FREE WILL VERSUS DIVINE WILL : Part 1 of 4

FREE WILL VERSUS DIVINE WILL

The following is an imaginary no-holds-barred Conversation IN FOUR PARTS among three people, namely,

‘DFW’, standing for ‘Disciple who holds Free Will is everything’,   ‘DDW’, standing for ‘Disciple who holds Divine Will is everything’ and  ‘TD’, standing for a ‘Third Disciple who holds that it is neither this nor that exclusively’.

But as the conversation proceeds, one will find their original convictions gradually change.

Part 1 of 4

DFW: Free will is essential for reward and punishment; otherwise anyone would do anything they wish and say "it was God's will, don't blame me!"

DDW: Ah, but that is not quite a correct viewpoint because, you are cheating. God's will has been expressed in the various Shrutis, Gita, Upanishads, Bible and what have you, and if you follow those actions, you can claim to be doing God's will, otherwise you cannot claim to act in God’s way.

DFW: Hold on, even my acting contrary to the scriptures is being done by God, right? So I don't understand your distinguishing some actions from others.

DDW: True, but even the consequences of the actions against Him will have been described in the scriptures. They are available for all to see.

TD: I think you are both taking extreme positions. If man did not have free will to attempt to do his will, Veda statements like ‘satyam vada’ (Speak the truth) and ‘dharmam cara’ (Act according to dharma) would lose all their meaning. So I am not prepared to agree with DDW. But what DDW says that it is finally Divine will that expresses itself is correct.

DDW. Then how can you also agree with DFW?

TD: That is the tricky point. Without the implied choice of action implied in statements like satyam vada and dharmam cara we can go nowhere. Man is free to act in the way his tendencies (vAsanAs) take him. Man is also free to resist the bad vAsanAs and act in a way which will purify his mind and rid it of the dirt accumulated therein.

DDW: Then why are the scriptures repeatedly professing that it is all divine will? “mayaivaite nihatAH pUrvameva ..” (‘All these people have been killed by me already ...’) says Krishna in the eleventh chapter of his Gita.

DFW. That quote is exactly what confuses me.

TD: Maybe Krishna is talking to an enlightened person!

DFW: But Arjuna was not enlightened – at least, at that point. But wait. What do you say to such expressions in our shAstras: “Neither Hari (Vishnu) nor Hara (Shiva) can erase what is written on your forehead”? (hariNApi hareNApi brahmaNApi surairapi; lalATa-likhitA rekhA parimarshTuM na shakyate) Does it not say that the so-called fate that overrules you is dominant? And is not Fate the same as Divine Will?

DDW: Are you, DFW, arguing for me now?

TD: Both of you are confusing me now! Let us go about it systematically. That Fate you are talking about is the prArabdha karma. It is the portion of our past karma which has started taking effect in this birth of ours and it is this facet of our life where neither God nor anybody can  intervene.

DDW: But that would limit the Almighty’s all-mightiness!

TD: Here I am with you. To limit His own all-mightiness is His own Will!.

DDW: Let us come back now to Free Will and Divine Will. If prArabdha is so dominant again you come only to my view. Nothing can change God’s Will!

DFW: But we have still to answer the question about the choice of action that TD raised.

TD. That is why I said we have to proceed systematically. The choice of action is there so long as you believe ‘I am the doer’. Krishna says “Only the man overpowered by his ego thinks he is the doer” (B.G. 3rd chapter).

DFW: You have now brought in a third belief – namely whether one is the doer or not. But if I am not the doer and God is the doer, then is He not responsible for all my bad thoughts and bad actions?

TD: He is not responsible even for your good thoughts and good actions.

DDW: Wait, wait. You are contradicting my theory of Divine Will totally and I thought you earlier said that you agreed with me.

TD: There are stages of evolution in a man’s life – in fact, several lives. There is a stage when we have to grant free will. That is the stage when you are either a growing child either in the physical plane or in the spiritual plane. You cannot tell a high school student that it is all divine will; then there is no purpose in asking him to make effort at his education.

DFW: But even assuming that at the adult stage of a better spiritual evolution, to believe it is some other Power within us, other than our egoism, that it is the doer and the experiencer, is only fatalism. I would not like to grant that Hinduism or Vedanta is all fatalism.

TD: Your equating the fact that there is another Power within us with Fatalsim is not correct. The recognition of this other Power within us is the first step towards our spiritual evolution.

DDW: What can this other Power within us be except God?

DFW: But that contradicts your earlier statement that God is not responsible for any of our actions either good or bad!

TD: This other Power within us is not God. It is our own individualised PrakRti (SvabhAva – our own nature) for which we are ourselves the architect, by means of the way we thought and lived in all our past lives and also in this life up to the present.

DDW: But I have never heard of this concept of ‘individualised prakRti’ that you are using.

TD: In Gita Ch.3, shloka No.33 the Lord says that even the wise man does work according to his prakRti. Acharya Shankara, in commenting on this, writes: ‘PrakRti is nothing but the accumulated samskAras of our past lives individualised and earmarked for this life of ours’. The sanskrit word ‘prakRta’ (from which ‘prakRti’ is derived) means ‘currently in vogue’.

DDW: But why is God causing people to behave the way they do in these times? How can you account for the fact that the world is in such a mess? Why is every one now immersed in thinking only of themselves and not the greater good? Why is this play?

DFW: You said it right. It all looks like a deliberate play. In fact, I would say that if the theory of play is right, then God must be a sadist!

TD: No, no. Not that way. It is a play alright, but that is what is termed in the PurANas as God’s LeelA. That requires a lot of faith to go in that direction. Let us pursue the trend of our conversation in the way we started it. First God is not causing people to behave the way they do. It is the people who behave that way. That itself tells you that people have the freewill to do what they want to do. This free will God has granted man.

DFW: At last you are veering to my viewpoint!

TD: Don’t be too assured. Of course God has granted freewill to us both to obey His orders like ‘satyam vada’ and ‘dharmam cara’ and also to disobey them.

DDW: That is what I call the play of the Divine.

DFW: But then God must be foolish to play that dangerous game.

DDW: Your choice of words ‘dangerous game’ reminds me of what Sathya Sai Baba once replied to a devotee. The devotee asked him, while they were walking along the shores of the Arabian Sea, ‘Lord, if you are capable of doing all those miracles for which you are known, why don’t you change this entire sea into a sea of petrol and thus solve the problem of scarcity of oil-fuel in the world?’. Sathya Sai Baba immediately replied: ‘But then I cannot guarantee that no crazy human being like you would not throw a lighted cigarette into that sea!’.

TD: The moral of the story is: Even God cannot guarantee that man will not behave in an animal way. And that proves that Man has free will!

DFW: Oh Good! Daniel come to judgement!

DDW: But then where does all this lead us?

TD: It leads to our starting point. It is not all black and white. It is a spectrum of colours. The answer to the dilemma depends upon three factors. 1. The situation or the action that we are talking about. 2. Level of spiritual evolution of the individual concerned. 3. Degree of willingness to stand apart and surrender the ego.

DDW. I am sure on the third factor the generality of us may be taken to be at the base level.

TD. To simplify the discussion I am willing to assume, for the present, that with respect to the second factor – spiritual evolution also – we are almost at the base level. Once we do that, we come back to the child level of spiritual evolution, which we have already discussed. At this level, it is Free will that is considered to be dominant in the psychology of the individual concerned. But this is only the beginning. But when we start moving up the ladder of spiritual evolution, our factor levels get a gradual relaxation.

DFW: Do you mean then that what is dominant is different at different times of the life of an individual?

DDW: If I heard TD right, I thought he said: ‘in the psychology of the person concerned’.

TD: Yes, when we start moving up the spiritual ladder our mental make-up changes.

DDW: Yes, we gradually begin to understand how when a jnAni is acting, actually he is not doing any action because he has no identification with his body, mind and intellect. But such understanding also generates new confusions in one’s mind. The Gita verse which specifically refers to this ‘inaction in action’ also in the same breath refers to ‘action in inaction’. While not acting how can one do action?

DFW: When the train moves, the landscape moves in the opposite direction. The child thinks that it is the landscape that is moving and the train is stationary. Even we adults get this mistaken feeling when two trains are in adjacent platforms ready to move in opposite directions. Suddenly we feel that the other train has already moved, but on examination of the changing landscape between the two trains we understand that it is our train that has started moving and not the other train. This is the understanding of action in apparent inaction. To attribute non-action to the Self which stands still as it were is only to comprehend it relatively. It is the Self which permeates everywhere, it is the substratum of everything and it is the prime mover par excellence. The Self is therefore the chief agent of action, as it were, though it appears to be only a silent witness. Thus the wise man sees action in non-action.

DDW: Hey, DFW, Are you not advocating my cause that it is all God’s will that is taking place?

DFW: Well, TD has said just now that our moods change. Maybe my mood has changed! But shall we get back to the earlier trend of the conversation? TD, you said that as we move up the ladder of spiritual perfection, our factor levels change. Can you continue that thought a little further?

TD: As we move up the ladder of spiritual understanding, for some of us the first shock arises when we begin to realise that, in addition to the limitations of parentage, sex and environment, there are other limitations also. Very often we blame it on our ill-luck if, after all our efforts, we don’t achieve what we want to achieve. Slowly it dawns on us that what and how we will, there is something else that wills it otherwise. If we can find a scapegoat of an earthly person or cause we blame it on them. But when we don’t find such a cause, we are at a dead end for explanations. And then it is that the concept of prArabdha karma seems to make sense. And we realise that prArabdha could also be another name for ill-luck. Why ill luck? Even for good luck also, on which we put so much faith, prArabdha could be the other name!

DFW: But when we reach, as you say, a stage where we look upward for the hand of God to help us out of our problems, do we really believe that God can change things for us?

DDW: What else does it mean to look upward for the hand of God?

TD: I think DFW is asking “Shall we trust God totally? Or shall we take it that He gives just a hand?”

DDW: That is a dilemma that I have never got through.

TD: I think almost all of us go through this dilemma most of our lives vacillating between extremes. The intensity of this vacillation depends on our mood and environment. It is also a function of the company we keep and the amount of pressure from our peers.

DDW: Oh yes. It also depends on what somebody just said to me and walked away. You allow this DFW to be talking to you continuously, your mood will change.

DFW: Hey, DDW, it is the same thing with me when you keep reeling off your quotes from authorities and scriptures!

TD: Well, it is nobody’s fault. It is in our nature. The company we keep, our kith and kin as well as the attachment we have to all of them influence largely the opinions we have and only magnifies the dilemma about whether to believe in God totally or not.

DFW: In fact, I have a fundamental question in that connection. If you believe in a supernatural interventionist God who comes to your help when you pray to Him, how do you explain the umpteen situations when He does not intervene?

DDW: Oh Boy! That is a deep question. May be we should sit back and think about it.

(To be continued)

MESSAGE FOR THE NEW YEAR 2016 ON CONCEPT OF GOD

A Message for the New Year on ‘The Concept of God’

Wherever and whenever I had an opportunity to talk on spiritual matters, in India or outside, I have met with several questions, forcefully articulated by active younger minds, on the ‘exact’ concept of the so-called ‘God’ we all talk about almost as a habit. And more experienced questioners who have been exposed, either by choice or by accident, to Hindu philosophy, ask deeper questions like ‘Should we believe in Advaita (Non-duality) or  Dvaita (Duality, Multiplicity)’.  And in fact they elaborate their question in the form: ‘If the great teachers like Shankara, Ramanuja and others differ in their interpretations of the scriptures, which of them do we follow? Is there a possibility of integration of all these interpretations?’. 

This Message attempts to answer  these doubts with the little knowledge that I am supposed to have acquired from those who know. It is a little long, but you have a whole year (2016 !) to chew on it.

Frankly speaking it is very difficult to ‘prove’ the existence of God. All the proofs that scholars may be offering have some flaw or other or they seem to beg the question. God must be the name we have given to what we are not able to understand even collectively. Such a God has to be the creative force, the overall intelligence that governs the universe, the all-pervading essence which binds together everything in the universe and gives life to all living beings.  But this does not say that such a thing exists.

If you are looking for it intellectually, it should be the creative force, the sustaining power, the motivation towards change, the overall intelligence, the truth.

If you are looking for it emotionally, it should be love, goodness, kindness and beauty. The Gita (10 -34) says: ‘I am glory, beauty, speech, memory, intelligence, steadfastness and forgiveness’.

If you are looking at it spiritually, it should be the ever-present all-pervading essence or spirit that gives life to everything  and binds them all.

But the ordinary believer in God only looks at it as He who gives rewards when good is done and punishes defaulters in ethics or morals.

There are different levels of the conception of God. An answer given to a questioner at one level, will not suit, or be satisfactory to,  the questioner at a different level. The super-designer argument may be acceptable to a teen-ager beginning to take the first steps in life but it may  not satisfy a grown-up adult  who has gone through several  turn-arounds in life.

The beauty of Hindu philosophy and religion lies in the fact that instead of starting from the reality of a Universal Mind, they start from what is experienced at the human level. So the innermost recesses of the human mind are first explored. This investigation leads to what constitutes the innermost essence of man. One finds this essence is the seeker himself, rid of all his tools of search. In fact, the mind itself is part of the luggage that is to be shed off. But this exploration of the innermost core is inextricably interlinked with the preconditioning of the mind. This preconditioning itself is nothing but the cumulative effect of all the traces of sensory experiences left in the memory bank and in the type of intellect. This pre-conditioning differs from individual to individual and so the understanding of the innermost core also varies from person to person.

The technical jargon that corresponds to this preconditioning is ‘VAsanA’. The innermost core is what the Vedantins call ‘Atman’. But the question is ‘What is this Atman?’. They say it is the innermost reality within us. It is the real subject of all our experiences.  It is the eternal witness to everything that I do or think.

But then, where is ‘God’ in all this?  The advaitin would say: ‘There is no God other than yourself’! But if this is referring to the Atman within oneself, then there should be several Gods – one for each Atman in each person.  But the advaitin would reply:  the Atman within yourself and the Atman within myself is the same. But still this does not answer the question about God who is the Master of the Universe  and who is the Creator of the Universe.

This is where Hindu Philosophy has scored, particularly the advaita school. They assert that the Atman which is the innermost core of Man is also the transcendent Eternal Reality which is omnipresent. The name given to that supreme Reality is Brahman. The declaration of the Upanishads is, according to Advaita, Atman is the same as Brahman, period! This statement is not amenable to any proof.  Yogis however say that it will be seen as true in meditative samadhi.

However, the matter whether God exists or not is not relevant from the absolute point of view. The advaita school is very clear on this point. The existence or otherwise of a God with superlative attributes or the necessity for such a God arises  only in the mundane world which is after all only relatively real.  As far as absolute truth is concerned only non-duality is true; namely Truth is one and only one.  You may call it God.  But that God is not your God with superlative attributes. It is Brahman, the unqualified Brahman, to whom there can be no attributes.

But then, all the scriptures cry hoarse that everything in the universe owe their existence to God.  They say it in the sense that all the movie pictures you see on the screen owe their existence to the screen. If the screen were not there, there would be no pictures. The screen alone is always there, before the projection of pictures on it, during the projection and after the projection. So the screen is relatively more real than the pictures on it.  This is the famous ‘anvaya’ logic. It is in this sense that scriptures including the Brahma Sutras say that Brahman is the source of everything.

Let us look at it in another way. Man is conscious of his own limitations. In other words he is capable of imagining or conceiving the infinite and in comparison he knows he has limitations that make him lack that infiniteness. It is that infiniteness which he renames as God. The advaita teaching says  he has to rise from his limitations which are collectively termed as his avidya (Ignorance).  So long as he is subject to these limitations he cannot dispense with religion or his belief in God.  Only through the Grace of God does the saving knowledge of non-duality  come to us. We need prayer and meditation to make ourselves worthy of God’s Grace.

And that God to whom you direct your prayers may be called your ishhTadevatA (Favourite God).  There is nothing wrong in this so long as it does not carry with it hatred of any other God, either of Hinduism or of any other religion.  One can have preferences, without exclusions. Reason is strongest, when it accepts divine guidance. This divine guidance does not necessarily have to come from a personality called God.  Whenever we say ‘personality’ we think of it only in human form. We are not able to think of it as something which makes us think. This something is the consciousness within us. This is actually what guides us. That is divine guidance.

God, the Reality Absolute, is not only transcendent – in the sense that He (or It) is beyond all finite conceptions – but He is also immanent in everything, animate and inanimate. This immanence aspect is a speciality of Hindu  Vedanta. Whatever we see, hear, smell, taste or touch – everything is the Almighty.

The taste of water, the light of the Sun, the sound in space, the smell of the Earth, the glow of Fire, the lives of living beings – all these are nothing but that Absolute Itself.  I am only quoting the Gita (VII- 8, 9) here. It all looks like poetry, music. Yes, the music of the moving, the melody of poetry, the delicacy of dance  -- all this is the song of the Absolute! We are told by great saints that one obtains this kind of Realisation in the samAdhi state.  Listen to one such description from Kripananda Variyar:

The sages of antiquity who  have been in that state revel in their equanimous vision and their  Bliss of Equanimity and Compassion; they are conscious of nothing else but the fullness of that Consciousness. The  vision knows no ‘I’ or ‘Mine’. The little self is merged in the Supreme Self.  Knowledge and Ignorance both get consumed in that oneness of the knower, the known and knowledge.  There is no seer, no vision, nothing to be seen. For such a brahma-jnAni, neither time, nor action, neither merit nor demerit, neither pleasure nor pain, matters the least. In that state of Enlightenment, there is no distinction between one self and the other self.  It is full of Grace and Light – no darkness, no confusion. It is the massive Light of Consciousness. No up, no down, no peak, no valley. It is a state that transcends speech and mind, a state that has no goings-on, no action, no reaction.

Hinduism is a graded religious discipline. It takes man step by step from the worship of the popular gods for gaining material ends all the way up to the prayer of the JIva (Soul) which is keen on being led ‘from Unreality to Reality’. There is only one Reality from the transcendental point of view. For the purposes of worship various names and forms are ‘superimposed’ on it. Once this process of giving a name and a form to what is ‘nameless’ and ‘formless’ starts, there is no end to it. One observes all forms of worship and goes all the way with religion in order to arrive at a point beyond religion. All this is quite necessary in the case of the majority of ordinary men who choose to live in a world which takes multiplicity as real and as The Truth.

But the true Advaitin takes all this as an unavoidable come down.  He knows all this is mAyA but he cannot but do it. He knows he is sinning against his own enlightened state  in doing all this. Appayya Dikshidar, the famous advaitin of the 16^th century, expresses this feeling in his characteristic forthright language: “Oh Lord, I have in my weakness committed three sins and I beg forgiveness from You. To serve as a support for meditation I have given  a form to the Highest who is really formless; I have tried to define the undefinable by composing stotras and litanies and lastly I have confined the omnipresent Lord to particular places of worship and have journeyed to those places”. This is the attitude of a true advaitin towards all forms of worship.  Whether each form or for that matter the formless Ultimate was the first cause or not does not make any difference to that attitude.

Now let us come to the question about Multiplicity versus Non-duality. Shankara and Ramanuja the two great protagonists of the two major schools of philosophy of Hindu India differ only in one point.  In interpreting the Upanishads, to which of the statements shall we give importance or dominance? To the statements that are obviously absolutist? Or to those that are obviously non-absolutist? Shankara supports the former viewpoint and Ramanuja leans towards the latter. This difference in interpretation by these two great teachers has generated a succession of philosophical literature by later thinkers and writers and the body of literature on both sides is voluminous. For most of us ordinary spiritual seekers, this difference between Shankara and Ramanuja should not matter. For, said in technical terms, Shankara says there is ultimately no distinction between, God, souls and matter because souls and matter are nothing but divine though in the phenomenal world they appear to be different. Ramanuja says that the phenomenal difference persists in the ultimate although in a subtle way. Now for us in the phenomenal world, what does it matter whether this phenomenal difference persists in the ultimate or not? Let us cross the bridge when it comes! As far as the phenomenal world is concerned both Shankara and Ramanuja and in fact all the other Masters of Philosophy agree that we have to purify our minds through Bhakti, we have to eradicate all our undesirable vAsanAs in the first instance, we have to surrender even our will to God and work in the world in a totally unselfish manner. Thus the teaching of the Great Masters coincide in terms of what we have to do in the real world.  In fact this is why Hindu religion is one in spite of all the differences  in the interpretations of the scriptures.

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THE BECOMING AND THE BEING -- JIVA AND BRAHMAN

THE BECOMING, THAT IS, THE JIVA 

AND THE BEING, THAT IS, THE ULTIMATE

According to Vedanta, the doer/experiencer is the one who has identified with one’s BMI (Body, Mind, Intellect). If you don’t identify yourself with your BMI, you are not the doer/experiencer. But who is this ‘you’ that is being talked about? That is the clinching issue. There is a triple personality that we should know of in order to know ourselves. The first is the outer personality, by which I mean, not the external personality that others see in us, but the personality that we claim in our heart of hearts as ‘I’. This outer personality of mine includes my BMI, along with all the innermost thoughts that I know are mine, and therefore my ego also. By the ‘outer personality’ we are here linking together the ‘concrete body’ (sthula-sharIra) and the ‘subtle body’ (sUkShma-sharIra) – purely for the purpose of clarity of this exposition .

But behind the BMI there exists the JIva which gives it life. Without this, the BMI cannot express itself. The corresponding English word ‘soul’ may be used most often though it may not have all the connotations that ‘JIva’ has. “What dies when separated from the soul is the body; the soul does not die” (Ch.U. VI–11-3). This soul is nothing but the spark of the Absolute Consciousness (B.G.: 7-5; 15–7) and therefore it is sentient. From the seventh chapter of the Gita we know that His own divine Energy – called Cosmic Nature (PrakRti) – is two-fold. One is superior and the other is not so. This latter is the source of all matter. It manifests actually as eight-fold matter, namely, the five elements, mind, intellect, and ego. In its manifestation as the five elements PrakRti constitutes all of what science has unfolded about the universe and all of what it continues to unfold. In the manifestation in each individual as one’s mind-intellect-ego, PrakRti constitutes all “the actions of one’s past lives individualised and earmarked for this life together with the accumulated tendencies from all one’s past lives” (Shankara’s Commentary on B.G.: 3–33).

The Superior prakRti (parA-prakRti) is what becomes all the souls. Each soul takes several bodies (physical appearances) one after the other just as the same individual dons different clothes -- (B.G.: 2–22). In all these different appearances of the same soul, though it takes different bodies, the same mind sticks on to it -- (B.G.: 15–7, 8). But the memories of the mind do not go with it since they stay in the brain and perish along with it. However, in each such life of the particular soul, the mind accumulates tendencies (vAsanAs) that go on with it into succeeding lives where it gets other bodies. It is the set of these tendencies that gives a character to the mind. This character is a mixture of the three basic strands of prakRti – the divine (satva), the dynamic (rajas) and the dull (tamas).

Without BMI the soul cannot express itself as an individual. Without the sentient soul, mind is just inert matter. But when it sticks on to the soul in the latter’s physical expression through BMI, it gets (a borrowed) sentience. Now the soul interacts with the universe of matter as well as with the other living beings. But even this interaction has to take place only through the medium of the BMI. There is therefore a seemingly endless play of the sentient Consciousness within and the insentient universe of matter outside through the medium of the BMI. In this play, the sentient Consciousness within, which is nothing but the spark of the Absolute, is called ‘Purusha’ or Self. We shall use the word ‘Purusha’ in this context systematically. ‘Purusha’ has the inbuilt meaning of ‘resident in the body’ which aptly describes what we are talking about. Everything else, including the interaction with other beings, is of course prakRti. This interplay of puruSha and prakRti is what constitutes our passage through life.

Now the Lord says: There are two purushas: (15–16). They are: the perishable purusha (also called ‘empirical self’) and the imperishable purusha. The perishable one expresses itself through the BMI. When the BMI vanishes in the cycle of time, it can no more express itself. So this personality is termed “Perishable” (kShara). It is this Perishable PuruSha – whom we shall hereafter denote by ‘PP’ for convenience of brevity in writing – who does all the work in the external world and thinks all the thoughts.

 It is he, the PP, who is the ‘I’ of ordinary conversation. Vedanta says it is not ‘the real I’ because of the perishability of PP. He is the mutable, thinking, acting personality, subjected by Ignorance to the outward workings of  PrakRti. We said the soul expresses itself through the BMI. But in so expressing itself, it invariably makes the mistake of thinking it is just the PP and nothing more. In other words, the soul commits the colossal error of identifying itself with the BMI. This colossal error is the beginningless ignorance. And here starts all the problems of life. All the pleasure and pain, ups and downs, light and darkness, good and bad, that the BMI suffers through, are mistakenly assumed by the soul as its own experiences. Not only this. All the actions of the BMI are also appropriated by the soul.

Thus arises the common expression: ‘I am the doer’, ‘I am the experiencer’. The PP (or, what is the same thing, the soul in its present state of oneness with the PP) is involved in the actions of Nature. He reflects the different workings of the modes of Nature.  He associates himself with the doings of prakRti and thinks he is the doer. He identifies himself with the play of personality and clouds his self-knowledge with the ego-sense in PrakRti so that he thinks himself as the ego-doer of works. (B.G.: 3-27).

The second purusha is ‘the Imperishable PuruSha’ – which we shall denote hereafter by ‘IP’ for convenience of communication. It is a higher, deeper, reality -- some exponents call it ‘inner reality’ – than the PP. It is the eternal impersonal self within. It is the ‘sat-chid-Ananda’ (Existence-Knowledge-Bliss) of Vedanta. The full Sanskrit term is “akshara-purusha” -- ‘akshara’ meaning ‘imperishable’. It has no share in the action and movement of the PP except to support it by its presence and be a non-participating witness (-- to be explained in the sequel).

Some one pinches my body. It hurts. Who feels this hurt? I feel the hurt. Who is this I that is speaking? It is the PP. Why does the PP feel the hurt? Because it has identified itself with the BMI. Therefore it becomes the experiencer (‘bhoktA’). Recall that the soul has already fallen into the colossal error of thinking that it is the PP and nothing more. Not only do I feel the hurt, but I flare up at the other person. Who is this I that is flaring up now? It is again the PP. Why does the PP flare up? Because it has identified itself with the BMI. As a consequence of this identification, it not only experiences the hurt, but falls into the trap of the gang of peace-breakers like anger and ego and flares back. So it becomes the ‘kartA’ (doer).

What does the Lord say on this now? He says: Of the  two puruShas the imperishable is never hurt and can never be hurt. “This cannot be cut into pieces; this cannot be burnt; this cannot be tainted; this cannot be dried”: (B.G. : 2–24). So He says: “My dear Arjuna, You (the PP / soul) are wrongly identifying yourself with this BMI. Don’t do this. Identify yourself with the IP within you. Then there will be no hurt. Only Happiness”. This is the bottom line. This is the essential philosophical content of the entire teaching of the Gita. This is the message of all spiritual teaching. This is the grand recipe for happiness. Vedanta comes to our help in analysing this message for us. Vedanta reduces everything to five fundamentals:

·       'sat' (Existence) -- revealed by the fact that it 'exists' (asti)

·       'chit' (Consciousness) -- revealed by the fact of 'knowing' (bhAti)

·       'Ananda' (Bliss) -- revealed by the fact of 'happiness' (priyam)

·       'nAma' (Name) -- everything has a name

·       'rUpaM' (Form) -- every visible thing has a form.

The first three are permanent, eternal. Each one of them constitutes what we called the IP. The last two are ephemeral, transient. Our BMI belongs to the last two above. Anything in our experience belongs to this ‘Name’ and ‘Form’.

When somebody pinches me I feel the pain. It is really the BMI that senses the pain and reacts to it. But the BMI would not have done it if 'I' were not there. (for example, a dead body) – that is, if the sentience, borrowed from the IP within, were not there. It is the association of 'I' with the BMI that makes 'me' feel and react. The ‘superimposition’ of BMI and of its experiences on the ‘I’ is the problem. When I, the one whose outer personality is called so-and-so, ceases to associate the 'I' with the BMI and remains what it should be, namely, the IP, there should be no feeling of pain and no provocation for a reaction or action. This is what Krishna says to Arjuna.

Thus all action happens only when the association of the permanent facet of man namely the 'sat-chit-Ananda' facet of man is associated with the 'nAma-rUpa' facet of the same man. Actually it should be said the other way. The ‘nAma-rUpa’ facet and its goings-on are superimposed on the ‘sat-chid-Ananda’ facet. It is this superimposition that is the actor and the reactor. It is this superimposition that is the feeler, the thinker. Who makes this superimposition? It is the empirical Self, the JIva. All that Vedanta says is this: Get over this mixing up of the 'sat-cit-Ananda' with the 'nAma-rUpa'.

Thus to the question “Who is the ‘We’ in the statement ‘We are identifying ourselves with the BMI’?” the answer comes now. ‘We’, the agent or subject who does the identification is the PP/soul/ ‘empirical self’ who expresses himself through the BMI. If we do not so identify then the hurt or pain which affects the body, mind, intellect will not be ‘felt’. (Easy to say this! But at this point it has to be granted at least as an academic truism). At least this is what Krishna says. It is at this point of the discussion we have to spend considerable thought on the key-words “non-participating witness” in the paragraph above that introduced the IP. It is in fact the punchline of Vedanta, particularly of advaita.

JIva, the Empirical Self

The IP (Imperishable puruSha) is the real I within us, and he does not do any action, he does not think any thoughts, he does not feel any emotions. He is unaffected, unperturbed, uncontaminated, unsullied by any of the happenings to the PP (Perishable puruSha). He is the One introduced by Krishna very early in the Gita in verses 23, 24, 25 of the 2^nd chapter and later, in many other contexts. He, being the real ‘I’, can therefore very well say: “I am not the doer or the experiencer”. Like the street light that witnesses everything that happens under the light but is itself neither the doer nor the experiencer of the happenings. He is the non-participating witness to everything that happens to the PP. At the final end of the theory of non-duality one is told that the knower, the known and the knowledge are all one. But, ordinarily, the knower is the subject and the known is the object. The subject which knows the object is the centre of consciousness. It exists, and it knows. The object only exists.

The JIva (the soul) is the subject of all experience. It is a complex of Consciousness (ChaitanyaM) and Matter. When objects are in relation to the subject we have the stream of presentations called Vrittis. When there are no objects there will be no presentations but the consciousness that lights up the presentations will remain. That consciousness is the Witness, the non-participating Witness. Objects are not presented to Consciousness as such. They are directly presented to the JIva (the soul) and only indirectly to the Witness. There can be no relationship between Consciousness and objects, because they belong to different orders of reality, like the rope and the snake. The subject, the centre of consciousness, is experienced directly in an intuition, like an ‘I-feeling’ (aham-pratyaya), but the object is known only from the outside like ‘this-feeling’ (idam-pratyaya).

Then how did this Pure Consciousness become the JIva or the empirical self and how was the JIva made the subject of all experience? Strictly speaking, there is no ‘becoming, no making, no transition, no transformation’. Pure Consciousness (Atman, Brahman) does not undergo any change of form or character. JIva is only Brahman in an empirical dress of BMI in which the sprouting of the thought of distinctness from Brahman has occurred. This thought of individuality is the Ego, the starting point of the JIva.  JIva is therefore  Consciousness conditioned by Ignorance in the form of an ego of individuality. The Self can have no direct knowledge of the world except through the apparatus of the BMI. This apparatus as well as the small world which becomes the object of its knowledge is spoken of as the adjunct (upAdhi) of Consciousness. All this adjunct is matter. Consciousness (‘Chaitanyam’) which has this limited portion of matter for its adjunct is the JIva. Each JIva has its own knowing apparatus and moves in a small world of its own, with its own joys and sorrows and thus has its own individual existence. Though the Self is one, the JIvas are many.

Shankara draws attention to this fact of one Self and several JIvas, for instance, in his commentary on (B.G.: 2-12) where the Lord says There was never a time when I was not there nor you were not there, nor these leaders of men nor that we, all of us, will come to be hereafter. He comments: ‘The plural number (in we) is used following the diversity of the bodies, but not in the sense of the multiplicity of the Self’. Generally in his commentaries, Shankara uses two illustrations to bring home this point. One is the sun appearing as many reflected images in different pools of water. If the waters are dried up the several images get back to the original sun. The other illustration is the infinite space being delimited by artificial barriers. If these barriers are knocked down there will be no occasion to speak of the different spaces. These two illustrations of the exact mode of conceiving the relation between the Self and the Soul gave rise to two schools of argument in later advaita, namely, the argument of original and its reflection (bimba-pratibimba-vAda), and the the argument of delimitation (avaccheda-vAda). The former is the VivaraNa school and the latter is the BhAmati school.

Thus when Consciousness is conditioned by its association with Ignorance or Matter it is no longer Pure Consciousness but a complex of both, called JIva, the soul. This does not mean however that Matter or Ignorance is outside of the Reality of Consciousness, because that would contradict non-duality. The relation between Self and Soul has therefore to be conceived in the following way.

The addition of the adjunct is only a difference in the standpoint that we adopt. There are two standpoints – the intuitive and the intellectual. The intuitive is that of immediate and direct realisation. It is the method of the mystics. There is no dualism of subject and object there, nor that of doer and the deed, nor that of agent and enjoyer. These distinctions of duality arise only in the intellectual method of looking at reality. That is why the Gita says that it is “beyond the intellect” (B.G. : III – 43). It is the nature of the intellect to break up the original unity and revel in these distinctions. At this intellectual level what we are doing is actually a come-down in the level of perception. The JIva is now perceived in relation to its own small world, the subject in relation to the object and the doer in relation to the deed. The Self thus reflected in the medium of the intellect becomes the JIva. As per the VivaraNa school, the Atman or the Self is the original, the intellect is the reflecting medium and the JIva is the reflected image. In the case of the BhAmati school, the Atman is the infinite space, the adjuncts (upAdhis) are the limiting barriers and the JIvas are the small spaces.

The reflection idea is used skilfully by Kapila MahaRshi in his exposition of Vedanta.  “The presence of the Supreme Lord can be realized just as the sun is realized first as a reflection in water, and again as a second reflection on the wall of a room, although the sun itself is situated in the sky. The self-realized soul is thus reflected first in the threefold ego and then in the body, senses and mind”.

The JIva is thus a complex of Consciousness (Chaitanyam) and matter. It is Pure Consciousness with a limited adjunct of matter, namely, the BMI. This limited adjunct is spoken of as the Ignorance (avidyA) of the JIva. Stripped of its adjunct the JIva loses its individuality and is then nothing but Pure ChaitanyaM. The analysis of the three states of waking, dreaming and sleeping is intended to show that Consciousness is the only constant factor running through them all. Even in the sleeping state, this Consciousness is there. That the soul does not see in that state is because, although seeing then, it does not see; for the vision of the Witness can never be lost, because it is imperishable. But then no second thing exists there separate from it which it can see. (Br. U. IV – 3-23). Shankara quotes this passage in his commentary to Br.S. II-3-18 and adds his own explanation: This appearance of absence of awareness is owing to the absence of objects of knowledge, but not owing to the absence of consciousness. It is like the non-manifestation of light, spread over space, owing to the absence of things on which it can be reflected, but not owing to its own absence.

It is in the fourth state called ‘turIya’, that transcends the three states of waking, dream and dreamless sleep, all traces of Ignorance disappear. When the JIva is thus disassociated from Ignorance and therefore from all material vesture, the spiritual core of the JIva comes into its own. Shankara sets forth (in his commentary on Br.S. I-3-19) the nature of this transcendence of all adjuncts in the following way. A white crystal placed by the side of something red or blue appears red or blue on account of the adjunct. But in reality the crystal is only white. It does not ‘acquire’ its white colour but only shines in its own natural colour.

Before the onset of true enlightenment the Spirit (Consciousness) on account of its association with the BMI appears as the JIva. But the rise of true knowledge does make a real difference. All false notions disappear and Spirit rises to its true stature. The self-hood of the empirical self falls to the ground and the Self shines forth in its original splendour. To know the highest truth is only to know the self in its true nature. The moment true enlightenment dawns on man he realises that he is no other than the non-dual self, that very moment he sheds his finitude and rises to his full stature. There is no question of the JIva merging in anything other than itself. It simply comes to its own.

In truth there is no entity as the JIva at all. It is not among the things created. It is a false creation due entirely to adventitious (‘Agantuka’) or incidental circumstance, that is, coming from without and not pertaining to the fundamental nature. “The idea of embodiedness is a result of nescience. Unless it be through the false ignorance of identifying the Self with the body, there can be no embodiedness for the Self” .JIva has always remained Brahman. Only the adjuncts have to be removed for this truth to stand out. Once this realisation is there, the finitude of the JIva will disappear, as also its misery and its supposed agency and enjoyership. “When that Brahman, the basis of all causes and effects, becomes known, all the results of the seeker’s actions become exhausted” (Mu.U. II–2-8). The transmigration of the JIva which is due to its false association with the adjuncts, will also come to a close. That is when the ego-thought of separateness from the Supreme Self, with an ‘I’ of its own, will get destroyed. That is what we mean by saying ‘JIva attains mokSha’. The two things are simultaneous, like the simultaneity of disappearance of darkness with the lighting of a match. But that does not mean that JIva ‘reaches some destination’ or ‘obtains something’. ‘JIva sees the Truth’ simply means that it sees that it is itself Brahman. In other words, it wakes up to the Truth that was always there. Not waking up to the Truth was the Ignorance. Ignorance is not in Brahman, which is pure and self-illumined, but in the JIva. So long however as the latter does not realize his identity with Brahman, ignorance is said, rather loosely, to envelop Brahman.

All the injunctions that are given by the Vedas to man are given to him in his state of ignorance because activity is natural to man in that state. The Self is never the doer. The injunction is only a restatement following what is given in experience.  All the ritual purifications through chanting of mantras and the results of such actions are enjoined on, and enjoyed by, that entity which has the idea “I am the doer”, as stated in the Mundaka Upanishad mantra “One of the two enjoys the fruits having various tastes, while the other looks on without enjoying” (Mu. U. III-1-1). The misery that falls to the lot of the JIva, the empirical self, is entirely due to its fancied association with its adjuncts. This association imagines such ‘realities’ as ‘I am a brahmin’, ‘I am a renunciate’, ‘I am a JIva’ and the like. When the JIva sheds these imagined realities and all adventitious adjuncts and realises its true nature by a discrimination between the permanent and the ephemeral, then there is an end of all its misery. Except by such knowledge of the Ultimate Self, misery and finitude cannot be overcome. The Lord's promise is: To those who are constantly devoted and worship Me with love, I grant the concentration of understanding by which they come unto Me. (B.G. : 10-10) Out of compassion for those same ones, remaining within My own true state, I destroy the darkness born of ignorance by the shining lamp of wisdom. (B.G. 10-11) That is why one says: Only by God’s Grace the non-duality is realised!

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IMPORTANCE OF BHAKTI, EVEN FOR A NON-DUALIST (ADVAITIN)

This is a shloka from  nArAyaNIyaM : 91 - 3

bhItir-nAma dvitIyAd-bhavati nanu manH kalpitaM ca dvitIyaM

tenaikyA-bhyAsa-shIlo hR^idayam-iha yathAshakti buddhyA nirundhyAM /

mAyAviddhe tu tasmin punarapi na tathA bhAti mAyAdhi-nAthaM

tat-tvAM bhaktyA mahatyA satatam-anubhajan-nIsha bhItiM vijahyAM //

Tr. Fear arises from the consciousness of a second (thing) different from oneself. This consciousness of (such) a second is indeed an imaginary super-imposition of the mind. Therefore I am trying my best through discrimination to discipline the mind in the consciousness of oneness. But when this power of discrimination is overpowered by Thy mAyA, no amount of effort is of any avail in getting established in Unitary Consciousness. Therefore Oh Lord, I am trying to overcome the fear of samsAra by constant and devoted worship of Thee, the Master of mAyA.

Comment. This is one of the key slokas that trumpet the highest advaita concept, The sentence ‘manaH-kalpitam dvitIyaM’ (The consciousness of a second object is an imaginary superimposition of the mind) constitutes   the ‘brahma-sUtra’ of advaita. Bhattatiri, the author of Narayaneeyam, clearly makes the point that the unity of the jIva with the supreme Spirit is the ultimate goal. But he hastens to add that the same is not reachable by any one directly but only through the love and service of Him and His Grace.  It is only by God’s Grace that non-dual consciousness is obtained. The devotee merges in His Being by His grace, The ‘I’ disappears in Him and ‘He’ is left. The becoming merges in the Being. It is not vice versa. This is what one might call Realistic advaita, to be subtly contrasted with ‘kevala-advaita’. 

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GREATNESS OF SHIVA-NAME, RUDRAM CHAPTER & TRYAMBAKA MANTRA

GREATNESS OF SHIVA-NAME, RUDRAM CHAPTER & TRYAMBAKA MANTRA

Shiva’s greatness, as well as the greatness of the name Shiva, comes out forcefully in the censure by Sati, wife of Shiva in her earlier manifestation, of her father Daksha-prajApati, in Bhagavatam (Skanda four, chapter 12).

No one, except you, father,  says Sati, would antagonize Lord Shiva who is unsurpassed and to whom no one is dear or hateful, who is the beloved Self of all embodied beings. People like you discover faults even in the virtues of others but there are some pious souls who never do so: doshhAn pareshhAM hi guNeshhu sAdhavo gRRihNanti kecin-na bhavAdRRishA dvija / 

My dear father,  She continues, you are committing the greatest offense by envying Lord Shiva, whose very name, consisting of two syllables, shi and va, uttered with the tongue even once and that too casually, purifies one of all sin. His command is inviolable. Lord Shiva is always pure, and no one but you envies him:

Yat dvyakshharaM nAma gireritaM nRRiNAM sakRRit-prasangAd-aghamAshu hanti taM /Pavitra-kIrtiM tamalanghya-shAsanaM bhavAnaho dveShTi shivaM shivetaraH //

Him whose lotus feet are resorted to by great devotees, honey-bees as it were in quest of the nectar of the bliss of Brahman, to Him who is the friend and benefactor of the universe, to Him who showers every kind of blessing on those who seek it from Him, to Him you have added insult to injury.

Yat pAda-padmaM mahatAM manolibhiH nishhevitaM brahma-rasAsavArthibhiH /

Lokasya yad-varshhati chAshishho’rthinaH tasmai bhavAn druhyati vishva-bandhave //

The ‘Shiva’ name is said to be the ‘Gem of all Life’ (JIva-ratnaM). Literally ‘Shiva’ means auspicious. The Lord is so full of Love that Love itself is said to be Shiva. ‘anbe Shivam’ says the Tamil scriptures. Just the two letters Shi and va when vocalized removes all sins. The five-lettered mantra Om namah-ShivAya has been extolled as representative of the entire Vedas. The five syllables na, ma, Shi, vA and ya represent respectively the five fundamental elements Earth, Water, Fire, Air and Space; they are indicative of the five psychic centers of the body starting from the mUlAdhAra upto viSuddhi. The sixth center namely, the AjnA cakra is indicative of OM.

All this is only the thin end of the wedge as far as the greatness of the ‘Shiva’ name is concerned. It has an added importance in that it occurs in the Rudram chapter. One of the most thrilling and spiritually satisfying Vedic recitations is that of the Rudra-prashna of Krishna Yajurveda. It is seen in all the 100 branches of the Yajurveda and so it is also called Shata-rudrIyam. It is one of the five scriptural texts chosen by the ancients for constant repetition and meditation. The other four are: Vishnu Sahasranama, Bhagavad-Gita., Purusha-sUktam and the Upanishad of one’s own branch of the Veda. It is also known as Rudropanishad, because the three hundred prostrations to Shiva which constitute the central part of Rudram take one to Ultimate Self-Realisation itself. The theme is that Rudra-Shiva is all pervasive; He is behind and beyond all forms of Divinity; nay, even all forms of human and sub-human beings. The Lord is worshipped as the indwelling presence of the entire universe, including all the high and the low, the good and the bad, the virtuous and the debased. For instance He it is who sports as the Chief of Thieves – ‘taskarANAm pataye namaH’. (Recall B.G. 10-86: dyUtam chalayatAm-asmi. I am the gambling of the fraudulent’). To hear it chanted according to the South Indian style collectively in a full-throated fashion is itself a spiritual flight to heavenly Bliss and beyond. The Jabala Upanishad says, ‘By the repetition of the Shatarudra one gains immortality, for the names of God therein are nectarine’. The Kaivalya Upanishad says; ‘He who recites the ShatarudrIyam is cleansed of all sins as if by fire. He becomes free from the sins of theft, man-slaughter or commission of a prohibited act. He is like one who has taken refuge in the city of Avimukta (Varanasi). By this a man attains that knowledge which destroys the sea of samsAra. Thus knowing he enjoys the fruit of Kaivalya or Bliss’.

The ‘Shiva’ name occurs as the mantra ‘namah-ShivAya’ in the Rudram chapter almost in the center of the middle Veda, namely the yajur-Veda. The latter consists of 7 volumes (kANDas), each of which is divided into several chapters (praShnas). Each praShna is divided into paragraphs (anuvAkas) and each paragraph is counted in terms of subparagraphs (pancAShat). Every pancAShat contains fifty words or when it is the ending subparagraph of a paragraph, it may contain a few more or a few less. The following statistics will now show that the mantra namah-ShivAya occurs in the middle kANDa, and very near the middle praShna, the middle anuVAka, and the middle pancAShat; in fact, amidst a total of around 110,000 words it misses the center of the yajur-Veda by just around a thousand :

	kANDas	praShnas	anuvAkas	pancAShat’s	Words
In the full yajur-Veda	7	44	651	2198	109287
Number elapsed upto the occurrence of namah-ShivAya	3	23	340	1115	55769

The MahA-mRtyunjaya-mantra, also known as the tryambaka-mantra

 Tryambakam yajAmahe sugandhiM pushTivardhanaM /

urvArukamiva bandhanAt mRtyor-mukshIya mA-(a)mRtAt //

occurs in Rgveda VII-59-12 and also in Shukla Yajurveda 3-60. Among all mantras it is rated as a supreme one, next only to the GAyatrI. It is always invariably recited at the end of the Rudram recital from Krishna-Yajurveda, though it is not part of it.

It means: Tryambaka, the three-eyed God we worship, sweet augmentor of prosperity. As from its stem a cucumber, may I be freed from bonds of death, but not from Immortality. (The cucumber, releasing itself from its stalk effortlessly is one of the happiest metaphors in the Vedas.)

The sun, the moon and Fire are the three illuminations that constitute the three eyes of Rudra. The third eye (of Fire) is situated on his forehead; it is the spiritual eye which he opened for destroying Manmatha. Very rarely does he cause it to open. Tamil literature has a story of Nakkirar, the leading poet of the Tamil Sangam period, who was the victim of the opening of the third eye on one occasion, but of course was later pardoned by the Lord.

‘May I be freed from bonds of death’. This can be interpreted in more than one way. ‘Let me have full length of life and not be a victim of untimely death’. ‘Let me not die of any violent accident like fire, drowning or murder’. ‘Let me not die bedridden, of a wasting and protracted illness’. In fact a standard prayer at the end of daily pUjA is for a painless and easy death (anAyAsa-maraNam). Philosophically, coming back to samsAra by being born again is also a death in the absolute sense. So let me not come back to samsAra. All these meanings are legitimate.

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CHIDAMBARAM TEMPLE, THEVARAM HYMNS AND MORE

EVOLUTION OF THE CHIDAMBARAM TEMPLE COMPLEX

The temple at Chidambaram proclaims to the whole world the mythological event of the Cosmic Dance. There are five SabhAs, Halls of God’s Assembly, in the temple. The innermost, is the Chit-sabhA, the Hall of Knowledge. This is where the famous Nataraja icon is installed, and has been consecrated ever since known historical times and worshipped for ages. This Lord is the Lord of all assemblies and so He is known as SabhA-pati. He is the Chit, the very Consciousness of all living beings. The temple is said to be located at the lotus heart of the whole universe. The Chit-SabhA is located in the temple in the position of the heart in the human body, the man lying with his head to the south. Like the heart in the human body, the sanctum sanctorum (which is the Nataraja icon) is situated not right in the middle but slightly shifted to one side. The temple itself is longer from north to south unlike the generality of temples which measure longer from east to west. The entrance to the Chit-SabhA is from Kanaka- (golden) SabhA (called Pon-ambalam, in Tamil). Both the Kanaka SabhA and the Chit SabhA have gilded roofs, laid by Parantaka chola in the 10th century. These two SabhAs constitute the Holy of Holies. They have three representations of the Almighty, one in anthropomorhic form --the Nataraja icon -, the second in crystal linga form, named Chandramouliswara, and the third in the formless manner, namely, an empty space represented by a strand of vilva leaves hung on the outer wall of the chit-sabha.  Chidambaram represents Akasha (Space) among the five fundamental elements. The three temples, representing Akasha, Vayu and Prithvi - namely, Chidambaram, Kalahasti and Kanchipuram - are lined up in the same East Longitude of 79 degrees 41 minutes !

The third SabhA called the Nritta SabhA (Hall of Dance) in the Chidambarm temple, is further south in the second prAkAra (wide corridor with walls of enclosure). It is a massive stone structure in the form of a chariot drawn by horses. It houses an image of the Lord in the dance-pose called Urdhva-tANDava (with one foot up in the air). The five prakaras are each separated  by walls one within the other. The third prAkAra houses the hundred-pillared hall called the Deva-SabhA as well as the Raja SabhA, the 1000-pillared hall. It was in this hall that the writing, inauguration and first exposition of Periapuranam  (see below) by Sekkizhar took place in the twelfth century.

The temple itself is also a record of history that grew around the concept of the Cosmic Dance. Along with the concept, physical monuments rose and what stands before us is a blend of mythology, concept and history. It is in fact also a symbiotic mixture of religion, science and art. The first temple to have been built must have been the MUla-sthAnam temple around the original Shiva-linga which Patanjali and Vyagrapada worshipped. Who actually made the Nataraja icon nobody knows. Traditional opinion believes it was made by the divine architect, ViSvakarma. Historical and literary evidence leads us to believe that it must have been there well before the 6^th century C.E. The period of the Imperial Cholas (850-1290 C.E.) saw the phenomenal growth of the temple complex. The roof of the sanctum was gilded. Three walls of enclosures, at least one seven-storeyed gopuram in full, 100-pillared, and 1000-pillared halls, all were built. In this period the shrine of Nataraja became the main shrine. During the period 1216-1380 C.E., when the Pandyas patronised the temple, it grew further. The South Gopuram was probably built then. The West Gopuram was built around 1150 CE and the East Gopuram, by a Pallava king in  the 13th century. But due to Malik-Kafur’s invasion of the region, the daily rituals in the temple were disrupted in 1301-1311. The 14^th to 17^th century was the heyday of the Vijaynagar patronage. Krishna deva Raya of the 16th century built the north Gopuram.

The gilding of the Chit-SabhA that we see today is not perhaps what the Pallavas, Cholas and Pandyas had gifted but the contribution of Virupaksha of Vijaynagar in 1383-1388 C.E. augmented at the end of the 17^th century by Sambhaji. The years 1649 to 1686 constitute again a dark patch in the history of the temple. The icon itself was shifted to a secret place hundreds of miles away. Again from 1753 to 1781 there was interruption in the worship, services and festivals, due to the military occupation by the French and Maratha contingent during the Carnatic and Mysore Wars. The icons were moved to the SabhApati Mantapam in distant Tiruvarur. In the 19^th and 20^th centuries renovations and MahA-kumbhAbhishekams either in full or in part are known to have been performed in the years 1803, 1858, 1891, 1922, 1951, 1955, 1972, 1979 and 1987. Dating from the Nayak period the ceilings of the Amman temple (sanctuary of Goddess Sivakamasundari within the Nataraja temple) are almost entirely covered with paintings, the central theme of which is the BhikshATana-mUrti, whose advent was the starting point of the Ananda-tANDava dance in mythological yore.

MIRACULOUS RECOVERY OF THE THEVARAM HYMNS

The great temple builder King Raja-Raja I (985 – 1014 C.E.) had also a desire to unearth those Tevaaram hymns believed to be lost or hidden somewhere, except the few that professional singers in some temples remembered. Once he heard about Nambi-Andar-Nambi, a little boy of Tirunaraiyur (near Chidambaram), whose devotion was considered so great, it was said that the VinAyaka of the place yielded to his request to eat a dish of rice offered by him. The King located this boy and asked him about the whereabouts of the lost hymns of the Shaiva Samayacharyas (Religious Masters). Back came the reply that the hymns lay in a locked room in the western prAkAra of the Chidambaram temple under the seals of the hymnists themselves. The King used his authority as well as some imagination to recover the hymns at the place indicated but the whole thing was a heap of palmyra leaves under a mound of ants! At that time there was heard an aereal voice declaring that whatever was recoverable should be enough for this age. What was recovered was probably

384 out of a supposed 10000 hymns of Sambandar,

 312 out of 49000 of Appar, and

100 out of 37000 hymns of Sundarar.

This is how the now well-known Tevaaram hymns were discovered. Raja-Raja I had thus made the greatest contribution to the growth of Tamil literature. From that time onwards these hymns are being sung in all Shiva temples of Tamil origin by professionals trained for this purpose under benefactions made by successive generations of kings and philanthropists. 

The Peria-purANam, also known as TiruttoNDar-purANam is a poetical account in 4253 verses, by Sekkizhar (12^th cen. C.E.), of the lives of 63 Shaivaite saints, who lived in Tamilnadu upto the eighth century C.E. Some of these belong to the B.C.E. era. Sekkizhar inherited a tradition which credited Sundaramurthi Nayanar (shortly, Sundarar),  one of the four grandmasters of the Shaiva devotional tradition, of the 8^th century, as the first one who sang eleven songs in praise of these devotees of Shiva. It was Sundarar who must have realised the importance of each one of them. His work was known as Tiruttondattogai. Nambiandar-nambi of the 10^th century, who became famous even as a little boy ,  elaborated this into 89 quatrains as Tirut-tondar-tiruvandadi. It was this Nambi who discovered the whereabouts of the TevAram hymns, as stated above, and at the instance of King Rajaraja I he made them into seven Tirumurais. Sambandar’s hymns are the first three, those of Appar the second three and Sundarar’s the seventh.

Sekkizhar was the Prime Minister of Kulottunga chola (1070 – 1108), also known as Anapaya chola. Sekkizhar set the entire hagiology within the framework of Sundarar’s life. After Sekkizhar his masterly work was included as the twelfth Tirumurai in the redaction of Shaiva canonical scripture. In fact one motivation for Sekkizhar was to wean his King away from his Jain inclinations which were evident from his spending much time reading and enjoying JIvaka Chintamani, an innovative and provocatively exemplary work of the 9^th century by Tiruttakka-ttevar. 

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