Search:

From the Bhakti List Archives

M K Sudarshan • January 26, 1997 


srimathE lakshmi-nrsumha parabrahmaNE namaha
sri vedanta desika guravE namaha

Dear 'bhAgavatOttamA-s',

It was a pleasure to read Sriman.Sadagopan's "musings" on 'nirvedam'-- a
feeling which, as pointed out by him, afflicted Swami Desikan, the Alwars
(notably 'tirumangai-alwar') and Saint Thyagaraja. Indeed, 'nirvedam'
seriously gripped many great 'bhakthA-s' at some point or the other in their
lives.

During the course of my last post on this subject in response to
Sri.Kalale's own, I had referred to 'nirvedam' in passing. I had ventured to
use the term to describe some of our feelings mirrored in Sri.Kalale's
'sambAshanam' with the Jeeyar. 

Please note that I was using the word 'nirvedam' only as a convenient
off-the-shelf label to affix on the complex of personal feelings we
sometimes go through such as the ones Srimathi.Nagu expressed in her own
posting. I was referring to the genus to which our feelings may be said to
belong; I did not mean that our feelings were 'nirvedam' per se.

If it did sound that way, dear 'bhAgavatOttamA-s', I am sorry, it is a gross
exaggeration.

I think most, if not all of us, are far too small and unevolved to be able
to feel the real depth of 'nirvedam' in the way our 'achAryA-s' experienced it. 
They have their great creative 'outpourings of agony' as evidence for it.

We have none.

I believe I may therefore have wrongly attributed 'nirvedam' to ourselves
when such grave emotion would be wholly beyond our reach in the many ways
Swami Desikan or Saint Thyagaraja may have laboured under. 

Kindly therefore treat my own 'off-the-cuff' remarks on 'nirvedam' as
another instance of my usual penchant for superlatives & overstatements and
accord it the customary 'bagful of salt' (as against the proverbial 'pinch')
it truly deserves.

Sriman.Sadagopan's reference to 'nirvedam' in Swami Desikan's RPS reminded
me of the great 'AchAryA-s' references to the same emotion in another short
work of his.

It will be my pleasure to share it all with you in my next posting.

lakshmi-nrsumha-priyan,
sudarshan.