179
Seeing the eternal, real state coming to me,
Memory dissolved, mind withered,
The heart blossomed.
Confined in tight bonds,
Not knowing here or there,
I leaned on the feet of
Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender,
In oblivion.
180
As an elephant fighting its own shadow
In the moonstone kills itself,
The way of the elephant, the mind of the elephant,
The elephant is, no, it is not.
What to say of it?
You are caught in my palm;
Why then this delusion of you and I?
There is no way I can be other than you,
Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender.
The apparent separation of the self from the All or Absolute makes life an ‘ignoble strife’.
181
The pearl is formed in water, the hailstone is formed in water.
Salt is formed in water.
Salt dissolved, hailstone dissolved,
No has seen the pearl dissolved.
These worldly men, though touching the linga,
Bear the burden of becoming,
I, reaching you, become fulfilled,
Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender.
Worldly men … burden of becoming: though outwardly religious, are not freed of their burdens.
I … become fulfilled: kari gollu, meaning any of the following: to burn out, merge; to become solidified, take shape.
182
If the master comes to my house today,
I will fill the vessel of my body
With the water for his feet
And pour it from my eyes;
With cooling paste of eternal peace
I will anoint him;
Knowing him to be unexpendable wealth
I will decorate him with rice grains;
Offering worship with the lotus of the heart,
Imagining the real creatively, I will offer incense;
I will wave camphor with the light of Siva-knowledge
And make food offerings, ever content.
Betel leaves of inner transformation
And the music of the five Brahmas I will offer.
I will watch with pleasure, and dance for joy,
Sing in ecstasy and join in devotion,
And play in union with the eternal.
O Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender,
At the feet of the guru who showed me your state,
I will melt as wax.
A vacana that describes traditional welcoming rites on the arrival of a guru or hononured guest; see note to 156.
183
I, the child born of the love between
The impossible and the possible,
Have made a wager with the world;
I have chained by their feet
Desire, anger, greed, delusion, pride and strife.
Wafting the scent of the guru’s grace,
Wearing great devotion for a beauty spot,
I will defeat and kill you
With devotion to the auspicious one for sword.
Leave, let go, karma, I won’t stop till I’ve slain you.
Do not get destroyed, listen to my words.
Buying the sword of devotion to Siva,
I will fight and slay you.
Breaking the fetters that Brahma bound,
Shoving aside the maya of Visnu,
I will give battle; just wait till
Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender,
Nods his head.
The impossible and the possible: literal translations of aghatita and ghatitana.
Desire … strife: the six enemies of contemplation.
Karma: action, as well as latent potential for action, affecting realistic appraisal.
Fight and slay: a vigorous attitude is called for in acheiving the Real, or spiritual aim.
184
Ignorant people think that they have caught hold of
The formless linga in their palms –
The linga unseen by Visnu, Brahma,
The Vedas, epics and all their seeking.
For devotion there is reward, but not the linga;
For action, infernal suffering, but not the linga;
For knowledge, roaming, not the linga;
Therefore, if the self, knowing itself, becomes itself,
Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender, himself,
Is no other.
Formless linga: refers to the impossibility of attaining to the ‘pure being’ of the linga by conventional means, all vitiated by dualistic (subject–object) thinking; see Introduction.
185
Cut bamboo, will it put out shoots again?
Burnt clay pot, can it go back to earth as before?
Fallen fruit, can it join the stalk again?
Men, caught in their frustrations’ toil, may speak without seeing,
But the devotees, firmly established, will they come back to the world,
Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender?
The path of the absolutist mystic transcends the repetitive nature of relativistic phenomena. There are two paths: one of return, and one of non-return, to the world.
186
What is the use of knowing everything
If one does not know the self?
When one knows in oneself
Why ask others?
Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender,
Yourself becoming knowledge,
You showed me the way.
I know you through yourself, O lord.
187
The sunlight seen, the dimensions of space, the movement of air,
The tender shoots and flowers of the six colours
Of the trees, shrubs and herbs,
Are all light-offerings of the day.
Moonlight, stars, fire, lightning and
All, worship you at night.
Day and night I remain in your worship,
Forgetting myself,
O Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender.
188
Rising in the morning, I think of you alone;
I wait for your coming.
Seat and canopy readied,
I await your footsteps,
O Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender,
Wondering when you will come.
189
If he goes to the battlefield, I will stay quiet, but
Staying in my hand, staying in my mind,
If he does not speak to me,
How can I bear it?
If memory, the go-between, doesn’t make
Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender, love me,
What shall I do, O friend?
Memory, the go-between: pure memory, free from retrospective regret and prospective anxiety, may be meant.
190
The peacock will dance on the mountain top,
Not in some grassy patch, is that not so?
The swan will play in lakes;
Will it come, sporting in some pit?
Will the koel sing unless the mango blooms?
Will the bumblebee go to flowers without fragrance?
Will my mind go to any other than my god,
Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender,
Ask, O my friends?
191
Mother-in-law, she is maya;
Father-in-law, he is worldly becoming;
Three younger brothers-in-law, they are like tigers.
Four are my sisters-in-law,
Five older brothers-in-law, no god wants them.
These six sisters-in-law, I can’t overcome;
Listen, and the seven maids keep watch over me.
Karma, action, is the name of my husband;
Striking him across his face, I will join Siva in love.
Through the grace of my friend called the mind
I have learned to merge in Hara, the
destroyer,
Joining the handsome lord of the holy mountain,
Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender,
I have married a Real man.
Images involving relatives are found in many vacanas.
Three younger brothers-in-law: the qualities, modalities of nature: the pure-clear, satva; the affective-passionate, rajas; the inert-dark, tamas.
Five older brothers-in-law: the senses.
Four sisters-in-law: the four inner organs: manas, buddhi, citta and ahamkara.
Six sisters-in-law: perhaps the six enemies of contemplation, starting with desire.
192
What difference is there between
Solid and liquid ghee, O lord?
What difference is there between
A lamp and its light, O lord?
What difference is there between
Body and self, O lord?
My true body was shown by the guru
Through the initiatory chant, thus:
No difference there is between being
Embodied or being without parts, O lord.
Joining Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender,
I have lost my mind,
Why, then, make me talk, O lord?
193
You are the whole forest,
You are the heavenly trees of the forest,
You are the birds and beasts that play on the trees;
O Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender,
All-filling you are, yet
Won’t show me your face?
194
It is true, the dead body called out,
The hidden desire invited,
Curdled milk turned sweet;
Verify this and see, in the lord
Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender.
This vacana is in the form of a riddle and its answer is in the next one.
195
In forgetful slumber, getting up in dream, the dead awoke,
The rightfully ordained, hidden treasure invited,
Curdled milk became ghee and was sweet.
Why find fault with this,
In Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender,
The god of gods, O brothers?
196
Well-being was the bed, glances ornaments,
Embraces clothes, and
Kisses nourishment;
Love talk was betel leaves,
The ardour of passion the unguents;
The union with Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender,
Is supreme felicity, O mother.
197
Better than pleasure of being together all the time,
Is the joy of love after a separation.
I can’t stay apart even for a moment, my friend;
To be never parted from my lord,
Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender,
When will it be?
198
I would catch and hold him, but he won’t be caught;
I would block him, but he will go over;
Away even for a second, I get worried.
Without seeing Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender,
I won’t know who I am, O mother.
199
If the woman is woman, there is defilement from man,
And if the man is man, defilement from woman;
If the defilement of the mind stops,
Is there room for the defilement from the body?
The whole world is caught in this defilement,
Which was not there in the beginning, O lord;
To my god, Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender,
The great one, the whole world is woman.
The self as a woman in relation to the Absolute as man, or vice versa, is found in all mystical traditions.
200
What can a barren woman know of labour pains,
Or a stepmother of fond kisses?
How can those who have known no suffering
Feel the suffering of those in pain?
The terrible pain of the broken knife of
Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender,
Writhing within me,
How can you ever know that, O mothers?
201
By the time the rich man opens his granary,
The poor man’s life will fly away;
Till you are done with trying and testing,
Is this to be my fate, O father?
Till the wound heals,
It is as though a buffalo were swept away by the wind.
How will you show me your kindness,
O Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender?
202
I will go home to my village and stay there;
Once I go, I won’t return this side, O mother.
Mother-in-law, father-in-law,
Older and younger brothers-in-law, nephew,
And a husband who rubs and tests the mind,
And the sister-in-law who calls me to a dark room
To eat and heaps abuse of all kinds, O mother.
Five brothers-in-law, five sisters-in-law,
Altogether they torture me:
They mock me, shout and slander me,
And hurt in all ways;
I cannot take this anymore, O mother.
My father and mother, the immortal hosts,
My mother’s house, kalyana, the auspicious assembly,
Once I go near Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender,
The kind one of the holy hill,
I won’t come back here, O mother.
Go home to my village: return to the place of origin.
203
If you plant chaff instead of rice,
Will it ever grow and give grain,
Even if irrigated with holy water?
Those without wisdom may
Observe all the rules;
Will they ever come to happiness,
Free of desire?
The scent that wafts, will it stay in one place?
Those who do not know my god
Channamallikarjuna, jasmine-tender,
Know not the way of conduct.
Observance of rules and rituals is no substitute for certitude arising out of one’s own experience, which is wisdom.
About the Book
Hailed as an early feminist literary voice, Akka Mahadevi was born in twelfth-century Karnataka. As a child she was initiated into the worship of Channamallikarjuna, her village’s version of Siva. She was forced to marry her region’s ruler but, because she had become so ardently devoted to the god, Akka abandoned her husband and all her possessions and wandered alone – a naked poet-saint covered only by her long hair. Her vacanas, a new populist literary form meaning literally ‘to give one’s word’, demonstrate both her radical devotion to Siva and the commitment to equality her Virasaiva poetry embodied.
About the Author
Vinaya Chaitanya was born in Muvattupuzha – the place of the three rivers – in the foothills of the Western Ghats, before the invasion of rubber plantations, in 1952. He met and was accepted as a disciple by Dr Nataraja Guru (1895–1973), disciple and successor of Narayana Guru, the philosopher-poet of Kerala.
He studied under Nataraja Guru in the gurukula, a worldwide contemplative community open to all. While serving his guru as head of the Narayana Gurukula Institute of Aesthetic Values in rural Bangalore for forty years, Vinaya was fortunate to learn Kannada from minstrels who introduced him to the vacana, kirtana and tatva forms of mystical poetry.
Vinaya has published books in Malayalam, Kannada and English. He now continues the wisdom-sharing tradition of the gurukula without institutional affiliation, treating the whole world as his gurukula (family of the guru).
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First published in India in 2017 by Harper Perennial
An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers
Translation copyright © Vinaya Chaitanya 2017
P-ISBN: 978-93-5264-410-0
Epub Edition © March 2017 ISBN: 978-93-5264-411-7
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Vinaya Chaitanya asserts the moral right
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Songs for Siva Page 9