Have both the here and hereafter.
Here and hereafter: iha, ‘here’, para, ‘the beyond’, ‘the transcendent’.
54
Desires were gone, false objects turned back,
Attachment to doubt undone;
Seeing great happiness within,
The mind merged in itself.
By the grace of your sage, Prabhu Deva,
I was saved, O Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender.
Prabhu Deva: Allama Prabhu, the mystic-poet guru of the assembled sages of Kalyana; see Introduction.
55
Show me just once
Those pure in body, mind and heart;
Show me those
Whose every act is the practice of truth
And every word a blessing;
Show me your devotees who,
Having trampled darkness, shine brightly
And remain the same within and without,
Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender.
56
I will not say day or night,
Dawn or dusk,
After or before,
I will not say there is any other than you;
Yet the mind does not know greatness, O lord.
Looking in the mirror in the dark
I was troubled,
Without being in light
O Basava, your devotee;
How will I ever see,
O Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender?
Basava: founder sage of the Virasaiva movement; see Introduction.
57
I saw the whole, I saw the atom,
I saw the joys of chance,
Of effort and of perception;
Knew knowledge
And forgot forgetfulness.
Wiping out the memory of desire
And knowing you, I became boundless,
O Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender.
Most of the terms are used technically in the tradition to refer to different stages of inner transformation. I have tried to render the essence, it being impossible to translate the terms without going into detail beyond the scope of the present translations. Excellent studies on the subject are available.
58
After the body takes your form,
Whom shall I serve?
After the mind takes your form,
Whom shall I remember?
After the breath takes your form,
Whom shall I worship?
After knowledge has merged in you,
Whom shall I know?
I know you, O Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender,
Becoming you in your self.
Total identity with the Absolute, cancelling out all differences, is indicated.
59
All the Vedas, scriptures and
Sacred lore, canons and codes
Are but grist and husk ground in the mill.
Why grind this, why winnow?
When you behead the mind that
Flows here and there,
O Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender,
There remains eternal space.
Vedas, scriptures, etc.: veda, sastra, purana, agama all refer to obligatory ritualistic injunctions, the ‘heard it said’ part of scriptures, which is transcended in the direct experience of their meaning.
60
Can you have one husband for the here,
And another for the hereafter?
Can you have one husband for the mundane,
Another for the ultimate?
All husbands other than my
Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender,
Are like puppets hidden by clouds.
here, hereafter: translations of iha and para; see note to 53.
mundane: laukika, literally ‘worldly’.
61
What is full won’t spill,
What has trust won’t doubt,
What has come together won’t part,
What is wholly known won’t be forgotten.
O Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender,
The devotee in whom you are well pleased
Will have boundless joy.
62
I am pleased with you, you are pleased with me;
You do not stray away from me,
I do not stray away from you;
For you and me, is there another space?
I know that you are all mercy;
I stay where you have put me.
You know all this, don’t you,
O Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender?
63
I am united with the beautiful one who has
No death, no fault, no form.
O mother, I am united with the
Handsome one who has
No end, no break, no compare, no distinguishing mark,
No birth, no fear.
Brave is he, the beautiful one I am joined to;
I am united with the boundlessly expansive
Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender.
All these husbands who die and decay –
Throw them in the fire, mother.
64
I touch the feet of Kama once,
Then again, beseech the moon with folded palms:
This separation be damned.
Why must I be perturbed?
Because of Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender,
I am obliged to everyone.
65
The sorrowful mind turned upside down,
The cool breeze turned fiery,
The full moon became hot.
Like a toll collector at the city gates
My mind strayed.
Pacify him and bring him back, O mother;
Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender,
has the anger of two.
66
I burned in a fire that had no fuel, O mother,
Suffered from a wound not open.
I wandered seeking happiness, O mother;
In love with Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender,
I lived through ordeals that should not have been.
67
For the mind to see its own logic,
And to experience itself, is possible only if
The memory is expansive.
How can it be stopped
By rules of reason?
O mother, you are a fool.
Pleased as I am with my
Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender,
I am wholly his.
I won’t agree
To your maternal claims; go away.
68
If I hide in a stone, you become the stone;
If I burrow into hill, you become the hill.
O samsara, you come climbing on
One back after another.
O Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender,
What now, now what?
Samsara: the phenomenon of becoming, cyclic repetition of birth and death; the opposite of nirvana, ‘liberation’.
69
The fiery world of becoming
Follow and trouble me, without respite,
Whatever shall I do?
What shall I do for the sufferings
That come daily, O lord?
What use in carrying around
The burden of this burned body?
O Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender,
Slay me or save me; you decide.
becoming: see note to 68.
70
The hateful samsara is my father.
My tribe is looking for me:
They hunt me down
And are killing me.
I have come to you for refuge;
Protect me, hear my cry,
O Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender.
71
The truth of the body was lost,
Dispassion of the mind undone;
Sorrow blinds, I cannot see the glory.
Even the wise old ones are perplexed.
This veil of becoming
That hides you won’t let me near,
O Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender.
72
When I was born, samsara was born;
When samsara was born, ignorance was born;
When ignorance was born, desire was born;
When desire was born, anger was born.
Blinded by the inert smoke of that fire of anger,
I forgot you and
Became prey to pains of the world.
Remove my forgetfulness, take me and
Make known your feet,
O Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender.
Samsara (‘becoming’), with its chains starting with ignorance, desire, anger (frustration), loss of memory, etc., belongs to the wisdom discourse of Indian psychology. See Bhagavadgita chapter 2, verses 62–63.
73
Look at this woman who,
Entering the fireplace,
Has forgotten the fire;
Going up the mountain,
Has forgotten the tumult.
See this attachment to samsara:
This will not leave one for lives numerous.
Waistbelt fastened or no waistbelt
Is the same to me.
What will you look for in me,
O Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender?
74
O, alas, the vanity of samsara
Came and played havoc.
With the mask of the father
It came at the beginning.
With the mask of a handsome youth
With waxed moustache,
It played in the middle.
With the mask of senile old age
It played at the end.
If your seeing stops,
The dance of the universe also stops,
O Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender.
75
What have I to do with this
Dying puppet of the world,
A dirty bundle of illusion,
A castle of sorrow?
What do I care for
A broken water pot, which drips?
The finger can only touch,
Not eat the fruit.
Consciousness is life;
I am not worried seeing this.
Accept my faults,
O Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender.
Some sources have the second part of the first two lines as ‘I am the puppet…’ But the rest of the vacana agrees better with the sense (as in the source I have used) of Akka’s strong disengagement from the body.
76
For his pleasure he created the universe,
For his pleasure he wove into it this world,
For his own pleasure, he made it go round in endless
Suffering of cyclic becoming.
When Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender,
The supreme Siva,
Has had enough of this phenomenal dance,
He will sever the bonds of illusion.
illusion: maya.
77
Born in lives that
Should not have been,
Burning in sorrows unending,
I have now stumbled upon
The path of your mercy.
To become one in body,
Mind merged in my god
Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender,
To be deep love,
Where there is no other,
When will it be, O father?
78
He makes you take birth in wombs unborn,
Makes you suffer untold miseries,
Makes you eat what is not eaten,
And traps you in fate, O brother.
Will he spare you
Because you say you are his own?
He tore the skin off Bhrungi, his attendant;
Will he be mindful of others?
Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender,
Is vicious,
So don’t let go of him.
Bhrungi: a skeleton form of Andhaka the blind, one of Siva’s attendants.
79
Like the silk worm weaving its home
In love, out of its own body,
And dying in its own strangling threads,
Mind’s desires unending
Set me on fire;
Rid my mind of greed,
Draw me near,
O Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender.
In love: sneha (‘oil’) can also mean ‘love’.
80
Pot of refuse,
Vessel of piss,
Mat of bones,
Stench of pus –
Burn this body.
Don’t be destroyed
Holding on to the body;
Know Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender,
You fool.
81
Not one, not two, not three, not four,
But eighty-four hundred thousand are the wombs
I have come through.
Made to be what I couldn’t be,
I ate joys and sorrows.
Let the life of the past be;
Please show your kindness hereafter,
Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender.
eighty-four hundred thousand: the number of births in different life forms, from the ant to the human, according to popular belief. Akka here dismisses them all in a prospective supplication/vision.
82
Don’t be destroyed, don’t be destroyed,
Hold fast to the feet of Siva.
This body of yours is not indestructible,
The pleasures of the world do not last forever.
Before the word that Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender,
Wrote is wiped off,
Take refuge in Siva, soon.
The word (etc.): the initiatory mantra namassivaya.
83
Like a worm I writhed in pain;
Like grains of sand, I was scattered;
Sorrowful even in dreams, I trembled.
I was steamed to pulp as in a pot,
No friend to share my troubles.
Grant me your grace
So that I get a body
Better than the one I sought,
And happiness that
Cannot be added to,
O Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender.
84
Listen to my request,
Accept my request,
Grant my request.
Why won’t you listen
To my wailing,
O father?
There is none other than you, none,
You are my onward path,
You, my mind,
O Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender.
85
As an elephant
Separated from its herd
And trapped remembers his Vindhyan forests,
I remember you.
As a bird in a cage
Remembers its mate,
I remember you.
Say ‘Come here, my son’
And show your true form,
O Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender.
86
As the sun is seed to
The movements of the world,
The mind is seed to
The movement of the senses.
I have but one mind;
If it gets merged in you,
What sorrow have I,
O Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender?
87
I was trapped in samsara;
The guru showed me that samsara was empty.
Checking the attachment to body forms,
The guru placed the mark of the lord on my body;
He wiped away my past,
And led me onward.
My guru revealed the truth of
Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender.
Guru: literally ‘that which dispels darkness’; see Introduction.
Body forms, mark of the lord: translations of anga and linga respectively.
88
&n
bsp; Before earth joins earth,
Before water joins water,
Before fire joins fire,
Before air joins air,
Before space joins space,
Before the five senses wear out,
Take refuge in
Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender.
earth joins earth (etc.): final dissolution of the created elements into their pre-created, pure states.
89
Clarifying the inside, purifying the outside,
Removing the doubt of within–without,
Causing to shine like crystal:
Like sowing suitable seed in a good field,
Bringing the phenomenal conditionings
Of the disciple to a stop,
Instructing him in truth,
And leading him on the path of truth,
Dwells the wisdom teacher.
He is to be adored by the whole universe.
I bow to his holy feet again and again.
O Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender.
Wisdom teacher: the guru.
90
When the true guru blessing the disciple
Touches his forehead,
It is like the philosopher’s stone
Falling on metal.
If the guru smears holy ashes on his forehead,
He is anointed
Sovereign of the state of liberation.
The five vessels representing
Songs for Siva Page 5