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RANGASWAMY • August 8, 1997 


Dear Friends,

In this post, I shall cover the next set of 12 verses from Swami Desikan's 
Subashita Nivi based on Sri. U.Ve. M.K. Srinivasan's translation. These 
verses reveal the ways of the arrogant.

1. The names of the Trinity, Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva do not get
besmirched even if assumed by the likes of goats, frogs and donkeys. 

2. Let swans live amidst lotuses, let crocodiles swim in the ocean, let 
peacocks dwell on the mountains; can they ever become Brahma (seated 
in a lotus), Vishnu (reclining on the milky ocean) and Shiva (who resides 
on Mount Kailasa)?

3. An artist may draw with all his talents a glorious picture of the 
sun, its shape, color, and rays; but can he ever bring out its blazing
lustre?

4. Unlike Sage Agastya, the white clouds by drinking just a little of the
waters of the sea have become black and restless (moving from one place 
to another).

5. Sage Jahnu drank the Ganges and Sage Agastya surpassed him by drinking 
the entire ocean. What to speak of the little child resting on a banyan 
leaf, who swallows the entire Universe with all its waters and still 
remains unsated?

6. Sharp teeth and nails cannot make a dog a lion, even though it bites 
and kills wild beasts, accompanies kings on hunting trips and lives in 
mountains.

7. Like a an eclipse overshadowing teh Sun or the Moon, a slanderer of a 
virtuous person will in a short while disappear into obscurity. 

8. However eminent and scholarly they may be it is eminently fit and
proper to punish and put out of action evil minded, though efficient, 
persons in high positions if they belittle the virtuous and blaspheme the
scriptures and their contents. 

9. Though a jackal has sharp teeth, lives in a forest and attacks wild
animals, it can never achieve the stature of a lion.

10. If prompted by jealousy and spite, a wicked and foolish man derides
virtuous and tranquil scholars, he is soon corrected by an appropriately
knowledgable and powerful person; like the lake bound crocodile who was
killed by Lord Vishnu with his Discus when it tried to drag and kill
the noble elephant Gajendra.

11. Pride and arrogance behove little to ordinary beings. Can a sparrow 
challenge Garuda though both fly in the sky? Can a sick person who ingests
saline water for his cure claim equality with sage Agastya who drank the 
entire ocean? Can the whine of the mosquito ever rival the music of the 
celestial bard? Flying, drinking and singing may be common to such pairs, 
but there ends the similarity.

12. By closing one's eyes, the Sun does not cease to exist. By covering
one's ears, the cuckoo's coo does not become the cawing of the crow. By
spinning around himself, a fool cannot change the course of the earth in
its orbit. By pumping one's fist upwards, the sky is not upset. Great 
persons are least affected by the petty manouvres of arrogant fools. 

Muralidhar Rangaswamy