SRI VEDAANTHA DESIKA--THE GREATEST
SRI VEDAANTHA DESIKA--THE GREATEST
____________________________
Superman!
Posted by: "Dr.S.Sundar Rajan MS ortho" kuresadasan@yahoo.co.in kuresadasan
Sat Oct 16, 2010 2:49 pm (PDT)
Vedanta Desika - Superman!
An AAV virus, less than 21nm in size, decided to explore the largest creature ever to live on this watery planet, the blue whale!
Adiyen is searching for "abhuto upama" to justify this attempt to write about Swami Desika on the Purattasi Sravanam of Vikruthi year.
To the younger ones, this "abhuto upama" is not something to eat, not on Sravanam at least, it means a never before metaphor,simile or allusion - take your pick!
Lets try another one.
He snatched the sky and set it down. The edges started to roll in, just as freshly unrolled calenders are wont to do. He grabbed a few passing meteors and placed them on the four corners and the mid-points on four sides. He looked down and plucked Mount Everest and sharpened its tip. He dipped the tip in the Pacific ocean after shaking it well. He started to write about Sri Vedanta Desika. Eons have passed and the end is not in sight!
Kindly pardon the hyperbole. But, this is what Desika does to you. There are not enough superlatives in all the languages to exhaust his praises.
As a "drishti pottu" to ward off the evil eye,let us begin with the fact that he was short statured. "Sirumamanithar" as azhwar has sung in his inimitable style. Short in "murthi" - stature and long in "kirthi" -fame. Embar, Arulalaperumal Emperumanar, Kurathazhwan etc. belonged to the same group. Does stature matter when a person can conjure up 1008 stanzas, in the most delightful and profound usage of Sanskrit one can come across, in about two to three hours on just getting out of bed after a sleep of maybe three hours!? Sri Paaduka Sahasra alone is enough to classify Desika as a superman.
This is what the dictionaries have to say about the word superman:
Superman: in the philosophy of Nietzsche, an ideal man who through integrity and creativity would rise above good and evil and who represents the goal of human evolution.
Superman:
1903, coined by George Bernard Shaw to translate Ger. Übermensch, "highly evolved human being that transcends good and evil," from "Thus Spake Zarathustra" (1883-91), by Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900). First used in Ger. by Hermann Rab (1527), and also used by Herder and Goethe. Translated as overman (1895) and beyond-man (1896) before Shaw got it right in his play title "Man and Superman" (1903).
These western thinkers would have been totally out of their depths were they to meet our "gnana vairagya bhushanam". Though the first definition, attributed to Nietzsche who is said to have been influenced by Goethe, may come near, it is still as far as the milky way is from earth. They would never have understood renunciation and humility.
Desika's amazing composition on the footwear of Sri Ranganatha is equal to 1. Sri Nrisimha's slaying of Hiranyakasipu in a muhurta's time. 2. Sri Rama's extermination of 13,999 (He allowed Akampanan to escape!) rakshasas at Janastana. 3. Sri Partasarathy's discourse on the battle field,Sri Bhagavad Geetha - 700 slokas in fast forward mode and 4. Sri Krishna and Sri Balarama learning the 64 vidyas from Sandipani in as many days.
Please note that other than Desika all were purnavataras, complete incarnations of our Lord.
Adiyen is totally incompetent to comment on Sri Desika's Sanskrit usage. But even an illiterate like adiyen cant help marvelling at his felicity in using this difficullt tongue. In his hands this adamantine language is like freshly kneaded atta, wheat flour. The gold simile has been used too often. We of the Desika sampradaya are connected to Sri Ramanuja's kitchen thorugh Sri Kidambi Acchan, hence this allusion to "godhimai maavu". Desika takes this dough and makes savouries of myriad sizes,shapes and taste. He surprises us often with unexpected additions and textures. Some times it is softer than "panju mittai" cotton candy, and sometimes it is harder than "urupadi" that is offered to Sri Ranganatha daily as food. He cooks up the language in different colours. The serious ochres and browns of vedanta and sometimes the gleeful pink colours of puns. The stanzas in the chitra paddati of Sri Paduka Sahasra are testimony to his sense of fun. This aspect of his writings is rarely highlighted. If any one other than Desika had composed those lines he would have been labelled "non compos mentis" mad! He is a "pundit" in more ways than one can imagine. His Hamsa Sandesa though not as well known as Kalidasa's Megha Sandesa is in no way inferior. His Sankalpa Suryodaya an allegorical drama, is better than the Prabhoda Chandrodaya of a mayavadi. His Yadavuhydaya is as captivating as the child Krishna being caught red handed stealing butter. Adiyen cannot understand as to why Desika's Sanskrit works are not compulsory reading for all students of the Devabasha?
He was a ployglot. Effortlessly, he wrote in Tamil, Manipravala, Sanskrit, Prakrit etc. He stayed in Satyagala for a sufficient period to have picked up Kannada. Adiyen wonders if there is any Kannada composition of his?
In human race mediocrity is the rule. Less than one percent of the populace has that spark that signals uniqueness. Even these unique ones are commonly good at one thing. Polymaths are the rarest of rare. Even among these ploymaths there are very few who are good with their hands. Dexterity and learning very rarely coexist. As a surgeon adiyen has seen this often. The learned ones are clumsy with their hands and the dextrous ones are impatient when it comes to learning.
None of the great Sri Vaishnava acharyas were adepts with their hands except Sri Desika. At least there are no such accounts available to us about others. Such episodes of even that supernal being Sri Ramanuja have not been chronicled. Adiyen craves pardon for such a statement. The point is that enough incidents have been recorded to show that Sri Desika was skilful not just with language but also with his hands.
He built a perfect well, which can still be seen at Thiruahindrapuram, with broken,misshapen and inadequate bricks.
He is supposed to have built and later on broken a wall that kept Periya Perumal, Sri Ranganatha hidden from the marauders.
He built a perfect image of himself and corrected a sculptor who couldn't fashion a base for it. This lovely image can be seen at Thiruahindrapuram.
He must have been a great painter and artist. His skill in sculpture and the word pictures in his various works attest to that. A pity there is no record of all his skills.
He is the one of the very few acharyas who was adept in tantra and proved it often. His summoning of Sri Garuda to ward of the danger due to snakes is well known. Thus was born the mellifluous Garuda Dandaka. The onomatopoeia of this work makes you look up to see if a giant eagle is beating its huge wings nearby. He neutralized the black magic that had filled his stomach with water by scratching a nearby wooden pillar and letting the water out from it. His sense of humour can be gauged by the fact that he thanked the voodoo man for cleaning the streets of Kanci! He materialised a shower of gold coins for an indigent brahmachari by composing the magnificent SriSthuthi in front of Sri Perundevi Thayar's sanctum. Without looking at the gold coins he walked away.
The occidentals will never understand vairagya. There isn't a proper word in English for it. Austerity is a weak substitute. The western superman by definition would know nothing of humility and austerity. This superman of ours was allergic to pelf. He became angry when he was entreated to become a court poet. Of this ire was born the superlative Vairagya Panchkam. Once he was offered gold coins as alms. He wouldn't touch it. With the sacred grass, darba, he extricated the gold coins from rice and pushed them away. Till the end he lived the life of a house holder, grihastha, subsisting on unchya vrithi, alms. It is said that he wore clothes that showed scars of being mended often.
A lifetime is not enough to read the works of Sri Vedanta Desika. His output is truly marvelous. He is supposed to have written atleast 128 granthas, many of which are now extinct, luptha. No lecturer on Ramanuja Darsana can afford to ignore Desika's work. They do it at their own peril. What he has not written on the darsana, does not exist. That a single man has written so comprehensively about a philosophy, systematically refuting objections, is unheard of.
His work Sri Rahasyatrayasara is the end all of all that needs to be said of Ramanuja's Darsana. To have written so completely means that his understanding of Visistadvaita was like sphatika, clear crystal. His mastery of all the branches like tarka, mimamsa etc by the age of twenty must have provided him with sufficent time to answer all arguments. His Paramatha bhanga, Shatadushani etc. demonstrate his skill at debate.
When the seniors at Srirangam sent him a SOS to come and ward off the danger due to mayavadis he came running. Later on when there was objections to Azhwar's Tamil hymns being used he proved that these bhakti laden songs were in no way inferior to the stotras in Sanskrit. He argued that it was these Dravida hymns that illuminated the way when one was lost in the dense pathless forests of Vedas and Vedanthas. Nathamuni had reinstated the singing of Nammazhwar's hymns at Srirangam after the practice started by Thirumangai Azhwar was given up. Ramanuja came and established the annual "adyayanotsava" on a solid footing. Swami Desika steadied the foundation and built impregnable ramparts around this tradition at the Srirangam temple.
Nammazhwar takes on the role of Parankusanayaki as does Tirumangai Azhwar as Parakalanayaki when their bhakti reaches the zenith. Among acharyas it was only Desika who became the love lorn Venkatanayaki. From the diamond like hard arguments of Vedanta to the petal soft cries of a pining maiden our Swami had mastered every nuance of human behaviour and could write it down brilliantly.
His humility is the stuff of legends. He had composed Sri Paduka Sahasra in an reluctant response to a challenge. The challenger could write just 300 slokas and he came and accepted defeat. At that time Desika was reported to have said that your 300 is far better than my 1000. The fact remains that nothing is known of that 300 and Sri Paduka Sahasra is almost a bible to many in Desika Sampradaya.
It is most inexplicable that a person of the stature of Desika was repeatedly challenged by all and sundry. Sri Ramanuja was confronted only by vidwans, learned men of other sects. But Desika had to answer not only to vidwans but also to unexpected antagonists like a snake charmer, a sculptor, a mason, a tantri etc. Most of the second category were instigated by the envious peers of Sri Desika. That such a gentle saint made people envious is difficult to digest. The mediocrity that is humanity in numbers cannot tolerate brillance. Instead of fully enjoying swamis's multifaceted talents, these people tried to belittle him. That they would fail abjectly was a foregone conclusion but they kept trying and some still do, more is the pity.
A sage, a man of immense learning, a polymath, a polyglot, a dextrous man, a logician par excellence, a poet second to none, a magician in more ways than one, an undefeated debater, a brilliant writer, a great philosopher, a most austere and humble man, a most merciful man, a man who could empathise with the troubled, a man totally immune to pelf and power, an unsurpassed leader, a devotee on par with the azhwars...adiyen's pen is exhausted.
He is said to be the incarnation of the bell in Sri Venkatachalapathi's sanctum. The crystal clear notes of his works subdued the inauspicious noises of the other sects and established bhakti and especially saranagathi, total surrender to our Lord, as the summum bonum of all human endeavours.
It will not be wrong to say that he was an avathara of Sri Hayagriva so profound was his learning.
He was indeed the complete superman!
Dr.S.Sundar Rajan MS ortho, Trichy.
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____________________________
Superman!
Posted by: "Dr.S.Sundar Rajan MS ortho" kuresadasan@yahoo.co.in kuresadasan
Sat Oct 16, 2010 2:49 pm (PDT)
Vedanta Desika - Superman!
An AAV virus, less than 21nm in size, decided to explore the largest creature ever to live on this watery planet, the blue whale!
Adiyen is searching for "abhuto upama" to justify this attempt to write about Swami Desika on the Purattasi Sravanam of Vikruthi year.
To the younger ones, this "abhuto upama" is not something to eat, not on Sravanam at least, it means a never before metaphor,simile or allusion - take your pick!
Lets try another one.
He snatched the sky and set it down. The edges started to roll in, just as freshly unrolled calenders are wont to do. He grabbed a few passing meteors and placed them on the four corners and the mid-points on four sides. He looked down and plucked Mount Everest and sharpened its tip. He dipped the tip in the Pacific ocean after shaking it well. He started to write about Sri Vedanta Desika. Eons have passed and the end is not in sight!
Kindly pardon the hyperbole. But, this is what Desika does to you. There are not enough superlatives in all the languages to exhaust his praises.
As a "drishti pottu" to ward off the evil eye,let us begin with the fact that he was short statured. "Sirumamanithar" as azhwar has sung in his inimitable style. Short in "murthi" - stature and long in "kirthi" -fame. Embar, Arulalaperumal Emperumanar, Kurathazhwan etc. belonged to the same group. Does stature matter when a person can conjure up 1008 stanzas, in the most delightful and profound usage of Sanskrit one can come across, in about two to three hours on just getting out of bed after a sleep of maybe three hours!? Sri Paaduka Sahasra alone is enough to classify Desika as a superman.
This is what the dictionaries have to say about the word superman:
Superman: in the philosophy of Nietzsche, an ideal man who through integrity and creativity would rise above good and evil and who represents the goal of human evolution.
Superman:
1903, coined by George Bernard Shaw to translate Ger. Übermensch, "highly evolved human being that transcends good and evil," from "Thus Spake Zarathustra" (1883-91), by Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900). First used in Ger. by Hermann Rab (1527), and also used by Herder and Goethe. Translated as overman (1895) and beyond-man (1896) before Shaw got it right in his play title "Man and Superman" (1903).
These western thinkers would have been totally out of their depths were they to meet our "gnana vairagya bhushanam". Though the first definition, attributed to Nietzsche who is said to have been influenced by Goethe, may come near, it is still as far as the milky way is from earth. They would never have understood renunciation and humility.
Desika's amazing composition on the footwear of Sri Ranganatha is equal to 1. Sri Nrisimha's slaying of Hiranyakasipu in a muhurta's time. 2. Sri Rama's extermination of 13,999 (He allowed Akampanan to escape!) rakshasas at Janastana. 3. Sri Partasarathy's discourse on the battle field,Sri Bhagavad Geetha - 700 slokas in fast forward mode and 4. Sri Krishna and Sri Balarama learning the 64 vidyas from Sandipani in as many days.
Please note that other than Desika all were purnavataras, complete incarnations of our Lord.
Adiyen is totally incompetent to comment on Sri Desika's Sanskrit usage. But even an illiterate like adiyen cant help marvelling at his felicity in using this difficullt tongue. In his hands this adamantine language is like freshly kneaded atta, wheat flour. The gold simile has been used too often. We of the Desika sampradaya are connected to Sri Ramanuja's kitchen thorugh Sri Kidambi Acchan, hence this allusion to "godhimai maavu". Desika takes this dough and makes savouries of myriad sizes,shapes and taste. He surprises us often with unexpected additions and textures. Some times it is softer than "panju mittai" cotton candy, and sometimes it is harder than "urupadi" that is offered to Sri Ranganatha daily as food. He cooks up the language in different colours. The serious ochres and browns of vedanta and sometimes the gleeful pink colours of puns. The stanzas in the chitra paddati of Sri Paduka Sahasra are testimony to his sense of fun. This aspect of his writings is rarely highlighted. If any one other than Desika had composed those lines he would have been labelled "non compos mentis" mad! He is a "pundit" in more ways than one can imagine. His Hamsa Sandesa though not as well known as Kalidasa's Megha Sandesa is in no way inferior. His Sankalpa Suryodaya an allegorical drama, is better than the Prabhoda Chandrodaya of a mayavadi. His Yadavuhydaya is as captivating as the child Krishna being caught red handed stealing butter. Adiyen cannot understand as to why Desika's Sanskrit works are not compulsory reading for all students of the Devabasha?
He was a ployglot. Effortlessly, he wrote in Tamil, Manipravala, Sanskrit, Prakrit etc. He stayed in Satyagala for a sufficient period to have picked up Kannada. Adiyen wonders if there is any Kannada composition of his?
In human race mediocrity is the rule. Less than one percent of the populace has that spark that signals uniqueness. Even these unique ones are commonly good at one thing. Polymaths are the rarest of rare. Even among these ploymaths there are very few who are good with their hands. Dexterity and learning very rarely coexist. As a surgeon adiyen has seen this often. The learned ones are clumsy with their hands and the dextrous ones are impatient when it comes to learning.
None of the great Sri Vaishnava acharyas were adepts with their hands except Sri Desika. At least there are no such accounts available to us about others. Such episodes of even that supernal being Sri Ramanuja have not been chronicled. Adiyen craves pardon for such a statement. The point is that enough incidents have been recorded to show that Sri Desika was skilful not just with language but also with his hands.
He built a perfect well, which can still be seen at Thiruahindrapuram, with broken,misshapen and inadequate bricks.
He is supposed to have built and later on broken a wall that kept Periya Perumal, Sri Ranganatha hidden from the marauders.
He built a perfect image of himself and corrected a sculptor who couldn't fashion a base for it. This lovely image can be seen at Thiruahindrapuram.
He must have been a great painter and artist. His skill in sculpture and the word pictures in his various works attest to that. A pity there is no record of all his skills.
He is the one of the very few acharyas who was adept in tantra and proved it often. His summoning of Sri Garuda to ward of the danger due to snakes is well known. Thus was born the mellifluous Garuda Dandaka. The onomatopoeia of this work makes you look up to see if a giant eagle is beating its huge wings nearby. He neutralized the black magic that had filled his stomach with water by scratching a nearby wooden pillar and letting the water out from it. His sense of humour can be gauged by the fact that he thanked the voodoo man for cleaning the streets of Kanci! He materialised a shower of gold coins for an indigent brahmachari by composing the magnificent SriSthuthi in front of Sri Perundevi Thayar's sanctum. Without looking at the gold coins he walked away.
The occidentals will never understand vairagya. There isn't a proper word in English for it. Austerity is a weak substitute. The western superman by definition would know nothing of humility and austerity. This superman of ours was allergic to pelf. He became angry when he was entreated to become a court poet. Of this ire was born the superlative Vairagya Panchkam. Once he was offered gold coins as alms. He wouldn't touch it. With the sacred grass, darba, he extricated the gold coins from rice and pushed them away. Till the end he lived the life of a house holder, grihastha, subsisting on unchya vrithi, alms. It is said that he wore clothes that showed scars of being mended often.
A lifetime is not enough to read the works of Sri Vedanta Desika. His output is truly marvelous. He is supposed to have written atleast 128 granthas, many of which are now extinct, luptha. No lecturer on Ramanuja Darsana can afford to ignore Desika's work. They do it at their own peril. What he has not written on the darsana, does not exist. That a single man has written so comprehensively about a philosophy, systematically refuting objections, is unheard of.
His work Sri Rahasyatrayasara is the end all of all that needs to be said of Ramanuja's Darsana. To have written so completely means that his understanding of Visistadvaita was like sphatika, clear crystal. His mastery of all the branches like tarka, mimamsa etc by the age of twenty must have provided him with sufficent time to answer all arguments. His Paramatha bhanga, Shatadushani etc. demonstrate his skill at debate.
When the seniors at Srirangam sent him a SOS to come and ward off the danger due to mayavadis he came running. Later on when there was objections to Azhwar's Tamil hymns being used he proved that these bhakti laden songs were in no way inferior to the stotras in Sanskrit. He argued that it was these Dravida hymns that illuminated the way when one was lost in the dense pathless forests of Vedas and Vedanthas. Nathamuni had reinstated the singing of Nammazhwar's hymns at Srirangam after the practice started by Thirumangai Azhwar was given up. Ramanuja came and established the annual "adyayanotsava" on a solid footing. Swami Desika steadied the foundation and built impregnable ramparts around this tradition at the Srirangam temple.
Nammazhwar takes on the role of Parankusanayaki as does Tirumangai Azhwar as Parakalanayaki when their bhakti reaches the zenith. Among acharyas it was only Desika who became the love lorn Venkatanayaki. From the diamond like hard arguments of Vedanta to the petal soft cries of a pining maiden our Swami had mastered every nuance of human behaviour and could write it down brilliantly.
His humility is the stuff of legends. He had composed Sri Paduka Sahasra in an reluctant response to a challenge. The challenger could write just 300 slokas and he came and accepted defeat. At that time Desika was reported to have said that your 300 is far better than my 1000. The fact remains that nothing is known of that 300 and Sri Paduka Sahasra is almost a bible to many in Desika Sampradaya.
It is most inexplicable that a person of the stature of Desika was repeatedly challenged by all and sundry. Sri Ramanuja was confronted only by vidwans, learned men of other sects. But Desika had to answer not only to vidwans but also to unexpected antagonists like a snake charmer, a sculptor, a mason, a tantri etc. Most of the second category were instigated by the envious peers of Sri Desika. That such a gentle saint made people envious is difficult to digest. The mediocrity that is humanity in numbers cannot tolerate brillance. Instead of fully enjoying swamis's multifaceted talents, these people tried to belittle him. That they would fail abjectly was a foregone conclusion but they kept trying and some still do, more is the pity.
A sage, a man of immense learning, a polymath, a polyglot, a dextrous man, a logician par excellence, a poet second to none, a magician in more ways than one, an undefeated debater, a brilliant writer, a great philosopher, a most austere and humble man, a most merciful man, a man who could empathise with the troubled, a man totally immune to pelf and power, an unsurpassed leader, a devotee on par with the azhwars...adiyen's pen is exhausted.
He is said to be the incarnation of the bell in Sri Venkatachalapathi's sanctum. The crystal clear notes of his works subdued the inauspicious noises of the other sects and established bhakti and especially saranagathi, total surrender to our Lord, as the summum bonum of all human endeavours.
It will not be wrong to say that he was an avathara of Sri Hayagriva so profound was his learning.
He was indeed the complete superman!
Dr.S.Sundar Rajan MS ortho, Trichy.
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