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·ओं
ब्रह्माञ्जलिः
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Publishers : THE AUTHOR
Price :
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·त्वत्पादाजदिदृक्षया हिमगिरिप्रत्यन्दिगङ्गाझरी सङ्काशप्रवहज्जनावलिरहोरात्रं च जोधुब्यते । गोविन्देति विमुक्तकण्ठमसकृत् श्रीवेङ्कटेशप्रभो! तस्मै ते मयका समर्पितमिदं काव्यं प्रसूनायताम् ।। “May this work named Brahmanjali be the flower offered my by humble self at Thy feet, Oh! Lord Venkateswara! Who art being approached day and night by throngs of people io a flow like that of the Ganga jumping down the heights of the Himalayas, crying out full throated one of Thy names Govinda' in shrill imploring tones surging out from the depths of agonising hearts"

·The author, Dr, D. ARKASOMAYAJI, MA, Ph.D.,
Reader, Kendriya Sanskrit Vidyapeetha, Tirupati,
Formerly Head of the department of Mathematics and some-time
Principal, D. N. R. College, Bhimavaram (A. P.)

·INTRODUCTION Some of the following verses poured out of my heart when I was laid down with a serious illness some time ago and was seeing Death with one eye and God with the other. Some of them came to be published under the title “Kbanda Khadya Sāhasrika' Vol. I, Bhagavad Vibhatipada. A few opinions thereupon are also included herein, not in the least to appear big in the eyes of readers but just to induce them to read this book; for, after all any writer, right from the greatest of poets, down to the lowest craves to be read. During the long lapse of time ever since, I had been ever under a bope of bringing out the remaining verses, but I regret to state that all of them became a prey to the moth which I could not anticipate I have made an attempt to construct again a few of those verses, Some more I bave chosen to add from my recent thought. I am a bit afraid that the book may read like a moralization, that may not be to the taste of many. Yet I have chosen to publish them for what they are worth, simply because it is entirely my own personal supplication to the Divine, and I do not like what bas been written about God should be allowed to perish. I lay them now at the feet of Lord Venkateśvara under the appropriate title Brahmäñjali with the petition: या या भावपरम्परा समभवद्विश्वेशमुद्दिश्य मे तां माहहृदयेऽपि कर्तुमिव हि श्लोकैर्निबद्धा मया । साहित्याध्वनि या ध्वनिर्निगदिता रीतिश्च शय्यातथाऽ प्यर्थीलङ्कृतिशब्दचित्रण मुखास्तास्ते न मे दृक्पथे ॥ चिन्ताऽभूदथ भावमात्रविषया तद्भावनापूर्वकम् भक्त्या केवलमीश्वरस्य रचिताः श्लोकाः प्रयत्नं विना। तांस्तानद्य निवेश्य तस्य पदयोस्तस्यैव मूल्स्थितं । श्रीमद्वेष्टनायकं प्रणतिकृत् ब्रमाञ्जलि स्तन्यते ।

·"Whatever thoughts arose in my mind about the Supreme Immanent and Transcendant Intelligence, wbich is called for brevity as God, I have chosen just to versify, not so much as poetize, so as to transmit them to people of my nature. So herein no attempt has been made at all, for any of the embellishments of poetry namely either the Dvani or the Rasa or the Alamkara or for sonorous sounds. Only a devotion to the Divine sponsored the verses and no great labour went into them. Residing at the very feet of Lord Venkateśvara I now lay them at His feet, who stands idolized of that Supreme Intelligence. I have now titled the work as Brahmañjali wbich means a Vedic supplication with folded hands, in as much as the word Chandas in which I clad my thoughts, originally meant the Veda, and what is written through Cbandas to glorify the Divine may well have the pretention to be a little of the nature of the Veda, that Veda which is the immortal glorification of the Brahman, and as such is acclaimed as eternal and revealed in the hearts of Seers, who sought and lived in the Brabman- Though these verses are sought to be published for the sake of a few of my nature, they are addressed to that Eternal Mind by just a small pulse in that Eternal Mind, A few more thoughts are appended in the form of essays, which bappen to be a continuation of the same thought but which have not been versified. They are titled "My humble thoughts on Man, Nature and God”. Most of them have been published in journals like the 'Saptagiri' of Tirupati. Just one word: I have not given the verses a literal translation, however desirable, for the simple reason that such a translation cannot be expected to bring out the spirit of the verses, I crave the indulgence of scholars in this, ·SOME OPINIONS From Scholars on the author's previous Kavyam Khandakhādya Sahasrikā Padma.bhushan Prof. V. Raghavan in the Samskrta Pratibha, 1959. आङ्ग्लकलाशालागणिताध्यापकस्य प्रबन्धुः संस्कृताभिनिवेशः, तत्र प्रावीण्यं चाऽभिनन्दनीयम्। धारावाहिनी वाक्सरणिः समस्तपदरहिता ललितमधुरा च। भावा गभीराः, खगोलशास्त्रगर्भिताश्च । काव्यमिदं गणितशास्त्रमिव अन्यूनाति- रिक्तां कामपि सुपमा विभति । कविना परिशीलितं गणितशास्त्रं यद्यपि च्छात्राणां शिरोवेदनाजनकम् ; तथाऽपि तेन विरचितं काव्यमिदं तेषां मनोविकासकं स्यादिति निश्चप्रचं बमः , University Hamburg Seminar for kultur and Geschichte Indiens Prof. L. Alsdorf Hamburg 36 Den 2-5-1961 Alsterglacis 3 Western Germany Dear Mr. Somayaji, , Please accept my heartiest thanks for your Khapļākhādya Sāhasrikā and also my apologies for not having written carlier; very heavy pressure of ufficial and non-official work prevented me from giving your book the attention it deserves. May I dow express my sincere admiration for your beautiful, easy-flowing Sanskrit verses. I am sure every lover of the Girvāpa Bhasha will enjoy them as much as I did. You have done a valuable service to the cause of Sanskrit as a living language, and your poetry incorporates all that is best in Indian religion, philosophy and poetical tradition besides testifying to genuine patriotism. I have added your book to the library of my seminar. With repeated thanks and best wishes, Yours sincerely, L. ALSDORF ·vii Dr. C. P. Ramaswami Ayar, Madras-18 28--12–1959 I have received and read at one stretch your collection of gnomic verses. You have a remarkable command of the Sanskrit language and a felicity for epigrammatic expression. From the days of Bhartrihari, this method of poetical presentation of fundamental truths has been popular in India and it is with unalloyed pleasure that I read your work. You have strives to be uptodate and you have not only cast your mathematical knowledge bat have dealt with even sputniks and rockets. Please accept my sincere congratulations and my best wishes. C, D, Deshmukh 5-2-1960 Dear Shri Somayaji, Many thanks for sending me a copy of your book of Sanskrit verses. I have read them with great interest and appreciation for the poetic merit. Dr. B. Gopalareddy, 2-2-1960 Minister of Revenue and Civil expenditure, India Camp: Rajahmundry My dear Shri Somayaji, Thanks for the letter and the Kavyam you have kindly sent. I wish you could personally give the Kavyam and explain to me the general pattern of your poetic fancy. I must congratulate you for the excellent Kavyat you have produced in Sanskrit. I may assure it would stimulate more interest in the study of Sanskrit literature. However degrading and disgusting at times man appears he is certainly next to God and he is the part of the Divinity in Him. You have taken most of your theme with ease and success.

·vili Bhavan's Journal - Vol. 6. No. 25 July 10, 1960 Steeped in the best of both ancient and modern literature the poet provides us with an excellent collection of poems on all sorts of topics ranging from the Moon and the Cloud to the modern Science, its sputniks and luniks crossing cosmic space and hitting the very surface of the Moon! The poems are sweet and mellifluous and remind us of another equally gifted Andhra Poet, Jagannatha Panditaraja who was honoured by the Moghul Emperor Shah Jehan as his poet Laureate. His two essays in Engish on the voice of the Upanishads and the Philosophy of human life and the concept of universal religion are added as a supplement at the end and they provide stimulating food for thought and speak volumes for the deep spiritual culture of the author. The poem richly deserves the blessings it has received from the President, Vice-President of India and our Prime Minister and makes us feel doubly happy since it abundantly proves that the Sanskrit Language is even now very virile and equal to the task of fully expressing the latest scientific thoughts in the hands of competent and sincere yotaries, We eagerly look forward to the remaining three sections which will provide us with an excellent literary repast. Vedanta Kesari May, 1960 The writer is well-read in the Vedic lore and often he presses verses into service for explaining the Vedic thought. It is refreshing to see the author following side by side with the ancient tradition, the contemporary thought in the field of spiritual evolution. He obseryes: 'When this universal outlook develops among men and nations, then dawns a new era of bliss for the humanity at large and perhaps a race of supermen may take birth out of this human race, as envisaged by Sri Aurobindo. Nature has more to give us and her course has a meaning and a purpose.'

·BIOGRAPHICAL आन्ध्रषु प्रतिथं विराजति पुरं गोदावरीतीरगम् श्रीमद्राजमहेन्द्रमित्यभिहितं यस्याऽन्तिके राजते । ग्रामः श्रीवलिचेरुनाम विवधदेदीप्यमानश्चिरम् यत्राऽऽसीन्मम जन्म यत्र निगमा जीवन्ति चाऽद्यावधि ॥ माता मे मङ्गमाम्बा सततमपि पति सेवमाना च दुर्गा देवीभक्ता भवन्ती निजतनुमनयत् सेव्यसेवां चरन्ती। पूज्यो बापायनामा श्रुतिविहितपथे। सञ्चरन् मे पिताऽऽमीत् मातापित्रोस्तयोम पदभजनमहो बाल्य एव व्यरंसीत् ।। श्रीमद्वेकटरामाख्यमग्रजं नौमि भक्तितः । येनाऽहं वेदवेदाङ्गप्रवेश लब्धवान् कृतः ।। द्वितीयमग्रज वन्दे सुब्रह्मण्यमुधीमणिम् । देवब्राह्मणपूजायां जीवितं यस्य धन्यति ।। श्रीनिवासमहं सेवे योऽत्र पर्वतमूर्धनि । येन स्वपादसेवाया आनीतः स्वपदान्तिकम् ।। यत्सेवा च दिवारानं धर्मपल्या कृता मम । आवामत्र निवासार्थमानयत् स्वगृहादिव ॥ In the state known as Andhra Pradesh there is a famous city called Rajahmundry situated on the banks of the holy river Godāvari. In the neighbourhood of that city there is a village Velicheru which has been for centuries a cradle of Vedic scholarship and where the Vedic lore still lives with its pristine purity.

·ii There it is that my humble self had taken its birth sixty years ago. My mother known as Mangamám bā led her life both in worshipping my father and her favourite Deity named Durgā, besides rendering service to the venerable whomever she happened to receive as guests. My father, whose name is Bapaya, conducted his life in strict accordance with the Vedic injunctions and canons of Dharmasastra. Alas! it was not given to me to serve them long, as my misfortune would have it! I prostrate at the feet of my eldest brother, known as Venkatarāma who it was that initiated me into the Vedic lore in all its ramifications. I bow to the next elder brother called Subrabmangasomayāji who has been rendering his life fortunate ever engaged in the worship of God and godly Brahmins. Finally let me conclude by my supplication to Srinivāsa who has taken his abode here on the hill Tirumalai. It is He that has brought me here so as to worsbip His feet residing at His very feet. In fact, I feel as though the devotion of my wife to the Lord of the Seven hills, a rare type of devotion and of dedication day and night has been responsible to have brought us here dislodging us from our home far away from here.

·ix
K. S. Ramaswami Sastriar,
46, Lloyd Road,
Royapettah
29-8-60
My Dear Sir,
I thank you sincerely for your sending me your excellent
volume of Sanskrit poems on Nature, Humanity and God.
(भगवद्विभूतिपादः)
What a charming name! Equally brief and attractive is the
name Khandakhādya Sahasrika. I admire your fine mastery of
grammar and metre and idiom and style and poetic graces and
embellishments. I shall be glad to hear from you often.
Yours sincerely,
K. S.R,
2

·Page 14 18 ॐ ॐ ॐ 30 cm - 35 श्री: विषयसूचिका-CONTENTS Subject Verse Numbers 1. उपोद्धात: 1- 6 2. भगवद्विभूतिः 7-38 3. कोऽहम् 39-52 4. ज्वरितो मनुष्यः 53-57 5. परमाणुशास्त्रम् 58-63 6. किमिदं जीवितं भवेत् ?* 64-87 7. खगोलीया भावाः* 88-95 8. रसालसालः 96-102 9. गोदावरी 103-112 10. भगवान् वाल्मीकि:* 113-125 11. प्रकृतेविलासः 126-133 12. पुरा भारतमेदिनी 134-141 13. अद्यतनो भारतदेशः 142-147 14. उद्धरेदात्मनाऽऽत्मानम्* 148-153 15. रसो वै स:* 154-171 16. लक्ष्मी:* 172-178 17. भारतीया सरस्वती* 179-201 18. प्रकृतिग्रन्थः 202-206 19. प्रकृतिशक्तिः 207-217 20. विद्वान् सद्योऽत्र भारते 218-227 1. अन्तरिक्षयानम् 228-239 22. को महात्मा ? 240-243 23. मानवानां परं साध्यम् 243-252 24. मानवसेवा 253-257 39 40 43 46 48 51 54 59 61 64 68 73 74 75 ·xi 29. 25. नक्षत्रम् 258-260 77 26. सविता 261-266 78 27. कालिदासः 267-305 80 28. ब्राह्मी शक्तिः 306-308 87 ब्राह्मणः 309-311 87 30. सुगेहम् 312-314 88 31. चन्द्रः 315-318 89 32. मही 319-321 91 33. निद्रा 322-323 92 34. पर्वतः 324-326 92 35. कः कविः? 327-332 93 36. गैर्वाणी वाणी 333-337 94 37. मानवः 338-341 96 38. मातः! 342-348 98 39. पुष्पम् 349-350 100 40. नीतिश्लोकाः 351-358 100 41. प्रकृतेर्बीजगणितम् 359 102 42. मनः 360-361 102 43. कालचक्रम् 362-369 103 44. किमर्थ जातोऽहम् 370-373 105 45. कीर्तिकामना 374-381 107 46. धर्मपत्नी 382-404 110 47. अहं ब्रह्मानुसन्धानम् * 405-417 115 48. जगद्गुरवः 418-422 118 49. मदीया कुलदेवता 423-425 119 50. My humble thoughts on Man, Nature and God' 121 N.B,- The star marks indicate the respective publications of poems in various Journals,

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·१. उपोडातः
श्रीमन्मगुरुपादपद्मयुगलं नत्वा च गीदेवतां
ध्यात्वा विघ्ननिवारणाय सुमुखं तं वारणास्यं हृदि ।
आधाचार्यमुखारविन्दगलितामाचम्य वाचां सुधां
ब्रह्माण्डाधिपति प्रकृत्य मयका ब्रह्माञ्जलिस्तन्यते ॥ १ ॥
1. Introduction
Having bowed to the lotus-feet of my Gurus and those of
the Goddess Saraswati, having invoked that elephant-faced God
Vighnesvara in my heart for the removal of the obstacles from
my path in the course of my work, and having drunk at the fount
of the nectar of words which welled out from the lotus-faces of
the Acharyas of yore, this work under the caption 'Brabmanjali'
is being penned by my insignificant self.
या देवी दिविजातजातमकुटालङ्कारनीराजिता
ब्राह्मी ब्रह्ममुखारविन्दवसतिर्वेदत्रयीरूपिणी ।
या प्रापश्चिकवाङ्मयेषु बहुधारूपा दरीदृश्यते
जिह्वां मे मधुमत्तमां भगवती कुर्याद गिरांदेवता ॥ २ ॥
That Goddess Saraswati, whose feet shine with the effulgence
of the gems that decorate the crowns of the host of supplicating
celestial beings, that Goddess who is reported to be residing on
the faces of the Creator in the form of the three Vedas, that
Goddess who is manifesting herself in the many literatures of
the world at large in manifold forms, may that Goddess instill
sweetness into my tongue.
गैर्वाण्या कवितां चिकीर्षति जनो वाण्यामयं तत्र यद्
धाष्ट्यं तत् कविकीर्तिकामुकतया बोभूयमानं परम् ।
यास्यामीति वचोबलेन च यथा प्राप्येत वाराणसी-
यात्राजन्यफल नरेण हि तथा चानेन यत्नेन मे ॥ ३ ॥

·१ ब्रह्माजलिः This writer feels motivated as though by a strong presumptuous desire of acquiring a cheap popularity of being reckoned as a poet in the Divine tongue; but just as it is reported that by the very desire to go to Varanasi a man will have acquired the actual fruit of the pilgrimage, so also, by this desire of mine I believe I shall have achieved a little of that stature of the Sanskrit poet. महान्तो वाल्मीकिप्रमुखकवयो भारतधरा- मलंचक्रुः किं ते व्यवसितमिदं चेति गदिते । महाराजः सूतां सुतमितरमा न सुवता- मिति प्रोक्तं किं स्यान्मम भवतु यत्नोऽयमपि च ॥ ४ ॥ The greatest of poets like 'Valmiki' adorned this Bharat; what are you a pigmy to try your hand at poetry?-If it be said so, you say as though “ let the emperor alone beget a son, let not the others." So please permit me my own indulgence. व्यवस्यन्ति ग्रन्थान् रचयितुमनेके हि कवयः परं तेषामेको भवति रससिद्धः कविवरः । खनन्ति क्षोणी चेद् बहुषु खलु कूपाय बहवः स्थलेष्वेकः प्रायो बहुलजलधारां हि चिनुते ॥ ५ ॥ Many a poet try their hands at poetizing; but it is given just to one to be a poet in the real sense of the word. Many a man sink wells in their respective places. Water wells up perhaps only in one case. रसं लब्ध्वाऽऽनन्दी भवति सकलो जन्तुरपि यद् रसस्तस्माद् ब्रह्म प्रथयति तथा च श्रुतिशिरः । यथा बाह्यानन्दे लगति जनता ब्रह्मणि यथा रमन्ते विद्वांसः कविरपि तथा काव्यकरणे ॥ ६ ॥ The Upanishad says that every creature be it a man or an animal reaps pleasure out of something which is palatablo; so it defines the Brahman as the quintessence of all existence. Even ·भगवंद्विभूतिः 8 as the generality of men pursue the extraneous pleasures, even as those who have realized Brahman find bliss in that Brahman, just the same way a poet revels in his own job of singing himself into poetry. २. भगवद्विभूतिः श्रीमत्सूर्यसहस्रकोटिबिलसब्रह्माण्डमाण्डप्रभो, मायाकल्पितदेशकालकलनालीलेन्द्रजालप्रधीः । व्यामोहार्णवपातिताखिलजनस्तोमो भवान् क्रीडते जानीते किमु पण्डितोऽपि च भवन्मायाममेयां पराम् ॥ ७ ॥ 2. The estate of the Lord of the Universe Oh ! Lord of the universe, a universe in whose galaxies shine millions and billions of Suns; Oh God! who has created as tbough by a play of jugglery a universe, which is reported to be a wonderful space-time continuum! You enjoy having thrown the entire world into a sea of infatuation, and take it as a play. Who is it that could understand your Divine algebra be he the greatest of scholars ? आसृष्टेः कति वा जनास्समभवन् लोके मृताश्चाऽभवन् राजानः कवयो महर्षिपदगास्तद्वच दीना जनाः । ते सर्वे खलु कालगर्भपतिताः के नाम तान् जानते जानाते बहुशो धुलोकपदगौ तौ सूर्यचन्द्राविव ॥ ८ ॥ How many have not been born and have not died ever since the dawn of creation, kings, poets, seers on the one hand and on the other a number of others low-born, poor and diseased, ignorant and stupid. They are all dead and gone once for all buried in depths of oblivion. Who ever knows their history? Perhaps the Sun and the Moon who have been there all through, high in the heavens, could give us a record of their history! कस्मात् सृष्टिरियं प्रसर्पति कथं किं वेति यः कोऽपि वा नानाशास्त्रविचारणागतवया जानाति किं तत् स्वयम् ।।

·ब्रह्माजलिः अव्यक्तं किमु तद्यतः प्रभविताः यत्राऽथ लीयामहे यावद्देहगतो बुधश्च तदिदं ज्ञातुं कथं पारयेत् ? ॥ ९ ॥ Wherefrom does the creation well up, how does it, and why does it? Is there one, who could tell me about it be he learned in all the Sastras, having grown grey with learning? From what bosom of reality are we born and into what infinities and eternities do we sink after death? The most learned of men, nay the very angels of the Heavens, could never understand this mystery of life so long as their consciousness stands encaged in corporeal limitations. अद्वैत कतिचिद्दन्ति च विशिष्टाद्वैतमन्ये कति द्वैत केचिदभिप्रयन्ति च परे भिन्नान् पथः सङ्गताः । सामान्यस्तु जनो गतानुगतिको नैवात्र चिन्तापरः, माजीवन्नपि जीवति प्रभवितो लोके स्वयं जीवितुम् ।। १० ।। Some scholars argue that Monism is the truth of life; some plead qualified Monism is the truth; some others dispute that the secret is but dualism. A host of others pursue each a different faith, The average man who is not capable of any logical discourse just follows many other similar people, upinquisitive about the philosophy of his existenco. Made born in this world to live his life, he lives it through, as far as he could, even if he has to wade through a number of vicissitudes. . देहेऽस्मिन् जनितः कथं भवति चेत् कर्मैव तत्कारणं मन्यन्ते विबुधास्तथा यदि ततः पूर्व च देहोऽभवत् । देहः कर्मसमुद्भवो यदि कृतं कर्माऽपि देहोद्भवम् नादि ति हि बीजवृक्षविधया को वा विजानाति तत् ॥ ११ ॥ How is it that an individual is made to be born in a mortal coil? Pandits say that the birth is a retribution of his past deeds. If that de 80, how did that past body come iato being? So to

·भगवद्विभूतिः
B
have had that body there must have been another birth in the
further past and that was occasioned by still a previous birth and
so on. There seems to be no begioning to this, just as in the
case of a seed and tree each begetting the other. Whoever could
answer this problem?
न ज्ञातुं यदि शक्यते भगवतो लीला मनुष्यैः किमु
व्यर्था तर्कपरम्परेति मनुजो न ब्रह्म जिज्ञासते ।
काले कश्चिदहो तथापि भवति ज्ञास्यामि तत्वं तदि-
त्येवं चाऽत्र वसिष्ठमुख्यमुनयः प्रादुर्बभूवुः क्षितौ ।। १२ ।।
If it be postulated that a mortal could never understand the
mystery of life, the average man decries all logical dissertations
as a chase of the wild goose, and contents himself with an
ignorant life. However, once in a way, there does exist a man,
who would never cease to do that Brahmajijnasa, the quest of
the Brahman and behold! The great Rishis like Vasishtha were
among those inspired souls.
यथा रोदित्यन्धे तमसि निहितो दीपगतये
न वाचा वक्तुं तत् प्रभवति शिशुः भावयति वा ।
महाविद्वांश्चाऽपि प्रभवति न तत्त्वं कलयितुं
यतस्तचैतन्यं भवति तनुबद्धं विकलितम् ॥ १३ ॥
Even as a child enveloped by pitch darkness, cries out for a
light, unaware of its own craving, much less to articulate that,
just the same way even the greatest of scholars could never probe
into the mystery of life, for the simple reason that his conscious-
ness is refracted and crippled in corporeal confinement.
यतो व्याधिदेहे भवति सकलस्यापि मरण
तदेवास्मान् ब्रूते क्यमिह न शक्तास्स्वतनुषु ।
न दाराः पुत्रा वा न धनमपि वा न श्रुतमपि
स्वशक्तौ वर्तेरन् कथमिव जनुर्वाऽपि मरणम् ॥ १४ ॥

·ब्रह्माजलिः The very fact that disease enters our bodies in spite of us and the very fact that death overtakes us much against our fight, should inform us that we are no masters of our bodies. Neither our wife, nor our progeny, nor wealth, nor our educational attainments-none of these lie in our hands. That being so, how could we prescribe our birth or death? बुभुक्षा जन्तूनां कथमिव भवेद्वा कथमथो पिपासा वा, भुक्तं कथमिव हि जीर्णं च भवति । स्वकीयप्रागल्भ्यं किमु भवति तत्र प्रभवितुं कया शक्त्या देहः प्रचलति घटीयन्त्रविधया ॥ १५ ॥ How is hunger worked up in the body? How does thirst arise? What mechanism digests wbat has been eaten? Are we competent to do it all by our own effort? What is that force that keeps the body going like a clock without our own effort? यो मेऽन्नं भगवानसृष्ट पुरतः शुत्सर्गतो 'जीवसे' तृष्णायाः पुरतो दयामयतया तद्वत् 'पिबध्यै, जलम् । चक्षुश्श्रोत्रमुखानि खानि विदधे सौख्यानुभूत्यै चिरम् यः कर्ताऽस्य महाद्भुतस्य जगतो देवं नमस्कुर्महे ।। १६ ॥ I bow to that Supreme Divine which it is that created my hunger after having created food, which again created my thirst after having created water, which has further endowed me with the senses to enjoy my existence, and which has created this wonderfal universe into which I have stumbled and where I am to play my part. यो मह्यं व्यतरत् तनुं क्तिनुते पोषं यदीया दया तं नित्यं शरणं भजानि च समाधेयं च तस्मै मम । नाहं लौकिकवृत्तिरसि बनुषा लोकेऽपि सम्पातितः सत्ये ब्रमणि मे स्थितिहि परिधे: केन्द्रं यथा स्यात् तथा ॥१७ ·भगवद्विभूतिः 7 To Him I am answerable who gave me this body and whose grace it is in bringing me up. Let He be my refuge. Though by birth I am made a member of the humanity at large I do not need to enter into commerce with the world, in as much as my status lies moored in the Infinite even as the circumference of a circle has its existence in relation to its centre. देव त्वां प्रयते यदा मनसि मे ध्यातुं तदानीं मम ध्याने नैव कदाऽपि भाति तव यत्नैर्गुण्यमुक्तं बुधैः । अन्नं स्वादु जलं तथा मधु ततो रम्यं जगद् जीवितुं स्रष्टुर्भूतदयैव ते मम सदा बुद्धया जरीगृह्यते ॥ १८ ॥ Oh God! whenever I attempt worshipping Thee in my mind, never doest Thou appeal to me sans attributes though perhaps Thou art formless. Thy kindness alone appeals to me, that kindness-that Thou hast towards all beings, which has created appetising food, sweet waters, and a beautiful world wherein to live. मार्ताण्डस्य मरीचिकाभिरभितस्ततो निदाघे जनः श्रान्ति क्लान्तिमुपेत्य भाग्यवशतो दृष्ट्वा नदी निर्मलाम् । स्नात्वा चाऽपि निपीय जीवनमरं ब्रह्मन् ! तदानीमपि स्रष्टारं सलिलस्य तस्य यदि नो वन्देत किं वा नरः ॥ १९॥ Roasted by the haughty heat of the scorching Sun of the summer season if a man tired and enervated finds by good luck a limpid river, bathes therein and quenches his thirst and if even then Thou doest not occur to his mind, who hast created that lifegiving water, if even then he does not pay Thee homage, is he a man'? प्रागव्यक्तमिवाऽपि यद्विलसितं बीजाद्यथा भूरुहो दिक्कालात्मकतामुपेत्य बहुधा भाति प्रपञ्चं यतः । 1. The word Jeevanam means at once both life and water. 2. Note the pun on वानरः (i.c.) a monkey: perhaps he is no better than a monkey.

·8 ब्रह्माजाल: आकाशः पवनस्ततश्च हुतवाडापश्च विश्वम्भरा यस्यैव स्फुरिता विभूतिरखिलं तद्ब्रह्म वन्दामहै ॥ २० ॥ May we supplicate that Supreme Divine, whose play is all this cosmic picture of space, time and matter, made manifest as though out of nothing like a tree evolving out of a seed. अहो ! नित्यं कोटीस्सृजसि भगवन् ! जन्तुनिवहान् घरायां तैस्सर्वैन किमु तव सन्तुष्टिरभवत् । किमर्थं व्यर्थ मामपि जगति दीनं रचितवान् अहं किं कर्ता स्यां यदिह भवकूपारपतितः ॥ २१ ।। Oh God! Thou hast been creating millions and billions of creatures day in and day out. Art Thou not satisfied with all of them? Why bast Thou brought me also into this cosmic picture, me an insignificant one? What doest Thou expect of me who is engrossed in worldly life? लक्षेशान् क्षितिपालकानथ महावैपश्चितीकान् कवीन् दृष्ट्वा मज्जननं वृथेति कलयन् धातस्त्रिलोकीविभो !। दारिद्यपहृतां विलोक्य जनतामज्ञानदोषाहतां धन्यं मे जनुरित्यवैमि भगवन् ! धन्योऽस्मि विश्वप्रभो ॥ २२ ॥ When I look at the lives of great men, men of status, rulers, scholars and poets, then I despair and consider my life not worthliving. On the other hand when I reflect upon the millions of men steeped in poverty, disease and ignorance then I congratulate myself as having been at least what I am! कि कीटादिकजन्म भूरुहलताप्रामस्य किं जन्मना किं सादिविषोग्रजन्तुजनुषा किं मानवानां जनिः ।। किं कर्तव्यममीभिरस्ति भगवन् ! जाने न विश्वप्रभो! लीला किं किमु निष्प्रयोजनमिदं कर्म त्वदीयं भवेत् ।। २३ ॥ Oh God! why hast Thou created insects, why trees and creepers, why so many kinds of venomous species like the serpents .

·भगवद्विभूतिः 9 and the like, why men? What hast Thou to achieve by creating all these? 1 do not understand the meaning of Thy play or otherwise a meaningless avocation? . कूपारान्तरमीनवद् भवति मे कूपस्थमण्डूकवत् , मेधिभ्रामितमेषवत् स्थितिरियं देहे शकृत्कीटवत् । । मायाचित्रितदेशकालयुगलीमोहप्रवाहे लुठन् , अज्ञोऽहं गहनं कथं तव पदं जानामि विश्वप्रभो ? ॥ २४ ॥ Lord of the Universe! I am not merely my body and as such I feel that I got encaged in this body as a fish in the depths of the sea, as a frog confined in the waters of a well, as a goat tied fast to a pole and like an insect inside a dunghill. Made born into a universe, which is a wonderful play of space, time and matter, drifting in it blindly without the least understanding, how could I, a pigmy, understand Thy status? यत्रैतानि पदे लुठन्ति तव हे विष्णो ! विभो ! कोटिशो नक्षत्राणि महान्ति रेणुवदहं ब्रह्माण्डमाण्डे कियान् ? । ब्रह्मायुश्च निमेषवद् गलति चेदाद्यन्तहीने महा- काले लोकविनाशकारिणि कियन्मे जीवितं बुबुदम् ॥२५॥ What am I, no more than a speck in the immensities of space, depicted as Thy foot in whose depths roll millions of stars each of which is reported to be a Sun of mighty dimensions. What is the lease given unto my life?, no more than a bubble in the eternities of time, that time which had no beginning, nor will have an end, and in which even the life of Brahman, the very creators (reported to have a duration equal to 100x2x4320000000 x360 years) transpires like a twinkle of the eye. 1. Note. The sky above is reported to be the Vishoupada i.e. the foot of the Lord, meaning thereby that the totality of the stellar universe is only a fragment of the Divine, and that much more lies beyond immortal in the Heavens. Vide : Veda (Purusha Sukta): पादोस्य विश्वा भूतानि, त्रिपादस्यामृतं दिवि । 2 ·10 ब्रह्माजलि: कोऽहं मे जननी च का मम पिता को वा भवेदित्यपि ध्यायं ध्यायमिदं हि बीजगणितं दैवेन संकल्पितम् । आश्चर्य तनुते भयं वितनुते सांसारिकं जीवितम् विद्वांश्चाऽपि लगत् समुद्रतिमिवत् तद्वागुरायामहो! ॥ २६ ॥ Who am I? Who was my mother? Who, my father? The more I think about this, the more it leads me into insoluble Divine algebra. This life in this mortal coil works in my heart both a wonder but more a fear. Even the greatest of the learned gets entangled in his corporeal life even as a whale gets entangled into the snare of a fisherman, द्रष्टुं दूरगतं हि वस्तु नयनं नेष्टे यतो दुर्बलम् श्रोतुं नैव समर्थमस्ति निनदं श्रोत्रं च दूरे भवम् । बद्ध नाट्यति मामकं मन इदं पञ्चेन्द्रियः रज्जुभिः क्षुद्रस्ताहगयं कथं भगवतो मायामतीयात् पराम् ॥ २७ ॥ This eye is too feeble to be able to comprehend a thing at a distance. This ear is not capable of hearing a sound made at a distance. This mind wauders hither and thither pulled as though by the ropes of the senses. Such a pigmy as me, how could I overcome the Divine mystery of life? दारिद्य कतिचिजनेषु निहित रोगास्तथा केषुचिद् विद्यागंधविवेकशून्यमतयः केचित् कृता मानवाः। एवं सत्यपि मानवः कथमहो हेतुं न जिज्ञासते भक्ति वाऽपि जगभौ न कुरुते शोशुच्यमानोऽपि सः ॥२८॥ Some are afflicted by poverty; some by disease ; some are made stupid lacking in culture; yet, it is a wonder, why man never ascertains or understands the reason, nor does he raise his hands in supplication to the Divine even in the midst of agony. नास्ते देव इति ब्रुवन् मदवशो विश्वेश ! कश्चिच्चरेत् यावत् कष्टपरम्पराभिनिहतस्त्वां सेवितं बुद्धयते ।

·भगवद्विभूतिः 11 देवोऽस्तीति वदन् प्रपत्तिरहितः कश्चिच्चरेत् कामतः सन्देहेन च जीयतेऽन्यमनुजः पाण्डित्यगवं भजन् ।। २९ ॥ One parades proclaiming that there is no God till he gets repressed under the heels of calamities and is compelled to open his eyes to the existence of a Supreme power. One says that there must be a God; yet chooses a path of indulgence without ever developing a devotional attitude towards tbat Godhead. There is a third category of men, who arrogate to themselves a higher knowledge begotten by their feeble reasoning faculty, which therefore makes them sceptic all through their life till they give up the ghost in spite of themselves. शक्तिः काचिदमूं करोति जगतः सृष्टिं न सा चेत् कथम् भूरुट्कीटकपक्षिजन्तुजनता जायेत वर्चेत वा ? एवं भावयतो जनान् परिहसन् कश्चिन्महानास्तिकः, भक्तिश्चित्तरूजा भवेदिति वदन् गर्वस्य काष्ठां गतः ॥ ३० ॥ When it is said there must have been some Supreme Intelligence, which has been effecting this wonderfal creation, for, otherwise, how could there evolve an organic life in the form of trees, insects, birds, beasts and finally men, there is a man today puffed up with a pride of his pathological knowledge, and rendered an inordinate atheist, who would ridicule such poople and go to the extent of declaring that devotion to the Divine is also born out of a mental malady! यत् स्वेच्छागमने निरोधवशतो दु:खं भजेत् भूरुहः, यद्वाञ्छामणनेऽप्यशक्तिवशतो दु:ख पशुर्वा भजेत् । यत् स्वेच्छाकरणे च विघ्ननिहतो दुःखं भजेन्मानवः, वैधात्री शिरसा नमामि महतीं शक्ति तदाज्ञाकरीम् ॥ ३१ ॥ What sense of limitation is suffered by a tree in being ordained not to move, even if there be a craving to move? What limitation is placed on the tongue of an animal not to have been able to expresa Itself even if there be a craving? What sense of limitation ·12 ब्रह्माञ्जलिः and frustration is suffered by a man in not having things as per his desire, to that Supreme power, I pay my humble homage. यतो दृष्टिदत्ता तदिह खलु पश्यामि भगवन् यतो वाङ् मे दत्ता किमपि मम जिह्वा च भणति । यतो जीवोऽभूवं तदिह खल्लु जीवामि भगवन् न तन्मे प्रागल्भ्यं किमपि यदि कतुं प्रभवितः ॥ ३२ ॥ Oh God! I am able to see because I am given to see; I am able to talk something because I am given to talk; nay, I am able to live because I am given to live. It is nothing of my greatness if ought I happen to do. असारे संसारे न भवति ममाऽद्याऽपि विरतिः शरीरे जीर्णे वा न चरति विरक्तं मम मनः । प्रवृत्तिम वा न भवति निवृत्तिविषयतः सुदुस्साधं चेतो नियमितुमहो चञ्चलतया ॥ ३३ ॥ Even at this age of mine, my mind does not get satisfied with this monotonous meaningless life; even when the body is sufficiently aged and is worn out, my mind does not cease getting engrossed in the dull routine of life. It does neither get interested in the path of righteousness, por turn away from worldly pleasures. Behold! It is highly impossible to check the vagaries of the mind. असाध्या नो विद्या न च धनमसाध्यं न च यशः, तनौ किन्तु प्रेम प्रभवति न हातुं यतिरपि । अहं तं वन्दे यस्त्यजति तनुगं प्रेम नितराम् तथाऽप्यानन्दी सन् न च भवति भीतो मरणतः ॥ ३४ ॥ It is not impossible to acquire scholarship, nor impossible to amass wealth, nor to attain fame. But even one who has disciplined himself as an ascetic could not give up the attachment to ·भगवविभूतिः 18 his body. I pay homage to that great soul who has conquered such an attachment and yet exists in bliss upafraid of even death. तिष्ठाऽत्रेति भवानहो यदि वदेत् स्थीयेत तत्रैव हि ब्रह्माद्यैश्च जगत्पते किमुत मार्जनै रेणुभिः । स्पन्दन्ते परमाणुगर्भकणिकाः किं धर्मसूत्रं विना तादृग्विश्वगतो नरः किमु भवेत् दुःखी विना हेतुना ॥ ३५ ॥ Oh Lord of the Universe! If thou sayest "stand here" even Brahma and his like could not but obey Thy command. What are we mortals, who are no greater than particles in the mighty universe not to obey Thy will? If even particles like the electron and proton within the microcosm of the atom obey laws of mechanics, how could it be thought that men are condemned to misery without a reason behind. There must be laws of some spiritual mechanics, so to say, which guide men's destinies. , सर्वो जन्तुरपि स्वजातकवशाद् दु:खी सुखी स्यादिति ज्योतिश्शास्त्रविदो वदन्ति, भगवद्भक्तेः फलं किं भवेत् ? । इत्येवं यदि भावना भवति चेत् सत्यं समाधीयते लोकेशः किमनीश एव फलितं माष्टुं पुरादुष्कृतेः । ॥ ३६ ॥ Astrologers proclaim that every living being is destined to enjoy or suffer what has been ordained according to the law of retribution as prognosticated in his horoscope. If that be so, what is the good of devotion to the Divine, if what is to be suffered has got to be suffered? Wben this thought comes up in your mind, I answer "True; but, do you think that the Lord of the universe who is acclaimed to be omnipotent, could be 80 impotent as not to be able to set aside the effect of your previous sins ?" न भक्तं मे चेतो भवति भगवन् ! त्वय्यविकलम् कथं ज्ञान प्राप्तुं प्रभवति मतिम मितमतेः ।

·14 ब्रह्माजलिः न मे वेदैः प्रोक्ते नियतिबहुले कर्मणि यतिः, वृथा शंभो काल: प्रचलति भवानेव शरणम् ।। ३७ ॥ Oh God! it appears as though impossible to fix up my mind on Thee. How could I, of finite intelligence, attain knowledge of Thee! Nor do I have the discipline to perform the rites prescribed by the Vedas. Time is fleeting. Thou art alone my prop. जन्तूनां तनुमाश्रितो मनुजवद् गेहं, च तदृद्धये यस्तान् आशयति क्षुधां हि जनयन् यः प्राणयंस्तानथो। लोकं दर्शयति प्रमोदयति वा दुःखानि वा प्रापयन् क्रीडां पुत्तलिकैरिव प्रतनुते देवं नमस्कुर्महे ॥ ३८ ॥ I pay my humble homage to that Supreme consciousness, which having lodged itself in the bodies of living beings, as a man lodges bimself in a house, and for the development of that house, makes them eat, breathe, see and enjoy and making them very often suffer, enjoys the game as one playing with dolls. कोऽहम् ? माता मे पृथिवी तथा मम पिता द्यौरित्यवादीत् श्रुतिः, तस्यार्थः किमु वेति तर्कित इयं बोभूयते भावना । देहेऽस्मिन् पृथिवीजलामिमरुतां संघातरूपे स्थिते चैतन्यं तदुपाश्रितं तु भवति स्वर्धामकं मामकम् ॥ ३९ ॥ Who am I? "Though for all appearances I am a child of the earth, yet I am fathered by the starry sky" says the Veda. What does this mean? Though my body happens to be a conglomeration of the five earthly elements namely the earth, the water, the fire, the wind, and the permeating space, yet the consciousness that impregnates my body is one with the Supreme consciousness, immanent and transcendant. In other words, I am a centre of

·कोऽहम् !
15
that consciousness, so that I am a son of Immortality, I hail from
the Infinities of the Heavens ; I am as though a precipitate here
on the earth and my moorings lie in the nodus of immortality.
कुतः कालग दहं संप्रजातः प्रयास्यामि कुत्रेति वाऽहं न जाने।
महादेशगर्भे महाकालगर्भ क मे जीवितं बुद्बुदामं महेश ! ॥ ४० ॥
From what bosom of time I am born into this universe and
into what eternities shall I have to sink? In the Infinities of
space and eternities of Time, what am I no more than a bubble?
नभोगोलगर्ने प्रभाभासमानाः, अहो कोटिशस्तारकाः सम्भ्रमन्ति।
परं ताः समस्ताः खगोलीयशास्त्रे महासूर्यगोला भवन्तीति विद्मः ॥ ४१॥
In the bosom of the celestial sphere there wander yonder
millions and billions of stars that shine with effulgeace. Behold!
We are told in Astronomy that every one of them is a mighty
sun!
महातेजसां ताहशानां च मध्ये रविनों भवत्येकतारेति विद्मः ।
अदूरस्थितत्वाद् दरीदृश्यते यो बृहद्विम्बरूपश्च दन्दह्यमानः ।। ४२ ।।
We are told that this Sun of ours is but a yellow dwarf
among those stars, some of which are reported to be giants, and
super-giants. Only on account of his relative proximity namely
at a distance of only 9,30,00,000 miles, be appears that big and
that hot.
अहो ! भास्करोऽयं बुधादीन् नवाऽपि ग्रहानात्मशक्त्या दरीपति कर्षन् ।
यथा साम्प्रतं राज्यपीठे निषण्णाः, जनानात्मनः संपरिभ्रामयन्ति ॥ ४३ ।।
Behold! This Sun of ours compels the nine planets from
Mercury to Pluto to be going round and round about him sus-
taining them in their orbital course by his power of attraction
even as the present-day ministers occupying positions of power
wield the populace going round them for this and that.
इयं भूसंहाणां च सामान्यगोला रविं भ्राम्यमाणाऽनिशं दोद्रवीति ।
परब्रह्मणो धारणाशक्तिमेत्य स्वयं कन्दुको व धुमार्गे ठन्ती ॥ ११ ॥

·16 ब्रह्माञ्जलिः This Earth of ours which is just an average globe among the planets, is made to be going round and round the Sun incessantly from the very dawn of creation, how long, God only knows. It stands endowed with a bit of the sustaining power which belongs to the Divine, and floats in space like a ball as it were. इयं भूः कवीनां प्रसङ्गे महीति स्वयं रेणुकल्या महाकाशगर्ने । बहूंश्चाऽपि जीवान् समुत्पादयन्ती प्रजाभिर्वरीवति तोष्ट्रयमाना ।। ४५ ।। ॥ This earth in spite of its being no more than a particle in the immensities of space, is dubbed as a great globe in poet's parlance. It has been begetting from time immemorial, untold numbers of living species. Men have been praising her greatness right from the Vedas down to one like myself. अहो ! सा दयामूर्तिरमासु यस्माद् रवेरेकदूरे स्थिता बम्भ्रमीति । रवेस्सा समीपं तथा दूरतो वा भ्रमेचेद्वयं किं सजीवा भवामः ॥ ४६ ।। Behold! How this Earth our Mother, out of compassion for her soos keeps herself going round the Sun precautiously keeping herself almost at the same distance. Supposing out of fancy, she takes a walk to her own father the Sun or distracts farther away from him, thiok of our fate. We will have been roasted to death or frozen to death! ! तदीये च पृष्ठे बहूनां च मध्ये भवत्येकखण्डो ह्ययं भारताख्यः । भवन्ति प्रदेशा अनेके तदीया अयं चाऽऽन्ध्रदेशो मदीयोऽपि तत्र ॥४७॥ On the surface of this Earth there is a country called the Bharat, in which there are a good number of States. My own State the Andhra is one of them. मदीये प्रदेशे बहूनां पुराणामिदं तिर्पतीति प्रसिद्धं पुरं च । वसन् श्रीनिवासोऽत्र यावच्च विश्व सुपश्यन्निवाद्रौ स्थिति स्वीचकार ॥४८॥ In my State there are a good number of cities and towns amoag which this Tirupati is one. In this famous town Lord Venkateswara has taken residence on the top of a hill as though to be aspecting the entire world from that height, ·कोऽहम् ? 17 वसन् विन्दुरूपः पुरेऽत्राऽपि देही प्रपञ्चस्य साक्षीव जागर्मि सद्यः । जरामृत्युयुक्ते शरीरेऽपि तिष्ठन् चिदात्माऽमृतस्याऽस्मि पुत्रोऽत्र लोक।।४९ In this town at the very feet of Lord Venkateswara, have I at present my existence no more than a point. Though my consciousness got encaged in a body, which is a mortal coil, yet I am given to be a humble spectator of this mighty universe. I am a centre of the Supreme consciousness, a son of immortality and Bliss, having my moorings in the Infinite and hailing from that Nodus of immortality, and am a precipitate as it were in the cosmic picture what we call the world. परब्रह्मणो यद्दिनं तत्र कल्पे श्रुतीन्दुप्रमाणेषु मन्वन्तरेषु । व्यतीतेषु षट्स्वद्य वैवस्वताख्ये गतसप्तविंशो युगोऽपीति विघ्नः॥ ५० ॥ ततो वर्तमाने युगे संप्रयातास्त्रयः पादसंज्ञाः कृताद्यास्तुरीये। कलौ नाम्नि पादे तदीयाद्यपादे समायां च नेत्रादिखाक्षैस्समायाम् ॥५१॥ (5072 कल्यब्दे) धरायां भवाम्यद्य सद्यो ममेयं स्थितियांवती स्यादहं नैव जाने। नरत्वेन दैवादहं संप्रजातो न मे शक्तिरेषा तथाजन्मलाभे ॥ ५२ ।। During the period called Kalpa, which is described as the day-time of the creator extending over 432,00,000,00 years and which contains 14 equal periods called Manyantaras, six have elapsed. Again during the current seventh Manvantara known as the Vaivasvata, which again consists of 71 yugas, only twentyseven have elapsed. During the 28th Yuga three Padas or divisions known as Krita, Tretā and Dwāpara have elapsed and the fourth division known as Kali is current. In this division again the first quarter is current during which 5072 years have elapsed. I am now alive at this point of Time and at this point of space, and I do not know what lease of life I am given. If I am born as a man, it is not my own will, but am just born according to a Supreme unknown law of what may be called Spiritual mechanics co

·18
ब्रह्माजलि:
which is an article and clause in the Divine constitution, whicl
is a sealed book to a mortal man, however great he might be.
चरितो मनुष्यः
वयं सर्वे स्वार्थप्रवणमनसो जीवितकृते
धनं सञ्चिन्वाना मनसि न भजामः सुखलवम् ।
परं प्राप्ते विते न भवति विरक्तिः, प्रभुपदम्
ततः प्राप्तुं धर्मक्रममविगणय्याऽपि निरताः ॥ ५३ ॥
न विद्या संस्कारं जनयति जनस्याऽद्य हृदये
यतस्सों ह्यर्थी भवति परमार्थी न भवति ।
जनो धावं धावं किमपि कुरुते स्वोदरकृते
न शान्तिं चित्ते वा धरति न च तुष्टिं भजति वा ॥ ५४ ॥
न राकाचन्द्रो वा कुसुममरिता वाऽपि च लताः,
फलैयुक्ता वृक्षा अपि सुभगसृष्टिर्भगवतः ।
न किञ्चिद्वानन्दं मनुजहृदयेऽद्य प्रसुवते
सदाऽर्थैकासक्तो ज्वरितमनसा तिष्ठति यतः ।। ५५ ॥
महाविश्व पश्यत् किमपि हृदयं नैव रमते
दवाग्निक्षुब्धं चेद्वनमिव च दन्दह्यत इव ।
न गानं वा दिव्यं भवति हृदयावर्जकतया
न नीतिर्वा सूते किमपि मधुरां संस्कृतिमपि ॥ ५६ ।।
न चन्द्रो जात्यन्धं रमयति यथा नैव रमयेत्
यथा शंखारावो बघिरमपि, पौष्पः परिमलः ।
न च क्रोड, तद्वत् सुभगभगवत्सृष्टिरपि नो
न कञ्चित् संदेश दिशति कृतकेन्यो वत ! बत! ॥ ५७ ॥

·ज्वरितो मनुष्यः : 19 The hurry and flurry of the present day life All of us are always engrossed in self, and as such engage ourselves in pursuit of wealth alone as if the Summum bonum and the programme of life were to amass wealth ; in this pursuit we miss the very happiness for which we design our wealth. Even after having succeeded to hoard enough and to spare we are not satiated but through that wealth endeavour to acquire position and power. In this process of power-mongering, we do not mind committing foul and fraud. The system of education today has failed to inculcate in us virtue or discipline, for people are pursuing the very education only for money and not for values of life. Man is always in a hurry and flurry, always in a feverish heat, running hither and thither, having no time to stand and stare'. How could peace of mind exist in such heavy hearts, or contentment for the matter of that? Neither the sight of the sweet and kindly moonlight nor the flowering creepers, nor the fruit-bearing trees, no amount of beauty of God's creation, could beget bliss in our bosoms, in as much as we are always restlessly engrossed to encash our time and energies. Looking upon this wonderful universe, effulgent with beauty, our hearts are rendered defunct to enjoy even an iota of that beauty. They burn with the heat of restlesso ess and commotion, as a forest burning with the fire known as Dāvägni. Even the melody of music fails to elevate our hearts and the moral impulses of our nature stand starved. Even as the Moon could not cater joy to a man born blind, even as the sonorous blowing of the conch draws no reaction from a man who is stone-deaf, even as the fragrance of flowers have no appeal to a bog, the wonderstriking beauty of God's creation has no appeal or message to the sophisticated minds of men, in whom all the higher and nobler impulses of the aesthetic, moral and spiritual layers of consciousnosa haye almost dried up and died away.

·20 ब्रह्माजलिः परमाणुशास्त्रम् अहो! नव्यं शास्त्रं भणति परमाणौ च रविवत् कणः कश्चित् केन्द्रे भवति च विकर्षन् परकणान् । विजिज्ञास्य प्राज्ञाः कणगतरहस्यं समवदन् इदं विद्युच्छक्तेविलसितमिति भ्रान्तकणिकम् ॥ ५८ ॥ Behold! The nuclear science today has revealed that even an atom, which has been hitherto mistaken to be a particle, is not at all a particle but it is just like our solar system, there being in its centre a nucleus around which are going what are called electrons which are themselyes no particles at all but only energy-wave-packets. अतो विश्व सर्व भवति खलु शक्तविलसितम् न किञ्चिद् वस्तु स्याद् द्रवघनपदार्थप्रकृतिकम् । जगद् भातीत्युक्तं यदि मुनिभिरद्वैतवचनैः, तदद्य प्रत्येति ध्रुवमिति नवीनश्च विबुधः ॥ ५९ ।। Hence it appears as though this mighty universe is but a play of energy; there seems to be nothing like a liquid nor a solid. What was therefore postulated by the seers of monism that the universe is but an appearance, seems to be reiterated by the modern nuclear science as well. तरङ्गारशक्तेश्चत् जगदिति मतिनों यदि भवेत् , जगन्मिथ्यावादः प्रभवति हि तथ्यात्मकतया । इदं मांसं चक्षुर्गदति जगदित्येतदखिलस् हगेवाऽऽस्ते का चिन्निजमहिमसृष्टाखिलजगत् ।। ६० ॥ If therefore we realize, on the findings of the nuclear science that the universe is no more than a wonderful play of energywavos with no substantiality so to say, is not the Jagat-mithyā-vida 1.c. tho postulation that the world is but an appearanoe, the truth ·परमाणुशास्त्रम् 11 of the matter? Therefore, there exists in fact only a cognizing consciousness, which must have been the architect of the cosmic manifestation, which may be conceived, as its own projection or extension. - अणोरन्तयत् स्याज्जगदिदमणीयश्च महतो महीयो यच्चास्ते गहनगगनान्तप्रविलसत् । लुठत्तारागोलं द्वयमपि न माक्षिविषयम् महाब्रह्माण्डे यद् भवति मनुजः कीटकमिव ।। ६१ ॥ Either the dynamism within the microcosm of the atom or the infinite vistas of space, wherein roll millions and billions of stars which are all solar globes, both are beyond the vision of man, simply because this mortal man is no more than an insect in spite of all his professed greatness. अहं विद्युद्दीपो ज्वलयति भवान् मां हि भगवन् , अहं शाब्दं यन्त्रं स्वनयति भवानेव तदपि । महाशक्त्या विश्व विरचयसि तत्पादमिव ते त्रिपादूर्ध्व बाह्य खलु भवति दिव्यं तदमृतम् ॥ १२ ॥ Oh Lord! I am an electric light which thou lightest thyself; I am a radio and Thou art the articulating current. By an infinite energy thou hast created this mighty universe, in which Thou art immanent and which is just a parcel of Thine; whereas much more of 'Thee lies beyond immortal in the Heavens. (Vide पादोऽस्य विश्वा भूतानि, त्रिपादस्यामृतं दिवि Veda) तिष्ठाऽत्रेति भवानहो यदि वदेत् तत्रैव तिष्ठाम्यहम् कोऽहं त्वद्वचनातिलचनकृते रेणुस्तदल्पोऽपि वा । आदेशेन विना तृणं च भवतः शक्नोति न स्पन्दितुम् जातुं वर्षितुमस्तमेतुमपि वा हे देवदेव ! प्रभो! ॥ ६३ ॥ . If Thou commandest Stand here', I cannot but stand here, Who am I less than a particle not to oboy Thy orders? Not a ·ब्रह्माजलिः blade of grass moves but by Thy Will. That being so, how could I govern my birth or life or death? किमिदं जीवितं भवेत् ? अस्माकं जीवितं सत्यं केवलं पिष्टपेषणम् । यस्मात् कृतं यदसामिः तक्रियेत पुनः पुनः ॥ ६४ ॥ पूर्वस्मिन् दिवसे मुक्तं यत् पीतं यच्च निद्रितम् । तदभुक्तमपीतं वा तथाऽनिद्रितमेव वा ॥ ६५ ।। आतृप्तेर्मुक्तपूर्वाणि रसालानि पुनःपुनः । आकर्षन्ति मनुष्याणां पुनश्चेतांसि भुक्तये ॥ ६६ ॥ अकिञ्चनो धनं लिप्सुः परिश्राम्यति जीविते । तस्मिन् प्राप्ते न सन्तुष्टस्तावता पुनरीप्सति ॥ ६७ ॥ सञ्चिते सश्चिते वित्ते पुनर्लिप्सा च वर्धते । लब्धे धने विनष्टेऽपि लिप्सानाशो न जायते ॥ ६८ ॥ पुनर्जन्म पुनर्नाशः पुनर्जन्म पुनर्मुतिः । अहो विश्वस्य लीलेयं के सन्देशं प्रयच्छति ॥ ६९ ॥ जायते कश्चिदेकत्राऽप्यन्यत्र म्रियतेऽपरः । उद्धाहः कश्चिदेकत्र दारनाशश्च कस्यचित् ॥ ७० ॥ कस्मैचिद् भगवान् भाति सुधाधाराधरो यथा । कस्मैचिद् दारुणो रुद्रो महादारुणदुःखदः ॥ ७१ ॥ केचिदानन्दवाराशिरङ्गतुङ्गतरङ्गिताः । केचिदुर्गमहादुःखपारावारप्रपीडिताः ।। ७२ ॥ # Published in Gairyani, Chittoor (A.Ps) on 15-8-1971.

·किमिदं जीवितं भवेत् ।
28
कुतो भूयामहे तद्वत् कुत्र लीयामहे पुनः ।
रहस्य जीवितस्येदं को वा जानाति पण्डितः ? ॥ ७३ ।।
वसन्तग्रीष्मवर्षाणां ऋतूनां प्रतिवत्सरम् ।
पर्यावृत्तिः किमर्थं वा केन वा कल्पिता भवेत् ! ॥ ७४ ॥
या आपस्सागरं याता मेघीभूताः पुनश्च ताः ।
मेधैर्वृष्टा नदीरूपाः पुनः किं सागरं गताः ॥ ७५ ॥
उदेत्य च नभोवीथीं कान्वा देवो दिवाकरः ।
अस्तं गच्छन् परिभ्राम्यन् किं प्राच्यां समुदेष्यति ? ॥ ७६ ॥
महाविश्वमिदं कालचक्रं वा केन चोद्यते ।
सम्भूयमाना जीवाश्च जन्ममृत्युवशंकृताः ? ॥ ७७ ।।
आश्चर्याय भवेदेषा सृष्टिस्सर्वा बुधाय च ।
मोदयन्ती जनान् कांश्चित् भीषयन्ती बहून् परान् ।। ७८॥
क्षुधाप्रचोदितो भुङ्क्ते पेपीयेत पिपासितः ।
पण्डिताश्च प्रवर्तन्ते संसारे प्रकृतेर्बलात् ॥ ७९ ॥
जातान्धो नैव जानीते केन वाऽन्धीकृतस्स्वयम् ।
दूषयन् कारणं देवं न दैवं रोडुमर्हति ।। ८० ॥
दृष्टया प्रसादितः पश्येदन्धीभूतश्च दुःख्यति ।
शृणोति श्रवसा युक्तो बधिरश्चेत् न शक्ष्यति ।। ८१ ॥
विद्यतां नैव वैकुण्ठे वैकुण्ठो तद्वदेव च ।
स्वयम्भूः सत्यलोके च रुद्रः कैलासमूर्धनि ।। ८२ ।।
किन्तु काचिन्महाशक्तिर्जनयन्ती जनानहो।
भ्रामयन्ती च संसारे नाशयन्ती विराजते ॥ ८३ ॥

·34 ब्रह्माजलिः नास्तिकोऽपि च सद्यो यः पण्डितंमन्यताहतः। आस्ते शाक्तिरिति प्रोक्ते विश्वस्यादवश हि तत् ॥ ८४ ॥ कति जाताः पुरा भूमौ कति मृत्युं गतास्तथा । कति वाऽयो जनिष्यन्ते मृत्युसंसारवर्मनि ॥ ८५ ।। भगवानेव जानीते इन्द्रजालमहासुधीः । जीवितस्य महातत्त्वं जानीते नाऽपि पण्डितः ॥ ८६ ।। को वा रेणुरहं ज्ञातुं लीलां भागवतीमिमाम् । दुरत्ययां महामायां विनान्ता यत्र पण्डिताः ॥ ८७ ।। What is this life of ours? Indeed, our life is a dull monotonous routine, day in and day out; we are helplessly motivated to do the same thing over and again. . What has been eaten, drunk or slept yesterday, appears as though it was never eaten, never drunk and never slept. Again it requires to be eaten, again it requires to be drunk, and again it requires to be slept. Mangoes were eaten last year to one's fill; again they attract one's mind which craves for a new dish as if it had never had it. A poor man desires to earn something; when that is bad, he does not stop short; he goes on earning and earning if that he could, as if that is alone his life's programme; the more he earns the more he craves to earn further. If perchance, what he has carned, he happens to lose, behold! his desire never dies but makes him suffer from a sense of frustration. Again and again one is born and again and again one has to die. What message is carried home to us by this wonderful universel One is born here; one dies there; one is married here; one is bereayed of his wifo elsewhere!

·किमिदं जीवित भवेत् ! ! 25 To a few, God appears to be the very cloud of nectar; but to many, He is a cruel task-master creating unsurmountable misery and dealing death with a stone-heart. It is given to a few to roll in perennial bliss as it were; but many are thrown into abysmal depths of misery From what unknown are we made to be born into this world, without our bargain or in spite of it, and into what unknown again we have got to sink? Even the greatest of scholars could never understand this Divine algebra; only ignorance stares him in the face. Why is it the seasons go round again and again, Spring, Summer and rainy seasons; who has designed it; and for what purpose? What waters have reached the ocean, again get evaporated, again are showered, and again forming into rivers flow back to the ocean. Who designed this cycle, and what a wonderful design it is! The sun rises in the east, goes to the west, sets and again rises in the east. What genius created such a cycle? This wonderful universe is described by the Relativist as the space-time continuum; how did this come into being? Let that be there! But how did we come to be born, and into what void and vaccum we have got to exit? What sia did we commit to be thrown thus into an enigmatical life of misery, and above all a mortal coil? Really, this wonderful creation staggers and stupifies even a scholar; it makes just a few to enjoy but an infinite many to suffer the existence. When one feels like eating one could not withstand that hunger; when one feels like drinking, nor could one help doing that. Even the greatest of men have got to obey these dictates of nature! If one is made blind even at bis very birth, he does not understand why he is made blind, when so many others have orci. 4 ·26 ब्रह्माजलिः : He might simply curse his lot, or even God for that. But could be sue that God? Men see because they are given to see. If they are made blind they are to simply suffer. Men hear because they are given to hear, otherwise they are to be helplessly deaf. Men might not believe in a Vishnu seated high in the beaven or a Brahma residing in Satyaloka, or again Rudra taking his seat on the summit of Kailasa. But even the worst atheist shot through with egotism that he knows, while the fact is that he does not know, must accept that there is a Supreme force and Intelligence, that must bave designed this meaningful universe, guiding its destinies, being responsible for creating Life, in its manifold wonderful complexities, which could never happen if it were merely a blind Nature without any Intelligence or design. Otherwise how many billions and trillions of lives could be born; and how many were made to die away, living for a short span of time? That Supreme intelligence alone knows, which is at once omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent and is responsible for this highest form of jugglery as it were. Even the greatest of scholars could never understand this phenomenon. If that be so, what am I, Oh Lord, a speck to understand this tremendous and stupendous cosmic manifestation? खगोलीया भावाः* स्वस्मिन् विश्वमिदं सर्वं प्रत्यस्थीयत तत्त्वतः । नोचेत् कथं जनः पश्येदात्मानं विश्वकेन्द्रगम् ? ॥ ८८ ॥ Ideas of Astronomy Really, the universe exists as ultimately an idea in the miod of one who perceives it. Otherwise how does every observer feel that it is his prerogative to be at the centre of the universe? • Published in the Sudharma, Sanskrit Daily, Mysore, on 28-9-1970.

·खगोलीया भावा: 27 द्रष्टा न चेदिदं विश्वं कस्मै वोभूयते जगत् । इतीवाऽऽकाशगोलस्य केन्द्रे द्रष्टुः कृता स्थितिः ।। ८९ ॥ If there be no observer at all, for whom does this universe have its existence? That is why, perhaps an observer feels placed at the centre of the universe. मानव त्वत्कृतं कर्म मया सर्व निरीक्ष्यते । इति ब्रुवाणवत् कर्मसाक्षी तमनुधावति ।। ९० ॥ Map! Know thee that I have been observing whatever thou hast been doing. Telling this as though, the Sun, (who is reported to be an observer of men's actions) pursues bim whereever he runs. . धरायां गगने वाऽपि पुरो राज्ञः कलक्किनः । बुधो बृहस्पतिर्वाऽपि हन्त ! नैव प्रकाशते ।। ९१ ॥ No Pandit, or for the matter of that not even Brihaspati (who is reported to be the God of learning), does ever shine in the eyes of a ruler, who is addicted to sin, even as the planets Mercury or even Jupiter could never shine before the Moon who is reported to have indulged in blasphemous adultery with his own Teacher's (Guru's) wife. मृदुरेव हि लोकेऽस्मिन् पीड्यते नतु कर्कशः। पदे पदे च शीतांशू राहुणेव न चण्डगुः ॥ ९२ ।। Only a mild and innocent person gets persecuted in this world, never a tough person. Behold! The Moon alone gets eclipsed time and again and not the Sun, who is eclipsed but rarely. भुवि वा दिवि वा नैव परस्परसहिष्णुता । तमोग्रहाभ्यां ग्रस्येते पुष्पवन्तौ प्रकाशतः ॥ ९३ ।। Neither on earth nor in the heavens for the matter of that there seems to be no tolerance. Behold! Rahu and Ketu always

·28
ब्रह्माजलिः
devour the Sun and the Moon, simply because they shine in
splendour, and though all of them belong to a fraternity of
Planets. (Hindu Astronomy counts the Sun, the Moon and the
Moon's orbital nodes named Rahu and Ketu under planets, for, ,
they are deemed as influencing the fates of men.)
किमिदं हन्त ! लोकेऽस्मिन् उपकारं गतो जनः ।
उपकर्ने कृतघ्नस्सन् तस्मा अपचिकीर्षति ॥ ९४ ॥
चन्द्रः प्रकाशमानस्सन् भास्करस्य गभस्तिभिः ।
तस्यैव हरते तेजो रविग्रहणकारकः ॥ ९५ ।।
What is this? One who receives help from somebody, tries to
harm ungratefully the same person. Behold! The Moon shining in
the light bestowed on bim by the Sun, ungratefully eclipses (doce
not allow to shinc) the very Sun! !
रसालसाल:
ददत् निदाघपीडिताय शीतलं धरातलम्
स्वशाखिकाभिवीजनैर्भजज्जनश्रमं तुदन् ।
फलैः सुधारसोपमैः क्षुधां निवारयस्यहो!
रसालसाल ! धन्यजन्म तावकीनमेव हि ॥९६ ॥
The Mango tree
Blessed are Thou, Oh Mango tree! for, thou offerost a cool
shade to him who gets scorched in the Summer Sun; further,
thou fangest those that approach thee with the fans of thy
branches; also thou feedest them with nectar-like fruits of thine
to satiate their hunger. Art thou not a better host than most of
themen?
प्रचण्डचण्डरश्मितापमात्मना भरन् परम्
स्वपादमाश्रितान् जनान् सुखाकरोषि सन्ततम् ।
न शीतवातपीडितोऽपि वैद्यमर्थयस्यहो!
रसालसाल धन्यजन्म तावकीनमेव हि ॥९७॥

·रसालसाल: 29 Thou bearest thyself the roasting haughty heat of the Sun on thy head, and makest those happy that seek thy shade. Though thou art afflicted by colds and winds (Śita and Vāta are also maladies), thou never approachest a doctor! Art thou not blessed more than men, Oh mango tree? सहनमध्य एक एव दास्यति स्वबन्धवे कदाचिदेव किञ्चिदेव देवता अपीदृशाः । ददासि कर्णवत् समस्तमर्थिने त्वमादरात् रसालसाल धन्यजन्म तावकीनमेव हि ॥ ९८ ॥ Only one amongst thousands (of. दाता जायेत वा न वा) gives in charity; there too, he patronises his own kith and kin; even then he gives rarely and that too a little. Why, even Gods are no better. But, thou givest all at once to anybody who comes to thee like that famous Karga of the Maha Bhārata. Indeed! thou are blessed more than men! पिपासयाऽपि पीडितो न याचसे नरान् जलम् सुधाऽपि शीर्णतामुपैषि मानवान् न बाधसे । न कम्पसे नराधमे वघाय तेऽपि संयते रसालसाल धन्यजन्म तावकीनमेव हि ॥ ९९ ।। Even when thou art scorched by thirst, thou never beggest of men to quench thy thirst; nor thou afflictest men (like beggers among men) when thou feelest hungry, preferring rather to die than beg. What is more, when the upgrateful man, who has exploited thee to the core, enjoying thy shade and fruits when thou art young, approaches thee with an axe when no more thou art serviceable on account of old age, even then thou doest not shake, nor budge an inch in protest; on the other hand, without the least murmur layest down thy life! लतालतान्तमालिकापरीतगात्रसुन्दरो विराविबम्भरश्रुतिः पिकीमुखेन गायसि ।

·80 ब्रह्माजलिः निरन्तरं च नर्तनं करोषि रामदासवत् रसालसाल! धन्यजन्म तावकीनमेव हि ॥ १०० ।। Thou singest and dancest like the so-called Haridasa (In the Bharat there are who are called Haridāsas, who dance and sing the praise of the Lord to audiences, wearing garlands and singing to the tune of what is called Sruti. This practice has been in yogue from time immemorial.) wearing garlands as it were in the form of creepers that twine around thee, giving out a śruti in the form of the humming of bees that alight on thee, and singing through the mouths of the female cuckoos that perch on thee. Really, thou are blessed more than men! ! धन्यजन्म तावकं भवेदिति श्रुतिस्मृती गृहं विनिर्मिमासता तरुन हन्यतामिति । परश्ववामिमारुतैन पीड्यतामितीरिते रसालसाल ! धन्यजन्म तावकीनमेव हि ॥ १०१ ।। In as much as thy life is all sweetness (मधुमान् नो वनस्पतिः-Veda) the very Vedas and Smộtis declared that no tree should be felled before constructing a house, and invoked "Let not the axe, or fire or the wind afflict thee". Verily, thou art blessed more than men! Oh Mango treet (Vide आराते अनिरस्तु आरात्परशुरस्तु ते निवाते वाऽभिवर्षतु, स्वस्ति तेऽस्तु वनस्पते, स्वस्ति मेऽस्तु वनस्पते ! Mantra Prasna, Krisra Yajurveda.) मनुष्यजन्म दुःखितं सदाऽऽधिबाघया भृशम् दरिद्रतेति, रूणतेति भीतिमेति मानवः । न ते दरिद्रताऽपि वा न रुग्णताऽपि तादृशी रसालसाल ! धन्यजन्म तावकीनमेव हि ॥ १०२ ।। Man's life is cursed and wiserable, mentally afflicted and physically diseased; many are poor, more are ailing; thou art unaware of poverty; thou art never that diseased! Really, thou art blessed, while men are cursed! Oh Mango tree!

·गोदावरी 31 गोदावरी यत्तीरे जनकात्मजासहचरो रामश्चचार स्वयम् यत्तीरे भगवांश्च गौतममुनिस्तेपे तपो निर्मलम् । आमृष्टेश्च ददाति जीवततये या जीवनं चामृतम् सेयं पश्यत गौतमी भगवती पुण्या दृशां गोचरा ॥ १०३ ॥ The River Godāvari Look here ! Here you find that sacred river the Godāyari, or what is also called the Gautami, which we hold as a Divine element (for it serves a purpose Divine and works as a part of the Divine Dynamics). On her banks we are told that Rama roamed in company of his Sīta in times of yore; on her banks it is also reported that Bhagvān Gautama did his penance. This sacred river has been from time immemorial catering her waters to sustain millions of human and subhuman lives. (The words Jivanam and Amritam which are synonyms of water at once mean life and immortality meaning thereby that the river Godāvarī not only sustains lives, but also conduces to immortality on account of her Divinity.) पाश्चात्यः परिहासमेति कलयत्नस्मान् जनान् भारते यस्मादत्र वयं नदीनगमुखानाराधयामः परम् । या शक्तिः सकलं च विश्वमभितो व्याप्नोति चान्तर्बहिः, तद्भतिर्भवदीयमित्यपि कथं तत्त्वं न जानाति सः ॥ १०४ ॥ A westerner laughs in his sleeves looking at us the Hindus who worship the rivers and mountains too. He does not understand that we hold that the dynamism we perceive in the rivers is a part of the dynamism of the mighty universe iu whose depths roll millions and billions of stars all of which are reported to be solar globes, divine furnaces as it were. We hold that the Supreme Consciousness, which peryades the entire universe, has its manifestation in these mountains and rivers too in its static and ·82 ब्रह्माजलि: dynamic facets, the former i.e. the mountains in musing supplication to the Divine and the latter flowing on in the nature of a Divine dynamic, working out a Divine Programme as it were. वाल्मीकि गवानिमा बहु नदी रामायणेऽस्तौत् पराम् प्रास्तावीद् भवभूतिरप्यलमहो पुण्यामिमामापगाम् । स्मृत्वास्याः सुपुराणपुण्यविषयां गाथामहो मे मनः पौत्सुक्यवशेन खेलतितरां जाने न तत्कारणम् ॥ १०५॥ This is that same river Godåvarī whose praise Bhagavān Valmiki sang at length. It is the same river Godāvarī writing about which Bhavabbūti vaxed eloquent. Calling to mind the sacred antiquities of this river, I do not know why my mind leaps for joy growing at once reflective and nostalgic as it were. नेदं वारि पुरातनं न च पुनः कूले तदानींतने जानन्नेतदपि ब्रवीति मनुजस्सैवेति गोदावरी । एषा सा खलु तात्त्विकैनिगदिता प्रावाहिकी सत्यता तत्तत्कालविनश्वराखिलजगजातस्य जातस्य वै ।। १०६ ॥ Those waters which I see in this river are not those, which were flowing in those times of yore, nor these banks even those that were existent then. Yet men do call this the same river Godāvari having that hoary past. Is this not what is meant by that phrase mouthed by philosophers as Prāvāhiki Satyata of the entire cosmic manifestation (evanescing flow of worldly eyents), अस्तं याति गभस्तिमानिति वचः श्रुत्वा यथा भावनाः, वेश्याब्राह्मणतस्करादिषु परं मिन्नाः समुद्भाविताः । दृष्ट्वा तद्वदिमां नदी बहुविधान् भावान् लभन्तां जनाः किन्त्वेषा कवितादृशे भगवती गोदावरीवाहिनी ॥ १०७ ॥ When it is said by somebody 'The sun is setting' sundry ideas arisc in sundry minds, for example, the harlot feels liko toileting ·गोदावरी 38 herself, the Brahmin activises himself for the twilight prayer, the thief gets busy for his own adventure; just the same way there may be different ideas in different people when they see this river Godavari, as for example, the Engineer may feel that much water is being allowed to flow out waste, the Sanitary Inspector may curse the muddy waters as begetting cholera, the agriculturist may feel happy over her service to him. But it is an entirely different perspective to a poet's eye to whom it is the sacred Divine river Godāvari flowing through the ages synchronous with Time as it were. एतस्या अमृतं निपीय कविताधाराधरा मेदुराः, नन्नार्यप्रमुखा रसां च सरसामान्धेषु चकुश्चिरम् । श्रीमद्राजमहेंद्रनाम्नि नगरे श्रीराजराजेन्द्रराट्, आन्ध्यां सम्परिवर्तितं च कृतवान् वैयासिकं भारतम् ।। १०८ ॥ It was by drinking the sectar-like waters of this river that great poet-clouds like the revered Naanaya saturated the Andhra soil with facta quint essence of poetry in times of yore. The King Rājarājendra of the ancient historical city of Rajahmundry got the Mahābhārata of the Rişi Vedavyāsa translated from Sanskrit into Telugu by that immortal poet Nannaya. अम्ब त्वं हि ददर्शिय प्रभुवरान् सारस्वतोपासकान् ब्रह्मर्षीन् कति वा परांश्च सुजनान् कोटी: पर:कोटि च । आयास्यन्ति परे तवाऽम्ब ! निकटं यास्यन्ति मार्गः स्वकैः यः कश्चित् पुरुषस्त्वया पुनरहो तेषां किमु मर्यते ॥ १०९ ॥ Mother Godāvari! Thou must have seen a number of kings, poets, seers and millions of other spiritual souls from time. immemorial. Still millions and billions approach thee and go their way in the days ahead. Could you and would you remember even a single soul out of them? 5 ·84 ब्रह्माजलिः ? आयातु प्रसभं प्रयातु च महाराजोऽपि देवोऽपि वा त्वं त्वद्धर्मरतैव लक्ष्यमपरं ते नास्ति चित्ते खलु । नृत्यन्ती सविलासमम्बुधिमहो ! भर्तारमेवाप्नुषे क्षिप्रं याहिं पतिव्रता पतिकुलं प्राप्तुं समुत्कण्ठते ।। ११० ॥ Emperors may come and emperors may go; nay, angels may come and angels may go; but thou pursuest thine own Dharma; Dothing else could be in thy mind. Dancing and singing in thyself thou dashest forth to seek thy Lord. Go, thee thy way. Indeed, a virtuous wife pines to be at home with her husband. . कदा वा ते तीरे सुरभिलसमीरे सुखकरे कुटीरे विश्रान्तस्त्रिषवणमुपास्य प्रतिदिनम् । गृहस्यामि जुह्वत् , मनसि विमृशन्नौपनिषदीम् महाविद्यां कुर्या वसतिमिह गोदावरि पुनः । ।। १११ ॥ When will it be again Mother Godavaril that I could retire to thy banks, build a cottage here, under thy fragrant breeze, and performing the three daily rites, tending the household fire and discoursing in myself the content of the Upanishadic lore make my living here on thy banks! सच्चिद्रूपतया समस्तजगतीप्रोता जगत्साक्षिणी शक्ति ति मया न तत्र विषये स्वग्नेऽपि संदिह्यते। यच्चैतन्यमयी प्रयाति भवती रात्रिंदिवं निम्नगा कुर्वन्ती तव धर्ममेव जलधि हे अम्ब गोदावरि ! ॥ ११२ ॥ Verily there is a Supreme Consciousness that impregnates the totality of the universe sustaining it by the cosmic law and guiding its destinies. Never for a moment do I doubt it not even in a dream. It is that supreme force that motivates thce, Oh! mother Godavaril day and night making thee find thy level towards thine own destination performing thine own duty to the Very letter, .

·भगवान वाल्मीकिः 6 भगवान् वाल्मीकि:* वाल्मीके ! भगवन् तुभ्यं नमोवाकं प्रशास्महे । वन्देमहि च ते वाणी त्रयीवदमृतां श्रियम् ।। ११३ ।। The seer, Valmiki Oh Seer, Valmiki! We bow to you and to your Muse, which is no less than the three-fold Veda, which has been termed as Sri Amrita. (Vide ऋचस्सामानियजूषि, सा हि श्रीरमृता सताम् i.e. the Vedic lore under the names of the Rik, Yajus and Sāma are technically known as Sri and Amrita, in as much as it is at once di pafarerforat and आमुष्मिकसम्पत्तिदायिनी i.e.conduces to the mundane as well as heavenly bliss.) त्वामेव प्रणनामाऽऽदौ भवभूतिर्महाकविः । 'इदं कविभ्यः पूर्वेभ्यः' इति वां हृदये वहन् ।। ११४ ।। The poet Bhavabhūti supplicated to thee alone at the very beginning of his work in the terms 'इदं कविभ्यः पूर्वेभ्यः'. मनोनेत्रे हिमाद्रिं व पश्यन् त्वां हि महाकविः । कालिदासोऽपि चात्मानं मन्द इत्येव वर्णितः ॥ ११५ ॥ Espying thee in the eye of his mind as standing out like the very mount Everest, no less a poet than the great Kālidāsa, was so humbled as to describe himself as a dullard. मुरारिणाऽपि श्रीरामो नाटके नायकीकृतः । तत्राऽपि त्वं तदीयायां बुद्धौ प्रत्यक्षितोऽभवः ॥ ११६ ॥ If the poet Murāri chose Śri Rāma alone as the hero of his drama, you were there in his mind at the moment. श्रीमान् भोजो महाराजो निवापाञ्जलिमाददे । रामायणमहागङ्गावारिभ्यो निजपैतृकम् ॥ month *Published in the Bharati, Jayapur, November "71.

·86
ब्रह्माञ्जलिः
Bhoja the king, paid libations of water to his own manes,
from the Ganges of your Rāmāyaṇa in poetizing Rāmāyana in his
own words. .
बहुना किं महाभागो भगवान् बादरायणः ।
प्रणामं ते पुरः कृत्वा हस्ते चक्रे स्वलेखिनीम् ।। ११७ ।।
Why so much! even the very Vedavyāsa took up his pen to
write his monumental works only after having prostrated to thee
in his mind.
क्वाऽहं रेणुस्तव स्तोत्रे व्यापृत:स्वल्पजल्पकः ।
शब्दब्रह्मणि बुद्धस्य चक्षुषाऽऽण पश्यतः ॥ ११८ ।।
Who am I no more than a speck to mouth thy praise with
my fumbling words, while thou art one who saw with the eye of a
Rişi a Seer, and in whom the very Goddess of Sarasyati found
a tongue and welled out in a torrential flow.
कदा वा वाल्मीके जगति तव रामायणनदी
सुधाधारा सूता प्रवहति च सद्यः कलियुगे।
न तां पायं पायं विबुध इह तृप्ति भजति तत्
नत: कालीदासो भवति पुरतस्त्वां सविनयम् ॥ ११९ ।।
Oh poet, Valmiki! When was it that the river of thy Rama-
yana, the very flow of nectar took its birth? It has been flowing
there from time immemorial and even today is sanctifying the
land of the Bharat. The more the Pandit (also God who drinks
nectar) drinks at that fount, the more unsatiated he is. That is
why, no less a poet than Kalidasa paid his humble homage to
thee in the very beginning of his kāvya called Raghuvamsa.
भवद्वाणी वाणीमुखकमलजाता मधुधुनी
भवेद्वा गङ्गा गां हिमगिरिशिरस्तः सवति या ।
खगोले गोलानां मधुरमधुरोकारनिनदो
महर्षे वाल्मीके ! इति भवति लोके तव कथा ॥ १२० ॥

·भगवान वाल्मीकिः Oh Rishi Vālmiki! The humanity at large describes thy Muse as the very flow of honey pouring out from the lotus-face of the Goddess of Learning, or as the Ganges that flows down from the celestial peaks of the Himalayas on to the surface of the earth, or again as the very music of the spheres that roll in the depths of space resonating the Omkāra as it were. तद् गेहं किमु यत्र न श्रुतिगतं वाल्मीकिरामायणम् ते प्राज्ञाः किमु ये पिबन्ति न हि चेद्वाल्मीकिवाचां सुधाम् । ये रामं समुपासते न च कथं ते भारतीया जनाः, ग्रामो वाप्यथ काननं भवति वा नो यत्र रामालयः ॥ १२१ ।। Could that be a house where Rāmāyana is never heard? Could they be learned men who never drank at the nectar of Vālmīki's muse? Could they be sods of the Bhārat who do not have devotion towards Rāma? Is that a village or a forest where there is no temple of Sri Rāma? आकाशे किमु राशिचक्ररचना धत्ते घटां मध्यगां कन्यां चापि पुरस्सरामिति बुधैर्मीमांस्य निर्धारितम् । बालारूपमुपेत्य कौतुकवशा गीर्वाणगीर्देवता यावन्मानुषवाङ्मयं तुलयितुं रामायणेनेच्छति ॥ १२२ ॥ Scholars disputed as to how there happens to be the constellation of Libra in the middle of the Zodiac, close on the heels of the constellation of Virgo, and they come to the conclusion, that the very Goddess of Sarasvati having had a mind to weigh the Rāmāyapa against the whole literature of the world, incarnated as a girl taking a balance into her hands for that purpose. भूकम्पादिरवान्तरप्रलयसंघातो यदि स्यात् तदा सर्व वाङ्मयमन्तरेति न वयं तद्वारणे हि क्षमाः । श्रीरामायणमेकमेव यदि संरक्ष्येत चेद् भारते तत् पर्याप्तमखण्डसंस्कृतमहावाम्भूतिसंरक्षणे ॥ १२३ ।।

·58 ब्रह्माजलिः If there be cataclysms arising out of earth-quakes or the like, all the treasure of human literature may perchance get buried in the bosom of the earth. No mortal could avert such a situation if that be designed by the Divine. If, however, somehow the single work of the Rāmāyaṇa could be saved from such an overtaking catastrophe, that would be enough to keep alive the entire treasure of the volumes of the Sanskrit literature. वेदा वेदशिरांसि शास्त्रनिचयो वैयासिकं भारतम् , श्रीमद्भागवतं तथा च भगवद्वाल्मीकिरामायणम् । श्रीमद्भारतदेशपुण्यविभवां गीर्वाणगीर्देवताम् , आधाचार्यमुखारविन्दगलितां पुष्णन्ति नस्सम्पदम् ।। १२४ ॥ The Vedas and Upanishads, the totality of the Šāstras, the Mahābhārata of Bhagavan Vedavyāsa, and his Bhāgavatam, and above all that celestial Rāmāyaṇa of Bhagavan Vālmīki, are verily the treasure of the Bharat handed down to us as our inheritance from the galaxy of Rishis who were the fathers of the great Sanskrit literature. भद्रे भारतभागधेयविलसद्गीर्वाणगीर्देवते सद्यो भारतदेशगा यदि जनास्त्वां नाद्रियन्ते ततः। मा गा दुःखमनेकपण्डितवराः पाश्चात्यदेशेषु ते पोषे जाग्रति नैव ते वयमिह ज्ञानेन हीनाः परम् ॥ १२५ ॥ Oh Goddess Sarasvati! Thou art no doubt our singular fortune inherited by us from times of yore. But, if perchance we are not in a mood to nourish Thee now on our land, partly due to our stupidity and partly due to our materialistic engrossment and internal strife, Thou need'st not to grieve, as Thy lot is safe in the hands of the innumerable Sanskrit scholars that have been labouring in the Western countries to cultivate Thy study voraciously. I am sure, they are not that stupid as we are!

·प्रकृतेविलासः 39 , प्रकृतेविलास:* जलं पिपासन् , अशनं बुभुक्षन् , विहर्तुमिच्छन् , अथवा सुषुप्सन् । दिदेविषन्नात्मविनोदहेतोः करोति सर्वः प्रकृतश्चिकीर्षितम् ॥ १२६ ।। The play of Nature If one feels like quenching his thirst or satiating his hunger; if one feels like taking a stroll or going to sleep; or again if one feels like playing for his own pastime, remember all this is a play of his own nature, be it physical or mental. धनं चिचीषन् , यशसे जिगीषन् , यियक्षमाणोऽथ रुरोचिषाणः । विद्याप्रकाशाय कृषि चिकीर्षन् करोति सर्वः प्रकृतेश्चिकीर्षितम् ।। १२७॥ The mania to hoard money or the megalomania; the desire to worship or the desire to excel; or even the desire to shine by erudition, remember all this is a play of one's own nature. मीमांसिषन्ते कृततर्कविद्याः, विवर्धिषन्ते प्रभुतापदव्याम् । दिदम्भिषन्तश्च जनेषु लोके कुर्वन्ति सर्वे प्रकृतेश्चिकीर्षितम् ॥ १२८॥ If pandits learn logic and dispute and discourse; if men placed in power strive to increase their power; if some people pretend to appear great among men; all of them arc but obeying a call of their nature. चञ्चूर्यमाणाः सततं च कामे, वित्ताधिकारार्थमटाट्यमानाः । दोधूयमाना इह जीवितार्थे कुर्वन्ति सर्वे प्रकृतश्चिकीर्षितम् ॥ १२९ ॥ If some blindly pursue the path of lust, if some crave for wealth and some for power, if many struggle for their existence; all these are but following the dictates of their inner Dature. यथा यथा याति मनस्सकामं यथा यथा वाति स कामवायुः । तथा तथैवाऽथ विवतिषाणः करोति सर्वः प्रकृतश्चिकीर्षितम् ॥ १३० ।। * Published in the Sanskrit daily Sudharma, Mysore, on 22, 23-10-70.

·40 ब्रह्माञ्जलिः As the mind gets drawn by a desire, as the wind of that desire blows him in a particular direction, the very fact that he does move in that behalf signifies that every one is just commanded by his innate nature. शोशुच्यमानो निजकामभङ्गे मोमुद्यमानोऽथ च कामलामे । अहं करोमीति वदन् सगर्व, अहङ्करोत्येव न कर्तुमीष्टे ॥ १३१ ॥ A man gets depressed on the frustration of his hopes. Another gloats over the fructification of his desires. A man who succeeds in his trials feels as though it is his own achievement. Never could a mortal arrogate to himself that he could do this and do that. जन्मान्तरीय स्वकृतं हि जन्तोः यद्वासनायुक्तममुं करोति । तद्वासनावासित एव नूनं करोत्यबुद्धयन् प्रकृतेश्चिकीर्षितम् ॥ १३२ ॥ The deeds done by one in the births previous, endow him with certain predelictions and propensities; he acts in response to those imbedded in his nature, not knowing that he is acting according to the cry of his nature. दैवानुकम्पामिह याचमाने, न्याय्ये च मार्गे सति वर्तमाने । कामप्रवाहे न पदं दधाने, न कर्म तं लिम्पति चेष्टमाने ॥ १३३ ।। If one supplicates for compassion to the Supreme Divine, if one strives to copdact himself in the path of Dharma, heedless of the crying nature, him does not bind what he does; otherwise he has got to reap retribution of his past deeds. पुरा भारतमेदिनी सृष्टोऽहं भवता श्रुतिस्मृतिगवीपाठः पवित्रीकृते देशे भारतनामके द्विजकुले स्वाध्यायविद्यारते । देवब्राह्मणयायजूकविलसद्वंशे ततः कारणात् धन्यं मे जनुरित्यवैमि भगवन् धन्योऽस्मि विश्वपभो ।। १३३ ॥

·पुरा भारतमेदिनी 41 Mother Bhārat once upon a time Oh God! Lord of the Universe! Thou hast made me born into a Brahmin family dedicated to Thy worship. Thou begottest me in a country which has been reverberatiog with the voice of the Upanishads, reverberating from the far-off depths of Time. I therefore deem mine as a most fortunate birth. Really I feel I am blessed. धन्येय भरतावनिः श्रुतिशिखापीयूषधाराधराः, धाराभिर्धरणीं सुधारसमयीं कुर्वन्ति कालाबहोः । यस्मादत्र वसिष्ठमुख्यमुनयः प्रादुर्बभूवुः पुरा सद्योऽपि प्रभवन्ति पुण्यपुरुषाः संख्यासहस्राधिकाः ॥ १३५ ॥ Indeed this Bharat is blessed in as much as clouds of Upanishadic nectar bave been ever showering over this land making it saturate with the nectar of Brahma Vidyā from time immemorial. That is why in this land Brahmarshis like Vasishtha were born in times of yore and even today we find a number of great souls receiving their birth on this soil. श्रीमन्माघवनी वनीवदवनी या भारतीया चिरं श्रीभोजादिमहीभुजाबसुमनोभूजप्रसूनोद्भवम् । बिभ्राणा सुपरीमलं कविवरश्रीकालिदासादिकान् चक्रे श्राव्यकवित्वगानरसिकानिन्दिन्दिरानादरात् ॥ १३६ ।। This land of the Bhārat may well be compared with the garden Nandana of Indra, whose the so-called Divine trees have incarnated themselves as Kings like Bhoja, the fragrance of their flowers attracting bees of poets like Kalidasa whose mellifluous resonance of poetry filled the atmosphere in times of yore. शब्दब्रह्मविदः पुराणकवयः सारस्वतोपासकाः, ब्रह्मर्षिप्रवरा अबोभवुरहो श्रीभारते भासुराः । 6 ·48 ब्रह्माञ्जलि तद्वत् पूज्यपतिव्रताः प्रभविताः सीतानसूयादिकाः, एतद् भारतभागधेयमखिलं स्मृत्वा मनः खेलति ॥ १३७ ।। My mind leaps for joy when I reflect with a sense of nostalgy on the pristine glory of my Bhārat which was once the cradle of poets and seers, Rishis and hermits who dedicated their souls at the altar of Sarasvati. My mind further dwelling on the history of the good many Pativratās like Sita and Anasūya, deems all this as our country's fortune in having begotten such a galaxy of glorious personages. भरतवसुमतीका ब्रह्मविद्यानदीष्णाः, उभयकुलपवित्राः सन्ति ये धर्मदाराः । निरतमपि पयोदा धेनवो निर्झरिण्यः प्रणतिशतमहं तान् ताश्च नित्यं करोमि ॥ १३८ ॥ I offer my salutations to those spiritual Gurus of India, to those Pativratās who sanctify the land, to those sacred rivers which breed waters of spirituality and to the cows, which spiritualize those that succour their milk. नमो मन्त्रकृद्भ्यो महद्भ्यो गुरुभ्यः, नमः शास्त्रकृद्भ्यो नमो भाष्यकृद्भ्यः । नमो वेदविद्भ्यो द्विजेभ्यो बुधेभ्यः, नमः शब्दविद्भ्यः कविभ्यो नमोऽस्तु ॥ १३९ ॥ May my salatations. be to those Rishis who saw the Vedic hymns, in their spiritual vision and gave expression to them as eternal truths, to those Rishis who were subsequently the founders of the Sastras like the Vedanta, to the good number of scholars who commented on the Vedas and Sastras, to those custodians of the Vedic lore, who have been transmitting by rote that Vedic lore from generation to generation even if it was a thankless exertion, and to those pristine poets, Valmiki, Vyasa, Kalidāsa and the like, who did yeoman service for the cause of spirituality through their immortal muse.

·अद्यतनो भारतदेशः 43 श्रीमच्छङ्करभगवत्पादाम्भोजातयुम्ममीडेऽहम् । अद्वैतसुधां वसुधां नीत्वा विवुधांश्चकार यो मान् ॥ १४० ।। I pay my humble homage to the lotus feet of Bhagavān Sankarācharya, who having brought down the nectar of Advaita to the mortals, effected divinisation in them. आचार्यभटं वराहमिहिरं तं ब्रह्मगुप्ताभिधम् श्रीपत्याख्यमथो नमामि विवुधान् सिद्धान्तविद्यागुरुन् । साक्षाद् भास्करमेव भारतगतं वन्दे परं भास्करम् गावो यस्य नृणां खगोलमखिलं स्वर्वस्फुटं चक्रिरे ॥ १४१ ।। I offer my salutations to that galaxy of Acharyas Āryabhata, Varāhamihira, Brahmagupta and a host of others, who were the founders of the science of Astronomy in the Bharat. In particular I bow to that great Bhaskara who was as it were the very Sun, whose words (also rays) illuminated the celestial sphere to the eyes of men. अद्यतनो भारतदेशः या पूर्व भरतक्षमा वसुमतीसीमन्तमुक्तामणिः, या ब्रह्मर्षिपरंपरां प्रसुषुवे या रत्नगर्भा पुरा । या धर्माध्वनि सञ्चचार सुचिरं या रामराज्ये स्थिता या वाल्मीकिमुखानजीजनदहो! सा कीदृशी वर्तते । ॥ १४२॥ Bhārat today That Bhārat which was once a jewel which was decorating the head of Mother Earth, that Bhārat which was once a cradle for Brahmarshis like Vasishtha, that Bhārat which rolled in wealth under the rules of Emperors like Mandhāta, that Bhārat which conducted herself ever in the path of righteousness, that Bharat which had enjoyed the highest glory under the role of Sri Rama, and that Bhārat which begot the greatest poets of world's litera- ·44 ब्रह्माजलिः ture like Valmiki, Vyasa and Kalidasa, alas! what is that Bharat today? भाषाः प्रान्तगताः पुरा कविवरैः पोपुष्यमाणाश्विरम् ज्ञानायैव बभूवुरद्य जनतावैरार्थमेवाऽऽश्रिताः । सद्यस्सा गलहस्तितेव जननी गीर्वाणगीर्देवता वारस्त्रीनिरतैस्सुतैनिजगृहात् , माता कृतनैरिव ॥ १४३ ॥ Regional languages once enjoyed their heyday in the hands of stalwart poets; now they are invoked by peoples just to quarrel among themselves, not for a literary pursuit. Sanskrit, the mother of all our languages is as though necked out of doors even as a mother is forced out of her own house by ungrateful sons criminalized by their preoccupation with harlots. या वाणी जनतामरीरमदहो आसेतुशीताचलम् , या सौनात्रसुहृत्त्वपोषणकरी वाणीव मातुहे । यस्मादद्य जनाः स्वमौयविवशास्तां नाऽऽद्रियन्ते ततः, छिन्नाभिन्न इवास्ति जागृत जनाः! देशोऽस्मदीयः पुनः ॥१४४॥ The divine voice of Sanskrit delighted the entire populace of the Bhārat as the very voice of the mother delights her sons, brothers of the same blood right from the Himalayas down to the Cape of Comerin, and played the part of a cementing force among the various regions in times of yore. In as much as the various peoples of the different regions are cultivating it, due to stopid obsessions, the country is as though going to pieces once more, beware! ! कुत्राऽऽस्ते जनता परत्र धरणौ या ब्रह्म जिज्ञासते पूर्व भारतखण्डवत् ? बत जना ये भारते जाग्रति । सद्यो नास्तिकताहता इति मनश्शोशुच्यते मामकम् देशारिष्टमिदं हि सूचयति नो, दारिद्यमस्मात् किमु ! ॥ १४५ ॥ Where in the world could be found a populace, which discourbes about the nature of Brabman, as did that of the no more ·अद्यतनो भारतदेशः Bhārat in the bygone days? My mind gets depressed when I now see before me even in this Bhārat, people who revel in atbeism and gloat over it. Certainly this is no small a calamity for the country; what more misfortune could there be? (Also, what is poverty beside that?) विद्यागन्धविवेकशून्यमतयो दारिद्यदोषाहताः, अन्योन्य कलहायमानधिषणाः, रोगैः परं पीडिताः । एवंभूतजनास्तिमिङ्गिल इव स्वीयान् जिघत्सन्ति चेत् किं कुर्मः परमेश्वरः प्रभविता साधून् जनान् रक्षितुम् ।। १४६ ॥ Today in the Bhārat, the people at large have no culture; por discrimination; they are afflicted by poverty; and are always engaged in mutual fighting; added to this, the country is ridden by diseases raging all over. Each is ready to exploit the other, even as a whale is reported to be devouring the smaller fish. What is it that anybody could do? God alone, the Omnipotent could protect the innocent. न्यायान्यायगति विदन्नपि जनो न्याय न कर्ता, ततो- ऽप्यन्यायान्न बिभेति नास्तिकतया, पुण्यं न, पापं न च । ऐश्वर्य प्रभुता द्वयं यदि, मदो नेत्रे पिधत्ते परम् कष्टं शिष्टपवित्रसाधुजनता देशेऽद्य हा क्लिश्यते ॥ १४७ ॥ Even a man who does know what is just and what is unjust does not care to do the just, and what is more never hesitates to do the unjust; wby, because, the disease of atheism lies deep within his bosom; good and sin do not find a place in his dictionary: If above all, he is given to be wealthy and wield power, his very eyes get blinded and he does not realize what he is doing. Alas! Therighteous, the sacred and the mute innocent are getting today repressed under the heels of injustice and cruelty.

·46 ब्रह्माजलिः उद्धरेदात्मनाऽऽत्मानम्* आत्मानं स्वयमेव शक्ष्यति समुद्धत हि यः कोऽपि वा नान्यः कश्चन विद्यते क्षितितले बुद्धर्तुमन्यं जनम् । गीतायां भगवानिमा मतिमुपादिक्षत् परामर्जुनम् स्वं कर्मैव पुराकृतं प्रभवति त्रातुं जनं भूतले ॥ १४८ ।। Nobody helps nobody Nobody could help nobody in this world. One could help one's self alone. This truth was brought home to Arjuna by Lord Krishna in the Gita. The momentum of one's own good deeds in births by-gone, could come to one's rescue in the nick of time. तन्मे जीवितवमनि प्रतिकलं दृम्गोचरीभूय माम् कर्तव्ये निरतं करोतु ; न परान् याचे स्ववाचा विभो ! पूर्व यद्यकरिष्यमीश्वरपदाम्भोजातसेवां तदा साक्षान्मोक्षमुपैष्यमेव, गमितं व्यर्थ मया जीवितम् ॥ १४९ ॥ Let this message of Lord Krishna guide me at every step and put me on the path of duty; let me not beg anybody any more with this tongue of mine, Oh Lord! Had I dedicated myself at Thy feet in the past all these years, perhaps I could have realised my soul's infinitude; alas! I committed a criminal waste of time! पातुं मृत्युमुखात् सुतं च पितरौ कि पारयेतां तथा पत्नी वा स्वपतिः, पतिं च गृहिणी, भृत्याश्च किं स्वं प्रभुम् । यः कश्चित् पुरुषो महानपि जन न त्रातुमीष्टे स्वयम् पुण्यान्येव पुराकृतानि पुरुषं रक्षन्ति मृत्योर्मुखात् ॥ १५० ॥ * Published in Gairvani. Chittoor (A.P.), 15-9-1971.

·उद्धरेदात्मनाऽऽत्मानम् 47 Could the very parents save their own son from the jaws of death? Could the husband save his own wife, or the wife her husband? Could a hundred loyal servants come to the rescue of their dying master? Even the greatest of men could never help a man destined to die. One's own good deeds must come to one's rescue under such circumstances. मूर्खश्चेत् स बुधायते किमु सुतः पित्रा समध्यापितः ? मूर्खस्याऽपि पितुन किं सुततया जायेत विद्वद्वरः ।। सद्बुद्धिं च पतिव्रता किमु पतिं कर्तुं समर्था भवेत् ? सर्वः स्वस्वपुराकृतेन भवति श्रीमान् दरिद्रोऽपि वा ॥ १५१ ॥ Even if a father engages a dozen tutors to tuition his son, could the boy come up if he be by nature a stupid? Does not a stupid father beget a son who attains heights of scholarship by his own self-centred activity? Could a devoted wife correct the vagaries of her wayward husband? Everyone would reap the retribution of his own past actions, and thereby become low-born or high-placed. . एवं चेद्यदि पूर्वकर्म सकलं बध्नाति किं पौरुषं व्यर्थं स्यात् ? परमेश्वरस्य न दया त्रातुं समर्था किमु ! । इत्थं चेयदि गद्यते, पुरुषता दैवानुकम्पार्जने कर्तव्यैव, समर्थ एव भगवान् ब्रह्माण्डमाण्डेश्वरः ।। १५२ ॥ If it be that every one has been inexorably bound by his own Karma, does it not amount to fatalism? In that case there is no room for any self-centred activity (as was postulated by (Mc Dougal). Nobody need invoke the Divine, for, the very Divine would have to act according to the constitution of Karma, and is Itself powerless to act otherwise. If it be argued so, it is not meant that nobody need exert to beg mercy of the Lord. Certainly the Lord of the Universe is omnipotent and could be invoked to repeal the retribution of the past course, which otherwise would have its own sway and momentum like a projectile shot taking its own parabolic path.

·48 ब्रह्माञ्जलिः स:* स्वा शक्तिः परमेश्वरस्य च दया स्वस्मिन्नुभे एव ते स्वं त्रातुं हि समर्हतः क्षितितले नाऽन्यो जनः कश्चन । एतत् सत्यमवेहि ! मानव ! वृथा किं याचसेऽन्यान् जनान् वृक्षः किं जनतां स्वपोषणकृते बद्धाञ्जलिाचते ? ॥ १५३ ॥ Your own exerted righteous action, and the mercy of the Lord of the Universe, these are the only two saving factors to save you. Nobody in the world could be invoked to come to your rescue. Mortal! realize this truth and never cringe at the feet of a man, however great he might be. Does a 'tree supplicate to men with folded hands to quench its thirst or satiate its hunger? ? रसौ वै शिव विश्वमिदं सर्व सुन्दर सुखमन्दिरम् । इत्येवं मनुते सर्वो दृष्ट्वेदं जगदद्भुतम् ।। १५४ ॥ The blissful Sool, the quintessence of existence Every one aspects this beautiful marvellous universe as the very abode of happiness. लिप्समानः सुखं देहं संपोषयितुमिच्छति । दिदृक्षमाणो भद्राणि जनो जीवितुमिच्छति ॥ १५५ ॥ Man nourishes his body as much as he could with the idea of enjoying his existence; he continues to live as long as he could exerting to see auspiciousness all around to his mind's fill. आनन्दं परिपश्यन्ति प्रपञ्चे सर्वतोमुखम् । रसो वै स इति प्रोक्तं यथोपनिषदा पुरा ॥ १५६ ॥ Men try to reap bliss out of their existence trying to derive it out of their intercourse with the external world ; the very Upanishad declares that “The Soul is itself bliss'. # Published in the Samskrta Pratibhā, Vol. IX, No. 1, 1971, Sahitya Akademi, Delhi.

·रसौ वै सः
49
नो चेत् को वा जनः प्राण्यात् को वा संसारमिच्छति ।
आशापाशो हि बध्नाति जनान् जीवितवर्मनि ॥ १५७ ॥
If that be not so, why do men breath? Why do men exert to
live in the world? Verily the bonds of desires, bind them down
to this mundane existence.
आनन्दं सुवतेऽस्मभ्यं फलपूर्णा महील्हाः ।
आनन्दं सुवते तद्वल्लतान्तैललिता लताः ॥ १५८ ॥
The trees bearing delicious fruits beget an aesthetic pleasure
in our bosom at the very sight; and the pleasure is no less when
we see the lovely creepers shooting out lovelier flowers.
पर्वताश्च तथा मेघा नद्यो मलयमारुतः ।
आनन्दं जीवितेऽस्मभ्यं तन्वते हि दिने दिने ॥ १५९ ॥
The musing mountains, the welcome clouds, the flowing
rivers, the refreshing breeze from the Malaya mountain, all these,
we know not why, give us a secret pleasure.
सन्तोषो जायतेऽजलं दृष्टं चेद्वस्तु सुन्दरम् ।
स्वाद्यमानं च सौन्दर्य वृद्धिं याति दिने दिने ॥ १६० ॥
When we perceive a thing of beauty, at once our heart leaps
for joy as it were; the more we begin to enjoy its beauty, the
more we are attracted by it.
नैव तत् सुन्दरं वस्तु हृदयादस्तमेष्यति ।
स्वप्नान् सुमधुरानेतान् प्रसूते ध्यायतो हृदि ॥ १६१ ॥
That thing of beauty has always its impact on our minds;
even when it is not before us, our minds dwell upon it to such an
extent that our minds get engaged in sweet dreams about the
same.
.
तदर्थे जीवितं याति नित्यमानन्दमन्दिरम् ।
जाग्रतस्स्वपतो वाऽपि तदानन्दो भवेत् सदा ॥ १६२ ॥

·50 ब्रह्माजलिः Our life gets engrossed in enjoying its beauty either when we are awake or in the world of dream, and indeed life seems to be worth-living on that count alone. आनन्दकन्दमेतत् स्यात् जीवितं कस्यचित् कृते । पत्युः कृते नवोढायाः प्रसूतायाः सुतस्य च ॥ १६३ ।। This life of ours becomes a seat of enjoyment for somebody's sake as it were or for the sake of something that fills our mind all through, even as a newly wedded bride pines to enjoy the company of her husband, or a mother gets engrossed in her newly begotten child. . केचित् केचिज्जनं सर्वं जाया वा पुत्रपुत्रिकाः । अन्ये वा प्रतिबध्नन्ति जीवितं सुखकामुकम् ॥ १६४ ॥ Somebody, be it one's own wife or one's own children, gives us a stake to enjoy our existence, for whose sake alone, if not for anything else we pine to live. कानिचिवस्तुजातानि, केचिद् भावाश्च जीविते । कुर्वते जीविनोऽजसमानन्दरसवाहिनीम् ॥ १६५ ॥ Some things of beauty or some pleasurable thoughts that fill our minds present us a perennial flow of blissful experience. कष्टान्यापद्यमानं च पीड्यमानं रुजाऽपि च । पाशायमाना बध्नाति काचिदाशा जनं क्षितौ ॥ १६६ ॥ A man even in the midst of miseries, or one repressed under the heels of a discase, still gets bound to this life by some lingering hope lurking in the mind. वो भवेन्मे महत् सौख्यं विन्देयं बहुसम्पदः । इत्येवं मन्यमानेन जीवितं याप्यते क्षितौ ॥ १६७ ॥ Tomorrow at least I may be happy; at least after some tribulations, I should prosper. Some such thought pegs our life and helps its prolongation, ·लक्ष्मी 51 वृद्धो वाऽपि च रुग्णो वा दरिद्रो वा भवेन्नरः । कञ्चिदानन्दमुद्दिश्य न जहाति स्वयं तनुम् ॥ १६८ ॥ Even a decrepit old man, or even a diseased person or even a poor miserable person, does exert to prolong his life and never for a moment feels like putting an end to that miserable life. कीहक्सौन्दर्यमत्राऽऽस्ते लोके मधुरिमा ततः । निर्वक्तुं न समर्थाऽपि जीविताशां जहाति न ।। १६९ ।। What is that beauty or sweetness in this life that makes even the most miserable man prolong his life? He himself cannot define it, but still craves to live. कुतोऽपि जननं स्वस्य कुत्राऽपि विलयं तथा । अजानन्नेव लोकेऽस्मिन् जीविताशां तितांसति ॥ १७० ॥ One knows not wherefrom one is born; one knows not into what vaccum one has to sink. Ignorance stares one in the face when one tries to reflect upon such thoughts. Despite, one longs to live as long as one could. का मे पत्नी सुतः को वा कौ वा मे पितराविति । अजानानो बरीमति व्यामोहं तेषु दुर्भरम् ॥ १७१ ॥ Who is my wife? Who is my son? Who are my parents? How did they come to be my wife or son or parents? This is all a scaled book to my eyes and as though a divine algebra. Yet, I know not why, I pin my hopes and happiness on their existence, and derive the bliss of my own existence on their account. लक्ष्मी:* महाविष्णोः साक्षाद्भवसि गृहिणी किंतु चपला दिवं हित्त्वा लुब्धानभिसरसि, नित्यं भ्रमसि च । * These verses were written long ago when the author was in utter poverty. Beholdt he got a job after administering as it were this brain-wash to the Goddess of Wealth.

·ba
ब्रह्माजलिः
अविद्यागन्धेषु स्थितिमभिलषन्ती मृगयसे
तथाभूतान् लक्ष्मीः ! किमियमविनीता तव कथा ? ॥ १७२ ॥
The Goddess of Wealth
Thou art the very consort of Lord Mahavishnu; yet Thou art
reported to be most unsteady. Having left the Heaven, Thy
abode, Thou art seeking misers to have residence in their houses.
Further Thou desirest to reside generally with the most uncultured
people and goest in quest of such people. This behaviour does
not befit Thee, Oh Goddess of Lakshmi! !
Note. The word 'अभिसरसि' is used in connection with women
seeking consorts by themselves. In Hindu mythology the Goddess
of Wealth is depicted as the most fickleminded, never residing in
one particular family for long, the maximum period being three
generations.
कियत्कालं बद्धा पिशुनधनपेटीषु, लहरी
यथा रुद्धा सर्वेजिंगमिषसि मागैरपि खलु ।
न मार्गे लब्धेऽपि क्षयमुपगता बाष्पवशतः
क्रमेणान्तर्धत्से बत भवति चित्रा तव कथा ॥ १७३ ॥
Thou art arrested in the iron safes of misers for some time;
and then (as Thou art fickleminded) Thou tryest to escape from
that place by all means even as a stream of water, if it be arrested
tries to escape in every direction. If perchance no way is found
for an escape, even then, Thou art emaciated there itself with
tears as it were in the case of the stream it partly sinks there and
partly gets evaporated. The word Bashpa means both tears and
vapour), and vanishest out of sight. What a wonder!
Vide न स्यात् त्रैपूरुषी विद्या न स्यात् त्रैपूरुषं धनम् ।
न दत्तैव प्रायो यदि भवसि दत्ता विधिवशात् ,
अपात्रे दत्ता वं गतवयसि कन्येव धनिके।
सकामा त्वं तस्मादसति वसतिं वाञ्छसि, यतः
किमेतत् प्रारब्धं भवति तव वैकुण्ठगृहिणि । ॥ १७ ॥

·लक्ष्मीः 63 Thou art never bestowed in charity. If ever that happens, Thou art bestowed on others only by force (for example by taxation). So it happens that Thou art bestowed on undeserving persons (Note that charity also must be in place), even as some people give their daughters in marriage to old men simply because they are wealthy. Bebold! Thou art then quite satisfied because Thou desirest to live only with unworthy persons. Whatſis this lot of yours, Oh! Wife of Mahavishnu! न विद्वांसं यासि, व्रजसि यदि तूर्णं वितरति द्विजे वा पात्रे त्वामिति, न रुचये तत् तव भवेत् । त्वयि प्रीतिं विद्वान् न भजति च यत् त्वं मदकरी स्नुषा गीर्देवी ते न च भवति सह्या क्षणमपि ॥ १७५ ॥ Thou never favourest a scholar, for, if Thou doest, he might bestow Thee in charity to a deserving person, or a Brahmin. This does not please Thee. Nor does the scholar have any love for Thee, for, Thou begettest arrogance in whomsoever Thou takest residence with. Further, the Godless of learning, Thy daughterin-law resides with the scholar and Thou never bearest her sight. न दाराः पुत्रा वा विषमविषसंसारविटपि- प्ररोहे बीजं तत् खलु भवति लक्ष्मीहि भवती ।। प्रमुस्त्वां मायावत् सकलजनमोहाय विदधे यतस्सर्वो ह्यर्थं भजति परमार्थ न भजति ॥ १७६ ॥ Neither wife, nor children for the matter of that, constitute a seed of the poisonous tree of Samsāra. Thou art the seed in reality. God has created Thee as He has created Māyā the Goddess of illusion, to put men on the wrong track. That is why everyone craves after wealth alone, and no one craves after the goal and purpose of life. जनः काम मोहं भजति निजदारेष्वपि खलु प्रमोहं कामं च त्वयि भजति लोभं पुनरहो।

·54 ब्रह्माजलिः त्वया मात्सर्य च प्रभवति मदश्चाऽपि कमले! ततः क्रोधोऽपि स्यात् षडरिषु भवत्येव विषयः ।। १७७ ॥ Man has love and lust alone towards his wife. But, behold! man has not only love and obsession towards thee, but also grows covetous, envious of others' wealth, breeds even anger and arrogance on account of Thee. Thus Thou art the seed of all the six enemies known as Ari-shad-varga. अये! सेवाधर्म भजति विबुधोऽप्यर्थविषये, भवेदर्थी तिष्ठन् धनिगृहमुखद्वारनिकटे । जनाः सर्वे पापं विदधति तवार्थे प्रतिदिनम् चरित्रं ते ताहक् परमपुरुषस्याऽपि गृहिणि! ॥ १७८ ॥ Even a scholar becomes a servant on Thy account, nay becomes even a beggar dancing attendance at the doors of people of power and pelf. On Thy account alone, almost everyone commits sin day in and day out. What a wonderful story is Thine, Oh! Wife of the Highest? भारतीया सरस्वती* चतुरास्येषु या देवी चतुर्वेदस्वरा विधेः। वरीवति वयं तस्यै नमोवाकं प्रशास्महे ॥ १७९ ।। वाल्मीकि या च सीमन्ते मुक्तारूपेण भारती । दरीपति वयं तस्यै नमोवाकं प्रशास्महे ॥ १८० ॥ ऋषिः पाराशरिर्यस्याः कालिदासादयस्तथा । शरीराभरणायन्ते तस्यै देव्यै नमो नमः ॥ १८१ ॥ हन्त! भारतदेशेऽद्य देवी भारतभारती । वारखीलम्पटैः पुत्रैर्मातेव गलहस्तिता ॥ १८२ ।। •Published in Gairvani, Chittoor (A.P.), on 15-6-1971.

·भारतीया सरस्वती
55
तिस्रो भाषा अधीयानो न क्षमः स्यादतो गिरम् ।
गैर्वाणी पठितुं बालः, इति सा गलहस्तिता ।। १८३ ।।
त्रिभाषासूत्रमेवैतद् भारतीयैः स्वयं कृतम् ।
मातुर्भारतभारत्याः कण्ठपाशायते बत! ।। १८४ ॥
आश्लेयीकविताग्रन्थान् पठन् बालोऽत्र भारते ।
पञ्चषानपि गैर्वाणीवाणीश्लोकान् न पाठ्यते ।। १८५ ।।
अपकारो महानेष कृतो जातेरिति ब्रुवे ।
जातीयं यन्महाकाव्यवाङ्मयं तत् तिरोहितम् ॥ १८६ ॥
आस्वाद्यते यदा दिव्यं श्रीमद्रामायणं मया ।
अनुशोचाम्यभाग्यांस्तान् भारतक्षितिबालकान् ॥ १८७ ।।
अनुशोचाम्यभाग्यांस्तान् यैर्विद्याध्ययनाध्वनि ।
उपेक्षाविषयीभूतं यावत् संस्कृतवाङ्मयम् ॥ १८८ ।।
लुप्ता वेदाश्च वेदाङ्गान्येवं वेदशिरांसि च ।
लुप्ता गीर्वाणवाणी चेत् कुत्राऽऽस्ते भारतीयता ।। १८९ ।।
यत्र देशे पुरा ब्रह्मजिज्ञासा क्रियते स्म वै
तत्र देशे नरीनति नास्तिकत्वं जने जने ॥ १९० ।।
बालानां न गुरुर्दैवमविद्यानामुपासनात् ।
नास्तिकत्वं सरीसति कुहूरात्रौ तमो यथा ॥ १९१ ।।
अध्याप्यन्ते नवीनासु कलाशालासु बालकाः ।
लक्षशः कोटिशश्वाऽपि संस्कारोऽम्बरपुष्पति ॥ १९२ ।।
शान्तिः शान्तिरितीदं यवेदो जोधुष्यतेतराम्।
सा शान्तिरद्य देशेऽत्र सिकतान्तरतैलति ॥ १९३ ॥

·56 ब्रह्माजलि: अविद्या बालमूर्धानमारुह्य विषसर्पति । मातापित्रोश्च शुश्रषा तेषां शशिविषाणति ॥ १९४ ॥ बुद्धिरेतादृशी तेषां कथं बोभोति सम्प्रति । यविद्यास्वद्य कुत्राऽपि दैवशब्दो न बोध्यते ॥ १९५ ॥ आत्मशून्ये कथं विद्याविधाने संस्कृतिर्भवेत् । इति तत्त्वमजानानाः प्रभवः कस्य कथ्यते ॥ १९६ ॥ आहारार्थमुपागच्छन्नश्मभिस्ताडितो यथा । संस्कृत्यै या श्रिता विद्या साऽपसंस्कुरुते जनान् ।। १९७ ।। जीविते क्लेशभूयिष्ठे शान्तिशून्ये हृदन्तरे। आनन्दस्यन्दिनी या स्यात् सा वै देवी सरस्वती ।। १९८ ॥ निद्राहारमयैर्युक्ते मनुजे पशुताहते । दिव्या शक्तिर्ययोबुद्धा सा वै देवी सरस्वती ॥ १९९ ॥ अन्नप्राणमन:कोशानुपसंक्रम्य या भवेत् । विज्ञानानन्दसंघात्री सा वै देवी सरस्वती ।। २०० ॥ वाल्मीकिव्यासयोर्वाऽपि कालिदासस्य वा पुनः । मुखाम्भोजमधूद्गारा सा वै देवी सरस्वती ॥ २०१ ॥ The Sarasvati of the Bharat May our salutations be to that Goddess of Sarasvati, who is reported to be welling out from the four faces of the creator Chaturmukha in the form of the four-fold Vedic lore! Let us pay our homage to that Sarasvati, who has decorated her head with the pearled-jewel of Valmiki; that Sarasvati whose bodily ornaments are the other poets like Vyāsa and Kalidasa, ·भारतीया सरस्वती 57 Alas! today that divine tongue Sanskrit stands necked out of doors even as a mother gets exiled by upgrateful sons engrossed in the company of harlots. Sanskrit has been bidden good-bye by the design of the three-language formula, which discovers ingeniously that a lad cannot be asked to study more than three languages. (Even this formulation could have been mother tongue, Sanskrit and English uniformly for all the states, which if done would not have erupted bad blood all over the country at the same time leaving room for Sanskrit that could have acted as a cementing force among the the states.) This three-language formula (The word Sūtra also means thread) is indeed like a thread to hang the head of Mother Sarasvati namely Sanskrit. When a lad is called upon to study a number of English poets even the minor poets thereof to graduate or post-graduate, it is not necessary to learn even halfa dozen verses of the major poets of the Bhārat like Valmiki, Vyāsa or Kalidasa ip all his educational career put together. This system of education has really killed the very spirit of nationalism by shutting out the totality of the student generation from their national poets by some pretext or other. (The English youths could generate in themselves the spirit of nationalism through their poets like Shakespeare or Milton. How could India expect the Indian youths to nourish such a spirit giving them an education designed to hate their own Sanskrit? After all patriotism could be kindled through the country's litera. ture alone and not through an appeal to lifeless geographical boundaries of the nation.) When I happen to enjoy the immortal poet Vālmiki, invariably I cannot help thinking about this national misfortune that overtook the nation long ago and still hangs overhead breeding a servile mentality in the youth. The sons of the Bharat are being shut off from their mother and are asked as though to love ą step-mother. 8 ·58 ब्रह्माजलि: The Vedas, the Vedangas, the very Upanishads and even Sanskrit have all become Greek and Latin to the very sons of Bharat. Where is any more nationalism? Once upon a time, there were Rishis like Vasishtha, who are reported to have discoursed deep into the Brahman; alas! in the same Bhārat today people are getting Godless. Boys are being trained in a soul-less system of education. How could you expect them to respect their teachers, when they deny the very existence of a Supreme Divine? Atheism is reigning supreme like darkness enveloping on a New moon night. The Government has been spending huge amounts upon education professing to educate lakhs and millions, which is really a colossal waste, when the education imparted does not beget an iota of culture so much so today the system of education breeds culture no more than the sky begets a flower. The Veda sang much about peace; but, alas, that peace is there in the country no more than there could be oil welling out of sand. Godless education imparted to the lads, has been poisoning them as it were like a venomous cobra; let alone respect to teachers, oved respect to parents is no more there than a horn could grow on the head of a hare, Why is it that the student generation is of that mentality? The answer is simple: Nowhere in the entire curriculum the word God finds any expression. The leaders at the helm do not think even for a moment as to how a soul-less system of education could beget culture in the youth. To whom could we appeal? Even as a beggar approaching for bread is served with stones, just the same way education wbich is sought for light, is breeding darkness in the hearts of students. After all what is Sarasvati, if it could not shed any light and bliss in the hearts, where life is a thorny-bed? Sarasvati is a cosmic force appearing at the human level designed by the Divina to divinise man (whereas education today is sub-humanising the ·प्रकृतिग्रन्थः 69 student generation). Really Sarasvati should be able, while helping man to live his life in the material world, to contact the heart, and illumipate it to cultivate the aesthetic, moral and spiritual levels of consciousness which could arouse the God in man. It is exactly such a kind of Sarasvati, that welled out of the hearts of Poets like Valmiki, Vyasa and Kalidasa (but alas! that Sarasvati is denied to the student generation today in the Bharat). . प्रकृतिग्रन्थः किमु ग्रन्थान् विद्वन् ! पठसि नरमेधाविरचितान् पठ ब्रह्माण्डाख्यं द्रुहिणरचितं ग्रन्थमतुलम् । असंख्याका गोलाः कथमिव नभोगर्भनिहिताः कया शक्त्या भूमिळ्ठति गगने कन्दुक इव ॥ २०२ ।। The Book of Nature Why thou scholar! pourest into the books of human brains? Read if thou canst the Divine Book of Nature? How did it happen that millions and billions of solar globes roll in the bosom of space? What power motivates the earth to spin like a ball in the sky? कुतो भीतो वातो गगनतलमाश्रित्य पवते कुतो भीतः प्राता रविरुदयमेति प्रतिदिनम् ! । कुतो वाऽपीन्द्राग्नी चकितचकितौ धर्मनिरतौ कुतो जाता जीवाः कबलयति मृत्युः किमिव तान् ! ॥ २०३ ॥ On account of whose fear does the wind blow across the sky? Fearing whom does the sun rise in the east? Why do Indra (the god of rain) and Agui (fire) nervously perform their duty? (Vide the Upanishad भीषाऽस्माद्वातः पवते etc.) विश्वम्भरा भगवती हृदये धरन्ती दन्दह्यमानमनलं किमलंकरोति ।

·60 ब्रह्माजलि: स्वस्यास्तनुं कुसुमिताभिरथो लताभिः सस्यैः सुरम्यतरुभिश्च शुचिस्मितेव ? ॥ २०४ ।। It is reported (Vide Veda: पृथिवी शान्ता साऽग्निना शान्ता etc.) that Mother Earth has burning fire in her bosom. Yet, behold! how she decorates her body with flowery creepers, crops and beautiful trees as though her face is smiling. How is it? झंझानिलं प्रलयकालिकवायुबीज गर्भे दधत् कथमिवैतदथाऽन्तरिक्षम् । सौख्यावहं सुरभिलं पवनं दधानम् शान्तं विभाति यतिराडिव शापशक्तिः ॥ २०५ ।। Behold! the space around us wbich goes by the name of Antariksha, which contains air in its bosom that could be the cause of cyclonic cataclysms at times, yet poecefully gives us a happy fragrant breeze and appeals to us like a saint that could imprecate disaster on our heads. मनुष्याणां ग्रन्थान् पठितुमसमर्थो यदि पशुः, विधेग्रन्थ विश्वं पठितुमसमर्थश्च विबुधः । तमोन्यस्तो रोदित्यथ हसति दीपं च कलयन् यथा बालस्तद्वद् भवति विबुधो ब्रह्मविषये ॥ २०६ ॥ If the animal at its level of consciousness could not understand mon's algebra, how could men understand the Book of Nature which is Divine Algebra. The greatest of geniuses is no more than a cbild crying in the night, crying for the light, only with a cry. The child cannot articulate its desire that it wants light; nor does it know its own desire for the matter uf that, that it wants light. Are we not so, who profess to be scholars, when ignorance staros us in the face and does not allow us to understand the mystery of life?

·प्रकृतिशक्तिः 61 प्रकृतिशक्तिः यां शक्तिं समुपाश्रिता गगनगा गोला भ्रमन्ति द्रुतम् यां शक्तिं समुपाश्रिता च पृथिवी माता रवि भ्राम्यति । यां शक्तिं समुपाश्रितोऽनवरतं वायुः प्रवात्यम्बरे तां शक्तिं समुपास्महे प्रकृतिगां ब्राह्मीं परां वाक्पराम् ॥ २०७ ।। The Cosmic Energy Let us prostrate before that inexplicable stupendous dynamism of the universe, which is whipping as though the countless globes in the depths of space to pursue their orbital courses in strict accordance to laws of mechanics; that dynamism which also directs our Mother Earth to trace her own course round the Sup ceaselessly; and that dynamism which is there in the constant revolution of the wind enveloping tbe Earth. यां शक्तिं समुपाश्रिता प्रवहति स्रोतस्विनी सागरम् , यां शक्तिं समुपाश्रिता घनगणा धावन्ति वर्षन्ति च । जीवोत्पत्तिविनाशयोरपि च या शक्तिर्दरीदृश्यते तां शक्तिं समुपास्महे प्रकृतिगां ब्राह्मीं परां वाक्पराम् ॥ २०८ ।। Let us prostrate ourselves before that indescribable Supreme Energy that motivates the river to reach the ocean, that Energy which is manifest in the incessant motion of the clouds and their raining and that mystic cosmic force which has been creating and destroying constantly countless lives on the surface of the Earth. यामाश्रित्य फलन्ति वृक्षततयः पुष्प्यन्ति काले लताः विज्ञानं मनुजेषु शक्तिरपि या पोपुष्यते बुद्धिदा। कांश्चिद्वर्धयते जनांश्च कतिचिद् या नाशयन्ती स्वयम् तां शक्तिं परमाद्भुतां प्रकृतिगां ब्राह्मी नमस्कुर्महे ॥ २०९ ॥ Let us bow to that Supreme Cosmic force which makes the creepers to blossom and the trees to bear fruit just at prescribed ·62 লঙ্কাতি times of the year, that Supreme Intelligence which manifests itself in men who make discoveries in science, and that mysterious force which makes some people to prosper and persecutes many more as though in a whimsical mood. या जायमानैरिव जायमाना संवर्धमानैरिव वर्धमाना। तथाऽवसीदद्भिरिवावसन्ना ब्राह्मी महाशक्तिमहं नमामि ॥ २१० ॥ That Supreme power which appears to be taking a birth in those that are being born, that which appears to be expanding with those who are growing, that which appears as though perishing with those that dieaway, to that Supreme Power, I bow my head. स्थाणुः स्थाणुतया घटो घटतया नीलश्च ताहक्तया वृक्षो वृक्षतया पशुः पशुतया विद्वांश्च विद्वत्तया । यद्धर्मेण विभाति तत्तदखिलं वस्तु स्थिरं वा चरम् तां शक्तिं समुपास्महे प्रकृतिगां ब्राह्मीं परां वाक्पराम् ॥ २११ Let us bow our heads to that Supreme Power, which manifests itself in diverse forms, as though static in stones which are static, potness in a pot, blackness in what is black, tree-ness in a tree, animalhood in the animal, scholarliness in a scholar and in whatever form each and every object assumes. गाढारण्यगता लताक्षितिरुहः पुष्प्यन्ति कस्मै स्वयम् , मध्येवारिधि चन्द्रिका वितनुते कस्मै च तुष्टि पराम् । ब्राह्माण्डान्तगतांश्च गोलनिवहान् कोऽध्यक्षति भ्राम्यतः, स्वात्मानं तमुपास्महे मयि गतं यस्यैव केन्द्रायिते ।। २१२ ॥ For wbose pleasure do the creepers and trees blossom in the depths of the forest? For whos: pleasure is the moon light intended in the midst of the ocean?Who presides over the distaptest globes to ensure their conduct in their respective orbital courses? To That Supreme Consciousness, this humble centre of consciousness which is 'T' pays its homage.

·प्रकृतिशक्तिः 63 यमानन्दं पाने भजति तृषितो जन्तुरथवा यमानन्दं भुञ्जन् भजति च बुभुक्षातुरमनाः । यमानन्दं श्रुत्वा श्रवणसुखगीतिं च लभते स आनन्दो जीवं दिशति रसरूपं श्रुतिशिरः ॥ २१३ ॥ The bliss that is enjoyed by a thirsty person when he drinks, the bliss which is felt when a hungry person eats a delicious dish and the bliss that one feels on hearing a melodious note, all such bliss indicates what the Upanishad declares that the jiva is essentially of a blissful nature. यमानन्दं गायन् भजति पिकसंघो मधुवने यमानन्दं माता सुततनुमवघ्राय लभते । यमानन्दं सुप्तौ भजति च परिश्रम्य मनुजः स आनन्दो ब्राह्मो हृदयगत एव स्फुरतु मे ॥ २१४ ।। The bliss that sponsors the cuckoos to sing themselves into ecstasies, the bliss that is there in the bosom of the mother when she smells the body of her child, the bliss that is enjoyed by man in the midst of a deep sleep, may the Brahmananda, which is my essence, and of which the aforesaid categories are but mere photons express itself in my heart. यमानन्दं लुब्धो भजति हि विचिन्वन् बहुधनम् यमानन्दं दाता वितरणमुखादेव लभते । यमानन्दं योगी भजति विजहत् स्वार्थमखिलम् तमानन्दं ब्राह्मं प्रतिपदमुपासे नतशिराः ॥ २१५ ॥ I bow my head to that Supreme bliss of which we have glimpse in the bliss of a miser hoarding money, in the bliss of a charitable person, in his own charity and the bliss that reigns in the heart of a yogi who has relinquished his all. जात्यन्धा विकलागिनो गतधना दुर्वाररोगान्विताः भार्यापुत्रवियोगदुःखभरिता जीवन्ति किं वाञ्छया है।

·84 ब्रह्माजलि: आमूलं च विकर्तितः किसलयन् किं भूरुहः साधयेत् ? आनन्दं तमुपास्महे हृदयगं ब्राह्म परं वाक्परम् ।। २१६ ॥ May we pay our homage to that Supreme Bliss of the Soul, a bit of which manifests itself in the craving to live, of men born blind, men suffering from deformities of body, men suffering from incurable diseases, men bereaved of all kith and kin without exception and in the lingering life of a tree that has been cut dowo root and branch but which still tries to grow some leaves on its body once again. जिज्ञासुः परमाद्भुतानि भगवत्सर्गे रहस्यानि यो निर्णिद्र यतते यतो बुधजनो शक्तेहि वैज्ञानिकः । तद्दीक्षापरिचोदकी भगवती गीर्देवतारूपिणीम् तां शक्ति समुपास्महे विवृणुते यात्मानमेवात्मना ॥ २१७ ॥ Let us sing the praise of that Goddess Sarasvati, who is no other than the cosmic intelligence, itself secretly working through the brains of the scientist who pursues a deep untiring study of Nature's secrets, permits him to discover those secrets, thus as though awakening itself by itself. विद्वान् सद्योऽत्र भारते विद्वानद्य यथा गुरुर्मकरगो मीने बुधो वा यथा नीचत्वं गमितो न केचिदपि ये तं जानते वाऽधुना। नो जानामि कदा प्रभुत्वपदगैरेषा स्थितिर्बुध्यते सर्वो यत्र समान एवं भविता के वाऽऽद्रियन्ते बुधान् ? ॥ २१८ ॥ A Scholar today in the Bharat It appears to me that today a Sanskrit Scholar is like the planet Guru debilitated in Capricorn; or the planet Budha debilitated in the constellation of Meena. There is even nobody who could differentiate such a scholar from Another, much less to respect him, I do not know when men ·विद्वान् सद्योऽत्र भारते 66 placed in positions of power could understand this. In this secular democratic socialism of ours, it is really a misfortune to be a scholar only to suffer from a sense of frustration. Men need to have bread alone! पूर्व राजगणैव॒धा हि वहवस्सम्भाविताः पोषिताः, तस्मादेव बभूवुरत्र धरणौ श्रीकालिदासादयः । लोकः पृच्छति किं पुनर्न भविता यः कालिदासोपमः, जातश्चेदिह जीविकाविरहितो जीर्णोऽभविष्यद् ध्रुवम् ॥ २१९ ।। In days of yore we are told that there were kings like Bhoja and Krishnadevaraya who had patronised poets and scholars; no wonder, therefore, if poets of the stature of Kalidasa were born here in those good olden days. The world puts the question: “How is it we have nowadays no poet who has the stature of that Kalidasa, in spite of our living amidst far more an advanced type of civilization?" The answer is: “It is good that no such a poet is born nowadays; for, had he been born, he would have had to starve and die away, unhonoured, unwept and unsung." " सस्यस्याऽपिच कस्यचित् फलकृते कालोऽनुकूलो भवेत् तत्तत्कालवशाल्लताः कुसुमिताः काले फलन्ति द्रुमाः। गायेदेव पिको वसन्तसमये ; तद्वत् सुकाले स्वयम् जायन्ते कवितावसन्तसमये श्रीकालिदासादिकाः ॥ २२० ।। Even a crop requires a particular type of weather to grow and fructify. The creepers put on flowers in their respective seasons alone ; the trees beget fruits in proper time and clime. That being so, how could we expect poets like Kalidasa to be born under a prosaic inappropriate political climate as ours? केचित् साम्प्रतिका वदन्ति विबुधो जीवेत् स्वयं शक्तितः, नापेक्षेत जनाभिमानमिति तानेवं समाधीयते । पाण्डित्यं नहि वाञ्छितं भवति चेत् नैवोद्भवेयुर्बुधाः, निर्दोहा कवितालता कुसुमिता किं स्यात् स्थले नीरसे? ।। २२१ ।। ० ·66 ब्रह्माजलिः Some people today argue that a scholar should learn to live by himself and should never expect others to patronize him. The answer to such an argument is this: If the time is such that no scholarship is required to be there, certainly no fool exerts himself to become a scholar. Just the same way the delicate creeper of poetic muse, would never grow in a place, where there is neither water nor a fertile soil (when there is no sense or Rasikatā in the people). विद्वांसं बहुमन्यते सकलभूरित्युक्तिरास्ते हि या तां प्रत्येति कथं मुधा बुधजनो यः स्यादरिद्रस्सदा । पोषाह खलु पाण्डितीति सकलैवेद्यामुपन्यस्यते पोषं यः कुरुते न तं जनमहो नाऽपश्यमद्यावधि ॥ २२२ ॥ Everybody says that scholarship is respected in every time and clime. How could a scholar foolishly believe in that, being what he is, poor, neglected and looked upon as a parasite on the society. Everyone right from the highest down to the lowest declare on the platforms and announce from house-tops that Pandits must be respected and patronized, but, I have yet to see a man who does it in actuality, विद्वान् कश्चिदुपेत्य कञ्चिदवदत् श्रीमन्तमित्थं कविः श्रीमन् काव्यमिदं मया विरचितं किञ्चित् त्वया श्रूयताम् । सोऽवादीत् , बत! काव्यवाङ्मयमहो को वाऽधुना कांक्षति, व्यर्थ ते व्यवसाय एव भवितेत्येवं हि देशोऽधुना ॥ २२३ ॥ Once a scholarly poet approached a zamindar and told him that he would like to read out a few Verses for the pleasure of the zamindar. On this, the zamindar suspecting that the poet had approached him for patronage, hastily remarked: "Hallo, who wants your poetry, nowadays? All your endeavour is a waste, for, people could eat well, could sleep well and could live well without poetry. Go and better attend to a useful job." Is this the Bharat, today? .

·विद्वान् सद्योऽत्र भारते 67 विज्ञानं परिवर्वतां किमु वृथा काव्यादिकं वाड्मयम् प्राहैवं कवितां स्वयं परिहसन् कश्चित् सुवैज्ञानिकः । तस्यैवं भविता मतिश्च विधिना व्यर्थ च सृष्टानि यत् सौन्दर्य वनितासु, गानमपि यत् , वल्लीलतान्तानि च ।। २२४ ।। A good scientist one day exclaimed: "Why people lazily lapse into poetry? Of what earthly use is all that? Let science advance in the country!" I believe that in his mind might be lurking further the idea: "Of what earthly use is beauty in ladies, flowers on the creepers, and music in men?" अरसिकाय कवित्वनिवेदनं न कुरुतेति कविः कथयन् कवीन् । समभवन् रसिकाः कतिचित् तदेत्यभणदेव न केचिदहोऽद्य ते ॥ विलपिता भवभूतिमहाकवेः, यदि तदीयदिने च सरस्वती। कथमिवाऽद्य जनेषु रसज्ञता भवति वा जनता कवितारता ? ॥ २२५॥ A poet exclaimed long ago: "Never read your poetry before people who could never relish it." This statement implies that there were at least some who could appreciate. Alas! Even those few are not to be found today in the country ridden by feverish politics! If, even in those good olden days, no less a poet than Bhavabhūti despaired about the receptivity of the then people regarding his Muse, how could we expect today appreciation even that precious little in these dry prosaic business-like days? No wonder, if nobody applies himself to poetry. न स्यादेव लता हिमादिशिखरे जायेत चेन्नाश्यते, जीवन्ती यदि काऽपि नैव कुसुमं धत्ते, सुमं चेद्भवेत् । तत्सौन्दर्यपरीमलौ न भवतः कस्याऽपि सन्तुष्टये, सद्यश्चेत् कवितालताऽपि भविता तद्वद् भवेदन च ॥ २२६ ॥ No creeper could be born on the summit of the Himalayas. If, perchance there be one sprouting, ao sooner it takes birth than ·68 ब्रह्माजलि: it would perish in that weather. Even if some happens to grow it would not have the stamina to blossom. If perforce a filower be there, for whose delight could be its beauty or fragrance? The same is the lot of the creeper of Muse nowadays in this land. नास्माकं समयोऽस्ति नाऽप्यवसरो गीर्वाणगीर्देवते त्वां सद्यस्समुपासितुं वयमिदं जीवार्थविद्यारताः । मागास्तत्र विषादमस्ति जनता पाश्चात्यदेशेषु या भाष्याणां तव तर्ककर्कशगिरां बोधे करोति श्रमम् ।। २२७ ।। Oh Mother of Sanskrit learning! At present we have neither the time nor the necessity to study thee; for, we are busily engaged in such a study as would beget some money for our livelihood. Do not despair on this account! There are people in the western countries, wbo have been exerting to study thy lore which is very difficult for us to understand! अन्तरिक्षगमनम् मेघावानपि मानवो जनिमृती जेतुं न शक्तो भवेत् , एवं सत्यपि मेधया प्रतिदिन शक्त्या वरीवृद्धयते । चित्रं यान्त्रिकताबलेन मनुजाश्चन्द्रं समेत्यागताः, दिव्या शक्तिरियं परन्तु किमिदं शीलं न वृद्ध बत! ॥ २२८ ॥ Space Travel In spite of the fact that the wisest of men have no power to choose their birth or avoid death, yet, really man's creative genius has been expanding by leaps and bounds. Look! for example, map has developed his technological skill to such an extent that some men were able to reach the Moon and return safe. This is. no doubt a superhuman achievement; but alas! where does man stand morally? या शक्तिः प्रथमं ससर्ज मनुजं तस्याः किमेवंविधः सकल्पो हृदये बभूव यदयं वर्धेत मर्त्यस्तथा ।

·अन्तरिक्षगमनम्
69
एवं तर्हि चिराद् बभूव जडता म] किमद्यावधि
द्राक् सद्यो लभते विजृम्भितमिदं यद् द्यां समुद्याति च ॥ २२९ ॥
Is it that the so-called Supreme Intelligence (call it Nature,
if you please) did bave this design in Its Mind, when It brought
the first man into the cosmic picture, that this mortal man should
advance that far? If that be so, how is it that for millons of years
(Scientists put it that the first man was made to be born some
millions of years ago if not earlier) man remained a stupid all
those years, lighting oil lamps only till very recently and suddenly
as though by the waving of a magic wand, he bloomed into a
genius ever since electricity came to be discovered, and today he
is riding bigh in the heavens in space-ships ready for an inter-
planetary travel? ?
नेदं तद्विधया भवेद् वयमिव प्रेष्ठा परब्रह्मणः
पूर्व चाऽपि बभूवुरेव महिताः प्रज्ञायुता मानवाः ।
वृद्धिं याति विनाश्यते च मनुजः काष्ठां परां यापितः,
जन्तुर्जन्तु रिवैव, नैव मनुजो देवायते कर्हि चित् ।। २३० ॥
That could never be! as if we are the chosen few of the
Almighty. Certainly there must have been much more wonderful
civilizations which must have been buried in geograpbical
antiquities. Man was made to be born, has been allowed the
longest rope, and will be again taught his own position that
he could be never a master of his fate. After all, man must be
himself, never allowed to transcend himself always subject to a
Supreme power. Never could he choose his birth or avoid his
death. Certainly he will be never allowed to attain omnipotence,
never will be given the power to create nor overcome death.
आस्वर्ग रथमागिणो रघुनृपा रेजुर्धरायामिति,
ब्रह्माण्डं परितो भ्रमन् सुरमुनिः कश्चिद्बभूवेति च ।
अन्यं देहमुपाश्रितश्च भगवान् श्रीशङ्करश्चेति तत्
सर्व सत्यमिवैव याति जगतीचक्रं तदुच्चावचम् ॥ २३१ ॥

·70 ब्रह्माजलि: I do believe therefore that there did exist kings like Raghus who are reported to be roaming across the heavens. I do believe, that there was a Nārada who is also described as wandering the universe. It is no wonder if Bhagavan Sankara made his soul enter another body. It does not seem reasonable to decry all of it as cock and bullstories. But, we have to interpret that Superhuman race could have existed in those times of yore, only, that race grew extinct and man again started from a clean slate to rebuild that civilization. Thus the world goes high and low in turn as a wbeel rotating. अणोरस्त्रं सृष्टं किमपि च बलीयोस्त्रममुतः प्रजाभिः सृष्ट स्यादहमहमिकां मारणकृते । भजन्तीत्थं देशाः, न च भवति पर्याप्तिरियता न देवं हित्वाऽन्यः प्रभवति जगत्त्राणकुशलः ।। २३२ ॥ An atom bomb has been invented; and a greater bomb awaits invention. Nations are vieing with each other in discovering more devastating weapons. No one stops short! God alone could save the bumanity from this threatening calamity. जिज्ञासापरिचोदिताश्च विबुधाः, अन्ये जिघांसापराः, दैतेया मिलिता ममन्थुरमितं विज्ञानदुग्धाम्बुधिम् । उद्भूतं बत मारणास्त्रमिति यत् तत् कालकूटो महान् कण्ठे कर्तुमिदं न कश्चिदधुना जागति शम्भुर्बत ! ।। २३३ ॥ Gods (also scholars) sponsored by a thirst for knowledge, and demons (or demon-like persons) sponsored by a thirst for attaining supremacy, both joined together to churn the milky ocean of knowledge and behold! the Kalakūta or the greatest poison has come out of the churning in the form of the atom bomb and alas! no one could gulp it except that God Shambhu. (Vide Puranic allusion.) Alas! we do not find Him around us!

·अन्तरिक्षगमनम् 71 पक्षी जीवति निर्विचारमपि च क्षोणीरुहः सार्थकम् गाढारण्यगताश्च जन्तुनिवहाः सानन्दमेवाऽऽसते । किं मेधापरिपुष्टिमेत्य मनुजा दारिद्यरोगान्विताः क्लिभन्तीति विचारयन्तु ! मनुजस्स्वार्थस्य मूर्तीकृतः ॥ २३४ ॥ The bird is able to live a happy life; the tree is living a life of usefulness; even the wild animals in the forest are living a blissful life; men alone are suffering from disease and poverty in spite of their intellectual status Why is it? Because man is the most selfish creature of all God's creation. अविद्योऽपि ब्रूते भरतमुवि सामान्यमनुजः, मिथो देशा युद्धं पशव इव कुर्वन्ति किमिति । तदेषा सामान्या किमिव खलु नीतिमतिमताम् प्रभूणां न ग्राह्या भवति तदहो दैवकलना ॥ २३५ ।। Even an uplettered man in the street in the Bhārat exclaims how nations are fighting among themselves degenerating to subhuman level. If great gifted leaders of mighty nations are without this simple spirit of humanism in their misconceived sense of nationalism, certainly it seems as though God is designing a catastrophe among men to get rid of the overgrown burden of the carth. वयं सृष्टा लोके खलु भगवता जीवितुमिह प्रभुर्देवो हन्तु प्रभवतु च नो जीर्णवयसः । अणोरस्त्रं सृष्ट्वा सकलजननाशाय कतिचित् प्रजानाशासक्ताः किमिदमपमृत्योरिख भटाः ।। २३६ ॥ We are made to be born into this world by the Will Divine; as such we have a right to live the entire lease of our life. That being so, what is this attrocity of some, who have invented the atom bomb and arrogate to themselves the right to devastate the ·72 ब्रह्माजलि: humanity at their will and pleasure, as if they are commissioned to be soldiers of Death trying to kill one and all indiscretely. शान्तिः शान्तिरिति श्रुतेनिगदितं नैवाऽऽद्रियन्ते जनाः, देशाश्चाऽपि जना निरन्तरमहासंग्रामरङ्गोत्सुकाः । व्याघ्रो धेनुमिवाऽर्भकं हि बलवान् देशो जिघांसत्यहो तद्वद्दीनजनं हिनस्ति बलवान् या नीतिरारण्यकी ॥ २३७ ।। The voice of the Upanishads invoked peace all over the world. Today no people pay heed to this voice. Nations fight among themselves no less than men in any country. Even as a tiger makes a meal of the cow, a strong nation does not hesitate to annex a smaller one. Similarly a strong man does not fight shy of exploiting a weaker man. Is this not the law of the jungle? धेनोः सार्थकमेव जन्म तदपि व्याघ्रो हिनस्त्येव ताम् शान्ति बोधयितुं प्रवृत्तचरितो गान्धी महात्मा हतः । दर्शदर्शमिदं मतौ भवति मे नीतिन पापात्मानां चितं जयतीति दुष्टविषये दण्डो हि धर्मो भवेत् ॥ २३८ ।। A cow is the most blessed of all God's creation; yet there is a tiger that kills it. There has been no more pious a soul that walked the earth recently than Mahatma Gandhi; yet he was killed simply because he was invoking peace. The more I see how the world goes, there is no use in trying to sublimate the conduct of the wicked. Punishment alone seems to be the course of law in the case of a wicked person, देशारिष्टभयं भवेत् क्षितितले धर्मच्युतेरित्यहो प्राज्ञैर्यद्गदितं तदद्य जनता प्रत्येति नैवादरात् । तस्माद् भूरिव कम्पते भवति च क्षामः सदा कुत्रचित् , झंझावातभयं च कुत्रचिदपि व्याधिश्च युद्धानि च ॥ २३९ ॥ Nature frowns on people when they lose all sense of justice. When this is said by learned men, people pay a deaf ear to such ·को महात्मा? 13 moralizations. What wonder is there, under these circumstances, if the earth quakes at one place or famines plague another part of the country or a cyclone devastates some other part or epidemics break out here and there and above all if wars inflict homicide? को महात्मा ? महात्मा स स्याद् यो भजति भगवन्तं प्रतिकलम् , महात्मा स स्याद् यस्सृजति घनसाहित्यलहरीम् । महात्मा स स्याद् यः पशुविहगकीटादिकमपि प्रभूतेन प्रेम्णा भजति फलवृक्षा इव वने ।। २४० ॥ Who is a Great Soul? Him I call a Mahatma who dedicates his soul at the altar of the Divine. Him I call a Mahatma, who sublimates the conduct of men by producing creative literature. Him I call a Mabatma who does equally serve the bird, beast and insect with infinite compassion like trees in the forest bearing sweet fruit to serve the same. महात्मा स स्याद् यो जगति भगवत्सृष्टिविषयम् सुविज्ञानं प्राप्य प्रथयति निरीहेण तपसा । महात्मा स स्याद् यस्सकलजगतामन्तरगताम् परां ब्राह्मीं शक्ति विविदिषति वेदान्तपथि च ॥ २४१ ॥ Him I call a Mahatma, who investigates as an extrovert into the secrets of Nature and brings them to light with a desireless devotion so as to advance man's knowledge of the universe, Equally do I acclaim as a Mahatma, the person who as an introvert, dives into the depths of the soul in the path of philo. sophy and spirituality and realizes the Godhead. एकेन यः पश्यति चक्षुषा तान् विद्युत्कणान् ये परमाणुगर्ने। 10 ·74 ब्रह्माजलिः ब्रह्माण्डमाण्डान्तरसौरगोलान्, अन्येन पश्येत् स भवेन्महात्मा ॥ २४२ ॥ I call him a Mahatma, who could aspect with one eye the inner dynamism of the microcosm of an atom and with the other the millions and billions of solar spheres that roll in the depths of the most distant stellar island universes, the so-called extra galactic systems. मानवानां परं साध्यम् यदा स्वार्थमध:कृत्य परार्थे मानुषा रताः। यदा सेवामुशन्तश्च सेव्यतां जहति स्वयम् ॥ २४३ ॥ यदा श्रीमान् श्रियं स्वीयां वितरन् प्रीतिमेष्यति । यदा सर्वे च दातारो न कश्चिद् याचको भवेत् ।। २४४ ॥ यदा राज्याधिकारश्च दीयते न तु काम्यते । यदा च पशुताशक्तिनिशक्तेबिभेति च ॥ २४५ ।। यदा बली दुर्बलानां रक्षिता न तु भक्षिता । यदाधिकारिणस्सर्वे धर्ममेवाश्रयन्ति च ।। २४६ ॥ यदा प्रेमैव दिव्यं स्यात्, न द्वेषो राक्षस: क्वचित् । यदा जीवितसारांश: पारमार्थिकतां भजेत् ।। २४७ ॥ यदा बुद्धिश्च सर्वेषां पारमेश्वरिकी भवेत् । यदा प्राणिषु सर्वेषु प्रेमकरसतां भजेत् ।। २४८ ।। तदा कालेषु वर्षन्ति मेघास्सस्यानुकूलगाः । तदा नद्यो न जुम्भन्ति तदा वायुर्न कुप्यति ॥ २४९ ॥ तदा रोगकृता भीतिर्नाऽपि स्याच्च दरिद्रता। तदा नार्यश्च मर्तृणामानुव्रत्यं भजन्ति च ॥ २५० ।।

·मानवसेवा 76 तदा पुत्रा भवेयुश्च पितॄणां वाक्यपालकाः । तदा कल्याणमेव स्यात् सर्वस्मिन् जगति ध्रुवम् ॥ २५१ ।। तदा पृथ्वी भवेन्नाकं मानवाश्च सुरा इह । तदा मनो निर्भयं स्याद् वाचः सत्यप्रतिष्ठिताः ॥ २५२ ॥ The goal of man in the process of self-diyinization When man realizes that he has to be more charitable and less selfish; when man is prepared more to serve than to receive service; when the rich take pleasure in expending their wealth in charity; when man ceases begging but begins to bestow; when positions of power are given in request and not sought for; when brute-force gives place to and fears before moral force; when strength stretches its hands to protect and not to gulp; when men in power work for the cause of Dharma; when divine love reigns all over and thedemonic hatred dies away; when man's purpose of life bends its steps towards divinization ; when the mind upsurges towards God-head and turns back on mundane glory; Then it is that clouds rain in time and rain to benefit life; then it is that rivers rise not in spate, and wind grows not furious; then it is that men will not be afflicted by poverty or disease; then it is that women will be faithful to their husbands and sops will be loyal to their parents; then it is that mind is without fear and words are established in truth; then it is that men divinize themselves and earth becomes Heaven. मानवसेवा सृष्ट्वा प्राणिगणं प्रजापतिरथो तज्जीवनाथ जगत्- प्राणं जीवनममिमम्बरमणि सस्यानि धेनूस्तरून् । सेवाधर्मरतान् ससर्ज मनुजस्तैस्तैः परं सेवित: स्वं धर्म विजहाति हन्त ! भवति स्वार्थकदीक्षापरः ॥ २५३ ॥ Service to the humanity at large Having created life on the earth the Creator appointed the wind, the water, the sun, the crops, the cows and the trees to do ·16 ब्रह्माजलिः him service. Receiving service from all these as though deeming that as his birth-right he forgets to play his own part, always being self-centred. What an atrocity on his part! (The words Jagat-prāņa and Jeevana are etymologically significant.) सेवादीक्षित एव भानुरुदितो नित्यं प्रयात्यम्बरे सेवादीक्षित एव वायुरपि च क्षोणी परिनाम्यति । सेवायै जलमुविमुञ्चति जलं नद्यः प्रवाहे रताः सेवायै तरवः फलन्ति किमु तां विस्मारितो वानरः ॥ २५४ ॥ The Sun verily rises and goes round just but to serve. The wind keeps blowing incessantly revolving round the earth just to serve. The clouds rain and the rivers flow bent upon service. The trees bear fruits only to serve. How is it? Man alone forgets this simple law of Nature. (Also, forgetting, he will be nothing short of a monkey). यदा सेवाबुद्धिं भजति नरपालस्वयमपि प्रजाक्षेमे दीक्षां भजति च भवेन्मङ्गलकरः । जगलाणः शान्तो भवति यदि लोकं सुखयति प्रकुप्यन् नाशाय प्रभवति जनानां क्षितितले ॥ २५५ ॥ When the administrator steps down to serve and does not fret and fume, then he really acts for the welfare of the people. The wind which is described as the very life of the living beings, does so long as he is peaceful but he defeats his own purpose and works havoc when it grows furious and cyclonic. धिक तं मतं प्रभुत्वेन धिक्करोति प्रजास्तु यः । स्वस्ति तस्मै वयं ब्रूमः सर्वस्मै यः प्रियो भवेत् ॥ २५६ ॥ Woe unto that ruler who gets puffed up with his position and rides roughshod over the people whom he is called upon to serve. We tender our good-will to such a ruler who endears himself to ome and all.

·नक्षत्रम् 7 अपण्डितपटाटोपः पदवी या दुरात्मनाम् । पापात्मनां च नास्तिक्यं दुस्सहं त्रितयं मम ।। २५७ ।। I cannot tolerate three things in this world: the pretension of an unscholarly man, as a scholar; the position and power of a wicked person; and the atheistic outlook of one who goes on committing sins. नक्षत्रम् कस्त्वां नक्षत्र ! तत्र स्थिरपदमकरोदद्भुते नाकमार्गे किं कर्तव्यं तवाऽऽस्ते जगति, कथमिव प्रादुरासीः कियन्तम् । कालं ते जीवितं स्यादथ भवति च कस्तात ! तातस्तवाहो! सर्गस्य त्वादृशानामपरिमितसहस्राधिकानां क ईशः? ॥ २५८ ।। देवानां गृहमित्युवाच निगमो नक्षत्रमित्यस्ति यत् पुण्यात्मा जनुरेति तादृशमिति प्रोवाच काचित् स्मृतिः । आसर्गप्रल्यं प्रकाशमहती तस्य स्थितिद्भवेत्, नानाजन्ममृती भजन्ति मनुजास्संसारगा मादृशाः ॥ २५९ ।। अहं नक्षत्र स्यामिति चपलवाञ्छा भवति मे यतो मृत्युभीतिं जनयति जराजीर्णवयसः । ध्रुवः पूर्वं तप्त्वा परममभजत् स्थानमिति यत् कथं साध्यं तत् स्यात् कलिजमनुजानामविषयः ।। २६० ॥ Who is it, Oh Star! chat has established thee on the wonderful celestial sphere! What is it that thou doest in this world! How wast thou born? What material begot thee! What is the lease of thy life? Who wast thy father? Who is that Lord who created stars like thee in millions and billions? Tac Veda describes thee as a house that lodges the gods. The Smriti declares that aoble souls take their birth in the form of ·18 ब्रह्मांजलिः stars in as much as their luminous life lasts from the very dawn of creation to the very end of it; whereas we mortals are to die a million deaths and take a million births leading blind and miserable lives in mortal coils, Often in my fantastic musing, I crave to be born as a star, in as much as death will stare in my face in the days of decrepitude. We hear that Dhruva, a royal lad, did a wonderful penance in the golden age and attained the birth of the Polestar, which is unshake able, whereas the whole universe of stars is always in commotion. But, how is such a penance possible for men of this iron age? सविता अयमहो भगवान् परमेश्वरप्रतिनिधिर्जयतीह दिवाकरः । प्रसविता जगतोऽयमुपास्यतां मनुज ! रे! सवनेषु दिनेदिने ॥ २६१ ॥ The Sun Behold! Here shines the Sun on the pillared firmament; he is the deputy of the Divine as it were! Man! May thou worship him as such during the three periods called Sandhyā Kālas, in as much as he is our creator. मनुज ! रे! कियती तव संस्थितिः कलय विष्णुपदं परमाद्भुतम् । घटितकोटिशताधिकतारकामणिगणाश्चितनूपुरजालकम् ॥ २६२ ।। Oh Mortal man! What is your status and stature in this mighty universe? Look at the sky which is described as Vishnupada, the foot of the Lord! It is decorated with millions and billions of stars every one of which is reported to be a Sun of mighty dimensions, stars appearing like gems studded to the jewel worn by the foot of the Lord as though. Note: The sky is spoken as the foot of the Lord in accordance with the Vedic passage: पादोऽस्य विश्वा भूतानि, त्रिपादस्याऽमृतं दिवि annotated elsewhere.

·सविता 79 , यो देवः परमात्मनः खलु भिया वम्भ्रम्यमाणो नमः, धर्म स्वं परिपालयन्नुपदिशन् सत्ये प्रतिष्ठां भजन् । आस्ते यः परमात्मनः प्रतिनिधियः कर्मसाक्षी च नः, तम्मिन् मे रमतां विधातरि मनः सूर्ये परब्रह्मणि ॥ २६३ ॥ May my mind delight itself looking at that wonderful Sun, shining with effulgence on the celestial sphere, who as though out of fear of the Lord of the universe keeps himself going round the sky, doing his own duty to inculcate a sense of duty in us. He has his existence in truth. He is verily the deputy of the Divine, commissioned as though to be observing our deeds. त्वया पर्जन्यः स्यात् तदनु विविधा ओषधिलताः, ततस्सूता जीवाः सवितृपदबोध्यो भवसि तत् । त्वया लोका लोका इति कथनयोग्यास्समभवन् जगच्चक्रं शक्रस्तव खलु सहायस्य नयति ॥ २६४ ॥ Oh Sun! Thou art responsible for creating clouds which give rain and produce all crops. So are born all the living creatures; hence Thou art rightly called Savita, the creator. The living beings acquired the name Lokaḥ because Thou helpest them to see. Why all this! The very Indra of the Heavens takes only Thy services to sustain the universe. गायत्री परदेवता भगवती मातेति या छन्दसाम् तस्याऽयं खलु देवता भवति यो वेदत्रयीमूर्तिमान् । तद्भर्गः सवितुर्वरेण्यमसकृद् ध्यायेमहि स्वस्तये यन्नो ब्रह्मपराः दधाति च धियो जिज्ञासमानाः परम् ।। २६५ ॥ Gayatri is acclaimed as the hymn of spiritual force and the mother of all the Vedic hymns. The Sun is the deity whose praise that hymn sings and who is described as the embodiment of the three Vedas. May we always contemplate on the magnificent effulgence of that San, and if that be done it would galva. nize our bodily system into a centre of spiritual consciousness.

·80 ब्रह्माजलि: यद्यद् दृश्यमिहास्ति वस्तु सकलं तत् तत् प्रजातं भवेत् , आदित्योऽपि तथाविधो भवति चेज्जातः कथं तादृशः । इत्येवं विषयं बुघोऽद्य यतते जिज्ञासमानः परम् तत्राऽमौ कथमित्यवैतु यदि चेत् नो वेत्ति हेतुं परम् ॥ २६६ ॥ Whatever is seen in this universe, it must have had a birth. That being so, even the Sun must have had his birth. Then the question arises: How was he 'born?' The modern astrophysicists bave been deeply engaged in that quest. However they might be knowing only the 'how' of it but never the 'why of it'. कालिदासः कदा वोर्वीमलंचक्रे कालिदासो महाकविः । के वा तन्मुखतः साक्षात् काव्यधारासुधां पपुः १ ॥ २६७ ॥ भोजो वा विक्रमार्को वा को वा तस्य महाकवेः । पूजाभाग्येन धन्यात्मा रेजे भारतभूतले ॥ २६८ ॥ कवितारहितो देशो वनितारहितं गृहम् । भजन्ति शून्यतां तदल्लताहीनं मरुस्थलम् ॥ २६९ ।। विद्यतामहिकी सम्पत् , विद्यतां पालको महान् । न स देशः प्रशंसाहों यत्र नो जायते कविः ॥ २७० ॥ नैतिकी रीतिमाश्रित्य कविताशासिताः प्रजा । शासनेन प्रजास्तावत् पाल्यन्ते भीतिभत्सिताः ॥ २७१ ॥ कीहवा मारतो देशः कथमास्ते प्रजा तदा। त्वयि जाग्रति लोकेऽस्मिन् जिज्ञासेऽहं महाकवे ॥ २७२ ॥ अधीता का त्वया विद्या कीहम्विद्याविधिस्तदा। को वा गुरुमहात्मा ते जिज्ञासेऽहं समादरात् ।। २७३ ।।

·कालिदासः 81 कीहक् पुण्यमकार्षीत् ते माता सा भाग्यशालिनी । कीहक् तातस्तवाऽनैषीज्जीवितं तात ! भूतले ? ।। २७४ ।। दारापुत्राः किमासन् ते, ते सुखं किमु ते ददुः । कमुद्योगं त्वमाश्रित्य नीतस्संसारजीवितम् ? ॥ २७५ ॥ कथंभूतस्तवाऽऽनन्दो येन ते कविता सूता। बभूवुः किमु ते काले कवितारसतोषिताः ॥ २७६ ।। वित्ताधिकारवाञ्छा किं प्रजास्वासीत् तदाऽपि च । अप्यभूत् किं तदा काले राजकीयं ज्वरं जने? ॥ २७७ ।। अपि देशास्तदा युद्धं मिथश्चक्रुः किमुद्धताः । यद्यहो कथमुद्भता भवतः कवितालता ? ॥ २७८ ॥ कि रसालानि भुक्तानि पीतं मध्वेव किं त्वया । नोचेन्मधुरिमा तादृक् कथं जातो भवद्विराम् ? ।। २७९ ।। श्लोकास्ते मधुरा यद्वद्रचिता गानपूर्वकम् । नोचेत् कथं पिकीगानमाधुर्यमनुभूयते ? ॥ २८० ।। यदि मन्दो भवानासीत् , अपहास्यो भवान् यदि । को वा कविः कुत्र देशे नाऽपहास्यो भवेद्वद ! ॥ २८१ ॥ यदि ते कवितासारं मल्लिनाथो महामतिः । वेत्तुं नैव समर्थश्चेत् मादृशानां तु का कथा ? ॥ २८२ ।। समस्तविबुधान् मुग्धान सुन्दरी या करोति वै । तादृश्या भारतीदेव्या विलासस्त्वं भवस्यहो! ।। २८३ ।। यथा सर्वान् जनान् या स्यात् कीर्तिता लोकसुन्दरी । चित्तं विभ्रामयेद् तद्वत् कवितावनिताऽपि ते ॥ २८४ ॥ 11 ·82 ब्रह्माजलि: प्राभातिको वातपोतः ग्रीष्मे चित्तं यथा हरेत् । तथा ते कवितापुष्पं बलात् कर्षति मानसम् ।। २८५ ।। निदाघतापसन्तप्तं तकं जम्भरसान्वितम् । आनन्दयेद् यथा तद्वत् तवाऽपि कवितारसः ॥ २८६ ।। आकर्षेद् यस्य वा चित्तं कवितावनिता तव । मन्ये धन्यं तमेवाऽहमन्ये बाल्यजराहताः ॥ २८७ ।। आनन्दं गृहिणी सूते या सूते पुत्रपुत्रिकाः । आनन्दं कविता तेऽपि या सूते रसवाहिनीम् ॥ २८८ ॥ प्रजानां विनयाधानं रक्षणं भरणं तदा । नूनं राजा चकारेव पितेव समये तव ।। २८९ ।। नोचेत् कथं तदा जातस्त्वाहशो हि महाकविः ।। हन्ताऽस्मिन् दुर्भगे काले कथ त्वाहक् प्रजायते ।। २९० ॥ आस्वाद्यते मया किञ्चिद् यदा ते कवितारसः । अनुशोचाम्यभाग्यांस्तान् येऽद्य विद्यामधीयते ॥ २९१ ।। अनुशोचाम्यभाग्यास्तान् विद्याध्ययनाध्वनि । उपेक्षाविषयीभूता भारते कविता तव ॥ २९२ ॥ अनुशोचामि तद्विद्याविधान येन भारते। उपेक्षाविषयीभूतं यावत् संस्कृतवाङ्मयम् ॥ २९३ ॥ तिस्रो भाषा अधीयानो न क्षमः स्यादतःपरम् । इति देवगिरांदेवी देशात् सा गलहस्तिता ॥ २९४ ॥ त्रिभाषासूत्रमेवैतद् भारतीयैः स्वयं कृतम् । मातुर्भारतभारत्याः कण्ठपाशायतेऽधुना ।। २९५ ॥

·कालिदासः 83 हन्त भारतदेशेऽद्य देवी भारतभारती । वारस्त्रीलम्पटैः पुत्रैर्मातेव गलहस्तिता ।। २९६ ॥ आङ्ग्लेयीं गृहिणीं कृत्वा मातरं देवतागिरम् । अपनीय गृहात् पुत्रा भारतीया न दुःखिताः ॥ २९७ ॥ पाश्चात्यकविताग्रन्थान् पठन् बालो वहूनपि । पञ्चषान् कालिदासीयश्लोकान् नाध्याप्यते बत! ।। २९८ ॥ अध्याप्यन्ते नवीनासु कलाशालासु बालकाः। लक्षशः कोटिशश्वाऽपि संस्कारोऽम्बरपुष्पति ॥ २९९ ।। बालानां न गुरुर्दैवमविद्यानामुपासनात् । नास्तिकत्वं नरीनति कुहरात्रौ तमो यथा ।। ३०० ॥ शान्तिश्शान्तिरितीदं यवेदो जोधुष्यते ततः । सा शान्तिरद्य देशेऽत्र सिकतान्तरतैलति ॥ ३०१ ॥ अध्याप्यन्ते नवीनासु कलाशालासु बोधकैः । अनेक विषयाः किन्तु न किश्चिदैवबोधकम् ॥ ३०२ ।। आहारं भिक्षमाणश्चेदश्मभिस्ताडितो यथा । संस्कारार्थमधीयानाः क्रियन्तेऽसंस्कृता इव ॥ ३०३ ॥ आत्मशून्ये कृते विद्याविधाने हीदृशी स्थितिः । संस्कृत तात्त्विकं ज्ञान द्वयं यत्र विलुप्यते ॥ ३०४ ॥ अपकारो महानेषः कृतो जातेरिति ब्रुवे । जातीयं यन्महाकाव्यवाङ्मयं तत् तिरोहितम् ॥ ३०५ ॥ Kalidāsa When was it that Kālidāsa graced this globe and walked this earth? Who were those fortunate men that had the privilege of drinking the nectar of the Muse that upsurged from his lip87 Who ·84 ब्रह्माजलिः was that Bhoja or Vikramārka who had the good fortune of patronizing and worshipping him? A nation devoid of poets, is like a house devoid of the landlady, or a land devoid of ilowering creepers. Let a nation enjoy the bighest afluence; let a nation have a great ruler; yet it may be considered as a void and vacuum if it does not beget poets who have a vision and a message. Good poetry and literature sublimate the conduct of the people of a nation more than the military enforcement of law. The former corrects the conduct of people through inculcating morality whereas the latter only infuses fear into the minds of the governed. Oh Poet Kalidasa! I am interested to know how India was and how people were in those days when you lived and wrote. What education did you receive, and what was the system of education that could produce a poet of your stature? Who could be your teacher, to have had a stature more than yours? How fortunate was thy mother to beget thee and what was the vocation of thy father? Did you have wife and children, and if you had, what employment did you have to feed them? How could you derive that great bliss in your heart which sponsored you to write such poetry? Were there people in your time who could derive pleasure out of your poetry? Did people hanker after money and power even in your days? Was there the political fever, which we are suffering from during these days? Were nations fighting then as they are now doing? If that be so, how could you have peace at home to have written poetry? Oh Poet Kalidasa! Thou must have eaten only mangoes; otherwise how is there that sweetness in thy tongue? Thou must have been a musician too; otherwise how could such a melody be in thy voice? You said that you were dull and that you apprehended ridicule at your poetry. If it were so, please tell me, which poet in any time or clime is intelligent and will not be ridiculed. 3 No less a scholer than Mallipatha exclaimed that he could not comprehend the entire import or essence of your. poetry ·कालिदासः : 85 Then, what about people like myself to gauge the depths of your heart? Verily you were described as the grace of the Goddess of learning, whose beauty could ensnare the totality of the scholars. Even as a world-beauty obsesses the hearts of people whoever see her, so also the lady of your Muse entices whomsoever happeos to aspect her. Even as the silent breeze of a summer dawn entices the mind so does the flower of your poetry fills the mind with its fragrance-just as the buttermilk spiced with lemon juice creates bliss in the heart served to a thirsty person scorched by the summer sun so does the poetic juice of yours. Really I deem a person blessed, whose mind is feasted with the beauty of the lady of your Muse; and all other unmoved by her beauty must be either children or persons decrepit. Your poetry begets such a bliss in the hearts of Rasajoas, as a lady delights her husband with her own beauty and her beautiful children. Indeed in your time there must have been a ruler who, as you said, enforced discipline among his people, protected them and fed them as a father; otherwise how could those times produce a poet like you? Alas! how could our miserable times produce poets like you? When I happen to taste a bit of the Rasa of your poetry, immediately my mind gets diverted to the misfortune of the totality of the student generation today which does not have the opportunity of reading your poetry. I deplore the system of education that is in vogue today which bars the students from approaching your works, and in fact any bit of Sanskrit literature, whatever be the reasons. A genius designed a wonderful threelanguage formula which has Decked out Sanskrit from the country as it were. This formula (also thread) is no other than a rope to hang the neck of Mother Bhārata Bhārati, and the pity is all the more because the very sons of Bharat devised the formula in their political obsession. Today therefore Mother Bhārata Bhārati stands like a mother exiled by sons engrossed with harlots. Being engrossed in English as a wife as it were, the very mother is sent out of the house. A student today is called upon to study not less than a score of English poets to get dubbed as a graduate or ·86 ब्रह्माजंलिः a post-graduate, and he deed not have to read a single verse of the nation's heritage of Sanskrit literature; and yet could become a professor or even a Vice-Chancellor! Let that be so! but behold! millions of students fill colleges and universities! And could the system of educat'on sublimate the conduct of the student ? Colleges and universities have become centres breeding indiscipline, and what we call samskāra has become as rare as a flower begotten by the sky. Students getting educated today do not have an iota of respect for their parents or teachers or for the matter of that even for the very God, Atheism reigns supreme as darkness fills the sky on a New-Moon day. The Vedic literature harped and harped on the words: Shanti, Shanti, Shanti, Peace! Peace! Peace! and that very peace is there in such a quantity just as much as there is oil within deserts of sand. Students are taught everything under the San in colleges and universities but not an iota about the Supreme Intelligence, what we call God. It is as though stones are served to beggars that come for bread. Students approach Gurus for light, and what is missing today in the system of education is exactly that light. Education is desecrated, nay rendered soul-less so to say, having exiled God out of its curricula. Neither Sanskrit Dor philosophy live there in the curricula, and if at all they are not dead as yet, they seem to be taking a 'long lingering look behind'. Indeed great harm has been done to the cause of national education, which has been blindly igaored on the pretext of very minor political issues that ought not to have come between the students of a Nation and her national poets, and such a glorious national education which could have incalcated some sense of values in the minds of students. We are therefore reaping the retribution of our own sin in the form of the strikes of students everywhere having been fed by merely a secular type of education' and been denied real light, so much so a sense of frustration has over come thena, a discase worse than what malnutrition could beget.

·ब्राह्मी शक्तिः 87 ब्राह्मी शक्तिः या खेचराणां भ्रमणे च शक्तिः, वायोश्च या सञ्चलनेऽपि शक्तिः । या निम्नगानां खलु वाहशक्तिः चिपिकां तां शिरसा नमामि ।। ३०६ ॥ क्षोणीगतं यत् खलु गन्धरूपम् , आकाशगं स्यादपि शब्दरूपम् । सर्वेषु वस्तुष्वपि तत्स्वरूपम् , चिद्रूपमीडे भगवत्स्वरूपम् ॥ ३०७ ।। तैलान्तरे यत् खलु दीपरूपम् , भाषागतं यत् खलु भावरूपम् । अन्ने च जीवाणुतया सरूपम् , चिद्रूपमीडे भगवत्स्वरूपम् ॥ ३०८ ॥ The Cosmic Energy I prostrate before that Cosmic Energy which is manifest motivating the celestial spheres in the sky, the wind in the atmosphere and the rivers flowing on the earth, that Cosmic Energy which assumes the form of smell in the earthly matter as logicians put it; the form of sound in the atmosphere and the respective qualities of the various things manifest; that Cosmic Energy which impregnates the various languages with the power of ideation; and charges the food with a vital energy. ब्राह्मणः पुरा विश्वामित्रो नृपतिरपि तीव्रण तपसा बभूव ब्रह्मर्षिः कथयति हि पौराणिककथा । कथा नेयं कस्मात् तव भजति विश्वासपदवीं द्विज! श्रद्धां याहि, श्रयतु भगवन्तं तव मनः ॥ ३०९ ।। पटिष्ठां यां निष्ठां तपसि कृतवान् तत्र भगवान् वसिष्ठो ब्रह्मिष्ठः, कथमिव न तस्मिन् तव मतिः ।

·88 ब्रह्माजलिः अतस्त्वं हेयत्वं भजसि सकलस्याऽपि जगति प्रपद्यस्व श्रद्धां यदि भवसि सत्यं द्विजवरः ॥ ३१० ।। महीयानैश्वर्यात् प्रभवति पटीयान् प्रभुगणात्, द्रढीयान् कुप्रेभ्यो भवति च गरीयान् गुरुतमात् । वशीयान् शस्त्रेभ्यो विलसति बलीयान् बलवतः प्रभावो यः प्रोक्तस्तपसि भज निष्ठां द्विजतया ॥ ३११ ॥ The Brahmin We are told in Ramayana that long long ago eren a king Visvāmitra could attain the stature of a Brahmarshi by a rigorous penance. Why does not this story carry conviction to your heart, Oh Brahmin! please realize this and may your mind dwell in God! We are told that Vasishtha was acclaimed as the greatest of Rishis by the force of his penance. That being so, why do you not have a mind for prayer and penance? It is on account of a desecrated mentality that a Brahmin has lost his stature today; even now it is not too late in the day. If you propose to call yourself a Brahmin it is incumbent on you to revive your prayerful attitude. The spiritual force that is there in penance is greater than wealth, mightier than rulers, stronger than the very mountains, more powerful than arms of war, superior to all kinds of strength, and above all greater than the greatest. Brahminl pray switch on your mind even now a little towards prayer; otherwise you are no Brahmin at all! सुगेहम् सुमेहं गेहं तद् भवति निगमध्वानमधुरम् सुमेहं गेहं तद् भवति सुरभिर्यत्र रमते । सुमेहं तद् यत्र श्रुतिमधुररामायणकथा- सुवाधारा यत्र सवति विबुधाहारपदवी ॥ ३१२ ॥ - ·चन्द्रः 89 क्षुधार्तायान्नं यत् जलमपि तृषार्ताय वितरेत् तदेव स्याद् गेहं, यदि न वितरेत् तद्वनमिव । सुगेहं तद् यत्र ध्वनति च शिशूनां कलरवः श्रुतीनामानन्दं भजति कलकण्ठीस्वनमधु ॥ ३१३ ।। सुगेहं तद्यत्र श्रुतिपथगता दैवतकथाः सुतैः पूज्येते चेद्यदि च पितरौ दैवतमिव । सदाऽऽनन्दे स्त्रैणं भवति सुखितं पुंभिरमितम् तथा भ्रातॄणां चेद्रसमधुरसौमात्रमपि च ॥ ३१४ ॥ What should be a household I call it a happy house-hold where the cars are feasted by the melodies of Vedic chanting; where a cow enjoys her existence being well-fed and worshipped; and where the mellifiuous nectarlike verses of Ramayana resonate to feed the ears of scholars and Gods alike. I call it an ideal household which quenches the thirst and satiates the hunger of those who ever kaock at the door; for, otherwise the house is no better than a wood. I deem it a happy house where children are playful, full-throated and full of life; where ladies' voice fills the ears like music; where parents are worshipped like God; where the lady-folk never shed a tear and where brothers exist in sweet mutual love. न चन्द्रोऽयं किंतु त्रिदिवरमणीसुन्दरमुखस् नभो नेदं तस्याः परिसृतविनीलारिशरसिजाः । न चेमास्ताराः स्युः शिरसि कुसुमालंकृतिगणाः, न चेयं ज्योत्स्ना वा विकचमुखनिष्यन्दिह सितम् ।। ३१५ ॥ The Moon That is not the Moon; it is the lovely face of the lady of the heavens; it is not the sky but it is her black hair spreading over 12

·80
ब्रह्माञ्जलिः
her face; those are not the stars but the flowers decorating her
hair; and it is not the moonlight; it is the laughter of the lady
pouring out from her blooming face.
पारावारगभीरघोरनरके निस्सारसंसारके
मूढानां लुठतामहंकृतिकृतव्यापारपापात्मनाम् ।
चारित्रं परिदृश्य हास्यकरुणाव्यक्तीकरं ह्रीकरम्
स्वर्गस्त्री परिहासमेव तनुते सा चन्द्रिकाव्याजतः ।। ३१६ ॥
Looking at the conduct of people rolling in their miserable
lives, full of infatuation, arrogance and sinful misdeeds arising
out of selfishness, the lady of the heavens is having a laugh at
them in the form of moonlight expressing ridicule and exclaiming
shame!'
त्यागे यद्यपि सुप्रसिद्धचरिता राजान उर्ध्या परम् ,
प्रायस्तैः परदारवाञ्छितकृता दुष्कीतिरप्याजिता ।
देवेभ्यातनुमर्पयन् वितनुते राजा यशश्चन्द्रिकाम्
दुष्कीति गुरुतल्पगश्च वदने धत्ते कलङ्कात्मिकाम् ॥ ३१७ ॥
Kings are renowned for their charity and sacrifice; also they
generally have a disrepute on account of their voluptuous miscon-
duct; the Moon has acquired fame which shines in the form of
moonlight, in as much as he is reported to be sacrificing himself
to feed the gods; also be bears the stigma on his face in the
form of a black spot due to his misconduct with his own Guru's
wifc.
(The allusion is to the well-known Puranic anecdotes.)
लोकसत्पुरुषं तमेव मनुते येनोपकारः कृतः
पापात्मेति वदेत् तमेव नहि चेत् तेनोपकारः कचित् ।
चन्द्र ज्योतिषिका वदन्ति हि शुभं पूर्णो भवन् कौमुदी
दत्ते चेदथ पापमेव न यदा दद्यात् तथा चन्द्रिकाम् ॥ ३१८ ॥

·मही 91 People depict a man as good if and only if he serves them; otherwise they do not hesitate to pronounce him as a sinner. Behold! Astrologers bave described the Moon as a benefic when she sheds her light for them; and when the same Moon has do light to give while waning she is described by the same astrologers as a malefic. मही मही माता गर्ने धरति महिमानं व यदियम् दरीधति ब्राह्मीं प्रजननपरां शक्तिमतुलाम् । अमेया तन्माया जनयति हि या यन्त्रविधया जनान् जन्तून् कीटानवनिजलताग्राममपि वा ॥ ३१९ ॥ जन्तूनां जननं विधाय परतस्तदृद्धि तोर्जलम् बिभ्राणाऽमृतजीवनाख्यमथ तपाणं च वायुं तथा । नानाहारमथाऽपि सा हि वसुधा नानाविधं कल्पते सेयं नो जननी घरा भगवती माता प्रजानां परा ॥ ३२० ॥ सेयं भूमिरचित्पदार्थ इति चेत् वैज्ञानिका मन्वते नेदं सत्यतया विभाति मम यत् तादृग्विधा चेद्धरा। कीदृक्शक्तिमुपेत्य चेतनगणान् नित्यं सरीशष्टि तान् ? नूनं काचिदधिष्ठिता विजयते चिच्छक्तिरन्तर्बहिः ।। ३२१ ॥ The Earth Mother Earth has indeed a wonderful power concealed in her bosom, a mystic mechanism as though, which is responsible for the creation of the totality of the organic life down from the plant life right upto human life! She not only begets billions of these lives but behold! she nourishes them rightly as a mother giving them water to drink (significantly called life and nectar), air to breathe (also described as life-giving), food to eat and in so many other matters. Scientists pronounce that the earth is after all life-less matter constituting clemients like water, air and the ·92 ब्रह्माजलिः like. That does not seem to be the truth. How could such a life-less matter beget life? Really there must be a creative energy impregnating the earth and all the universe which must be itself omnipotence, omnipresence and omniscience. निद्रा चैतन्यं स्वपराङ्मुखं पुनरपि स्वस्मिन् प्रतिष्ठापितं कतु शक्तिरिवाऽस्ति जन्तुनिवहे निद्रेति या कीर्तिता। प्रोक्ता यद्यपि तामसी बुधवरैनैतादृशी भाति मे वर्षन्ती वसुधागतेषु च सुधां दिव्यं दिशन्ती सुखम् ॥ ३२२ ।। निद्राणेव विभाति या जनगणे निद्रां गते या तथा बुद्धयन्तीव च निद्विता स्वयमथो बोवुद्धयमाने जने। क्रीडां चैव चरीकरीति बहुधा चेक्रीडयमानेऽपि या वन्दे तां परमेश्वरीं भगवतीं चिच्छक्तिरूपां पराम् ।। ३२३ ।। Sleep Sleep is as though a design of the Divine that puts the outprojecting consciousness once again into its own place. Scholars describe it as a force of inaction, but it appears to me to be a heavenly activity that puts the mortal into his heavenly spirit off and on as though to remind him of his inherent Divine nature, and showering on him nectar as it were. I bow to that supreme consciousness which appears as though going to sleep in a man who is asleep, which appears to be playing in one who is playing, which appears as though awakeniog in a man who awakes from sleep. . पर्वतः तपस्वितां गतो भवानिवाचलस्समाहितो नगाधिराज राजते महायुगेषु सर्गतः। अचेतनो भवानिति प्रजल्पति प्रजा मुधा कथं नगत्वधर्मदीक्षितोऽसि चेदचेतनः । ॥ ३२४ ।।

·कः कविः?
98
The Mountain
Thou musest as though in supplication to the Divine from
time immemorial, Oh lord of the mountains! ever since the dawa
of creation! People wrongly depict thee to be devoid of cons-
ciousness-if that be so, how dost thou obey the law of thy being
namely that thou shall not move? ?
नगा गच्छेयुश्चेद् भवति खलु धर्मस्य निहतिः,
धरायामित्येवं सुरपतिरभूद् गोत्रभिदहो!।
कथेयं किं ब्रूयादचलनिचये चाऽपि भवति
स्वधर्मस्य ज्ञानं चिदिति गदितं यदुधवरैः ।। ३२५ ।।
If mountains were to move and fly, there shall be chaos
everywhere on the earth; that is why God Indra has been depicted
as having torn the wings of the mountains in times of yore.
What does this story bring home to us? Even the apparent
inconscient state of the mountains conceals ap innermost
dormancy of consciousness and an awareness as though to their
law of being by being static.
अहो मूले तप्तो भवसि पृथिवीगर्भदहनात्
रवेस्तप्तोऽसि त्वं शिरसि च, तरून् जन्तुनिवहान् ।
तथाऽपि त्वं बिभ्रत् सुखयसि तथाहि क्षितिघर !
प्रजासेवा दीक्षा भवति नियतं पुण्यजनुषाम् ॥ ३२६ ॥
Oh Mountain! Thou art being burnt beneath thy feet by the
fire that resides in the bosom of the earth; and art being roasted
on thy head by the scorching sun of the summer season; yet
thou providest shelter and hospitality to the trees, beasts and
birds. Verily great souls dedicate their lives for others' happi-
ness, themselves enduring great affliction.
कः कविः?
काव्यं विलिख्यते कैश्चिद् बहवो नैव तत्क्षमाः ।
किन्तु भावास्समुत्पद्य लीयन्ते सर्वमानसे ॥ ३२७ ॥

·84 ब्रह्माजलिः सम्पत्ति विपत्तिर्वा सुखं दुःखमथाऽपि वा । समानानि समेषां च देहधारणकारणात् ॥ ३२८ ।। सुखदुःखोद्भवान् भावाननुभूय हृदन्तरे । निरक्षराणि काव्यानि मूकोऽपि रचयेत् हृदि ।। ३२९ ।। भङ्गास्संभूय भग्नाः स्युः पारावारे यथा तथा । भावाः सम्भूय लीयन्ते देहिनो हृदयान्तरे ॥ ३३० ॥ केषांचित् कृतपुण्यानां वाणी काव्यस्वरूपिका । देशे देशान्तरे वाऽपि स्तूयते गीयतेऽपि च ॥ ३३१ ॥ यः शृणोति पुनः काव्यं दीनानां हृदयसुतम् । स विद्वान् स च देवांशः स एव कविरुच्यते ॥ ३३२ ॥ Who is a poet ? Very few are given to produce poetry; many cannot; but, ideas arise in many a heart, but alas! they do not find expression. Happioess or misery, weal or woe are all a common factor of every one who has taken a birth into a mortal coil. Even the dumb could think poetry in their hearts though they could not give it a tongue. Even as tides spring up and subside on the surface of the sea so do thoughts upsurge but soon will wane out in every mortal's heart. The pulsations and throbbings in many a heart constitute unexpressed poetry. Fortune favours a few that tould not only think poetry but also give it a tongue. Their poetry has the good fortune to be read and flattered all over the globo. Him I call a Pandit and a poet who could hear the dumb eloquence of a mate majority, whose throbbings are denied expression. गैर्वाणी वाणी भाषाः प्रान्तगता भवन्ति बहुल या भारतक्ष्मातले तास्सोदर्य इस स्वमात्मवने द्धि लभन्तां पराम् ।

·गैर्वाणी वाणी 95 गैर्वाणी गलहस्तितां स्वजननी वाणी प्रकुर्वन्ति यत् तद्देशं बहुधा भिनत्ति विबुधा बोबुद्धयतां भारताः ! ॥ ३३३ ॥ The Divine Tongue Let the many regional languages of India flourish by all means as daughters of the same mother under the care of the mother; but it is a great pity that every one of these daughters has been aecking out her own mother, the language of Gods, the Sanskrit. This parochialism and regionalism has been responsible for the forces of disintegration. Brothers of the Bhārat and scholars! awake and realize thedanger. पुरा यस्यां वाण्यां मुनिवरमुखाद् रामचरितम् गिरां देवी साक्षान्निगदितवती, येन वचसा । कविः कालीदासस्तदनु भवभूतिश्च कविताम् व्यवत्तां तां वाणी बत न जनता भावयति हि ॥ ३३४ ॥ What a danger! Men have lost their wits. They do not lend their ears to the sacred Sanskrit voice, the very voice of the nation in which the very Goddess Sarasvati sang the story of Rāmāyaṇa through the mouth of Valmiki; the voice which reverberates from the far-off depths of time in the poetry that welled out from the hearts of Kalidasa and Bhavabhūti in mellifluous notes. कवीशानाः सद्यः स्वकृतिषु जनाकर्षणपरा: प्रदेशीया भाषाः करमुपनिबध्नन्ति तदहो! न कश्चिद् गैर्वाणीमनुसरति वाणी, यदि तथा प्रवृत्तस्तद्वाणी बधिरजनशङ्खारव इव ॥ ३३५ ।। What a great pity! All the great poets of the country are more interested in attracting their own regional readers and as such fanatically use their own regional tongue. Nobody is interested in the nation's heritage, the language of Sanskrit; if per chance once in a way somebody happens to poetize in Sanskrit his voice just but fails on deaf ears, ears as deaf as stones.

·96
ब्रह्माञ्जलिः
यतो देववाणी जना नाद्रियन्ते, ततो नैकमत्यं वरीवर्ति देशे।
यथा मातृवाणीमनाहत्य पुत्रा मिथोवैरजुष्टा विनष्टा भवेयुः ॥ ३३६ ॥
In as much as the sons of Bhārat have lost their regard for
the sacred Divine tongue of Sanskrit, which is no other than
the very voice of Bhārat, and which is the one common
binding force amongst the various states, they have lost their mutual
affection; no amount of artificial coaxing of an imaginary sense
of patriotism could tie them together even as when there is not
heard the affectionate voice of the mother; no amount of outside
eloquence could coax up the lost unity among brothers of the
same blood.
पुरा विद्या वेदास्तदनु सकलश्शास्त्रनिचयः
विपर्यासं यातो भरतभुवि विद्याविधिरहो।
अविद्या विद्यायाः पदमधिगता जीवनकृते
न
गैर्वाणी वाक् संप्रति मतिमतां चाऽपि रुचये ॥ ३३७ ॥
Once in the Bhārat education meant the Vedic lore and the
various sastras that went to elucidate the Vedas. Today we find
nothing of it in the syllabi of the university education. What
was once labelled as non-culture has now usurped the place of
culture simply because it gives bread. The height of perversion
is that even the so-called educationists of the country know little
of the core and content of Sanskrit, the values that it could incul-
cate, and as such have ignored Sanskrit (while formulating the
three laoguage formula).
मानवः
रेरे मानव ! किं करोषि, चरितं व्यर्थ वृथा मा कृथाः
कान्ताकाश्चनलोलुपः किमु सदा बोभूयसे संसृतौ ।
एतत् किं तव जीवितस्य परमं साध्यं परं वाञ्छितम्
प्रातश्चिन्तय कार्यमस्ति बहुलं ते जीविते पावनम् ॥ ३३८ ॥

·मानवः 97 The Man Oh mortal man! What is it that you are doing? Do not waste your precious life. Is it the entire programme of your life to be engrossed head and shoulders in your family life? Is that the be-all and end-all of your life, the summun bonum of your existence? Alas! you are not aware that you have a more sacred and a higher purpose of your life: ! रत्नानि रत्नाकरे सन्ति यद्वत् तथा जीविताम्भोधिगर्भ बहूनि । तदर्थं बताहो ! विहाय प्रयत्न, शिलास्सैकतम्था नरस्सञ्चिनोति ॥ ३३९ ।। अहो मानवानां परं साधनीया, समत्वैकबुद्धया परब्रह्मविद्या । । विहायेममर्थ महानर्थरूपं सृजत्याणवास्त्रं नरो मारणार्थम् ॥ ३४० ॥ श्रमेणैत्य जाति परां मानवीयां पुनः पाशवी बुद्धिमाश्रित्य माः । मिथोषातुकैस्तैर्महामारणास्त्रः, जिघांसापराः सर्वनाशाय सिद्धाः ॥ ३४१ ।। Even as full many a gem of purest ray serene the dark unfathomed caves of the ocean bear, the life has also to achieve a good number of values. Leaving them alone, are you not gather. ing pebbles on the sea-shore? ? God's creation has evolved upto man, and it is to have a far further course of evolution. Man is imbued with divine potentialities which are still to udfold. Forgetting this the totality of men are being distracted into a subhuman activity namely to discover by a misuse of their scientific knowledge deadly atomic weapons designed to put an end to humanity; virtually humanity is as though committing suicide, in the name of a misconceived spirit of nationalism. 18 ·98 ब्रह्माञ्जलिः मातः! अम्ब ! त्वां न हि शक्यते खलु मया विस्मर्तुमद्याऽपि यद् वात्सल्यामृतवर्षिणी तव सदा दृष्टिमया स्मर्यते । धन्यास्ते दिवसा गता मम बत त्वञ्चिन्त्यमानस्य तत् , मातः ! त्वन्मरणादनन्तरमहं शून्यं जगद्भावये ॥ ३४२ ।। Mother! Mother! Even today it is not possible for me to forget thee. Thy looks of affection showered on me took a deep root in me and still keep sacred memories green in my mind. Those happy days are gone, those days when I was under thy care and protection. Really, mother! the world is a void and vacuum after thy departure from this world! पुत्रोऽयमभकतया कथमत्र लोके जीवेत् कथं कथमिव प्रभवेच्चिरायुः । इत्येव मां कृतवती मनसि व्यथार्ताम् त्वां चिन्तयामि जननीमधुनाऽपि चित्ते ॥ ३४३ ।। Mother! I still bear thee in my mind as always bestowing thy thoughts on my well-being, despairing very often as to how I, a weakling would be able to get on in this world! अद्याऽपि तां, ज्वरवशेन यदा कदा वा निद्रां गते मयि, ममैव सुसन्निकर्षे । अश्रुप्लुतां कृतवतीं मयि दीनदृष्टिम् ' सम्भावयामि जननीमपयातनिद्राम् ॥ ३४४ ॥ Even today, I often recall to my mind that picture of my mother, sitting by my side in deep agony all through the night when I was often suffering from high fever and laid to sleep, shedding tears over me and appealing to the Almighty to save me!

·99 मातः अद्यापि हे जननि ते मृदुकण्ठनादम् मां बोधयन्तमसकृत् हितवाक्यजालैः । विद्यारति मयि विहाय पुरा प्रवृत्ते दैन्यं वहन्तमपि गद्गदितं स्मरामि ।। ३४५ ॥ Mother! even now I remember how thy tearful voice went low in appealing to me to correct myself when I happened to slacken my studies exhorting me beseechingly to apply myself to studies. यत् प्रेम मातस्तव मे सुखाय, बभूव पूर्व स्मृतमद्य तन्माम् । दुःखाकरोति स्मरण न हातुं शक्नोमि कार्तघ्न्यभियाऽपि नूनम् ॥३४६॥ Mother! Thy love towards me in those days which gave me strength and bliss, recollected now even at a distance of time agonises me; nor am I able to wipe you out of the pages of my memory, for, I deem it nothing short of ingratitude. प्रेमापि दोषो भवतीति केचिद् वेदान्तिनो यद् ब्रुवते न सत्यम् । यन्मातृदेवीपदभक्तिरास्ते तन्मे परेशानपरी सक्तिः ।। ३४७ ॥ Some philosophers argue that even love is of a mundane nature and as such is to be got over; I cannot subscribe to such an argument. Filial love towards one's own mother does not fall short of devotion to the Divine. माता मे पितृपादसेवनपरा मन्मानसे मुद्रिता स्वर्गे भर्तुरुपान्तिकं गतवती स्वमायते सम्प्रति । तौ मातापितरौ स्मरन्नयमहं भूलोकवासी भवन् दीर्घ स्वममिदं तथैव कलये मज्जीवितं देहगम् ॥ ३४८ ॥ My mother-who lived once-in this mundane world worshipping the feet of my beloved father, left her imprint in my mind, having gone to Heaven to join my father. She is now no more than an idea or a dreamy reality. Remembering my beloved parents who begot me into this world, and left me over here as a

·100
ब्रह्माजलिः
precipitate, I feel this life of mine lingering in this mortal coil
also a continuation Jf the same prolonged dream.
पुष्पम्
पुष्पं पश्य मनुष्य ! तस्य जनने कर्ताऽस्ति वा नैव वा ?
नो चेत् तादृश सुन्दरं परिमलत् जातं कथं वा वद ।
स्वो भावोऽत्र हि कारणं भवति चेत् तस्याऽस्ति कश्चोदक:
काचित् चित् खलु विद्यते जगदिदं येनार्थवद् भासते ॥ ३४९ ॥
The Flower
Man! look at the flower! Who is the architect behind to
have given it birth? If you say that nobody but Nature has
begotten it, how could a blind unintelligent Nature without
a motivatiog power behind beget such a fragrant artistic beauty?
We have got to admit that there is some Supreme Intelligence
which is responsible for the creation of a meaningful universe.
पुष्पं सन्दिशतीव " मानव ! कथं स्वार्थंकदीक्षापरो
मा जीवन्निह जीवसि क्षितिगतो कस्मै मुदं दास्यसि ।।
ब्रह्माण्डे कथमेत्य धुर्यपदवीं व्यर्थीकृतं ते जनुः
शक्तिस्ते महती भवन्त्यपि वृथा शोभां न या पद्यते" ॥ ३५० ।।
The flower has a message to us as though it seems to say:
"Man! thou art self-centred; thou Leadest a miserable life!
Whom doest thou please by thy birth? Thou pridest on thy
highest place in God's creation, and thou mayst be imbued with
superior powers. Of what good is thy life which does not carry
an iota' of beauty in itsell ?"
नीतिश्लोकाः
सम्पदो यान्ति सम्पन्न न दरिद्रं कदाचन ।
नद्यस्सलिलमादाय सागरे वितरन्ति हि ॥ ३५१ ॥

·नीतिश्लोकाः 101 मेघो वर्षति किं सिन्धी न किञ्चित् चातके तथा । अपात्र दीयते दानं न पात्रे तद्रितीयते ॥ ३५२ ॥ करायैव बलं दत्तं व्याघ्राय परमात्मना । प्रजासेवाकरी साधुर्वेनुर्यत्कवलायते ॥ ३५३ ।। स्वयं न दीयते दानं बलात्कारेण दीयते । न वर्षति स्वयं मेघो न शंपाकशया हतः ॥ ३५४ ॥ न कश्चित् सात्त्विकं दानं गुप्तं वा कुरुते तथा । गर्जन् वर्षति पर्जन्यः प्रथयन् स्वस्य दातृताम् ।। ३५५ ।। अमर्त्यत्वं माः कथमिव लभन्ते क्षितितले तमस्तेजो न स्यादसदपि न सत् कुत्रचिदपि ॥ ३५६ ।। तथाऽप्येकः पन्था यदि हि सुमनाश्चाऽपि विवुधः, चिरञ्जीवी मयो भवति यशसा तद्वदमरः ।। ३५७ ।। विश्वगर्भे पदार्थाश्च कालग क्रियास्तथा । घुगर्भे सन्ति मेघाश्च धरा चौषधिगर्भिणी ॥ ३५८ ।। Moral Poems Only an affluent person has windfalls of wealth, dever a poor man; look, for example, the rivers bestow their waters into the sea as if the sea were in need of more! Very often charity is misplaced. An undeserving person bappens to be patronized, not a deserving one. The cloud rains on the sea, but does not raio even a few drops into the month of the chātaka bird, which is reported never to drink water on the earth however much it is thirsty but only waits to drink rainy water in the atmosphere. God gives strength to a wicked man and never to a godly person. A tiger is given enormous strength just to make a meal of the mild sacred cow, which is there to serve the humanity.

·102 ब्रह्माजलिः Charity is never shown of one's own accord. People are made to be charitable under pressure alone. The cloud rains only flogged by the whips of lightning. Nobody is charitable for charity's sake but is so only to be lalked of as charitable or to be reported in the papers as such. The cloud never rains without proclaiming that it is raining by its thundering voice. A mortal could pever be immortal. Darkness could never be light. The unreal could never be real. Yet, there is one particular way by which a mortal could become immortal and that is by being a Sumanāḥ and a Vibudha i.e. by being good. minded and acquiring scholarship (also by being a god). (Note the pun on the two words.) The universe is pregnant with matter. Time is pregnant with events. Clouds impregnate the atmosphere, and the crops the bosom of the Earth. प्रकृतेर्बीजगणितम् युष्माभिर्जीवितार्थः प्रकृतिगतरहस्यादिको ज्ञायतामि- त्येष प्रश्नो नरेभ्यः कृत इव भवति ब्रह्मणा बीजशास्त्रे । यत्रैतौ जन्ममृत्यू कुधरजलनिधी वाहिनीवारिवाही तद्वच्चाहस्तमिले दिनमणिशशिनौ बीजवौँ भवेताम् ॥ ३५९ ।। Natare's Algebra The creator has as though postulated a problem in the algebra of simultaneous equations of two variables, and has directed men to solve that problem wherein the variable-couples are birth and death, the mountain and the sea, the river and the cloud, the day and the night, the Sun and the Moon and so on. . मनः सर्वेषां मन एव कारणमहो सौख्येऽपि दुःखेऽपि वा प्रासादीयति भिक्षुकोऽपि निवसन कुटयां निरीहावशात् ।

·कालचक्रम् 103 प्रासादेऽपि वसन् कुटीयति नृपस्सन्तुष्टिशून्यो भवन् साक्षाद् राजतभूघरेऽपि निवसन् रुद्रो दरिद्रायते ॥ ३६० ॥ The Mind Mind is itself and in itself can make a Heaven of Hell and a Hell of Heaven. A beggar feels as though living in a palace when he contentedly resides in a hut; a king feels miserable as though in a hut even while residing in a palace discontented; why, even the very God Isvara residing on the summit of the silver mountain Kailāsa is reported to be going abegging. सर्वो विश्वमिदं स्वमानसपरिस्थित्यैव लोलोच्यते मुख्यन् पश्यति मङ्गलं जगदिदं दुःख्यस्तथाऽमङ्गलम् । चन्द्रस्सूर्यति भार्यया विरहिते रामे यथा सीतया यो नित्यं रमते प्रियाभिरनिशं सूर्योऽपि चन्द्रायते ॥ ३६१ ॥ Every one perceives the world through the glasses of his mind. A happy man feels that the world is all auspicious, whereas a miserable person feels it to be most inauspicious. Even the Moon agonizes the heart of one bereaved of his wife, as in the case of Rama separated from his Sita; while even the scorching Sun of the summer appeals as the Moon for one who revels in the company of lovely ladies. कालचक्रम् जन्तोः पुनर्जन्म भवेन्न वेति मीमांसमाना बहु सन्ति लोके । अथो मदीया मतिरत्र भाति ये पण्डितास्तां परिभावयन्तु ।। ३६३ ॥ बाष्पीभवद्वारि समुद्रगर्भात् मेघीकृतं तत्परतो घुगर्ने । तन्मेघवृष्टौ पुनरेत्य जन्म जलत्वरूपावतरं दधाति ।। ३६३ ॥ उद्यन् विवस्वान् दिवमारुरुक्षुः क्रमेण तेजोरहितश्च सायम् । अस्तं प्रयातः पुनरप्युदेति किं सन्दिशत्येष रविश्च तादृक् ॥ ३६४ ।।

·104 ब्रह्माञ्जलि: आकाशगोले च नभश्चरा ये मेषादितो द्वादशराशिभाजः । पुनर्भजन्ते स्वपुरास्थितिं ते मेषादिबिन्दौ किमियं च रीतिः ? ।। ३६५॥ आदौ वसन्तस्तदनुक्रमेण ग्रीष्मश्च वर्षाः शरदित्थमेव । घण्णामृतूनां परितो गतानां पुनर्वसन्तः किमहो जिहीते ? ॥ ३६६ ॥ अहश्च सन्ध्या तदनु त्रियामा सन्ध्या परस्तादहरेव पश्चात् । जाजायमाने खलु कालमाने दिनत्रियामे किमु सन्दिशेताम् ? ।। ३६७॥ निद्राति जागति पुनश्च निद्रा पुनर्भवेज्जाग्रदवस्थितिश्च । तन्मध्यगस्वमपरिस्थिति: स्यात् सन्ध्या यथाऽहनिशयोश्च मध्ये ॥३६८॥ इत्थं हि सृष्टिस्सकला चलन्ती यच्चक्रनेमिक्रमशस्तथैव । मृतं मनुष्यं जनयेत् परस्तात् जातं च वृद्धं बत संहरन्ती! ।। ३६९ ॥ The cycle of events in the bosom of Time There are many scholars who dispute as to whether man has & rebirth or not. I request to place before the scholars my own mind in this beb alf. The waters that get evaporated from the sea, form into clouds which rain and give birth to the same water again. The sun rising in the east ascends the sky. Gradually losing his lustre in the evening sets in the west only to take a birth again on the eastern horizon the next morning. What message does he convey by this cycle of events? The planets starting from the zero-point of the zodiac go round the twelve constellations beginning from the Aries and behold they come to the same Asvini again. What does this inform us? The seasons follow the same order beginning from the spring, and after a rotation of the cycle of seasons, again appears the spring. What does this also convey to us?

·किमर्थ जातोऽहस् 105 The day is followed by twilight which is itself followed by night. . Again the morning twilight appears which is followed by day. Thus the night follows the day and the day follows the night each close on the heels of the other incessantly. What does this cycle inform us? One goes to sleep and awakes again. In between the sleep and the wakeful state and also between the wakeful state and sleep one passes through the world of dream. Thus the sequence the day, twilight, night, twilight and day is exactly parallel to the wakeful state, dream, sleep, dream and wakeful state. This is yet another cycle. . Thus proceeds the phenomena of God's creation in cycles. This should inform us that the man who dies must be taking a birth and one who takes a birth has got to die which is thus an unending cycle as it were. किमर्थं जातोऽहम् ? न वित्तं मे दत्तं सकलजनताकिङ्करकरम् न विद्या मे हृद्या विबुधहृदयाकर्षणकरी । न गण्योऽहं लोके प्रमुखपदवी नास्ति च यतः किमर्थं जातोऽहं बत! कनकदुर्गे भगवति ? ॥ ३७० ।। न भुक्तं भोक्तव्यं कथमपि मया यातवयसा न दृष्टं द्रष्टव्यं विगलति वृथा दर्शनमिदम् । कृतं नो कर्तव्यं तनुरथ जरास्ये निपतिता किमर्थं जातोऽहं बत कनकदुर्गे भगवति ? ।। ३७१ ।। न देहेऽप्यारोग्यं न च भवति रूपं जननुतम् न कण्ठे वा गीतं सकलजनतामोहनकरम् । न सौख्यं भुक्तं वा भजनमपि देवस्य न कृतम् किमर्थं जातोऽहं बत ! कनकदुर्गे भगवति ॥ ३७२ ॥ 14 ·106 ब्रह्माञ्जलिः पुरापुण्यैः केचित् सकलसुखसौभाग्यकलिताम् भजन्ते सम्पत्तिं बहुमतहाराजपदवीम् । 1 पुरापुण्यैः केचिद् विबुधपदवीं यान्ति च नुताः किमर्थं जातोऽहं बत! कनकदुर्गे! भगवति ? ॥ ३७३ ॥ Why am I born? I am not given to be rich, so as to enslave the people through my ricbes; por am I a scholar, so as to attract the hearts of the scholars and thus acquire fame. I am an insignificant somebody in this world, as I do not have a position of power. That being 80, Mother Kanaka Durga! What for am I born and what to achieve in this world? I could not eat what is worth-eating. I could not see what is worth-seeing. I could pot do what is worth-doing. Alas! I am getting, advanced in years. What for am I born into this world, mother! I do not know. I do not have a healthy body to enjoy my existence; I do not have a melodious yoice to win the admiration of the public at large; I am not considered to be happy according to the popular definition of happiness. Above all I never tried to consecrate my life by worshipping the Divine. What did I achieve in this world, Oh Mother Durga, having been awarded a birth herein? Some people are born with a silver spoon in their mouth, who drink life to the lease, roll in happiness and achieve positions of power. All this comes to them as a reward for their good deeds in their past births. Some again achieve greatness by dint of their scholarship. Even this comes as such a reward. But alas! I do not know, to what purpose I am born in this world, being insignificant as I am, having had none of the good things enumerated above.

·कीर्तिकामना सामान्यो मनुजः कुटुम्बविषये वित्तस्य च प्राप्तये यावज्जीवपरिश्रमं प्रकुरुते तत् तस्य लक्ष्यं परम् । केचित् तादृशमीषणत्रयमतिक्रम्याऽपि कीर्तेः कृते विद्वांसः कवयोऽप्यहं कृतिजुषः श्राम्यन्ति रात्रिंदिवम् ॥ ३७४ ॥ The Desire for Fame Man in general exerts for the sake of his own family and tries to amass wealth as best as he could in that behalf. Thus wife, children and wealth are the alluring factors in one's life and one could never be persuaded to give up one's love for either of them, be one the most learned. In other words, they alone form the alpha and omega of his very existence. But, look here! there are some people for whom those three factors are also secondary, and as such they are able to transcend the attachment towards them. But they pursue a higher, perhaps sublimated, desire and it is a desire to excel. Scholars, poets and even some ascetics are not free from such a desire. They do exert tenaciously day and night to achieve a lasting name in this world. कैषा कीर्तिरहो! मनोऽम्बरमुपाक्रम्याऽथ मेघो यथा जीवानाममृतं निषिञ्चति जनो लोलुभ्यते यत्कृते। ईदृम्भावयतः कदाचिदपि मे चित्तं प्रवृत्तौ रतम् वैराग्यं न भजेद्यशोऽर्थमसकृत् यत्नं चिकीर्षस्यहो! ॥ ३७५ ॥ What is this wonderful desire for excellence? It pervades the sky of the mind like a cloud which showers on the carth of the mind waters of nectar and the greatest of scholars covets for the ·108 ब्रह्माजलि: sake of a name, and a lasting fame. Though reflecting critically in this strain, occasionally, I cannot help myself refraining from desiring a name. I do very often exert in that direction. कान्ताकाञ्चनकामतोऽपि बलवान् कामोऽत्र कीतौं कृतः, मर्त्यत्वादमृतत्वलामविषये सर्वो व्यवस्यन्निव । आपाशं त्वथ पामरावधि यशो लब्धं प्रयत्ने रताः, सैषा मानुषचित्त एव हि यशोलिप्सा न जन्तौ भवेत् ॥ ३७६ ॥ The desire that is there in some for a name and fame is perhaps stronger than the desire for the hand of love or a chest of gold. I hold that such a desire, is there prompted by a secret craving not to lapse into oblivion even after the mortal coil has been caused to be laid down, as though casting “a last lingering look behind'. It is a vain attempt at immortality by a mortal man That is wby right from a deeply learned man down to a man in the street every one does exert for a name as much as he could. Curiously enough this desire for excellence appears only at the level of men and not at the sub-human level. किन्त्वेवं धिषणा कदाचिदुदयेत् चित्ते मम ध्यायत: वैशिष्ट्यं मयि नास्ति तत् खलु कथङ्कारं यशो लभ्यते ? नाहश्चाऽपि लमेत कश्चिदथ तत् , यत् तद्भवेत् पुण्यतः, वित्तं किं मयि ? पाण्डिती किमु तथा ? कीर्तिस्तथा नो भवेत्।। ३७७॥ Occasionally I make an introspection and feel that there is nothing special or extraordinary in me to attain fame. Even if there be one who deserves a name, it is not given to everybody to become famous. (Also often some undeserving men also have it.) Even fame is a commodity bestowed by the Divine on men according to the law of retribution to appropriate deeds of bygone births. Is there wealth in me? Is there scholarship in me? How could I therefore expect to attain fame which is equally a gift of the Divine as much as wealth and scholarship?

·कीतिकामना 109 गम्भीराणवगर्भितानि कति वा रत्नानि गुप्तानि वा ? गाढारण्यगता लताः कुसुमिताः कर्षन्ति केषां मनः । तद्वद्भरि बुधा भवन्ति धरणौ यन्नाम न श्रूयते । की. किं हृदय ! स्थिरं भव भवे भूयात् तवाकर्षणम् ॥ ३७८ ॥ How many millions of gems are not there hidden in the bowels of the oceans at large, which lie there unknown or unsung? How many flowers are pot blossoming in the depths of the forests only to fade away? Even as well, full many a scholar there is in every clime and in every time whose name is being neyer heard. Oh my heart! Why dost thou chase a wild goose? Be tranquil! Try to attract the attention of the Lord, instead of attempting to lure the eyes of mortal men for fame! ब्रह्माण्डेश्वर ! देवदेव ! भगवन् ! मत्प्रार्थना श्रूयताम् याते मे बहु जीविते विगलितो मोहोऽद्य लब्धा स्मृतिः । कान्ताकाञ्चनवद् यशोऽपि मनसः काचिद्ना कामनात् तस्मान्मां नय सत्पथे न भवतात् कीर्तिश्च लोके मम! ॥ ३७९ ॥ Oh Lord of the Universe! The Highest of the high! The God of gods! Hearken to my prayer. Much of my life has lapsed away and I am now myself, having understood things in their proper perspective. I now feel at this distance of time ever since I opened my eyes to the world that the pursuit of fame, however sublimated it be, is also a disease of the mind. Hence, leadest me, Oh Lord! on the right track. May I live and pass away unknownl द्राक्षामन्लतया न जम्बुक इव ब्रूयादलभ्यत्वतो, देवो व्यर्थयति प्रयत्नमसकृत् तत्र स्वयं तादृशाम् । अध्यात्मपतिपत्तिदृष्टिविधये स्वल्पार्थमुद्युञ्जताम् , इत्येवं कलये समस्तमपि नः क्षेमार्थमेवार्दनम् ।। ३८० ॥ Utterance should not be made out of a sense of frustration even as a fox pronounces the grapes as sour simply because it ·110 ब्रह्माजलिः could not reach them. God frustrates our attempts very often to make us not to gravitate towards small things in the world but tread on the path spiritual. This is my firm faith and I hold that whatever vicissitudes visit on us all of them have a Divine design to work weal unto us. कि भोश्चिन्तयसे महात्मभिरपि प्राप्तं यशो दूषितम् नैवाऽहं तदभिप्रयामि, हृदये जागर्ति भावोऽन्यथा । निष्कामं सुगुणप्रभावकलितं या कीर्तिरातन्यते सौरभ्य कुसुमैर्यथा तदिव हि न्याय्यं यशो नान्यथा ॥ ३८१ ॥ “What is this presumptuous attitude of yours? You decry all the fame that great great men also have achieved?" If it be said so; no, I never mean that. My idea is entirely different. That fame which great souls achieved and have been achieving without an iota of desire, purely out of their ideally virtuous conduct or deeds, even as fragrance flows out of flowers, that is real fame in the strict sense of the word, BoC that which seeks to be attained artificially out of a desire. धर्मपत्नी केयं मे गृहिणी या मां प्रतिबध्नाति संसृतौ । आविवाहं दिवारानं क्रान्त्वा मे मानसाम्बरम् ॥ ३८२ ।। नूनं तस्या ममाऽपि स्यात् प्राक्तनं बन्धन कचित् । नो चेदावां कथंकारं दाम्पत्यं गमितौ भुवि ! ।। ३८३ ॥ गार्हपत्याय देवैः सा मह्यं दत्ता भवेद् ध्रुवम् । यथा पाणिग्रहे मन्त्री ताहगर्थो मयोदितः ॥ ३८४ ॥ अहं द्यौः पृथिवा सा वै मनोऽहं सा च वागिति । श्रुतितॊधुष्यते नूनं दाम्पत्यं ताहगेव हि ॥ ३८५ ॥ .

·धर्मपत्नी
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काष्ठं काष्ठं समेत्याऽथ व्यपेयातां नदीजले ।
दम्पती तादृशौ स्यातामित्यहं नैव भावये ॥ ३८६ ।।
जन्मजन्मान्तरीयं यत् सरूपं कर्म यत् कृतम् ।
तहलेनैव तावद्य जायते जम्पती भुवि ।। ३८७ ॥
भुञ्जाते सुखदुःखे तो गाढमन्योन्यसंश्रितो ।
दम्पती किमिदं पूर्वजन्मकर्म विना भवेत् ? ॥ ३८८ ॥
आनन्दं सुवते जायापुत्राः संसारवम॑नि ।
व्यतिषङ्गः किमाऽऽहोऽसौ निर्बीजस्स्यात् पुराभवे ॥ ३८९ ।।
केन्द्रस्य परितो यद्वत् परिधिः परिधीयते ।
पत्नीमाश्रित्य पत्युश्च जीवितं परिधीयते ।। ३९० ॥
परस्परतपस्सम्पत्फलायितपरस्परौ ।
प्राञ्चौ जायापती यद्वत् तथाऽन्यौ दम्पती ध्रुवम् ॥ ३९१ ।।
अन्योन्यं प्रतिबध्नीतः, दम्पती नित्यजीविते ।
कष्टान्यापद्यमानौ च जीवितं न जुगुप्सतः ॥ ३९२ ॥
अद्वैतमेव दाम्पत्यमर्धनारीश्वरायितम् ।
अहार्यों रस इत्याहुर्वार्धके प्रेमसारभूः ॥ ३९३ ।।
रुग्णां पत्नी पतिर्दृष्ट्वा पत्नी रुग्णं पतिं तथा ।
कीदृशीं वेदनां यातो जानाते दम्पती स्वयम् ।। ३९४ ॥
दाम्पत्यप्रन्थिरेतादृक् विचित्राश्चर्यभूरहो।
भगवानेव जानीते दधानः सर्गनाशने ॥ ३९५ ॥
कल्पादेराच कल्पान्तं कालगर्ने घरातले ।
कति वा लीयमानानि दाम्पत्यानि भवन्त्यहो ॥ ३९६ ॥

·112 ब्रह्माजलि: दाम्पत्याद्वैतनिष्ठं यद् दम्पत्योः प्रेम निर्मलम् । तन्न दोषावहं मन्ये संसारे दोषवत्यहो । ३९७ ॥ तादृशं प्रेम मन्येऽहं पवित्रं दिव्यमित्यपि । यथा रामस्य सीतायां तस्यास्तस्मिन् तथाऽपि च ॥ ३९८ ॥ मूर्धानं पत्युरारोह प्रजया च विराड्भव । श्रुतिरित्थं यदि ब्रूते, अबला सा कथं भवेत् ? ।। ३९९ ।। शक्त्या युक्तः शिवो यद्वत् प्रभवेदिति वर्णितम् । गार्हपत्यं गृहिण्यैव शक्तं संसारवर्त्मनि ॥ ४०० ॥ विद्वांसमपि जानानं संसारासारतां दृढम् । प्रवर्तयति संसारे बलाद्या साऽबला कथम् ।। ४०१ ॥ जीर्णारण्यं जगद्भाति पुंसः शून्यस्य जायया । स्त्रियो वा पतिहीनाया अहो संसारसारता ।। ४०२ ॥ गृहिणी धर्मपत्नीति जायेति श्रुतिषु स्तुताः । दारा धर्माय कल्पन्ते संसारः सागरेत् कथम् ॥ ४०३ ॥ एकपत्नीव्रताः पुंसो यदि नार्यः पतिव्रताः । अहो कीदृग्भवेल्लोकः कलिरेव कृतायते ।। ४०४ ॥ Better-half Hullo! Who is this that happens to be my wife? Ever since the day of our marriage my mind has been full of her and kept arrested in domestic life. Certainly there must have been some mysterious dealing between us in the past depths of time which made us man and wife. Without Bo such reason how could we become koit together in such a way?

·धर्मपत्नी 113 Heavens must have effected our marriage, as is rightly described by the Vedic hymn. I am the Heavens, she is the Earth, I am the mind and she is the yāk (word) as the Veda puts it. It is said in the Rāmāyaṇa by Bhagavān Vålmīki, that union effected between two individuals is just like the accidental collo. cation of two logs that drift in the floods of a river, but, to my humble mind, that does not hold good with respect to a married couple. Some particular type of deeds in the births by-gone, deeds of some reciprocity must have been responsible to make two individuals come together as man and wife, If there were no such a previous affinity between the two, how could it happen that husband and wife share together good or evil in just an equal apportionment? The wife and children beget some secret pleasure in the bosom of a man. This relation between a man and his family must have had some root in their by-gone births. It could not be a blind accidence. Even as the circumference of a circle has its position in relation to the centre of the circle, so also, the life of the husband happens to be centred in his wife. It is said that Pārvati and Paramešvara happened to be wedded together in response to their mutual penance in that behalf. I feel that this must hold good in the case of every other couple also. Husband and wife exert each on the other a secret influence, so as to sail together. In spite of many vicissitudes, they do not go to the extent of resenting life. Bhavabhūti says that a couple, though is constituted by two members is such a harmonious blend as could be viewed as a single entity. The more that couple advances in years, the more grows the affirmity in between them and towards the end that affinity is all pure and divine in its nature. 15 ·114 ब्रह्माञ्जलि: : When the wife ails what an agony works in the heart of the husband; so also, when the husband is laid on the bed what an agony overtakes the wife! This agony of the heart, who else understands than that wife and that husband? God only knows what kind of knot it is that exists between the husband and the wife. It is really wonderful. How many millions and billions of such couples lived and perished in the bosom of time ever since the dawn of creation and how many more before the end? Though perhaps philosopers despise Samsara, the family life, I do not feel that the pure sacred divine love existing between husband and wife is not at all something that is earthly. Such a love I view as celestial just like the love that was there between Rama and Sita. When the Veda asks the wife to attain such a position of respectability in relation to her husband, that the husband might even touch ber feet with his head and treat her as the very queen of his house after her begetting progeny, how is it that she is called an Abalā, one without any strength? It is said that even Siva could rule the universe only through the strength of Shakti. If that be so, how much more does this hold good in the case of men? The very domestic life depends on the weal of the wife and is rendered a void and a vacuum otherwise. The wife wields such a wonderful influence on her husband that even the greatest scholar who does know the ultimate emptiness of all domestic life gets entangled in that life. How then could you call a wife as an Abala? The house is no more than a desert or a forest if a man has bo wife and a wife has no husband. If the very Veda calls a wife with such names as Jaya, Dharmapatni, Gțihiņi etc., Verily the wife should conduce to Dharma and the family life could no more be viewed as a sea of troables.

·अहंब्रह्मानुसन्धानम् 115 If men be that virtuous as to know only one wife and women that pure as to know only one husband, how does the world look like? The very Kaliyuga should become a Kritayuga. अहंब्रह्मानुसन्धानम् पराञ्चि खानि व्यतृणस्वयंभूरिति श्रुतिस्तत्त्वगतिं ब्रवीति । निजस्वरूपं न विदंश्च विद्वान् जिज्ञासते वाह्यजगत्स्वरूपम् ॥ ४०५ ॥ जले निममः खलु पाददन्नं संदृश्यते भन्न इवैव दण्डः । भ्रान्ति यथा चक्षुरुपैति तद्वत् त्रैलोक्यमानेऽप्यखिलेन्द्रियाणि ।। ४०६ ।। त्वगिन्द्रियं भ्रान्तिमुपैति नीरे निमग्नभाण्डं लघुमामनच्च । नीराबहिस्तं गुरुतामुपेतं तद्वत् जगद्धात्ययथार्थरूपम् ।। ४०७ ।। खं वायुरमिः सलिलं तथोर्वीत्येतानि भूतानि दरीहशीति । नेत्रं मदीयं यदि तत्र भाने मन्चेतनैकैव वरीवृतीति ॥ ४०८ ॥ वाचि श्रितो मेऽमिरियं च वाङ्मे मच्चेतनामूलकमाविरास्ते । तस्मादहं केवलमस्मि नूनं नाग्निर्न वाग्वा न किमप्यथाऽन्यत् ॥ ४०९ ।। सूर्यस्तथा चक्षुषि मे श्रितो वै मच्चेतनामूलकमक्षि पश्येत् । तदृष्टिहेतावहमेव नूनं तस्मादहं केवलमस्मि नाऽन्यत् ॥ ४१० ।। चन्द्रो मदीये मनसि श्रितः स्यात् मनो मदीयं मम चेतनायाम् । चन्द्रस्य सत्ता मदधीनमास्ते तस्मादहं केवलमस्मि नाऽन्यत् ॥ ४११ ॥ सर्व प्रपञ्चं मम चेतनायां प्रत्यक्षितं भाति तया विना न। तस्मादहं केवलमस्मि नूनं सर्वः प्रपञ्चः मयि चाऽधिदिग्धः ।। ४१२ ॥ मचेतना वामपि चेतयन्ती त्वां वर्तमानं मम बोधयन्ती। क्रीडां चरीकति च युष्मदस्मत्प्रत्यायकी सैव नरीनरीति ॥ ४१३ ॥ *Published in Gairvāni, Chittoor 15th Feb. 1972, ·116 ब्रह्माजलिः अस्मीति मां या प्रतिबोधयन्ती मन्चेतना महृदये लसन्ती। सैव त्वदीये हृदये स्फुरन्ती त्वां प्रत्यहोऽसीति च जागदीति ।। ४१४ ॥ या शब्दयन्त्राणि बहूनि लोके, एकैव विद्युत् खलु नादयन्ती । प्रकाशयन्ती बहुदीपभाण्डान् सैवेव शक्तिः परमा मदीया ॥ ४१५ ॥ समापिपत् श्लोकमयीं जयन्त्यां कृष्णाय तस्मै नवरत्नमालाम् । तस्यैव तत्त्वं हृदि सन्दधानः श्रीसोमयाजीति पदाभिधानः ॥ ४१६ ॥ पार्थायोपदिदेश यो हि भगवान् गीतां रणप्राङ्गणे धानामुष्टिमुचं कुचेलमकरोत् साक्षात् कुबेरश्रियम् । धर्म स्थापयितुं खलान् दमयितुं यः सम्बभूव क्षितौ चितं मे रमतां निरन्तरमिदं कृष्णे परब्रह्मणि ॥ ४१७ ॥ The realization that I am the Sapreme Brahman What the Veda says that the senses are created essentially extrovert and also refracted is indeed true; in as much as eyen the greatest of scholars engages himself in trying to understand the properties of the external universe never knowing the nature of his own consciousness. Even as the eye speaks a lie that a stick is broken at the point where it is cat by the surface of the water, whereas in reality it is not, just the same way all the five senses conspire to produce a refracted picture of the universe, other than what is in reality.. The sense of touch also speaks a lie when a bucket of water so long as it is within the surface of the water feels lighter, and as it emerges out of water, feels heavier. Just the same way the universe as it appears manifest is not what it is in reality. If my eye sees before it the five elements the sky, the air, the fire, the water and the earth, it should not be immediately conanded that these elements have the same objective reality as is vouchsafed to us, but what only could be asserted is that there ·अहंब्रह्मानुलन्धानम् 111 is a consciousness that flows through the eye and catches a sight of these elements. The beat of the fire must be there in my body to be produ. cing my words, and those words are produced out of my consciousness. So ultimately it is my consciousness that has a real existence, and not either the heat nor the words. Similarly the light of the Sun sponsors my eye, and the eye sees through my consciousness. So finally it is I that exist and have a reality; and not the Sun or what is seen through the eye. The Moon is said to be influencing my mind and my mind is rooted in my consciousness. The existence of the Moon depends on my consciousness. So it is essentially I that exist and not the mind or the Moon. Why, the entire universe in fact exists in my consciousness and it has no existence when my consciousness is withdrawn; so much so it is super-imposed on my consciousness even as a serpent gets super-imposed on a rope and makes us interpret a rope as a snake. Hence I alone exist and not the phenomenal world. Then the question might be asked whether you do not equally exist along with me. The answer is that the same consciousness that is I, also pervading you makes me feel that you are also there. The same Supreme consciousness indulges in this play and it is the only ultimate reality. The same consciousness which makes me feel that I am, also enters you and makes you and me feel that you also exist. Just as it is only one current of electricity that articulates in different sets of radios and also lights different bulbs, similarly it is only one Supreme consciousness that establishes many centres in me, you and all other living beings and makes us feel that it is not one but many. That Supreme consciousness is no other than I. This garland of gems in the form of verses is presented at the feet of Lord Krishna on whose Jayanti day they were penned by

·118
ब्रह्माजलि:
one Somayaji (by which name I go) who perceives the true nature
of Krishna as depicted above.
May my mind dwell upon Lord Sri Krishna, who taught the
Bhagavadgita to Arjupa in the battlefield; who it is that made
the poorest Kuchela roll in wealth; and who it is that took
his incarnation to establish Dharma and annihilate the vicious.
भीमवरपुरीविराजमानकलाशालासन्दर्शनसन्दर्भ तदा तदध्यक्ष-
भूतेन मया जगद्गुरूणां श्रीकाञ्चीकामकोटिपीठाधिपानां कृते व्याहृता
पञ्चरत्नमालिका।
श्रीमत्काञ्चीनिवासाय कस्मैचिन्महसे नमः ।
लोकैर्जगद्गुरुत्वेन भाविताय शिवात्मने ॥ ४१८ ॥
वसिष्ठमुख्यर्षिपरम्परा पुरा विराजते स्मेति पुराणतः श्रुतम् ।
संशेरते ये स्म त एव नास्तिकाः कृता भवद्दर्शनतः परास्तिकाः ॥४१९||
वसिष्ठो वा नो चेद् भवति हि शुको वाऽप्यथ भवान्
गुरुर्वा नो चेत् शङ्करगुरुवरो वेति बहुधा ।
जनो वारंवारं कथयति भवद्वाचि गलितां
सुधां पायंपायं विबुधपदवीं चाऽपि भजति ॥ ४२० ॥
धन्या भारतभूमिरेव चरतां पादेन हि श्रीमताम्
धन्यो जीवगणो य एव कुरुते श्रीमूर्तिसन्दर्शनम् ।
तादृक् धन्यतमो य एति भवतामाशीर्वचस्सम्पदम्
यः श्रीमन्ददर्शनं न लभते स स्यादहो वानरः ।। ४२१॥
सानिध्येन जगद्गुरोर्वसतिभूः काञ्ची हि काञ्चित् श्रियम्
कौबेरीव पुरी परात्परपुराराते: शिरश्चन्द्रिकाम् ।
धत्ते सा च पुरी चकास्ति धरणीसीमन्तमुक्तामणिः
पौरा ये निवसन्ति तत्र खल ते भाग्यं दधाना भुवि ॥ ४२२ ॥

·मदीया कुलदेवता
119
Salutations to the Jagadguru
My salutations to that great Divine effulgence wbich has
taken abode at the place which goes by the name Kanchi;
reverentially held as the Jagadguru by the people at large, and
which in fact is the very Divine Siva walking the earth.
Those atheists who have no faith that once there lived
Rishis like Vasishtha in this Bharat in times of yore, are imme-
diately converted to theism on the very first sight of Thee, Oh
Jagadguru!
The world takes Thee to be no other than Vasishtha or the
very Shuka, or that Brihaspati of the heavens or the very
Shankara Bhagavatpāda, the founder of Advaita. The more the
people drink at the fount of nectar upsurging out of Thee, the
more divine they are also rendered and attain god liness in toto
in as much as those who drink nectar must be essentially gods.
The very Bhārat has been rendered fortunate and sacred on
account of Thee walking the earth in this country. All those are
rendered fortunate and sacred who could bave Thy Darshan. He
is the most fortunate of men who could receive a blessing of
Thee. Alas! Those who never get the opportunity of Thy
Darshan, are the most unfortunate of men.
Kāñchi, the abode of the Jagadguru, has a glory of its own
on account of the presence of the Jagadguru and has thereby an
effulgence that the city Alaka has on account of the light shed by
the Moon on the head of Siva stationed nearby on Kailāsa.
Hence that place of Kāñchi has a singular fortune among all
places of the earth and the people residing there are indeed the
most fortunate.
मदीया कुलदेवता
यां देवीं समुपासते स्म मुखजा गोदावरीतीरगाः
आंध्रस्थाः शुभशोभनेषु सुचिरात्कालादथाऽद्यावधि ।
मत्पूर्वे पितरो निरन्तरमपि ध्याने यदीये रताः :
पायानः कुलदेवता भगवती माता च कामेश्वरी ॥ ४२३ ॥

·120 ब्रह्माजलिः या गोलैरिव कन्दुकैर्गगनगैनित्यं नरीनति, या लोकैर्जन्मजरारुजामरणगैः क्रीडां चरीकति च । या विश्वं च दरीधरीति भुवनं काले जरीहति तत् तां देवीं समुपास्महे भगवतीं कामेश्वरी मातरम् ॥ ४२४ ।। भोजभोजमुपैति नीरसपदं नाम्ना रसालं च यत् पायं पायमुपैति पायसमपि प्रायेण तत् तिक्तताम् । श्रावंश्रावमपि श्रवःकटु भवेत् श्रव्यं च गानं परम् ध्यायध्यायमहनिशं भगवति त्वन्नाम पीयूषति ॥ ४२५ ॥ My household Goddess, Kámeśvari May the Goddess of my household namely Kāmeśvari, protect us; that Goddess who is worshipped by the Andhra Brahmins in all auspicious functions from time immemorial and even today and that goddess whom my ancestors have been worshipping ever with great reverence. We offer our supplications to that goddess Kāmesvarl who has been playing as it were with the celestial globes wandering on the skies as though with balls; that goddess who has been enjoying a game by her creating, sustaining and annihilating billions and billions of lives incessantly. Oh Mother Kameśyarī! Even a mango called Rasäla on account of its sweetest juice, appears devoid of that sweetness the more and more it is eaten; even the sweet dish called pāyasa made of milk spiced with sugar tastes unsweet the more and more it is taken; similarly even the sweetest music falls harsh on the ears when it is heard continuously; but, behold! Thy name tastes nectar-like the more and more I utter and meditate thereupon!

·MAN AND THE NATURE Events do not happen in the world helter-skelter. They follow the cosmic Law. Today we witness forces of Death engulfing human life. Man killing a man, nation devastating another nation are common occurences now. Why does this happen? Let us probe into the philosophy that lies deeper. When even the miautest of particles in the universe, even the inner-dynamism of the microcosm of an atom all obey the laws of mechanics, is not hu.nan behaviour governed by such laws? The bird is able to live; the beast happily lives its life. But man is not able to live. He is struggling for existence. Mother Earth has begotten more sons than she could possibly feed. Whereas in the days of Ramayana, when a vast portion of South India was the forest of Daņdaka, the population was not perbaps as much as ten millions, today our country is teeming with nearly half a billion of men. Naturally, therefore man has to fight for his life. Every-where Governments are worried over the problem as to how to cry a halt to the geometrically multiplying population and as to how people could be provided with employment and livelihood. In spite of the best efforts of the Govern. ments to enforce family-planning, it seems as though that time is ripe for an explosion of the population. Wbat is it after all that governments can do, when Nature has her own Course? No man however great he might be, no nation however powerful it might be is competent to make or mar. The greatest of men is no more than a drop in the mighty ocean of existence. Nature it is that has been shaping our ends. It could not be a blind Nature that was able to produce a maa in this cosmic picture. It must be a Supreme gnostic force that has been responsible for this wonderful creation of life. It must be again that Supreme force that works up to clear the imbalance. Epidemics, wars, earthquakes, cyclones and even astronomical cataclysms are all there as Nature's devices, nay Nature's designs to create catastrophies which weed out millions of men, and provide an answer to the exploding population. Nobody ever dreamt that the regional, communal and political differences of the people, would involve the lives of their own Kith and Kin. Nobody could foresee that the West Pakistan would be inflicting a holocaust on the East Pakistan, brothers of the same 16 ·122 blood killing each other. What does all of this prognosticate? Death is up and doing his job. No human being is competent to stem the tide. What was the force that created that greatest of wars, the war of the Mahābhārata, which annihilated millions of warriors! What was the Force again that was responsible for the two great World. wars of this century? Could man avert those wars? Thousands of leaders (however great they might be) can not cry a halt to the Forces of Death. Man is helpless and can only despair. Let us reflect a little upon the previous history of our Earth and of her sons. We are told by science as well as by our own scriptures that the first man came into the cosmic picture 1950 millions of years ago. If that be so, how is it, that man remained a stupid all these millions of years without the least of advancement and suddenly as though by the waving of a magic wand he blossomed into a genius from 1800 A.D. whereafter he came on making all wonderful discoveries starting from the discovery of Electricity and today coming close to interplanetary travel? Could that happen all of a sudden as if we are the chosen sons of God to have been allowed to peep into the mysteries of Nature! The Scientists, indeed, are today on the verge of producing testtube babes, and are able to transplant hearts. They are busy in trying to conquer death as it were and understand the mystery of Life. But this could never happen. The mortal man will never be permitted to superhumanize himself. The very fact that man has taken a birth into a mortal coil should inform him that he has fallen short of Divinity, and could never peep into the mystery behind birth and death unless he gives up the ghost. The problem now posed by us is this. It is highly improbable that man remained a stupid all these millions of years. There must have been civilizations as great as ours if not greater which had their sway and died their death. The ancient Baby- Ionian civilization, the Chinese, the Greek and the Hindu civili zations were all there which must have reached great heights. The Mohenjodaro excavations revealed that long long ago there wore towns in ancient India, which had cyen drainage systems.

·123 If that be so, how is it inspite of all our professing that we are highly civilized we are not able to provide our cities even with drainage systems? We must at once accept that there should have been wonderful civilizations which got buried in the bosom of time. What is the reason for their collapse? It might be earthquakes, or wars or epidemics or even astronomical cataclysms. The planet of Mars in a Dearest approach to the Earth could have shaken her out of her orbit thus devastating all life on Earth. Evolution and involution, seem to be the law of Nature. Man could never arrogate to himself that he has done this and that he has achieved that. He could only gather pebbles on the Sea-shore. Nations are but mere spokes in the mighty wheel of the world of humanity. Today it appears as though we are on the verge of a cataclysm. The youth is coming up as a force all over the world. Their delinquency is being pronounced by leaders of Nations as a phenomenon. If today in the city of Detroit hundreds of murders are being committed by youth of the age group 12-15, it is not an accident. The system of Education failed all over the world. No power on Earth could now breathe a sense of discipline in the delinquent youth. Such a phenomenon is exactly wbat may be termed as Nature's Design. Unless man kills man and nation devastates nation, no solution will be possible to rid Earth of her burden. Earth is groaning as it were under her own burden. Explosion seems to be imminent. Catastrophe stares us in the face. Erelong some thing cataclystic seems to be fast approaching It might be a third world-war given a start by some arrogant leader of a nation in the name of national prestige, or it might be a tremendous chain of earthquakes shaking the bowels of the Earth or it might be some such thing that devastates the humanity to its very vitals. No family planning need be preached, no birth control deed be practised, Nature knows what a phenomenon she has to work up to show man his position. The Divine alone knows what is it going to be and the Divine will alone should rescue us from such a catastrophe if it really would ensue. - Published in Sapthagiri', Tirupati, July '71 ·THE EXPERIENCE OF THE IMAGINARY' THROUGH THE GLASSES OF MATHEMATICS Comparable to the 'Imaginary' as seen in Advaita or in Schopenhauer's conception of the world as Idea-as clarified in the words: 'What man knows is not a Sun and an earth, but only an eye that sees a Sun and hand that feels an earth; the world which surrounds him is there only as an idea i.e. only in relation to something else, the consciousness, which is himself.': There is an 'Imaginary' in Mathematics also. This may be simply illustrated as follows: Problem 1: What is that number from the square of which if thrice the number is subtracted, we have ten as the remainder? The answer would be 5 or - 2. Note: Here when the problem was framed, the author had the number 5 only at the back of his mind; but behold the number - 2 also reveals itself as a solution, for, this number as well satisfies the conditions of the problem. In this problem, it will be noted the roots of the equation are two real numbers 5 and -2; but the following problem does not give us such a solution. Problem 2: What is that number from the square of which if twice the number be subtracted and then two be added to the remainder we get zero. The answer would be x= 1 +i or 1-i We have written i forv-as it will be seen that there does not exist a square root of the number -1; it is termed as an imaginary number and the letter i is taken to signify that. Thus, though the first problem cited has two real solutions, the second, which is exactly similar has two imaginary solutions. Hence the concept of the 'Imaginary came to knock at the door of the Mathematician in a very natural situation. Any scientist, other than a Mathematician, would have rejected these imaginary entities down-right, for, they feel, that their business is to deal with things real and substantial; but a Mathematician would not. He accepted these imaginary numbers also into his fold and beholdl through the good offices of these so-called imagipary 1, Vide Drig-drsya-viveka where we meet with the sane expression, ·125 Dumbers, they were able to discover wonderful theorems, which hold good in the real field, and which would have been lost to him had he not given these imaginary numbers an 'existence', be it imaginary. Today, even a scientist, for example a nuclear scientist, will no more count upon the so-called reality or substantiality of the things that have been hitherto held to be as real as real could be; for, in the wake of their findings, nothing in the world is substantial. Take, for example, a table that we see before our eyes. Our eyes say that it is a table bard and real but on analysis it is made up of molecules which are again made up of atoms; the atoms in their turn are made up of electrons and protons and behold! these electrons or protons are ultimately not particles, though they appear to behave as such but are really waves of energy. Hence the substantiality that has been attributed to a table is no more true. If man had been imbued with a microcosmic vision, the table appears to be not a table but a play of energy waves in the form of electrons and protons shooting with tremendous velocities and producing the sensation of a table. Does not this finding of the nuclear scientist accord with what we are told in the verse madhyāhnärka-maricikasviva payahpūro yadajñanataḥ i.e. "Verily it is through an obsession that we perceive the existence of the five elements, the earth, the waters, the fire, the wind and the ether even as there appears an abundance of water amidst the burning rays of the Sun at noon". 2. Apart from the question of the existence of an object, with respect to its perception and cognition, there present to our senses a number of appearances, enveloping the 'real reality of that 'apparent object'. In other words, perhaps, we are not very wrong in saying that there seem to exist different appearances of the same reality even as there will be many wrong answers for a single mathematical problem. We have seen above some kinds of those appearances. (i) The imaginary in Mathematics, (ii) the appearance of an object in a mirror as in the verse 'visvam darpana.drsyamananagaritulyam i.e. The world is akin to the picture of a city ·126 seen in a mirror. ", (iii) the appearance of a table under a microcosmic vision in contradistinction to the picture produced by a human eye and (iv) the appearance of water in Sun's rays adduced as an example of the appearance of a world superimposed over the 'Reality of Brahman'. To these kinds of appearances may be added more, for example, (a) the appearance of a serpent superimposed over a rope, (b) the broken appearance of a stick under water, (c) the experience of lightness of a bucket held under water, (d) the appearance of a world under a dream, (e) the experience of a lower temperature of a normal human body when touched by a man under a high fever, (f) the experience of a morose world of a man under the pangs of a bereavement in contradistinction to the experience of a happy world of a man under all prosperity etc. It will be realized immediately that there is a subtle difference existing among the various examples cited. 3. It will be interesting to quote an ancient Mathematician of India Bhāskara while commenting upon the 'Imaginary as experienced in Mathematics. In Hindu Astronomy there are expressions known as Samasbanku and Tadhriti. In a place where the diurnal path of the Sun does Dot cut cut the prime vertical, neither of these Samashanku or Tadhriti exist; yet, behold! their mathematical expressions give us values. Bhãskara exclaims: "Tat katham idanim idam dyayam vandhyasutavat' i.e. "How is this now! both these the Samashanku and the Tadhriti(which are not there in reality when the Sun's diurnal circle does not cut the prime vertical) are like the sons of a barren lady!' Then he says: Tadapi pradarsyate, i.e. 'it will be explained'. He does explain basing his explanation on what is called the principle of geometrical continuity'. He reads a meaning into the real expression of an imaginary entity which is different from reading a meaning into an imaginary expression. We shall drop the idea here, leaving it for a Mathematical treatment elsewhere. 4. In geometry we come across an interesting idea. The curve of a hyperbola has two branches extending into the infinities on either side. But according to the analysis of coordinate geometry, it is revealed that though the two branches are ·127 apparently separate and distinct, they appear to be continuous in the infinities, using the word 'continuous' in a particular sense apart from the accepted mathematical sense. The mathematician who naturally shuns to be philosophical contents himself by simply saying that there is an infinite discontinuity in the curve in the infinities. Strictly speaking he is partly wrong, for the apparent discontinuity as experienced by his eye is not borne out by his analysis which says that there is no discontinuity but on the other hand the two branches are continuity of each other and are part and parcel of the same single curve. This apparent fallacy is in fact due to the fallacial idea at the back of his mind that a plane extends to infinities on either side. He does not stop to think that such a plane as vouchsafed by the eye may not exist after all. 5. Again in elementary geometry, we come across the idea that the inverse of the centre of a circle is at infipity, the same single invrerse being situated on every side! This also belies the apparent extension of a plane. 6. In modern theory of Relativity we are told that space is limited and expanding, an idea which revolts against common sense. They say that space is imbued with a curyature and as such recoils on itself. The same nebula which is seen in the east is also seen in the west! The three-dimensional space is the surface of a four-dimensional hypersphere of the real space, the interior of which is as though knocked out. God's space is not really threedimensional as experienced by man but really fourdimensional, in which Time enters an i fuses into a 'continuum' with space (and in which the electromagaetic laws also hold good) and behold! Time enters into the equations with a prefix i i.e. I which does not exist at all. 7. All these ideas indicate that what is magic to the man's mind must have a Divine logic so to say. The world appears to be a world, but what exactly it is in Truth, God only knows. Our consciousness might be refracted so to say as is conveyed by the words "Parāñci khani vyatīņat svayambhūḥ, Tasmat parak pasyati nântardtman/ i.e. the creator created our senses as ·128 essentially extrovert and as such they are incapable of being introvert. 8. All mathematical logic paralyses when the Mathematician tries to hold commerce with infinity' or zero. Take for example the following simple idea, when we say that 5x3= 15, 15 contains 5 and 3 as factors. Extending the same idea, when we say 10x0=0 or 100 x0=0 etc., zero contains 10 or 100 or any other number for the matter of that as a factor. Is it not therefore a fact that the apparently humble, nothinglike zero, a terribly omnipotent entity which contains in its bosom unimaginably large numbers! Similar is the case when we deal with the socalled 'infinity'. Consider the two series 1+2+3+4.............. ......S, (say) 2+4+ 6+ ............ .....=S, (say) The first apparently contains the second, for, the second series is the sum of all even integers which are all contained in the first series. But behold! S, appears to be double S, for, every number of S, is double that of the corresponding number of S. Is there not therefore a meaning in the upanishadic word 'Anor anīyān mahato mahiyan' i.e. “The Brahman is at once smaller than the smallest and greater than the greatest". 9. Again in coordinate geometry we come across a peculiar idea namely that a circle apparently situated in the finitude goes through two imaginary points in the 'infinities' known as "circular points at infinity'. If that be so, a point is also a circle, only with a zero radius. Is it not therefore an idea that a point has also an existence in the infinities! 'Pado 'sya viśvā bhūtani .... the Veda i.e. the totality of the manifestation is only a part of the real universe. Much more lies beyond, immortal in the Heavens, than what man sees around him! In the light of all that has been said, the words of the Upanishad 'Aham asmi prathamaja stasya .... i.e., 'I am the son of immortality, I hail from the nodus of immortality. I pervade and extend beyond. I am at once immanent and transcendent' are all highly meaningful. It is 'T' that exists and everything is as though an extension of this consciousness T. Dr. Raghavan Felicitation Volume .,' says ·MYSTERY OF LIFE Ignorance stares us in the face, when we try to understand the mystery of Life, which is a Divine algebra, so to say. It seems as though man could never understand it; for, if he could, he is no more a man and a mortal. If the animal in its level of consciousness could understand our mathematical algebra, then perhaps, man, in his level of consciousness could understand that Divine algebra. From what bosom of Time am I to come into this Universe and into what Eternities am I to sink! No man, however scholarly he may be, or however great he may be, is allowed to understand this. The greatest of men is no more than a child crying in the night, a child crying for the light, only with a cry.' Put a child in darkness. It cries as we know. Bring a light to its sight. It stops crying; again remove the light and agaio it cries! So we reason out that the child wants light. But, does it articulate its desire? No, nor does it visualise its desire. Yet, its inner-most soul cries for the light. Even so are we. We live the life because we are given to live. We see because we are given to see and we feel like enjoying our existence because we are given the opportunity to enjoy. We do not comprehend the significance of life, nor its purpose. We are brought into this existence not with our consent or behest. We are here, we know not how and why. God (or call it Nature if you like) has set us a problem in algebra, so to say, namely to solve the mystery of life. To understand the problem we have to grasp a symbolism. The data are there and we are called upon, as though, to solve the problem. Day and night; light and darkness; life and death; the real and the unreal; consciousness and sleep; heat and cold: these are some of the symbols of Nature's Algebra, This terrestrial light should inform us about the existence of the Light celestial, besides which our light fades into darkness; this terrestrial life shall remind us of the Life celestial besides which ours is no more than death; this our consciousness should remind us of a higher limitless consciousness, besides which it is no more than sleep. The mountains and the oceans, the civers, and the clouds, the wind and the fire are some more symbols of the same algebra. 17, ·130 The Sun and the Moon, the planets and comets, the stars and the galaxies stand out as symbols of the Heavens. Each symbol has its own meaning and purpose. The totality of cosmic mani. festation may be said to be a function of many variables or unknowns. God is as though a great mathematician who has posed a great problem of algebra. In mathematics we are often asked to imagine a point tracing the x-axis. There we meet with the expression 'let x increase from minus infinity to plus infinity.' Neither the teacher nor the student stops a while as to how tbat could happen; for, there, I want to koow the point where x emerges out of the infinitude into the finitude or again the point where it merges into infinity from finitude. There can be no answer to this question; for, nobody knows where finitude merges into infinitude or where it emerges out of infinitude, Birth and death are two similar concepts. Nobody could understand from what infinitude this soul emerges into manifestation or again into what infinitude it merges after death. Zero and Infinity are two more concepts in Mathematics. They are as though twia sisters. No mathematician could enter into commerce with them. They baffle all analysis. Ia ordinary parlance Zero stands for nothing. But it is not exactly so. One could read more meaning into it. Take for example the equation 15-5x3; we say 15 contains 5 and 3 as factors. Just in a similar way, from the equation 100X0-0, we should say that zero contains 100 as a factor; so it contains a thousand as a factor, and so on a million and a billion. Thus it appears as though that the apparent nothingness of Zero is yet wrought into an omnipotence, as it were. The concept of infinity is also alike. So says the Upanishad- पूर्णमदः पूर्णमिदं पूर्णात् पूर्णमुदच्यते । पूर्णस्य पूर्णमादाय पूर्णमेवावशिष्यते ।। “That is Infinite; this is infinite; when this infinito has come out of that Infinite or again when this infinite merges into that Infinite, still it is Infinitel" -Published in Sapthagiri', Tirupati, Oct. 70 ·A SOLILOQUY OF THE SOUL The very fact that despite our knowledge or consent, we are thrown into a mortal coil, ugly and unhealthy in many a case, should inform us that we are not the masters of our destinies, We are also told that some mysterious force, call it "Fate' or 'Fortune' presides over our birth as well as our subsequent life in this mortal coil. The Divine or whatever be that Supreme power, never consulted me before giving me this birth. Had I been consulted, I would have bargained for a better birth, not only into a princely family but also into a more beautiful and a far healthier mould. I would have chosen to be born a prince, rich and royal, healthy and happy, blessed and beautiful! Alas! I am able to see that I could not choose my birth! Nobody ever asked me as to what kind of birth, I would like to have. I have a bitter feeling that a cruel Force threw me into ao ugly, unhealthy poor and powerless mortal mould, despite my desire. I feel I am an insignificant dot in the mighty ocean of existence, no more than a bubble in the Eternities of Time and no more than a point in the Infinite vistas of space. It is now my quest to kaow Who it is that put me into this birth, why He thus behaved as a cruel tyrant in His dispensation, and wby He paid a deaf ear to all my longings and cravings of my heart. Having stumbled into this cosmic picture, I know not wherefrom, I look around and behold! I am really stupefied by the supreme Dynamics of the universe, in whose bosom and depths, billions and billions of Suns roll, Our Son, whose praise we sing is after all a dwarf among them! But one thing, I find a law and an order in the totality of this cosmic manifestation. Nothing is arbitrary, There seems to be, as though, a Divine design! Down from the inner dynamism of the microcosm of an atom right upto the stu. pendous dynamism of the most distant galaxies, everything obeys the laws of mechanics. The Divine Constitution of the Universe, 80 to say, runs into many articles and clauses. There are an infinity of laws, mathematical, physical, chemical and even biological. Each of them is as though an article in the constitution. There is a mechanics which comprehends and governs all motion pf the ·132 material universe. I believe there should be a biological mechanics too, if not a spiritual mechanics, which should be governing the lives of all tbe living organisms, Neither birth por death cou'd be arbitrary events or accidents in the universe. If one is born blind and another deaf, and someone else as a beggar, the doctor's argument that it is all an accident, does not carry conviction to me. If a mere accident, to wbich a mother was subjected to while preguant, could create a distortion in the embryo and make the child boro-blind, if such an accident could preside over the destinies of that poor child all through its life, tben certainly something is wrong with God's creation. There might have been an accident in the ordinary parlance, but what I mean is that, that accident must have bad a deeper cause behind it. deeper cause behind it. Otherwise the entire creation is irrational, A mere car accident killing a youth and making his wife a widow and his children orphans, such an accident cannot preside over the destinies of all those lives, perhaps a dozen of them including tbe deceased. This car accident must have had a previous design. When even the minutest particle of dust is called upon to obey the laws of Newtonian mechanics, are there no laws to govern life? If that be so, certainly 'the pillared firmament is rottenness and the Earth's base is built on stubble.' - Published in “Sapthagiri', September 1970 DIVINITY IN MAN Very few people realize that man can diyinize himself and that he is of such divine potentialities. We find different people at different levels of evolution. Thus we have had amongst us a Mahatma Gandhi and simultaneously with him one who could assassinate him without the least compunction. Our scriptures inform us that there are some people who have just taken a human birth evolving out of animalhood and some more who had already taken a series of human births evolving from birth to birth. Thus the great Acharyas, speaking of the ſecent historic personages, Sankara, Ramanuja, Madhva, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Aurovindo and a host of others of that Divine stature must have been the people in whom evolution was far higher than in most of others. It must be noted that today, a good majority of men have not yet shed the vestiges of animalbood completely.

·133 (I request to be pardoned to make such a statement, which I do so only from a philosophical perspective.) Otherwise how could we account for all the gross and arrant behaviour of men, indulg. ing in all kinds of vandalism? It appears as though man has been lapsing again into brutality. We are often told that there is the animal in man, there is the man in man and there is God in man. When a man just engages himself in eating, drinking and sleeping and is never motivated by noble impulses, or when he commits acts of vanda. lism, we say that the animal in him is out. When we see a man justly behaviog himself and conducting himself in such a way that he does not intercept others' interests and does not act to the detriment of others, we say that he is just a man. If, on the other hand, a man acts always motivated by higher impulses, serving the cause of others and sacrificing his own interests, we say that there is god in him, The system of education which has been in vogue is evidently unable to sublimate the conduct of the Youth. It is not able to contact the higher levels of consciousness that slumber in man. We are told that there are the aesthetic, the moral and the spiritual levels of consciousness dormant in man. Man is now preoccupied always with a feverish heat in his own mundane and materialistic pursuits, and has no time to 'stand and stare', no time to enjoy the beauties of nature, and rendered incapable of enjoying even the kindly moonlight or a flowery bower. He is now too sophisticated and indeed this sophistication has been a disease with him. He sees no wrong in smoking a cigarette even in the sanctum sanctorum of a temple. The aesthetic awareness in him has become defunct if not dead. The moral level of consciousness is deeper than the aesthetic so much so when even the aesthetic is not awakened in him how could we expect him to behave with a moral rectitude? The spiritual level of consciousness is the deepest in man. When the two outer levels of consciousness namely the aesthetic and the moral are there in deep slumber, it is impossible to contact that spicit in man. Our system of education has failed even to contact ·134 the upper layers of the consciousness. We teach everything under the Sun, nothing about God or Guru. Knowledge is being imparted to feed the brain alone and the heart is not at all contacted, much less illuminated. Teachers are no Acharyas and students are no disciples. There is not any spiritual stature in the teachers and there is no discipline in the disciple. In the name of secularism, God has been driven out of the educational institutions and that great Sanskrit literature or the philosophical lore has been abolished or relegated to a corner and are rendered hardly able to survive. Thus in all the syllabi and curricula there is nothing that can shed a chastening influence on the youth, nothing that could shed light on the starved soul of the student. How could you expect a student to revere his teacher if he is not taught anything about God? On the other hand, even students are being taught that there can be no God at all but only a Nature at work in the universe. How could a blind nature without any Gnostic Force behind, be equal to the task of formulating laws and obeying them. Certainly it might obey laws but could never formulate them. Our scriptures assure us that man is essentially divine. Even the dull and dumb physical matter is no other than the spirit involved. It is the spirit that gets awakened when the physical matter is rendered physico-chemical, and subsequently gets vitalized. It is the spirit that creates a mind in the groping vital force and it is again the spirit that establishes a centre of consciousness in that living piece of organism giving it a perceptive faculty. Thus far we have postulated the Annamaya, the Prāgamaya and the Manomaya Kosas or sheaths. Man has evolved thus far and is now beating about the bush. He is not able to cut out of the circle of circumambulation. He has yet to open himself out to the Vijñādamaya Kosa substituting intuition in the place of reason. Then there comes the ultimate consummation in the dawn of the Anandamaya Koša, the pure blissful existence, at which stage the Divine potentialities of man will have received the fullest expression endowing him with an integral vision, the so-called cosmic consciousness. Men stand vouchsafed to all this process of evolution, and are rightly acclaimed as TRT SET; Sons of ·135 immortality hailing from the nodus of immortality and have been created capable of pervading and extending beyond all manifestation 'अहं विश्वं भुवनमभ्यभवाम्' as the Upanishad declares. This is the God in man. -Published in "Sapthagiri', Tirupati, Jan 71 KARMA, BHAKTI AND VALUES OF LIFE There are people who try to enter into commerce with the Divine even. They take a vow to visit the temple of Lord Veokateśvara, if only, He favours them in advance, not after the visit, Even standing before the Lord in the sanctum sanctorum they begin to enumerate in their heart of hearts what all they desire, as if the Lord could not understand their desires unless enumurated. One desire, if fulfilled, inspires them to pay one more visit. Though perhaps the Lord laughs in his sleeves at such people approaching Him with mere mercitary motives, yet, behold! He does not frown on them. Certainly He grants their desires, if they are not too sophisticated. "Arto, Jijñāsuh Artharthſ Jñadi ca" says Lord Krishna in the Bhagavadgita, Four kinds of people worship the Lord: (i) those in deep distress, (2) those in whom a quest for the Divine just sprouts up, (3) those who bargain for mundane matters and (4) those who are really Divine souls. Most of us come under the third category or under the first just a few under the second and far fewer under the fourth. An agnostic that is, one who pleads ignorance when a question is raised as to the existence of God, is better than one who rules out His existence; a man who believes that there is a Supreme force guiding the universe, is far better than an agoostic; and a man who not only feels the existence of such a Supreme Consciousness, but also leads a prayerful life is by far superior to the remaining Bhakti is not a commodity that could be purchased in the market. It must well out from the very depths of the heart. A machine-like or a business-like chanting of the Lord's name or a matter-of-fact repitition of prioted prayers do not go very far, ·136 Real Bhakti is a cry of the Soul; it is the anguish of a heart that yearns to contact the divine. Repressed under the heels of calamitous circumstances, men very often beat their breasts and raise a cry in a pitiable appeal to some Supreme force which they suppose to have wrought that calamity. There are many who have never knows what real Bhakti is, though many have just bave an iota of it in their bosoms, Bbakti really dawns on the hearts of men when an impending calamity stares them in the face; but alas! that fervuur vanishes soon once they are out of the shadow of the calamity. Though in youthful arrogance or perversion of thought, some people declare that Bhakti is a kind of nervous disease, it does not take them long to be shown their place in this mighty universe. Hiranyakasipus are being born even today, and surely they shall reap their retribution ere long. Nobody need argue for the existence of a God, for, God does not stand in need of scholarly dissertations. God knows how to handle men and matters, and when to deal them His dispensation, The question is very often asked even by many a scholar that if as has been mentioned in the Bhagavadgita 'Avasyam anubhoktavyam kştam karma śubhāśubham' people are to reap merely what they have sown, how could Bhakti avert misfortunes that have been destined to overtake men according to their past Karma. In other words, if the so-called prāktana. Karma is inexorable, and everyone, even the mightiest of men bas to bow before that dispensation, what is the good of Bhakti which cannot reverse the calamitous situation. This is a very important and pertinent point which calls for an elucidation. If we care to delve into the numerous puranic anecdotes, for example tbat of the Gajendra in the Bhāgavatam and that of Märkaņdeya, at once the question is answered, that 'Intensive prayer and absolute self-surrender' do bave the power even to overcome Death. It is mentioned in our astrological texts that when Death looks into our face, we are advised to do Mrityum jaya Japa, which alone could save us, where all medicines bave failed. There is nothing that prayer cannot achieve. More things are wrought by prayer than the world dreams of 'says Tennyson. Men should have a real faith in this and give up all argumentation. What we witness all over the world is exactly a crisis of faith. We, ·137 here in India, have thrown all our hallowed traditions to the wiods, buried all of our ancient literature in the bowels of antiquaria if not deep down in the Bay of Bengal; and have been closely treading on the beels of the western materialists, with absolutely no faith in the totality of our literary heritage. Not all, of course, are of that kind; but the majority of men today even in India wbich was once a cradle of spirituality are turning out to be sceptics and atheists. The reason is not far to seek, Nowhere in our educational Institutions, is there a chair for spirituality or values of life. We teach everything under the Sun, Mathematics and Physics, Chemistry and Biology, Economics and History, Geography and Geology but nothing about God or Guru. So, our young men today are what they are, and what wonder is there if professors are man-handled and Universities are closed. It is high time that those at the helm do a real thinking and exert to set right things before it is too late. An educational system which ignores the inculcation of values of life, a system which could not contact and enliven the hearts of young, a system which could not cater to the nobler impulses and deeper levels of consciousness the moral, the aesthetic and the spiritual that crave for light, is doomed to fail in the long run. When the student comes to the teacher for bread as it were, the teacher has no bread to give but slopes. The soul craves for a light and that light is missing in the very many temples of learning. It is time to cry a halt to all such university education, which fails to inculcate a Divine-aware- Dess in the miods of young men. Are we not placing a sword in the hands of lads without giving them the training how to use it, wbere to use it and when to use it? The hydrogen bomb is the Kalakūta as it were, that was begotton out of churning the ocean of Science and we have no Rudra to gulp it and save the humanity at large. May the Divine come to our rescue! --Published in 'Sapthagiri', December, 1971 18 ·PLAY OF LIFE Man speaks of a koopastha-mandüka, a frog sitting in a well, perhaps blissfully ignorant of the outer world. Is not the position of man akin to that of the frog? True, it is that he constitues a higher species and seems to be placed at the helm in God's creation; but so far as his mastery over his own life is concerned, it must be accepted, he is a puppet in the hands of some Supreme Force call it God or Nature or Fate or Fortune. Man can only propose. All his life is a groping in the dark pursuing a path which he designs for a vague happiness, Ultimately he just lives and lives as he is given to live, the longing to live and enjoy life being always at the back of his mind. The biological law of self-preservation and self-perpetuation motivates him as much as it motivates any other living organism. The inner craving of the heart is always to live and enjoy life. All the lifelong exertion to learn and earn bas no more purpose than to enable himself to exist and enable bis progeny to live and continue his life through theirs. The strongest desire that is there to live signifies that the very life carries with it a sense of enjoyment, Why, otherwise, does an old and decrepit man, blind or deaf, , suffering even from an incurable disease and with one foot in the grave, still linger in this world and does not like to die away, and even while dying why does he cast a long lingering look behind, informing as though that he is forced to die and is not dying of his own accord? Apart from this fact that the very life is wrought within with a secret pleasure of existence, there is still another strong force of desire that makes man to strive to perpetuate his memory not merely through the biological continuity of life through his progeny, but by a motivating spirit of excellence, to excel all others either through power or pelf, fame or name. It is this desire that is responsible for all the activity in the world, political or economical or intellectual. If the beggar begs with a just desire to live and just yearns to live, the man who is able to live being well-placed does ·139 not stop from exertiog for more money. The man who is already a millionaire still strives to increase his wealth as though motivated by a money-wania. Thus going on earning, his activity does not cease with that, but he seeks to become an M.L.A., in the least, The man who has been already an M.L.A., aspires to become a Minister and the man who has been already a Minister wants to become the Chief Minister. The Chief Minister even, is not satisfied with his being just a Chief Minister but still yearns to become the Prime Minister. Even that Prime Minister is not satisfied with his position but still craves for something higher and if that something higher is not within his reach, just tries to cling to his position as long as he could. Who is there a contented soul in this world ? This is all the play of life. One is born here and one dies there. One is married here and another loses his wife somewhere else. It is given to some to rejoice in perennial bliss whereas some are thrown into abysmal depths of misery. To some, God appears to be a cloud of nectar whereas to some He appears to be working untold misery and dealing death with a stone-heart, Wherefrom are these men born? How were they born? How are they growing? Why do they die? And where do they go after death? Whoever knows the meaning of this wonderful play of life? 3 What was eaten or drunk yesterday, appears today as though it was never eaten and never drunk, for, again it requires to be eaten, again it requires to be drunk, Mangoes were eaten last year to one's fill again the soul craves for them as if one has never had them. Again and again we see men being born and again and again we see them dying. When did this game of Life start? How long does this game ensue? Was there a beginning to this and will there be an end to it? How many billions of billions of men have been born and dead and how many more will be born only to die? What a wonderful play of Life? And whoever could understand it save that Omniscience? Of course these questions have never been, nor can ever be answered. This is the play of life. --Published in Sapthagiri', November, 1971 ·WHAT IS BHAKTI? Bhakti is a cry of the soul encaged in a mortal coil, and repressed under the beels of calamitous circumstances that effect the mortal coil. The Soul, inspite of the fact that it has a supreme divine stature, forgets its own divinity and wrongly identifies itself with the mortal coil, which it inhabits. In other words the corporal confinement of the soul puts it under a hallucination that it dies away along with the perishable body in which it is lodged. Such a soul handicapped under its association with a mortal shell of the body, reminds us of what is happening now-adays in the field of politics, reminds us of a monarch who is placed behind the bars by a military coup. The wrong identification of the immortal soul with a mortal body arises of a time-old association of the soul with such mortal coils, time and again, birth after birth, having been thrown into such mortal coils according to a Divine Constitution which works according to laws of a Spiritual mechanics, which we are not aware of. The l'in me, therefore, is not my body, nor my mind; for the matter of that, my mind, which is itself of an earthly nature, is the expression a vital force which keeps my body and soul together and which acts under a refracted consciousness of the soul making the soul forget its own Divine stature. The vital force is an element belonging to a Super-chemistry and acts like a cement that binds the soul to the body. It is something like an electric current pervading the body and galvanizing it. Beneath this sheath of my galvanized body, lies my mind, which may be "compared with a flame that envelops the fire of my soul. The 'I' in me, which may be looked upon as a centre of consciousness (which is no other than the Supreme Consciousness) perculates through my senses having been refracted while passing through the medium of my mind, and make me see a world before my eyes. It is ultimately the mischief of my mind that is responsible for the perversion if not the illusion that makes my soul identify itself with the body, ·141 Under this analysis done by my intelligence, which is the light cast by my soul into the receptacle of my mind, if I could realize that आई ज्वलति ज्योतिरहमस्मि, ज्योतिज्वलति ब्रह्माऽहमस्मि, ब्रह्माऽमस्नि, अहमस्मि ब्रह्माऽहमस्नि, अहमोवाऽहं मां जुहोमि स्वाहा । योऽहमस्मि 'I am no other than the Supreme Divine', it is well and good. If on the other hand, I labour under the misapprehension that I am to die away with the body, the Bhakti which is an expression of the cry of my soul, feeliog repressed under a wrong identification of the soul with my body, makes an appeal to that Supreme Divint to remove that misapprehension. It is as though a cry of the soul to recover its identity. Thus Bhakti is an appeal to the Supreme Divine. If it is not there, the law of Karma, the inexorable law of retribution takes its own course. Some wrongly argue that if what has been said by Lord Krishna in the Bhagavadgitā, अवश्यमनुभोक्तव्यं कृतं कर्म शुभाशुभम् । that the law of retribution is inexorable, and if what has been destined to happen must happen, then what is the effect or purpose of Bhakti? The answer is simple. The Supreme Divine has framed a Constitution but it does not bind Him in his omnipo. tence. In other words that Constitution, which prescribed the law of retribution does not cripple the omnipotence of the Divine so much so the Divine can always save the crying soul, hearing its appeal, even repealing the law of retribution. The cry of 'Govinda' emerging out of thousands of throats in the Sanctum Sanctorum of Lord Venkatesvara, cannot but thrill any thoughtful and sensitive man. It is no other than the cry of the Soul. May the Lord grant peace unto those souls! Bliss is a supreme peace of the mind. Calamities destroy that peace and make us feel unhappy. No amount of wealth could beget that peace. Bhakti alone could restore the imbalance ·142 to a balance. A mind unhinged under calamities could be fulcrumed back to its centre by Bhakti alone. Thus Bhakti is a kind of a tonic to the mind that has been wounded under repression of calamities. It heels the wound of the mind and restores the peace that has been lost. Bhakti, Jñana and Vairāgya are the tbree factors that divinize a man and help the soul to recover its Divine Stature. No spiritual evolution is possible without tbese three factors. No amount of bookish knowledge makes a mortal advance a step towards the divine without these three factors. Bhakti is thus an essential prerequisite, a Sine qua non that puts a man on a Divine track, distracting bim from the mundane. It opens the eyes of the mundane man to a realization of his Divine stature. Generally Bhakti dawns upon a mind that gets wounded by circumstances. He is called a real pandit who does not require a calamity to open his eyes towards the Supreme Divine. May such a race of Supermen arise out of this blind human race that has not yet cast away its sub-human nature! ---Published in 'Sapthagiri', Tirupati, Jan. '72 THE GOAL OF HUMAN LIFE Life and in particular human life exists perhaps only on the surface of the earth according to some scientists. Some others hold that there might be other solar systems just like ours having planetary systems of their own, and in a good number of such planets life might be existing. If that be so, life might have been more evolved on some of those planets and even the existence of superhuman races need not be ruled out. According to one scientist one star out of seven must have devoloped planetary systems (each star is a San according to astronomy). If this be a truth or near the truth certainly there must be advanced species of living beings on some of those planets in some corner of the universe, ·143 We need not take into account these surmises when we try to discuss the goal of human life that exists, here and now, on the surface of the earth, for the goal of all such life must be one and the same. We must be aware of our own limitations, when we try to peep into the so-called divine mysteries. Our discoursing reason might not go very far. Or we might be perceiving through a consciousness which might have been refracted, so to say. As such we are perhaps denied a direct perception of the truth of our existence, Thus things might not be what they seem and the so-called “thing-in-itself' could never be understood by man, In spite of all this bandicap, if this handicap be there, man cannot keep upinquisitive about his life and nature. In fact, man's inquistive consciousness alone has been responsible for so many wonderful scientific discoveries and technological advances. This activity in man to understand things around him seems to be a cosmic force, working on him, perhaps to a higher purpose. Perchance it would raise him out of his obscure physical mentality to a plenary supramental illumination, as envisaged by Sri Aurovindo. Thus there are two opposite possibilties. On the one hand, man might have been conditioned and could never aspire to divinize himself, so to say. On the other hand, his evolution might have a meaning and a purpose and he need not despair about his further progress. These two views (call them pessimism and optimism if you like) are something like the two mighty cosmic forces of gravitation and expansion which are perceptible in the stellar universes, called the galactic systems. Let us take a retrospective view generally taken by the biologists and geologists. Ever since the first man came into the cosmic picture of the universe, billions of billions of men must have lived their lives and died. They are all buried in the bosom of Time. Ever so many civilizations sprang up only to be buried. Cataclysms both terrestrial and astronomical have been there which appear to have beco crying a halt to all human endeavour and pride, That being so, what guarantee is there that our present progress of Science and technology keeps ·144 on its pace unham pered by such devastating forces? This is a pessimistic view of the matter. According to this view men are no more than 'आशातिकाः क्रिमय इव' worms which multiply themselves into millions and billions in an hour or two and expend their lives very soon after. Thus perhaps the race of humanity is such a battalion, the only difference being a longer duration of life. If it be really so, man's pride is all a shadow. There is another point of view which postulates individual evolution and individual salvation. Just as amongst a band of players of a game, some are declared having won the game so also some are born with a spiritual inspiration, with whose momentum they live their lives towards a consummation, which people call salvation, The seers and sages are all considered to belong to this class, In the wake of the recent theories of evolution and advances made by science, Sri Aurovindo bas delivered a message, that evolution could be consciously directed and that here and now, through an integral yoga man could effect a transformation of his mortal coil even. According to bim, bitherto, supermen called sages and seers were born once in a way as a freak of nature, but it is quite possible that such a superhuman species could take its birth as a race in the future. In other words, Dature's evolution has a meaning and a purpose, and should enable man to rise to the highest altitude of his being. How could evolution be consciously directed? Man is man wherever he be, whether he be an American or a Russian, or an Indian or an Englishman. Let America advance in science, and let Russia advance in technology. Let ao lodian, on the other hand spiritualize himself. Yet we say, man is doing all this. If man casts away the brute in him, and if humanity be knit closer and get integrated into one race, and develop a spiritual outlook of life seriously intent upon unfolding its divine potentialities, there is indeed a prospective career before man, To start this kind of career, man has to transcend his parron national outlook, and realize at once that all men form ·145 one brotherhood, and that there is a divine programme to be followed to raise himself out of bis subhuman preoccupation. Man killing man and a nation devastating another Dation should inform us that man has not yet given up the law of the jungle, that he has not yet given up the vestiges of animalhood. If good sense prevails in man even now as has been envisaged by the good many international humanitarian iostitutions, right from the U. N. O. down to the scout movement, there is every likelihood of man evolving still further. He should realize that all religions are one or at least he should accept the G. C. M. of all those religions as the basis for a scientific universal religion. According to such a religion, man has got to realize that there is a Supreme Divine Intelligence shaping the destinies of the universe as well as governing the evolution of men. But for such a supreme consciousness working all over the universe, we could not have had a meaningful and a habitable world. Such a realization should work in a man divinized love which invokes peace unto the life at la' ge and a prayerful attitude to the Supreme Divine Intelligence, which purges man of all hatred towards others. This is the first step that is to be taken by man consciously and collectively towards an internal evolution of the heart. Hitherto man has been feeding the brain at the the expense of the heart, progressing entirely as an extrovert and bothing as introvert. He has had a lop-sided development alone, in having invented the hydrogen bomb and it has been nothing short of a sword in the hand of a mad man. Time is ripe to cry a halt to such a further progress so long as man does not shed the brute in him. Man should now address himself as to how he could develop his inner potentialities. The Vedic defined the goal of human life as Moksha or individual salvation. The Western Scientist may not accept this as the goal, H: might desire and define it as a stage at which man should give birth to life in a Scientific sense) and. conquer death. In other words, man should attain omnipotence in his own human life. Not only that, man would like to attain omniscience also living in flesh and blood Today man appears to have taken a blind lane. Whatever be the prospect of further progress danger stares him in the face, The ghastly weapons he has devised threaten to extinguish seer ·146 all human life. Like a mortal disease born within the body, which kills that body, internal ragiog strife amongst med born out of mutual batred, is there ready to bring an end to all bumanity. The very advances made by man in the field of science are proving suicidal. After man is dead and gone out of the cosmic picture an ant alive in a cavs might be writing an elegy over man in terms very much like: "Here once lived an animal called man, who developed a mighty intellect that did him to death". Let us hope and pray that such a fate will not overtake us. Hearken to the voice of the Upanishads: "Peace, Peace, Peace !" It is not too late, Let us retreat our steps from the course of our pursuit. Let love supp'ant hatred and let humanism supplant nationalism. Let not man demonize himself. Evolution if it be a fact, must superhumanise man, The voice of a pbilosopher trying to invoke peace, however great he might be, will be today a distant cry and a cry in the wilderness, On the other hand, the clarion call of a national leader on the eve of declaring a war against another nation will bave an immediate response from millions of throats. It is exactly the point at wbich the brute comes up out of man, however much sublimate the sentiment of patriotism appears to be and appeals to men, The sentiment of the present-day nationalism and the consequent itch to fight for the cause of that kind of nationalism must both be looked upon as out-moded. Nations must immediately learn to coexist and provide peace unto the people. Peace is the most potential of all. Peace helps man to bring out the best out of himself, The Vedic seers declared at the top of their voice, that evolution must be more internal. Prayer and penance were their watch-words. More things are wrought by prayer than the world dreams of and there is nothing that penance could not acbievo. This principle has to be recognized by man now more than before. Human outlook bas thus to be sublimated and spiritual values of life have to be recognized. Humanity as a whole has to evolve, and for such an evolution to be possible, man has to sink all differences national or otherwise, Moral, aesthotic and spiritual evolution must begin to take place more than even advance in science. The sooner this is recognized, tha better it is far man to survive and flourish on the right track.

·IS THERE EVOLUTION ? Scientists postulate a theory of Evolution. Many philosophers too subscribe to it. Before the advent of Astro-physics, scientists went to the extent of reposing dogmatic faith in the theory of evolution. Astro-Physics has bestowed a second thought over the theory and has been reversing the faith. It postulates that evolution and involution exist there cheek by jowl. Astro- Physicists argue that while there are some dying stars among the galaxies, some new stars are in the making. There is what is called 'inter-stellar matter which is capable of begetting many more millions of stars. God is still on the job of creation. In other words, while there is a Rudra who has been dealing death on one hand, there is also a Brahma who is untired of his job of creating It does not require an Astro-physicist to reveal this. One is born here, one dies there. One is married here. One is bereaved of his wife simultaneously in some corner. All around we see play of forces, on one hand creative and on the other destructive There are some Vedic passages which visualise the forces of death all around. They tend to show that life is onnatural and is being lived against odds, against a host of destructive forces. Death is reported to be waiting on every life, ready to gulp at the nick of time. Without our knowing, inspite of our best efforts, seeds of Death might enter our body either through the air we breathe, or through the water we drink or the food that we eat, or even the ground that we tread. If Life is called evolution, Death is there close on the heels, which may be looked upon as involuation. Sri Aurovindo postulated that bumanity is going to evolve a superhuman race ere long. Hitherto a Vasishtha was born as a freak of Nature, and we had to wait a century of more to ser a ·148 Suka taking birth. According to Sri Aurovindo, there was originally the physical matter, which in course of time became physico-chemical; then that physico-chemical matter got vitalised, that is, life had impregnated it. For some time that life was groping blind; then miod had entered into it. This is up to the point of Annamaya Kosa, Prāṇamaya Kośa and Manomaya Kośa which the Taittriya Upanişad speaks of. Then there is the Vijñanamaya Kośa. The entire realm of organic life consisting of the Ud-bhijjas i.e., botanical life, the Swedajas i.e., the realm of insects, the Aņdajas, the realm of birds and the Jarāyujas, the realm of animalhood or the zoological life, has had the sanction of the first three Košas mentioned above. When man came into the cosmic picture, he came imbued with the Vijñānamaya Kosa as well. While the animal is reported to have only a perceptive faculty, man not only perceives but also apperceives i.e., he can unite and assimilate a few perception to a mass of ideas already possessed by him. By dint of this apperceptive faculty man could not only observe but also could understand and reason out. This is all connoted by the Vijñānamaya Kośa at its initial levels of working. But there is another higher faculty which is not so expressed in a normal man. It is what we call intuition. This is a rare faculty reported to have been possessed by one belonging to the superhuman race, though an occasional glimmer of intuition has its impact on the mental surface of an intellectual even. Thus if Ramanujam the famous mathematician discovered a good number of theorems, which no less a mathematician than Hardy failed to comprehend immediately or if Einstein postulated the equation that E = mcs we say that they saw through intuition, not through reasoping as we do. The first discoverer of what we call the "Pythagoras theorem 'could not have discovered it through a process of reason but only through a glimmer of intuition. What Sri Aurovipdo says is that this faculty of intuition, and the allied higher faculties clair-audience, clairvoyance etc., belong to the realm of the superman. He says that the Vedic seers Vasishtha and others were supermen working through the supramental activity. Their knowledge is described as the dif79, Those supermen could ·149 have a direct perception, could see and understand things direct without the good offices of the vicarious phenomeson of observing and reasoning. According to Sri Aurovindo upto now Supermen were there, and are still being born only once in a way as freaks of nature, but in the years to come, a race of Supermen will take its birth in the course of evolution. men. Man has been beating about the bush for long and time is ripe when he will break open through the circle within which has been copfiped ever since the first man appeared in the cosmic picture. Then it will be that the Anandamaya Kośa opens in In Sri Aurovindo's language, matter is the involved spirit, and spirit is the evolved matter, just as in the language of nuclear physics matter is bottled energy and energy is expended matter. Hitherto the physicist thought that matter and energy were entirely two different categories. Einstein's equation quoted above is the relation first expressed to connote their equivalence. Just as the Astro-physicist says that the universe started expanding long long ago, has been expanding and may be expanding further until a sudden collapse or contraction takes place, we know not when, so also out of the phsysical matter, spirit began to evolve and is bound to evolve further till man could superhumanise himself, says Sri Aurobindo. Thermodynamics speaks of entropy with the implication that the matter of the universe gradually gets expended away in the form of dissipated energy, which is also thus a kind of expansion. Our Purānas give us an inverted picture. We are told that we are now in the Kaliyuga, a Yuga where Kali bas his full sway i.e., where quarrels, battles and wars will be taking place day in and day out and where the brute-force will have the upperband, not the ethical, nor the spiritual. Krita, Tretā and Dvāpara had elapsed one after the other. Krita was a Satya-yuga i.e., a period when Truth prevailed everywhere, and Dharma ruled all over. When Krita gave place to Dvipara, degeneration set in and gradually thereafter through Dvāpara and Kali things got from bad to worse. As we still go further in this Kali the two ·150 words Satya and Dharma will be found only in dictionaries. Man exploits man and the brute will have its utmost sway. This pessimistic picture is quite opposed to what Sri Aurovindo has promised us. As we understand the world, today Kali is having its full play. All around we see wars, man hating man, man killing man. Everyday it appears as though we are heading towards a crisis. Population has reached the explosion limit, and God only knows what is in store for us with all nations armed to the teeth and with hundreds of hydrogen bombs itching for a demonstration. Apart from scriptures and Purāpas, apart from what philosophers have indicated, it is not difficult to visualise one thing. Animals existed even in the so-called Krita yuga; they exist even today. Rishis existed in that Krita yuga. They exist even today, only out of our gamut. Pativratās are reported to have been existing. They exist even today. In fact, good and bad have always existed together as ebb and tide, as heat and cold and as light and darkness. The concept of good could never be there unless there is also bad. The concept of cold could never be there unless there is also heat. Night follows the day and day should follow the night. A display of goodness is inmediately followed by a display of brutality. The Veda declares: marETT: #TETT 37 i.e., when there existed godly forces there existed also asuric forces. Why! Man is himself a bundle of these two forces. He is a split personality so to say. Sometimes the god in him comes out, sometimes the brute in him. are Thus we see that the so-called dvandvas exist there as long as there is the universe. Evolution and involution two fundamental principles, two wheels 80 to say on which God bicycles. There could not be a straight evolution even as there could not be, as is revealed by the theory of relativity, an infinite straight line, A straight line recoils on itself apd space gets curved in the infinities. Nor could there ·151 be a plane and we are in fact living in a non-euclidean geometry. Further, space and time are not two distinct entities as the pigmy of a man sees than with his finite vision. God's space is a harmonious blend of the two which goes by the name the space-time continuum in which alone Maxwell's electromagnetic equations bold good. Or perhaps, to talk as a pbilosopher, God is beyond space and time. In short, things are not what they seem, and man is too small to understand the divine algebra. Published in 'Sapthagiri', March 72. Bharati Vijayam Press, Madras-5

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