
Later in the Kagga, DVG writes:
ಮಣಿ-ಮಂತ್ರ-ತಂತ್ರ-ಸಿದ್ಧಿಗಳ ಸಾಕ್ಷ್ಯಗಳೇಕೆ
ಮನಗಾಣಿಸಲು ನಿನಗೆ ದೈವದದ್ಭುತವ? |
ಮನುಜರೊಳಗಾಗಾಗ ತೋರ್ಪ ಮಹನೀಯ-ಗುಣ-
-ವನುವಾದ ಬೊಮ್ಮನದು - ಮಂಕುತಿಮ್ಮ || 59
maṇi-mantra-tantra-siddhigaḷa sākṣyagaḷu ēke
mana-kāṇisalu ninage daivada adbhutava? |
manujara oḷage āga-āga tōrpa mahanīya-guṇavu
anuvāda bommanadu - manku-timma ||
“Why do you need proof in the form of talismans or mantras or magic,
to believe in the wonder of the Divine?
The greatness of spirit that arises in us from time to time,
that is the only confirmation, my friend!”
Thinking of our poet’s wonder at the old woman’s art, and of one of the central ideas of the Gīta – ‘yogaḥ karmasu kauśalam’, ‘Yoga is simply excellence in one’s actions’, we recall that the British designer Richard Seymour once quoted this anecdote in a talk about beauty:
My father told me a story about an 18th century watchmaker. And what this guy had done: he used to produce these fabulously beautiful watches. And one day, one of his customers came into his workshop and asked him to clean the watch that he’d bought. And the guy took it apart, and one of the things he pulled out was one of the balance wheels. And as he did so, his customer noticed that on the back side of the balance wheel was an engraving, were words. And he said to the guy, “Why have you put stuff on the back that no one will ever see?” And the watchmaker turned around and said, “God can see it.”
Parting Thought
Examples abound of ideas in Sanskrit literature being re-animated by modern poets in local languages. A particularly (and justly) famous Tamil quip goes, ‘Paramasivan kazhuttil irundu pāmbu kēṭṭadu, Garuḍā, saukhamā?’ ‘The snake round Shiva’s neck asked, ‘Garuda, everything going well?’’. Garuḍa the eagle is every snake’s mortal enemy, and yet, the sheer position Shiva’s snake is in allows it the liberty of such gracious curiosity! This appears in a song penned by the great Kannadasan in the film Suryakanthi (1973). It turns out the same idea was explored in a verse from the anthology Samayocita-padya-mālikā decades earlier (perhaps even centuries earlier, due to unknown authorship):
निचाश्रयो न कर्तव्यो कर्तव्यो महदाश्रयः ।
नील-कण्ठस्य कण्ठाहिः गरुड-क्षेम-पृच्छकः ॥
nicāśrayo na kartavyo kartavyo mahadāśrayaḥ |
nīla-kaṇṭhasya kaṇṭhāhiḥ garuḍa-kṣema-pṛcchakaḥ ||
“One must not take refuge under mean people, only noble ones.
[Behold], the snake on Lord Śiva’s neck inquires about Garuḍa’s well being!”
The direction set by the first line is slightly different from what Kannadasan used; we can easily fix it ourselves, however:
स्व-स्थाने कुशलाः सर्वे तिर्यग् वा देवताऽपि वा ।
नील-कण्ठस्य कण्ठाहिः गरुड-क्षेम-पृच्छकः ॥
sva-sthāne kuśalāḥ sarve tiryag vā devatā’pi vā
nīla-kaṇṭhasya kaṇṭhāhiḥ garuḍa-kṣema-pṛcchakaḥ ||
Dr. Ganesh often remarks that powerful punchlines like this one can breathe poetic life into a vast number of observations. We had earlier given the example of Bhartṛhari’s ‘kālāya tasmai namaḥ’. Here we saw above the worthiness of protectors and the security (and arrogance) that can come from being in one’s place; other variations that involve Śiva’s snake include: even though it’s on Śiva’s neck, the poor snake has to starve with him – life under refuge isn’t so rosy after all; even though temptation is so close by (Gaṇeśa’s mouse), it has to bite its tongue and keep quiet – the compromises one has to make in high positions; the snake, even though in such an exalted position, is doing nothing more than a rope’s job – seemingly exalted positions can be quite boring, evidently (also, the distinction between a snake and a rope is a frequently used example of delusion in Indian philosophy); all of these changes can be effected by changing only the last pādā of the punchline – the list has the same bounds as creativity itself!
Please join the Google Group to subscribe to these (~ weekly) postings: <https://groups.google.com/group/sadaswada/subscribe?hl=en