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SriRangaSri List Archive: Message 00037 Sep 2001

 
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SrI:
SrImathe Ramanujaya namah:
SrImathe Nigamantha mahadesikaya namah:
SrImAn venkatanAthAryaH kavitArkika kesarI |
vedAntAcArya-varyome sannidhattAm sadA hRdi ||

May the glorious Sri Venkatanatha, the greatest of teachers of Vedanta, and the lion among poets and debaters, reside forever in my heart.

Dearest Srivaishnavas,

I am continuing on my appeal and posts on Swamy Desikan and appeal for Thuppul maNdapam kaimkaryam. URL: http://www.geocities.com/lsriniva/thoopulappeal.html It is my humble request to please contribute your mite towards this kaimkaryam, as remembering Acharyan, and talking alone will not suffice.

Let us continue to enjoy Swamy?s GREAT works.

There are seven works, Swamy wrote in Sanskrit which form part of literature about which we will start now.

I would like to firstly take up the work that I relish personally: ?SubhAshitha nIvi?. The Subhashitha nIvi is a didactic poem in 144 slokas depicting the evil aspects of life in the first sections and the good aspects in the second seven sections. The slokas are full of wit and humour and many of them convey the same through double entendre. For example, misfortune of the well-equipped and deserving persons is well represented as: ?I feel that eminent kinnaras should maintain silence in the world in which the hum of the mosquitoes is treated as the twang of the lute J ?

Sri L. Srinivasan writes in his translation of this great work:

Vedanta Desika, the eminent Srivaisnava Acarya, philosopher and poet, is also the author of Subhasita Nivi, a book of didactic verses in a terse style, which, unlike his other works, may be considered secular. It is, however, one of his best works as it was born out of his rich experience and ripe knowledge of men and matters. Out of his boundless compassion for suffering humanity, he took a suitable opportunity to compose this wholesome work to help mankind lead a life of peace and happiness.


Tradition has it that Singha Bhupala, the King of Rajamahendra, made a request to the savant to visit his court and honour him. When it was declined, he followed it up with a prayer to send him a code of conduct for his guidance, and our poet obliged him through this composition. Colour is lent to this version by the fact that the treatise contains a chapter on the cardinal principles of statecraft which would be helpful only to a king. Vaibhava Prakasika also confirms this and further states that Tattva Sandesa and Rahasya Sandesa were similarly written for the benefit of the same king by Sri Desika (sl. 128-129)


Significance of the Title

Subhasita means apposite saying or an apophthegm. Nivi is a knot or a treasure-chest. The title may therefore, be taken to mean a Treasury of Golden Sayings or Knotty Sayings in Fine Verses.Treasures used to be kept in the olden days in a bag tied securely by knots and impressed with the seal of the owner on it, so that only the lawful owner or one authorised by him had the right to remove the seal, untie the knots and enjoy the contents. Likewise, the treasure in the shape of various delightful meanings of these slokas is not easy for all to come by. Only those who have acquired the key to it through learning over a long period at the feet of their acarya will have the capacity to unravel the knots and get at the true and enjoyable meanings.

Thieves are called knot-looseners in Tamil because they used to loot treasures kept in bags, untying the knots. The poet avers that they will not succeed in appropriating the treasures inside this work because they can only get at the literal meanings of the words and not their real imports. In those days there was no printing and very few hand written copies were available of a poet's compositions, and they were difficult to come by, with the result that plagiarists could steal slokas from the poems of others and parade them as their own. Vedanta Desika says in 1-2 that since this work had been presented to the King by well-disposed scholars and thus attained publicity and popularity, charlatans would not be able to steal parts of it claiming them to be their own original work.

Nivi has also the significance of capital or principal amount which keeps on earning interest if properly invested. So, the suggestion is that if this work is properly studied, it will also keep on yielding ideas endlessly for other works by competent scholars.

Division of the Work

There is symmetry in the arrangement of the poem. It contains twelve chapters each containing twelve slokas making a total of 144 stanzas. The last two verses of each paddhati use longer metres. It is divisible into two broad heads-matters to be avoided (the first five chapters) and qualities to be cultivated (the next seven chapters). There are more chapters on the good and less on the bad, as it is useless to waste more time on the latter. Further, bad qualities have been dealt with in the beginning because we must first realize the pitfalls to be avoided or the shortcomings to be eschewed before knowing the qualities to be emulated or cultivated, as this is the proper way of improving oneself by stages and in an orderly manner. A reversal of the present order would not serve the purpose.

Swamy Desikan starts off the work as:

I bow with mind, speech and body to that great Lord, who is the best among all persons, who approaches others of His own accord without waiting for them to take the initiative because of His innate goodness and agreeable nature, as also to myself who is chief among the wicked and who harms others without reason, there being one thing in common to us both, viz., that the good or evil done to us once has the effect of wiping off all the good and or evil done before. If what God, in His wisdom, thinks is good, though not really good, has been done to Him even once by a person, all the wrongs committed by him earlier is forgiven by Him. Therefore, I bow to Him. In my case, if once what I consider wrong, which may not really be so, is done to me by someone, all the good done by him to me till then is completely forgotten by me. Fie upon me! Ingratitude being the basest of vices, it has been mentioned at the very beginning.

Subhasita Nivi is unique in many respects, including the naming of its chapters. Unlike other compositions of its kind, it does not deal merely with aesthetics, but is highly psychological in its insight into the various facets of human character. Being an outstanding Acharya of Visistadvaita, whose basic tenet is that none is so fallen that he cannot be redeemed, his work is a practical guide even to a reprobate and retrace his steps, while indicating at the same time to others the pitfalls and short comings that they should avoid. It is this context that his stress on good association becomes important and relevant, since man's potentialities for good and bad evolve according to the company he keeps.

The slokas are composed in sweet and simple words, containing at the same time high potential qualities, being full of figures of speech of both sense and sound, alankaras etc. There is both clarity of thought and depth of meaning. The skill with which slesa is used is to be marvelled at, making it a kavya of dhwani. The poet employs humour, satire and anyapadesa appropriately. The piece is compact and capable of being got by heart. In the latter part of the poem dealing with good men, there is an undercurrent of Vedanta running all through, on the lines of the Gita, which comes to the surface where they are compared to God Himself, as He is the ideal towards which they strive all along. Altogether, the work is a rare treat of the versatile talents and genius of the master. When we come across a perfect double entendre giving two meanings for the same set of words, we admire the capacity of the author. Here, when we find that each sloka is capable of a dozen or more meanings, we are simply staggered astounded. Probably there is no similar work in world literature. It has been well and truly said that the poem was composed by as arvajna (Vedanta Desika) for the benefit of a sarvajna (Singha Bhupala) and that it is indeed only a sarvajna (an omniscient person) who can find out all that is intended to be conveyed by the author in this extraordinarily deep piece of literature.
(The above is an extract from Sri L Srinivasan?s article.)

Please donate according to your shakthi. The money can be sent to "Thuppul Trust" and the address is:

Thuppul Trust
Old No.20, New No.24, Thiruvengadam Street
West Mambalam, Chennai-600033, India
Phone No: 91-44-4741559 / 91-44-3715771

Please contact Sri. V.K. Sudharshan at vksudarsh@xxxx or Sri Lakshmi N Srinivasa lsriniva@xxxx (He can collect and send it as single amount in USA).

The address:

Lakshminarasimhan Srinivasa
3 Old Towne Road, #212
Ayer, MA-01432

For those in the South East Asia, please contact me at srivaishnavan@xxxx . Please pass on this kaimkaryam to as many people as possible in order to complete the same.

kavi-tArkika-simhAya kalyANa-guNa-SAline |
Srimate venkateSAya vedAntagurave namaH ||

Salutations to Sri Venkatesa, in whom all perfection resides, who is the teacher of Vedanta and the lion among poets and debaters!

Swamy Desikan ThiruvadigaLE SaraNam
Regards
Narayana Narayana
NarayaNa dAsan madhavakkannan


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