sa-Caturmukha-Ṣaṇmukha-Pañcamukha-
-pramukhâ-akhila-daivata-mauli-maṇe! |
śaraṇâgata-vatsala! sāra-nidhe!
paripālaya māṃ Vṛṣa-śaila-pate! || (VSt 1)

स-चतुर्मुख-षण्मुख-पञ्चमुख-
-प्रमुखा-ऽखिल-दैवत-मौलि-मणे !
शरणागत-वत्सल ! सार-निधे !
परिपालय मां वृष-शैल-पते ! ॥

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O Lord
who is the crest-jewel
        for all the gods, led by
                four-faced Brahmā,
                six-faced Kārtikeya, and
                five-faced Śiva!

O Lord 
who is infinitely tender
        (like a mother to her babies)
to those who have taken refuge in You!

O Lord 
        who is the treasure-house of all essences!

Rescue me, nurture me, nourish me,

O Lord of Bull-mountain!

The structure of the verse

Like the first verse of the Stotram, this verse too is quite simple from a grammatical perspective: three full lines and another half-line are all vocatives (sambodhana) to Lord Śrīnivāsa, with just one finite verb: paripālaya mām. Let us then begin by examining this verb and its dependent.

The finite verb and its object

In a number of recitations, the word mām (“me”) is stretched out for eight whole morae, underscoring and emphasizing our individual requests seeking the favor of Lord Veṅkaṭeśvara. The word is in the accusative (dvitīyā) because its referent—us—is the patient (karman) of the action (kriyā) expressed by the finite verb (tiṅ-anta) paripālaya: we are the objects of the action of paripālana (whose meaning we will explore shortly) that is to be carried out by the Lord.

This is a case where a purely grammatical account can nevertheless be read in theological terms. According to Pāṇini, the1 definition of the term karman is given in sūtra I.4.49: kartur īpsitatamaṃ karma (“the patient is that which is most desired by the agent”). Understood purely grammatically, there are a number of issues with this definition, which are addressed by Pāṇini himself as well as by numerous later grammarians. However, in our theological context, we can embrace this sūtra’s meaning wholeheartedly: each of us is wholly and fully īpsitatama, the most desired, the most special, the most favored recipient of Lord Veṅkaṭeśvara’s grace.

The first name

The first name here takes up the entire first two lines of the verse, and should also remind us of Verse 6 of the Suprabhātam, in which the same four-faced Brahmā, five-faced Śiva, and six-faced Skanda are referred to. In that context, the gods are described as they approach Lord Veṅkaṭeśvara to awaken Him in the morning. In this context, the Lord is described as the crest-jewel (mauli-maṇi) for all of these gods: in other words, they take refuge in Him and exalt Him as the devâdhideva (“Overlord of all the Gods”), the devatā-sārvabhauma (“Emperor of all Divinities”), the akhilâṇḍa-koṭi-brahmāṇḍa-nāyaka (“Sovereign over the multiverse comprised of myriads upon myriads of cosmoses, without any exceptions”).

We can also play with the English translation a little bit here: Lord Śrīnivāsa isn’t merely on the gods’ heads; He is on their minds as well. In other words, He is whom they meditate upon; He is whom they contemplate. And if we extend this line of thinking further—they are who they are because He has been on their minds!

The second name

If the first name emphasizes Lord Śrīnivāsa’s paratva (His transcendence, His absolute and utter superiority), the second name (śaraṇâgata-vatsala) depicts His sauśīlya (His graciousness and gentleness to His devotees). This shows us His dayā, His loving maternal affection: He accepts us for who we are.

In fact, according to Swāmī Maṇavāḷa Māmunigaḷ, the ācārya of Aṇṇan Swāmī, this quality of vātsalya2 plays an absolutely critical role in the Supreme Divine’s acceptance of us despite (or even because of!) our sinful natures. Think about the moment of birth, when a newborn infant emerges from its mother’s womb, covered in all sorts of bodily fluids. In virtually any other context, we might find this icky, messy, or even disgusting. And yet to the mother, who is herself utterly exhausted and in great pain, it is a moment of magic and delight to take her child in her arms and to hold it to her bosom and to nurse it with her own milk. This is vātsalya in our world, and it is this vātsalya magnified a millionfold in the Divine that envelops us when we incline ever so slightly towards Him.

The third name

The third name (sāra-nidhi) refers to Lord Śrīnivāsa being the innermost essence of everything. There are a number of ways to understand this concept, and I will focus on just one for now: a core tenet of Viśiṣṭâdvaita theology, that the Divine pervades all of creation, both sentient and insentient. Sometimes known as śarīra-śarīri-bhāva, or “the relationship of the embodied soul to its embodiment”, this draws an analogy between the inherence of the soul in the body of a living being and the immance of the Divine in both bodies and souls.

This name thus emphasizes Lord Śrīnivāsa’s antaryāmitva: His being the Innermost Controller of all things, sentient and insentient alike. He is the ultimate Charioteer of our souls, in effect.

The fourth name

All the names so far have had deep theological and emotional resonances: they refer either to cosmic properties of the Divine or to core feelings. However, all of them are location or form-agnostic. The fourth name, Vṛṣa-śaila-pati, concretizes the Divine: that same Lord who is worshipped by the gods, who is love personified, who is the innermost heart of things is also the very Lord who has manifested Himself on top of the hills of Tirupati. It thus emphasizes His saulabhya (His easy accessibility, especially in these days when all the infrastructure to visit the Lord’s mountaintop shrine has been built out).

A hidden reference?

To me, this verse’s encapsulation of four essential properties of Lord Veṅkaṭeśvara and its plaintive invocation to Him to protect us brings to my mind the Gajendra-mokṣa episode.3 All it takes for the elephant to be rescued from the jaws of the crocodile is the elephant’s sincere thought of taking refuge in the Divine, not even necessarily articulated in a human voice. Even as all the gods give up, the Lord shows up in person to save the elephant. We can correlate the four names in this verse to this incident as follows:

• The first name, emphasizing His paratva (absolute superiority), depicts the Lord’s unique ability to save the elephant even after all other deities had washed their hands off the matter.

• The second name, emphasizing His [or perhaps we should say Her] vātsalya (motherly affection) and sauśīlya (graciousness). The Supreme Being cares about the wellbeing of every being in creation, not just human beings.

• The third name, emphasizing His antaryāmitva (immanent lordship), underscores His all-pervading nature and His ability to perceive the elephant’s existential crisis even if it had not been articulated explicitly.

• The fourth name, emphasizing His concrete manifestation on earth, refers to His showing up in person to save the elephant, and by extension to save us all as well.

The Gajendra-mokṣa episode is recommended for meditation first thing in the morning for all Śrīvaiṣṇavas even while they are still in bed.

|| Śrī-Padmāvatī-nāyikā-sameta-Śrī-Śrīnivāsa-parabrahmaṇe namaḥ ||

The Śrī Veṅkaṭeśa Stotram

Immediately following the recitation of the Śrī Veṅkaṭeśa Suprabhātam, the recitation of Aṇṇan Swāmī’s Śrī Veṅkaṭeśa Stotram commences. This is almost as well known as the Suprabhātam itself due to its playful and lilting meter (most distinctively, the meter known as Toṭaka) and its self-conscious sound effects.

Let us go through the verses one by one over the next several weeks.

Kamalā-kuca-cūcuka-kuṅkumato
niyatâ-aruṇitâ-atula-nīla-tano! |
kamalâ-āyata-locana! loka-pate!
vijayī bhava Veṅkaṭa-śaila-pate! || (VSt 1)

कमला-कुच-चूचुक-कुंकुमतो
नियता-ऽरुणिता-ऽतुल-नील-तनो !
कमला-ऽऽयत-लोचन! लोक-पते !
विजयी भव वेंकट-शैल-पते ! ॥

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O Lord
whose incomparably blue-hued body
        is eternally streaked dawn-red
                from the vermillon upon the bosom
                        of Your beloved Lotus-lady!

O Lord 
whose lotus-petal-shaped eyes
        are permanently fixed
                upon Your beloved Lotus-lady!

O Lord 
        of all the worlds!

May You be ever victorious,

O Lord of Veṅkaṭa mountain!

The structure of the verse

Structurally, the verse is extremely simple: most of it is a series of vocatives (sambodhana) to Lord Śrīnivāsa, with just one short verbal phrase vijayī bhava (“be Thou victorious”). This phrase makes this verse quite appropriate for Vijaya-daśamī!

The first word

We have already seen in our discussion of the Veṅkaṭeśa Suprabhātam that Aṇṇan Swāmī begins each of his compositions with a reference to the Feminine. In this case, the first word (which occurs as the first element of a compound) is Kamalā, especially significant to Lord Śrīnivāsa because His consort is Padmāvatī, the Lady of the Lotus. We will see one more paradoxical reason for emphasizing this particular name for the Goddess just below.

The eternal unity of the Divine Couple

The first name for Lord Śrīnivāsa here takes up an entire line of the verse. It is, however, the second line of the verse. The first line of the verse provides the cause for the choice of name given to the Lord here. And what an amazing name it is!

The Lord’s name

The sacred body (tiru-mēni, in Tamil) of Lord Śrīnivāsa, of Lord Nārāyaṇa, and indeed of His various avatāras, is usually described as blue-black or black, and so on. This richly saturated dark color is meant to evoke in us a sense of awe, of the unfathomable depths of divinity which confront us in our encounters with the Lord. It is precisely this that is invoked by the second half of this first name: atula-nīla-tanu “an incomparably, incomprehensibly deep blue-hued body”.

But the first half of this name then modifies this dramatically: the Lord’s body, evocative of a lovely life-giving monsoon raincloud, or perhaps of the night sky, is then streaked with red—and not just any red, but the red of dawn (aruṇita). It is as if a lovely sun is rising and casting her light across the Lord’s lovely cloud/night body.

And what’s more, this is not an ephemeral phenomenon, the way dawn is in our natural experience—it is eternal, permanent (niyata). This word should bring to mind the related word niyati, which is used to mean “nature”. The hint then is that it is this eternal dawn on the body of the Lord which is in fact the true natural state of our universe. (Armed with this knowledge, we should then regard every opportunity to see the dawn sky as a chance to see the earthly shadow of this heavenly reality.)

The source of the eternal dawn

Where does this dawn come from, then? It is from the vermillion (kuṅkuma) that adorns the bosom of the Lady of the Lotus, Padmāvatī Tāyār. In other words, She is the sun whose eternal lustre illuminates the Lord’s broad chest.1

This is where the slightly paradoxical nature of the name Kamalā comes in here. After all, as we have now repeatedly seen in the Suprabhātam, the lotus blooms through its connection to the sun; by describing Mahālakṣmī as the Lotus-lady, we are then implicitly saying that Lord Śrīnivāsa’s face is the sun which makes Her blossom. But the logic of this verse, as well as other scriptural testimony, underscores the fact that She is in fact this source of light.2

The Lord, the Lotus-Lady, and us

The second name for the Lord here, kamalāyata-locana, can be read in two different ways, depending on how we interpret the first word of the compound:

• Taking the first word to be the neuter form kamalam “lotus”, we obtain the interpretation that the Lord’s eyes are shaped like lotus petals. This is meant to highlight the eternal beauty of the Lord’s eyes, and hence to underscore our attraction to them, and through them to Him.

• Taking the first word to be the feminine form kamalā “Lotus-lady, Padmāvatī”, we then obtain the interpretation that the Lord’s eyes are permanently fixed upon Her who is embracing Him. This interpretation then highlights the internal relationship between the Divine Couple.

Of course, the two interpretations are simultaneously validated through one of the unique attributes of Mahālakṣmī: Her puruṣakāratva or natural inclination to advocate on our behalf with the Lord. Sometimes this is phrased charmingly as Padmāvatī Tāyār distracting the Lord with Her own limitless beauty—thereby protecting us from His anger!

The domain of the Lord’s lordship

The third and fourth names highlight Lord Śrīnivāsa’s sovereignty and identity: being the Supreme Divinity for all of the cosmos (loka) while simultaneously also being physically fully and concretely located on the mountain of Tiru-veṅkaṭam.

The Lord’s full presence in His iconic forms (mūrtis) thus in no way diminishes the fullness of His presence or His divinity or His lordship over any other part of the universe.

Revisiting the verb

Thus having thought through the implications and interconnections of the different names of Lord Śrīnivāsa in this verse, we can now return to the verbal phrase vijayī bhava! This phrase can’t literally be wishing for the Lord to be victorious because, being the Ruler of the Cosmos, He cannot but be victorious! It is impossible for Him to lose. Instead, we must understand this in connection with the description of the first name: It is through His union with Padmāvatī Tāyār that Lord Śrīnivāsa is eternally victorious.

This then finally has a slightly cheeky, but profound, implication: if He is able to be victorious over all else because of Her, then that means He is not going to overrule Her! Consequently, we, Their children, can thus fearlessly rely on Her to protect us, even from His own anger and punishment.

It is this profound intra-Divine relationship of trust and love and mutual understanding that then creates the theological foundation for the Śrīvaiṣṇava doctrine of śaraṇāgati, taking refuge in the Divine Couple and trusting Them fully. And all of this emerges from just four names and a description of a (cosmic) dawn in this verse! What a remarkable feat by Aṇṇan Swāmī!

|| Śrī-Padmāvatī-nāyikā-sameta-Śrī-Śrīnivāsa-parabrahmaṇe namaḥ ||

nīla-toyada-madhyasthā vidyul-lekhêva bhāsvarā

itthaṃ Vṛṣâcala-pater iha Suprabhātaṃ
ye mānavāḥ prati-dinaṃ paṭhituṃ pravṛttāḥ |
teṣāṃ prabhāta-samaye smṛtir aṅga-bhājāṃ
prajñāṃ parârtha-sulabhāṃ paramāṃ prasūte || (VSu 29)

इत्थं वृषाचल-पतेर् इह सुप्रभातं
ये मानवाः प्रतिदिनं पठितुं प्रवृत्ताः ।
तेषां प्रभात-समये स्मृतिर् अंग-भाजां
प्रज्ञां परार्थ-सुलभां परमां प्रसूते ॥

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For those people
        who make an effort to sing
                every morning
        this greeting of awakening
                to the Lord of Bull Hill
                        seeking to serve Him,

their daily recollection of Him
invariably produces in them
        the supreme wisdom
                for attaining the Highest Goal.

Now, many phala-śruti verses promise extravagant results: infinite wealth, entire kingdoms, destruction of one’s enemies, and so on. In comparison, this verse promises a seemingly minor result: it merely says that our dawn recollections of the Lord and Lady of Tiru-Veṅkaṭam will produce wisdom and insight in us. What’s the big deal? Isn’t it better to get a kingdom than to get mere “wisdom”?

But this is no ordinary wisdom we are promised: it is insight into the nature of the Divine, which will lead us to Them directly. As Tŏṇḍar-aḍi^p-pŏḍi Āḻvār says at the beginning of the Tiru-mālai:

ic-cuvai tavira yān pōy Indira-lōkam āḷum
ac-cuvai pĕṟinum vēṇḍēn, Araṅga-mā-nagaruḷānē! (TM 2cd)

இச்சுவை தவிர யான் போய் # இந்திர லோகம் ஆளும் #
அச்சுவை பெறினும் வேண்டேன் # அரங்க மாநகருளானே !

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Other that this taste (of worshipping You),

I do not crave a taste of anything else,
        not even lordship over Indra’s heavenly realm,

o Lord who lives in the great city of Śrīraṅgam!

The Āḻvār would rather have the śuvai (literally “taste”, speaking to the immediacy and the inexpressible power of this direct experience or anubhava) of singing the glories of Lord Raṅganātha in all of His various manifestations, than to taste the trifling, trivial, transient pleasures of svarga.1

This idea is also present in the 29^th verse (Śiṯṯṟañ-ciṟu-kālē) of the Tiru^p-pāvai,2 in which Āṇḍāḷ sings:

yĕṯṯṟaikkum ēḻ-ēḻ piṟavikkum uṉḏṟannōḍu
uṯṯṟōmē āvōm, unakkē nām āṭ-cĕvyōm
maṯṯṟai nam kāmaṅgaḷ māṯṯṟu (TP 29fgh)

எற்றைக்கும் ஏழேழ் பிறவிக்கும் உன் தன்னோடு
உற்றோமே ஆவோம் உனக்கே நாம் ஆட்செய்வோம்
மற்றை நம் காமங்கள் மாற்று

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For ever and ever,
For seven births and seven more beyond,

we should be inseparably attached to You;
we should serve You and only You:

Change all of our other desires accordingly.

An integrative view of religious thought and practice

There is a tendency among some who prefer to over-intellectualize (a preference strongly present in myself!) to disregard ritual worship and to downplay the importance of devotion, and instead to focus on the philosophical and intellectual elements of religion. But in a religious tradition as steadfastly integrative as the Śrīvaiṣṇava sampradāya, temple worship and ritual prayers are just as important as intellectual investigation. As a matter of fact, ritual observance is a prerequisite for embarking on a rigorous intellectual study of the core Śrīvaiṣṇava mysteries, and the two remain deeply intertwined in subtle ways.

I mention this because this verse illustrates for us how even the simple practice of reciting the Śrī Veṅkaṭeśa Suprabhātam every morning is effectively equivalent to deep study of the Vedānta. The study of the Vedāntic texts in traditional format is supposed to follow a three-step process:

• śravaṇa (“hearing” the text, memorizing it)

• manana (“thinking” through the arguments of the text, getting it to make sense), and

• nididhyāsana (“deeply contemplating” the hidden meanings and connections of the text with everything else we know, ideally in a reflective mental state).

And as per this verse, people devoted to Lord Veṅkaṭeśvara:

• begin with paṭhana (“recitation” of the text, which of course would be preceded by learning it through śravaṇa anyway),

• build up to a steady and constant smṛti (“recollection”) of the meanings of the verses of the text, and finally

• attain a state of parā prajñā (“superior insight”), in which they trigger a deeper spiritual transformation that leads to the Supreme Goal.

Thus,

Conclusion

This brings us to the end of the Śrī Veṅkaṭeśa Suprabhātam, but this is far from the end of the morning recitations to Lord Veṅkaṭeśvara! Indeed, this hymn is followed by the mellifluous Śrī Veṅkaṭeśa Stotram, the dense and profound Śrī Veṅkaṭeśa Prapatti, and finally wrapped up with the benedictory Śrī Veṅkaṭeśa Maṅgalam. With the anugraha of Lord Śrīnivāsa eternally accompanied by Padmāvatī Tāyār, I hope to continue translating those hymns. I will, however, be taking a bit of a break over the next couple of months as I work on another project that I have been working on in bits and pieces: another translation and commentary of a very short text but with extremely powerful insights. I am also planning a bit of an experiment with this new text in which I might provide an audio summary of each verse that is very similar to the written text of the post.

It has been an indescribably delightful experience for me to read, think about, translate and commentate upon the verses of the Śrī Veṅkaṭeśa Suprabhātam. No doubt there are numerous errors and confusions throughout this series, for which I beg your indulgence, Gentle Reader, and pray to Lord Veṅkaṭeśvara to forgive me and guide me. But if there is anything here that has been helpful or insightful to you, it is all entirely the blessing of Lord Śrīnivāsa who has chosen to communicate that insight to you, using me as an instrument. This humble effort is for Him, and for those who are for Him.

Please continue to share your thoughts with me, both on the comments section here and in private, and if you find these posts valuable or thought-provoking, please do share them with other like-minded folks from around the world.

|| Śrī-Padmāvatī-nāyikā-sameta-Śrī-Śrīnivāsa-parabrahmaṇe namaḥ ||

[1] Lakṣmī-nivāsa! [2] niravadya-guṇaîka-sindho!
[3] saṃsāra-sāgara-samuttaraṇaîka-seto! |
[4] Vedânta-vedya-nija-vaibhava! [5] bhakta-bhogya!
[6] Śrī-Veṅkaṭâcala-pate! tava suprabhātam || (VSu 28)

लक्ष्मी-निवास ! निरवद्य-गुणैक-सिन्धो !
संसार-सागर-समुत्तरणैक-सेतो !
वेदान्त-वेद्य ! निज-वैभव-भक्त-भोग्य !
श्रीवेङ्कटाचल-पते! तव सुप्रभातम् ॥ 

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[1] O abode of the Supreme Goddess Lakṣmī!

[2] O ocean of purely flawless, unassailable virtues!

[3] O sole bridge that can help us cross
    the sea of saṃsāra!

[4] O Lord whose glories are knowable 
        through the Vedānta!

[5] O Lord relished by Your devotees!

[6] O Lord of the sacred mountain
        wealth-weaving, sin-cleaving Veṅkaṭam,
a blessed morning unto You!

Since this verse is explicitly meant to be contemplated upon, I will keep my commentary relatively brief, so as to allow you, Gentle Reader, to ponder over the verse and come up with your own interpretations.

The six names of the Lord

Let us now look at the six names of Lord Śrīnivāsa listed here.

Lakṣmī-nivāsa

The first name, Lakṣmī-nivāsa, is a rephrasing of the Lord’s name Srinivasa. This is a name we have seen before, and it is one of the most beautiful names for God as it underscores the eternal unity of the Divine Masculine and the Divine Feminine.

From a temple iconic perspective, this name emphasizes that Lord Śrīnivāsa’s broad chest is the dwelling-place for Mahālakṣmī. As Nammāḻvār describes Him in the opening of one of his most beautiful pāsurams, dedicated entirely to Lord Veṅkaṭeśvara (Tiruvāymŏḻi 6.10 (Ulagam uṇḍa). 10):

agalagillēn iṟaiyum ĕṉḏṟu Alar-mēl-maṅgai urai mārbā! (TVM 6.10.10a)

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O Lord upon whose chest dwells
        the Goddess who sits upon the lotus, saying:
                “I will never be separated from You, 
                not even for an instant”!

It is surely no coincidence that this pāsuram is also the penultimate verse of Nammāḻvār’s decad, and similarly begins with an evocation of the Lord as the Goddess’s dwelling-place.

It is also no coincidence that Aṇṇan Swāmī’s verse begins with the evocation of Mahālakṣmī, given Her central role in the Śrīvaiṣṇava tradition both as the Divine Feminine as well as the ever-loving Divine Mother who unfailingly intercedes on our behalf with the Lord.

Niravadya-guṇaîka-sindhu

We have also repeatedly seen the comparison of Lord Śrīnivāsa’s qualities to an ocean throughout the Suprabhātam. The Śrīvaiṣṇava tradition accepts that the Divine is saguṇa (endowed with qualities), and specifically all positive qualities and exclusively positive qualities.

Saṃsāra-sāgara-samuttaraṇaîka-setu

Juxtaposed with the oceanic imagery is the image of the Divine as a bridge across a sea—this time, the sea of saṃsāra in which all beings are constantly bobbing up and down, if not drowning in the depths. The Lord who is eternally united with His Lady is the sole means (upāya) of escape from this sea, which is why They are described as the sole bridge that crosses it.

Vedānta-vedya-nija-vaibhava

And how are we to know these things? What is the source of knowledge about the nature and the glories of the Divine Duo? The verse tells us cleanly: not observation, not inference, but the holy words of the three-fold Vedānta—the Upaniṣads, the Brahma-sūtras of Vyāsa Bādarāyaṇa, and the Śrīmad Bhagavad-Gītā—as properly understood through the commentaries of Swami Ramanujar and the subcommentaries of later Ācāryas like Swāmī Deśikar.

To the Sanskrit Vedānta Śrīvaiṣṇavas also add the Tamil Veda: the 4000 verses in Tamil that constitute the Divya-Prabandham, with special emphasis upon the Tiruvāymŏḻi of Nammāḻvār.1 These texts then tell us about the nija-vaibhavas, the unique powers and glories of the Lord that are not applicable to anybody else, and that alone make Him our goal.

Bhakta-bhogya

Finally, the last unique name in this verse, bhakta-bhogya, is highly significant because it tells us how we, equipped with the right knowledge, can correctly relate to the Divya Dampati: We can relish Them, enjoy Them through all of Their wealth and glory and adornments as displayed in Their temples, Their stories and songs, and also through the beauties of this world which is Their creation of play or līlā-vibhūti.

This quality of the Lord is also the primary message of the second centad of the Tiruvāymŏḻi, as per Swāmī Deśikar’s Sanskrit distillation of the TVM in his Dramiḍôpaniṣat-tātparya-ratnāvalī: In verse 8, where he describes every centad with a single word, he uses the word bhogya-bhāvāt (“owing to His being enjoyable”) to describe the second centad in particular.

An implicit Śrīvaiṣṇava catechism

We can thus treat verse 28 as a catechism of the Śrīvaiṣṇava samprādaya, with each name being an answer to an implicit question:

1. Who is the Supreme Divinity?
   It is Śrīman-Nārāyaṇa: the Lord whose chest is the eternal abode for Mahālakṣmī; hence Lakṣmī-nivāsa.

2. What is the nature of the Supreme Divinity?
   The unlimited storehouse of all, and exclusively only, positive qualities, and thus free of even the slightest whiff of anything negative; hence niravadya-guṇaîka-sindhu.

3. Why worship the Supreme Divinity?
   Because They Themselves are the only way to overcome the world of saṃsāra, as well as being the sole goal; hence saṃsāra-sāgara-samuttaraṇaîka-setu.

4. How can we know the Supreme Divinity?
   Through the Vedānta (both Sanskrit and Tamil), revealed to us by the Divine in order to reach the Divine, which tells us all about the glories and the magnificence of the Divine; hence Vedānta-vedya-nija-vaibhava.

5. How can we worship the Divine?
   By enjoying and celebrating the Divine's manifested glory and magnificence in the company of other devotees to whom the Lord and Lady have made Their glory manifest; hence bhakta-bhogya,

6. Where can we find the Divine?
   In Tiru-Veṅkaṭam (among other sacred sites or divya-deśas), on top of the hill, as Lord Śrīnivāsa who is eternally associated with His śrī, the Lady Padmāvatī Tāyār; hence Śrī-Veṅkaṭâcala-pati.

|| Śrī-Padmāvatī-nāyikā-sameta-Śrī-Śrīnivāsa-parabrahmaṇe namaḥ ||

sahasra-śākhôpaniṣat-samāgamaṃ
namāmy aham Drāviḍa-Veda-sāgaram ||

Brahmā-ādayaḥ sura-varāḥ sa-maharṣayas te
santaḥ Sanandana-mukhās tv atha yogi-varyāḥ |
dhāmântike tava hi maṅgala-vastu-hastāḥ
Śrī-Veṅkaṭâcala-pate! tava suprabhātam || (VSu 27)

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The best of the gods
        with Brahmā at their head,
alongside the great Seers,
the saints,
Sanandana and His companions,
and the best of yogins

are all at Your sanctum
bearing auspicious paraphernalia in their hands:

O Lord of the sacred mountain
        wealth-weaving, sin-cleaving Veṅkaṭam,
a blessed morning unto You!

Echoes of the Tiru^p-paḷḷi-^yĕḻucci

This verse captures the spirit of a number of verses of Tŏṇḍar-aḍi^p-pŏḍi Āḻvār’s Tirup-paḷḷi-yĕḻucci, all of which similarly describe different groups of divine beings coming to awaken (in that song) Lord Raṅganātha of Śrīraṅgam. Verses 7 and 8 of the TPĔ, which we will now take a look at, are perhaps the closest match to this verse in spirit and in content:

andarattu Amarargaḷ kūṭṭaṅgaḷ ivaiyō? 
arun-tava munivarum marutarum ivarō? 
Indiran ānaiyum tānum vandu ivanō? 
Ĕmpĕrumān un kōyil-in vāśal
Sundarar nĕrukka, Viccādarar nūkka,
Iyakkarum mayaṅginar tiru-vaḍi toḻuvān,
andaram pār iḍam illai maṯṯṟu iduvō? 
Araṅgattu Ammā! paḷḷi yĕḻundu aruḷāyē (TPĔ 7)

vambu-aviḻ vānavar vāyurai vaḻaṅga
mā-nidhi kapilai yŏṇ-kaṇṇāḍi mudalā
Ĕmpĕrumān paḍi makkalam kāṇḍarku
ērpana vāyina koṇḍu nal-munivar
Tumburu, Nāradar pugundanar ivarō?
tōṉḏṟinan iRaviyum tulaṅg’ oḷi parappi,
ambara-talattil niṉḏṟu agalgiṉḏṟadu iruḷ pōy
Araṅgattu Ammā! paḷḷi yĕḻundu aruḷāyē (TPĔ 8)

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[7]
Are these the retinues
        of the immortal gods
                descended from the skies?

Are these the great sages
        known for their tremendous austerities
and the celestial physicians?

Is this Indra himself on his elephant
who has come here,

        O mine own Lord!

to Your temple’s sweet, sacred gate?

The Gandharvas are all squeezed up,
the Vidyādharas are trying to jostle past,
the Yakṣas are virtually fainting—
        all to worship Your blessed feet.

It’s as if there is no space 
        in the sky or on earth
for all those gathered to worship You:

O Lord of Śrīraṅgam!
Arise from Your bed,
        and grace us.


[8]
Are these the fragrant gods bringing along 
        aromatic dhruva grass,
        the great treasures of Kubera,
        Kāmadhenu the wish-granting cow,
        brilliant, lustrous mirrors, and more
to pay their respects?

Are these the good sages, Tumburu and Nārada,
        carrying gifts worthy of Your worship?

The Sun has now appeared,
        spreading his bright light in all directions,
        dispelling the dark
                that had covered the whole sky.

O Lord of Śrīraṅgam!
Arise from Your bed,
        and grace us.

Common elements

We can see many common elements across the Suprabhātam verse and the verses from the TPĔ:

• Different groups of divinities and of sages all gather to worship the Lord in His temple form in the morning.

  • Thus we have the best of the gods (sura-vara) led by Brahmā in the Suprabhātam and by Indra in the TPĔ.

  • We then have the maharṣis who are called arun-tava munivar (“the great sages known for their tremendous austerities”) in the TPĔ. This may refer to the Seven Sages (saptarṣi) or to great human seers like Vasiṣṭha who penetrated the secrets of reality through their contemplative insights.

  • We also have a reference in the Sanskrit to the Sanandana-mukhās, the group of seers led by Sanandana, who are referred to as the nal-munivar (“the good sages”) in the TPĔ. These are the Four Kumāras: Sanaka, Sanandana, Sanatkumāra, and Sanātana, the mind-born sons of Brahmā who swore to lifelong celibacy (for eternity), dedicating themselves to the worship of the Lord.

• They carry with them the common maṅgala-vastus used to awaken the Lord (also used, in simplified form, to awaken human kings as well). The Suprabhātam doesn’t explicitly mention what they are, but we can see from the TPĔ that they include such things as:

  • aromatic substances,

  • auspicious indications of wealth and prosperity (signified by Kubera’s nine treasures which we have already seen),

  • a mirror (to reflect and amplify wealth), and

  • a cow, whose glances and whose calls are regarded as particularly auspicious sounds to wake up to in the morning.1 This is celebrated in a number of temples to this very day, as seen in the video of this cow at the shrine of Lord Lakṣmī-Nṛsiṃha Swāmī in Ahobilam.

A Śrīvaiṣṇava distinction

However, there are also two additional groups mentioned in the Suprabhātam verse who are not mentioned in the TPĔ (indeed, who could not be mentioned in the TPĔ). These are the santaḥ (“the saints”) and the yogi-varyāḥ (“the best of yogins”).2 I think there is a very good case to be made for these being references to the two classes of great souls specific to the Śrīvaiṣṇava tradition: the Āḻvārs and the Ācāryas.

• We can take the santaḥ as being the Āḻvārs: wholly saintly beings who are dedicated entirely to the experiential worship (anubhava) of the Supreme Divine in all Their forms and manifestations.

• We can then take the yogi-varyāḥ as the Ācāryas of the tradition: both those who took up sannyāsa, like Bhagavad Rāmānujar the yogîndra (“King of renunciates”), and those who remained householders (gṛhasthas), like Swāmī Deśikar the Vedāntâcārya-varya (“best of Teachers of the Vedānta”).

A couple of linguistic observations

This verse has a couple of linguistic characteristics that contribute to the overall effect of the verse without altering its meaning.

A pun

The first is the word samaharṣayas. Now in the transliteration above, I have segmented it as sa + maharṣayas “along with the maharṣis” in keeping with the theme of referring to different hosts of beings worshipping Lord Veṅkaṭeśvara.

However, the word can also be interpreted as a finite verb: sam- + aharṣayas, the second-person (madhyama-puruṣa) imperfect tense (L^aṅ) of the causative form (^ṇi^c) of the root sam+hṛṣ (“to delight”). The verb then means “you have delighted”—an appropriate and true statement describing the Lord who is a source of eternal delight for all His followers! The only challenge here with incorporating this verb form into the verse is that there is no word that can be interpreted in the accusative (dvitīyā-vibhakty-anta); otherwise we could have incorporated it into the verse as a whole. As a result, we will have to leave it as a suggested meaning hovering in the background implicitly.

A punning pronoun

As it so happens, the very next word te also plays an interesting suggestive role in the verse. This short word can be understood as no less than 7 different pronouns:

• The third-person demonstrative pronoun tad- declined in five different forms:

  • the masculine (pul̐-liṅga) nominative (prathamā) plural

  • the feminine (strī-liṅga) nominative (prathamā) dual

  • the feminine (strī-liṅga) accusative (dvitīyā) dual

  • the neuter (napuṃsaka-liṅga) nominative (prathamā) dual

  • the neuter (napuṃsaka-liṅga) accusative (dvitīyā) dual

• The second-person singular enclitic pronoun declined in

  • the dative (caturthī)

  • the possessive (ṣaṣṭhī)

Now, since the enclitic pronoun typically follows the word it is describing, we might think this is either the dative (caturthī) or the possessive (ṣaṣṭhī) modifying the word sa-maharṣayas. This would suggest either that the gods and seers belong to Lord Veṅkaṭeśvara (which is true in the sense that He is their svāmin), or that they are doing this for Lord Veṅkaṭeśvara (which is also obviously true).

However, it is also possible to think of te as the masculine plural demonstrative pronoun referring to the gods and seers: those ones are the ones who are now congregated here, at Lord Veṅkaṭeśvara’s doorstep. Interpreting it this way leads to two further observations:

• It echoes the way in which multiple lines describing different hosts of deities in the Tirup-paḷḷi-yĕḻucci also similarly end in demonstrative plural pronouns (which I have boldened in the transliteration above). Note that in the Tirup-paḷḷi-yĕḻucci the demonstrative pronouns—ivarō, ivanō, iduvō, ivaiyō—are invariably proximal, referring to entities that are close by.

• The fact that the pronoun te here is technically distal, referring to “those” gods over there, suggests a hierarchy between the gods and sages (who are further away from Lord Veṅkaṭeśvara), and the Saints and the Teachers (who are implicitly closer to Lord Veṅkaṭeśvara).

  • The gods are effectively titled roles in Śrīvaiṣṇava cosmology, which are filled by different exalted individual souls so long as their karmic fruit entitles them to those positions.

  • The Saints (Āḻvārs) and the Teachers (Ācāryas), on the other hand, are bound to Lord Veṅkaṭeśvara by the unbreakable bond of supreme devotion (parama-bhakti) that is built upon their fulfillment of their duties (like the gods) but also insightful spiritual knowledge (para-jñāna) and detachment from worldly goals.3 Without devaluing the gods in any way, this grants these beings even greater proximity to Lord Śrīnivāsa.

|| Śrī-Padmāvatī-nāyikā-sameta-Śrī-Śrīnivāsa-parabrahmaṇe namaḥ ||

svadharma-jñāna-vairāgya-sādhya-bhakty-eka-gocaraḥ |
Nārāyaṇaḥ paraṃ Brahma Gītā-śāstre samīritaḥ || (GAS 1)

bhāsvān udeti, vikacāni saroruhāṇi,
sampūrayanti ninadaiḥ kakubho vihaṅgāḥ |
Śrīvaiṣṇavāḥ satatam arthita-maṅgalās te
dhāmâ āśrayanti tava Veṅkaṭa! suprabhātam || (VSu 26)

भास्वान् उदेति, विकचानि सरोरुहाणि,
सम्पूरयन्ति निनदैः ककुभो विहंगाः ।
श्रीवैष्णवाः सततम् अर्थित-मंगलास् ते
धामा ऽऽश्रयन्ति तव वेङ्कट ! सुप्रभातम् ॥ 

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The sun has risen, 
the lotuses have blossomed,
the quarters are filled
        with the sweet chirping of birds;

Śrīvaiṣṇavas
        who are ever-dedicated 
                to Your flourishing
have congregated at Your abode:

O Veṅkaṭa,
a blessed morning unto You!

The imagery of this verse, like other earlier verses that depict nature, can also be interpreted in multiple ways.1 Let us first look at the plain meaning before turning to symbolic interpretations.

The plain meaning of the verse

The sun has fully risen by now, and now illuminates the whole eastern quarter. The lotuses too have fully blossomed, now that the sun is out. As the day’s activities unfold in broad daylight, birds are chirping everywhere. This description is mirrored in the first line of the final verse of the Tiru^p-paḷḷi-^yĕḻucci:

kaḍi-malar kamalaṅgaḷ malarndana yivaiyō
        Kadiravan kanaik-kaḍal muḷaittanan ivanō (TPĔ 10a)

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O, are these the fragrant red lotuses that have fully blossomed?
Is this the sun who has sprouted atop the thundering ocean?

It is in this idyllic setting that devout followers of Lord Veṅkaṭeśvara, who seek nothing for themselves but only wish to pray directly for the Lord’s welfare, come to Lord Śrīnivāsa in the morning and sing His praises as the morning prayers are being concluded.

Metaphorical interpretations galore

As with other nature-themed verses in the Suprabhātam, here too we should look for spiritual messages encoded in natural garb. I will present two options here.

Interpretation 1: The power of dhvani

We have already investigated the imagery of lotuses being made to blossom by the Sun’s rays in verse 12. Here, though, there is no explicit causality being drawn between the sunrise and the blossoming of the lotuses; they are just presented in sequence.

As a result, this verse suggests that we too should be entreating Lord Śrīnivāsa to turn His loving face in our direction, illuminating our lives fully, and to open His lotus-eyes towards us so that we may rejoice in His lovely Dayā-filled glances. (As before, we should treat every mention of the lotus as a reference to Padmāvatī Tāyār).

The second line about the birds’ chirping filling all the quarters further suggests behavior that we should be emulating: reciting the names and stories of the Divine so that His glory pervades the universe.

Interpretation 2: The power of samāsôkti

Under the previous interpretation, we take the natural ideal presented in the verse as being suggestive of an ethical ideal that we should be living up to. Here is a second possibility as well, as if to illustrate the infinitude of interpretations when thinking of the Divine.

This time around, we treat the first half of the verse as a descriptor of the Śrīvaiṣṇavas who are referred to in the third line. Taking the first half of the verse in isolation, the literary ornament (alaṅkāra) applicable here is known as samāsôkti: we describe one thing, and in doing so, we end up describing something else as well.2 Now the verse taken as a whole may not strictly count as samāsôkti, as the second half of the verse explicitly refers to the devotees of the Lord; however, for our purposes, this will do for now.3

Thus, the birds (vihaṅga) should bring to our mind the devotees of the Lord for an etymological reason: the word vihaṅga literally means “sky-goer”, which can of course refer to birds, but also to devotees who are guaranteed to ascend to the Highest Heaven. (We can also get creative and think of this as a reference to the temple to Lord Śrīnivāsa atop Tirumalai—so high that it might as well be up in the sky!) This then reinforces the connection between the birds’ behavior (filling all the quarters with their chirping) and the devotees’ (filling all the quarters with their chanting).

The lotuses (saroruha) that have blossomed (vikaca) then refer to the heart-lotuses (hṛdaya-paṅkaja) of these same devotees, which have been opened up by devotion and contemplation of the Lord.4 The water (saras) from which these lotuses have arisen is then akin to the sacred, nectarine speech of the Vedic seers, the Āḻvārs, and the Ācāryas of the Śrīvaiṣṇava tradition, which provides the foundation for our spiritual growth (-ruha reminding us of ārohaṇa “ascent”).

And finally, of course, the sun (bhāsvān) should bring to mind the infinitely radiant Supreme Sun, Who shines both in/as the highest heavens and in/as our innermost selves.5 Just as the terrestrial sun makes terrestrial lotuses blossom, so too is this Cosmic Sun the ultimate reason for the blossoming of the heart-lotuses of the true devotees of Lord Veṅkaṭeśvara. Living in the Lord’s light, they come to His sacred shrine to see Him with both their inner sight and their physical eyes. Melting in the warmth of this Sun, all they can think of is singing His praises and praying for His wellbeing.

Praying for the welfare of the Divine

On that note, let us explore this idea further: why should we as humans pray for the welfare of the Divine? This makes no sense prima facie: one can glorify the Lord, one can sing the praises of the Lord, one can beseech the Lord, but how does it make sense for mere humans to pray for the wellbeing of the Divine?

This question—and its answer—is very much along the lines of the question with which we opened the Suprabhātam: how does it make sense for humans to awaken the Divine in the morning when the Divine transcends space and time and is not limited by human-like fluctuations in awareness like sleep or dreams?

The response is straightforward:

We might go even further and add that, for those whose heart-lotuses have truly blossomed, the very idea of praying to the Lord for self-interested reasons no longer makes sense: These devotees have transcended their selfish egos and instead live life entirely for living out the Divine purpose of their lives.

Verses from the Śrīvaiṣṇava sāṯṯṟumuṟai

This theme of praying for the welfare of the Divine is deeply ingrained in the Śrīvaiṣṇava tradition. It shows up repeatedly, for instance, in the Tiru^p-pallāṇḍu of Pĕriyāḻvār (perhaps the most widely recited of any Śrīvaiṣṇava devotional poem), and also in the Śrī Veṅkaṭeśa Maṅgalam of Śrī PB Aṇṇan Swāmī. The theme is also prevalent in the verses of the sāṯṯṟumuṟai, the closing liturgy of every prayer and ritual performed according to Śrīvaiṣṇava practices. (Indeed, it is no coincidence that the Suprabhātam invokes this theme at this juncture—it is in fact meant to bring to mind the morning worship’s sāṯṯṟumuṟai.)

I will highlight just two verses from the sāṯṯṟumuṟai here.

First, of course, the opening verse of the Tiru^p-pallāṇḍu itself:

pallāṇḍu pallāṇḍu pallāyiratt’ āṇḍu
pala kōḍi nūṟ’ āyiram mallāṇḍa tiṇ-tōḷ Maṇi-vaṇṇā! un
śēv-aḍi śĕvvi tiruk-kāppu

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Many years
Many years
Many thousands of years
Many tens of millions of hundreds of thousands of years:

        O broad-shouldered 
        wrestler-subduing 
        Sapphire-hued Lord!

May the beauty of Your lotus-red feet
be protected.

As one of the most important verses in the Śrīvaiṣṇava tradition, this has attracted extensive exegesis and elaboration from the great scholars of the community, and as a result this “translation” captures nothing more than a very superficial sense of the profundity of the verse.

Next, another verse, this time in Sanskrit, that captures this idea of proclaiming the glory of the Divya Dampati in all directions:

sarva-deśa-daśā-kāleṣv avyāhṛta-parākramā |
Rāmānujâ-ārya-divyâ-ājñā vardhatām abhivardhatām ||

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In all lands,
in all climes,
at all times,

its conquest remains inexorable:

May the divine instruction
    of the noble Rāmānuja
flower,

may it flourish!

Verses from the Divya-deśa-maṅgalāśāsana of Swāmī Deśikan

It can also take the form of the following verse, in which Swami Deśikan prays to Lord Śrīnivāsa to Himself protect and guard and nurture His own glory.

praśamita-Kali-doṣāṃ prājya-bhogâ-anubandhāṃ
samudita-guṇa-jātāṃ samyag-ācāra-yuktām |
śrita-jana-bahu-mānyāṃ Śreyasīṃ Veṅkaṭâdrau
Śriyam upacinu nityaṃ Śrīnivāsa! tvam eva ||

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She pacifies the flaws of the degenerate Age of Kali,

She gives rise to unlimited enjoyment,

She arises in good folk filled with virtues,

She is ever associated with proper behavior,

She is greatly honored
    by those who surrender to Them:

Such is the superlative Śrī of Veṅkaṭâdri.

Guard Her and make Her flourish Yourself,

    O Lord Śrīnivāsa of Veṅkaṭam
        the abode of Śrī Herself!

This lovely verse is taken from the Rahasya Navanītam, one of Swāmī Deśikan’s shorter esoteric texts written in the maṇipravāḷa fusion of Sanskrit and Tamil characteristic of Śrīvaiṣṇava prose. It is one of five verses by Swāmī Deśikan that share the same theme and similar wording, dedicated to the four most important shrines for Śrīvaiṣṇavas (Śrīraṅgam, Tiruveṅkaṭam, Kāñcīpuram, and Mēlkōṭĕ). Although each occurs in a different text, they are assembled together into an integrated Divya-deśa-maṅgalâśāsana, a prayer for the wellbeing of the most important terrestrial manifestations of the Divine. Since reciting these 5 beautiful verses on a daily basis can help cultivate humility and devotion towards the sacred icons of the Divine, I will at some point in the future post a recitation and translation of this short text, with the permission of the Divine.

|| Śrī-Padmāvatī-nāyikā-sameta-Śrī-Śrīnivāsa-parabrahmaṇe namaḥ ||

samāsôktiḥ parisphūrtiḥ prastute aprastutasya cet |
«ayam Aindrī-mukhaṃ paśya! raktaś cumbati candramāḥ» || (KuĀK 61)

udghāṭya yoga-kalayā hṛdayâ-’bja-kośaṃ
dhanyaiś cirād api yathā-ruci gṛhyamāṇaḥ |
yaḥ prasphuraty avirataṃ paripūrṇa-rūpaḥ
śreyaḥ sa me diśatu śāśvatikaṃ Mukundaḥ || (AVRS 1)

atha yad ataḥ paro divo jyotir dīpyate viśvataḥ pṛṣṭheṣu sarvataḥ pṛṣṭheṣv anuttameṣû uttameṣu lokeṣv idaṃ vāva tad yad idam asminn antaḥ puruṣe jyotiḥ | (ChU 3.13.7)

elā-lavaṅga-ghanasāra-sugandhi-tīrthaṃ
divyaṃ viyat-sariti hema-ghaṭeṣu pūrṇam |
dhṛtvā adya Vaidika-śikhā-maṇayaḥ prahṛṣṭās
tiṣṭhanti Veṅkaṭa-pate! tava suprabhātam || (VSu 25)

एला-लवंग-घन-सार-सुगन्धि-तीर्थं
दिव्यं वियत्-सरिति हेम-घटेषु पूर्णम् ।
धृत्वा ऽऽद्य-वैदिक-शिखामणयः प्रहृष्टास्
तिष्ठन्ति वेङ्कट-पते! तव सुप्रभातम् ॥ 25 ॥

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Golden pots filled to the brim with
        sacred water from the Ākāśa Gaṅgā
                perfumed with 
                        cardamoms
                        cloves
                        camphor
             
are borne by 

the foremost vaidika priests
who stand
        utterly delighted
before You:

O Lord of Veṅkaṭam,
a blessed morning unto You!

The daily bath of Lord Veṅkaṭeśvara

The sacred water for Lord Śrīnivāsa’s tirumanjanam is brought every morning from the Ākāśa Gaṅgā waterfall, described here by the phrase viyat-sarit. We have already seen a reference to the waterfall in verse 5, describing the arrival of the Saptarṣi (the Seven Celestial Sages) to worship Lord Veṅkaṭeśa before dawn. In that verse, the expression was ambiguous and could refer to either the terrestrial Ākāśa Gaṅgā waterfall or to the Milky Way, flowing like a celestial river across the sky.

Here, though, the reference must be to the physical Ākāśa Gaṅgā, since it is already well past dawn and the Milky Way will no longer be visible in the sky. But even though the water is from a terrestrial source, it is still divyam tīrtham (sacred water), because it is specifically from the Ākāśa Gaṅgā. As Swāmī Deśikar says in the opening verse of the Dayā-śataka, the mountains of Tirupati are the crystallized rock candy of Lord Śrīnivāsa’s Compassion personified,1 and so the water that flows from a mountain spring here is a further subsequent liquefaction of Her grace. It is thus entirely well-suited for bathing Lord Śrīnivāsa.

Note further that the water used to bathe Lord Śrīnivāsa is perfumed with a variety of fragrant spices—cardamom, cloves, and camphor are specifically mentioned. There are in fact specific ingredients specified for perfuming the different waters used in the worship of the Lord, imparting to each of them a distinct flavor. Cardamom and camphor are common ingredients in all of these, thus giving rise to the special taste that is characteristic of the sacred water served as tīrtham in temples to Lord Śrīnivāsa.

Who brings this sacred water?

Also worth noting are the specific people who bring the sacred water for the Lord’s tirumañjanam. They are described by the lovely phrase vaidika-śikhāmaṇi (in the plural) which is worth pondering over: The word śikhāmaṇi, often translated as “crest-jewel” in English renditions of Sanskrit texts, plays a role analogous to the term “crown jewel” in idiomatic English. It refers to the very best of the best, the crème de la crème, of whatever we are speaking about. In this case, that would refer to vaidikas: highly orthoprax Brahmins who live their lives strictly according to Vedic injunction, dedicated entirely to spiritual pursuits. Thus, the vaidika-śikhāmaṇis referred to here are the very best of those who follow this very difficult path, for they have dedicated their lives utterly to the worship of Lord Śrīnivāsa. (And it’s worth bearing in mind that it wasn’t until the 20^th century that Tirupati was made easily accessible via motorable roads and so on; the temple was an isolated patch of civilization in a thickly forested wilderness for most of its existence.) But even more importantly, they take delight in this service: They are described as prahṛṣṭa, “utterly delighted”.

Specifically, in the context of this verse, this term refers to the descendants of the famous Śrīvaiṣṇava, Pĕriya Tirumalai Nambi, who was the first to bring water (upon Lord Śrīnivāsa’s own request) for the Lord’s tirumañjanam from Ākāśa Gaṅgā. For nearly a millennium now, his descendants have continued to devoutly serve Lord Veṅkaṭeśvara by bringing water every morning from Ākāśa Gaṅgā, in addition to leading several congregational Vedic recitations and performing many other acts of service. They thus continue to live up to the phrase vaidika-śikhāmaṇi.

Since the day I am writing this (Vaikāsi Svāti) also happens to be the tiru-nakṣatram of Pĕriya Tirumalai Nambi, I have added a short appendix to this post with some more details about him.

Echoes from the Tamil: The Nīr-āṭṭam

This verse reminds me of the supremely beautiful Nīr-āṭṭam song from Pĕriyāḻvār’s Pĕriyāḻvār Tirumoḻi (PĀTM II.4), in which he takes on Yaśodā’s role, calling the young Kṛṣṇa to come and take His daily bath. It is customary to recite either the Puruṣa-sūkta or the Nīr-āṭṭam when performing the tirumañjanam ritual bath for the deity, whether at home or in the temple.

In two successive verses in the song, Pĕriyāḻvār, speaking in the voice of Yaśodā, describes the various preparations (s)he has made for Kṛṣṇa’s bath:

kāyccina nīrŏḍu nĕlli kaḍārattil pūrittu vaittēn (PĀTM II.4.3c)

காய்ச்சின நீரொடு நெல்லி கடாரத்தில் பூரித்து வைத்தேன்

I have filled up the water-pot with boiled water and gooseberry (nĕlli / āmlā)

And similarly:

mañjaḷum sĕṅ-kaḻu-nīrin vāśigaiyum nāṟu sāndum
añjanamum kŏṇḍu vaittēn (PĀTM II.4.4cd)

மஞ்சளும் செங்கழுநீரின் வாசிகையும் நாறு சாந்தும் 
அஞ்சனமும் கொண்டு வைத்தேன் 

I have kept turmeric and a red-lily garland and fragrant sandalwood paste and collyrium (mai) for you.

Though the specific ingredients are different from the ones mentioned in the Suprabhātam, the spirit of serving the Divine with the very best that nature has to offer and of taking delight in such service is strongly present in both texts.

Appendix: Pĕriya Tirumalai Nambi

Pĕriya Tirumalai Nambi’s tiru-nakṣatra is today, Vaikāsi Svāti. Hence it is especially apposite to speak of him and his yeoman contribution to Lord Veṅkaṭeśvara and to the early Śrīvaiṣṇava community.2

Also known as Śrī-Śaila-Pūrṇa (a literal translation of “Tirumalai Nambi”), he was the maternal uncle of Bhagavad Rāmānujar and the father of, among others, Tiru^k-kurugai-pirān Piḷḷān (author of the Tiru-^vĀṟāyira^p-paḍi, the first commentary on the Tiru-vāy-mŏḻi of Nammāḻvār). A disciple of Swāmī Āḷavandār, Pĕriya Tirumalai Nambi moved from Śrīraṅgam to Tiruvēṅkaṭam when he heard the lament of his ācāryan that Lord Veṅkaṭeśvara was being neglected due to the difficulty of reaching Him and conducting all the daily rituals at such a remote spot. Pĕriya Tirumalai Nambi then performed daily service to Lord Veṅkaṭeśvara by carrying the sacred water from Ākāśa Gaṅgā for the Lord’s tirumañjanam (a task that, remember, would have to be performed in the pre-dawn darkness on steep mountain paths). It is said that the Lord Himself showed him the location of the Ākāśa Gaṅgā spring, and called him tāta (“father” in Sanskrit).

Pĕriya Tirumalai Nambi was renowned as an expert on the Rāmāyaṇa of Vālmīki. For a full year he taught Bhagavad Rāmānujar the esoteric secrets of the Rāmāyaṇa at the foothills of Tirupati, thus going up and down the mountain multiple times a day between his service to the Lord and his teaching obligation. Even today, Śrīvaiṣṇavas recite a taniyan in praise of this great soul before commencing the recitation or study of the Rāmāyaṇa:

Pitāmahasyâ api pitāmahāya
Prācetasâ-ādeśa-phala-pradāya |
Śrī-Bhāṣya-kārô-uttama-deśikāya
Śrī-Śailapūrṇāya namo namastāt ||

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To the one who is
        the grandfather of Brahmā who is
                Grandfather to the cosmos,
        the bestower of the fruits
                of Vālmīki, descendant of Pracetas,
        the best teacher
                of Bhagavad Rāmānujar
                        composer of the Śrī-Bhāṣya:

To the blessed Śrī-Śaila-pūrṇa 
a.k.a. Tirumalai Nambi,

        salutations,
        salutations galore!

The first of these salutations plays on the fact that Brahmā is frequently known as Pitāmaha, the Grandfather of the world. Brahmā’s father, in turn, is the Supreme Lord Himself. And since the Lord Himself called Pĕriya Tirumalai Nambi tāta (“father”), that makes him the grandfather of the Grandfather!

One last thing to note: Pĕriya Tirumalai Nambi composed the Tamil taniyan to Tiru^p-pāṇ Āḻvār, recited before any recitation of the Amalan-ādipirān. Since this short but incredibly beautiful set of 10 pāśurams is supposed to be recited every day by Śrīvaiṣṇavas, it effectively means that we have the privilege of thinking of Pĕriya Tirumalai Nambi’s service every single day.

The history of the Śrīvaiṣṇava tradition, and indeed its continued survival to this day, is entirely due to great souls like Pĕriya Tirumalai Nambi who expressed their devotion to Śrīman-Nārāyaṇa through a combination of devotional service (kaiṅkarya) to the temple deities, deep personal study (svâdhyāya) of the sacred texts of the tradition in both Sanskrit and in Tamil, and selfless teaching (pravacana) of the texts to succeeding generations.

|| Śrī-Padmāvatī-nāyikā-sameta-Śrī-Śrīnivāsa-parabrahmaṇe namaḥ ||

Kandarpa-darpa-hara(!)[-]sundara-divya-mūrte!
kāntā-kucâmburuha-kuṭmala-lola-dṛṣṭe! |
kalyāṇa-nirmala-guṇâ-ākara! divya-kīrte!
Śrī-Veṅkaṭâcala-pate! tava suprabhātam || (VSu 23)

mīnâ-ākṛte! kamaṭha! kola! Nṛsiṃha! varṇin!
svāmin!! paraśvatha-tapo-dhana! Rāma-candra!
Śeṣâ-aṃśa-Rāma! Yadu-nandana! Kalki-rūpa!
Śrī-Veṅkaṭâcala-pate! tava suprabhātam || (VSu 24)

कन्दर्प-दर्प-हर(!)(-)सुन्दर-दिव्य-मूर्ते !
कान्ता-कुचा-ऽऽम्बुरुह-कुट्मल-लोल-दृष्टे !
कल्याण-निर्मल-गुणाकर ! दिव्य-कीर्ते !
श्रीवेङ्कटाचल-पते! तव सुप्रभातम् ॥ 

मीना-ऽऽकृते ! कमठ ! कोल ! नृसिंह ! वर्णिन् !
स्वामिन् ! परश्वथ-तपो-धन ! राम-चन्द्र !
शेषा-ऽंश-राम ! यदु-नन्दन ! कल्कि-रूप !
श्रीवेङ्कटाचल-पते! तव सुप्रभातम् ॥ 

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[23]
Your Divine form is beyond beautiful,
overcoming the pride even of Kāmadeva;

Your gaze is forever fixed 
        upon the lotus-blossom bosom
                of Your beloved wife;

O ocean of flawless, purely auspicious virtues!

Your Divine glory is all-pervading:

O Lord of the sacred mountain
        wealth-weaving, sin-cleaving Veṅkaṭam,
a blessed morning unto You!


[24]
Fish-shaped Lord,
Cosmic Turtle,
Bhū-bearing Boar,
Man-lion,
Brahmin boy,

        My Lord!

Axe-wielding ascetic
The glorious Rāma
Balarāma, part-incarnation of Ādi-Śeṣa
Kṛṣṇa, delighter of the Yadu clan
Lord Kalkin:

O Lord of the sacred mountain
        wealth-weaving, sin-cleaving Veṅkaṭam,
a blessed morning unto You!

We can see even from the translations that Verse 23 and Verse 24 have their own internal coherence. While Verse 24 is obviously a summary of the Daśâvatāra (the Ten Key Descents of the Divine), Verse 23 is all about the beauty of the Divine. And unlike last time,

Verse 23: On Divine Beauty

The names in verse 23 are all related to the infinite beauty and attractiveness of Lord Śrīnivāsa, and to the intra-Divine relationship between the Lord and the Lady. These names, as we will see, are rather more complex than the names in verse 22.

• The first line can either be treated as a single name, or as two separate names:

  • Treated as two separate names, these are:

    • Kandarpa-darpa-hara “the one who takes away the pride of Kāmadeva”: The choice of the god of love as the comparand here is significant, as Kāma (at least before his body was incinerated by Śiva) was regarded as the exemplification of physical beauty. Thus, we can understand that the supernatural physical manifestation of the Lord far exceeds in beauty any natural embodied form. But the specific name chosen for Kāma here, Kandarpa, is also significant because it replicates the word darpa within it.1 Thus, for those who have an inflated sense of self, an encounter with the infinite superiority (paratva) of the Divine can be humbling.

    • sundara-divya-mūrti “the one whose divine embodied form is beautiful”: The word mūrti applies both to the temple icon of Lord Veṅkaṭeśvara, as well as to the physical embodiments of the Lord in His various avatāras. But even if this form looks like a normal physical embodiment, this name makes clear both that the Divine’s embodiments are full of beauty, and are also intrinsically divine, supernatural forms.

      • If we so choose, we can even split this up into two separate names as well, Sundara and Divya-mūrti. The first of these is in fact a name of the Lord from the Viṣṇu-Sahasranāma.2

  • Treated as a single name, this is the line-long Kandarpa-darpa-hara-sundara-divya-mūrti, which combines the two above meanings and thus creates a causal link between them: the Lord’s divine, embodied form is infinitely more beautiful than Kāma’s body, and hence overwhelms his pride.

• The second line of the verse is unambiguously a single name which grants us a glimpse into the deepest of cosmic secrets: the inextricably intertwined intra-Divine intimacy of the Supreme Lord and the Supreme Lady. I will therefore refrain from delving too deeply into this name, and will toss out just one idea for us to ponder over in private:
  I like to think of this name as depicting the converse of the image portrayed in Swāmī Deśikar’s opening verse of the Tattva-muktā-kalāpa (discussed in a footnote in this series a while back): while in that name it is the blue-lotus beauty of the Goddess’s eyes that reflects in and magnifies the blue-lotus beauty of the Lord’s body, here it is the red-lotus-bud beauty of the Goddess’s bosom that reflects in and magnifies the red-lotus-petal beauty of the Lord’s eyes. Thus, the Supreme Lord and the Supreme Lady are immersed in each other and reflected in each other ad infinitum.

• The third line of the verse can also potentially be understood as a single name, though we’re probably better off thinking of it as two separate names.

  • The first is kalyāṇa-nirmala-guṇâ-’’kara (“ocean of flawless, purely auspicious virtues”). This name recalls to mind the name Dayā-’’di-guṇâ-’mṛtâ-’bdhi from verse 21. What differentiates this name is its emphasis on the simultaneous auspiciousness and flawlessness of all of the Lord’s qualities. There are clear echoes here of a fundamental Śrīvaiṣṇava text, which we will see below.

  • The second is divya-kīrti (“one whose glory is divine”). To understand this name, we should think about what fame means, particularly in a pre-modern world without Google Adwords or a planet-scale marketing industry. Fame in such a world meant that people knew your name, your attributes, and your stories; fame meant that people remembered your achievements and your character even in your absence. Fame is thus, in effect, accurate knowledge of an object even in the absence of the object. But how does this apply in the case of the Lord, who is in fact omnipresent? We can think of it in two ways:

    • Firstly, awareness of the Divine is also all-pervading, to people everywhere and everywhen, in different forms that are conducive to their beliefs and their capacities.

    • Secondly, and more specifically to Lord Veṅkaṭeśvara, people sing His glories everywhere, so that knowledge of His name and His fame truly does pervade the earth—much like His temples and the recitation of His Suprabhātam in M.S. Subbulakshmi’s rendition.

  • And if we treat this as a single name, we can combine their meanings with a causal link: His glory is justifiably all-pervading because He (along with His Śrī) is utterly unique in being purely auspicious without the slightest whiff of a flaw.

Verse 24: On Divine Descents

Where Verse 23 displayed long and complex names for the Lord, verse 24 goes with short, crisp names instead—and it needs to, as it is trying to fit in all ten names of the Daśâvatāras in three lines!

Since the Ten Divine Descents of the Lord are well-known, and since most of these names are quite transparent, I will restrict myself to offering just a few points of observation on some specific names here:

The Boar

The name Kola (“boar”) is used for the third avatāra instead of the more common name, Varāha. There are two beautiful reasons for this.

Firstly, the name calls to mind one of the most exquisite pāśurams from the Tiru-vāy-mŏḻi of Nammāḻvār, almost at the very end of the whole work, in which he refers to the Divine Boar as kōla-varāha and thus also puns on the Tamil meaning of the world kōla as well:

Kōla-malarp-pāvaikk’ anb’ āgiya vĕn anbēyō!
nīla-varai yiraṇḍu piṟai kavvi nimirndad’ ŏppa
kōla-Varāham ŏndṟāy Nilam kōṭṭ’ iḍaik koṇḍa vĕn-dāy!
nīlak kaḍal kaḍaindāy! unnai pĕṯṯṟ’ inip pōkkuvanō? (TVM 10.10 (Muniyē).7)

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My beloved Lord 
        who is the beloved of
                the lovely lotus-Lady Lakṣmī!

My Father
        who lifted up the Earth upon His tusk
        in the form of the Magnificent Boar
                resembling a sapphire mountain 
                bearing two crescent moons!

You churned the ocean turned blue:

Having attained You, 
Will I now let You go?

Secondly, the non-use of the name Varāha specifically draws our attention to its importance in the context of Lord Śrīnivāsa: the shrine to Lord Bhū-Varāha Swāmī predates the shrine to Lord Veṅkaṭeśvara in this region, and it is therefore customary to pay respects to Lord Bhū-Varāha before worshipping Lord Veṅkaṭeśvara.

The Lord

The name Svāmin (“Lord!”) occurs right in the middle of the ten names, splitting them into two equal pentads. The effect is beautifully captured by the image above, with Veṅkaṭeśvara Swāmī in the middle and the two sets of avatāras on either side. The first set of five avatāras can be thought of in a more cosmic way, while the second set of five is more historical, more anchored in the specifically human, so to speak.

The Ploughbearer

The divine avatāra of Balarāma is referred to here specifically as being an aṃśa, or partial descent, of Ādi-Śeṣa, the Cosmic Serpent. This name is specifically relevant to Lord Śrīnivāsa because, of course, He is Śeṣâdri-śekhara-vibhu, the “all-pervading Almighty atop the mountain-form of the Cosmic Serpent”.

The connection between Verses 23 and 24

What might be the connection between these two adjacent verses? Sure, they both describe the Supreme Lord Śrīman-Nārāyaṇa, but is there anything deeper going on here? I’d like to propose that the connection between these two verses is seen in the grand, elaborate opening sentence of Swāmī Rāmānujar’s Gītā-Bhāṣya.3

While I will not attempt to translate the whole sentence here (it is worthy of a whole separate post of its own), I will highlight a few salient points from the sentence that illustrate the connection between these two verses:

• The sentence repeatedly emphasizes the fact that the Supreme Absolute is endowed with unending, uncountable positive qualities and is entirely free of anything that might even carry the slightest scent of a flaw or a deficiency.

• Primary among these qualities are Divine Compassion, accessibility, and love for us creatures.

• As a natural consequence, the Absolute Divine descends4 repeatedly into different realms and different contexts, all in forms that are comprehensible and accessible to the devotees in those situations, without thereby compromising in any way on the Divine essence.

• And even further, the Divine also makes accessible to us the means to approach the Divine, in the form of Bhakti-yoga supplemented by knowledge and action, as conveyed in the Śrīmad-Bhagavad-Gītā.5

Appendix: Swāmī Deśikan’s two stotras on the Daśâvatāra

The Daśâvatāra-Stotra

The most likely inspiration for Verse 24, in style and in theme, is the penultimate verse (or dhyāna-śloka) of Swāmī Nigamānta-Mahādeśikar’s Daśâvatāra-Stotra. In this fairly short poem, he describes the Lord’s avatāras as being acting roles (bhūmikā) donned by Lord Raṅganātha of Srirangam, in which He is always accompanied by His spouse, Raṅganāyakī Tāyār.

The penultimate verse reads:

«icchā-mīna!» «vihāra-kacchapa!» «mahā-
        potrin!» «yadṛcchā-hare!»
«rakṣā-vāmana!» «roṣa-Rāma!» «karuṇā-
        Kākutstha!» «helā-halin!» |
«krīḍā-vallava!» «kalka-vāhana-daśā-
        Kalkinn!» iti praty-ahaṃ
jalpantaḥ puruṣāḥ punanti bhuvanaṃ
        puṇyaûgha-paṇyâpaṇāḥ || (DAS 12)

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“A fish, of His own volition!”
“A tortoise, for His enjoyment!”
“A colossal boar!”
“A lion, utterly unpredictable!”
“A dwarf, for protection!”
“Rāma the furious!”
“Born into the Kākutstha dynasty, out of compassion!”
“A wielder of the plough, out of play!”
“A playful cowboy!”
“Rider of a white horse!”:

People who prattle these names daily
        (even without knowing their meanings)
are the ones who,
        with their huge hoards of merit,
purify the earth.

From the Dayā-Śataka

But Swāmī Deśikar has yet another mini-stotra dedicated to the Daśâvatāra, embedded this time into his Dayā-śataka that celebrates the Compassion personified of Lord Veṅkaṭeśvara. Verses 82 through 90 of the song, all set in the lilting Pṛthvī meter6, sing of the role of Dayā Devī in each of the avatāras of Lord Veṅkaṭeśvara.

There are two obvious ways in which this embedded Daśâvatāra-stotra is echoed in this particular verse. The first is the fact that Paraśu-Rāma is referred to by the same name in both places (in this verse and in DAS 83: paraśvatha-tapodhana “axe-wielding ascetic whose austerity is his wealth”. This is an uncommon and unusual phrasing, so that this connection between the two texts can be cleanly made.

The second connection comes from the verse that sings of the role of Dayā Devī in the Kṛṣṇa avatāra, and which further underscores the link between the two verses we are discussing today with Bhagavad Rāmānujar’s Gītā-Bhāṣya:

prabhūta-vibudha-dviṣad-
        -bharaṇa-khinna-Viśvaṃbharā-
-bharâ-apanayana-cchalāt
        tvam avatārya Lakṣmī-dharam |
nirākṛtavatī Daye!
        nigama-saudha-dīpa-śriyā
vipaścid-avigītayā
        jagati Gītayâ andhaṃ tamaḥ || (DŚ 89)

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On the pretext
        of easing the burden 
                of the All-bearing Earth-goddess
                bent over by the weight 
                        of innumerable god-hating demons,
You
sent
down
the Lord who bears Lakṣmī on His chest,

        o Lady Compassion!

and dispelled
        through the Bhagavad-Gītā
                celebrated by the wise as a lamp-light 
                        for the immortal mansion of the Vedas
the blinding dark engulfing our world!

This is a truly magnificent verse, not just for its sound effects,7 or for its remarkable choice of words,8 but for its glorious exposition of the power of Divine Compassion: Where Bhagavad Rāmānujar says that it was the Divine Lord who sent down the Gītā, here Swāmī Deśikar says that it is the Lord’s Compassion personified (the greatest of His qualities) who sent the Lord Himself down as Kṛṣṇa!

|| Śrī-Padmāvatī-nāyikā-sameta-Śrī-Śrīnivāsa-parabrahmaṇe namaḥ ||

«kaṃ darpayāmî» ’ti madāj jāta-mātro jagāda ca |
tena «Kandarpa»-nāmānaṃ taṃ cakāra Catur-mukhaḥ }| (KSS 3.64.4

[n#797] sa syāt Sundara uddiṣṭas teṣāṃ dṛṣṭi-manoharaḥ |

Śriyaḥ patiḥ

nikhila-heya-pratyanīka-kalyāṇaîka-tānaḥ

svêtara-samasta-vastu-vilakṣaṇâ-ananta-jñanâ-ānandaîka-sva-rūpaḥ

svābhāvikâ-anavadhikâ-atiśaya-jñāna-balaîśvarya-vīrya-śakti-tejaḥ-prabhṛty-asaṃkhyeya-kalyāṇa-guṇa-gaṇa-mahôdadhiḥ

svābhimatâ-anurūpaîka-rūpâ-acintya-divyâ-adbhuta-nitya-niravadya-niratiśayaûjjvalya-saundarya-saugandhya-saukumārya-lāvaṇya-yauvanâ-ādy-ananta-guṇa-nidhi-divya-rūpaḥ

svôcita-vividha-vicitrâ-anantâ-āścarya-nitya-niravadyâ-aparimita-divya-bhūṣaṇaḥ

svânurūpâ-asaṃkhyeyâ-acintya-śakti-nitya-niravadya-niratiśaya-kalyāṇa-divyâ-āyudhaḥ

svâbhimatâ-anurūpa-nitya-niravadya-svarūpa-rūpa-guṇa-vibhavaîśvarya-śīlâ-ādy-anavadhikâ-atiśayâ-asaṃkhyeya-kalyāṇa-guṇa-gaṇa-Śrī-vallabhaḥ

sva-saṅkalpâ-anuvidhāyi-svarūpa-sthiti-pravṛtti-bhedâ-aśeṣa-seṣataîka-rati-rūpa-nitya-niravadya-niratiśaya-jñāna-kriyaîśvaryâ-ādy-ananta-guṇa-gaṇâ-aparimita-sūribhir anavaratâ-abhiṣṭuta-caraṇa-yugalaḥ

vāṅ-manasâ-aparicchedya-svarūpa-svabhāvaḥ

svôcita-vividha-vicitrâ-ananta-bhogya-bhogôpakaraṇa-bhogasthāna-samṛddhâ-anantâ-āścaryâ-ananta-mahā-vibhavâ-ananta-parimāṇa-nitya-niravadyâ-akṣara-parama-vyoma-nilayaḥ

vividha-vicitrâ-ananta-bhogya-bhoktṛ-varga-paripūrṇa-nikhila-jagad-udaya-vibhava-laya-līlaḥ

paraṃ brahma 
Puruṣöttamo 
Nārāyaṇaḥ

Brahmā-ādi-sthāvarâ-antam akhilaṃ jagat sṛṣṭvā,

svena rūpeṇâ avasthito Brahmā-ādi-deva-manuṣyāṇāṃ dhyānâ-ārādhanā-ādy-agocaraḥ

apāra-kāruṇya-sauśīlya-vātsalyaûdārya-mahôdadhiḥ

svam eva rūpaṃ tat-tat-sajātīya-saṃsthānaṃ sva-svabhāvam ajahad eva kurvan

teṣu teṣu lokeṣv avatīryâ avatīrya,

tais tair ārādhitas

tat-tad-iṣṭânurūpaṃ dharmârtha-kāma-mokṣâkhyaṃ phalaṃ prayacchan

bhū-bhārâ-avatāraṇâ-apadeśenâ asmad-ādīnām api samāśrayaṇīyatvāyâ avatīryô ūrvyāṃ sakala-manuja-nayana-viṣayatāṃ gataḥ

parāvara-nikhila-jana-mano-nayana-hāri-divya-ceṣṭitāni kurvan

Pūtanā-Śakaṭa-YamalÂrjunâ-Ariṣṭa-Pralamba-Dhenuka-Kāliya-Keśi-Kuvalayâpīḍa-Cāṇūra-Muṣṭika-Tosala-Kaṃsâ-ādīn nihatyâ, 

anavadhika-dayā-sauhārdâ-anurāga-garbhâ-avalokanâ-ālāpâ-amṛtair viśvam āpyāyayan

niratiśaya-saundarya-sauśīlyâ-ādi-guṇa-gaṇâ-āviṣkāreṇâ Akrūra-Mālākārâ-ādīn parama-bhāgavatān kṛtvā,

Pāṇḍu-tanaya-yuddha-protsāhana-vyājena 
parama-puruṣārtha-lakṣaṇa-mokṣa-sādhanatayā
Vedântôditaṃ sva-viṣayaṃ jñāna-karmâ-anugṛhītaṃ Bhakti-yogam

avatārayām āsa |

Ja-Sau Ja-Sa-Ya-Lā vasu-/-graha-yatiś ca Pṛthvī Guruḥ

Śrī-Bhūmi-nāyaka! Dayā-ādi-guṇâ-amṛtâ-abdhe!
Devâ-adhideva! jagad-eka-śaraṇya-mūrte! |
Śrīmann! Ananta(!)[-]Garuḍâ-ādibhir arcitâ-aṅghre!
Śrī-Veṅkaṭâcala-pate! tava suprabhātam || (VSu 21)

Śrī-Padmanābha! Puruṣôttama! Vāsudeva!
Vaikuṇṭha! Mādhava! Janârdana! Cakra-pāṇe! |
Śrīvatsa-cihna! śaraṇâgata-pārijāta!
Śrī-Veṅkaṭâcala-pate! tava suprabhātam || (VSu 22)

श्री-भूमि-नायक ! दया-ऽऽदि-गुणा-ऽमृता-ऽब्धे !
देवा-ऽधिदेव ! जगद्-एक-शरण्य-मूर्ते !
श्रीमन्न् ! अनन्त(!)(-)गरुडा-ऽऽदिभिर् अर्चिता-ऽङ्घ्रे !
श्रीवेङ्कटाचल-पते! तव सुप्रभातम् ॥ 21 ॥

श्री-पद्मनाभ ! पुरुषोत्तम ! वासुदेव !
वैकुण्ठ ! माधव ! जनार्दन ! चक्रपाणे !
श्रीवत्स-चिह्न ! शरणा-ऽऽगत-पारिजात !
श्रीवेङ्कटाचल-पते! तव सुप्रभातम् ॥ 22 ॥

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[21]
Beloved Lord
    of Śrīdevī and Bhūdevī,
    of the entire cosmos!

O ocean of pure nectar
    which are Your infinite virtues
        foremost of which is Your Dayā!

Supreme Overlord of all the gods!

Sole shelter of refuge
    for the entire cosmos!

Blessed, fortunate, limitless Lord!

Your feet are worshipped
    by Ādiśeṣa, Garuḍa and the nitya-sūris:

O Lord of the sacred mountain
        wealth-weaving, sin-cleaving Veṅkaṭam,
a blessed morning unto You!


[22]
Lord with the sacred lotus in His navel!

Supreme Being!

O Kṛṣṇa, son of Vasudeva!

O Lord with the impregnable abode Vaikuṇṭham!

Mādhava, Spouse of the Divine Mother!

Janārdana, crusher of foes!

Cakrapāṇi, discus-wielder!

Bearer of the sacred Śrīvatsa mark!

Wish-granting tree
    for those who have surrendered to You!

O Lord of the sacred mountain
        wealth-weaving, sin-cleaving Veṅkaṭam,
a blessed morning unto You!

Juliet’s naïveté; or, the importance of names

As I have said and written on many an occasion, I deeply disagree with Juliet’s famous remark (Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene II):

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other word would smell as sweet.

The second assertion here has some semblance of truth, though even here the suggestive power of naming is quite strong. But the first (rhetorical) question here is bluntly incorrect, as was recognized quite catchily even in Roman times by the Latin adage nomen est omen: “The name is a sign.” There is even a hypothesis known as nominative determinism, with at least some evidence supporting it, that people with certain names are more likely to adopt certain careers.

When we move from contemporary folk sociology to Hindu theology, though, we move into a realm where names, especially the names of the Divine, are deeply revelatory of some element of the Divine Nature. The linguistic analysis of divine names can get extraordinarily subtle and technical in Sanskrit, getting into deep linguistic and philosophical discussions. As a result, and especially given Upaniṣadic pronouncements on the limitations of language1, it is essential to study how Divine names can reveal to us something about the Divine.

High-level themes

While we will soon take a look at the names of Lord Śrīnivāsa in these verses, let us start by looking at some common themes across the three verses. We can loosely categorize these names into the following (non-exclusive and non-exhaustive) buckets:

• Names expressing an intra-Divine relationship, between Lord Śrīnivāsa and Mahālakṣmī in Her various forms: Śrī-Bhūmi-nāyaka, Śrīman, and Mādhava (when understood as Mā-dhava)

• Names expressing the lordship of the Lord over other deities: Devâdhi-deva and (Ananta-)Garuḍâ-’’dibhir arcitâṅghri

• Names expressing something about the essential nature of the Divine: Śrīman, Ananta, Puruṣôttama, Vāsudeva

• Names addressing one or more of the divine qualities of Lord Śrīnivāsa: Dayā-’’di-guṇâ-’mṛtâ-’bdhi, Mādhava (when understood as a derivative of madhu “honey”), Vaikuṇṭha

• Names describing the physical forms or manifestations of the Lord: Śrī-Padma-nābha, Cakra-pāṇi, Śrīvatsa-cihna, and of course Śrī-Veṅkaṭâcala-pati

• Names addressing the relationship of the Lord to His devotees: jagad-eka-śaraṇya-mūrti, Janârdana, śaraṇâgata-pārijāta

Names by verse

We will now look at each of the names, verse-by-verse. In cases where the name is taken from, or extremely similar to, a name in the Viṣṇu Sahasranāma, I will offer (in the footnote), a quick summary of the meaning of that name as per the versification of the commentary of Swāmī Parāśara Bhaṭṭar.

Verse 21

Right away, we notice that Verse 21’s names cut across all of the categories above. (In effect, these categories are human attempts to understand the unlimited and illimitable Divine nature by circumscribing it into a few narrow pigeonholes!)

• By beginning with Śrī-Bhūmi-nāyaka, we see, yet again, the essential importance of Mahālakṣmī in the Śrīvaiṣṇava tradition: She comes First even when He is being talked about! Also notice here that the Divine Feminine is being expressed by two names: Śrī and Bhūmi, thus capturing Her dual celestial and terrestrial natures and hence implying His simultaneous lordship over both realms.

  

• The second name, Dayā-’’di-guṇâ-’mṛtâ-’bdhi, should remind us of a previous name from verse 13, jagad-eka-dayaîka-sindhu. But whereas in verse 13 the name focused on Lord Śrīnivāsa’s compassion to the exclusion of all else, here the name focuses on Lord Śrīnivāsa’s Compassion as the foremost of all His infinite qualities.

  • Also note the connection between the Divine Feminine in the previous verse and the prominence given to Dayā, divine compassion personified in feminine form, in this verse. This is exemplified in Swāmī Vedānta Deśika’s Dayā-śataka on Lord Śrīnivāsa.

  • Also note that this ocean is no mere watery ocean, but one of immortality-bestowing ambrosia: the Lord’s compassion, further differentiated and manifested as His qualities, is the guide to our eternal beatitude.

• The third name, devâdhideva, the supremacy and sovereignty of Lord Śrīnivāsa over all deities. This name is sometimes rendered as devâdideva, which conveys the same essential meaning without much of a difference.

• The fourth name, jagad-eka-śaraṇya-mūrti, now expresses Lord Śrīnivāsa’s relationship to us: He is our refuge, and we need worry about no other. (It also thus reinforces the meaning of the previous name as well, by underscoring the fundamental nature of His ultimate superiority over all other deities.)

• The fifth name, Śrīman, is one we have already seen before in verse 13. It expresses the relationship between the Divine Lord and the Divine Lady, but in a manner that highlights Their inseparability and intrinsic interweaving. It thus reveals the fundamental nature of the Divine, with its Masculine and Feminine aspects eternally married together.2

• The next name can be split into two names, giving us three options:

  • Taken as a whole, Ananta-Garuḍâ-’’dibhir arcitâ-’ṅghri expresses the relationship between the Lord and His eternal host of divine beings, the nitya-sūris, who include both Ananta or Śeṣa (the Cosmic Serpent) and Garuḍa (the divine eagle). The association of the snake and the eagle (mortal enemies in our world) also reinforces a point from verse 17 about the power of the Divine to unite even polar opposites.

  • Split apart, the first part is Ananta, referring this time to one of the essential qualities of the Divine Person: His infinitude.

  • The second part be Garuḍâ-’’dibhir arcitâ-’ṅghri, which expresses the same idea as above, though without the subtext of Divine synthesis of polarities.

Verse 22

This verse in particular is full of references to names of the Lord from the Viṣṇu Sahasranāma.

• The first, Śrī-Padma-nābha, refers to the role of the Lord (accompanied by His Śrī) in the creation and support of the universe.3 Although the name literally means “lotus-navel” and the Lord is frequently depicted thus literally, the etymologies of the word reveal the deeper meanings of this name.

• The second, Puruṣôttama, can be interpreted in two different ways.4

  • In reference to the Divine’s incarnations in human form, it refers to His perfection of human behavior and the exemplariness of conduct displayed by His avatāras. Thus, for instance, Śrī-Rāma is often called maryādā-puruṣôttama, the “best of men due to his observance of boundaries”.

  • In reference to the Divine person directly, it refers, not to the Divine as belonging to a class of persons like humans, but rather as being exalted above all such classes and classifications. Hence this name emphasizes the absolute transcendence and superiority of the Lord.

• The next name, Vāsudeva, is one of the most important in the Śrīvaiṣṇava and Pāñcarātra traditions; so much so, that after offering a fairly elaborate analysis of the name, Parāśara Bhaṭṭar wraps up by saying «guhyam» iti nâ ’tivyajyate (“since it is a sacred mystery, we do not over-elaborate”)!5

  • One way to understand the name is as a derivative of the name Vasudeva. In this case, Vāsudeva would refer to Kṛṣṇa the son of Vasudeva.

  • At the cosmic level, this name is interpreted as a compound of two elements, Vāsu and Deva. It thus refers to the Lord’s all-pervading and all-illuminating nature, as well as His sense of play in doing so.

• The next name, Vaikuṇṭha, is most often thought of as a name for the Supreme Heaven in which the Supreme Lord eternally dwells with the Divine Goddess. However, it is also a name for the Lord Himself, referring both to His own unassailability as well as His ability to destroy all obstacles (not just for Himself, but also for His devotees).6

• The next name, Mādhava, is one I have already written about in the context of the Bhagavad Gītā, with a reflection on why this is the first name by which the Blessed Lord Kṛṣṇa is referred to in the Gītā.7

• He is also known as Janārdana, which literally means “tormentor of people”. This seems very shocking at first, but it in fact applies specifically to the Lord’s role in protecting His devotees from evildoers.8

• Lord Śrīnivāsa is also known as Cakra-pāṇi, the wielder of the discus. Now the discus is not just a weapon but an eternal aspect of the Divine, known as Sudarśana. Not only does Sudarśana help Him live up to His name Janārdana, but he is also known as Heti-rāja, Lord of (the Supreme Lord’s) weapons. Indeed, Swāmī Vedānta Deśikar has a whole work called the Ṣoḍaśāyudha-Stotra that describes how each of his weapons is in fact representative of a specific aspect of the Divine.9

• He is also known as Śrīvatsa-cihna because He bears a unique characteristic (lakṣaṇa) on His chest known as the Śrīvatsa, which is an indication of the eternal presence of the Supreme Goddess Mahālakṣmī on His chest. While this specific name is not in the Viṣṇu Sahasranāma, a very similar one is.10
  Incidentally, Śrīvatsa-cihna is also the birth name of Swāmī Kūrattāḻvān, about whom we have spoken earlier and of whom Swāmī PB Aṇṇan Swāmī was undoubtedly fully aware.

• He is also known as śaraṇāgata-pārijāta, literally the wish-granting tree (pārijāta) for those who have come (āgata) to take refuge (śaraṇa) at His feet. This makes Lord Śrīnivāsa infinitely superior to the wish-granting tree (kalpa-taru) in heaven, for it grants merely material wishes to just the gods, whereas He is accessible to all on earth and grants both material and spiritual blessings to His devotees—even if they don’t ask for them!

|| Śrī-Padmāvatī-nāyikā-sameta-Śrī-Śrīnivāsa-parabrahmaṇe namaḥ ||

yato vāco nivartante | aprāpya manasā saha | 
ānandaṃ Brahmaṇo vidvān | na bibheti kutaścanêti ||

[n#22] viruddhâ-’’kāravattve ’pi Śrīmān sarva-manoharaḥ |

[n#180] divya-bhūṣaṇa-sampadbhir. yuktaḥ Śrīmān sadā smṛtaḥ |

[n#222] matsya-rūpâvatāre ’pi Śrīmān kamala-netrataḥ

[n#48] kālâ-’’tmakaṃ tu yat padmaṃ nābhau yasya sa ucyate |
Padmanābhaś câ ’ṣṭa-varṇo mahā-santāna-do Manuḥ ||

[n#198] pārthivaṃ bhūri-padmaṃ tu nābhāv aṣṭa-dalaṃ mahat |
yasya hemamayī divyā karṇikā Merur ucyate |
yasya nābhau tad-utpattiḥ Padmanābhaḥ sa ucyate |

[n#348] nābhiś ca padmavad yasya Padmanābhaḥ sa ucyate |

[n#28] baddhâ-’’di-puruṣebhyo yo hy utkṛṣṭaḥ Puruṣôttamaḥ |

[n#334] sarva-bhūtān vāsayati Vāsuḥ sa parikīrtitaḥ |
diva-dhātor api krīḍā-’’dy-arthakatvād viśeṣataḥ
«Vāsuś ca Devaś cê» ’ty eṣa Vāsudevaḥ prakīrtitaḥ ||
sarva-bhūteṣv api vasan, svasmin bhūtāni vāsayan 
yaḥ krīḍati mudā yad vā Vāsudevaḥ sa ucyate ||
sarvatrâ ’sau, samastaṃ ca vasaty atrê ’ti vai yataḥ 
tataḥ sa «Vāsudevê» ’ti vidvadbhiḥ paripaṭhyate ||

[n#701] Vasudevâ-’patya-bhāvād Vāsudevaḥ prakīrtitaḥ |

[n#406] saṃśleṣa-pratighātaś ca kuṭhi-dhātv-artha ucyate |
vigataḥ sa ca yeṣāṃ te vikuṇṭhāḥ syur udīritāḥ |
teṣām evaî ṣa iti hi Vaikuṇṭhaḥ parikīrtitaḥ ||

[n#73] Śriyaḥ Śraddhā-ādi-nāmnyāś ca patir Mādhava iṣyate |

[n#169] mā vidyā tu Hareḥ proktā, tasyāḥ svāmī dhavaḥ smṛtaḥ |
tasmān Mādhava-nāmā asau Brahma-vidyā-prado Manuḥ |
maunād dhyānac ca yogāc ca Mādhavaḥ parikīrtitaḥ ||

[n#739] lokānāṃ sva-janatvād dhi Loka-bandhur iti smṛtaḥ |
[n#740] loka-bandhutva-mūlaṃ hi loka-svāmitvam ity ataḥ
svābhāvikāc ca sambandhāl Loka-nātha itî ’’ritaḥ ||
[n#741] loka-nāthatva-sambandhaḥ Śrīmataś cê ’ti Mādhavaḥ 
madhor vaṃśôdbhavatvāc ca Mādhavaḥ parikīrtitaḥ ||

[n#128] bhakta-vidveṣiṇāṃ tūrṇaṃ mardanāt sa Janārdanaḥ |

[n#550] yaḥ śaktimad-divya-hetiḥ sa syāt Cakra-Gadā-dharaḥ |

[n#908] nitya-divyâyudhaś Cakrī

[n#995] sarva-rakṣo-asura-cchetrā nityaṃ cakreṇa yogataḥ 
Cakrî ’ti kathyate samyag ṛtv-arṇaḥ śatru-nāśakaḥ ||

[n#998] yathôditaṃ rathâṅgaṃ ca pāṇau yasya sadôdyatam 
Rathâṅga-pāṇir ākhyāto navârṇo bhaya-nāśakaḥ ||

[n#608] Lakṣmī-vāllabhya-saubhāgya-cihnaṃ Śrīvatsa-nāmakam
Śrīvatsa-vakṣā asyâ ’sti vakṣasî ’ti sa tu smṛtaḥ ||

tvat-pāda-dhūli-bharita-sphuritô-utttamâ-aṅgāḥ
svargâ-apavarga-nirapekṣa-nijâ-antaraṅgāḥ |
kālpâ-āgamâ-ākalanayā ākulatāṃ labhante
Śrī-Veṅkaṭâcala-pate! tava suprabhātam || (VSu 19)

tvad-gopurâ-agra-śikharāṇi nirīkṣamāṇāḥ
svargâ-apavarga-padavīṃ paramāṃ śrayantaḥ |
martyā manuṣya-bhuvane matim āśrayante
Śrī-Veṅkaṭâcala-pate! tava suprabhātam || (VSu 20)

त्वत्-पाद-धूलि-भरित-स्फुरितो-ऽत्तमांगाः
स्वर्गा-ऽपवर्ग-निरपेक्ष-निजा-ऽन्तरंगाः ।
कल्पा-ऽऽगमा-ऽऽकलनया ऽऽकुलतां लभन्ते 
श्रीवेङ्कटाचल-पते! तव सुप्रभातम् ॥ 19 ॥

त्वद्-गोपुरा-ऽग्र-शिखराणि निरीक्षमाणाः
स्वर्गा-ऽपवर्ग-पदवीं परमां श्रयन्तः ।
मर्त्या मनुष्य-भुवने मतिम् आश्रयन्ते
श्रीवेङ्कटाचल-पते! तव सुप्रभातम् ॥ 20 ॥

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[19]
Your foremost servants,
        whose heads shine with the
                dust from Your feet

care not a whit
        either for heavenly delights
        or for total liberation.

Instead, they fear the ending of this era
for they wish to continue serving You here:

O Lord of the sacred mountain
        wealth-weaving, sin-cleaving Venkatam,
a blessed morning unto You!


[20]
Seeing the soaring spires 
        of Your gateway towers,

the beings who have already attained
        high heaven
        and full liberation

seek to be born on earth as mortals
just so they can serve You here:

O Lord of the sacred mountain
        wealth-weaving, sin-cleaving Venkatam,
a blessed morning unto You!

What does it mean to want to serve the Divine?

We have already seen hosts of divine figures congregating at the doorstep of Lord Śrīnivāsa, seeking His blessings first thing in the morning. Verse 19 turns to the closest personal servants of the Lord. It does not name them, but it says that the dust of His feet shines on their heads: a poetic way to say that they have placed His feet on their heads, they have surrendered themselves wholly to Him. We can understand these to be the great Āḻvārs and Ācāryas who performed their act of taking refuge (śaraṇāgati) at the feet of the Lord and Lady of Tirupati.

What is remarkable about them is that they desire neither heaven (svarga) with all its delights, not even liberation (apavarga) from the unending cycle of saṃsāra! What is shocking about this declaration is that, hitertho, these have been the two highest end-states of human activity (puruṣârtha).

The ends of human existence

A quick recap on what the puruṣârthas traditionally are: They represent the 3 (or 4) primary motivations for human (non-)action.

• The first, kāma, covers everything we might do for sense gratification. This is predominantly the mode through which animals might interact with the world.

• The second, artha, covers everything we do to acquire resources. This might involve forgoing immediate sense gratification for greater consumption in the future. The kāma–artha tradeoff is thus the classical Indian framing for what we might today call the problem of intertemporal choice (though without the mathematics).

• The third, dharma, traditionally encompasses both ritual (yāga, homa) and ethical actions of giving away (dāna), in order to obtain some desired end. It is the consumption of artha to serve a desire that is not an immediate sensory kāma, but something that can stretch well into the future or even into the afterlife. The highest of these end-states is svarga, heaven, in which one can enjoy the company of the gods so long as one’s merit lasts, then to be reborn on earth.

• The fourth, mokṣa, is different from the other three entirely. While the first three all involve performing actions (pravṛtti) to accomplish goals, mokṣa is about conscious withdrawal (nivṛtti) to break out of the cycle of saṃsāra entirely. The end-state this results in is called by various names like mukti, kaivalya, and apavarga, depending on one’s specific understanding of the nature of this state. Mokṣa is not a specific end to be desired for, for then this would be no different from dharma or even kāma; it is something that emerges first as a realization and then from the restraining of other desires.

But what these true devotees seek is none of the above: As with mokṣa, they do not actively desire anything for themselves, for their own sakes. As with the other three, though, they wish to continue performing actions in the world. How is this circle to be squared? By serving Lord Śrīnivāsa for His own sake in His temple form in Tirupati in our world, for as long as our world continues to exist, until the next pralaya dissolution of the cosmos.

Aspiring to a human birth

The exaltedness of these devotees is then further underscored in Verse 20: You might think that this desire to stay on earth is limited to humans who haven’t already tasted the delights of heaven or of the state of ultimate liberation. Surely nobody in heaven needs to stand for hours in sweltering heat amidst jostling crowds to catch a glimpse of the Divine?

But according to Verse 20, even those human beings who have already reached heaven or liberation, who are no longer trapped in mortal bodies, actively seek to be reborn as mortals so they can serve Lord Veṅkaṭeśvara on earth! And all it takes is a glimpse of the tall gopuram gateway towers of Tirupati to kindle this desire in those who have supposedly conquered desire.

The grammar of the verse also points to the rapidity of this transformation. The verbal form nirīkṣamāṇāḥ is a present participle (or ^śat^r-antra in Pāṇinian terminology), and thus expresses the simultaneity of seeing the gopurams of Tirupati and of desiring to be reborn as humans to serve the Lord. But of course, this is no ordinary act of seeing the towers; it is a holistic, all-encompassing view of the gopurams as cosmic entities and as spiritual doorways, inviting pilgrims to enter the temple and be transformed internally and externally.

May we all be blessed with such a beatific vision!

An inspiration from Tamil poetry

These two verses from the Śrī-Veṅkaṭeśa-Suprabhātam remind me of one of my favorite set of Tamil pāsurams: the fourth decad of Kulaśekhara Āḻvār’s Pĕrumāḷ Tirumŏḻi, beginning with the words Ūn-ēṟu śĕlvattu. This is a truly remarkable set of 11 pāsurams in which Kulaśekhara Āḻvār systematically describes his desire for reincarnation, not liberation, just so long as he can be associated with Lord Śrīnivāsa or with the sacred site of Tiruvēṅkaṭam in some form or the other.

In the first 8 pāsurams, he expresses to be reborn respectively as:

1. A heron living on the banks of the Swāmī Puṣkariṇī tank (Kōn-ēri vāḻum kuruk^u āy)

2. A fish in the mountain streams of Tiruvēṅkaṭam (Tiru-vēṅkaṭa^c cunaiyil / mīn āy)

3. A companion to the golden cupbearers of the Lord of Tiruvēṅkaṭam (Vēṅkaṭa^k kōn tān umiḻum pŏn vaṭṭil piḍitt’ uḍanē)

4. A champaca tree on the mountain (śĕṇbagam āy niṟkum Tiru-^vuḍaiyēn āvēnē)

5. A thicket of grass on the mountain (^stamb^hakam āy)

6. A golden mountain much like Tiruvēṅkaṭam itself (pŏṟkuḍav^u ām … āvēnē)

7. A jungle stream gurgling and splashing upon the mountain (kān ār^u āy^p pāyum karutt^u uḍaiyēn āvēnē)

8. A winding trail upon the mountain leading up to the Lord (nĕṟi ^yāy^k kiḍakkum nilai-^yuḍaiyēn āvēnē)

In the famous ninth pāsuram, he then calls out to Lord Śrīnivāsa, asking for something very specific:

cĕḍi yāya val-vinaigaḷ tīrkkum Tiru-mālē!
Nĕḍiyānē! Vēṅkaṭavā! nin kōyil in vāsal
aḍiyārum vānavarum arambaiyarum kiḍand’ iyaṅgum
paḍi yāyk kiḍand’ un pavaḷa-vāy kāṇbēnē (KPTM IV.9)

Azhwar prays to Lord Veṅkaṭeśvara who is eternally and inseparably united with His Padmāvatī:

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O Lord eternally united with His Śrī
        who terminates our endless evil deeds
                proliferating like wild grass!

O Lofty Lord!

O Lord of Tiru-vēṅkaṭam!

At that sweet, sacred door to Your temple, 
        where devotees and the gods and the apsarases 
                all come, 
                prostrate themselves, 
                and then get up and go, 

let me remain lying at—as!—Your doorstep 
        for eternity, 

so that I may look upon 
Your coral-red lips 
        forever.

To this day, the last threshold that pilgrims are allowed to approach (though not cross) in Tirupati, just outside the sanctum sanctorum, is known as the Kulasekhara Paḍi, which can mean both “Kulaśekhara’s step” as well as “the step that is Kulaśekhara”.

Finally, in the 10th pāsuram, Kulaśekhara Āḻvār asks—lest his last ask be seen as too egotistical—to be reborn as anything whatsoever on the golden mountain of his beloved Lord of Tiru-vēṅkaṭam (Tiru-vēṅkaṭam ĕnnum Ĕm-pĕrumān pŏn-malai mēl ēdēnum āvēnē).

|| Śrī-Padmāvatī-nāyikā-sameta-Śrī-Śrīnivāsa-parabrahmaṇe namaḥ ||

Sūryê-Indu-Bhauma-Budha-Vākpati-Kāvya-Sauri-
Svarbhānu-Ketu-diviṣat-pariṣat-pradhānāḥ |
tvad-dāsa-dāsa-caramâ-avadhi-dāsa-dāsāḥ
Śrī-Veṅkaṭâcala-pate! tava suprabhātam || (VSu 18)

सूर्ये-ऽन्दु-भौम-बुध-वाक्पति-काव्य-सौरि-
स्वर्भानु-केतु-दिविषत्-परिषत्-प्रधानाः ।
त्वद्-दास-दास-चरमा-ऽवधि-दास-दासाः
श्रीवेङ्कटाचल-पते! तव सुप्रभातम् ॥

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The Nine Planets
        Sūrya (sun)
        Candra (moon)
        Maṅgala, son of the earth (Mars)
        Budha (Mercury)
        Bṛhaspati, lord of speech (Jupiter)
        Śukra, descendant of Kavi (Venus)
        Śani, sun's son (Saturn)
        Rāhu (north lunar node)
        Ketu (south lunar node)

who are the foremost
        in the assembly of the gods

become
        the servants
                of the servants
                        of the lowest level
                                of the servants
                                        of the servants
                                                of You:

O Lord of the sacred mountain
        wealth-weaving, sin-cleaving Venkatam,
a blessed morning unto You!

This is a very powerful verse because it demonstrates the effect of devotion to Lord Śrīnivāsa. It can also be understood in multiple ways—but then that is true for so many verses here!

A hierarchy

The Nava-grahas are the Nine “Planets” of classical Indian jyotiṣa or astro(nomy|logy).1 Translating the word graha as “planet” is misleading, as only five of these entities are planets as we understand them today; one graha is a star, one is a moon, and two grahas (Rāhu and Ketu) are in fact not physical entities at all but abstract points representing the mathematical intersection of the moon’s orbit with the earth’s ecliptic. The literal translation of the word graha would be something more like “grabber” or “grasper”, reflecting the power that these entities are supposed to exert over other beings. Indeed, the verse describes the Nava-grahas as being dominant even in the assembly of the gods, because even the gods are susceptible to the power of the Nine.

Consequently, to this day the Nava-grahas are propitiated quite widely by Hindus, and figure in many Hindu temples (particularly non-Vaiṣṇavite temples). They are respected and feared, and people go to great lengths to appease the Nava-grahas at various points in their lives. This is a very old tradition, and stems from the general and extremely widespread belief (not limited to India alone) that the planets have a key role in determining the course of human lives.

Inverting the hierarchy

The verse suggests, however, that devotees of Lord Veṅkaṭeśa and Padmāvatī Tāyār have nothing to fear at all from the Nava-grahas. Far from being potentially malefic entities, they are in fact servants of these devotees, working to their benefit and helping them grow in their service to the Lord.

This verse thus points to an important shift away from fear-driven self-interested propitiation of deities to love-based, selfless service and devotion to the Supreme Lord and Lady of the Cosmos. This shift in mindset is arguably one of the great achievements of the Śrīvaiṣṇava tradition. And since the Nava-grahas are also ultimately servants of the Divine, they are guaranteed to work in Their devotees’ interests, and in this sense to serve and benefit all of them. Such is Lord Śrīnivāsa’s magnificence and such is the love of all the celestial beings for Him and His devotees!

Inverting the inversion (sort of …)

Now, while it would be wrong for devotees of Lord Veṅkaṭeśvara to fear the Nava-grahas, it’s possible to go too far in the opposite direction too, and adopt an attitude of irreverence or contempt towards these deities: after all, doesn’t the verse describe them as lowly servants of the Lord’s devotees? But this is also an incorrect position to take, for two reasons.

The first reason is that it is a rather egoistic position to assume that we qualify as being true devotees of the Divine! It is true that the Lord asks for very little indeed—a leaf, a flower, a fruit, or even water suffices as an offering,2 and failing that, even an act of imagination is enough. But it is also true that being egotistical about one’s service to the Lord makes it that much harder to continue to grow spiritually. Thus, even though we might have no reason to doubt that we are devoted to the Lord and thus beneficiaries of the Nava-grahas’ good graces, cultivating an attitude of irreverence to them or to other deities cannot be spiritually beneficial in the long run.

The second reason is that this verse actually also contains a hint as to the source of the Nava-grahas’ power: One of the greatest ways to serve the Lord is by serving the devotees (bhāgavatas) of the Lord, known as bhāgavata-kaiṅkarya. In fact, bhāgavata-kaiṅkarya is arguably even superior, or at least equivalent, to serving the Lord directly (Bhagavat-kaiṅkarya) for two reasons:

• The Lord does not need our offerings per se (even if they are a source of delight to the Divine). Serving human beings in their time of need, and selfless devotees of the Divine at that, thus fulfills an important purpose in parallel to serving the Divine.

• If we serve devotees selflessly during their time of need, we are in effect transforming ourselves into instruments of the Divine Will. This is a spiritually beneficial exercise as it reduces the hold of the selfish ego over our actions.3

By this token, then, the Nava-grahas are supreme devotees (parama-bhāgavatas) of Lord Śrīnivāsa! By serving not just His devotees, but their devotees and their devotees and so on in turn, the Nava-grahas are enabling a whole chain of actions of Bhagavat-kaiṅkarya and of Bhāgavata-kaiṅkarya. In fact, one could stretch this line of thinking to make the argument that it is this very service to the devotees of Lord Veṅkaṭeśvara that is the real source of the Navagrahas’ powers.

Thus, while orthodox Śrīvaiṣṇavas do not have an obligation to worship the Nava-grahas (since they worship the Supreme Deity directly), it is still important to be respectful to these beings who support the true devotees of the Lord.

A psychological perspective on the nava-grahas

In a space-faring era where human-made satellites have orbited multiple planets and human-made rovers have landed on multiple celestial bodies, people sometimes find it hard to digest talk about the Nava-grahas: it reeks to some people of astrology and pseudo-scientific babble from a pre-modern world. Even the interpretive shift to treating the Nava-grahas not as the celestial bodies themselves but as deities embodied in or as those celestial bodies can seem too fluffy for some people.

An alternative way to approach the Nava-grahas, which removes or at least ignores their celestial connection, is to treat them as personifications and symbolic encodings of very real and very human bundles of thoughts. emotions, traits, dispositions and tendencies. These bundles interact with one another, amplifying and dampening one another in complex ways. Different bundles can be adaptive for success in certain environments, but maladaptive in others. (Thus, for instance, Śani / Saturn is sometimes feared as being the governor of limitations, strictness and so on. While self-limitation can be “bad” in certain contexts, holding us back from success and slowing us down, it can also be valuable in the form of self-discipline, habit- and routine-formation, grit and perseverance through tough times, and so on.)

This verse also makes sense from this psychological perspective, especially in light of our personalized interpretation of adhikāra from verse 17:

Thus, devotional service becomes a way to integrate our psychological fragments into a whole, holier self.

Coda: A possible inspiration for this verse

Swāmī Deśikar has a beautiful verse, filled with paronomasia (śleṣa), in his Pādukā-Sahasram that similarly describes the relationship between (seven of) the Nava-grahas and the sandals (pādukās) of the Lord.

kanaka1-rucirā, kāvyâ2-ākhyātā, śanaiścaraṇô3-ucitā,
śrita-guru4-budhā5, bhāsvad6-rūpā, dvijâ-adhipa7-sevitā |
vihita-vibhavā nityaṃ Viṣṇoḥ pade Maṇi-pāduke!
tvam asi mahatī viśveṣāṃ naḥ śubhāgraha-maṇḍalī8 ||

At least 8 different words in this verse can be interpreted in multiple ways, and I have therefore indexed them with superscripts. In the translation below, I’ll reference the superscripts to indicate what meanings are being extracted from a particular word.

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Lustrous
        1(with a golden-red hue | like Mars),
Acclaimed
        2(in the great epics | by Śukra, descendant of Kavi),
Well-suited
        3(to the feet of the Lord for eternity | to slow-moving Śani),
Refuge for
        4(the Teachers | Bṛhaspati, teacher of the gods) and
        5(the Sages | Budha the clever),
In form
        6(radiant | like the brilliant Sun),
Served by
        7(the best of brahmins | the Moon, lord of the twice-born):

    O bejeweled Pādukā!

You 
        whose glory comes from Your eternal association with Viṣṇu’s feet

are
        for all of us, for the whole cosmos,

an eternally magnificent
        8(collection of purely auspicious blessings | 
           assembly of purely auspicious planets)!

|| Śrī-Padmāvatī-nāyikā-sameta-Śrī-Śrīnivāsa-parabrahmaṇe namaḥ ||

patraṃ, puṣpaṃ, phalaṃ, toyaṃ: yo me bhaktyā prayacchati |
tad Ahaṃ bhakty-upahṛtam aśnāmi prayatâtmanaḥ || (BhG IX.26)

dhāṭīṣu te Vihaga-rāja--Mṛgâdhirāja--
Nāgâdhirāja--Gaja-rāja--Hayâdhirājāḥ |
sva-svâ-adhikāra-mahimâ-ādikam arthayante
Śrī-Veṅkaṭâcala-pate! tava suprabhātam || (VSu 17)

धाटीषु ते विहगराज-मृगाऽधिराज-
नागाऽधिराज-गजराज-हयाऽधिराजाः ।
स्व-स्वा-ऽधिकार-महिमा-ऽऽदिकम् अर्थयन्ते 
श्रीवेङ्कटाचल-पते! तव सुप्रभातम् ॥ 

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During Your journeys of conquest,

the lord of birds &
the lord of beasts &
the lord of snakes &
the lord of elephants &
the lord of horses

all seek to advance their respective glory

in fulfilling their rights and duties to You:

O Lord of the sacred mountain
    wealth-weaving, sin-cleaving Venkatam,
a blessed morning unto You!

This verse serves as a simple illustration of the “layer-cake” model of exegesis that I introduced in my posting on verse I.14 of the Śrīmad-Bhagavad-Gītā (I need to resume that series of posts soon!). As a quick recap:

• Layer 1: The plain meaning of the text

• Layer 2: Additional meanings, whether due to paronomasia (śleṣa) or suggestion (dhvani) or the textual context (prakaraṇa)

• Layer 3: The interaction and harmonization (samanvaya) of the multiple meanings extracted from the text—or as I described it in the post on the Gītā, establishing robustness to interpretive perturbation

• Layer 4: The deepest layer of meaning, pointing to some kind of cosmic insight (gūḍhârtha)

Layer 1

The Layer 1 meaning of this verse is visible in the translation above: simple and straightforward, and might even make us wonder if there is anything else going here at all.

Layer 2

Complications arise when we realize the word dhāṭī has two different meanings:

1. It can mean “conquest” or “attack”. In this case, we would understand the lords of the various species of creatures to be actual deities themselves, like Garuḍa the king of birds, Airāvata the king of elephants, and so on.

2. It can also refer, by extension, to the public processions of the utsava-mūrti (portable iconic) form of Lord Śrīnivāsa, who is known as Lord Malayappa Swāmī.1 In this case, the lords of the creatures refer to the specific vāhanas or zoomorphic vehicles on which the utsava-mūrti is carried through the town. Different animal vāhanas are used to carry the Lord with His consorts Śrīdevī and Bhūdevī on different days during major festivals like the Brahmôtsava and Vasantôtsava.

Layer 3

Of course, we should not insist on separating these two meanings too much.

After all, triumphal processions of the Divine are indeed like military expeditions: the Divine Couple leave their sanctified temple homes and come out, accompanied by their hosts of terrestrial and celestial attendants, on our road and by our houses. The display of Their sacred sanctifying presence defeats any evil and any impurity that may cling to us and prevent us from enjoying Them fully.

At the same time, it is also true that the military expeditions of the Lord, defeating the enemies of His devotees, are also triumphal processions in a cosmic sense. After all, did the Lord really need to climb onto Garuḍa and fly in person to save the elephant Gajendra, when He could have simply obliterated the very existence of the offending crocodile with His slightest passing thought? These displays of His martial might are really meant to soothe us, to help us comprehend His infinite power in terms that we can understand.

Ultimately, therefore, there is only one real meaning to the word dhāṭī, thus reconciling potential conflicts between the two Layer-2 meanings.

Layer 4

If we then scale up this insight to the cosmic level, we can come to see the entire universe as a triumphal procession of the Lord: everything that was, is and will be is a līlā, an act of free play for the Divine.

Play is serious stuff

To be very clear, this does not mean that everything is trivial or random. A game of cricket has rules for the players to abide by; a theatrical production has specific roles and lines and expressions for the actors to perform; our universe too has laws that govern its evolution. Nobody would suggest that an India–Australia Cricket World Cup final is not a serious event, just because it’s a sports match. And even outside the sports arena, we too are governed by various kinds of rules, whether or not we abide by them or try to cheat the game. (Free will is still very much a part of this game!)

The key word for all of this is adhikāra, a profoundly rich word in Sanskrit discourse that combines the concepts of “right” and “responsibility”. Only the goalkeeper in soccer has the adhikāra to handle the ball with his hands; every citizen in a democracy has the adhikāra to vote for their choice of political representative, and so on. (Especially in the latter case, people sometimes divorce the right to cast a vote from the civic responsibility to vote sensibly. In the Sanskritic view, however, choosing not to vote at all—as opposed to voting “None Of The Above”—would mean a failure to fulfill one’s adhikāra.)

Divine and human adhikāra

In the case of the various servants of the Divine Couple, they actively seek these opportunities to fulfill their adhikāra to be of service to Them. It is like a friendly competition between them, to show the depth of their love and attachment to the Divine. I emphasize the “friendly”, because where else would an eagle and a snake—mortal enemies—or a lion and an elephant—also mortal enemies—still get along together? It is their personal devotion to the Divine, together with their recognition of others as also being parama-bhaktas (supreme devotees), that allows for this genuine camaraderie.

Finally, note that none of them is seeking to usurp the other's position. Rather, each seeks to fulfill his own adhikāra to the best and fullest extent possible, and in doing so glorifies the Divine Duo.

Free to serve

The lesson for us all is clear: we should seek to fulfill our adhikāra to the best and fullest, in a manner that glorifies the Divine in both Their worldly displays and in Their cosmic displays. In the modern world, this does not necessarily have to mean a full-blown defense of traditionalist modes of being. Rather:

The story of the squirrel who helped the vānaras build a bridge across the ocean to Laṅkā is most apt here: All we can do is carry a tiny pebble—but if we do that correctly, that is all that is needed. Ultimately, even the most colossal boulders carried by the greatest of the vānaras is no different in significance to the Divine than the squirrel’s tiny pebble—what matters is that both creatures were offering the absolute maximum that each could for the Divine.

|| Śrī-Padmāvatī-nāyikā-sameta-Śrī-Śrīnivāsa-parabrahmaṇe namaḥ ||

sevā-parāḥ Śiva-Surêśa-Kṛśānu-Dharma-
Rakṣô-Ambunātha-Pavamāna-Dhanâ-adhināthāḥ |
baddhâ-añjali-pravilasan-nija-śīrṣa-deśāḥ
Śrī-Veṅkaṭâcala-pate! tava suprabhātam || (VSu 16)

सेवा-पराः शिव-सुरेश-कृशानु-धर्म-
रक्षो-ऽम्बुनाथ-पवमान-धना-ऽऽधिनाथाः ।
बद्धा-ऽञ्जलि-प्रविलसन्-निज-शीर्ष-देशाः
श्रीवेङ्कटाचल-पते! तव सुप्रभातम् ॥ 

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Intent upon serving You are
the Lords of the Eight Directions:
    Śiva 
    Indra, chief of the gods
    Agni, celestial archer
    Yama, lord of Dharma
    Nirṛti, the demon
    Varuṇa, lord of the waters
    Vāyu, the purifier
    Kubera, lord of wealth

their heads adorned
    by their hands pressed together
        in the añjali-mudrā of worship:

O Lord of the sacred mountain
    wealth-weaving, sin-cleaving Veṅkaṭam,
a blessed morning unto You!

The Eight Guardians

In this verse, we have the aṣṭa-dikpālas, the Guardians of the Eight Directions, congregating at Tirupati to worship Lord Śrīnivāsa in the morning. While there are some slight variations in the list, let’s look at them again, in the order depicted here:1

• The north-east is governed by Īśāna, a form of Śiva associated with knowledge. (It is therefore also called the aiśānī direction.)

• The east is governed by Indra, the lord of heaven. (It is therefore also called the aindrī direction.)

• The south-east is governed by Agni, the lord of fire. (It is therefore also called the āgneyī direction.)

• The south is governed by Yama, the lord of the underworld and of dharma, order. (It is therefore also called the yāmyā direction.)

• The south-west is governed by Nirṛti, a daitya associated with chaos (literally, lack of ṛta or order). (It is therefore also called the nairṛtī direction.)

• The west is governed by Varuṇa, the lord of water. (It is therefore also called the vāruṇī direction.)

• The north-west is governed by Vāyu, lord of wind. (It is therefore also called the vāyavī direction.)

• The north is governed by Kubera, the lord of 9 different kinds of wealth.2 (It is therefore also called the kauberī direction.)

Compass directions

There are two important things to reflect upon here.

Directionality

The first is the order of the list. If you follow the sequence of directions, it proceeds neatly in clockwise order (seen from above): the exact sequence in which we traverse the directions when circumambulating the temple deity with our right sides facing the deity constantly (pradakṣiṇa). It is thus as if the whole universe is circumambulating Lord Śrīnivāsa in the morning.

But also note the starting point of the directions. While we would normally expect the sequence to begin with one of the cardinal points, most often East in the Indian context, here we begin with the north-east and conclude with the north. The answer to this lies, I think, in the specific domains governed by these dikpālas: Śiva as Īśāna, who protects the north-east, governs knowledge; Kubera, who protects the north, governs wealth. In effect, by beginning our journey with knowledge of the true potency of Lord Śrīnivāsa and Padmāvatī Tāyār, we are guaranteed to conclude it with true prosperity—both this-worldly and other-worldly.

“North of what, precisely?”

The second key point is a bit more subtle: The lords of the eight directions are all posted at eight different points on the compass. What, then, is the best way of thinking about the central point from which they emanate?

To toss in a fancy term here, the Lord is the axis mundi, the center around which the world orbits. This concept is particularly important here, because in Hindu cosmology, it is Mount Meru that is the central mountain or axis mundi. But in our context, it is Lord Śrīnivāsa, and by extension the hills of Tirupati, that plays this role. (The implicit importance of the hills of Tirupati in this verse thus connects it to verse 15, where the hills were explicitly celebrated.)

The importance of posture

The description of the dik-pālas is quite elaborate, with their heads are adorned by their hands pressed together in a namaste gesture (properly known as the añjali-mudrā). Why is so much detail given to this?

Because this is the exact pose that the Blessed Lord Kṛṣṇa insists that the milkmaids adopt when they beseech Him to get their clothes back! It is thus the ultimate gesture of egoless surrender to the Divine: with the knowledge that all of us are, effectively, naked inside and outside in the face of Divine omniscience and omnipotence; but also with full trust (śraddhā) and confidence (mahā-viśvāsa) that the Divine Couple will shelter us and take care of us.

Swāmī Deśikar has beautifully described this in his Gopāla-Vimśati’s penultimate dhyāna-śloka (verse designed for visualization and contemplation):

vāso hṛtvā Dinakara-sutā-sannidhau vallavīnāṃ
līlā-smero jayati lalitām āsthitaḥ kunda-śākhām |
sa-vrīḍābhis tad-anu vasane tābhir abhyarthyamāne
Kāmī kaś cit kara-kamalayor añjaliṃ yācamānaḥ || (GV 19)

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He steals the clothes of the milkmaids
        on the banks of the Yamunā
                (daughter of the Sun)        
and sits on the jasmine tree’s elegant branch,
smiling playfully

as He is beseeched by them
        bashfully seeking their clothes back
        their lotus-hands pressed
                in the añjali-mudrā:

That indescribable, playful, Lord is victorious!

|| Śrī-Padmāvatī-nāyikā-sameta-Śrī-Śrīnivāsa-parabrahmaṇe namaḥ ||

Indro (E), Vahniḥ (SE), Pitṛ-patir (S), Nairṛto (SW), Varuṇo (W), Marut (NW) |
Kubera (N), Īśaḥ (NE) patayaḥ pūrvâ-ādīnāṃ diśāṃ kramāt ||
Raviḥ (E), Śukro (SE), Mahī-sūnuḥ (S), Svarbhānur (SW), Bhānujo (W), Vidhuḥ (NW) |
Budho (N), Bṛhaspatiś (NE) cê iti: diśāṃ caîva tathā grahāḥ ||
Airāvataḥ (E), Puṇḍarīko (SE), Vāmanaḥ (S), Kumudo (SW), Añjanaḥ (W) |
Puṣpadantaḥ (NW), Sārvabhaumaḥ (N), Supratīkaś (NE) ca: dig-gajāḥ ||
kariṇyo: Abhramu (E)-Kapilā (SE)-Piṅgalā (S)-Anupamāḥ (SW) kramāt |
Tāmra-karṇī (W), Śubhra-dantī (NW) câ, Añjanā (N) câ, Añjanāvatī (NE) ||

mahā-padmaś ca padmaś ca saṅkho makara-kacchapau |
mukunda-kunda-nīlāś ca kharvaś ca: nidhayo nava || (AK I.1.166)

Śrī-Śeṣaśaila-Garuḍâcala-Veṅkaṭâdri-
Nārāyaṇâdri-Vṛṣabhâdri-Vṛṣâdri-mukhyām |
ākhyāṃ tvadīya-vasater aniśaṃ vadanti
Śrī-Veṅkaṭâcala-pate! tava suprabhātam || (VSu 15)

श्रीशेषशैल-गरुडाऽचल-वेंकटाऽद्रि-
नारायणाऽद्रि-वृषभाऽद्रि-वृषाऽद्रि-मुख्याम् ।
आख्यां त्वदीय-वसतेर् अनिशं वदन्ति
श्रीवेङ्कटाचल-पते! तव सुप्रभातम् ॥

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Śeṣa-mountain
Garuḍa-mountain
Veṅkaṭa-mountain
Nārāyaṇa-mountain
Vṛṣabha-mountain
Vṛṣa-mountain:

Such are the names 
    of Your dwelling-place
which people chant incessantly:

O Lord of the sacred mountain
    wealth-weaving, sin-cleaving Venkatam,
a blessed morning unto You!

This verse names six out of the seven hills of Tirupati, and points out that people are constantly chanting the names of these dwelling-places of Lord Śrīnivāsa and Padmāvatī Tāyār.

Now, it might seem a little strange to dwell so much, if you pardon the pun, upon the names of the hills on which the shrine of Tirupati is built. Why not just directly recite the name of the Lord Himself?

There is a general answer to this question that holds true for all dwelling-places of the Divine, and there is also a particular answer that is specific to Tirupati.

Where does the Lord dwell?

The general answer is that there is indeed something special about the dwelling-places of the Lord that warrant this kind of contemplation directed towards them. We can perhaps speak of an ex ante and ex post kind of holiness in these places.

• Temples that house the Divine Presence are of course sanctified through numerous consecration rituals, both initially when the Divine Presence is invited to dwell in the sanctum, and periodically, through brahmôtsava rituals and so on. This gives them a level of holiness that is not typically present in other places. (If you’ve ever stepped into an ancient temple’s sanctum sanctorum, you will know that this “vibe” is particularly pronounced there.)
  Furthermore, the continued Divine Presence (sānnidhyam) in these shrines continues to imbue their environment with a feeling of sanctity. This is the ex post view on why these locations are themselves worthy of reverence.

• But there is also an ex ante argument to be made, that asserts that these locations were special even before temples were erected there—because they were the sorts of places that would be made into temples. And even among temples, there are some that are regarded as particularly holy because the Divine Presence there was self-manifested (svayaṃbhū, or svayaṃ-vyakta), rather than having to be invited there by human ritual. The fact that the Divine chooses to manifest in some places rather than others clearly marks them off as special.

Celebrations of sacred places

Thus the very soil itself in places like Vṛndāvana is treated as holy, since the Blessed Lord Kṛṣṇa Himself walked those lands. Similarly, sacred hills like Hastigiri, atop which Lord Varadarāja of Kāñcīpuram dwells, are also celebrated: in fact, Swāmī Kūrattāḻvān opens his magnificent Varadarāja-Stava with 10 verses in the lilting Rathôddhatā meter praising the greatness of the hill.1

And as it so happens, this reverence for Divine dwelling-places is extended in the Śrīvaiṣṇava tradition to the birthplaces of the Saints and Sages of the tradition itself. Many benedictions recited either before or after the recitation of the Āḻvārs’ sacred compositions celebrate their birthplaces.2

The Divine Dwelling-place in Tirupati

But even by the standards of holy places sanctified by Divine self-manifestation, the hills of Tirupati are especially sacred. Such is the power and sanctity of Lord Śrīnivāsa that, to house His Divine Presence on earth, other aspects of the Divine themselves came down to manifest themselves as the hills of Tirupati.

One such aspect is Ādi-Śeṣa, the Cosmic Serpent representing Infinity, who is said to have manifested as one of the hills (Śeṣâdri or Śeṣâcala) of Tirupati. Swāmī Deśikar goes even further and says that the hills are themselves a manifestation, in solid form, of the infinite Compassion and Empathy (dayā or anukampā) of Lord Veṅkaṭeśvara. As he sings in the opening verse of his Dayā-Śatakam:

prapadye taṃ giriṃ prāyaḥ Śrīnivāsâ-anukampayā |
ikṣu-sāra-sravantyê iva yan-mūrtyā śarkarāyitam || (DŚ 1)

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I take refuge in those mountains of Tirupati
        whose form is crystallized
                like rock-candy from sugarcane juice
        from the Compassion of Lord Śrīnivāsa.

Such is Swāmī Deśikar’s devotion to the physical mountain itself, separate from the temple shrine and the temple icon of Lord Śrīnivāsa Himself, that he sings again in praise of the mountain itself, this time in Tamil, in his Adhikāra-saṅgraham:

Kaṇṇan-aḍi-yiṇai yĕmakku kāṭṭum vĕṟpu
kaḍu-vinaiyar iru-vinaiyum kaḍiyum vĕṟpu
tiṇṇam idu Vīḍ’ ĕnnat tigaḻum vĕṟpu
tĕḷinda pĕrum tīrthaṅgaḷ śĕṟinda vĕṟpu
puṇ(ṇi)yattin pugal id’ ĕnap pugaḻum vĕṟpu
pŏn(n)-ulagil bhogam ĕllām puṇarkkum vĕṟpu
viṇṇavarum maṇṇavarum virumbum vĕṟpu
Vēṅkaṭa-vĕṟp’ ĕna viḷaṅgum Vēda-vĕṟpē! (AdhS 43)

The verse is quite difficult to translate due to its many layers of meanings, but its surface meaning is roughly as follows:

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This is the Mountain
        where Lord Kṛṣṇa shows us 
                His Two Feet;

This is the Mountain
        which annihilates both kinds of deeds
                even those performed by the most dastardly;

This is the Mountain
        which is surely our Heavenly Home 
                manifest here;

This is the Mountain
        which is overflowing
                with pellucid sacred tanks;

This is the Mountain
        which is praised as being
                the repository of all virtues;
        
This is the Mountain
        which connects us with the eternal felicities
                found in the Golden Heavenly Realm;
        
This is the Mountain
        which is desired by the denizens
                of the terrestrial and the celestial spheres:
        
This is the Veṅkaṭa Mountain
        which is resplendent as the Veda in mountain form!

Two secret, staggering implications

Deeper reflection on the sacredness of the Lord’s dwelling-places brings us to the heart of two sacred mysteries.

The Divine within

First, it is not just the case that the Divine dwells in temples (as the temple icon, arcâvatāra). The Divine also dwells within each of us, as our innermost self, as our Innermost Controller (antaryāmin). And since there can be no diminution of the sacredness of the Divine itself, this must necessarily mean that, ex ante, each of us bears an intrinsic sanctity that comes from each of us being a temple to the Divine. We may not satisfy the ex post condition of sanctity due to our thoughts, words and deeds, but our innermost selves are always and already sanctified by the Divine Presence in them. It is for us to live our lives out in recognition of this Divine in-dwelling that helps infuse sanctity and holiness into everything we do. (Seen in this light, the Saints and Sages are those who lived their lives in the light of this truth, and who thus shone with the Divine Presence.)

The Divine without

Second, it is not just us but the entire cosmos that is filled with the Divine Presence. In the words of Prahlāda being persecuted by his demonic dad, as sung by Nammāḻvār (Tiru-vāy-mŏḻi II.8 (Aṇaivadu).9):
^yĕṅgum uḷan Kaṇṇan: “Kṛṣṇa of the beautiful eyes is omnipresent.”

The radical implication of this is that everything in the universe is a dwelling-place for the Divine!3 This in turn means everything is ex ante sanctified in its own way: everything radiates the aura of the Divine to those who have the eyes to see it. In this deepest of senses, it is no surprise that recalling the names of the dwelling-places of the Divine Couple leads us to Them.

|| Śrī-Padmāvatī-nāyikā-sameta-Śrī-Śrīnivāsa-parabrahmaṇe namaḥ ||

Yaṃ parôkṣam upadeśatas Trayī
«nêti, nêti» para-paryudāsataḥ |
vakti yas Tam aparôkṣam īkṣayaty
eṣa taṃ Kari-giriṃ samāśraye ||

Śrī-Svāmi-puṣkariṇikā-āplava-nirmalâṅgāḥ
śreyo-arthino Hara-Viriñci-Sanandanâ-ādyāḥ |
dvāre vasanti vara-vetra-hatô-uttamâṅgāḥ
Śrī-Veṅkaṭâcala-pate! tava suprabhātam || (VSu 14)

श्री-स्वामि-पुष्करिणिका-ऽऽप्लव-निर्मला-ऽङ्गाः
श्रेयो-ऽर्थिनो हर-विरिंचि-सनन्दना-ऽऽद्याः ।
द्वारे वसन्ति वर-वेत्र-हतोत्तमा-ऽङ्गाः
श्रीवेङ्कटाचल-पते! तव सुप्रभातम् ॥

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Their limbs purified by bathing
    in the sacred Svāmi Puṣkariṇī tank,

Śiva, Brahmā and the gods
and
Sanandana and the sages
    (all seekers of the Supreme Goal)

are standing at Your gates,
    their heads touched by
        the ruling rod of Your gatekeeper:

O Lord of the sacred mountain
    wealth-weaving, sin-cleaving Venkatam,
a blessed morning unto You!

This verse beautifully depicts the gatherings of the gods and sages at the doorstep of Lord Śrīnivāsa, eager to see the Divine Couple first thing in the morning. I will emphasize just two points from this verse.

Bathing in the Divine

We are told that the gods and sages have bathed in “the Śrī Svāmi Puṣkariṇī” and have thus purified themselves. Here, we can interpret śrī-svāmi-puṣkariṇikā in two different ways:

1. This is the name of the sacred temple tank at Tirumala, where to this day pilgrims bathe before visiting the shrine of Lord Veṅkaṭeśvara. The gods and sages have performed their morning ablutions in the blessed Svāmi Puṣkariṇī tank, and consequently their limbs have been fully purified of all dirt, whether material or spiritual.

2. More poetically, we can understand the phrase śrī-svāmi-puṣkariṇikā to mean “the tank which is in fact the Husband of Śrī”. That is, the gods and sages are purified because their consciousness is fully immersed in their devotion for the Lord accompanied by Padmāvatī Tāyār. And now, they seek to see with their own eyes (pratyakṣa) their object of devotion first thing in the morning.

Such a mental bath (mānasika-snāna) is regarded as even more purifying than a physical bath.1

The ruling rod

The unusual feature of this verse is the touching of the heads of the gods and the sages by a rod. Now the basic meaning of this action should be clear: all the most exalted beings of the universe themselves gladly accept the suzerainty and sovereignty of Lord Śrīnivāsa with the Lotus-lady Padmāvatī Tāyār as the Supreme Rulers of the Cosmos.

The question that then arises is: who is exercising this rod in this fashion? There are then two possibilities.

Possibility 1: God’s gatekeepers

The word vetra applies to the protective staff that would be carried by gatekeepers (dvāra-pālas) in classical India. There are indeed multiple lists of gatekeepers for the Divine Couple—sometimes two, sometimes eight, sometimes eighteen, depending on the number of gates one needs to pass through before reaching the Lord. Of these gatekeepers, the pair Jaya and Vijaya are perhaps the most (in)famous because they were cursed—as it turns out, by the sage Sanandana and his siblings—to be reborn as mortals who would need to be punished by the Lord.

On this reading, the gods and sages first pay their respects to Lord Veṅkaṭeśvara’s gatekeepers before proceeding into the sanctum.

At a more symbolic level, the physical journey of entering a temple and passing through its multiple layers of walls and gates is meant to encode the spiritual journey of progressing through layers of our personality and our ego before we get to finally encounter the Inner Divine. The gatekeepers of the Lord represent the examinations we face at each stage in the spiritual journey, and their approving knock on our heads represents the lesson that we are supposed to learn at that particular point in our journey and carry forward as we advance on our spiritual path.

Echoes from the Tamil

This interpretation brings to mind the extremely famous sixteenth verse of the Tiru^p-pāvai, in which the gatekeepers to the palace-temple of Lord Kṛṣṇa’s father Nandagopa are beseeched to let Āṇḍāḷ and Her companions in:

nāyakanāy niṉḏṟa Nandagōpan-uḍaiya
kōyil-kāppānē! kŏḍit tōṉḏṟum tōraṇa
vāyil kāppāne! maṇik-kadavam tāḷ tiravāy (TP 16ac)

Due to the innumerable layers of meaning encoded in this verse, and the different ways in which the scholars of the Śrīvaiṣṇava tradition have construed the parts of the verse, I can only attempt to provide a very shallow, surface-level meaning in a pedestrian English translation here:

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O guardian of the palace
        of lord Nandagopa
        standing so heroically!

O guardian of the ornamented gateway
        adorned with garlands!

Please open the bolt locking its bejeweled door.

Possibility 2: God’s general

The second possibility is that the vetra is being wielded by Śrī Viṣvaksena, the commander of the divine armies. One of his names is specifically Vetra-pāṇi, “the one who carried a rod in his hand”, and of course he also plays a protective role in determining who gets to enter the sanctum of the Lord.2

An analogy to a modern ritual

The gods receiving Lord Viṣvaksena’s rod on their heads is like our receiving the śathāri in Vaiṣṇava temples on our heads: These are the blessed sandals, or divya-pādukās, of the Lord that are placed on our heads, in a sign of respect and of blessing.

The connection between the two scenarios is bridged by Nammāḻvār: On the one hand, he is regarded as an avatāra of Viṣvaksena; on the other, he is also identified with the pādukās of the Lord in the Pādukā-Sahasram of Svāmī Deśikar and shares a name with them.3

|| Śrī-Padmāvatī-nāyikā-sameta-Śrī-Śrīnivāsa-parabrahmaṇe namaḥ ||

apavitraḥ pavitro vā, sarvâvasthāṃ gato api vā |
yaḥ smaret Puṇḍarīkâkṣaṃ, sa bāhyâ-abhyantaraḥ śuciḥ ||

vande Vaikuṇṭha-senānyaṃ devaṃ Sūtravatī-sakham |
yad-vetra-śikhara-spande viśvam etad vyavasthitam || (YS 3) 

vande Viṣṇu-padâ-āsaktaṃ tam ṛṣiṃ, tāṃ ca pādukām |
yathârthā «śaṭhajit»-saṃjñā mac-citta-vijayâ-ādyayoḥ || (PāS II.1)

Śrīmann! [1] Abhîṣṭa(!)(-)Varadâ! [2] ’khila(!)(-)loka-bandho! [3]
Śrī(ḥ!)(-)Śrīnivāsa! [4] Jagad-eka(!)(-)dayaîka-sindho! [5] |
Śrī-devatā-gṛha(!)(-)bhujântara(!)(-)divya-mūrte! [6]
Śrī-Veṅkaṭâcala-pate! [7] tava suprabhātam || (VSu 13)

श्रीमन्न्! अभीष्ट(!)(-)वरदा! ऽखिल(!)(-)लोक-बन्धो!
श्री(:!)(-)श्रीनिवास! जगद्-एक(!)(-)दयैक-सिन्धो!
श्री-देवता-गृह(!)(-)भुजान्तर(!)(-)दिव्य-मूर्ते!
श्रीवेङ्कटाचल-पते! तव सुप्रभातम् ॥

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[1] O Lord inseparable from Śrī!

[2] Bestower of the best
of
Our desire!

[3] Kinsman to the cosmos,
All of it, without remainder!

[4] Auspicious
Abode of Śrī!

[5] Ocean of solely Compassion
solely for the world!

[6] Divinely beautiful form
through
Your vast chest
which is
Home to the auspicious Śrīdevī!

[7] O Lord of the sacred mountain
    wealth-weaving, sin-cleaving Venkatam,
a blessed morning unto You!

As mentioned above, this verse is a string of sambodhanas (invocations) addressed to Lord Veṅkaṭeśvara, but one of the challenges here lies in determining precisely how many invocations there even are, and what they are! Thus does the beauty (and complexity) of Sanskrit come into play. To keep this post readable, I’ve moved all of the references to Pāṇinian grammar to the footnotes.

Let us now look through the invocations, one by one.

A unambiguous opening

The first name is unambiguous: Śrīman.1 It immediately relates Lord Veṅkaṭeśvara as the one who eternally has Śrī, and who is inseparable from Her. It is not an exaggeration to state that this word is the foundation of all Śrīvaiṣṇava theology, as it articulates the fundamental relationship between these two aspects of the Divine.

Without getting into those very deep waters, we can nevertheless notice that the first invocation to Padmāvatī Tāyār in the Suprabhātam, all the way back in verse 3, is Mātar (“Mother!”). Thus, we devotees are directly related to Her as our Mother. In this verse, we devotees relate to Lord Śrīnivāsa through Tāyār, with whom He is inseparably, eternally intertwined. (This is one of the key elements of Śrīvaiṣṇava soteriology, according to which the Goddess plays the role of a loving mother mediating between us (their naughty children) and their father, who is also loving but who also wants his children to be disciplined.)

After this name come the ambiguities of interpretation!

Granter of boons

When we approach the Lord through His ever-loving Spouse the Cosmic Mother, what does He do for us? He grants us what we want! This is expressed in the next cluster of names, abhîṣṭa-varada, which can be understood in three different ways:

1. Taken as a whole, abhîṣṭa-varada means “granter of our most desired boons”.

2. But we can also read this as two separate names:

   1. abhîṣṭa on its own means “the most desired one”: Lord Veṅkaṭeśvara is what we [should] desire the most of all things.

   2. varada on its own itself means “giver of the choicest boons”.

      It is also a reference to Lord Varadarāja of Kāñcīpuram, another one of the most famous of all the shrines to Śrīman-Nārāyaṇa, and a particular favorite of Swāmī Vedânta Deśika. Incidentally, Śrī PB Aṇṇan Swāmī’s birth-name, chosen due to his birth-place, was Hastigiri-nāthan, which is another name for Lord Varadarāja of Kāñcīpuram.

      Additionally, Varada is also one of the names for Lord Mahāviṣṇu in the Viṣṇu Sahasranāma.2

Thus, all taken together, this cluster supplies us with a few clear lessons:

• Lord Veṅkaṭeśvara, approached through Padmāvatī Tāyār, will grant us everything we desire.

• What we should desire above all else is Lord Veṅkaṭeśvara with Padmāvatī Tāyār: proximity to Them, service to Them, devotion to Them.

• The Divine Couple will guide us to Them. (This is the notion of upāya and upeya that we saw at the very end of verse 12 as well.)

A hint of self-surrender

The first two names taken together, śrīmann abhîṣṭa-varada, is a clear reference to the famous fourth verse of the famous Nyāsa-daśaka (“Decad on Setting Down Our Burdens”) of Swāmī Vedânta Deśika, which also begins with the same words:

Śrīmann! Abhîṣṭa(!)(-)Varada! tvām asmi śaraṇaṃ gataḥ |
etad-dehâvasāne māṃ tvat-pādaṃ prāpaya svayam || (NyāD 4)

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O Lord inseparable from Śrī!

Bestower of the best
of
Our desire!

I have taken refuge in You alone.

When this body is finally discarded,
guide me
      Yourself
to Your own lotus-feet.

Friend to the Universe

But why should the Lord grant us anything at all? He has no obligations to do so, after all. The next name, and its three interpretations, tells us why:

1. Taken as a whole, akhila-loka-bandhu means “Kinsman/friend to the entire cosmos”. This is parallel to the idea of Padmāvatī Tāyār as Mother of the whole universe and is a statement of great comfort to us: No matter who we are, where we are, we can always turn to Lord Veṅkaṭeśvara and Padmāvatī Tāyār and be assured of Their fullest love.

2. But we can also read this as two separate names:

   1. akhila on its own means “complete, whole, without remainder”, which is a perfect description of Lord Śrīnivāsa.

   2. loka-bandhu on its own also means “Kinsman/friend to the cosmos” and thus captures the same meaning as the fuller name.
      Additionally, loka-bandhu is also one of the names for Lord Mahāviṣṇu in the Viṣṇu Sahasranāma.3

As we also saw in verse 12 with the double interpretation of Padmêśa-mitra, we can understand loka-bandhu in two different ways (in technical language, as tatpuruṣa or as bahuvrīhi), to mean both that the world is the Lord’s friend and that the Lord is the world’s friend.

The internal relation of the Divine Couple

Having seen the relation of the Divine to the non-divine, the next cluster of names turns to the internal relationship within the Divine Couple:

1. As a single unit, Śrī-Śrīnivāsa is straightforwardly “auspicious/blessed Śrīnivāsa”. As the ultimate abode of infinitely many positive qualities, He is the most deserving of this appellation.

2. But we can also read this as two separate names, on the basis of some slightly tricky but perfectly legitimate Sanskrit grammatical rules:4

   1. The second of these two names would be Śrīnivāsa, the famous name for the Lord of Tirupati. The name, as is well known, means “Śrī’s Abode”, for She dwells eternally on His chest.

   2. The first of these names is Śrī itself: yes, we are calling Him by Her proper name! This is a display of deep love and affection for the Divine Duo and a recognition of their inseparability—just as we saw in verse 12 as well. Indeed, Tirumaṅgai Āḻvār himself does this in a famous pāsuram (Pĕriya Tirumŏḻi VII.7.1a) that begins with the phrase Tiruvukkum Tiru ^vāgiya sĕlvā (திருவுக்கும் திருவாகிய செல்வா): “O my Treasure who has become Tiru even to Tiru Herself!”

Thus, with this one cluster of names, we see that:

• He is She.

• He is also Her abode.

• He is auspicious because of these two above points.

No wonder She declares in Her own words, as She dwells on His chest, in Nammāḻvār’s beautiful words (Tiru-vāy-mŏḻi VI.10 (Ulagam uṇḍa).10a): agalagillēn iṟaiyum (அகலகில்லேன் இறையும்), “I am not going to separate from Him, not even for an instant.”

A singular ocean of compassion

The next cluster can also potentially be split to give us three names, but here I think it is better to keep it as a single name: jagad-eka-dayā-eka-sindhu, the universe’s unique, singular, ocean of made up solely of pure compassion. Note the repetition of the word eka “one”:

• For the entire world, He is the sole refuge.

• His constitution is pure compassion, unadulterated by anything else.

This statement echoes the famous verse 21 of Swāmī Āḷavandār’s Stotra-ratnam, where he says:

namo namo ’nanta-dayaîka-sindhave (ĀSR 21d)

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Salutations, salutations 
        to that endless ocean of pure compassion!

The image of Lord Śrīnivāsa as a limitless ocean of pure compassion appears throughout Swāmī Nigamânta-Mahadeśikar’s Dayā-śatakam as well.5

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The Lord as the Lady’s Abode

It is the eternal presence of Padmāvatī Tāyār on Lord Śrīnivāsa’s chest that makes Him, well, śrī-nivāsa, the abode of Śrī who is compassion personified. We see this in the next cluster of names that spans an entire quarter of the verse. In this case, we can extract 5 names from the cluster, though many of them are very close in meaning:

1. Taken as a whole, Śrī-devatā-gṛha-bhujântara-divya-mūrti means “one whose form is divine due to His broad chest which is the abode of Śrīdevī”.

2. One way to split this into two names is as follows:

   1. Śrī-devatā-gṛha-bhujântara means “one whose chest which is the abode of Śrīdevī”

   2. divya-mūrti means “one whose form is divine”

3. Another way to split this into two names is as follows:

   1. Śrī-devatā-gṛha means “one who is the abode of Śrīdevī”

   2. bhujântara-divya-mūrti can mean “one whose form is divine due to His broad chest”

The reference to the Lord’s broad chest between His powerful arms suggests that (A) the Goddess’s dwelling-place is infinite in expanse, and (B) His strength and power, as would be embodied in a broad, well-muscled chest, is infinite in extent.

The new refrain

We finally get to the refrain, which contains one last sambodhana for the Lord: Śrī-Veṅkaṭâcala-pati “the Lord of the blessed Veṅkaṭam mountain”. The word veṅkaṭa is seen as having two different meanings, one being to destroy sin and the other being to bestow wealth, so I have put both of those in rhyming form into the refrain’s translation.

It is to this Infinitely Powerful, Infinitely Compassionate being that we send our blessed morning wishes, that He and His Inseparable Spouse may look favorably upon us.

|| Śrī-Padmāvatī-nāyikā-sameta-Śrī-Śrīnivāsa-parabrahmaṇe namaḥ ||

kam apy anavadhiṃ vande karuṇā-varuṇâlayam |
Vṛṣa-śaila-taṭasthānāṃ svayaṃ vyaktiṃ upāgatam || (DŚ 9)

Padmêśa-mitra-śata-patra-gatâ-’li-vargāḥ
hartuṃ śriyaṃ kuvalayasya nijâ-’ṅga-lakṣmyā |
bherī-ninādam iva bibhrati tīvra-nādaṃ
Śeṣâdri-śekhara-vibho! tava suprabhātam || (VSu 12)

पद्मेश-मित्र-शतपत्र-गता-ऽलि-वर्गाः
हर्तुं श्रियं कुवलयस्य निजा-ऽङ्ग-लक्ष्म्या ।
भेरी-निनादम् इव बिभ्रति तीव्र-नादं
शेषाद्रि-शेखर-विभो ! तव सुप्रभातम् ॥

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Ranks of black bees
    residing in hundred-petalled lotuses
        (allies of the lord of lotuses: the Sun,
         and 
         favorites of the Lord of the Lotus-lady Padmāvatī)

buzz sharply,
    like thundering wardrums,

in order to snatch away
    the beauty of the water-lilies
with their own bodies’ beauty:

O all-pervading Almighty atop Seshadri,
a blessed morning unto You!

Flowers, flowers everywhere

This verse is very dense with flower imagery: we have red lotuses (padma in the neuter gender), hundred-petalled golden-white lotuses (śatapatra), and blue waterlilies (kuvalaya). The key ideas to keep in mind here are the following conventions of Sanskrit poetry:

• lotuses blossom in the daytime, thus associating them with the Sun

  • golden lotuses, with their multifarious petals, also bear a color resemblance to the Sun

• waterlilies blossom at night, and hence have an antagonistic relationship with the Sun

• waterlilies, bees, and the Lord all have dark blue–black (nīla, śyāma) bodies,

• The Divine Couple’s eyes, and by extension Their gracious glances, are often described as resembling blue lotuses or blue waterlilies1

• the Divine Couple’s palms are pink/red like red lotuses

We can use this to make sense of the surface imagery of the verse, before getting into deeper theological interpretations.

The war of the bees and the lilies

Let’s start by recollecting the natural scene in non-poetic fashion: Dawn has broken, the Sun has climbed above the horizon, lotuses are blossoming, and bees are buzzing. The additional temporal development outlined in this verse is the closing-up of the waterlilies: it is now bright enough, and night has receded enough, that the lilies are shutting up shop for the day (literally).

Śrī PB Aṇṇan Swāmī’s poetic genius lies in connecting the buzzing of the bees with the closing-up of the waterlilies through a theme of conquest and the spoils of war. This is based on the shared blue-black beauty (śrī, lakṣmī) of the bees and the lilies, which prompts the bees to try to capture the lilies’ beauty for themselves. This raid by the bees is a sideshow to the overall battle between the Sun and the lilies, and so the bees are portrayed as an ally (mitra) of the Sun. Their sharp buzzing is thus reminiscent of the kettle-drums (bherī) that warring parties would deploy prior to the outbreak of outright conflict.2

Now, to be clear, the bees aren’t buzzing in order to actually capture the lilies’ beauty; in fact, the bees are described as already having a beauty of their own (nijâṅga-lakṣmī). But Aṇṇan Swāmī has supplied this beautiful poetic fancy to describe their actions and to inject an extra element of beauty and meaningfulness into the world. 3

“Words are all I have”

Before we get into the theological interpretations of this rich verse, I want to dwell upon some specific choices of words that Aṇṇan Swāmī has made here. These choices connect this verse to previous ones, generate suggestive meanings, and also enable the deeper theological meanings that we will turn to shortly.

“Lotus(-lady)-lord”

Let’s start with the very first word itself: Padmêśa. It is a compound word (samasta-pada, to use the Sanskrit grammatical terminology), but what are its constituent elements?

• One obvious choice is padma + īśa, where the first word is in the neuter and hence means “lotus”. The word īśa can mean “controller, director”, and hence “lord”. Taken together, the word means “the lord of lotuses”, and hence refers to the Sun (who makes lotuses bloom, and hence “commands” them). This is in keeping with the martial theme we have already seen, where the Sun is the Lord and Commander of the Forces of Daylight, so to speak.

• A different choice is to take the feminine form of the first word, to get Padmā. This is of course Padmāvatī Tāyār, the Lotus-lady who sits on a fully bloomed red lotus (Alar-mēl maṅgai in Tamil, Ala-mēlu maṅgā in Telugu). In this situation, īśa can be interpreted in two ways: either as the “Supreme Lord”, or also simply as “husband”. In either case, Padmêśa now refers to Lord Veṅkaṭeśvara, who is the Supreme Lord of the Universe along with Padmāvatī Tāyār, and who is also simply Padmāvatī’s Husband.

This dual interpretation itself tells us that we should be looking for theological interpretations for the overall meaning and symbolism of the verse.

“Friend, ally, Sun”

The second word, mitra, can also be interpreted in a number of ways:

• In a political context, mitra means “ally”.4 This is in keeping with the martial interpretation of the verse we have seen so far. But who is the Sun’s ally here?

  • The most natural thing grammatically would be to link this to the following word, śatapatra. These large golden lotuses can be thought of as the Sun’s allies, as they open up on his command and launch their bee-bombers to annihilate the hapless lilies.

  • But given that the golden lotuses are also lotuses, and given that the Sun has already been described as the “lord of lotuses”, it is strange to then call them his allies. After all, we normally associate the term “ally” with another sovereign party who is choosing to align themselves with someone, and not with a vassal who has little say in the matter. In this case, the natural allies for the Sun are the bees who live (or who were trapped inside) the lotuses. Perhaps they will act as light cavalry for the Sun, launching harassing attacks on the waterlilies as they flee from the sunlight.

• Mitra can also refer to the Vedic solar deity, who is the lord of friendships and of contracts that bind us in alliances with our fellow humans. Mitra is in some ways a lord of openings: He is the first deity invoked at the beginning of the Taittirīya Upaniṣad5 and He is also specifically worshipped in the upasthāna portion of the mandatory dawn prayer (prātaḥ sandhyā). We can either take this interpretation to simply hint at solar worship at dawn (as is ongoing in the verse), or as a reinforcement of the solar interpretation of Padmêśa.

• Finally, and most obviously, mitra simply means “friend” in Sanskrit, just as it does in modern Indian languages. The bees may be the Sun’s allies, but they are Lord Veṅkaṭeśvara’s friends. The Lord has no need of allies per se, but in His infinite graciousness (sauśīlya) and accessibility (saulabhya), He is Friend to all those who turn to Him in friendship.

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Beauty and Beauty

There are two words used to mean “beauty” here: śriyam and laksmyā. And while both words can be used to mean “beauty” in general in Sanskrit, it is no coincidence that both of them are names for the Supreme Goddess Herself. In fact, Her “proper” name, so to speak, is declared by Swāmī Āḷavandār in the Catuḥślokī to be «Śrī» itself:

«Śrīr» ity eva ca nāma te, Bhagavati! (CŚ 1d)

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And Your sacred, true name
        o Goddess!
is Śrī.

But aside from these two being names of the Supreme Goddess, we also see that they are used with different case-endings:

• śriyaṃ is the accusative (dvitīyā) form of śrī, which in this case is used to indicate that this śrī is the object (karman) of some agent’s actions. On the surface level, this is the waterlilies’ beauty that is the objective of the bees’ buzzing. But at a deeper level, this has a cosmic significance that we will need to explore.

• lakṣmyā is the instrumental (tṛtīyā) form of lakṣmī, which is used to mark this lakṣmī as a means to accomplishing something. This has a plain meaning in reference to the beauty of the buzzing bees, but this is also a matter of cosmic significance as well.

Sound effects

Continuing with the theme of “sharp sounds” from verse 11, this time we have the sharp sounds of the buzzing bees. The connection between the two verses is heightened by the repetition of the word tīvra in both.

Also notice the repetition of the sounds nādam in the words ninādam and tīvra-nādam, as well as the repetition of labial bhs (and one v) in close proximity with buzzing rs in the third line. This is a sonic reminder of the name bhramara for bees, itself an onomatopoetic representation of the sounds made by these creatures.

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Some theological lessons

The multiple meanings communicated by the different words in this verse should already be hinting to us the broad contours of the theological interpretations of the verse as a whole.

From lotuses and suns to the Lotus-lady and the Lord

The first obvious interpretive move is reflected in the two interpretations of the word padmêśa seen above: instead of talking about lotuses and suns, we should instead be talking about the Lotus-lady, Padmāvatī Tāyār, and Her beloved, Lord Śrīnivāsa.

This re-injection of the divinity into a seemingly charming nature scene has two effects:

• We now need to build up an interpretation of the verse where Lord Śrīnivāsa and Lady Padmāvatī Tāyār play a prominent role, like the sun in the previous.

• We also learn an important lesson about language and the Divine: All words ultimately refer to the Divine in some way or the other. And this is paralleled by another important lesson about all of reality and the Divine: All that exists is pervaded and grounded in the Divine.

This second lesson also connects to the interpretation of (m/M)itra as the solar deity: In the same prātaḥ-sandhyā dawn prayer, after reciting the upasthāna verses to Mitra, Śrīvaiṣṇavas then recite a beautiful and intricate verse designed for contemplation (beginning with the words dhyeyaḥ sadā) that reveals the inner divinity within the solar orb to be Śrīman-Nārāyaṇa Himself.

An implicit comparison

One last point here: the use of this single word, padmêśa, to describe both the Sun as the “lord of lotuses” and Lord Veṅkaṭeśvara as the eternal spouse of Padmāvatī Tāyār, sets up an implicit simile (vyaṅgyôpamā) between the two. We might start by saying that, just as the Sun makes lotuses bloom, so too does Lord Veṅkaṭeśvara make Padmāvatī Tāyār blossom with delight.

But upon further reflection, we realize that we need to flip the comparison around: When we see lotuses blooming when kissed by the Sun’s rays at dawn, we are in fact seeing a tiny glimpse of the eternal, ever-renewing blossoming bliss that Padmāvatī Tāyār experiences in Her eternal, inseparable companionship with the Cosmic Sun, Lord Śrīnivāsa.

Thus, all around us are signs of the deep pervasion of the cosmos by the Divine, available to us if we but train ourselves to see the universe in this (Divine) light.

The lesson of the lilies

We haven’t talked much about the waterlilies so far, but we can find the presence of the Divine here as well. For one, the verse explicitly states that the Supreme Lady also graces the waterlily (śriyaṃ kuvalayasya). In conjunction with a general awareness of Sanskrit devotional poetry, in which the Lord is described as having a waterlily–blue-black body and the Lotus-lady is said to have waterlily–blue-black eyes, we can expand our interpretation as follows:

• The Lord’s body’s beauty is in fact indescribable, as is the beauty of the Lotus-lady’s eyes.

• We can enjoy a small sliver of this infinite beauty when we relish the beauty of waterlilies.

• Just as waterlilies blossom at night in the presence of the moon, so too does the beauty of the Lord’s body blossom in the cosmic moonlight of Mahālakṣmī’s visage.

But while the beauty of lotuses and lilies may wax and wane, the eternal beauty of Lord Veṅkaṭeśvara and Padmāvatī Tāyār—especially in light of Their eternal companionship—is a cosmic constant.

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From alliances to friendship

We can now, finally, turn to the lessons of the bees. We can treat them both as a positive example to be emulated by us, as well as a negative example to be avoided.

Bees as positive example

This positive interpretation hinges on parsing the word Padmêśa-mitra as a tatpuruṣa compound: Padmêśasya mitrāṇi, “friends of the Spouse of Padmāvatī”.

On this analysis, we see that there is a relation of friendship between the bees and Lord Veṅkaṭeśvara. This is no mere political alliance that crystallizes and dissolves with the vicissitudes of time: this is an act of graciousness bestowed upon the bees by Lord Śrīnivāsa. Why is this so? Because of the bees’ devotion to the lotuses, which, as we have seen above, are a stand-in for the Lotus-lady, Padmāvatī Tāyār. The Lord loves those who come to Him through His eternal companion, the Lotus-lady.

The bees’ service to the Divine Couple isn’t limited to percussion. They are willing to go to war, to put their limbs on the line, to defend Her from the waterlilies. All of this should draw our minds to the vānaras: They were willing to fight for Lord Rāma to help restore His śrī—His wife Sītā—from the clutches of the demon-king Rāvaṇa (who, like the waterlily, preferred the night). No wonder their king Sugrīva earned both the allyship and the friendship of Lord Rāma!

Bees as negative example

If we analyze the compound Padmêśa-mitra as a bahuvrīhi compound, yielding Padmêśaḥ mitraṃ yeṣāṃ te (“those to whom the Spouse of Padmāvatī is a friend”), we open the doors to a different, and this time a negative, interpretation. The Lord is still willing to be a friend to the bees, but the bees are so fixated on the beauty of the waterlilies that they don’t pay heed to Him.

In this version of the story, the waterlilies are closing down because it is now dawn—this is normal for them. But the blue-black iridescent bees are trying to compete with the blue waterlilies regardless, not realizing that they don’t actually need to: their limbs are already adorned with beauty (lakṣmī) that resembles the Lord’s body. Thus, not realizing that they are already blessed, the bees are trying to overreach.

On this interpretation, it is the bees who are behaving in a Rāvaṇa-like manner, trying to conquer Mahālakṣmī by force, not realizing that:

• they cannot in fact take away the beauty of the waterlilies because that is a whole separate natural process—they are doomed to failure;

• Mahālakṣmī is already with them in abundance in the form of their beautiful blue-black bodies that resemble Her eyes and His body; and

• the Lord is already more than open to being their friend, if they would but turn to Him once.

This interpretation of the bees is perhaps a better analogy for the behavior of people trapped on the materialist treadmill, where there is always a promotion with a bigger salary or a fancier house or a flashier car that “needs” to be bought. But it might also effectively serve as a warning to what we might call “spiritual materialists” as well: to people who take undue pride in extravagant and ostentatious displays of their supposed religious piety.

The heart of the matter: Beauty and the Beauty

Let us wrap up this analysis by finally turning to the cosmic significance of the words śriyam and lakṣmyā. Both the waterlilies and the bees are not just beautiful, but literally blessed with the presence of the Supreme Goddess Herself. Indeed, it would be even more accurate to state that everything in this world that is beautiful is beautiful because of Mahālakṣmī’s presence.6 And we can extend this even further, to the Divine Couple Themselves: The Lord’s blue-black body is beautiful because—like the waterlilies and the bees that resemble it—it is blessed with Her presence.

And now let us turn to the specific case-endings and their significance. Mahālakṣmī is both the object (karman) and the instrument (karaṇa)—not just of the bees’ behavior, but of the Lord.7 Given that the Ultimate Agent, the Kartṛ, is the Lord Himself, it therefore stands to reason that His most desired end is the Goddess Herself. And the instrument He uses to obtain His most desired end is Mahālakṣmī Herself!8

In non-technical language, Lord Veṅkaṭeśvara is trying to charm Padmāvatī Tāyār through His beauty—but that beauty is in fact Tāyār Herself! He is trying to reach Her through Her—and of course He is successful, because (a) She never lets anyone down, and (b) She is always already inseparable from Him.

This is exactly the relation we should have to the Divya Dampati as devotees ourselves: we must aspire to reach Them through Them. The typical phrasing of this in Sanskrit is that the Divya Dampati are both the upeya (the destination, the goal) and the upāya (the path, the means).

|| Śrī-Padmāvatī-nāyikā-sameta-Śrī-Śrīnivāsa-parabrahmaṇe namaḥ ||

śáṃ no Mitráḥ śaṃ Váruṇaḥ / śáṃ no bhavatv Aryamā́ |

yoṣā-gaṇena vara-dadhni vimathyamāne
ghoṣâ-’’layeṣu dadhi-manthana-tīvra-ghoṣāḥ |
roṣāt kaliṃ vidadhate kakubhaś ca kumbhāḥ
Śeṣâdri-śekhara-vibho! tava suprabhātam || (VSu 11)

योषा-गणेन वर-दध्नि विमथ्यमाने घोषा-ऽऽलयेषु दधि-मन्थन-तीव्र-घोषाः ।
रोषात् कलिं विदधते ककुभश्च कुम्भाः शेषाद्रि-शेखर-विभो ! तव सुप्रभातम् ॥

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As the young milkmaids churn
        milk into the choicest curds
                in the hamlets of the cowherds,
the sharp sounds of their churning-sticks
is as if
        the pots are quarreling incessantly
                in all directions:

O all-pervading Almighty atop Seshadri,
a blessed morning unto You!

Pastoral sketches

This verse strongly evokes the atmosphere of Āṇḍāḷ’s Tirup-pāvai, set in Āyarpāḍi (a Tamilized version of the Gokula of Lord Kṛṣṇa’s childhood), filled with milkmaids and cowherds. Similar imagery is evoked in multiple pāsurams from the Tirup-pavai; just one example should suffice for now:

Āycciyar # mattināl ōsai paḍutta tayir-aravam kēṭṭilaiyo? (TP 7de)

ஆய்ச்சியர் # மத்தினால் ஓசை படுத்த தயிர் அரவம் கேட்டிலையோ

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Do you not hear the sound of curds being churned 
by the milkmaids of Āyarpāḍi with their churners?

Son et sens

The sounds of the jeweled bangles of the milkmaids jingling, along with the sounds of the churning-sticks with the pots, are resounding in all quarters in order to wake people up. The repetitive nature of the work and the harshness of the sounds is portrayed in the verse by the repetition both of sounds (oṣā over and over in various words; various words from dadh and math) as well as of entire words (dadh(n)i and ghoṣa in particular). And each of these repetitions has its own special features:

• The repeated sounds have very different sonic textures, with different suggestions (śabda):

  • The open, resonant oṣā cluster with the sharp sibilant in the middle sounds like the continuous jingling and clattering of the milkmaids’ bangles.

    • This might just be me being overly fanciful, but this sequence also reminds me of Uṣas, the Vedic goddess of dawn. Her appearance would of course be highly appropriate in the context of a suprabhātam work.

    • And of course, the oṣā sequence also resonates with Śeṣâ(dri) as well. This kind of second-syllable rhyme is actually a classic feature of Tamil poetry, where the phenomenon is known as ^yĕdugai.

    • Further strengthening the “Tamilness” of this verse, the line-internal ^yĕdugai in the second line between the beginning and the end is also reminiscent of the quintessentially Tamil poetic form known as the nēr-isai vĕṇbā, in which this exact phenomenon can be noticed.

  • The dadh and ma(n)th sequences both end in flat, heavy, aspirated consonants, rather like the churning-sticks squelching in the pots.

• The repeated words have very different semantics (artha):

  • One pair of repeated words shares the same core meaning: dadhi and dadhni both mean “curd”, albeit in different grammatical cases.

  • Another pair of repeated words has different meanings, so that it might be better to think of this as two separate words that happen to share the same sonic body: ghoṣa means both “noise” and “hamlet of cowherds”.

It is at this level of sound-and-sense that we truly see poetry starting to operate:1 sounds hint at certain meanings which then need to cohere with the broader meaning and context of the verse, which in turn create new opportunities to reassess the sounds of the verse. The fact that all of this is happening in a verse depicting a soundscape is all the more befitting!

From sound effects to salvation

In the Śrīvaiṣṇava tradition, there are profound symbolic meanings associated with the milkmaids of Āyarpāḍi and with the churning of milk into curd. These are elaborated upon at great length by the spiritual scholar–leaders of the community during the annual Tirup-pāvai exposition season in the month of Mārgazhi, so I will resist the temptation to dive clumsily into these deep waters. However, there are a few obvious theological connections that can be drawn here which I will foolhardily venture to state.

Connection 1: The churning and the Churning

The first is the obvious parallel between the churning of the milk by the milkmaids and the Churning of the Cosmic Ocean of Milk by the gods and anti-gods. The latter was not a peaceful process (the emergence of the Hālāhala poison, the conflict between the gods and the anti-gods over the possession of Amṛta, the immortality-bestowing ambrosia), but from it did emerge the Goddess Mahālakṣmī who is the most Beloved of Lord Śrīnivāsa.

We should similarly imagine that the milkmaids intend to make their curds a devotional offering to Lord Veṅkaṭeśvara, since the creamy curds represent, well, the crème de la crème of the milk they obtained.

Connection 2: The churning of the self

Building off this idea of the crème de la crème, we should also think about a personal, spiritual churning as well. It is not always a peaceful or painless process to undergo a spiritual transformation, but the end-goal should be for us to identify our best selves—and then offer that freely to Lord Veṅkaṭeśvara.

This is what makes this a good morning for the Lord, even though there is so much noise and commotion: the fact that we are bringing what is best in us to the Divine, and aspiring to use that in service of the Divine to make the world a better place.

Connection 3: The individual and the collective

The third is the collective and essentially social nature of Śrīvaiṣṇava devotional participation: The milkmaids are not alone, but are clustered together in groups (gaṇas). We see this especially clearly in Āṇḍāḷ’s Tirup-pāvai where she awakens multiple milkmaids over multiple verses, exhorting them to present themselves as a group to Lord Kṛṣṇa to wake Him up. This is an extremely important element of Śrīvaiṣṇava devotion practice: while salvation of the individual soul (jīvâtman) may be solitary, and while certain kinds of meditations can of course be solitary as well, people are also encouraged to worship the Divine in congregations (goṣṭhīs).

And as anybody who has ever worked out with a gym buddy or has tried to acquire new habits with an accountability partner knows only too well, this kind of congregational social support is vital for comforting, encouraging, and occasionally urging people along on personal transformations. Why should it be any different for a spiritual transformation?

|| Śrī-Padmāvatī-nāyikā-sameta-Śrī-Śrīnivāsa-parabrahmaṇe namaḥ ||

śabdâ-’rthau sahitau kāvyam (BhāKāA I.16a)

bhṛṅgâ-’’valī ca makaranda-rasâ-’nuviddha-
jhaṅkāra-gīta-ninadaiḥ saha sevanāya |
niryāty upānta-sarasī-kamalô-’darebhyaḥ 
Śeṣâdri-śekhara-vibho! tava suprabhātam || (VSu 10)

भृंगा-ऽऽवली च मकरन्द-रसा-ऽनुविद्ध-झंकार-गीत-निनदैः सह सेवनाय ।
निर्यात्य् उपान्त-सरसी-कमलो-ऽदरेभ्यः शेषाद्रि-शेखर-विभो ! तव सुप्रभातम् ॥

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Row upon row of black bees 
        drenched in nectar
        their buzzing a veritable drum-fest
emerge, 
        birthed from the wombs of lotuses
                that skirt the edges of sacred ponds
just for a taste—of You:

O all-pervading Almighty atop Śeṣâdri,
a blessed morning unto You!

A literal interpretation of the verse

On the surface, this verse is easy enough to understand: The sun has arisen enough that the lotuses in Tirupati have blossomed enough that the bees that were trapped in them overnight are now managing to escape. So what?

We know that bees buzz around and collect nectar from flowers. Indeed these particular bees got trapped in the flowers overnight precisely because they were too busy taking up nectar and ignored the sunset the previous evening! (That, incidentally, is a major interpretive hint for us, as we will soon see.)

So what does it mean that these bees flew away from the flowers in the morning?

The sun and the Supreme Sun

First of all, it means that the lotuses have now blossomed open susbtantially. This is in contrast to verse 7, where they were only īṣat-praphulla “slightly blossomed”. This suggests that, between verses 7 and 10, enough time has elapsed for the sun to rise properly and hence for the lotuses to blossom open, freeing their bee-prisoners.

However, we see that there is no explicit mention of the sun here causing the lotuses to blossom.1 This is not a problem; after all, it is common knowledge (at least in a pre-modern world where people observed Nature closely) that the blossoming of lotuses is correlated with, and indeed caused by, the sun’s rays.

Luckily for us, the absence of an explicit mention of the sun opens up another interpretive possibility: these lotuses are among the lotuses brought to Lord Veṅkaṭeśvara for His morning worship, and so when they come into sight of His face that outshines the sun and moon2, they blossom open automatically and immediately, releasing their bee-prisoners.

To serve and to enjoy

These bees buzz around, still covered in nectar (), and they home right in on Lord Veṅkaṭeśvara and Padmāvatī Tāyār for sevana. This word has two almost opposite meanings, and we will see that both carry great importance here.

1. Sevana can mean “to taste, to enjoy”.3 That is, the bees which emerge from regular lotuses and which are addicted to regular nectar turn their attention to the Lord’s lotus-face and lotus-lips and lotus-hands and lotus-feet, and seeking a taste of the infinitely more delicious amṛta (ambrosia) promised by these celestial lotuses, they fly to them.

2. Sevana can also mean “to serve”, and remembering that we are still in a musical context (parrots singing, Nārada playing his veena), we can see that the bees act as musicians in the Divine Court as well—they are percussionists!

A deeper layer of meaning

But what does all this stuff about bees and lotuses mean for us? The key interpretive hints for us here are the following:

• The bees were trapped in the lotuses overnight because they were addicted to nectar and didn't pay heed to the setting of the sun.

• The lotuses opened up in the morning through contact with the rays of either the rising sun or of the face of the Divine Lord. (And even if we go with the first option, we should remember that the shining of the sun and the rotation of the earth all occur due to the Divine anyway.)

• Freed from the lotuses but still drenched in nectar, the bees now turn to the Divine Duo for sevana which is either “service” or “tasting” (or really both).

This is a good depiction of us!

When, by the grace of God, our circumstances change and we find an escape from such entrapment, we should turn away from fading, transient, worldly “lotuses” and towards the eternal, infinite source of immortal nectarine love: the Divine Duo and their eternal love for Each Other and for each of us.

The heart of the matter

One further mystery remains: How do we make sense of the double meaning of sevana in this verse? In a way, it doesn’t matter at all! Aṇṇan Swami seems to be saying that the specific reasoning for why we turn to the Divine is actually not that important at all:

• We can turn to the Divine out of a sense of “service” and vairāgya—detachment from, even distaste for, worldly affairs.

• Or we can turn to the Divine out of a desire for even greater enjoyment and anubhava—taking pleasure in the material delights of the world, no longer for their sake, but rather because we come to see how even the material pleasures and beauties of this world are really simply manifestations of the infinite beauty and glory of the Divine.

Most remarkably, we can turn to the Divine Duo even while we are still makaranda-rasâ-’nuviddha, dripping with the nectar4 that got us into trouble in the first place! This is one of the best parts of this verse. We are not obliged to achieve some mystical state of purity before coming to delight in the pure presence of the Divine Duo—indeed, we cannot get rid of our past karma or our material imperfection. But as this verse makes clear, that is utterly irrelevant. Neither our state of purity nor our intention matters quite as much as the fact that we present ourselves before the Divine Duo and that we celebrate Them in whatever way we can.

What a glorious verse this is!

|| Śrī-Padmāvatī-nāyikā-sameta-Śrī-Śrīnivāsa-parabrahmaṇe namaḥ ||

tantrī-prakarṣa-madhura-svanayā vipañcyā
gāyaty ananta-caritaṃ tava Nārado ’pi  |
bhāṣā-samagram asakṛt-kara-cāra-ramyaṃ
Śeṣâdri-śekhara-vibho! tava suprabhātam || (VSu 9)

तन्त्री-प्रकर्ष-मधुर-स्वनया विपञ्च्या
गायत्य् अनन्त-चरितं तव नारदो ऽपि ।
भाषा-समग्रम् असकृत्-कर-चार-रम्यं
शेषाद्रि-शेखर-विभो ! तव सुप्रभातम् ॥

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Accompanied by his veena,
        its sweet sounds produced by
        pulling and plucking its strings,
Even Nārada sings Your unending glory
        in the fullness of the vernacular,
                made even more charming 
                by his constantly-moving hands:

O all-pervading Almighty atop Seshadri,
a blessed morning unto You!

The language(s) of devotion

One of the hidden beauties of this verse is the word bhāṣā “language”. While the word is used these days to simply mean any language, in Sanskrit it is often used when referring to a vernacular language (the “language of the people”, so to speak). We see this, for instance, in Pāṇini’s Aṣṭâdhyāyī grammar, where the word (usually in the form bhāṣāyām) often refers to forms that are more colloquial.

In this context, we can interpret bhāṣā to refer most likely to the Tamil language, and specifically to the 4000 Divya Prabandham of the Tamil Āzhvārs. This suggests, quite intriguingly, that Nārada himself is singing the Tamil Prabandham in which the Āzhvārs sing the unending glory of the Supreme Lord.1

Of course, Telugu speakers would also be fully justified in seeing the word bhāṣā as being a reference perhaps to Taḷḷapāka Annamācārya’s beautiful devotional songs dedicated to Lord Śrīnivāsa! The truth is that the Divine’s glory is so endless that all the languages of earth would still fail to capture Him completely. As the Taittirīya Upaniṣad’s Brahmānanda-vallī says, the Lord is yato vāco nivartante “that of which all words fall short”.

But in this very transcendence (paratva) of the Divine lies, paradoxically, His supreme accessibility (saulabhya): He can be sung to in any human language, by any human voice, wherever and whenever.

On strings and waves

There is a subtle play on words in the beginning of this verse, tantrī-prakarṣa:

• The literal meaning of the word tantrī is “string”, in reference to the strings of Nārada’s veena. We can, however, also connect it to the Sāṅkhya concept of guṇa which also literally means “string”, in this case the very threads out of which the fabric of reality is woven.

• The word prakarṣa can literally mean “plucking” or “pulling”, but it also has the meaning of “best, superlative”.

Putting these two pieces together, we see that tantrī-prakarṣa does not simply mean “plucking the strings [of the veena]”, but also can mean “best of the guṇas”. This is a reference to the Śrīvaiṣṇava modification of Sāṅkhya ontology, which includes a pure, unadulterated strand of sattva alone (śuddha-sattva, “pure sattva”) which is the material for all purely spiritual entities.

The esoteric suggestion is that the melodies of Nārada’s veena and the words he sings are all due to this divinely-originated, pure, śuddha-sattva which is the spiritual material that constitutes the manifestations of the Divine. Or to put it differently: manifestations of the Divine sing, using manifestations of the Divine, songs in praise of the Divine which are themselves manifestations of the Divine!

A single-string melody

I also hear in this second interpretation of the phrase tantrī-prakarṣa the famous opening phrase of the Gītā-Bhāṣya of Swāmī Rāmānuja, in which he calls the Lord nikhila-heya-pratyanīka-kalyāṇa-eka-tāna. This phrase is usually translated as “wholly intent upon wellbeing utterly opposed to everything reprehensible”, but its closing component eka-tāna actually literally means “single string”. Just as an instrument with a single string plays a single fundamental note (with higher-order overtones), so too is the Lord’s singular and fundamental concern our wellbeing (while factoring in an infinity of higher-order terms that we might not grasp).

And of course this phrase also connects to the concept of śuddha-sattva, as it is also a single string of goodness, purified of everything reprehensible from the other two strings of passion and of inertia.

Fingers dancing on the fretboard

One final note (if you will excuse the musical pun!) The word asakrt-kara-cāra-ramyam can mean two things, depending on whether we treat it as an adverb or an adjective:

1. [As an adverb] It signals that Nārada’s singing is delightful because of the way in which he accompanies it with his fingers dancing up and down his veena’s fretboard.

2. [As an adjective] It signals that the stories of the Supreme Lord, which Nārada is singing in the vernacular, are delightful because they are full of His deeds and descents that are repeatedly done for our benefit. For, as He Himself tells us (in the Bhagavad Gītā): sambhavāmi yuge yuge “I take birth in age after age”.

|| Srī-Padmāvatī-nāyikā-sameta-Śrī-Śrīnivāsa-parabrahmaṇe namaḥ ||