Bhakti Theology Song A

Song  A.

Let me begin with my song on Murugan, though this is not the first poem that I wrote.  I don’t remember the date exactly.  But it was written when we were living at Trichy North Rock Fort street (1972?).  Our co-tenant is a staunch devotee of Murugan.  As a retired person, every day he will do puja for more than four hours from 7.00 to 11. am.  His wife and daughter will be involved in cleaning old flowers, arranging new ones, preparing Prasad to offer etc.  They kept a big framed picture of Murugan with his two consorts.  After his bath, once he begins his puja, he will chant many slokas, mantras and sing beautiful bhajans.  His daughter will join in singing with him, before leaving for her work.  We had one separate room on the first floor, where I do my studies.  But we can also hear their singing as we shared a very small house without any partition.  Living several tenants within a big house or sharing a small house between two is quite common in (South) India.  Several of them lived like a joint family sharing their things, food and concerns.  Of course there will be fight and reconciliation too.  The concept of modern day ‘privacy’ is still absent in several semi-urban and rural areas in India.  It is sad to see that such a social interaction is fast disappearing even from semi-urban areas and almost lost in most of the metropolitan cities.  What the young generation is missing cannot be replaced by organized TV shows or through the Internet, as personal human touch is missing very much.

One day when I was doing my regular college studies as I heard their singing, suddenly I got some inspiration and the first sentence of this song came to mind.  As it continued to echo in my brain, I stopped my study and immediately wrote it down on the backside of my note:

1. ஞானம் தருவாயே

ஞானம்தான் அருள்வாயே

ஞானப்பழமே முருகா

அஞ்ஞானத்தை  நீக்கிடுவாய்

ஆறுமுக வேல்முருகா

மெய்ஞானம் தான்வேண்டும்

மேதியினில் புகழ்வேண்டும்

அஞ்ஞானம் நீக்கியென்னை

ஆட்கொள்ள வரவேண்டும்

விஞ்ஞானப் பாதையிலே

உலகு விரைந்து சென்றாலும்

உன் ஞானப்பார்வையன்றி

ஒருபொருளும் விளங்காது

தத்துவமும் பேசவில்லை

தர்க்கம்செய்ய வரவில்லை

தத்தளிக்கும் மனதினிலே

பக்தி மட்டும் வேண்டிநின்றேன்

Give me wisdom

Muruga whose is ‘Jnanappazham’.@

Six headed Muruga bearer of a spear.

Remove my ignorance

I want true wisdom

I want to become famous in the world

Come and rule over me

by removing my ignorance

However the world moves fast

In the path of science

Without your darshan of wisdom

Nothing makes sense

I am not talking any philosophy

I didn’t come to argue with you

I only request bhakti

In my turbulent heart.

1972, திருச்சி (Trichy)

@ Like all other deities, Murugan too has many names.  This name ‘Janappazham’ should not be translated as ‘wise fruit’.  When he failed to get the fruit from his parents in the competition with his elder brother Ganesha, he became upset and went to Palani to live there alone.  Then Awaiyar, the famous Tamil poetess tries to pacify him by pointing out how he opened her eyes by asking the question ‘whether she needs hot or cold fruit’.  This is another story.  As Awaiyar become proud about her knowledge, in order to humble her, one day Murugan, in the form of a shepherd sat on the branch of a fruit tree.  When Awai asked him to drop some fruits for her, he asked her whether she needed ‘hot or cold fruit’.  Not understanding this and also to tease him, she asked for hot fruit.  So when Murugan shook the branch some ripped fruits fell on the ground.  When Awai picked up some and blew the dust out of it, Murugan asked with a laugh ‘are they too hot’?  Then Awai realized how ignorant she was before a shepherd?  That time Murugan revealed to her who he was. So when Murugan became upset about not getting the fruit from his parents, she praised him by saying ‘being a Janappazham’ is the need of an ordinary fruit for him.

Now this song does not make any sense to me.  The last two stanzas don’t have compatibility with the first two.  Several times, as I get the first word or sentence, I will continue to write as the words come to my mind.  But the song ended asking for bhakti, though I began with Jnana.  Of course I can say that the culmination of true Jnana is bhakti and this is what I conveyed in this song too.  But this is the way several later commentators and followers tried to reconcile the contradiction which appeared in the text or the teaching of their gurus and acharyas.   From my experience I can say that we should not try to dig out too much of doctrine or theology out of poems that too from bhakti and romantic poems.  Exaggeration and too much imagination is part of every poem.  As Vairamutthu wrote (for a film) ‘lie is the beauty to a poem’ as kajal (in Hindi; mai Tamil) gives beauty to the eyes (கண்ணுக்கு மையழகு; கவிதைக்குப் பொய்யழகு).  Several times we just add one word and even sentence in order to fill the gap or complete the format.  For example, I wrote four poems on April 30^th (2014).  In one I kept eight lines for each stanza.  When I wrote the first stanza only six lines came. But I continued and in the rest of the poem all the stanzas ended with eight lines.  Finally when I edited the poem, in order to give an order, I added two more lines to the first stanza to make it have uniformity with the rest of the stanzas.  Filling the gap either for music, or for meter or for grammar is quite natural in writing poems.  This we can note in Sanskrit, where in order to set the sloka or mantra to a particular poetical meter, extra words were added.@  Let me give one example:

asamsayam mahaabaaho mano durnigraham calam

abhyaasena tu kaunteya vairaagyena ca grhyate (6:35)

–Doubtless, O might armed the mind is restless and hard to control; but by practice and dispassion, O son of Kunti, it can be controlled. (Swami Ramsukhadas, Srimad Bhagavadgita: Sadhaka Sanjivani, Gita Press, Gorakhpur, vol. I, p. 549, year not mentioned)

In this sloka two names of Arjuna appear both in the first and second lines— Mahaabaaho and Kaunteya.  By removing both or one won’t complete the meter in which this sloka was written.  The same is true with Tamil.  Beginning and ending with words of similar sounds is known as ‘yeduhai’ and ‘monai’&.  It is part of the talent of a poet.  Several times when we write poems, we will take care that the poem has maximum ‘yeduhai and ‘monai’.  Those who know Tamil can easily understand this.  So projecting a doctrine or theology which the author never intends could mislead anyone.  Later interpolation also distorts the meaning.  Though commentaries help us to reconcile these disorders, yet sometimes they go beyond what the author intends to convey.

For example, replace Mahaabaaho for Kaunteya and Kaunteya for Mahaabaaho.  Then chanting will look very odd.  As I don’t know any grammar, I cannot say why Mahaabaaho is in the first line and Kaunteya in the second.  But if some over enthusiastic commentator began to give commentary on these two names of Arjuna, where will it end?  Of course Mahaabaaho shows his strength and Kaunteya his birth through the boon of Kunti to Surya, though all the children of Kunti are generally known as Pandavas as Pandu was their legitimate father. At the same time as they (Dharma, Bhima and Arjuna) were born to Kunti through her boon, they were also called ‘children of Kunti’ viz. ‘kaunteya’.  But giving this additional information about Arjuna is not the intention of the author.

Well, I too in the name of writing about my ‘Bhakti Theology’going beyond the context and adding several pieces of information which may not be relevant to the topic.  This posting is more a brainstorm than a systematic presentation of my thoughts.  As dust naturally covers every object, digression does the same to every writing. 

Notes

@ …{in}Samaveda … we have a series of chants in which the words fit the music in the first instance but less closely, or hardly at all, in those that follow. It shows that the words for the first had been carefully selected to fit the melody; after which others, different in length and number, were forced into the same format as if confined in a straitjacket.  When (p. 107) words do not fit, they are changed or transformed and embellishments called stobha are inserted.  They are meaningless like the sounds of a lullaby.  According to a commentator, the term stobha is used even in daily life to refer to a meaningless string of sounds, something that may be uttered by a joker for killing time….— Frits Staal, Discovering the Vedas,: Origins, Mantras, Rituals, Insights,  New Delhi, Penguin Books, 2008. pp. 107-08

…Insertion and transformation may have happened on several levels, as in the Rigveda verse: abhi tvaa suura nonumo ‘dugkhaa iva dhenavah/ iisaanam asya jagatah svardrsam iisaanam indra tasthusah, ‘we cry out for you, hero, like unmilked cows to the lord of this living world, to the lord of the unmoving world whose eye is the sun O Indra!’  It has been turned into a famous chant called Rathantara, ‘Excellent Chariot’.  It is one of the two that the Rigveda mentions. Its Samavedic form is: obhitvaasuuranonumovaa/ aadugdhaa iva dhenava iisaanamasya jagatassuvaardrsaam/ iisaanamaa indra / taa sthu saa o vaa haa u vaa/ aas//

            The stobhas are o vaa haa u vaa and aas.  They may occur almost anywhere but have here been put at the end.—ibid. p. 109

& (dvitiiyaksaranuparaasa in Sanskrit)###