(continuing from Part 2) -------------------------------------------------------------------- The 3rd reason why Swami Venkatanathan's memory is to be greatly cherished by us on his 'tirunakshatram' is hinted in the phrase "kalyANa-guNa-shAlinE...". Desikan was a man of many rare and sublime qualities ("guNA-shAli"), two of which were really outstanding. He was (A) utterly fearless ("nirbhaya") and (B) a man of compassion ("kArunnyan"). Desikan achieved in life what ordinary men of the world never do viz. he conquered Fear of both Life and Death. And because he was utterly fearless he was also utterly compassionate towards a world around him mired in Fear of every conceivable kind. Conquest of the Fear of Life: The fears and anxieties that beset ordinary men in life simply held no terror for Desikan. Poverty, disease, old age, social approval... none of these ever mattered to him. Throughout his life he held steadfast to the age-old value of "simple living and high thinking". He shunned wealth like the plague; he did not know the meaning of the term "financial welfare"; the future, neither his own nor that of his family, held any worry for him. All his life he was content living on "unchavruthi" -- on whatever means of sustenance came his way by way of day-to-day alms given by the community. Although he considered austerity in life as value, Venkatanathan does not seem to have for that reason imposed it on others. Nowhere in his lifetime does Desikan appear to be grand-standing his simplicity or humility. At all times he seems to have borne his poverty with a quiet and natural dignity. Desikan's fearlessness in life is amply demonstrated through a famous 'stOtrA' of his, the 'vairAgya-panchakam'. His good Advaitin friend VidyAranya of the Vijayanagar Court once sent him an invitation to serve as full-time royal poet-laureate. It meant a plum-post securing for Swami Desikan a comfortable livelihood for the rest of his life, not to speak of post-retirement benefits! Swami Desikan however rejected the offer of what today would qualify as a fantastic 'career-break'. The only wealth, he wrote to his friend in Vijayanagar, the only heirloom he coveted was always his for the taking. "It is ever resident and awaiting me on the Hastigiri Hill in Kanchi"... Desikan was meaning, of course, the Deity in the temple of Lord Varadaraja. Conquest of the Fear of Death: Malik Kafur, the Mughal general of Alaudin Khilji's invading army in south India, attacked and ransacked the SriRangam temple during Desikan's days there. The poor citizens fled but some of them were ruthlessly massacred. While on his flight from SriRangam to distant Satyakaalam (now in Karnataka) where he took refuge, Venkatanathan was first-hand witness to bloody death and carnage. Desikan lived alone in exile in Satyakaalam for over a decade. The story of human struggle to conquer the primal Fear of death became one of the marvellous themes that Desikan dealt with in his famous and slightly auto-biographical 'stOtrA', the "abhIti-stavam". Compassion: Desikan was a man of great compassion. Neither lofty scholarship nor high birth seems to have insulated him from the pains and miseries of the common man. Being a "kavi-kEsari" or a "tArkika-simham" did not make him retire into some secluded 'ivory tower'. Desikan seems to have been acutely aware of the social ills and problems of the world around him and deeply empathized with the commonweal. An example of Desikan's compassion for the commoner is the "sudarshanAshtakam". This 'stOtra' was composed by Venkatanathan on seeing the plight of the people of a village near Kanchi struck by a devastating epidemic. In his times there was no such thing as public health system, and when an epidemic struck, hundreds if not thousands perished. Desikan's 'sudarshanAshtakam' became at once both a prayer of hope and a therapy for relief at a time of great calamity for the people of Kanchi. To this day, this 'stOtrA' is recited by the faithful everywhere who believe it wards off illness and disease. Swami Desikan was the first 'achArya' in the Vedantic tradition who boldly went as far as to define God's quality of universal compassion as being not merely theological necessity but philosophical axiom. A God without compassion would be a contradiction in terms, he said. Since we see that compassion does exist in this world, we have to conclude that God too therefore must exist. To the Upanishad definition of Brahman having 3 dimensions viz. "satyam", "gnyAnam," and "anantham", Desikan made out a fitting case for adding a 4th dimension -- "dayA" or "anukampA". It became the central theme of his famous "dayA satakam", a "stOtrA" which, beyond a shadow of doubt, only a man of great 'dayA' in his own right -- an extraordinary "kalyANa-guNa-shAli", so to speak -- could have ever composed. ********* ********* ********** (to be continued) dAsan, Sudarshan __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Faith Hill - Exclusive Performances, Videos & More http://faith.yahoo.com
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