The construct of Hindu philosophy and the roadmap to Nirvana in the Hindu way brings to us a pantheon of Gods that look supremely large in number but actually boil down to just a handful. The misunderstanding of large numbers come from the many names we encounter in the scriptures, sometimes not realizing they belong to the same God or Goddess. There is a hierarchy and every deity has his/her place in this vast heaven of super beings.
While the supreme beings are the chosen few, like Lord Shiva, Vishnu, Brahma, Ganesha, Surya and Devi there are many attendants and celestials whose purpose of existence revolves around the worship of these great beings. Every one has a name, a designation that is defined by the attributes they possess and the power to deliver something that we mortals perennially thirst for. And then we have the scriptures that are a great store house of information painting this brilliant picture giving the visual appearance of these great beings whom we may never meet; but the mantras are stitched such, that we tend to forget we ever wanted to meet them and instead get lured towards all the gifts of prosperity that they can supposedly grant us in return for our feeble prayers.
There is a pattern in all this, every known deity has a form, every deity has mantras and sacred verses describing them and also gives an idea of what they are capable of doing. This is a given, if we dig deep enough, the more we get to know and understand the exploits of these great beings. But there are a few, who seem to be lost in this oblivion of great souls and though we have the mantras that call on their presence, we may not have tangible iconography to support the visual appearance... or let me say, I have not found it yet :)
Here is one such celestial, whose description is given in a single verse with details of her location and her
attributes and yet, there is no picture to paint of her to explain what she really looks like.
While the supreme beings are the chosen few, like Lord Shiva, Vishnu, Brahma, Ganesha, Surya and Devi there are many attendants and celestials whose purpose of existence revolves around the worship of these great beings. Every one has a name, a designation that is defined by the attributes they possess and the power to deliver something that we mortals perennially thirst for. And then we have the scriptures that are a great store house of information painting this brilliant picture giving the visual appearance of these great beings whom we may never meet; but the mantras are stitched such, that we tend to forget we ever wanted to meet them and instead get lured towards all the gifts of prosperity that they can supposedly grant us in return for our feeble prayers.
There is a pattern in all this, every known deity has a form, every deity has mantras and sacred verses describing them and also gives an idea of what they are capable of doing. This is a given, if we dig deep enough, the more we get to know and understand the exploits of these great beings. But there are a few, who seem to be lost in this oblivion of great souls and though we have the mantras that call on their presence, we may not have tangible iconography to support the visual appearance... or let me say, I have not found it yet :)
Here is one such celestial, whose description is given in a single verse with details of her location and her
attributes and yet, there is no picture to paint of her to explain what she really looks like.
Himavat uttare paarshre suratha namah yakshini
Tasya smarana maatraina vishlya garbhini bhavet
[Please excuse any textual errors in the above mantra]
This translates to the backdrop of the Northern Himalayas, where there lives a Yakshini by the name of Suratha. If an expectant mother intensely contemplates on the form of this Yakshini, she will protect her during labor blessing her with minimal pain and suffering.
Does this mean only women should think about Yakshini Suratha at the time when they are pregnant and not any other time during their lives? Suratha increases my curiosity more from the perspective that written records of her are very few and there is hardly any easy access to visual references of this Goddess. While reciting the mantra is the only art we have learned and the potential immediate need of the hour for only selected people is to recite her name, why doesn’t Yakshini hold a place in the mind of the average human being? Doesn’t this question our outlook towards our own faith making each of these deities a wish fulfilling tree who is conveniently forgotten once the "sadhana" has been achieved.
This brings me to the mechanical mind set we all are very comfortable with and the lack of persistence we show towards not questioning its real intent. When someone is given a mantra, the immediate act is to start reciting it whether we understand the meaning or not. In the stray occasion that we do understand the blatant meaning, we barely get to the subtle meaning of the verse, that which is governed by a bit of experience, lets say the art of the sublime experience of love. The mantra though capable, hardly leads us into that sublime haven of truth which we want to see but don’t have the patience to approach the right way. This hits our overall confidence on our belief and faith and we left with no answer to proceed. We want results without taking trouble, but these things need time for anything to surface.
A true lover of the scriptures, of this science, of this way of life called Hinduism, settles for nothing less than
the real truth, and how is that truth defined? In this extensive learning curve, if one is blessed with patience,
the first is to understand how this system of faith works, not just by the rules taught blindly at home but by
individual understanding. Persistence to know more, to understand the ancients who created the scriptures as the sacred books that we need to follow for good living. And these sacred books are well beyond the realm of the Gita or the Ramayana. Next is to realize the various arts of expression, be it architecture, sculpture, painting, poetry, scriptures or even song, which gives an insight to what they might have possibly experienced in the search for the supreme for the great souls expressed their love for the sublime in these forms. And lastly, is one's own lonely path to salvation to experience this sublime love for themselves and break away from the attachments of maya that govern every aspect of our lifestyle, be it materialism or be it love for our dear ones, some day the truth to depart will dawn on us, and maybe that day we are too far off from recovering from this illusion.
Tasya smarana maatraina vishlya garbhini bhavet
[Please excuse any textual errors in the above mantra]
This translates to the backdrop of the Northern Himalayas, where there lives a Yakshini by the name of Suratha. If an expectant mother intensely contemplates on the form of this Yakshini, she will protect her during labor blessing her with minimal pain and suffering.
Does this mean only women should think about Yakshini Suratha at the time when they are pregnant and not any other time during their lives? Suratha increases my curiosity more from the perspective that written records of her are very few and there is hardly any easy access to visual references of this Goddess. While reciting the mantra is the only art we have learned and the potential immediate need of the hour for only selected people is to recite her name, why doesn’t Yakshini hold a place in the mind of the average human being? Doesn’t this question our outlook towards our own faith making each of these deities a wish fulfilling tree who is conveniently forgotten once the "sadhana" has been achieved.
This brings me to the mechanical mind set we all are very comfortable with and the lack of persistence we show towards not questioning its real intent. When someone is given a mantra, the immediate act is to start reciting it whether we understand the meaning or not. In the stray occasion that we do understand the blatant meaning, we barely get to the subtle meaning of the verse, that which is governed by a bit of experience, lets say the art of the sublime experience of love. The mantra though capable, hardly leads us into that sublime haven of truth which we want to see but don’t have the patience to approach the right way. This hits our overall confidence on our belief and faith and we left with no answer to proceed. We want results without taking trouble, but these things need time for anything to surface.
A true lover of the scriptures, of this science, of this way of life called Hinduism, settles for nothing less than
the real truth, and how is that truth defined? In this extensive learning curve, if one is blessed with patience,
the first is to understand how this system of faith works, not just by the rules taught blindly at home but by
individual understanding. Persistence to know more, to understand the ancients who created the scriptures as the sacred books that we need to follow for good living. And these sacred books are well beyond the realm of the Gita or the Ramayana. Next is to realize the various arts of expression, be it architecture, sculpture, painting, poetry, scriptures or even song, which gives an insight to what they might have possibly experienced in the search for the supreme for the great souls expressed their love for the sublime in these forms. And lastly, is one's own lonely path to salvation to experience this sublime love for themselves and break away from the attachments of maya that govern every aspect of our lifestyle, be it materialism or be it love for our dear ones, some day the truth to depart will dawn on us, and maybe that day we are too far off from recovering from this illusion.
3 comments:
As a brief background, the basic Hindu belief indicates the creator of the apparent physical universe as the one and only unborn and unending formless Supreme Being… called Nadbindu/ Vishnu, literally a ‘poisonous point source’ of infinite energy, who with the use of sound energy (‘Om’, ie, ॐ, represented by numeral ‘3’ to cater for the triple function of creation, sustenance, and destruction for transformation) created infinite numbers of a variety of physical forms: ‘Vishnu’ itself as the centre of the ever expanding infinite void, ie, unending ‘Shiva’ (opposite of ‘visha’ the poison, the cause of mortality of temporary forms), while holding infinite numbers of infinite sized galaxies, and also solar systems (out of which our solar system alone rendered immortal) within them that have different duration of existence in the particular form(s) that have material in the exterior and energy (gravity or soul, image of Vishnu/ Shiva) at its centre…
For identification of each of these sound energy forms within each of the variety of material exteriors, perhaps one can imagine what a gigantic task it would have been if each of these were required to be named by present day humans, with the ever changing forms due to evolution from zero or imperfect stage, in four steps, to infinity the perfect stage reflected by our solar system as its essence, or basically the VIPs, Sun (model of Brahma during the day) & Moon (model of Brahma during the night, considered as eight-handed Durga, another form of Sati the original consort of Ardhanarishwar Shiva!) and Earth (model of yoga of energy and matter, Vishnu & Shiva, each imagined as four-handed)!...
Kavitha, Yakshas and Yakshinis are generally indicated by the ancient wise as ‘good souls’, the prefix ‘Su’ indicates ‘good’ and ‘Rath’ indicates a vehicle or medium of transport during our journey, from birth to death, and thus eventual release of the soul to serve His purpose: unknown to us mortals…
Kavitha, for the sake of record, 'I' give below exchange of thoughts in your message box.
30 Jun 11, 17:44
JC Joshi: Shri Anil, 'I' am learning from writings between lines our ancestors' thoughts believing that the 'supreme knowledge' is recorded within each one of us, in 8 chakras or wheels ie essences of galaxis!
30 Jun 11, 17:19
Anil: i am so glad now that i stumbled on to this blogpage....a revelation indeed...joshi uncle, whoever you are, you have enough light inside you to light the world...
Shri Anil, 'I' might have said in Kavitha's blog many times that human brain 'by design' is an analogous computer while the PCs that 'we' use are relatively much inferior digital computers, ie, inferior models of human brain, that of course are still in the process of evolution and yet to reach perfection...
However, it is also realized by 'modern scientists' that even the 'most intelligent' human being today is able to tap only a negligible fraction of the available billions of cells in the brain...
Whereas, on the other hand, realising that our solar system is over 4 billion years today, from writings of our ancestors mysteriously made available to 'us' despite the vagaries of 'Nature' through the story of 'kshir-sagar manthan', ie, 'churning of milky-ocean' the ancient wise have conveyed the essence of creation - from zero or 'nothing' (pure energy, of course,,, say infrared, as pure heat) to infinity, ie, infinite sized and infinite numbers of physical forms, called galaxies made up of innumerable stars and planets etc., that, in appearance, individually look like discs that revolve around their centres that believably house a super gravity 'black hole' at the centre (formed as a result of transformation of a massive star after its material form was consumed towards its end as a star, and thereafter continues as a formless or near formless body)...
Although galaxies believably being temporary, and yet they continue to appear eternal through birth-death-rebirth cycle, as reflected in the animal forms also, human form believably being model of the ever expanding universe, made from essences of 9 members of our solar system, from Sun to Saturn, ie 'navgrahas' that are generally represented since time immemorial at some places through 9 numbers shivalingas, 8 numbers of same size and each placed in one of the eight cardinal directions (representing Sun to Jupiter (Guru Brihaspati, who is indicated as the supervisor of the 'churning'!) and having a bigger one in the centre (representing ring planet Saturn, called 'surya-putra', ie, son of Sun, indicating it as the model of sudershan-chakra dhari Vishnu, who is also graphically indicated reclining on the bed formed by Ananta the infinite sized celestial serpent, also called Shesha, that literally means balance and yet indicated as infinite energy that still remains at the centre of our earth, 'Gangadhar' and 'Chandrashekhar' Shiva!)...And, so on...
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