Search:
Bhakti List Archives

The Lonely Lord

From the Bhakti List Archives

sadagopaniyengar • February 1, 2003 


                               
Srimate SrivanSatakopa Sri Vedanta Desika Yatindra Mahadesikaya nama:

                                          The Lonely Lord

           The Lord must get pretty lonely in His arcchAvatAra, the form in which He is to be found in various temples. In His other forms, He is used to quite a crowd as company.

 As the ParamapadanAtan, He is constantly being addressed and adulated by the nitya sUrIs, with whom He exchanges views, especially with Sri VishvaksEnar, on matters concerning Universal administration. Sri Garuda is the Lord's dear friend ("Dasa: sakhA, vAhanam, dhvaja:") and keeps Him constant company. Thus He doesn't lack people to speak to and move with.

In the Vibhava avataras too, as Sri Rama, He was constantly surrounded by His illustrious brothers and others whom He himself had acknowledged as brothers-Sri GuhapperumAL, Sri Hanuman, Sri VibhIshana etc.   In Sri Krishnavatara, He enjoyed the boisterous company of  young cowherds ("tan nEr Ayiram piLLaigaLOdu taLar nadai ittu varuvAn"_Sri Periazhwar) and had His fill of all sorts of sport. As Sri Balarama, He had Sri Krishna for company. As Sri Nrsimha, He had the adoring company of Sri Prahlada, and so on.

However, in the arcchAvatAra, He has nobody to speak to. All the mortals look up to Him as the unapproachable Lord and do not entertain even the thought of speaking to Him. They ogle at Him from a distance with folded hands and bowed heads, bring Him fruits and flowers, bedeck Him in the finest of silk and the most precious of gems and jewellery. However, they don't think of talking to Him. They may voice their prayers seeking this and that, they may recite stotras in His praise, but they do not give a thought to speaking to Him.The arcchakAs perform for Him all kainkaryAs and recite nAmAvaLis during arcchanA, but when there is no devotee in sight, they too prefer to come out of the shrine and pass time with their colleagues or visitors. The Lord is thus left alone most of the time. All this is when the temple is open. When the visiting hours are over, there is an exodus of people from the temple and everyone, including His intimate servants, the arcchakAs, leave, practically codemning Emperuman to a sentenc

If He were a person who likes solitude, He would definitely relish the abundant doses He gets: but He is a sociable Lord and never likes to be alone-"Sa EkAkI na ramatE" says the Upanishad, confirming His distaste for loneliness. The long hours He spends locked up behind doors like a truant child which can't be trusted to be free, make Him terribly bored. With none to speak to, not a soul to socialise with, He stands all alone for hours at a stretch, for days and years and millennia, enduring all the solitude stoically and uncomplainingly. However, He still doesn't like it. Thus the arcchA samAdhi or the absence of interaction with His devotees is a source of tedium for the Lord.

One can endure only so much, and the Lord is no exception. When the solitude begins to tell on Him, He does open His beautiful mouth and speak with devotees of His choice, who mingle freely with Him, speaking to Him, telling Him not only their woes but also every little thing that happened to them to that day- in short, treating Him as a beloved friend and companion. We thus have several instances of the arcchA samAdhi being broken and the Lord engaging in verbal interaction with Sri Tirukkacchi Nambi, Sri Tirumalai Nambi, Sri Parasara Bhattar and others. Such bhaktAs had developed an extremely intimate relationship with the Lord and used to interact with Him daily, as freely as they would with a human friend.

In Srirangam, there was a temple employee entrusted with the responsibility of keeping all the temple lamps topped up with oil. In the course of performing this uninteresting routine, once or twice he addressed the recumbent Rangaraja, speaking to Him casually, asking Him how He felt that day, etc.  Though he was greeted only with silence for some time, when he continued this practice of talking to the Lord, Sri Peria Perumal felt compelled to reply. Then onwards, chitchat between the Lord and His employee became regular, and they used to exchange views on anything and everything under the Sun. The Lord was touched by the man's unassuming conversation and His chat-mate was thrilled that Peria Perumal was actually speaking to him, a lowly employee in the temple hierarchy. To people who watched him occasionally standing before Rangaraja and apparently talking to himself, he appeared to be off his rocker, and was given the sobriquet "Picchan" (mad man). Combining his job title and popular impression, he came to

One day, while carrying out his chore, Picchan fell into conversation with the Lord, who wanted to draw him out and asked him what he thought about great people. In a deprecatory tone, Picchan replied that all great men had their own weaknesses, their respective Aschilles' heels. Peria Perumal, who found Picchan's remarks interesting and unusual, providing a welcome change from the litany of stotras He was fed daily, asked Picchan whether he could find any such frailty in the Azhwars.

Never at a loss for words, Picchan immediately replied in the affirmative and proceeded to quote the following pasuram from Peria Tirumozhi , in support of his contention-

"Sengamalatthu ayan anaya marayOr  KazhicchIrAma ViNnagar en SengaN MAlai
  ankamala tada vayal soozh Ali nAdan aruLmAri arattamukki adayAr seeyam
  kongu malar kuzhaliar vEL Mangai vEndan kottravEl ParakAlan Kalian sonna
  sanga mukha Tamizh mAlai patthum vallAr tadam kadal soozh moovulagukku talaivar tAmE"

Picchan told Peria Perumal, "You asked me whether Azhwars had any failings. You listened to the pasuram I just recited. Didn't You find that Sri Thirumangai Mannan has, in the guise of singing Your praises, heaped upon himself quite a lot of flattering sobriquets like " Ali nAdan, aruLmAri, arattamukki, adayAr Seeyam, Mangai vEndan, ParakAlan" etc.? In fact, in this particular pasuram, Azhwar blows his own trumpet much more than he sings Your praise. Devoted as he is to You beyond measure, Sri Kalian is indeed susceptible to boasting and bragging about his own prowess. Would you agree with me now that even the great ones have their frailties?"

Peria Perumal was indeed amused at Picchan's observation and his irreverent attitude towards the high and mighty. He chided the man for daring to criticise Azhwars and clarified that such remarks by Azhwars, sounding like shameless self-praise, reflected, in reality, their pride in their having been rescued by the Lord from the bottomless pit of samsara and been given the exalted job of singing His praises. When Sri Nammazhwar describes himself as "vazhuvAda tol pugazh van KurugUr Satakopan", the pride he takes is not in his own glory, but that of the Lord, who endowed him with blemishless wisdom, enabling him to sing His praises forever. When Sri BhootatthAzwar says, "YanE tavam seidEn, YAnE perum Tamizhan"etc., it is the pride of having been so blessed by the Lord. These are totally different from the sort of pride and vanity that characterise conceited mortals and lead to their downfall, and fall under the category of SAtvika ahankAram, which comes from deep devotion to the Divine Being.

Convinced with Periya Perumal's explanation, ThiruviLakku Picchan passed on to the next topic of the day and continued thus to regale the Lord lifelong with his views of men and matters.

Srimate Sri LakshmINrsimha divya paduka sevaka SrivanSatakopa Sri Narayana Yatindra Mahadesikaya nama:

Dasan, sadagopan

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



--------------------------------------------------------------
           - SrImate rAmAnujAya namaH -
To Post a message, send it to:   bhakti-list@yahoogroups.com
Group Home: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bhakti-list
Archives: http://ramanuja.org/sv/bhakti/archives/
 

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/