Śrī Sadguru Stuti Kusumāñjali

01

The Dedication

( 1 ) O Lord of the perfected! Śrī Siddha Siddheśvar! The lords of perfection bow to you. May

this hymn of verses become a honey-bee, and find its place upon the Lord's lotus feet.

( 2 ) O lord of sages! King among yogis! Boundless is your splendour. You are the sun to the

lotus of wisdom, shining forever in the one heart. Strung with diamond, jewel and pearl

obtained by your grace, this slender garland of your virtues is laid at your feet.

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02

Preface

by Śrī Guru-charaṇāśrit [Mahendra Mahārāj — "one who has taken refuge at the Lord's feet"]

Every person of discernment knows this truth: no unreal, visible thing has ever satisfied a

human being. The soul's search for truth, its honest striving after wholeness, its many

disciplines and observances — none of these could bring it face to face with an undivided

peace. The one great cause of realising truth is the grace of the great souls, and that alone.

"By the grace of the great, and by that alone."

That power of grace is present everywhere, always, and equally; and yet we go on being denied

the winning of it. The chief obstacle in us is aversion. Put away this aversion born of turning

the face aside, and stand before the supremely compassionate one — the sole refuge, the first

home of all happiness and all beauty, the very form of the power beyond the beyond, the friend

of all, the venerable great one.

There are many roads into that happy refuge. The best of them is stuti (a hymn of praise) —

that which makes known the Name, the virtues, the līlā (divine play — the Lord's acts in the

world), and the very form of the Lord. This practice of reciting a stotra is very ancient.

However excellent the service, worship and adoration a sādhaka (spiritual aspirant) may

offer, until some praise has been sung at the end of it, a sense of incompleteness lingers in

the heart.

Moved by this feeling, the Śrī Sadguru Stuti Kusumāñjali is now published for the good of

those who love the spiritual life. Full of both wisdom and devotion, this sweet book — itself

of the nature of supreme bliss — will prove of the highest use to all who long for the good.

Its author is the Sāhityāchārya Paṇḍit Śrī Viṣṇudatt Śāstrī: a man who goes to the heart of

things, deeply feeling, and learned in literature, Purāṇa and philosophy. He is the eldest son

of Paṇḍit Śrī Chiranjīvlāljī Miśra of Alwar. Descended from the Miśra line of the royal house,

he is keeper of the temple of Śrī Lakṣmaṇajī granted by the crown. By the Lord's grace this

family is rich in learning, devotion, wealth, kinsfolk and standing. He is a full vessel of

Śrī Sadgurudev's grace. That unearned grace of Śrī Sadgurudev upon him, and his own steadfast

devotion, are the real cause of this holy book coming into being. That a work so sound in

doctrine, so strengthening to the wise, and so praised by the learned, should have been

composed within the short span of a single fortnight is proof of the extraordinary gift the

Sadguru has bestowed.

At the close of this short statement, wishing well to author, publisher and readers alike, I

lay down my pen with a heart full of this hope: that through the hearing and pondering of

these grace-filled verses, the whole company of mankind may find happiness and peace. Praise of

the Sadguru does not merely set earnest seekers on the road to the good — the very hearing and

pondering of it makes them, at once, the good itself.

Ah, brothers! How far can one tell the greatness of this jewel of a book, filled with the worth

and glory of the Sadgurudev — that descent of Śiva, the Supreme Brahman in form, adorned with

every excellence? Come! O man scorched by the three afflictions, come! Do not squander the

priceless treasure of your life, which is speech. Its whole meaning lies in this: that without

hesitation, in faith and trust, you recite this life and this hymn daily. Let the seekers

gather and sing it together. Hear it from the lotus mouth of Śrī Sūta himself: *"That utterance

by which the Lord's most holy glory is sung is the most delightful and the most pleasing, and

seems new again at every moment. From it the taste of supreme bliss goes on being known for

endless time. The ocean of a man's grief is dried up forever by the singing of the glory of the

Lord of noble renown."*

"Śrī Guru-charaṇāśrit"

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03

A Humble Submission

by the author

In this boundless and unavailing ocean of becoming, the Sadguru alone is the one incomparable

helmsman. Without the compassion of Śrī Sadgurudev, not even those endowed with divine and

more-than-earthly power — the avatāras themselves — are able to make the crossing of this sea

of worldly existence entire and complete. It was to make this subtlest of first principles

plain that Śrī Rām, the perfect man of righteousness, and Śrī Kṛṣṇachandra, the perfect man of

divine play, root of joy and full descent of the Lord's every art, took refuge with the great

sages Vaśiṣṭha and Sāndīpani.

It was to unlock this same piercing secret that Śrī Gosvāmī Tulsīdāsjī Mahārāj set it down in

letters of gold in the Rāmcharitmānas:

That is: a man may possess the majesty of Brahmā and of Śaṅkar, and even so, without the grace

of Śrī Sadgurudev he cannot cross this unfathomable and hard-passaged sea of becoming.

When we take the word guru and explain it by the rules of grammar, the analysis runs

gṛṇāti — upadiśati, iti guruḥ: "he speaks forth, he instructs; therefore, guru." By this, the

guru is the one who instructs in first principles.

Whether the instruction is spoken, or given by a sign, or given as a silent exposition, in all

three of these forms it carries — each more than the last — the power to destroy ignorance and

worldly affliction root and branch.

That is to say: instruction by a sign is more powerful than spoken instruction, and destroys

the darkness of ignorance faster and more completely; and beyond both of these, the instruction

given by the Sadguru through silent exposition possesses the more-than-earthly capacity to make

the tablet of the heart blaze, in a single instant, with the divine light of a thousand suns.

Just as in this world the Supreme Brahman is one only — as the words of scripture record,

"ekam evādvitīyaṁ brahma neha nānāsti kiñchana" ("Brahman is one alone, without a second;

there is no manifoldness here at all") — so too the supreme guru is one only. But just as that

Brahman, joined with divine and more-than-earthly power, though one, is soaked through the

whole moving and unmoving universe with its divine power of consciousness, and no element

whatever is empty of its being, so too the supreme guru is soaked through the hearts of all the

universes with his divine power, whose nature is Truth, Consciousness and Bliss.

The meaning of this is that whoever a particular person's guru may be — whether he is endowed

with the greatest of all power and strength of soul, or is the least of the least (in the eyes

of others) — for that particular person he alone is Brahman made visible, the giver of the

fruits of the four aims of life. For consider: in some great city, in a hundred thousand

places, in ten million houses, small bulbs and large are fitted, and all of them shine by the

electric power produced from a single power station. Let a hand come into direct contact with

the wire of even the smallest of those bulbs, and that great electric power will, by its own

attraction, strike the man senseless in an instant — exactly as it strikes down one who touches

the wire of some great bulb. The reason appears to be simply this: that the electric power

present equally in both the small and the great centres of light is one and the same principle,

arriving equally from that one great power station. In the same way, whomever we hold to be our

guru, though he be the least — the very principle that shines out in the greatest of teachers

is the one root principle by which the heart of every guru is lit. Therefore, since all are

connected to one and the same centre, all are quickened by one and the same power; for the

word guru, being without beginning, finds its full meaning by many roads in that one supreme

Sadgurudev, Śiva-Brahman. And so, just as "sarva-deva-namaskāraḥ keśavaṁ prati gachchhati" —

the salutation made to the whole company of the gods goes to Keśava, since he is the root of

all the gods, and is offered to the vast supreme Being — in the same way the faith, devotion

and love shown towards every guru in the world, however many they be, is likewise laid at the

feet of that same supreme Śrī Sadguru, Śiva-Brahman.

To nourish this very truth, the sages who made the scriptures bowed to the guru as being the

form of Brahmā, Viṣṇu and Maheśvara (the Great Lord), and of the Supreme Brahman made visible,

in such sayings as:

For just as all rivers, small and great, come together and find their end in the sea from which

they first rose, so in the same way the worship of all gurus whatsoever is worship of that

supreme guru; and worship of Śrī Sadgurudev, who is Sāmba Sadāśiva (Śiva together with Ambā,

his Śakti) in image, is worship of one's own guru.

To quicken this same principle, by his own divine and more-than-earthly power of consciousness

he took pity on this worm of worldly things —

— and according to such words as these, raining down the nectar of grace and entering the heart

in person, he showed the supreme kindness of having this "divine hymn" set down in writing: a

hymn in whose every line there lives an undiminished power to melt the heart and to water the

lotus feet of the blessed Lord, whose nature is Truth, Consciousness and Bliss, with an

unbroken flow of the tears of joy — and, with it, the supreme capacity for self-surrender.

Therefore: by this effort, obtained by the direct grace of Śrī Sadgurudev, set down in writing

by that grace, made for the sake of that grace, and free of all sectarian partisanship — do you

also show the kindness of worshipping your own gurus and so becoming vessels of grace. For this

is the worship of the wholly pure principle of guru-hood, and there is in it no distinction of

sect whatever.

By reciting it without ceasing, worship your own chosen deities; fill the purified inner being

with the flowing nectar of joy; obtain, according to your desire, the fruits of the four aims

of life — dharma (righteousness), artha (means), kāma (desire) and mokṣa (liberation);

and, becoming vessels of joy in this world and beyond it, attain the sense of a work well done.

Wishing you well,

the servant of the learned, Viṣṇudatt

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04

Śrī Munīndra Sūkta

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05

The Ārtī Song

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06

The Life

(Jagdīś Prasād, M.A.)

(1) His Nature

Obeisance to the venerable teachers of every land and every religious tradition. In all these

teachers Śrī Śrī Sadgurudev has been present in the form of grace. Giving instruction and

initiation in right conduct, and giving the power to carry religious traditions forward, Śrī

Śrī Sadgurudev has himself remained without name and without form. Age after age — from the

making of the world to its dissolution — this alone has been Sadgurudev's work. To those who

wanted liberation he has given liberation. To those who asked for dharma he has given

dharma.

In this way Śrī Śrī Sadgurudev is the wish-fulfilling tree, and has been the giver of all four

aims of life: dharma, artha, kāma and mokṣa.

So far as our searching has gone, this much can be said: that upon the famous founders of

religions and the venerable heads of the traditions, openly or in secret, the grace of this

same Sadgurudev has rested; and upon whatever founders or teachers are yet to come, this same

grace will rest. And even so, his name and form will never be exactly known. The reason is that

Śrī Śrī Sadgurudev is the one centre of the supreme Mother, the great Wisdom — the sovereign

emperor, that is — and is Sadāśiva in his very nature. This is why, wherever he has openly

played out his human līlā, no one has been able to grasp his form rightly. The photographs

taken of him at Prayāg bear this same truth out.

The difference between the two pictures is so plain that Major Basu — who took them —

exclaimed on seeing them that either both pictures were of Sadgurudev, or they were of two

different men. Adam the photographer too was left astonished by them. And the famous Lama-yogi

of Tibet, on seeing this picture of the form of Śaṅkar, sank into deep thought; after some time

he said that it was altogether impossible to tell in which of the highest states of yoga Śrī

Śrī Sadgurudev abides perpetually.

His state — his own natural being — cannot easily be grasped by speech or by the mind; to paint

it in words is like a sandpiper trying to drink the sea dry. Looking at his state, this is how

it seems: as though the tide were rising all around him in an ocean of grace; or as though

countless bhāva-samādhis (trances of devotional feeling) were dancing about him, drunk with

joy. It was by knowing this truth that Sahajobāī (the woman saint of the Dādū tradition, famed

for setting the guru above God himself) settled upon the Sadguru as her supreme object of

worship, and held him higher even than Rām. The proofs she offers out of her own most subtle

experience run like this:

However pleased the Lord Rām is made by devotion to God, he is made ten million times more

pleased when his devotee leaves him and gives himself to the service and worship of Sadgurudev.

The Lord Rām, according to the soul's ripened past acts, gives it birth in the world and turns

it round the wheel of coming and going; and Sadgurudev sets it free from that coming and going.

The Lord Rām has arranged for five thieves to live with every soul, who torment it helplessly

as though it were an orphan; and Sadgurudev frees the soul from those thieves' grip.

The Lord Rām drops the soul into the sweet snare of family and binds it fast with the fetters

of possessive love; and Sadgurudev cuts those fetters through.

The Lord Rām has so entangled the soul's intellect and mind in sickness and enjoyment that even

the greatest of the wise cannot get free of them — [text lost: the page is torn] gives the

soul the power of yoga [text lost] and carries it clean out of them.

[text lost] in the soul's ego-grasping such a vast body of works and duties [text lost] has

grown, that deliverance from it is altogether impossible; [text lost] Sadgurudev, by granting

the vision of the Self, quiets the soul's ego-grasping [text lost]. [text lost] the Lord has

given the soul the power to see everything, but [text lost] has not given it the power to see

himself — Rām; and [text lost] Sadgurudev, giving it a lamp, shows him to it.

Again, the Lord Rām keeps the soul terrified by setting before it the two conditions of bondage

and liberation; and Sadgurudev, by his own sweet speech, lifts the soul clear above that

bewilderment.

Sahajobāī says: on Sadgurudev I have laid down body and mind alike. I will let Rām go, but

Sadgurudev I will not leave!!!

[text lost] Sadgurudev, whose form is the immortal Perfected One, Lord of the perfected,

Sadāśiva, Dakṣiṇāmūrti [text lost] is her chosen Lord. His blessed body is made of divine

elements, and [text lost] at one and the same time ten million [text lost]. His body is of

pure Being, Consciousness and Bliss alone. [text lost] the supremely generous blessed body of

Sadgurudev — what deeds, what deeds [text lost] a matter beyond telling!!!

By the mass of light at his brow, the emperor of spiritual practice [text lost] abides. His

repetition of the Name flows on like the stream of the Bhāgīrathī, [text lost] ceaselessly.

To taste the līlās of Sāketa-loka, of Śiva-loka and of Goloka, he takes body after body,

again and again, and wandering in delight [text lost] remains absorbed in the trances of

devotional feeling; and all [text lost] the transports show themselves in his blessed form.

His love for Śrī Rāmakṛṣṇa and the rest — who put ten million gods of love to shame —

[text lost] is beyond describing, and out of a natural unappeasable longing he stays sunk in

the ocean of that sweetness.

He is a supreme lover of the holy abodes, and his darśan is to be had especially

[text lost] at the places of pilgrimage.

(2) The Land of His Play

It is supposed that from Mānasarovar [text lost] to Chitraśilā (Rānībāg–Kāṭhgodām)

[text lost] the mountains are, eight or ten thousand years ago, snow [text lost]. In the

formulas of the rites of purification, "Kūrmāñchal" [text lost] — himavat parvataika-deśe,

that is, in one region of the mountain named Himavān [text lost]. From that formula it is

plain that all the mountains of Kūrmāñchal were once [text lost]; and wherever the snow grew

less, there settlement [text lost]; and in that age the many caves of the sages and the

perfected great souls [text lost]. In the district [text lost], in the eastern part of the

Ṣaṣṭikhāta pargana — "Chhakhātā" — Kailāś is renowned. Upon it Bāṇāsura set up a liṅga at the

close of the Dvāpara age, and performed fierce austerity and the worship of Śiva. To the east

of Mount Kailāś, in the Chaughaṛ tract, stands the mountain called "Devguru" — on it was the

āśram of Devguru Bṛhaspati (Bṛhaspati, preceptor of the gods).

This Mount Kailāś is wholly deserted. On the day of Śivarātri a fair is held here. Its glory is

equal to that of "Jāganāth" and "Mṛtyuñjaya". To devotees of faith these grant the fruit their

hearts desire; and by worshipping Śiva here to ward off untimely death, even incurable

sicknesses are taken away. For the getting of a son, many women keep vigil all night on

Mahāśivarātri with an unbroken lamp in their hands, and their heart's wish is fulfilled. In

early winter the beauty of Kailāś becomes utterly ravishing. In a year when the rains have been

good, the mountain stays covered with snow through the cold season; and then its beauty is

beyond describing and altogether lovely. At the foot of Kailāś is a small village whose name is

"Haiḍākhān". Here Śrī Śrī Siddha Siddheśvar Sadgurudev Munīndra Mahārāj had a rest-house and a

Śiva temple built. This happened in about the year 1863. When it happened in the village of

Haiḍākhān, Śrī Mahārāj's name among the common people became simply "Haiḍākhān-vāle Bābā" — the

Bābā of Haiḍākhān — and the people of Kūrmāñchal still know Munīndra Mahārāj by no other name

than "Haiḍākhān-vāle Bābā".

Facing the temple, across the Gautamī Gaṅgā, is a cave made by the gods, which from within

seems exactly like a temple. Going two or three yards inside and looking upward, one sees a

vast dome like a temple's. The mere sight of the cave brings the mind to deep peace. This holy

place is described in the Puṇya-smṛti in these words:

Besides Haiḍākhān, Śrī Śrī Sadgurudev has many āśrams in this region of Kūrmāñchal — for

example: (1) Kaṭghariā Āśram (Haldvānī); (2) Khurpātāl Āśram (Nainītāl); (3) Siddhāśram

(Śītalākhet, Almoṛā); (4) Chheḍū Āśram (Almoṛā). In the same way, in several hidden caves of

the Kūrmāñchal region, Śrī Śrī Sadgurudev has performed fierce austerity, seated in one posture

for three and four hundred years at a stretch. Up to now the following caves have been found:

(1) the cave of Bāṁsulī (beyond Rānībāg); (2) the cave of Saljāgrām (Śītalākhet); (3) the cave

of Riḍaṇī-Dvārson; (4) the cave of Haiḍākhān.

(3) His Person

In the Śrī Śivapurāṇa, Brahmājī has recorded many descents of Śiva, who came down in the form

of yogis, great souls and saints for the sake of making the Vedas and the scriptures known.

In the first age there were among the sages such perfected yogis as Sanatkumāra, Nārada,

Yājñavalkya, Vaśiṣṭha, Parāśara, Dattātreya and Śukadeva.

In the middle age there appeared such great men, perfected masters of the science of yoga, as

Govindāchārya, Jagadguru Śaṅkarāchārya, Matsyendranāth, Gorakhnāth, Bhartṛhari and Samarth

Rāmdās; and Haridās, Tulsīdās, Sūrdās, Bāmākhepā…

In the present age too there have arisen such great souls as Rāmakṛṣṇa Paramahaṁsa, Svāmī

Rāmatīrtha and Ramaṇa Maharṣi.

In the holy land of Uttarākhaṇḍ, from the caves of Śaṅkarāchārya and Toṭakāchārya at Jyotirmaṭh

onward, many caves of yogis are to be found here and there. Several caves in Uttarākhaṇḍ are

known by the name "the cave of the Perfected One". At the beginning of the twentieth century of

the Vikram era [the mid-1800s CE] two great souls were very famous in Kūrmāñchal — Aughaṛ Bābā

and Paramhaṁs Bābā — and their āśrams were at Bhuvālī and Nainītāl. Somvārī Bābā of Padampuri

(Paramānandjī Mahārāj) was likewise a supreme yogi of the perfected order; his going to

Śiva-loka took place in about the year 1930.

The manifesting of Siddha Siddheśvar Śrī Śrī Munīndra Mahārāj has been most remarkable and

without parallel, and his wealth of yoga beyond compare and beyond description. Besides the

land of India, accounts of his supremely gracious deeds continue to be heard in Europe and

other foreign parts as well. Paṇḍit Śrī Rāmdattjī, the astrologer, says: "The Mahārāj of

Haiḍākhān is a perfected yogi. Because he remains absorbed in the bliss of Brahman, established

in undifferentiated samādhi, he stays wholly untouched by the outer world, and speaks very

little."

How remarkable the person of such an immortal, perfected great soul, merged in Brahman, must be

to remember — that only he can know who has had darśan of him even once, even in a dream.

Śrī Śrī Munīndra Mahārāj's whole body stays lit with a mass of divine radiance. His body is very

tall. The hair of his head is short, and always stays exactly that length — it neither grows nor

lessens. His age has never seemed more than fifty years. His bodily strength too is beyond

compare: he lifts great mountain boulders without effort. Climbing the mountain slopes his

breath does not fail him, and no one has ever seen him breathing hard at such a time. His body

is so soft that when one presses it, it seems as though there were no bones in it at all. To

look at him, his age seems ordinarily about fifty years; and for the twenty-five or thirty years

that his līlā went on openly in Kūrmāñchal, everyone saw him at just that age. He was never

seen either weak or ill. His arms are very long, hanging down to the knees.

His dress accords with the ancient culture of India. He wears the tuft and the sacred thread.

No one has ever seen him wearing ochre cloth. He wears a white loincloth, a dhotī, a long

kurtā, and a four-cornered coat of the mirjaī kind. On his head he wears a cap coming down

to the ears, or sometimes winds a yard or a yard and a half of cloth about it like a turban.

Most of the people of Kūrmāñchal have seen Śrī Śrī Munīndra Mahārāj in just this dress. The

dress in which the learned men of Europe have seen Śrī Mahārāj is very remarkable indeed. When

Nils Olof Kriksander first saw him in a hotel in France, he was in European dress, and was

using a European language with complete ease. But when he gave darśan to this man and his

wife in Moscow, he was adorned in a Russian shirt and cap. Śrī Sadgurudev's use of language is

likewise most remarkable. He talks very slowly. The language Śrī Mahārāj uses is some divine

speech, whose meaning everyone comes to understand.

His manner of writing too is most remarkable, and from this as well it is known that he is a

man of the Purāṇic ages. It appears that he uses an ancient script resembling Brāhmī. From the

script of the letters found written on the front page of the Gumānī-nīti Rāmāyaṇ, this becomes

entirely clear. Research in this direction is as yet unfinished, and it is to be hoped that when

this research is complete, new things will come to light which will prove a particular gladness

in the life of the people.

In the period when his life was going on openly among the people of Kūrmāñchal, Śrī Mahārāj's

daily observance was of the most ancient, sage-like kind. Besides bathing and the twilight

devotions, a particular relish was seen in him for yajña, sacrifice, havan and the austerity

of the five fires. At Heḍākhān, at Panyālī-Kaṭghariā and at Śītalākhet he had Śiva temples built.

In many places he had platforms raised beneath bilva trees and Śiva liṅgas established. The

fire-offering of sesame and ghee was of course performed; but the offering of sesame and barley

mixed with water was the more famous with him. The oblation given was of water alone, in the

place of ghee. In the final oblation too a stream of water did the work of ghee. And it was not

a matter of two or four sers of water: sometimes several maunds of water were offered into

the sacrificial fire. When a sacrifice of this kind of his was going on, people miles away could

see the rising flame of the fire, seven or eight yards high. In the hot season he would kindle

fire on all four sides and perform the austerity of the five fires. Setting down a pot of water

and wearing only a loincloth, Śrī Śrī Sadāśiva Sadgurudev would seat himself on his mat. The fire

would blaze up from all four sides and meet in the middle. His figure would be hidden in the

midst of that raging fire. Several hours afterwards, when the fire had quieted somewhat and Śrī

Mahārāj became visible, his blessed body would be seen shining like the young sun. The pot of

water would grow so hot that if anyone put a hand to it, the hand was badly burned.

Śrī Mahārāj performed many other sacrifices with great ceremony here and there. Recitations and

discourses on the sacred stories, week-long readings, the Gītā, the Rāmāyaṇ and the rest took

place many times over. Great feasts were held. Hundreds of sādhus, brāhmaṇas and guests were fed

daily on the occasions of these festivals. Several ascetic Lamas — that is, yoga-practitioners of

Tibet — were seen with him in Kūrmāñchal. At Panyālī-Kaṭghariā two Tāntric Lamas were seen

performing their rites in a tent beside him for a whole month. Wherever he went, crowds of

onlookers gathered everywhere. Heaps of dried fruit and sweets would pile up. Who brought them,

who had them distributed, who ate them — with all this Śrī Mahārāj had no concern whatever.

Costly clothes were among the offerings too. If good managers turned up at such a time, then

proper arrangements were made: guests were fed, worthy men received prasād, and the money

offered went to the use of sacrifice, oblation, sacred recitation, Purāṇa readings and feasts.

But if self-interested devotees came as managers, they tied up bundles of fruit, sweets and dried

fruit and carried them off to their own houses, distributing only a very little as prasād. Śrī

Sadgurudev's attention never went that way at all. In the language of the Rāmāyaṇ, his condition

was that of one unshakably merged in Brahman:

How ancient Śrī Śrī Munīndra Mahārāj's blessed body is, and how purified by austerity, is proved

by a great many accounts. Once a devotee asked Śrī Mahārāj what was the cause of the scars of

wounds on his back. Śrī Mahārāj said that these wounds had been received in the war of the

Mahābhārata. From this saying it is proved that his body belongs to the Dvāpara age, of which

about five thousand years have now passed. The era which Dharmarāj Yudhiṣṭhira set going from

the time of his Rājasūya sacrifice — that Yudhiṣṭhira era now stands at about 5000. From this it

is inferred that Śrī Mahārāj's age is upwards of five thousand years. By bearing so ancient a

body, Śrī Mahārāj proves this saying of the Śrīmad Bhagavad Gītā — that saints merged in

Brahman obtain release even from the faults of old age and death:

The person of Śrī Munīndra Mahārāj is self-luminous, Sadāśiva in its very nature. From the

account in the Puṇya-smṛti it is plain that Śrī Mahārāj's person is the whole wealth of yoga

gathered into one: "Śrī Mahārāj is a god so full of mercy that on taking refuge at his feet the

entire journey of one's life is carried through to success in happiness. Of all the devotees of

faith who have so far been found to have taken refuge with Śrī Mahārāj, every one has been seen

happy and at peace. The sage renowned in the world as a dweller in solitude; the ascetic who

takes the mountain caves that nature made for his only lodging; the man of great vital fire who

lives on the unasked roots and tubers that Mother Earth gives; the perfected celibate, by the

mere taking of whose foot-dust the three kinds of craving and every appetite of this world and

the next are destroyed; such a purifier of the fallen, high of mind and keen of intellect,

wholly beyond place and time, by whose grace the science of the five sheaths and the seven

wheels, and their raising, comes about without effort — of the whole rosary of such Sadgurus,

'Śrī Haiḍākhān-vāle Bābā' is one of the most brilliant beads."

(4) His Life

He who in his very nature is endless and beyond measure — his life too is by nature endless and

beyond measuring.

The human senses have only so much power: they can take in the deeds done at one place alone.

And of one whose līlā goes on happening in place after place, only this can be said — that our

eyes see little, but our mind is certainly left astonished by that immeasurable play, and the

exact recounting of any sequence of events proves altogether difficult.

Whenever we hear the experiences of men who have lived beyond a hundred and fifty years, we do

believe how many changes and turns of event such a long-lived man has watched in his lifetime —

how many kingdoms overthrown, how many new nations risen, how many wars have passed like a

moving picture before his eyes! Long-familiar friends and kinsmen have gone from sight!! New

acquaintances keep being made, and their various drama too goes on according to destiny, and

will go on!!! In truth, a long life is a great spring of experience, which we short-lived men

are wholly unable to take in.

For this reason, when we meditate on the seven immortal, ever-living sages, how can their

history come all at once into our minds? When some loving devotee has darśan of the immortal

perfected Lomaśa Ṛṣi at Naimiṣāraṇya, we hesitate even to believe his eyes. At such a moment we

come to believe in our own incapacity — how paltry a kind of capacity ours is. This paltry

capacity of ours is truly a thing to laugh at.

Sant Jñāneśvarjī writes in his Jñāneśvarī, his commentary on the Gītā, that "being born" is a

most dishonourable business for a man of any dignity; for to stay nine or ten months in the womb,

hemmed about with flesh and blood and fat; then to come out by the passage of urine; then to

suck at breasts wet with sweat — any man of dignity counts this a gross indignity. That is why

men of shame, once born, remain in constant effort towards this one end: that they may not have

to be born again.

Sant Jñānadevjī writes further that to obtain this priceless human body and then be defeated by

death is a very great and dishonourable loss. For just as it is said of the lesser animals that

such-and-such a dog has died, or such-and-such a cat has died, so if it were said of a man of

dignity that such-and-such a person has died, it would be a heavy blow to his honoured life.

Therefore those who perceive in the human body a priceless treasury of jewels, or an unbounded

hoard of Kubera, do not accept defeat at the hands of death, but keep up a constant effort in

the direction of immortality. It was for this reason that when the Lord Śaṅkar, swift to be

pleased, appeared and stood ready to grant Lomaśa Ṛṣi a boon, the shrewd Lomaśa asked for the

boon of not dying.

Those souls whose only experience is of the taste of sense-objects are unable to understand the

taste of the bliss of Brahman known by the great souls; for this bliss is beyond the senses. It

has no connection whatever with the touch of objects. To make it plain in an ordinary way, the

great souls explain it thus: after drinking a sherbet mixed with much sugar, a sherbet mixed

with less sugar tastes flat, although the sweetness of sugar is certainly in this one too. In

the same way, once the bliss of Brahman has been tasted, those souls who then taste the flavour

of sense-objects find that flavour flat, and quite naturally give up savouring it. Then, as the

turning away from the taste of objects becomes natural, and the experience of the bliss of

Brahman becomes naturally firm, so the soul arrives at the order of the siddha, the perfected.

Vaśiṣṭhajī too, in the Rāmcharitmānas, has described the grades of souls in just this way:

Those who hold the taste of sense-objects to be the only taste there is, and who take up works

and rites out of the desire to obtain the highest of such tastes — the enjoyments of heaven and

so on — are the sensual souls. Those who turn away from the taste of objects, who stay in

constant effort to savour the taste of the bliss of Brahman, and who bear the obstacles of this

road with courage, are the seeker souls. And those who obtain the bliss of Brahman, who remain

absorbed in that bliss, and who have no longing left for anything besides it, are the perfected

souls. Perfected souls of this kind have existed from the beginning of creation, and will go on

existing. And yet, just as it is plain that manuṣyāṇāṁ sahasreṣu kaśchid yatati siddhaye —

"among thousands of men, only some rare one strives for perfection" [Bhagavad Gītā 7.3] — in

the same way it is only some rare one among thousands of the perfected who attains the station of

Siddheśvar, Lord of the perfected. The perfected soul, absorbed in natural bliss, goes on

savouring that ever-new bliss in himself and in every atom of nature. The Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa has

spoken of just such a perfected soul in the Harigītā [the Bhagavad Gītā]. To describe the

ground of bliss belonging to the station of "Siddheśvar" is altogether beyond accomplishing. Only

this much can be said: that the Lord Sadāśiva Śaṅkar alone is seated forever upon the ground of

bliss that is the station of Siddheśvar, and that ten million streams of grace surge out of him

and run in every direction — streams that go on granting perfection to souls established in

action, in worship and in knowledge, and go on giving the fruits of artha, dharma, kāma and

mokṣa.

Describing the daily life of such perfected great souls in the Harigītā, the Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa

says that they roam in the world of the wind, the world of the moon, and the rest. Sometimes,

when the wind runs off in delight carrying fragrance and pollen out of beautiful flowers, they

travel along with that fragrance. In the hot season, when a thousand drops come down from the

banked clouds onto ground scorched with heat and wet the parted, longing sand with a touch of

love, they travel in those drops. In this way their daily life is spent in endless roaming

through the boundless universe in divine joy — as though, for them, all inertness in the whole

universe had utterly vanished, and the eternal dance of pure consciousness were going on in

every atom. In such unequalled, unexampled bliss of Brahman they remain absorbed. There is no

old age there, and no death. Sometimes, seated in the sweet throats of birds, they take up the

repeating of the Lord's holy name. Sometimes, seated in the speech of a venerable teacher, they

cut away a disciple's doubts at the root and build up his practice. To describe the life-history

of such perfected saints may well be within the power of the endless Lord; but how can helpless

men like ourselves do it?

In the Śrī Rāmcharitmānas, Gosāīñjī [Tulsīdās] has spoken of the daily life of the perfected

saints, the lords of perfection, in connection with Sanaka and the other sages, on the occasion

of Śrī Rāghavendra's pleasure in the garden. Śrī Sanaka and his brothers are perfected great

souls, and they are immortal. Their blessed form is always like a child's, and remaining ever

absorbed in the bliss of Brahman, they go on granting to seeker souls the road to resolution and

to perfection. Gosāīñjī says:

Hearing the story of the blessed Lord from the mouths of the supreme devotees, the perfected

great souls are never satisfied. The Lord Śaṅkar, swift to be pleased, takes the form of a swan

and goes again and again to the āśram of Kākabhuśuṇḍijī to hear the story of Śrī Rām. And Śrī

Mārutijī [Hanumān] takes ten million bodies and arrives to hear wherever the story of Śrī Rām is

being told. In truth the perfected great souls are the keenest of relishers of the sacred story,

and the savour they draw from hearing it is beyond telling.

Where, then, is one to begin the life of Śrī Śrī Munīndra Mahārāj, whose life is without

beginning and without end? In Kūrmāñchal alone his life was, for about thirty years, most divine

and full of wonders. Where he first appeared cannot be said. It was, by estimate, in the span

from the year 1890 CE to 1920 that his life became directly available to the people of

Kūrmāñchal. Of this span no ordered record of his movements could be gathered. Some say his

first appearance was on the occasion of the dam at Bhīmtāl. Others say that the first sight of

him was had in the cave at Haiḍākhān. Then again some hold the belief that Śrī Śrī Munīndra

Mahārāj first appeared in the village of Dhaulā, on account of the devotee Gumānī. And certain

worthy persons hold the belief that Śrī Mahārāj came from the direction of Nepāl, where his

natural dwelling is in the vast caverns of the mountains.

The inward and the outward līlās of Śrī Śrī Munīndra Mahārāj are so woven into one another

that to describe them separately is altogether difficult. The līlās of the perfected saints —

or of Śrī Sāmba Sadāśiva, the perfected descent himself — are naturally more than earthly, even

when he moves about behaving exactly like an ordinary man. Though one confine the water of the

Gaṅgā in some particular vessel, its purity and divinity remain undiminished. In passing, and

with the aim of taking in his divine līlās rightly, let us cast an eye over the life of one

perfected saint of the age of the Mahābhārata, whom the Lord Kṛṣṇa described with his own

blessed mouth to Arjuna in the Harigītā. Who knows but that this very saint may be none other

than Siddha Siddheśvar Śrī Munīndra Mahārāj — appearing age after age for the sole purpose of

showing favour, wandering through mountain and forest to gather the world in, or making the

spiritual road easier and easier!!!

The passage in the Harigītā about the perfected saint, given in the Puṇya-smṛti, runs in

brief as follows: "In ancient times a righteous ascetic brāhmaṇa named Kāśyapa went to a certain

perfected brahmarṣi. That brahmarṣi knew all the secrets of scripture in the matter of dharma;

he was skilled in the knowledge and science of past and future, expert in the knowledge of the

principles of the world, one who understood the secret of pleasure and pain, a knower of the

truth of birth and death, versed in merit and demerit, and one who saw with his own eyes the

high and low states that beings obtain according to their acts. He moved about like one already

liberated: perfected, still of mind, master of his senses, blazing with the splendour of

Brahman, able to go everywhere, and knowing the science of vanishing from sight. He wandered

with the unseen perfected ones who bear the discus, conversed with them, and sat with them in

solitude. As the wind flows everywhere without clinging anywhere, so he moved freely everywhere

in a spirit of non-attachment. It was on hearing of this greatness of his that the great sage

Kāśyapa went to him. Drawing near, that keen-minded, ascetic, dharma-loving and single-minded

sage bowed, as is proper, at the feet of the perfected great soul. He was the best of brāhmaṇas

and a most wonderful saint; every kind of worthiness was in him; he knew the scriptures and his

conduct was true. Kāśyapa, on seeing him, was filled with astonishment. He took him for his guru

and gave himself to serving him; and by his particular attendance, his devotion to the guru and

his spirit of faith, he brought that great soul to be pleased with him. Then, being pleased with

his disciple Kāśyapa, that perfected sage considered the matter of the highest perfection and

gave the teaching which I shall now relate. Listen."

"The perfected one said: My child, Kāśyapa! By performing many kinds of good works, men obtain

by merit alone a good fruit in this world and a place in the world of the gods. Nowhere does the

soul find utter happiness. In no world is it allowed to remain forever. However great the place

it may win by bearing hardship in austerity and the rest, from there too it must come down again

and again. Deluded by craving, joined to desire and anger, I have sinned many times, and as the

fruit of it I have undergone evil states that gave me grievous pain. I have suffered the misery

of birth after birth and of death after death. I have eaten food of every kind, and drunk the

milk of many breasts. I have seen many fathers and mothers of every sort. I have known

happinesses and sorrows of every strange kind. Many times I have been parted from those I loved

and joined to people I did not like. The wealth I had earned by hardship was destroyed before my

eyes. From kings and from my own people I have had to bear great hardships and humiliations more

than once. I have had to endure bodily and mental pains altogether past bearing. Many times I

have suffered gross dishonour, sentence of death, and long terms of imprisonment. Falling into

hell, I have borne the torments of Yama's realm. Taking birth in this world, I have known again

and again the sorrows of old age, of sickness, and of the pairs of opposites — liking and

loathing and the rest. From bearing such affliction over and over, great anguish arose in my

mind one day; and, in terror of these sorrows, I took refuge with the Supreme Self and gave up

all worldly dealings altogether. After such experience I took to this road, and by the grace of

the Supreme Self this excellent perfection has been granted me. Now I shall not come again into

this world. As long as this creation stands, and until my liberation comes, I shall watch over

the good passage of myself and of other beings. Best of the twice-born! In this way this

excellent perfection has been given to me. After this I shall go to the highest world of truth,

and in due course attain the unmanifest station of Brahman. Of this you should not have the

smallest doubt. I shall not have to come again to the world of mortals. Great-minded one! I am

much pleased with you. Speak — what dear thing shall I do for you? The time has come for the

fulfilling of the wish that brought you to me. I know what the purpose of your coming is. I am

soon to depart from here, and so I am myself prompting you to ask. Learned one, your excellent

conduct gives me great satisfaction. Ask what makes for your good, and I shall answer the

question you desire. Kāśyapa, I praise your understanding and hold it in high regard. You have

recognised me — that alone is why I say you are very wise."

"Kāśyapa asked: Great soul, how does this body fall away? How is another body then obtained? How

is the worldly soul freed from this world of sorrow? How does it give up the root ignorance, and

the body born of it? And how does it enter from one body into another? How does a man undergo

the fruit of the good and evil works he has done? And when the body is no more, where do his

works remain? On Kāśyapa's asking in this way, the perfected great soul began to answer his

questions one by one…" and so on.

Even after much searching, no regular account of Śrī Śrī Munīndra Mahārāj's twenty-five or

thirty years of ordered wandering through the region of Kūrmāñchal could be obtained (nor does

it appear to be possible); and so, in the matter of his life, one must be content with the

setting forth of a certain number of episodes.

(5) Some More-Than-Earthly Events

(1) Bhāvar Chhakhātā

Across the Golā river, about two and a half miles east of Haldvānī (district Nainītāl), is a

village named Daraulā. There lived a devotee of tender feeling named Ṭhākur Gumān Siṃh Naulā —

"the devotee Gumānī". After he had come into his young manhood, when a son was born to him, a

fierce dispassion towards the world came over him. Once he went to Haridvār with some hill

pilgrims of that place, and, parting from all his companions, threw himself with a will into the

work of service and attendance at the āśram of a certain great soul. So keen was his spirit of

labour and of devoted service that he slept very little, and his days and nights passed in

attending on that great soul.

Some time afterwards, more pilgrims from Haldvānī went to Haridvār to bathe in the Gaṅgā. They

recognised the devotee Gumānī at the great soul's āśram, and pressed him not to keep Gumānī at

the āśram but to give him leave to return home. They explained that Gumānī's wife and son were

waiting anxiously for his return and lamenting greatly for him. The great soul was so moved by

Gumānī's habit of service and by his boundless spirit of faith that he shrank from parting with

him. But he judged it right that Gumānī should be sent home, and gave the order. Gumānī wept

much, and begged the great soul to give him a place at his feet and nowhere else. The great soul

consoled him and assured him: "Go on with your worship and practice at home. There, at home, a

perfected great soul will give you darśan and fulfil you."

Gumānī came home and set his mind on his fields and farming. One evening, under a tree near the

house, he had darśan of Śrī Śrī Munīndra Mahārāj. Śrī Mahārāj was standing there quite

naturally, looking towards Gumānī. There was a kind of sweetness shining in his face. His body

was soft and radiant as a fresh hibiscus flower. His countenance was utterly gentle and more

than earthly. So tall a body Gumānī had never yet seen with his own eyes. Catching sight of him

all at once, Gumānī was greatly alarmed, and began to ask him: "Who are you, and why are you

standing here?" Seeing him alarmed, Śrī Mahārāj went away and sat down on a slab of rock under a

tree some distance off. A little while later, when Gumānī's wits had settled, he recognised

Mahārāj, and the words of the great soul at Haridvār came back to him. With deep feeling he came

to Śrī Mahārāj's feet, and took refuge there for good.

The devotee Gumānī served Śrī Mahārāj with such single-mindedness — as a devotee performs the

worship of his chosen image through all eight watches of the day; or as a gopī sunk in

devotional trance goes about in a rapture selling curds with the pot on her head, calling out

the name of Giradhar. Śrī Mahārāj would sit like a newborn infant, and the devotee Gumānī stayed

unbrokenly at his eight-watch service. For food Śrī Śrī Munīndra Mahārāj would accept nothing

but mathā (buttermilk); and so the devotee Gumānī too lived on buttermilk alone. In a short

while the word spread on every side that Gumānī was serving a madman with great devotion, and

was a very great fool.

Some time later Gumānī pressed Śrī Mahārāj to come and stay at his house and so show him favour.

He built Mahārāj a hut of thatch, standing right against his own house, and Śrī Mahārāj came to

live in it. Gumānī always kept the door of that hut shut, so that no needless disturbance should

fall upon Śrī Mahārāj's meditation and the rest. Only at the appointed hour, when it was time for

food and prasād, would he open the door with his own hand and plunge into Śrī Mahārāj's

service.

When Śrī Mahārāj had shown so much grace as to live in the hut Gumānī had made, Gumānī thought

to himself that buttermilk could hardly be filling Śrī Mahārāj's stomach. If a saint comes to

one's house and goes hungry, how bad a thing is that? Thinking so, he begged Mahārāj to begin

eating bread, saying it would be a great kindness — for just as our own stomachs are not filled

without bread, so his too must surely be left unsatisfied by buttermilk! And the supremely

gracious Śrī Śrī Munīndra Mahārāj, to please his devotee, began to eat bread.

Seeing a great soul lodged at Gumānī's house, some people mocked him, saying that Gumānī was a

simpleton and had put up a madman at his house for nothing — one who could speak neither the

hill tongue nor Hindi clearly. But those who knew even a little of Śrī Mahārāj's boundless

wealth of yoga stayed for the most part at Gumānī's hut. From the time Śrī Mahārāj came to live

there, people were coming and going at Gumānī's house every day. Gumānī welcomed these guests

from his heart and counted himself blessed. Being a man of middling means, the grain and money

he had put by were used up in good measure. His wife had more foresight. She wanted to set some

limit to this hospitality, but no impression could be made on Gumānī. In anger she went away to

her father's house. She took her child with her too, and left saying that at this rate the whole

household would be destroyed, and that she could not bear to watch it all happen before her

eyes. The devotee Gumānī was left alone. But not for that did any fault come into his vow of

service, or into the honour and welcome he gave his guests.

It was in these very days — while Śrī Mahārāj was living in Gumānī's hut, and Gumānī always kept

its door shut from outside — that a strange thing began happening daily at the temple of

Chitreśvar Mahādev at Chitraśilā, in Rānībāg. At five in the morning, when the priest unlocked

the temple and went in for the worship, it would seem to him that the air of the temple was

sweet with a ravishing fragrance, and that the adorning of Chitreśvar Śiva with sandal paste and

garlands had been done in a most unearthly manner. From all this he supposed that some devotee

came here before him, performed the worship of Śiva, and went away. For many days the priest

paid no particular attention; but when day after day he found fresh adornment and a divine

fragrance in the temple, he began to think that gods or gandharvas must be coming into the

temple before him and performing the worship — for a lock cannot hinder the entry of gods and

such beings. This belief of his was growing firm when one day the thought came to him all at

once that he ought to hide and get sight of this devotee of Śiva who worshipped with such deep

feeling exactly at the hour before dawn.

Keeping watch all night like a thief, the priest waited. At about three o'clock he caught the

sound of someone bathing in the Gautamī Gaṅgā, which flows close by. Alert now, the priest

watched on. In a little while he saw a man of very tall stature coming along with the materials

of worship in his hands. His eyes were fixed on the newcomer with the keenest curiosity. Shortly

the newcomer reached the temple door, on which a large lock was hanging. The moment he came

there, the lock opened of itself; the chain too came undone of itself; and the doors, with some

sound, opened of themselves. The visitor entered the temple. With great love he performed the

worship of the Lord. All this work was finished in about an hour. Then he came out of the

temple. The doors closed of themselves. The chain and the lock fastened themselves as well. And

now the priest suddenly recognised that the visitor was none other than Śrī Śrī Munīndra

Mahārāj. With a heart overcome he made full prostration at the blessed feet, and counted himself

blessed. He had heard a good deal before about Śrī Mahārāj's attainments in yoga; but seeing

with his own eyes such unshakable love towards the Lord Śiva, he was left dumbfounded.

Meanwhile, some time later, all Gumānī's property and grain came to an end. He had been left

quite alone as it was. One day he was walking in his field when, all at once, he saw a man

coming towards him with a plough on his shoulder. Gumānī stayed so deeply steeped in his own

colouring that he took it that Baladāū jī himself — Śrī Kṛṣṇa's elder brother — was coming along

with his weapon, the plough, upon his shoulder. Gumānī prostrated himself before him with great

love; and even when the ploughman explained to him, "Brother, I am only an ordinary farmer, and

I am wandering about looking for work," Gumānī still would not believe what he said. Gumānī

asked: "Where is your home?" The farmer answered: "Brother, my home is nowhere; I am a very poor

man." At this answer Gumānī was quite overcome with love, and began to say: "Lord, do not put me

off with pretences. You are Baladāū jī himself — for your home is everywhere!!"

With much entreaty Gumānī took this farmer home with him, and went on receiving him with every

honour and attention.

The rains were about to begin. One day the farmer said to Gumānī: "Bhagatjī, if you will permit

me, let me plough your land — for sitting idle does not suit me." Gumānī said: "Lord, your

līlā is a strange one, and who has the power to put an obstacle in your līlā?"

That farmer ploughed the land with great love, and when the season came he sowed rice in it.

When in due time the crop was cut, Gumānī was astonished to see that, though rice had been sown

there before as well, this time the yield was fifty times what it had been. The threshing floors

where the grain was stored were filled to the roof, and even then heap upon heap of rice lay

outside.

Now the guests were welcomed with greater enthusiasm still. Someone carried the news to Gumānī's

wife as well: that so much rice had come from their field this time that they could not finish

it in a whole lifetime. Hearing this wonderful and joyful news, she was greatly astonished —

how had her idle husband managed so much labour!! Be that as it may: she came home, bringing her

child with her, and never went back to her father's house again.

That a saint devoted to austerity, who lives only in mountain caves, should stay a whole year at

Gumānī's house; that a celibate great soul who lives only on roots, tubers and fruit should come

to eating bread and grain — all these things prove Gumānī's boundless love, his eagerness, his

generosity and his vow of service. In truth Gumānī's devotion to Śrī Mahārāj was a devotion

without any second object.

There was not the least trace of fear in the devotee Gumānī. Before setting out for Badrikāśram,

Śrī Munīndra Mahārāj put the pilgrims who were to travel with him to a terrifying test — and

Gumānī alone was able to pass it.

Having stayed a full year in Gumānī's hut, Śrīman Munīndra Mahārāj departed from there for the

good of other devotees.

From the time Śrī Mahārāj went off towards Almoṛā, the devotee Gumānī could get no sight of him.

He was forever waiting for him. Seeing this fierce waiting of his, one remembers the verse of

the Puṇya-smṛti:

When four or five years had gone by, Gumānī began to reflect that his remaining years now seemed

few, and that it would be fitting to spend what was left of his life in Śrī Mahārāj's service.

Thinking so, he set out for Almoṛā.

On reaching Śrī Mahārāj, Gumānī was overtaken by the purest of feelings. There was a stream of

water in his eyes, and every limb of him thrilled. Śrī Mahārāj had known beforehand that to have

a devotee like Gumānī is the fruit of very great austerity; and perhaps it was for this reason

that, by his own perfected and silent prompting, he had called Gumānī to him — so that he might

give him the sight of Badrīdhām. He said to Gumānī: "Gumānī, we are going to Badrīnāth. If you

wish to come, come." Hearing Śrī Mahārāj's words, Gumānī rolled overcome at his blessed feet, as

though Badrīviśāl himself were setting before him the proposal to go to Badrīdhām, and urging

him to it!!

Two other devotees also begged earnestly to go on the journey to Badrīnāth. Śrī Mahārāj said

nothing — which is to say that on the appointed day Śrī Mahārāj, Gumānī and those two devotees

set out for Śrī Badrīnāth.

Some miles on, a great dense forest lay across the way. Śrī Mahārāj had gone on somewhat ahead.

Gumānī and the two devotees were walking along behind. All at once they saw a lion standing in

the middle of the path before them, its tail raised and its bearing full of anger. On one side

of the path was a towering mountain, on the other the terrible depth of the valley. The two

devotees said to Gumānī: "Brother, if you want to save your life, run back." Saying this, the

two of them turned and fled at great speed. But Gumānī went forward. The lion went on standing

there. Passing by its flank, he reached Śrī Mahārāj. The lion's bearing had changed altogether

as he came near it: it stood in the road quietly, like a clay toy, and did not even look

particularly his way.

Śrī Mahārāj reached Śrī Badrīnāth with Gumānī in due course. With great love they had darśan

of Lakṣmī-Nārāyaṇa himself. By the grace of Śrī Munīndra Mahārāj, Gumānī obtained that sight of

the Lord which Manu and Śatarūpā obtained as the fruit of twenty-three thousand years of fierce

austerity.

After this Gumānī returned with Śrī Mahārāj to Almoṛā. Then, obeying Śrī Mahārāj's command,

Gumānī came home to the village of Daraulā.

About a year or so later he brought his earthly play to a close.

The devotee Gumānī was so close a devotee of Śrī Mahārāj that even today the cave of Śrī

Munīndra Mahārāj stands in his house. Where Śrī Mahārāj used to sit, a large pair of copper tongs

is fixed in the ground — presented to Śrī Mahārāj out of love by some aged ascetic. These tongs

are most remarkable. There is a particular brightness in their metal, and it seems as though,

from the touch of Śrī Mahārāj's body, his own matchless radiance has entered into them too.

Besides this, other objects kept in memory of Śrī Mahārāj are in that same cave, which have not

yet been properly identified. On the front page of the devotee Gumānī's Rāmāyaṇ, some clusters

of words written in Śrī Munīndra Mahārāj's own blessed hand have also been found, whose meaning

has not yet been made out. The letters of this cluster of words appear to belong to some ancient

script resembling Brāhmī. It may be that some scholar of antiquities will be able to make out

the exact sense of these words!!! — and, by searching into that script, bring to light the tender

feelings of Śrī Mahārāj's mercy-softened heart!!!

( 2 )

When devotees began coming in greater and greater numbers to Gumānī's house for darśan of the

supremely radiant Śrī Śrī Munīndra Mahārāj, Śrī Mahārāj no longer thought it fitting to stay

there. He began to live sometimes at Kālī Chauṛ, sometimes on the bank of the Golā, sometimes at

Kaṭghariā. From time to time he would go away into the cave at Haiḍākhān. Wherever Śrī Mahārāj

went and sat, his splendour was a supreme thing to behold, and the eyes could by no means be

satisfied with it. Such a radiance was to be seen in his whole body, as though the lustre of all

the diamonds and gems there are were glittering in every limb.

Such a strange freshness could be seen in his blessed limbs, as though the twelve-year-old

Śukadevjī were coming forth this very moment from his mother's womb. The light at his brow

seemed to tremble again and again, from which it was plainly to be known that his pure conscious

mind was unceasingly at the repetition of the Name. So more-than-earthly was the power of his

supreme perfection that all around him, inert and conscious nature alike, seemed lit and

quickened by his radiance.

The Puṇya-smṛti has said it truly:

For this reason, wherever Śrī Mahārāj went, sacrificial rites and festivals would begin of

themselves. The number of men and women gathered for satsaṅg was so great that sometimes it went

beyond twenty-five thousand. This is estimated from the fact that when Śrī Mahārāj was at

Kaṭghariā, eighty rupees' worth of candles burned in a single night — and this was talked of at a

time when four candles cost one paisā. Śrī Mahārāj would sit absorbed in meditation beneath a

dense kadamba tree. His whole body glowed with the brilliance of light, and it seemed as

though the body were made of white gems. Men and women from villages very far off would bear

every hardship to present themselves in service at Śrī Mahārāj's feet for the fulfilment of

their heart's desires, and all returned with glad minds.

Once, the English Commissioner of that region, Ramsay, while making a tour of inspection, came

across to the far side of the canal and saw an immense crowd in the Kaṭghariā tract, sitting on

every side; and in the middle of it, beneath the kadamba tree, seated in the posture of the

perfected, Siddha Siddheśvar Munīndra Mahārāj was lighting up all the quarters, as it were, with

his own brightness. He was so struck by that sight that he got down from his horse, stood in an

attitude of prayer, and went on gazing at Śrī Mahārāj without blinking. Afterwards he called

some of the people to him and asked who this great man of boundless radiance might be. The

people told him that this was a perfected one, lord of the perfected, a celibate of very simple

nature. Hearing the other things told of him, Ramsay was greatly moved, and of his own accord

made over twenty-five bīghās of land — around the place where Mahārāj was sitting — in

Mahārāj's name, free of revenue. This is the land known today as the Kaṭghariā Āśram.

Only a few years after this event, a strange thing happened. Out of the trunk of the very

kadamba tree beneath which Śrī Mahārāj used to sit, thick branches of pīpal came out on one

side and of banyan on the other. To see it today is a great wonder: out of the trunk of a single

kadamba tree, pīpal flourishes on one side, banyan on another, and kadamba on a third.

This kadamba tree spreads over a good stretch of ground, and the sight of it is a generous

one. But when one looks at the trunk, the wonder is greater still. On one side there is so large

a hollow in that trunk that it fills one with astonishment to consider how so great a tree can

stand upon a severed trunk at all, and how it is being nourished!!!

The history of this tree's burning is also most remarkable. There is no knowing how the fire

caught in it. Right beside the trunk stood two huts of thatch. In one of them lived the priest;

and in the other, the smaller hut, a poor woman ascetic who had taken refuge with Śrī Munīndra

Mahārāj kept up her worship and practice with a single mind. As a result of the fire the

priest's hut burned down to ashes altogether; and the small hut, in which that poor woman

ascetic was absorbed in worship and practice, remained exactly as it had been, and was left

entirely untouched by the power of the fire. When, having finished her worship and practice, the

woman came out of the hut on some errand, she then became aware of that raging fire. The whole

place around was covered with great glowing embers — but on her hut of thatch the burning power

of the fire had had, as it were, no effect at all.

( 3 )

Once, in the days of summer, Śrīman Munīndra Mahārāj was staying at the Khurpātāl Āśram. A

newly educated young man had also come to hear certain particular things about Śrī Mahārāj.

This news too had reached him: that Mahārāj wore an ear-covering cap. From this the young man

began to suppose that Mahārāj might be none other than Aśvatthāmā, the famous immortal warrior

of the Mahābhārata, and that perhaps he covered his head entirely with the cap in order to hide

the head-wound he received in the Mahābhārata war. With the aim of testing this, the young man

came to Khurpātāl (district Nainītāl). No sooner had he arrived, in the early morning hour, than

Śrī Mahārāj began to say that on account of the heat he had a wish to bathe. Hearing only this

much, the young man said that he would fill a pot from the lake, and Mahārāj could then bathe.

The man had calculated that when Mahārāj took off his cap and his other clothes for the bath, he

would certainly be able to see his bare head. Śrī Mahārāj said: "Take my loincloth, my water-pot

and my towel, and I will come along with you and bathe at the lake itself." At this an even

better opportunity for the test presented itself. When the two of them reached the lake, Mahārāj

said, "Take off my clothes and bathe me."

The young man took off Śrī Mahārāj's cap, his mirjaī and all his clothes, and bathing him with

great love, wiped his divine body with the towel. All this while his mind was filled brimful

with the purest of feelings. In bathing this body made of divine elements he felt the highest

delight. The chaupāī of the Puṇya-smṛti is clear in its description of this more-than-earthly

body:

At that moment the young man had no awareness even of himself. He had forgotten altogether the

matter he had come to test — whether or not there was a wound on Śrī Mahārāj's head. It was only

after he had wiped his body, dressed him in washed clothes, and washed and dried the wet ones,

that he remembered. Having forgotten his purpose, he fell into deep regret. Then Śrī Mahārāj

said to him with great love: "One should go to sādhus and great souls carrying faith and love.

If some doubt arises, one should pray to the blessed Lord for its removal. Then, by his grace,

whether such-and-such a man is a great soul or not comes to be known of itself. Only great souls

can recognise great souls — or those upon whom the great souls' grace rests. And the grace of

the great souls rests upon those whose hearts are simple, and who are without pride."

( 4 )

Once, when Śrī Munīndra Mahārāj was staying at the Khairnā Āśram (district Nainītāl), the Ranger

Sāhib of Kosī — who was at that time at his ranger's quarters at Vināyak — sent a ḍāṇḍī with

four men to invite Śrī Munīndra Mahārāj. The men had orders to seat Śrī Mahārāj respectfully in

the ḍāṇḍī and bring him to Vināyak in it and no other way. Seeing the Ranger Sāhib's spirit of

faith, Śrī Mahārāj made ready to go to Vināyak. It is eight or ten miles from Khairnā to Vināyak,

and the road is all uphill. For one mile Śrī Mahārāj travelled seated in the ḍāṇḍī. After that

he said to the ḍāṇḍī-men that the climb would now tire them, and that he himself had a wish to

walk, and so they should let him get down and go on foot. The men were certainly tired, but they

shrank from setting Śrī Mahārāj down. After five or ten paces a very strange thing happened: Śrī

Mahārāj began to feel so heavy to the men that they set the ḍāṇḍī on the ground. Then Śrī

Mahārāj said to the ḍāṇḍī-men: "Rest a while and come on after. I will walk in the meantime."

Śrī Mahārāj can have gone about a furlong when the men, having rested, set out again. They

quickened their pace considerably, so as to catch up with Mahārāj as fast as they could and seat

him in the ḍāṇḍī. But the astonishing thing was that they did not meet Śrī Mahārāj anywhere on

the road. Nor could they get any word of him from the people coming and going along the way.

About three hours later, when these men reached Vināyak, they were given the news that Śrī

Mahārāj had already been there for three hours.

( 5 )

Once, Śrīman Munīndra Mahārāj was staying at the Rānībāg Āśram (Kāṭhgodām). Many devotees were

going to Kurukṣetra to bathe at a solar eclipse, and many others had halted at Rānībāg with the

purpose of bathing in the Gautamī Gaṅgā.

The eclipse bathing was duly completed, after which the pilgrims returned from Kurukṣetra to

their homes. When those pilgrims who had bathed at Kurukṣetra came to Rānībāg for darśan of

Śrī Mahārāj, they expressed great astonishment before him: that he had got back from Kurukṣetra

before they had! Śrī Mahārāj kept silent; but the other devotees who were present contradicted

them, saying that Śrī Mahārāj had been with them continuously, and that on the occasion of the

eclipse he had bathed in the Gautamī Gaṅgā here at Rānībāg along with them.

But the devotees coming from Kurukṣetra said: how can that be? Śrī Mahārāj bathed at the eclipse

with us at Kurukṣetra. How are we to believe that Śrī Mahārāj never went to Kurukṣetra at all?

When the argument began to rise between the two parties, Śrī Mahārāj quieted them, saying that

on the occasion of the eclipse he had been present, and had bathed, at both places — at Rānībāg

and at Kurukṣetra alike.

( 6 )

To fulfil Śrī Jvālādatt Jośī, the well-known advocate of Almoṛā, Śrī Śrī Munīndra Mahārāj once

came to Gwalior. At that time Jvālādattjī held high office under the administration of the

state.

Learning that the perfected one, lord of the perfected, the brahmarṣi, had come to his house,

Jvālādattjī was quite overcome with joy and wonder. He worshipped Śrī Mahārāj with the offering

of water for the hands and for the feet, with ārtī, and the rest; and afterwards he sent word

to the Darbār that the perfected one, lord of the perfected, Sadāśiva Munīndra Mahārāj — whose

deeds are filled with a wonderful and more-than-earthly quality — had come to his house.

The Darbār came with great eagerness for darśan, and made his birth fruitful.

The Darbār prayed most humbly that Śrī Mahārāj would fulfil the Queen also by giving her

darśan in the palace.

Yielding to his feeling, Śrī Mahārāj gave his consent. Accordingly, that evening, the Darbār

took him to the palace by motor-car with the highest honour. There he remained about two hours.

The Queen and all the women's apartments had darśan of Śrī Mahārāj and so made their lives

fulfilled.

After his departure from Gwalior, the Darbār asked the Queen how old she supposed Śrī Mahārāj to

be. The Queen answered that by her estimate Śrī Mahārāj was an old man of eighty years.

The king was greatly astonished to hear it — for to him Śrī Mahārāj had appeared a boy of

eleven.

( 7 )

Once Śrī Bholādatt Pāṇḍe, the advocate, was riding his costly horse towards Kāṭhgodām. The

quality of passion was very strong in him. Near Rānībāg he saw Śrī Śrī Munīndra Mahārāj seated

on a small hill-rock at the roadside. Śrī Mahārāj's mood at that moment seemed most charming: a

gentle laughter graced the moon of his face. Seeing him laughing, Bholādattjī supposed, in his

error, that this madman-like fellow was looking at him and laughing in mockery, and deserved

punishment. At that time he was not acquainted with Śrī Mahārāj. His riding-whip was already in

his hand. In great anger he asked Mahārāj why he was looking at him and laughing. With great

calm Śrī Mahārāj answered: "No, Bābā, I am not laughing at you. The great bell of Śrī

Badrīnāth's temple has fallen down. A great many men are putting their strength to it together

to lift it — but it is so heavy that it will not rise by any means. It is at seeing this that I

am amused!"

Bholādattjī thought that to escape a beating this man had made up a wholly new story. Śrī

Badrīnāth's temple is about three hundred miles from there. So he said that this sort of

deception would not answer: "I shall find out the truth of it at once. If your statement proves

false, I shall punish you severely." Saying this he went off in an attitude of great fury.

Reaching Kāṭhgodām, he found out by telephone whether the bell of the Badrīnāth temple had

fallen or not. In due course the answer came back to him: that at the very time he had named,

the bell was being lifted with great effort, and that even now it had not been got up. On

receiving this news, Bholādattjī's pride sustained a very heavy blow. He was also filled with

astonishment at the report. Now he became desperate to ask Śrī Mahārāj's pardon. After much

effort, some days later, he received word that Śrī Mahārāj was near the cave of Bāṁsulī. Going

there, in the humblest of spirits, he begged Śrī Mahārāj's forgiveness again and again, and took

refuge with him for good.

Śrī Bholādattjī performed the service and worship of Śrī Mahārāj with the most single-minded

devotion. After obtaining release from his livelihood, he practised severe sādhanā for

twenty-two years at Siddhāśram (Śītalākhet). From these twenty-two years of his diaries

something of Śrī Mahārāj's majesty and of the sweetness of his deeds can be learned.

( 8 )

At the humble urging of Maṅgalā Siṃh the forest patrolman, Śrī Mahārāj came to the village of

Chorgalyā; and these were the cold days of the month of Māgh. Śrī Mahārāj did not agree to stay

inside a house there, and his dhūnī was arranged for outside the settlement.

The cold was falling very hard. From time to time there were spells of snow as well. But Śrī

Mahārāj's dhūnī went on blazing exactly as it was. It seemed as though the rain-water did not

so much as touch the fire of the dhūnī.

( 9 )

Once, when Śrī Śrī Munīndra Mahārāj had taken his seat in the cave at Haiḍākhān, some sādhus and

great souls, hearing of his fame, came for darśan of him. Those days were in the month of

Māgh, and the cold was falling hard. In the course of the satsaṅg, talk turned upon the kāphal

[the hill box-myrtle]. The people of the place explained that in the mountains kāphal can only

be had in the month of Jyeṣṭha, and that in the cold days this fruit sets nowhere at all. Out of

curiosity the thought arose in the great souls' minds that they ought to ask the perfected one,

the lord of the perfected, the celibate Bābā, for kāphal and nothing else as prasād.

When this notion of theirs became known, Śrī Mahārāj went off some distance and brought back

ripe kāphal — branch and all — plucked from no one knows where. This he distributed to the

great souls as prasād.

( 10 )

In the hot season Śrī Mahārāj moved out of the Haiḍākhān cave and took his seat in a leaf-hut.

This hut had been built right on the bank of the Gautamī Gaṅgā. There Śrī Mahārāj performed the

austerity of the five fires. Afterwards it was observed that every morning a lion of vast size

would come to Śrī Mahārāj to make its obeisance. Once, when some great souls were staying with

Śrī Mahārāj as guests, they saw the lion coming towards them in the morning and began to feel a

dreadful fear. Śrī Mahārāj reassured them: "Do not be afraid; the lion will make its obeisance

and go."

When the lion had come quite near, the great souls in their fear shut their eyes tight. A little

later, when they opened them, they saw the lion slowly turning and going back.

( 11 )

When Śrī Mahārāj was at the "Vṛndāvan garden" (Almoṛā), he called Dūlā Bhagat and said: "If

there is a holy stream of sweet water anywhere here, take me to it." Dūlā considered — where is

there a stream of sweet water here, and to what place am I to take him? But he could not settle

it. He judged it right to consult Śiromaṇijī Pāṭhak (of Śītalākhet) first. Accordingly he took

Śrī Śrī Munīndra Mahārāj with him and went to Śiromaṇijī.

With a most extraordinary spirit of faith Śiromaṇijī seated Śrī Mahārāj at his house; and taking

a water-pot, he set out with Dūlā and Gaurīdatt Pant to fetch holy sweet water.

Śiromaṇijī remembered that once, when he had gone into the forest to gather kāphal, he had

drunk sweet holy water from a slender spring. It was his purpose to bring the holy water from

that same spring.

Evening had come on, and it had grown dark. But there was an extraordinary gladness in

Śiromaṇijī's heart; joy made every hair of him stand up. To find the stream in the dark was very

hard going. With full eagerness he went on searching here and there by guesswork. After long

delay he reached that slender stream. He set about filling the pot. In about half an hour the

pot had come to be somewhat filled. After that, earth began to come with the water. So he

returned with the pot only that much filled, and presented the water in service to Śrī Mahārāj.

Smelling that water, Mahārāj said that it was most excellent and holy. He drank all of it. Then

he said that in the morning they would certainly go to this stream.

In the morning itself, Śrī Mahārāj came with the three devotees to the stream, and went on

scraping with his finger at the place from which the slender thread of water issued. All the

devotees watched this līlā of Śrī Mahārāj's with astonished eyes. After some while a thick

stream of water began to come from that spring. A length of bamboo pipe was fitted beneath it.

To this day that stream runs day and night, and its water is very holy, sweet and cold. Knowing

Śrī Mahārāj's wish, his leaf-hut was built close beside it.

The air of this place is so delightful and so charming, and it so pleased Śrī Mahārāj, that he

began to say that it would be very good if an āśram were built here. This is a most holy spot.

Facing it, among the snow-crowned ranges, one has sight of Badrīnāth, Nandākoṭ and other holy

places of pilgrimage.

The resolves of the perfected one, the lord of the perfected, are themselves the resolves of

Śiva.

All those who owned land there gave that land in gift for the āśram. Bholādattjī the advocate,

the devotee from Nainītāl, was entrusted with the management and the legal proceedings. The

whole business was carried through smoothly. Śrī Mahārāj named the āśram himself, and gave it

the name "Siddhāśram".

Siddhāśram was very dear to Śrī Mahārāj, and he stayed here about six months. Those devotees who

obtained Śrī Mahārāj's satsaṅg here have very great merit indeed; they received a joy greater

even than the highest bliss. The beauty of Kailāś itself had come down upon Siddhāśram, and a

rain of the nectar of supreme bliss kept Siddhāśram unceasingly wet. Sadāśiva himself, Śrīman

Munīndra Mahārāj, lay spread over Siddhāśram in those days like a covering cloud. There his

more-than-earthly līlās went on happening daily.

In those days, whoever went there for darśan of Śrī Mahārāj came back fulfilled. Śrī

Mahārāj's body too was filled with wonderful attainments in yoga. Whatever marks of the

perfected yogi are given in the Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad, all those marks went on showing

themselves of their own accord in Śrī Mahārāj's body. Sleep did not come to him. Whenever the

fist of his hand opened, a bewitching scent like musk came out of it. The sound of his breathing

in and out was never heard by anyone. Whether he walked fast or slowly, no one ever saw him out

of breath. From the shining movement of his chin it was plainly to be known that the

ajapā-japa — the unrepeated repetition — of his chosen Name was going on. His attainments of

Annapūrṇā and of the sandals are exceedingly well known in the world. His stool had no bad smell

at all: it was exactly like earth, and within five minutes it mingled with the earth in such a

way that it seemed there had never been any there. Every limb of his was exceedingly soft, and

the devotee who pressed Munīndra Mahārāj's blessed limbs felt as though bones had no existence

in his body at all. Hunger and thirst never touched him. The devotion of his devotees was his

food. It was seen more than once that whenever Śrī Mahārāj was fed without that devotion behind

it, he would vomit the food up.

One night, when Śiromaṇijī had fallen asleep in Mahārāj's leaf-hut itself, Śrī Mahārāj woke him

and said: "Look — what is that beside the water-stream?" Śiromaṇijī got up and saw four masses

of light close by the stream. By their power there was a light there like the light of day.

He was left speechless, and gazed at them without blinking for fifteen minutes. Afterwards, when

those masses of light had vanished, Śiromaṇijī collected himself and asked Śrī Mahārāj: "Lord!

Who were those masses of light?" With great love Śrī Mahārāj told him that Śrī Badrīnāth had

come to this most holy ground: those masses of light were Lakṣmī-Nārāyaṇa himself and his

inseparable attendants.

( 12 )

In the city of Mithilā (Janakpur) there lived a Vaiṣṇava sādhu. On his pilgrimage to the

Himālaya he had brought water from Gaṅgotrī, and was waiting to go to Śrī Rāmeśvaram on the

auspicious occasion of Śivarātri. On the very day he decided that he would set out next morning

for darśan of the Lord swift-to-be-pleased, Śrī Rāmeśvar, on that same night the Lord Śrī

Rāmachandra — who was his chosen deity — gave him this command in a dream: "Go to Almoṛā, and

there take darśan of Śrī Haiḍākhān-vāle Bābā and worship him. He is an incarnation of Śrī Śiva

himself."

Taking his chosen deity's command upon his head, the worthy saint came to Almoṛā. Śrī Mahārāj

had come there to the house of Paṇḍit Viṣṇudattjī Jośī.

Asking his way as he went, the sādhu came to the house of that fortunate and worthy householder.

At the sight of that hidden Lord Śiva whom Śrī Rām had pointed him to, he was filled with the

highest delight. Body, breath, mind and intellect all began to bathe in a threefold confluence

of indescribable peace, beauty and joy. Seeing this state of his, marked by the eight signs of

devotional feeling, the company of devotees present there watched this unheard-of sight with

astonished eyes.

After some while he came back to himself. Then he went to the bazaar and had a dhotī and a

mirjaī made for Śrī Mahārāj, and cooked food with his own hands to offer him.

Again he bathed, performed his evening devotions, and did service to his chosen deity, the Lord

Śrī Rāghavendra, the perfect man of righteousness. Then, having obtained leave from his supreme

object of worship, the divine pair Śrī Sītārāmjī, he plunged into the worship of Bhole Bābā, Śrī

Sadāśiva, who is not other than they. With great exactness of rite the worthy saint performed

the worship in both the Vedic and the Tāntric manners. After the offering of water for the hands

and for the feet, he bathed Śrī Mahārāj with water mixed with the five nectars. Having bathed

him then in pure water, he poured upon Śrī Mahārāj's head the water of holy Gaṅgotrī — most

sacred, purifier of all the worlds. At the touch of Gaṅgā water offered in unmixed devotion, Śrī

Gaṅgādhar, the bearer of the Gaṅgā, was supremely pleased. Devotee and Lord — the sādhu and Śrī

Mahārāj — both arrived together in the divine abode of Kailāś. For as long as the bathing lasted,

and the ārtī was performed, and the food-offering laid, that house went on appearing to the

worthy sādhu as the very Kailāś the Purāṇas describe. Others could not grasp this mystery; but

before that sādhu, Śrī Mahārāj was giving darśan in exactly that form in which the Vedas, the

Purāṇas and the Tantras describe the forms of Maheśvara.

And this was no new thing. O Āśutoṣa, giver beyond all measure! This tenderness of yours towards

your devotees is known to all. God or demon, whoever he may be — let him but once, however

strayed and wandering, come into your refuge, and then what? Lord, bound by your own compassionate

nature, you rescue him without fail. O tender-hearted beloved of Śivā, Lord of the universe! A

devotee's sorrow so grieves you that you make an end of that sorrow with all speed and make him

one whom the three worlds revere. O three-eyed one! Such is that mercy-softened eye of yours:

"sakata na dekhi dīna kara joṛe" — he cannot bear to see the humble stand with folded hands.

Be that as it may. After a long while this act of worship came to its end. Readers may judge for

themselves out of their own feeling: how should this dull pen express that great meeting, that

inward state of devotee and Lord?

Having taken prasād, the sādhu sat some time before Śrī Mahārāj. After a while the command

came: "Bābā, now go." Hearing this command the sādhu was thrown into distress. He had no sooner

folded his hands and bowed his head to make some prayer than that venerable blessed form

vanished on the instant. At this he felt no particular astonishment, for he had understood that

this is the natural līlā of Śiva in the form of a man.

He spent some moments there; his heart, already aching with separation, now came into a state

stranger still. Seeing this unheard-of condition of the sādhu's, the company of devotees there

requested him respectfully: "Great soul! Be so kind as to give us a full account of yourself, and

take the trouble to tell us the cause of this more-than-earthly steadfastness of yours towards

Śrī Sadgurudev." The sādhu related his whole story before them all. At this unveiling of a

hidden mystery — an unveiling made by Śrī Rām himself, the lord of all the universes, the full

Brahman — every one of the devotees began to count themselves blessed indeed.

( 13 )

A scholar of great learning put this question to Śrī Sadgurudev Mahārāj: "In the scriptures

there is a description of the universal form. We too have reasoned it out on the authority of

scripture, but no wholly satisfying answer has been obtained. Be so kind as to say something on

this subject from your own blessed mouth."

Śrī Mahārāj sat silent. It was his rule that even the most hidden of matters touching the spirit

he would cause a man to realise directly. He used speech very sparingly. By speech no fitting and

undoubtable resolution is reached:

Following this very principle, Śrī Mahārāj said: "Shut your eyes, do your worship a little

while, and then open them."

After opening his eyes, as far as that scholar's sight could reach, in every place and in every

visible thing he had darśan of Śrī Mahārāj alone. In every atom he saw at that moment the same

Śrī Gurudev, wearing his kurtā and his cap.

After this true realising of the universal form, the first utterance to break from the paṇḍit's

mouth was this: that in truth the nature of God cannot be settled by scripture; scripture is only

a pointing, on the maxim of "the moon and the branch" — the finger that points through the

branches is not the moon.

↑ విషయసూచిక

07

The Bouquet of the Examination of Essence

The first stabaka

To reveal the inner sense of the verses composed by Śrī Lakṣmaṇajī — my own supreme chosen

deity, and the supreme devotee of the Lord Śaṅkar, the chakor bird gazing at the moon of Śrī

Rāmachandra's face — the Śrī Ūrmilā commentary alone is fully competent. For it is the wholly

devoted wife who is competent to analyse and to understand her beloved's every gesture and every

hint. Śrī Ūrmilājī alone can properly bring out what is in her dearest one's heart — what her

beloved is aiming at in a given utterance. For this reason it seemed fitting to give this most

beautiful commentary the name Śrī Ūrmilā-bhāṣya; because she alone, of her kindness, is

competent to make plain the deep hints of Śrī Lakhanlāl.

The auspicious name of this first stabaka is "The Bouquet of the Examination of Essence." In

it the philosophical investigation of the principle of Brahman is carried out. The eleven verses

of this stabaka, standing as eleven aphorisms, take on the character of root-aphorisms and are

the foundation stone of the whole book. In the stabakas that follow, it is these same root

principles that are expanded.

Śrī Siddha Siddheśvar Sadgurudev is the pure nature of the Supreme Brahman, and his blessed body

is of the nature of Being, Consciousness and Bliss. May he — the doer, wearing the ear-covering

cap, Maheśvara whose very form is divine — make the temple of my mind, which the quality of

darkness pervades, shine with his own divine radiance.

In the Vedas and the Vedāntas the nature of Brahman has been set forth in full. Great and

venerable sages have made every effort, out of their divine knowledge, to establish that Light

beyond the beyond in words; but a principle which is beyond the reach of speech and of all the

senses — how is it to be fully established in words? And so, where the scriptures have laid down

"athāto brahma-jijñāsā" — "now, therefore, the desire to know Brahman is declared" [*Brahma

Sūtra* 1.1.1] — beyond that point they have each taken flight according to their own

understanding, and have at the last come to rest by saying only this: *"neti neti nita nigama

kahaĩ"* — "not this, not this," the scriptures say for ever.

Here Śrī Siddha Siddheśvar, that ocean of compassion, has been pointed to as the pure form of

the supreme Brahman. The purport of the word saṁśuddha, "wholly pure," is therefore this: that

Brahman variegated by māyā cannot be Brahman's wholly pure form. Beyond māyā, beyond

ego-sense, beyond the senses, beyond form, taste, smell, touch and sound, beyond the five great

elements — that is, the pure nature of the Brahman beyond the beyond — is Śrī Śambhu alone; who,

being beyond māyā, pervades the moving and unmoving world and every last atom of it as a wholly

free and luminous form. And although he is beyond the three guṇas, yet by his own freedom he

takes on a blessed body of Being, Consciousness and Bliss, and descends into this field of

action — to give consolation to the hearts of his devotees, to fulfil the eyes of flesh, and to

behold for himself his own nature come down upon the stage of the world; and so he makes the

mind-temple of his devotees, pervaded though it is by the quality of darkness, wholly luminous

with his own beauty, which enchants the three worlds. For very few can be capable of worshipping

the Brahman without qualities. The ordinary run of people, badly entangled as they are in the

wheel of the world, can be delivered only by the worship of God with qualities. And so, taking

on a form, and moving about in a particular dress that steals the mind, he fulfils every living

creature out of his own bliss — some by his sight, some by his touch, and some by the singing of

his praises.

Of just this kind was the dress of Śrī Guru Mahārāj, by the mere meditating on which a man's

heart, scorched by the three afflictions, comes to know a boundless peace. When so beautiful a

form has settled into a man's heart, then all the forms of the world begin to seem flat to him;

for Rahīm has said it plainly:

That is to say: if an ant finds a grain of sugar-candy or a heap of sugar-drops somewhere, it

takes it in its mouth and runs for its hole; but if that same ant were set down inside a jar of

sugar-candy, it would wander about in every direction, drowned in delight, tasting the sweetness

and content. At that moment it could make no effort to fill its mouth and run for the hole.

The reason is plain. If we become absorbed in material form, taste, smell and touch, then, because

of their pettiness, no full satisfaction can be had. And so long as the individual soul does not

obtain an all-surpassing satisfaction, it stays restless and wanders after satisfaction from one

sense-object to another.

In such a case, if the mind begins to take its pleasure in Brahman — the utmost limit of form and

taste and smell and every other object — then the petty worldly pleasures of the senses will

begin to seem trifling to it beside that endless treasury of supreme bliss; and, once drowned in

that supreme bliss, it will become able to let go of its own accord the crocodiles of desire,

anger, liking, loathing and greed. Therefore, when the form of the whole Śiva-Brahman, wearing

kurtā and ear-cloth, has settled into these eyes, then these eyes, being satisfied with the

supremely sweet beauty of the Guru-Brahman, will not fall prey to the petty enticements outside,

and the mind will obtain an endless peace. It is for this reason that devotees seat that

world-enchanting beauty of their Lord Śrī Gurudev in the temple of their minds, and pray for the

lighting up of the truth of the Self.

These opening eleven verses of the "Bouquet of the Examination of Essence" expound, in the form

of aphorisms, the hidden and essential nature of the Śiva-principle. After this, in the other

stabakas, light has been thrown on each principle separately. That which is self-luminous needs

no other light to make it shine.

And so, to the very end, the establishing of what is to be proved is carried through by means of

this same root principle. The chief purpose of holding the form of the supreme Brahman to be a

blessed body of Being, Consciousness and Bliss appears to be this: that being a wholly pure

blessed body, it is the one and only ground of all three — being, consciousness and bliss; and

that is why there exists in it the matchless power to make the mind, wrapped in the quality of

darkness, blaze with its own divine power of consciousness.

Loving readers: this is that very first verse, in the form of a great mantra, which broke of a

sudden from the mouth of this worthless one as the very incarnation of Śrī Sarasvatī, at ten

minutes past eight in the morning on the eighth day of the bright fortnight of Māgh, Saṁvat 2013

[January 1957]; and by whose coming forth this life of mine, having gained refuge with Śrī

Mahendra Svāmījī Mahārāj, was made fulfilled — and, obtaining the knowledge of his true nature,

received divine knowledge and the divine eye.

For a soul drowned in this ocean of a world — covered on every side by the darkness that is

delusion, and pervaded by the crocodiles of desire, anger, passion, envy and the rest, so that a

man cannot swim across it and come out by his own strength — the blessed feet of Śrī Gurudev are

the one and only refuge.

This world is of itself hard to cross, like a great ocean; and then the tendencies of delusion,

greed, envy and the rest, taking on the form of darkness, are making this ocean of the world

harder to pass still. Beyond even that, the crocodiles that are desire, anger, greed, delusion,

pride and jealousy — dwelling in the human body itself, man's greatest enemies, which do not

leave off pursuing this soul for even a moment — make this ocean of the world altogether

impassable. For the individual soul drowning in this fearsome ocean of a world, the all-powerful

blessed feet of Śrī Gurudev are the one and only support.

Just as, though the ocean and its darkness and its crocodiles and all the rest are the very

tokens of impassability, yet if a sound boat is to be had a man can mount it and travel with

ease — even so, this too is needful: that the boatman whose hand is on the rudder be very

skilful, capable and worthy of trust; only then can the voyage be carried through entire.

Otherwise, however strong the boat may be, there remains the fear of its being turned back by the

boatman's carelessness. If the boat is fair and sound, and the boatman is a master of his craft,

then make the voyage of life without misgiving: there is no need of any doubt whatever.

Therefore, O Lord — although in this fathomless ocean of the world an empire of fathomless

darkness lies on every side, and although it is hard to cross for the crocodiles of appetite —

we have firm faith in your powerful arms. And so, by your grace, the little boat of our life

will certainly come easily to the shore of the ocean of becoming; of this there is not the least

doubt.

O God of gods! You are wholly able, and you are our one refuge; show us grace and carry us over

this ocean of becoming:

O Lord! Leaving your supremely divine form, where am I now to wander? I look in all four

directions with hopeful eyes, but wherever my gaze goes, there an empire of hopelessness meets

it. Therefore, of your kindness, grant to this trifling creature also the refuge of your own

blessed feet, and so make good your names — "purifier of the fallen" and "lifter-up of the

lowest."

O yoga and lord of yoga! You are born of truth and are unceasingly engaged in truth; you are

merged in truth itself, and you are the giver of refuge to the true. You lay out the road of

truth. To that fixed truth which is your nature — you who are truth in all three times — I bow

again and again.

The whole created world is made of the three guṇas: in one thing there is a greater measure of

sattva, in another a greater measure of tamas with sattva and rajas in lesser measure.

But the nature of Śrī Guru-Brahman, adorned with every glory, has arisen out of pure sattva

and is sattva made visible — and therefore his nature is truth itself.

He is unceasingly engaged in that truth which rajas and tamas cannot cloud. He is merged in

Brahman, which is truth; for since no admixture of any other quality enters into it, it happens

at once — as milk is merged in milk, and milk merged in milk can by no means be shown separate

again; so, when the supremely pure Brahman is merged in the supremely pure Brahman, its nature is

past all telling. It is for this very reason that you are the one refuge of those in whom

sattva predominates; and the road which is fixed truth — the eternal Vedic road — you bring

forth from your own breath in the form of Hayagrīva. To that nature of fixed truth I bow, that

truth may come forth in my own soul.

O merciful one! Your nature is that which grants the light of knowledge to souls that have gone

astray among many doctrines and schools. Like the disc of the sun, your nature is radiant and

blazing, and it is the giver of an unfailing peace.

In this world many doctrines are current. The travellers of each doctrine call their own full of

substance and declare the other worthless, and so sow the seed of mutual envy and hatred. By

this, no doubt, their own standing is momentarily raised and a momentary satisfaction is

produced in their minds; but because the mutual difference of opinion goes on growing, the

followers of those doctrines are caught in a knowledge founded on error and lose their own road.

When such travellers — souls fallen from the road — go astray in the darkness of māyā, then the

divine nature of Śrī Gurudev shows them the way with its matchless light of knowledge.

Just as the orb of the sun, shining by its own light, lights up the whole world, so too the

supremely radiant nature of Śrī Sadgurudev, shining by its own light, not merely gives light to

all the creatures of the whole world, but gives them spiritual peace as well.

The light of the sun is able to drive away only the darkness that is outside; and if a thousand

suns were to rise at once, they still could not drive away the darkness within. But this is the

more-than-earthly divine light of the Supreme Brahman, which gives the heart a quiet light and so

grants peace, and which, by the refuge of its own blessed feet, fills a man to overflowing with

joy.

O Lord! Your nature is the very form of the Lord Śaṅkar, and you are unceasingly merged in the

form of Śrī Śaṅkar. You grant the fulfilment of those resolves which are auspicious and work the

good of the world; and you are ablaze with the power of Śivā — that is, of Pārvatījī.

Your nature is adorned with the blessed disc of the moon. O Lord! You yourself are the form of

the auspicious Śrī Śiva; or rather, being a descent of Śiva, you are Śrī Śaṅkar made visible. On

the authority of what the scriptures declare — "śivo bhūtvā śivaṁ yajet", "having become Śiva,

let a man worship Śiva" — you take on the form of Śrī Śiva and remain absorbed in meditation upon

Śrī Sadāśiva; and by granting success to the wish for the world's good that any creature

whatever may form, you give encouragement to the works of the world's welfare. That is to say,

the fulfilment of noble resolves can be obtained by no one without worshipping you:

From such sayings it is proved that to this day no one has obtained the fulfilment of an

auspicious resolve of the mind without the grace of Sāmba Sadāśiva, Śrī Bhole Bābā.

Śivā-Śakti — that is, the image joined with the nourishing and sustaining power of Śrī Māteśvarī

Śrī Ambikā, worker of the world's good — abides for ever on the left side of Śrī Sadāśiva. The

divine brow stays adorned with the disc of the moon; and because of this, at the mere sight of

him the soul scorched by the three afflictions must of itself come to taste an easy peace. And

in the hearts of those who meditate, the moment they meditate on that blessed ocean of supreme

beauty adorned with the moon's disc, the tasting of the bliss of Brahman is the natural

consequence. May that very essence of beauty, the Śiva-Brahman, be gracious to fill my heart

with joy by his light.

O Chandraśekhar, you who wear the moon! Your nature has arisen from the ocean that is bliss, and

is Consciousness and Bliss made visible, and it stays for ever sunk in the sea of supreme bliss.

O Moon-god whose very nature is bliss — I bow again and again at your blessed feet.

The sense is this: O Moon of bliss, Śrī Siddha Siddheśvar! Your most beautiful and auspicious

nature is born of the great ocean of bliss. For in the arising of a blessed body whose nature is

supreme bliss, a body made of worldly materials could not bring forth the light of bliss in its

fullness; and so this divine nature is born of the great sea of bliss, and is Consciousness and

Bliss made visible in a blessed image. And just as the Moon-god, risen out of the ocean of milk,

sinks again into that ocean, so too the Moon of bliss, risen out of the ocean of bliss, sinks

again into the ocean of supreme bliss, which is the nature of the Supreme Brahman beyond the

beyond. To such a Moon of bliss — born of bliss, himself the very image of bliss, and merged in

bliss — to the blessed feet of Śrī Śaṅkar, the devotees bow, that they may obtain bliss.

O Lord of yoga! For giving the divine light to the eyes of devotees veiled by the covering that

is māyā, your nature is like the nectar-salve for the eyes.

It destroys worldly actions; and it gladdens the mind of Śrī Mahendra Svāmī, that jewel of a

disciple who is your own dearest one, sheltered at your blessed feet.

O Yogirāj Sadāśiva! Worldly māyā is a very sorrowful thing, for this māyā draws even the

minds of the wise to itself by force; and so the condition of ordinary souls, caught in the net

of māyā, becomes wholly pitiable. But before your nature that māyā dances like a dancing

girl, and does not let any kind of calamity arise for your devotee at all.

Therefore your divine beauty gives light like a beautiful divine collyrium, to give sight to the

eyes of devotees curtained over by māyā. Just as an eye-salve prepared from divine herbs cuts

away the film of the eye and sets light moving in a blind man's eyes, so the mere sight of your

beautiful form lifts the curtain of ignorance from before the devotees' eyes and produces a light

full of knowledge. By this the evil deeds gathered in former births are destroyed.

The worldly actions a man has done in a former birth and in this one are of the nature of seed;

and just as the sower of a seed receives its fruit, so the good and evil actions done by a soul

give their fruit without fail in birth after birth. But just as the sprouting power of roasted

seeds is destroyed by fire, so that when they are sown no tree grows at all — and fruit is

altogether out of the question — in the same way, by the mere sight of you the fruit-giving power

in worldly actions, good and evil alike, is destroyed.

That is: a man has to take birth in order to undergo the fruit even of good actions, and to

undergo the fruit of evil actions birth is of course necessary. But when the seeds of both kinds

of action, good and evil, are stripped of their sprouting power by the mere sight of you, then

this soul becomes fit for liberation. So the power to undo the seeds of action in this way is

fully present in the sight of your form. And your dearest devotee and disciple, Śrī Mahendra

Svāmī, beholding your divine form with his own eyes, stays night and day sunk in an ocean of

bliss within his own mind. May that divine nature of yours give light in our hearts, and grant

the soul a bliss that is full.

O great sage! Your divine nature is for ever engaged in the knowledge of the Brahman that is

Truth. It is itself Truth made visible. It is the divine form of the Supreme Brahman, void of

every limiting condition; and, showing grace to other devotees, it is the giver to them of the

real knowledge of Brahman, true in all three times. Every limb of your blessed body is the very

substance of that Supreme Brahman.

O best of sages! Although you are yourself the Brahman that is Truth, still, by your divine

knowledge, you remain engaged in meditation upon the Brahman beyond the beyond, whose nature is

the Self.

This is the supreme truth of Vedānta: that Brahman itself contemplates none but itself, and that

you are yourself the very form of Truth. Just as the Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇachandra, in the *Śrīmad

Bhagavad Gītā*, gave peace to his dear devotee Arjuna by showing him the divine form and

declaring the highest reality among all glories to be his own very self — so all the powerful

and great glories that exist in the world display only a partial excellence of that Brahman.

Therefore it is proved beyond dispute that you alone are the form of Truth, and that every

substance besides you which exists in the world is void of substance. As the truth in the human

body is the soul: once it has gone out, the body, though furnished with all its senses, is of no

use at all, and serves only for burning or for burying.

So the brightness lasts in all glories only so long as the light of that Truth remains in them,

and when the Truth departs all things become void of substance. Therefore you are the Brahman

that is Truth made visible; and being engaged in the knowledge of Truth and being yourself the

form of Truth, you are also the giver of the knowledge of Truth. Only a man who has a full

treasury of some thing can be able to give that thing to others; but one who does not himself

possess that thing — how can he be able to give it to others? So you are the giver of the

knowledge of Truth as well, and every limb of your blessed body is Truth in form. Being of an

indescribable divine radiance, you are the centre of all real being and its true nature.

O Lord! You are the beautiful flower of the wish-granting tree that is the knowledge of Truth —

a flower which, by its matchless splendour, is waited upon by the bee that is Śrī Mahendra. May

that divine form of yours, the flower of the beautiful creeper of Truth, take its pleasure in my

mind for ever.

In the verse written above, the devotee prays humbly to his Lord: O Lord, the knowledge of the

Brahman that is Truth is as it were a wish-fulfilling tree. Just as, going into the happy shade

of the wish-fulfilling tree, whatever a man imagines in his heart comes and stands at once

before him — so too your more-than-earthly divine form is, as it were, the beautiful flower of

the wish-fulfilling tree that is knowledge of the Self. For of all the parts of a tree the

flower is held the most important: above bark, leaf, branch and fruit, the flower is counted the

chief part in beauty and in quality. So you are not merely the wish-fulfilling tree of

Self-knowledge; more than that, you are meditated upon as the flower which is the very essence of

that tree.

Here the figuring of Śrī Mahendra as the bee is the reason for figuring the Lord as the flower of

the wish-granting creeper; for the bee is the flower's true customer, and covetous of it. The

flower which no bee loves is held to have been born into the world in vain. In the same way Śrī

Mahendra Svāmī is a suitor for your qualities — your worth, your greatness, your knowledge, your

dispassion, your yoga. As the bee stays busy in its suit for nectar, and even when it has tasted

nectar in good measure is still not satisfied — so your dear disciple too, though he takes

initiation into your more-than-earthly qualities night and day, and though he is satisfied again

and again, remains greedy still. As the saying has it — "lubudha madhupa iva tajai na pāsū",

"like a greedy bee, he will not leave his side" — and by his unceasing service he makes that

saying good.

Your nature, joined with such qualities as are beyond this world, is the one great medicine for

the sickness that is worldly birth and death; that is, it is the giver of immortality to the

soul. May that form take its pleasure in our minds unceasingly, at every moment, for the welfare

of us creatures tormented by worldly ignorance. That is to say: may we, enchanted by its true

beauty, be freed from the snare of birth and death, and succeed by your grace in attaining the

real truth whose form is "ahaṁ brahma" — "I am Brahman." This alone is our inmost longing.

O most glorious one! May your beauty abide in the heart-lotus of Śrī Mahendra Svāmī, that jewel

of a disciple and supreme devotee of yours, for as long as moon and stars remain in the world;

and, meditating on your beautiful image seated in his heart-lotus, may the creatures of a world

scorched by the three afflictions be drowned in bliss.

O helmsman of the ocean of yoga! This Mahendra Svāmījī Mahārāj is your devotee without a second

and your true disciple. May your divine image abide in his heart as long as moon and stars, or

earth and sky, remain in the world. This is the heartfelt blessing of the soul of me, a brāhmaṇa,

echoing from every corner of my heart; for what has this trifling servant, in virtue of his

brāhmaṇahood, besides a blessing — that he might lay it in service before him and so show his

gratitude for the divine knowledge granted him? Nor does he appear to need any other blessing,

for the supreme treasure of his heart is you yourself.

In your sight, in meditation on you, in the repetition of your name, in the remembrance of you

alone he stays drowned in bliss night and day. Therefore, to grant success to this brāhmaṇa's

words, be seated unceasingly in his heart-lotus; for by your abiding in his heart the good of

countless devotees can be brought about through the sight of you.

The pure knowledge of Brahman has always come down by the succession of gurus; and so the good

fortune of bringing the Bhāgīrathī that is your own nature down to worldly creatures as trifling

as ourselves belongs to this great man alone.

It is he who has shown the kindness of bringing this deathless message to our souls; otherwise we

were creatures stuck fast in the mire of cavilling founded on error. What gift, then, shall we

offer our benefactor, and so be fulfilled? We offer this very blessing as our gift. It was in his

divine soul that we obtained the first sight of your image; and so, meditating on that divine

image of yours, full of supreme bliss, seated in that temple of the mind, may we stay drowned in

bliss night and day. For since it is through him that we are made fit for the good fortune of

that sight, may we go on seeing the nature that is true in all three times in that very place

where the good fortune of the first sight was obtained.

There is a second sense as well: that our fortunes are not strong enough for us to go on seeing

you unceasingly with our own sight, since our minds are exceedingly restless and cannot stay

gathered in one place; and you are all-pervading in your nature. Yet he has bound you to himself

by his devotion. So, just as by the help of an instrument such as the radio even a man of limited

understanding can sit in his own room and hear the hidden and widespread sound of the sky —

because, mastery over the sound-waves having been gained by the instrument's power, those waves,

pervasive though they are, are concentrated inside that instrument — in the same way, when you

abide unceasingly in Śrī Mahendra Svāmī's heart, adorned with faith and devotion and love, being

charmed by his more-than-earthly qualities, then we shall easily be able to behold the auspicious

sight of your divine light concentrated in that instrument which is his pure heart. For this

truth is set down in the Śrīmad Bhāgavata:

And so it is altogether impossible that the good fortune of this steady sight of you should be

obtained by devotees so easily anywhere else.

This "Bouquet of the Examination of Essence" stands for the reasoned examination of the principle

of Brahman. In it both forms, the unqualified and the qualified, have been examined. From this it

is plain that the knowledge of the principle of Brahman is deathless knowledge; that it passes

from one heart into another heart; and that book, Veda, Purāṇa and history are altogether unable

to display it fully.

That truth, if it can be obtained at all, can be obtained only by the grace of Sadgurudev. For

that there exists no other means whatever in the world. Of it the poet says:

That is a truth to be won by the grace of Śrī Guru alone, by the grace of the Lord alone; even a

glimpse of that knowledge is not to be had by other means. Once a man has obtained it, he has no

need of the gaining of any other thing:

That is: on obtaining that supreme gain, all a man's appetites are stilled of themselves, and he

is made blessed for ever.

By reciting with faith and devotion this most holy king of hymns — that is, merely the "Hymn of

the Examination of Essence" — all attainments, material and spiritual alike, become wholly easy

of access, by the grace of Śrī Siddha Siddheśvar Śrī Gurudev.

The real purport of this is as follows. If in his life a man can find each day so much time as

will let him recite the whole hymn daily, then there is no measuring his supreme joy. Otherwise,

if time is short, then even by reciting only the ten verses of the Examination of Essence, full

peace and happiness are obtained. For these are the root-aphorisms; it is from these that I

obtained the divine light and the power to unlock the mysteries that follow. This is my own

personal experience. You too have come into this field of action to gain experience: try it and

see. To make a man believe in the burning power of fire, in the fragrance of musk, or in the

divine light of jewels, no oath is needed — these are truths true in all three times, fixed and

unshakable. ‖ 11 ‖

↑ విషయసూచిక

08

The Bouquet of the Examination of the Divine Form

The second stabaka

The name settled upon the second stabaka of the Śrī Sadguru Stuti Kusumāñjali is "The

Bouquet of the Examination of the Divine Form." In it, by displaying the various forms of the

Brahman beyond the beyond, the establishing of one indescribable Śiva-principle is carried

through; and the whole meaning of human life is shown to lie in taking refuge in that principle

with the whole of oneself.

This most holy story — the Gaṅgā of praise that purifies the world — is stranger than other

rivers. Worldly rivers set a current of water flowing, and by bathing in them a man's body and

mind are cleansed. But this river of story has this strangeness in it: that its water is sound

itself; and sound, being the eternal property of space, is an eternal thing, and, pervading the

atmosphere undiminished, is a thing that flows on always and equally even in places where the

water of rivers cannot reach — in mountain caves and hollows.

Again, rivers make holy only that region through which their current runs; but this river of

praise has this excellence, that the power to make the whole three worlds holy at once is present

in it equally. Those who would bathe in a river must go to the riverbank; but this Gaṅgā takes

the form of sound and, taking the form of a book, arrives of itself at the house of every

enquiring devotee, to make him pure.

As other rivers descend from the mountains, so this Gaṅgā of knowledge descends from Śrī

Mahendrāchala — Mount Mahendra. Here Śrī Mahendra Svāmī, blessed in his very name, has been given

the figure of a mountain in the language of poetry; and in truth this appears well founded, for

as a mountain is steady and immovable, so Śrī Svāmījī Mahārāj's faith at the blessed feet of the

supremely venerable Gurudev is immovable, and the form of him seated in samādhi appears

altogether mountain-still. From that holy Mount Mahendra this most purifying Gaṅgā of knowledge

comes forth; and as worldly and heavenly rivers alike find their end in the ocean, so this most

purifying Gaṅgā of knowledge reaches of itself to the lotus feet of Śrī Gurudev, and easily

carries its travellers there too. Such is this river of the gods that is knowledge: full with the

whole of itself; and by its fullness and its purity it makes holy not one world only, but,

purifying the three worlds, stays for ever engaged in the welfare of the whole moving and unmoving

universe.

Blessed is this most purifying Gaṅgā of knowledge; and blessed are those fortunate companies of

devotees who plunge into it, and who by that plunging taste peace and joy in body, in mind, in

speech and in spirit.

In this unavailing world the story of the Lord is the one thing to which the name *"pāvanaṁ

pāvanānām"* — "the purifier of purifiers" — can be given; that is, in the recital of the Lord's

qualities there exists an undiminished power to make holy things holier still. The lotus feet of

the kings of yoga are supremely holy, for:

At the Kumbh and at other such seasons, saints go to the places of pilgrimage on the pretext of

visiting them, and make even those holy places pure with the dust of their feet.

By the authority of the books of dharma, the removal of the world's great sins comes about

through bathing at a place of pilgrimage. Since the sins of sinners are poured into them night

and day, it must be that in time the power of these places wanes; but from time to time saints

come and, by the setting down of their most sacred feet, make the water of those places sinless

and full of power once more. It is for this reason that the makers of the scriptures have held

the lotus feet of the lords of yoga supremely purifying.

And the speech of the lords of yoga is supremely holy too: by the mere hearing of it the light of

knowledge arises even in wholly ignorant men, and from the teachings heard in satsaṅg a man's

mind obtains supreme peace at once.

In the same way the remembering and the pondering of the kings of yoga are tokens of the highest

purity. By the mere remembering of them the many kinds of base resolve that arise in the mind are

destroyed on the instant. And refuge with the lords of yoga is beyond doubt the holiest thing of

all; for however defiled a soul may be, on taking refuge with the great with a true heart it

becomes pure of itself, and comes to be endowed with the more-than-earthly

power of making others pure as well. ‖ 2 ‖

O you who are tender to those who take refuge, support of the world! Dwell unceasingly in the

heart-lotus of me, a sinner; for without obtaining you it is impossible that my fire of

separation should be quieted. This fire in the heart takes the fearful shape of desire, anger,

greed, delusion, pride and jealousy, and seeks at every moment to burn the soul to ashes. The

sight of your sweet image is supremely peaceful and gives peace; but, O Lord, this soul of mine

cannot be satisfied by the mere sight of you. It has been set spinning on the full wheel of the

dancing-girl māyā. Just as it is impossible for hunger to be stilled by the mere looking at the

sweets laid out in a confectioner's shop — so this soul can obtain supreme peace only when you

show the kindness of making my heart your permanent dwelling place and so fulfil it. Therefore be

gracious: be seated in this empty heart and make me glad. ‖ 3 ‖

O Kṛpāchārya — master of grace, venerable teacher who shows mercy! In this boundless ocean of

becoming I am burning, before your very eyes, upon a pyre of anxieties: for wife, for wealth, for

sons and for many another craving. In such a state, why do you not show the kindness of

sprinkling my soul with the drops of your nectar of grace — drops fully able to still the

sorrows of sorrowing creatures at once — and so quiet me?

The purpose of addressing the venerable Śrī Gurudev at the outset by the title Kṛpāchārya is

this: that you are the teacher of grace, supremely compassionate. In this mire that is the world

I am sunk to the neck. Now I am distracted with anxiety over the keeping of a wife; now I am

occupied in thinking of the household's oil and salt and firewood; now the worry of the

children's schooling, and now of their clothes and food, torments my soul. That anxiety is itself

a kind of terrible funeral pyre; for the great have shown that anxiety is more deadly than the

pyre. The pyre burns only a dead body to ashes; but this anxiety is so terrible that it dries and

burns the living body itself, and wastes a man away to death.

If that pyre of anxiety were burning me out of your sight, there would be nothing to be distressed

about. Taking it for the play of fate, with no protector at hand, I would have borne the burning.

But the greater sorrow is this: "bhavataḥ samakṣam" — that I am burning in it while you look

on; and your title is Kṛpāchārya, the master of grace. Why then do you not rain the drops of the

nectar of grace upon me, to still my pain and my worldly ills of mind and body — that all my

afflictions may be taken away, and I may know happiness by your grace, and so your very epithet

"Kṛpāchārya" be made fully good? ‖ 4 ‖

O Lord! Some men hold that auspicious nature of yours, worthy of praise, to be Kṛpāchārya; some

hold you to be the lord of ascetics; and some hold you to be the form of a certain king of the

age of the Mahābhārata. But you are all-pervading, and all forms are yours. Therefore you have no

one particular form. Since every form in the world is your own nature, all the forms of all

creatures whatever are your nature, shining by your power alone and quickened by your own power

of consciousness.

O bewitcher of the bewitcher of minds! Your nature is a treasure-house of supreme beauty. Your

yogi's dress and your aspect are supremely peaceful, and your most beautiful limbs, by reason of

your self-restraint, are a mine of the highest loveliness. It is from drinking the sweetness of

your beauty that the gods, struck with wonder, gazing at you without blinking, seem like figures

painted in a picture. Here the gods' own unblinking nature is taken as the effect of wonder, and

so the figure of poetic fancy is made. ‖ 6 ‖

O God! Through many births and rebirths I have thirsted with longing for the sight of your lotus

face. That is: I take birth again and again on the stage of the world and become the food of

Time; and again I am born. Here I act out many plays and then become death's mouthful once more;

then I am born and I die; and bound over and over in the fetters of birth and death, I am

brought and set before you. And even so, O Lord — seeing this pitiable condition of mine, like a

guilty prisoner's — why does no feeling of pity for me wake in your heart? When even a great

criminal comes again and again in so pitiable a state and prays for protection, the feelings of

every merciful man are certainly moved to pity him. But I cannot tell what offence of mine it is

for which you feel no pity even at my most pitiable state. Therefore, O ocean of compassion: be

gracious, that this offender may at least in this birth be made fit to beg the alms of your

mercy — so that your titles of "merciful" and "gracious" may also be preserved, and I may be

lifted out of this ocean of becoming by your glance of grace. ‖ 7 ‖

O giver of refuge, protector of those who come to you! I am utterly low and wretched. Remembering

your title of tenderness to those who take refuge, I have come to your refuge. You are for ever

girded to protect the poor who come to you. Therefore have pity on this wretch — have pity, have

pity. And if my deeds are not worthy of pity, then even so, for the sake of preserving your own

title as the rescuer of those who take refuge, show grace to this orphan. ‖ 8 ‖

O lord of yoga! You are the sovereign of yogis and the master helmsman of the science of yoga.

You are therefore wholly worthy to enjoy the majesty that yoga has earned. Yet you do not enjoy

that yoga-won splendour: you take your pleasure in the Self, in just this dress of an emperor

among saints. The reason for this appears to be that, in order to place the divine attainments of

yoga in the very worthiest men of the world, you burn your own body again and again in the fire

of yoga, and taking a new yogic body, free of old age and death, wander in this same dress once

more and again.

It seems, perhaps, that this is your inward wish: that as the terrible age of Kali has made an

end of the Vedas, the scriptures and the sciences of the world, so it may not make an end of the

science of yoga also — for then the world would simply be destroyed utterly. And so, until you

find some fit heir, with whom are you to lodge the treasure of yoga in trust? There is this too:

that is, there is simply no other equal to you in form, in generosity and in quality, whom you

might consider a fit heir to this matchless treasure. Therefore, for its safekeeping, you

yourself refine your material body in the fire of yoga and bring about its renewal. Blessed is

your greatness, and blessed your principle of guarding the vision of yoga for the good of the

world.

How far can we trifling creatures sing the praise of your qualities? ‖ 9 ‖

O swan of the yogi's heart! By every discipline of yoga, day and night, the yogis are busy in the

effort to obtain the sight of you in their own heart-lotus.

Even by the power of their full practice of yoga, the sight of you is had only by good fortune,

now and then, by some yogi seated in samādhi. But, O Lord, those who are wholly fortunate in

this world obtain the sight of your beauty — lovely to the three worlds — in the very stuff of

their enjoyments, even while they are engaged in worldly pleasures. For in your sight enjoyment

and yoga hold an equal place.

It is by no means settled that only the yogi may be fulfilled by the sight of you, and that

those attached to worldly enjoyment must be wholly deprived. For you are Brahman made visible;

you are Bhole Bhaṇḍārī, Āśutoṣa, swift to be pleased. Therefore in your vast sight enjoyment and

yoga are equal, and your grace alone is the chief cause of your sight and of your mercy.

Enjoyment and yoga are worldly conditions. When the grace of your blessed feet comes, there is no

need of them at all. It is the real knowledge of "by what means is Rām made willing" that is

hard for a man to come by. Those true and faithful devotees who have taken refuge at your blessed

feet with the whole of themselves — you go about after them to give them your sight; for this is

your promise:

"O Nārada, supreme devotee! I dwell neither in the abode of Vaikuṇṭha nor in the hearts of

yogis. Where my most faithful devotees sing of me and remember me — there do I dwell always." By

this promise, fortunate men obtain the gladness of the Lord's sight even while they remain

engaged in the splendours of enjoyment; but all that is to be accomplished only by the grace of

that cause of the world's causes, the supremely playful one, the stealer of the heart of the

whole universe.

Because he is supremely free, it is altogether impossible to find out by what action he is

satisfied. An action which in worldly eyes appears blameworthy — in many a place he has been seen

pleased with even that. And so, for us:

The beggar who asks only for grace has business with his alms alone. He has no concern with

criticising the giver's conduct, or with what that giver does or leaves undone. Therefore, O

friend of the poor, rain the nectar-drops of your grace upon this poor man too. ‖ 10 ‖

O you whose very nature is supreme peace! Bestow the beautiful gift of your glance of grace, full

of the highest bliss, upon this trifling worldly creature. Your nature is supremely peaceful, and

in the falling of your glance a full peace is present. I am battered by the raging waves of this

fearful ocean of the world; and if, in such a state, supreme peace comes to me from your glance

of grace, then I shall be made blessed. That is: in this fearful ocean of the world, wherever my

gaze falls, there on every side the flames of unrest are to be seen; and if anywhere a happy,

cooling shade is to be seen, it is seen only in the shelter of your blessed feet. Therefore be

gracious: grant me the shelter of your lotus feet and so favour me. ‖ 11 ‖

O ocean of compassion! This sea that is the world is churned on every side by the waves that are

sorrow, and my soul is badly sunk in it; and the crocodiles and fishes that are son, daughter,

kinsman and wife are for ever biting me at the quick. Now the son says, "Bring me a book"; the

wife says, "The girl has come of marriageable age, look for a husband" — and by such promptings,

night and day, a man is afflicted, now with mental distress and now with terrible sicknesses.

All these, as it were like fishes, tear away and eat the very muscle from this creature's

tenderest places.

And yet, O Lord, in my heart there is present your beautiful image adorned with kurtā and cap;

and because of it not the least sorrow is felt from these worldly afflictions. For when a doctor

operates upon a man who has been put to sleep, he has no knowledge of the pain at all. In the

same way the nectar of your beauty has flooded my mind; and so worldly troubles do not seem to me

in the least degree painful. Counting it all — pleasure and pain, loss and gain — as the fruit of

your grace, I bear it gladly.

‖ 12 ‖

O God! To that divine form of yours — wearing the mirjaī, the kurtā and the cap; the eyes

half closed in the attitude of meditation; seated in the siddhāsana, with all the powers and

attainments bowing before you — to that form I bow again and again. ‖ 13 ‖

O Lord! Your divine form as Śiva pervades the whole universe, moving and unmoving. In earth, in

sky, in water, in fire and in wind — down to the last atom — it is your Śiva-nature alone that is

spread on every side. That is to say: by the doctrine sarvaṁ brahmamayaṁ jagat, "the world is

all made of Brahman," it is the form of Śiva that stands present in every visible thing; and

everywhere, his brow adorned with the disc of the moon, there is Hara and Hara only. No being

other than Hara exists in the world at all. He who bears the cheek circled by Vāsuki, king of

serpents — it is Bhava, and the being of Bhava, that is present on every side. O guru! You are

Śiva Gurudev himself, the moon-rayed one; and the being of Śiva Gurudev pervades all. Besides

that there is no power in the world whatsoever. To come to feel it — sarvaṁ śivamayaṁ jagat,

"the world is all made of Śiva," or sarvaṁ gurumayaṁ jagat, "the world is all made of the

guru" — is the fruit of your grace, and of nothing else. ‖ 14 ‖

O most compassionate Śrī Gurudev! Your devotee and disciple Mahendra, who has taken refuge at

your holy feet, has held your auspicious form in the lotus of his heart in order to receive the

teaching of knowledge. That is: you have opened Śrī Mahendra Svāmī's heart-lotus into flower with

your own divine rays. And thereafter, to you — the sun rising over the unmoving mountain that is

Mahendra — at your holy feet I bow again and again.

In the verse above, the guru's form is given the figure of the sun, and Śrī Mahendra Svāmī is set

in the place of the mountain of sunrise. As the whole world bows to the sun rising over the

eastern mountain, and as men bow with the sun-god to the mountain that holds the glory of making

him rise — for it is by that mountain's favour that they get the sight of the sun at all — just

so it is Śrī Mahendra Svāmī who holds the glory of granting us the knowledge of your divine form.

He too, therefore, has a full right to the credit. Otherwise the understanding of us worldly

creatures would have stayed for ever in error, and the divine light of knowledge could by no

means have reached us. So we are wholly in debt to you, and with you to Śrī Mahendra Dev, who

made us aware of you. ‖ 15 ‖

O helmsman of the boat of life! You are the steersman of the whole world's making, keeping and

unmaking: by your divine power you take the form of Brahmā and bring the entire universe forth;

as Viṣṇu you nourish and sustain it all; as Śaṅkar you draw the whole world back into yourself.

How am I to hold so great a form as yours within my trifling heart? O God, this boat that is my

body is caught in the whirlpool of creation. A boat caught in a whirlpool of water turns round

and round before it goes down; in the same way I am made again and again the prey of birth and

death, and caught in the delusion of this fearful creation my understanding has gone astray.

Now be gracious to me, and grant this boat of my life the shelter of the shore-land that is your

lotus feet. If some capable man comes to the help of a boat caught in a whirlpool, he can draw it

out and bring it to the bank. Who in the world, then, is more capable than you, that I should

pray to him and speak out my wish to be saved? My honour now rests in your hands. I am yours:

sink me if you will, or carry me across if you will. And so my one hope is this — that divine

powers such as you descend into the world only for the world's good; therefore have compassion,

and grant my little vessel of life the refuge of your holy feet. ‖ 16 ‖

O Ādināth! — that is, the very first founder of the Nāth order is Śiva Gorakh himself, and so you

are the first of the Nāths. You are the Lord of grace, greatly merciful, master even of masters,

and the one and only guru of the whole world. You are the sole Lord of the masterless: their

protector is you alone, who have no other protector in this world. You are the Nāth of Nāths and

the sovereign of masters. In the presence of one so powerful as you, the Lord of the masterless,

how can we remain without a lord? Be gracious, then, and quickly take us for your own, so that in

gaining a master all-capable as you our soul may have its Lord — and so that strength, and

self-confidence, and courage may come alive in it from your shelter. ‖ 17 ‖

O all-knowing one! This Viṣṇudatt, who has taken refuge in the worship of your holy feet, calls

out — swearing by Bhagavān Viṣṇu, his own chosen deity — to give assurance to men caught in the

false show of the world: that all attainments whatsoever, of this world and of the next, can be

made wholly easy for a man by your grace. In this there is not the least room for doubt. ‖ 18 ‖

O Lord! The masterless creature whom you have taken for your own can become Lokanāth, lord and

ruler of the world; while the emperor of the world, if you pass him over, is left without a

master and goes wandering door to door for alms. And even by begging he cannot fill his belly,

for Śrī Gosvāmījī [Tulsīdās], who knew the secret of the Lord's power, wrote: *bhīkh na milāhiṁ

kuber ghar, jo kudṛṣṭi raghubīr* — "he on whom Raghubīr's eye falls unkindly will get no alms,

though he hold out his hand before Kuber himself." Your grace, then, is the mother of every good;

and of that grace we creatures of the world are the beggars. Grant us that same divine grace, and

take us too for your own. ‖ 19 ‖

O Lord of the three worlds, three-eyed one! You are Śivanāth, and you are also the beloved

husband of Pārvatī. Among the Nāths it is you who blaze like a diamond with your own divine

splendour. Indra, Varuṇa, Kuber, Yama and the other guardians of the worlds are blessed, for they

have gained a master all-capable as you. With a Lord so wholly powerful as you standing over

their heads, they rule in the shade of your canopy without fear and without break. ‖ 20 ‖

O Lord of yoga! You are imperishable as that syllable-Brahman, Oṁkār, which never wanes; you are

possessed of the unmanifest form; and you are for ever adorned with the unbroken power of the

three gods. Like Oṁkār you do not perish even in the dissolution of the worlds. Learned men, and

men accomplished in the science of Brahman, worship you in the heart in precisely that form — as

the imperishable Brahman, that is, as Oṁkār — and so obtain a settled peace within. Which is to

say: Oṁkār, the seed of the Vedas, is your own visible nature, and you are the visible form of

Oṁkār. The worship of Oṁkār is the worship of you, and the worship of you is the worship of

Oṁkār. Between these two forms of Brahman there is no difference at all. ‖ 21 ‖

O Lord of yoga! You are master of all the syllables, the imperishable Brahman itself. Men of

yoga, mounted in meditation, behold your form as Oṁkār in the lotus of the heart with the inward

eye, and make it their mark and meditate upon it. And then, having been seen by those men of yoga

through the eye of yoga, after some time you become unseen — that is, this road is the very

figure of the passage from the worship of the form to the worship of the formless.

Understand it easily thus. At first they behold your Oṁkār form within the pericarp of the heart.

Thereafter, as the practice of yoga rises higher and higher, even the awareness of Oṁkār

disappears; that is, they receive in the heart the intimation of the formless Brahman. And

thereafter, when they arrive at the furthest limit of yoga and the goal is won, your divine form

comes into sight once more. Your nature, then, is unknowable even to yogis. How should a worldly

grub like me, burrowing in the objects of sense, have the power to understand it? ‖ 22 ‖

O sovereign of the perfected! In what form do you grant your sight to those yogis who have won

the goal? That is: your form becomes the mark of their outermost eyes, and appears to those eyes

supremely beautiful. You are graced with a most lovely dark hue; you have the fine nose likened

to a parrot's beak; you are adorned with beautiful dark cheeks and with eyes of the highest

beauty. In that form you sit in the siddhāsana while the hosts of the perfected are absorbed in

your service on Mount Kailāś. Merely by beholding so divine a figure, creatures attain to

perfection — that is, they become siddha themselves. ‖ 23 ‖

O God of gods, best of the great seers! The company of the great sages bows to you as beyond all

object of aim — that is, as beyond the reach of the senses. And those on whom you have cast the

glance of grace even once become the mark of the world's eyes; being filled with every splendour,

every living creature must turn and look at them.

O God, you are unseen even by the great seers sunk in the samādhi of yoga; and yet, through

supreme devotion, you are gracious enough to become visible even to the outermost eye. Though

your divine form lies beyond the reach even of the eye of knowledge, still by devotion the

devotee is made able to behold your form with worldly eyes. And rightly so: in the Śrīmad

Bhagavad Gītā, Bhagavān Śrī Kṛṣṇa taught his devotee Arjuna from his own lips —

bhaktyā mām abhijānāti yāvān yaś chāsmi tattvataḥ — that by devotion alone can a man come to

know me in truth, how great my universal form is and what manner of being I am [Gītā 18.55]. In

fact devotion alone is the one means of knowing your nature and of attaining you. ‖ 24 ‖

O you who reign over the empire of the attainments! Endowed with the greatness described above,

you are yourself siddha, perfected, and the master of the perfected; you are to be worshipped

by the siddhas and by the lords of siddhas alike. All your purposes are accomplished of

themselves, and it is from you that the world receives the message of perfection. To such a one —

Śrī Gurudev, sovereign of the perfected and of the lords of the perfected — let a hundred

obeisances be offered at your holy feet. ‖ 25 ‖

O Siddhendra! O you whose every wish is fulfilled of itself — svayaṁ-siddha sab kāj, "all

business accomplished of itself" — that is, endowed with that furthest condition of perfection in

which the thing is done in the very moment of the thought. Possessed in this way of a splendour

like the wish-granting tree's, you give your devotees immediate word of the heart's desire the

moment it is granted. Merely by taking the sight of one so wholly perfected — Lord of the

perfected, Śrī Śaṅkar come down in human form — even a beggar becomes worthy of the world's

reverence. Which is to say: the man who has won the good fortune of your darśan, though he be a

beggar in worldly eyes, is far more fortunate than an emperor. ‖ 26 ‖

O lover of your devotees! Though you are wholly unconstrained by the bonds of action, still you

let yourself be bound in the bond of devotion, and remain from time to time subject to those you

love. O God, these two principles — worldly bondage by action, and liberation from it — are for a

supremely free ruler like you a mere masquerade. That is to say: to sit as the individual soul in

the heart of every creature, to be caught in worldly bondage, and to voice a longing for

release — all this, in one of your great power, is nothing but līlā. ‖ 27 ‖

O Lord of the worlds! The great companies of seers fix their meditation unbroken and contemplate

you by way of dhāraṇā, dhyāna and samādhi — concentration, meditation and absorption, which

are the chief limbs of the science of yoga. I am altogether empty of any knowledge of yoga's

difficult practices; and yet, calling your mercy to mind, I hold your divine figure in

meditation, so as to set ablaze this mind of mine — the cause of my bondage and my release, and

overrun with the workings of the dark guṇa. May the wretched mind that darkness has covered be

delivered, by your presence, by whatever means. Be gracious, then: make this temple of the mind

fulfilled, by dwelling in it without ceasing. ‖ 28 ‖

O royal swan! This heart is shut in on every side and without pause by that great darkness which

is delusion; every movement within it is wrapped in the darkness of unknowing; and night and day

it lies sunk in the appetites of the dark guṇa. Be gracious, and take up your dwelling in such

a heart as this, in the form of the royal swan — so that, winning the joy of your company, my

mind may attain the light of Brahman, take on the form of the Mānasa lake, and become a thing of

the highest happiness, of the highest beauty, and fit for the world to look upon.

O God, it is from the swan's dwelling there that the authors of the scriptures have drawn the

true glory of Lake Mānasa. So when you dwell in this mind in the form of the swan, then, poor

pond though it is, by the sole distinction of your dwelling it will be counted among the Mānasa

lakes and be made blessed. This is my innermost longing. Be gracious and fulfil it, so that this

bewildered creature may be fulfilled. ‖ 29–30 ‖

O you who bear the form of the universe! It is you who take the form of wind and grant the breath

of life to all the creatures of the world. It is you who rise each day as the sun and keep the

world's life moving. It is you who as fire give nourishment and sustenance, and who, taking the

form of earth, bear up all that moves and does not move. It is you who as the great ocean send

the rains in their season and quicken the world. It is you who take the form of the moon and

gladden the world with rays of the deepest coolness, and who ripen the herbs.

It is you who shine forth as the constellations and keep the wheel of the world turning as it

should. It is you who in the form of rivers and lakes give the rain and the strength it brings.

It is you who as the healing herb are the giver of life. And here, by the maxim *oṣadhyaḥ phala

pākāntāḥ* — "the herbs are those that end in the ripening of their fruit" — every kind of grain

that the earth brings forth is counted a healing herb; so that the power which keeps the world

alive in the form of food is your form and no other. It is you who are the ever-present sky,

pervading all. And, O Lord, it is you who as prāṇa, apāna, udāna, vyāna and samāna are

the vital airs that drive the workings of the body. When you abide in the body in the condition

of the vital breath, you are spoken of by the name of the individual soul. It is you who are the

mind, the cause of bondage and of release; and it is you who are the ancient Person, leader of

the mind and the senses. Your greatness is unknowable by thought, by word or by deed. How should

this trifling creature have the power to know it as it truly is? ‖ 31 ‖

O God of gods! This trifling soul of mine has somehow reached your refuge, which destroys the

three afflictions, because the impressions of the heaped-up merit earned in a former birth have

risen in it. Being one who loves those that come for shelter, why do you not guard the honour of

your own good name and protect this soul of mine? A prapā — a roadside stall where water is

given free — at which the traveller's thirst is not wholly stilled and satisfied: how can such a

stall make its name mean anything? And your good name is famous through the world in this:

The keeping of such promises, made in place after place, will only be a keeping of them if you

protect with your whole being every creature that comes for refuge. So, O Lord, if my sins make

you hesitate to grant me shelter, then for the guarding of your own good name it is still

necessary that you should lift up even such heaps of sin as I am. Be gracious, therefore, and

quench my thirst too with the water that is the knowledge of the Self. ‖ 32 ‖

O lover of those who come for shelter! To the devotees who come to your refuge you are the

pārijāta, the tree that grants every wish. As a man's every appetite is quieted of itself the

moment he steps into the pārijāta's shade, and whatever thing he longs for stands at once

before him — so are you the destroyer of every fear, of this world and the next, for those who

take refuge in you. And beyond this there is a further distinction in you: for the protection of

those who come for shelter you stand always ready to give away your whole substance. As Śrī

Gosvāmījī [Tulsīdās] set it down in the Mānas: jana kahũ kachhu adeya nahiṁ more — "there is

nothing in all my store that I could not give to my devotee." O crown of givers, this is the

whole truth; for when you stand always ready to give the devotee your very self, what worth has

any other thing? In destroying with your whole being the fear of those who come for refuge, you

are for ever girded and ready. ‖ 33 ‖

O pārijāta of those who take refuge! In guarding the lives of those who come for shelter you

alone are wholly able; and in the worldly view you are ceaselessly at work providing for them and

for their households — as will be fully seen further on in the story of the devotee Gumānī. You

are the first among the knowers of truth. And so: I have taken refuge; I bow at your lotus feet,

for in the three worlds I can see no shelter anywhere but at these feet. And a third mark clings

to me besides — that I am poor in both senses, the worldly and the scriptural. In the world a man

is counted poor for want of wealth and grain; in the scriptures a man is counted poor if he is

empty of the knowledge of the Self. By both reckonings, then, I am poor.

O Lord! Do not put to shame such a beggar as this, fallen at your door. Grant him shelter with

your whole being, and so increase the glory of your fame. Beyond you I have no refuge anywhere,

as the Vinaya Patrikā records —

By these words and their like, there is no other support at all. I only wait for the nectar of

your grace, my eyes fixed on your holy feet and filled with hope. Be gracious now and lift me up;

lift me up. ‖ 34 ‖

↑ విషయసూచిక

09

The Bouquet of the Examination of the Mystery

Third stabaka

This bouquet is set down under the name "the Bouquet of the Examination of the Mystery,"

because the prayers made in it are made through the indirect way of the spirit, by giving some

particular truth the dress of a figure. Accordingly the verses that follow describe this world

under the figure of the forest of becoming.

O you who bear the blessed form of Sat-Chit-Ānand! O Śrī Siddha Siddheśvar! This traveller that

is my soul has lost the road in the deep wood that is the world, and is worn out. Yet it had

heard the story of you before ever it entered this thicket; only, once it had entered, being

wrapped about by a knowledge that is all confusion, it kept no full memory of its former births,

and went to and fro in this forest of the world like an ox or an ass, loaded down, for the

filling of its belly.

This wood is vast and terrible, and once the road is lost in it, escape is next to impossible. So

it is scorched by burnings of every kind — cold, sun, rain, wind; now afflicted with anxiety for

a wife, now scorched by the many burnings of the hunger for wealth; and tormented by the fear of

many a beast of prey. On the side of the forest, lion and boar and leopard are always out hunting.

Just so in this forest of the world: now the son makes the father wretched by declaring his want

of money; now the wife quarrels and burns her husband in the fire of her rebellion. Sister,

niece — whichever way he turns, nowhere is peace to be seen; only the cry of bring, bring

sounding on every side. These are the cruel beasts of prey of the forest of becoming; and

tormented by them with his whole being — ‖ 1 ‖

O most compassionate one! This mind of mine is made utterly wretched, and is unceasingly troubled

and made frantic with the thirst for the objects of sense. On the side of the forest, the

distraction of thirst is described because in the deep wood there is no water-stall, and wells

and pools are out of reach. (For further on, this bewildered creature is given the figure of

Gajendra, the lord of elephants, and the whole figure is built so as to make it fit to receive

the Lord's compassion.) And on the side of the forest of becoming, it is frantic with the

she-demon Thirst; for when a man grows old, his teeth and hair and hearing and eyes all wear

out — but in old age it is desire that grows young:

Frantic, then, with that great she-demon Thirst, who can never be stilled; and afraid and

flustered on every side by the bandits that are his own household. The intention in giving the

household the figure of bandits is this: mother, sister, father, son — those whom a man holds

altogether dear — all of them harbour the one wish, that they alone should take his whole wealth

and estate and property. And though the feeling in every heart is the same, still no brother

tells another brother what is in his heart, nor wife her husband, nor brother his sister; and

each lies watching the other. As thieves are wary of disclosing the purpose of their hearts even

among thieves, such is the condition of these household bandits.

Frightened by them, this maddened elephant that is my mind went down of a sudden one day into

the lake of enjoyment, to bathe there, taking it for nectar; for the nature of enjoyments is that

they are lovely at first sight, and in them there is nothing but the illusion of gladness. Real

gladness is a thing beyond speech and beyond this world; of that, worldly enjoyments have not

even the shadow. These enjoyments are a momentary flame, kindled by the oblation of the very best

essence of one's own body, and in a single second, like an electric current, they burn to ashes a

man's whole substance and all the deeds he has gathered through birth after birth. Into that lake

of enjoyment, in the illusion that gladness was there, this maddened elephant of my mind goes

down to make merry. ‖ 2 ‖

O crusher of the pride of the god of love! This elephant of the mind was drowned in gladness and

maddened with its bathing in the lake of enjoyment. At that moment desire, a crocodile of

enormous strength, came upon it suddenly and seized it without mercy — that is, brought it under

its power. Then, being seized, this elephant of the mind put out all its strength and strove with

its whole might to get free; and when rescue by its own strength proved impossible, it strove

with all its might through those it had taken for its whole world — its kinsmen, wife, sons and

household.

But, O Lord, this was mere illusion. Those who were its own also, after a little, found

themselves unable and began to turn their faces away; and seeing its strength failing, they

abandoned it one by one and fled at the very moment of need. For these crocodiles that dwell

without ceasing in the human body — desire, anger, greed, delusion, pride and envy — are creatures

of great power. Once caught in their wheel, what strength has human power to get free of them?

And as for kinsmen and relations, they are companions of laughter and good cheer only; the moment

they see the days of trouble, they turn their faces away at once. So, forsaken by all its own and

seized by that mighty crocodile, this elephant of the mind, lying in that lake of enjoyment, began

to be brought altogether low. And then it — ‖ 3 ‖

O Lord! Frantic and beside itself, it looked all round with a frightened gaze and was made

utterly wretched — that those whom it had counted its own, and for whom, at the least trouble

falling on them, it had thrown away everything and busied itself in their protection at the risk

of its life; those whom it had fed and kept by earning money through deceit and fraud and

injustice of every kind — those very kinsmen and relations of mine have all left me and gone.

What shall I do now? And where shall I go? In this sapless world, who now is my protector? Seeing

the whole universe empty in this way, and in the hope of protection, it thought and considered

and came with a single-pointed mind for refuge to your holy feet — the one protector of the whole

creation, Lord of the masterless, strength of the weak. Your door stands always open to those who

come for shelter, and your good name is this: *ye yathā māṁ prapadyante tāṁs tathaiva bhajāmy

aham, "as men come to me, so do I receive them" [Gītā* 4.11]. How then is even this most wretched

and abject creature not fit to be protected by you? — that is to say, in such a plight as this it

is you who, by your own mercy, protect it, and so make good those titles of yours: the gracious,

the merciful, the ocean of compassion. ‖ 4 ‖

O saviour of the three worlds! You are the protector of the whole world, the still and the

moving. And your practice of yoga is for the protection of this world alone, for joined in yoga

you protect the entire universe at once. Protect, then, this creature afflicted with many

sorrows, for you are famous in the world for the taking away of affliction. You are ceaselessly

at work in the deliverance and protection of every living thing; and all those names of yours

that are set down in the next verse are signs of the world's good. Thus — ‖ 5 ‖

O giver of fearlessness! You are Śiva himself, the maker of blessing, and you are the visible

descent of Śiva in his full parts. Auspicious resolves you graciously accomplish at once. You are

the very soul-essence of Śiva; your life is unceasingly absorbed in Brahman; and for the teaching

of the world and the keeping of its bounds you are also the servant of Lord Śaṅkar himself. Being

Śiva yourself, you are still Śiva's supreme devotee, to give the world its initiation. And

further — ‖ 6 ‖

O you who are joined with the splendour of Bhava! You are the visible form of Śiva; you are in

the fullest nearness to Śiva; you are a dweller in Śiva's own abode of Kailāś; and you are Śiva's

visible shape. That is: all the marks of liberation that the authors of the scriptures have set

down are found in you completely and in their true sense. Therefore you are yourself Śaṅkar, the

giver of fearlessness. ‖ 7 ‖

O Śambhu! That utterly unapproachable truth which is your form as Śiva is beyond the reach even

of yogis with the eye of yoga, and is exceedingly hard to win. That is: even through the samādhi

of yoga, the real seeing of you comes to one yogi or another, and for a moment only, and only if

he is fortunate. How should a dull-witted man like me, sunk in the objects of the world, be able

to meditate upon so matchless a nature as yours? ‖ 8 ‖

O Parantapa! — that is, O form of the highest austerity; or, O Śambhu, who with your fierce blaze

scorch those enemies that live within the human body, desire and anger and the rest. Your nature

is not to be known even by an understanding fully refined and pure. How, then, can it be known by

an impure understanding, beset with worldly hunger and thirst? ‖ 9 ‖

O sun to the lotus of the science of yoga! Your mercy alone is the one means of our deliverance.

O treasury of mercy, forgive us all our offences and give the full proof of your mercifulness;

for great and tender-hearted devotees and learned men have described your love as a mother's. As

it is said, kuputro jāyeta kvachid api kumātā naiva bhavati — "a bad son may be born somewhere,

but there is never a bad mother." However wicked the son may turn out, God has made a mother's

heart of such heavenly stuff that the tenderness in it never falls short; and therefore it has no

second thing to compare it to. So do you also, like a mother, pay no heed to our faults and be

merciful. ‖ 10 ‖

O you who are made of mercy! As in the world a mother is ceaselessly at work in the making of her

son's good, and though hard pressed with the business of the house does not let go the thought of

her son even for a moment — so you, though absorbed without pause in the samādhi of yoga and gone

wholly into the Self, keep in every moment a full care for the welfare and the whole good of us

who are as dear to you as sons. That in the time to come you should keep that same full care, and

not forget us — this is our humble prayer to you. ‖ 11 ‖

O wholly capable king of yogis! It is you who, for the good of the world, are the author and

founder of the road of the science of yoga; for Lord Śaṅkar has always been held the first

teacher of yoga. So, O Lord, being joined in yoga — that is, taking by the method of yoga a form

that pervades every atom — guard us trifling worldly creatures at every moment with your

yoga-māyā. ‖ 12 ‖

O lord of yogis! You are as the wishing-tree born of that ocean which is yoga-māyā. As the

churning of the ocean of milk brought forth the wishing-tree, so are you the wishing-tree born of

that ocean which is the science of yoga. Yakṣas and kinnaras for ever bow at your footstool and

worship there. Of this wishing-tree Śrī Mahendra Svāmī is, as it were, the fair bough; Indra, god

of gods, is as it were the fair bark; and the sun and the moon and the stars, which are the

standing witnesses of how far your power reaches, are the fair flowers of this wishing-tree that

is your form. Bowing again and again before this divine, vast and all-pervading nature of yours,

we obtain our heart's desires without ceasing. ‖ 13 ‖

In this verse the word haṁsa is used in a double sense, and bears many meanings.

First: O most glorious, best of yogis! You are haṁsa — that is, you are Brahman itself. The

Śruti says haṁso haṁsaḥ, "Brahman is of the form of the swan." And you are born of the swan's

line, that is, sprung of the line of Brahman. Or else: blessed beyond all is that line in which

you were born, a line spotless and stainless as the swan, and for ever ready at the swan's own

work of separating the milk from the water. And you have kept your whole substance offered up to

Brahman. And haṁsa-vāhana — you are held in the highest regard by Brahmā, whose mount is the

swan; for Brahmā spends his whole time in singing the virtues of Śrī Śambhu. Such is your

unearthly and divine form as the swan. ‖ 14 ‖

O Lord! I have come for refuge to that divine form as the swan which you took in order to give

knowledge to Sanaka and the other Brahmā-born seers. In my heart too is the longing for the

direct sight of Brahman, and it is to fulfil it that I have taken refuge. O Brahman, by the

service of your lotus feet grant to my soul also the form of the swan, so that this life may

come to its fruit. Or else: by my taking refuge in the shelter of your holy lotus feet, be

gracious and make my soul stainless as the swan, and shining, and a taker of the essence, and

skilled to tell what should be done from what should not. ‖ 15 ‖

O giver of shade! The clear and blazing radiance of your holy body is as the moonlight of that

moon of consciousness which has risen out of the nectar that is chit, the power of

consciousness. The sum of it is this: the nature of Brahman is Being, Consciousness and Bliss;

and of these, that nature of Brahman which is the power of consciousness is, as it were, an ocean

in its depth. Out of that nectar-ocean of consciousness the moon has risen, and the beauty of

your holy body is as its moonlight.

Your blessing-making form as Śaṅkar quiets root and branch the sickness and the grief of those

creatures who take shelter under the canopy of so great a wishing-tree of consciousness. Whenever

trouble comes upon the gods, then the gods, their minds seized with alarm, render full service to

your auspicious form. O Lord, master who for ever works the good of your servants — why do you

delay so long in being pleased with us and doing us good? O maker of blessing, be gracious and

work with all speed the welfare and the keeping of creatures such as we, who are your servants.

‖ 16 ‖

O God! Sometimes you dwell in the form of being, pervading all that moves and does not move; and

sometimes, taking the form of non-being, you take the support of the formless mode and bring it

to its fulfilment. Sometimes, to fulfil that wondrous being of yours which the Veda sets forth,

you become knowable by nirvikalpaka samādhi — the trance in which no distinction is framed —

being, according to the saying sad asadbhyām anirvachanīyaḥ, beyond both being and non-being and

past all telling. And then again, to show forth the wonder of your own nature, you take on the

visible embodied form that is known by savikalpaka samādhi, the trance in which distinction

remains. ‖ 17 ‖

O you whose form is the universe! It is my settled conviction that you have taken on this

supremely beautiful form, visible to the outermost eye, for this alone: to make my speech holy

with the singing of your praises; to bring my ears to their fulfilment by the hearing of your

lovely sayings; and to satisfy my eyes with that beauty of yours which enchants the three worlds.

The Lord takes on a body for his play only for the good of his highest devotees. ‖ 18 ‖

O you who bear a manifest form! Having seen you in the thousand-petalled lotus that is the heart,

my soul does not wish to leave you for a moment, but wishes to play for ever in the sweetness of

your beauty alone. And how should it leave you? Nowhere else in the world does it see any other

form so full of gladness; for a man's own self is dearer to him than all things else in the

world. You are the nature of the Supreme Self, and this creature of mine is but a portion of you.

For the satisfying of the self, what form could satisfy it wholly if not the truth of the Supreme

Self?

So says the Śruti: *na vā are patyuḥ kāmāya patiḥ priyo bhavati, ātmanas tu kāmāya patiḥ priyo

bhavati; na vā are jāyāyai kāmāya jāyā priyā bhavati, ātmanas tu kāmāya jāyā priyā bhavati* — and

by such words of Śruti it is settled that a husband is not dear to his wife because he is a

husband, but is dear because he is pleasing to her inmost self; and so a wife is not dear to her

husband because she is a wife, but because she is pleasing to his own inmost self. In the same

way, what other thing can the truth of the self love more than that truth of the Supreme Self of

which it is a portion? And therefore, O Lord, you are the truth of the Supreme Self, and it is

for this that my soul plays in you above all. ‖ 19 ‖

And so —

O Supreme Brahman! Day by day I sing with my speech those dearest names of yours, most dearly

beloved. In my mind I remember that dearest form of yours. With my head I salute daily what is

dearest in you. And at every instant I offer up my soul at the refuge of you, the most dearly

beloved. ‖ 20 ‖

O Self of all! Wherever I go in this fathomless ocean of becoming, there I see that supremely

beautiful figure of yours: in all eternal things, sky and the rest, and in all passing things,

and in every creature still or moving. I see your nature blazing in the heart of the whole world,

taking up every reflection as a mirror does, a form of the highest beauty; and beholding your most

lovely figure everywhere, I bring my own being to its fruit. Bowing to that enchanting glimpse of

you on every side, I am fulfilled and blessed beyond measure, according to the words —

‖ 21 ‖

↑ విషయసూచిక

10

The Bouquet of the Examination of the Rescue of Those Who Take Refuge

Fourth stabaka

This is the Bouquet of the Examination of the Rescue of Those Who Take Refuge; in it the prayer

for the protection of the suppliant is made with the whole substance of the heart.

O ender of desire! Birth after birth I have followed after you in search of you, changing my

dress through many wombs; and I am the servant of your servants, and have fallen into that refuge

of yours which gives fearlessness. My condition is a poor and abject one. Caught in the noose of

Māyā the dancing-girl, I dance at her pleasure like a juggler's monkey, altogether in a state to

be pitied, and scorched by the forest-fire that is the world. Seeing me brought so low as this, O

ocean of mercy — you who are a very sea of compassion — why do you still forsake me? You are a

fathomless ocean of mercy, and the loss of two or four small drops of it can make no shortfall in

that fathomless and unspendable sea.

Therefore, O ocean of compassion, consider my condition and look at it. I am not one to be passed

over by you; I have come to your refuge; be gracious, then, and protect me. ‖ 1 ‖

O God of gods, Mahādev! Of all the descents and incarnations there have been on the face of the

earth to this day, in none of them was there the power to lay a hand on Brahmā's writing. That

is: the proverb current in the world — vidhi kara likhā na koū meṭanihārā, "what the Creator's

hand has written, none can erase" — this and sayings like it you alone have shown to be empty, by

your divine power.

The sum of it is that with your powers and attainments — aṇimā, garimā, laghimā, prākāmya

and the rest — you have in a single moment made paupers of birth after birth as rich as Kuber.

Blessed is your generosity, your open hand, your grace; and it is this that moved the great poets

to sing your praises so: āśutoṣa tuma avaḍhara dānī, mo para kṛpā kariya jana jānī — "swiftly

pleased are you, and a giver beyond all measure; be gracious to me, knowing me for your servant."

That is: even the splendour and the knowledge and the wealth that are not written in a man's

fate, your grace bestows in a single moment. Of that same grace this creature is a beggar; rain

therefore the nectar-drops of your grace on him too, and make him blessed. ‖ 2 ‖

O Mṛtyuñjaya! Your very name is famous in the world as Mahāmṛtyuñjaya, which means "the conqueror

even of the great death." True to your name, you are wholly victorious over Yama and over Time

itself; and being of great power in your own right, you are altogether unconquerable. Therefore

we mortals, who live at every instant in the jaws of Time, and behind whom Yama walks for ever

with his noose — we creatures of the world meditate and think again and again on your form as

Mṛtyuñjaya, so as to win the victory over that untimely death; and again and again we bow to that

most auspicious form of yours. ‖ 3 ‖

O Mṛḍa! In every age you conquer the demons on the field of battle again and again, and again and

again come down to fight. The tales of the countless terrible demon-kings you have slain —

Tripurāsura, Tārakāsura and the rest — are famous through the world.

O Nīlakaṇṭh! Again and again you drink bhāṅg and dhatūrā and other intoxicating things; and

for the good of the world you drink down, laughing, even a poison of such fierce potency as the

hālāhala, as though it were milk. O crown of givers beyond all measure! You are not content

with granting your devotees riches and estates, sons and grandsons and every worldly splendour;

when you are pleased, you are gracious enough to grant them even the unspendable treasure of the

yakṣas, as you have granted it many times to Rāvaṇa and to many another devotee.

O Lord, why then do you not drive away this most terrible she-demon Māyā, who is the maid of your

own servants? She swallows us creatures of the world, brings us under her power, and makes us

dance to her night and day; for without your peerless grace it is altogether impossible for the

sorrows that Māyā breeds to be wiped out of a human life:

So Śrī Kāka Bhuśuṇḍijī taught Śrī Garuḍajī: that without worship of the Lord it is altogether

impossible for the sorrows of creatures to be brought to an end. Māyā does not overcome the true

devotees of the Lord; rather, at the Lord's prompting, that same Māyā who is the terror of the

world shows the devotee the right road, in the form of the higher knowledge. Such is the splendour

of the Lord's unearthly and divine power. Prompt then this Māyā, who is your handmaid, to help us

in the form of that higher knowledge; for your greatness is famous through the world:

By your grace alone even deadly things like poison become the sustainers and helpers of human

life. ‖ 4 ‖

O crown of givers! To your devotees who bow before you, you give wealth and grain and the fair

splendours of a household — that is your way. But this is your supreme generosity: that from

those who do not bow to you even in a dream, you take away the torment of death and their poverty

as well. O God, you are unceasingly bent on the good of the world; and those creatures who,

driven by your Māyā, forget your nature altogether — even them, as father of the world, you never

forget. Even great sinners, the base, the unjust and the cruel, you count bewildered creatures,

and treat them too with full grace. And why should you not? It is for that very reason that you

are called Bholā Bhaṇḍārī, the simple-hearted treasurer, and Viśvabhartā, the sustainer of the

world. Blessed is your unearthly greatness, and blessed the singing of your matchless virtues.

Where in this human tongue is there strength enough to tell the tale of your virtues as it truly

is? ‖ 5 ‖

O destroyer of desire and the rest! You are for ever bent on the good of the whole world, and you

are the one sustainer of the entire universe. Never in your mind do you let rise, even in a

dream, envy toward anyone, or arrogance in your own power, or the appetite for display. Your

nature is to be gracious to every living thing, and to deliver and sustain every living thing.

‖ 6 ‖

O you whose nature is fullness! You are for ever full; and being full, it is utterly impossible

that the appetite for making differences should arise in your heart, for such trifling feelings

arise only in trifling hearts. Where has the rush of the wind strength enough to shake the

Himālaya? Being full in yourself, you fulfil at every instant the desires of your peerless

devotees.

Because the light of knowledge burns brighter in the human heart, men can at least pray to you

now and then; but you are all that moves and does not move, down to chariot and horse and

elephant, to the fly and the ant, and you feed and sustain them all. The belly of the elephant,

which is satisfied only by a maṇ of food, you fill with the same gladness; and the ant, which

is satisfied by a single grain, you satisfy in the same absorbed delight. You must give

satisfaction to all; and so you are for ever bent on the perfect satisfying of the whole world.

‖ 7 ‖

O Lord! Great men point to that boundless nature of yours which is beyond Nature, and name it

Time. And rightly so; for in the great dissolution you not only destroy the whole world with the

flame of your third eye, but you are also the one and only cause of the destruction of Yama and

Varuṇa and Kuber and all the guardians of the worlds. Your nature is all-pervading. Some hold you

to be Kṛtānta, the Ender; others hold you to be Yama himself. O boundless one, to them you are

assuredly the Ender; but to those who are your own peerless servants, and who meditate on you in

the form of Śiva whose very figure is blessing — to them your nature is full of blessing, working

their good, and giving them joy. The verse that follows will make this plain. ‖ 8 ‖

O most beloved! To those devotees of yours your nature is for ever most dear, most beloved, dearer

even than what is dear, and full of bliss. Just as the lioness's terrible fangs, though they are

the very shape of death to deer and other creatures, lay their harshness aside and take on a

complete softness when she takes her cubs into her mouth to carry them from one place to another.

The sum of it is this: when your devotees give up this body of the five elements, then, because

they have meditated without ceasing on your form, they see even Yamarāj — come to carry off their

breath — within your own form, and so they feel nothing but complete gladness at the hour of

death. (For their inward habit grows so settled that the awareness begins to dawn on them of

sarvaṁ viṣṇumayaṁ jagat, "the world is all made of Viṣṇu.")

The comparison is this. The lioness's hard fangs, which are wholly harsh and terrible for the

chewing of other creatures — those same fangs, when her cubs are born and before they have

learned to walk, take them into her mouth and carry them from one place to another, and at that

time they do not prick the wholly tender skin of her young in the least. In the same way, those

who hold you to be Yama, and who fear and tremble at the death you send, see only that terrible

form of Yama in you; but those who are your most loving devotees receive whatever most precious

thing you give as your gift and set it gladly on their heads — and just so they are always ready

to accept gladly even the death you send, counting it a most precious present come by your own

will.

Their conviction stands firm: my Lord is for ever full of blessing, the maker of blessing,

unceasingly bent on the welfare of his devotees; every thing sent by him is most dear to us. And

so they stand girded to embrace even that sorrowful death with the highest joy. For such peerless

devotees of yours, even Yama's fierce torments, because they come by your will, seem as soft as

that — just as the lioness's terrible fangs seem soft and full of joy to her suckling cubs. For

as the lioness's helpless cub can think nothing at all of its own gain and loss, but rests

untroubled and unafraid in its single-hearted reliance on its mother's mercy, so the devotee too

takes no care whatever for his own welfare and keeps his eye on your compassion alone. Therefore

in every condition you yourself think for their welfare, and never in any condition let them be

grieved even a little. Blessed is your tenderness to your devotees! Blessed the power by which you

rescue them! Make us too worthy of that same mercy, and be gracious to bring our lives also to

their fruit. ‖ 9 ‖

O you who are made of mercy! Just so, your most beloved devotees meditate on that supremely

gentle form of yours, which is a storehouse of the highest peace, and in which the sidelong

loving glance and the trace of a smile bring the devotee's mind under their power. That sweetest

figure of yours they meditate on here in the form of Śiva, there in the form of Viṣṇu; here they

behold it in the form of Mahālakṣmī, Mahāsarasvatī and Mahākālī; and there men who know Brahman

meditate on it in the form of Oṁkār. O you who are the highest blessing! Let them satisfy

themselves by seeing you in however many forms, each according to the taste of his own heart —

in truth you are one only. It is solely because the tastes of your devotees differ that you grant

them your sight in this separate form and in that, and so make them glad and bring them to their

fruit. ‖ 10 ‖

O keeper of the household of those who bow to you! Those peerless and loving devotees of yours

are satisfied by meditating on you in the form of their own chosen deity. Their minds are made

glad, and they long above all things to reach your refuge. As a child tormented with hunger goes

with utter eagerness into the lap of the mother who has come back to him after a long while, and

clinging to her is drowned in gladness — and in the hearts of such children not the least trace

of any other appetite is to be seen — just so your lovers, having found the lap of your refuge

which is the highest bliss, are drowned and dissolved in gladness at your holy feet alone:

yaṁ labdhvā chāparaṁ lābhaṁ manyate nādhikaṁ tataḥ, "having gained which, he counts no other

gain greater than that" [Gītā 6.22]. For nowhere else at all is there gladness or gain greater

than that supreme gain. ‖ 11 ‖

O pārijāta of the devotee's heart! The whole burden of the welfare of those peerless and loving

devotees — their feeding, their protection, the watching over them — you take into your own

boon-giving hands, according to that lovely word of the Śrīmad Bhagavad Gītā:

O you who are made of mercy! I too am a creature of poor fortune. Take the burden of my getting

and keeping also into those same merciful hands, and so favour me. For —

O Lord! Where shall I find another friend of the poor such as you? O Lord, who but you is grieved

by another's — the devotee's — grief? Before whom, then, should I go weeping the tale of my

wretchedness? Wherever I let my mind wander, in one place I meet masters who have no mercy in

them, and in another I meet those who are merciful indeed, but unfit — that is, unable. Hearing

and understanding this, I simply keep silent; for why should I lose my own secret by speaking

before such as these? (The secret would be out, and nothing would come of it either.) ‖ 12 ‖

O bee at the lotus of the devotee's heart! We creatures of the world are unceasingly in love with

your holy lotus feet, and are your peerless servants. Because we have won some little taste of

the sweet juice of your lotus feet, we are possessed of a quieted disposition and are steeped in

the feeling of evenness. Be wholly gracious to us: grant us the divine light of the truth of the

Self, and so be gracious to furnish us with our getting and our keeping.

The word yoga in such places is used for the winning of what has not been won, and the guarding

of what has been won is called kṣema. So: bring us to the winning of that truth which is the

knowledge of the Self, which we have not won; and have the compassion to undertake yourself, out

of your own abundance, the guarding of the knowledge of the Self once won. ‖ 13 ‖

O bee at the honey of the juice of devotion to the qualified God! You are glad of mind, drinking

night and day the nectar-juice which is the knowledge of the truth of the Self; and you are

nourished to the full by tasting the supremely sweet ambrosia of the worship of the Lord in his

qualified form.

For the tasting of the nectar of the lip of Śrī Rādhārānī — the peerless beloved of Śrī

Kṛṣṇachandra, the Lord who is the Supreme Person of the divine play; she of a beauty beyond

reproach, of great good fortune, dearer than life to the Lord — you bear for ever in the lotus of

your heart that most cunning bee, Śrī Kṛṣṇachandra himself, in the form of a black bee.

The intention of this appears to be as follows. Because you are the peerless devotee of Śrī

Rādhājī, and because the holy figure of Śrī Priyājī is enthroned unbrokenly in the lotus of your

heart, therefore Śrī Vṛndāvanachandra — dearer than life to Rādhā — being of himself made subject

to the love of his own beloved, dwells without ceasing in that grove of Rādhā which is your

heart, and keeps you overwhelmed with bliss. And so the good fortune of your devotion is beyond

the reach of speech. Blessed is that heart of the supreme devotee, in which the Divine Pair are

for ever enthroned and which they keep ablaze at every instant with a splendour that enchants the

three worlds! To tell of it in speech is altogether impossible. ‖ 14 ‖

O you who play in the mountain caves of Kailāś! Śrī Śambhu! Sometimes, seated on the yoga-āsana,

you hold in your heart the figure of Śrī Raghunandan and are made supremely glad — Śrī Rām, the

darling of Ayodhyā's lord, the Supreme Person who keeps the bounds of right, all whose limbs are

embraced by Śrī Jānakījī, the mother of the world, and beside whom stands his follower and

devotee Lakhaṇlāl; whose mind-enchanting beauty is the very cup of nectar from which the kings of

yogis drink in meditation. ‖ 15 ‖

O Lord! You are the visible figure of Śrī Śaṅkar, giver of fearlessness, who works the good of

the world; and your every limb is marked with the forms and the names of Śrī Rām and Sītā. Every

hair of your body is marked with the forms and names of Śrī Kṛṣṇa and Śrī Rādhājī. On such a

Lord — the dweller in Śrī Haiḍākhān, the descent of Śrī Śaṅkar, the very figure of Śiva, Śrī

Siddha Siddheśvar — we meditate without ceasing, remembering him and singing his name, and so

make our souls glad.

From these three verses it is plain that this hymn to the Lord is, as it were, the most holy and

beautiful stream of a triveṇī, a confluence of three rivers; and bathing in it, a man comes of

himself into every gladness. One of its streams is devotion to Śrī Rām; the second stream is

devotion to Śrī Kṛṣṇa; and the third is steeped in the flowing juice of devotion to Sadāśiva. For

the deliverance of creatures caught in the quarrels of the sects is hard to come by, their view

having grown very narrow and cramped. So all three principles flow equally in this confluence,

and are able to make its stream supremely holy, giving of happiness, and wholly capable of washing

away the heaped-up sins.

Further: this fact fully confirms the opening move made in the root-verses of this holy work —

nānā mata samudbhūtaṁ jīva jyotipradāyakam ("risen out of the many doctrines, the giver of light

to the soul": verse 4 of the Bouquet of the Examination of Essence). And indeed, if the matter be

looked at truly, it is altogether impossible for the human heart to obtain full peace without the

worship of all three principles; for the fashioning of humankind and of the body is the outcome

of the mingling of the three guṇas. Therefore, with all the differences of time, of nature, of

temper and of the mind's inclination, the complete satisfying of the mind is possible only by

bathing at this confluence.

So, O company of faithful devotees, do you too take without ceasing the joy of this most holy

bathing at the confluence, and see how much peace there is in it, how much gladness, and how much

strength. It will show itself to you of its own accord within a few days; for to show the sun no

other light is needed — the sun is a mass of self-shining fire and of the highest brightness.

‖ 16 ‖

O you who possess the splendour of Sat-Chit-Ānand! Remembering your most holy acts in the lotus

of my heart, my restless mind has become wholly absorbed at your holy feet. Be gracious, then, to

reveal even those most secret mysteries that lie in the hearts of the great — both to make my pen

succeed, and for the delight of your devotees' minds; for the good do not keep even the most

secret truth hidden from their own. ‖ 17 ‖

O you who possess the mighty form! You are the changeless Sat-Chit-Ānand nature of the Self. That

vast form of yours is altogether impossible to be seen by these eyes of flesh; only the lords of

yogis, sunk in the samādhi of meditation, can see it. But by the fair and divine sight that is

won through serving the lotus feet of your suppliant at your holy feet — that jewel among

disciples, the supreme devotee, Śrī Mahendra Svāmījī Mahārāj, blessed in his very name — that

divine form of yours comes at once into view. ‖ 18 ‖

O divine figure! Having scoured my eyes with the collyrium that is the divine dust of your holy

lotus feet, whatever I see with eyes so anointed, that and only that I set down with my pen. As

Śrī Gosvāmī Tulsīdāsjī Mahārāj described the surpassing power of the most holy dust of the

guru's feet:

By that same divine and sovereign remedy a divine light has come into my eyes also, by your

grace. I declare it truly, swearing by my own eyes, that there is not the least trace of invention

in it. ‖ 19 ‖

O you beyond all imagining! Supreme Brahman, far past the reach of thought — at the end of the

aeon, at the setting of this creation, you alone will remain, having taken the form of light. At

that time the seven seers will be given to your praise and your service, and you will be

enthroned, bearing only the form of the light of Brahman, while all cause and all effect are

dissolved into the eternal. ‖ 20 ‖

O helmsman of the making of the world! And again, according to the Vedic Śruti *yathā pūrvam

akalpayat*, "as before, so he shaped it," you show the road to the Creator sunk in the care of

creation; and at the beginning of the aeon, taking the form of Brahmā and bearing the divine

knowledge of the Vedas, you spread abroad that divine knowledge of the Vedas. ‖ 21 ‖

O you who are the whole substance of the Veda! Your nature is knowable by the Vedas, and you are

yourself the storehouse of the Vedas' true knowledge, and it is by the Vedas that your real

nature is known. Being such, you give yourself to the discourse of the Veda, and at the beginning

of the aeon you spread the Vedas fully abroad, and so send out once more into the world the light

of divine knowledge. ‖ 22 ‖

O Lord, crown of givers! This ignorant creature of mine, dwelling in his house and afflicted day

and night with many sicknesses and sorrows, was nevertheless content: he took whatever little

food came to him as the fruit of the deeds of his former births, and was satisfied with such gain

as there was. But by that wife who is Māyā he was compelled, out of the longing for much wealth,

and sent off to that city of Dvārakā which is your form.

The sum of it is this. The devotee makes his humble plea to the Lord: O Lord, this Sudāmā the

brahmin, who is my soul, was glad at heart in his own house, enduring the pleasure and pain born

of the fruit of his deeds, and counting whatever came to him by the Lord's will or by begging as

the fruit of his own actions. But as Sudāmā's wife urged Sudāmā and sent him to Dvārakā to his

old friend Śrī Kṛṣṇa, just so this Sudāmā who is my soul was content with the fruits his own

deeds had earned him — and then, O merciful one, this wife who is Māyā urged him and sent him to

that old friend of the soul who is you, Brahman, in that Dvārakā which is your form. ‖ 23 ‖

O most compassionate one! Then that Sudāmā the brahmin, who is the soul, tied up in his bundle

those grains of rice which are his deeds, whose worth is very small indeed, and holding his gaze

empty — that is, fixing the sight of his inward understanding steady upon the place he was making

for — and looking this way and that with a glance full of misgiving, he came to that Dvārakā which

is your holy feet. That is: as Sudāmā's wife sent the parched rice with him to be arranged as a

present before the Lord, just so this wife who is Māyā tied up the parched rice of the good and

evil deeds this creature had done, and gave it to him to arrange as a present before that Supreme

Brahman.

Then, pressing that bundle under his arm, meditating with a steady gaze on your holy feet, and

looking about him with a doubting eye — *I am a heap of sins; is nobody watching me? Will my old

friend know me again? With what face shall I meet him? I never once so much as remembered him

before* — and framing all manner of resolves and doubts out of such longings, he entered that city

of Dvārakā which is nothing other than your form. ‖ 24 ‖

O Supreme Self! There he came into the refuge of Śrī Kṛṣṇa — that is, of your own form — his

inseparable friend of birth after birth in a former time, giver of joy to the eyes, adorned with

all the sovereignty of kings and enthroned in the fullness of power. ‖ 25 ‖

O shoreless ocean of compassion! Remembering your former friendship, you did full honour to that

Sudāmā who is the soul; and you snatched from him the parched rice of his deeds, tucked under his

arm, and ate it. That is: the soul is a portion of Brahman; and when the portion that is the soul

came to him whose portion it is, he knew it again, and was gracious to this creature. Those grains

of rice which were its deeds — for the enjoying of whose fruit, good and evil, it would have had

to go once more onto that stage which is the world — those he ate, and so delivered it with his

whole being. ‖ 26 ‖

O ocean of mercy! You showed him the warmth of friendship in its fullness. Having won a lord of

the three worlds like you for a friend, why then should he not become worthy of wealth, of grain,

of elephants and of Lakṣmī? And why should he not be the one vessel of all the attainments? That

is: at once he became as rich in splendour as his friend, Brahman himself. ‖ 27 ‖

He became lord of ornaments of gold and pure gold of every kind, of garments of every kind, and

of splendour. For when you had eaten up his poverty, which stood there in the shape of grains of

rice, how should he not become possessed of great splendour? That is: a man's own deeds are the

chief cause of his bondage. When by the grace of Śrī Śiva-Brahman his very deeds were destroyed,

then he became the visible and pure form of that Supreme Brahman whose portion he is — that is,

that brahmin who is the soul became Brahman, and so became the full vessel and sharer of all the

splendour and sovereignty of Brahman, and was blessed beyond measure. ‖ 28 ‖

O God of gods! That same I — Sudāmā, who is the soul — have come to the refuge of you, Śrī Kṛṣṇa,

who are Brahman. O treasury of mercy, guard me on every side from this terrible fear of the

world. Having won, with a whole and single heart, the refuge of your holy lotus feet, I have no

need left to look on the face of any other ordinary person, or of any lesser god, nor to make my

prayer to them. And now that I have come with my whole being into your refuge, say yourself —

O God, who but you is merciful to the poor? You are the storehouse of gentleness, the crown of

those who know, the beloved of those who come for refuge, the protector of those who take

shelter. Who is so able as you? You know all things; you are the master of all that moves and

does not move; and you are the swan that plays on the Mānasa lake which is Śrī Śivajī's love.

So now, good or bad, holy or a heap of sins — such as I am, I am yours. You alone are my

protector; and for that reason, protect me: deliver me with my whole being. ‖ 29 ‖

O Sadāśiva of the eight forms! You are the very form of the moon. Whatever coolness there is in

the moon, whatever gladdening, whatever light, is the fruit of your grace alone; you are the moon

itself. *(Once Śrī Siddha Siddheśvar Sadāśiva granted his sight in the very form of the moon to a

physician of the village of Malaũch, in the Almoṛā district, at a place called Jhāṛaũ.)* And you

are crowned with the moon's crescent, wearing the moon's digit on your brow as an ornament — and

for this the world calls you Śaśidhara, bearer of the moon. And you are chandraprada, the giver

of that cool and shining knowledge. And you are chandradṛk, moon-eyed: that is, the left eye of

your vast form is the moon-god. *(Śrī Mahārāj once graciously granted to a Śāstrī of Malaũch, who

was a good physician, at the age of eighteen or nineteen, the direct sight of his moon-eyed form,

for five minutes together.)* Both of these were direct experiences, felt by those two worthy men

themselves, and received by his grace.

O you whose form is the universe! You are the very form of the sun, and the fire within the sun

is your own visible nature, by which the sun lights the whole world and lights its own form as

well. And you are given to the sun: yad āditye pratapati tat tejo viddhi māmakam, "the fire that

burns in the sun — know that to be mine"; you are absorbed in the meditation of that fire of yours

which sits enthroned within the sun; and by your grace you are the giver of light to the sun

itself.

You are fire itself. And it was for this that thousands of men and women, in the austerity of the

five fires, saw you with wonder-struck eyes upon the blazing pyre of fire in the very form of

fire, and so made their lives fruitful.

And you are ready in the use of the arrow of fire. *(People held the belief about Śrī Sadgurudev

that he was some great one of the age of the Mahābhārata; and so a devotee once put a question to

Śrī Mahārāj about the fire-arrow — that in truth the fire-arrow is used for the making of a

creation born of fire: was this so? Śrī Mahārāj, being a lover of his devotees and generous

beyond measure, said to him with a slight smile: bring me a straw. The man brought an ordinary

straw from close at hand; and Śrī Gurudev at once charged it with a mantra and threw it — and

immediately the blazing flames of fire began to rise on every side in the forest. Then, on the

devotee's frantic prayer, he sprinkled water charged with a mantra from his water-pot, and quieted

the fire at once.)* For this reason both the epithets are true and are made good: "given to the

arrow of fire," and "maker of the creation born of fire." And you are the maker of that creation

of works which is accomplished by fire.

May Śrī Śaṅkar in the form of Gurudev, who bears the form of sky and wind and water and earth,

protect us always. ‖ 30 ‖

O all-pervading Śrī Siddha Siddheśvarādhīśa! Your going is unseen by any living thing, and your

works too are past the reach of the understanding. Only lately you granted your visible sight to

a European devotee named Nils Olof Chrisander, and gave him a command; whereupon he set out at

once from where he was and came into your fearless refuge, and immediately, by the mere sight of

you and by your compassion, he obtained the attainment of his goal.

Śrīman Munīndrajī Mahārāj is a supremely perfected Sadguru. By his holy appearing the good of

countless creatures has been worked, and many unearthly things are heard of him from his

devotees.

Śrī Sadgurudevjī's rain of the nectar of compassion — causeless, for the good of creatures

scorched by the three afflictions — is unbroken, ceaseless and without pause; and in endless ways

the work of delivering endless creatures is going forward. Here is a true happening of only a few

years ago, and well known to all. Though Śrī Mahārājjī has been hidden from sight these thirty

years, still he graciously continues to grant his sight to devotees and to faithful seekers.

There was a most accomplished European gentleman whose name is Śrī Nils Olof Chrisander. He was

a world-famous actor of the country of Sweden, a director of Germany's renowned Universal Film

Company, a generous giver and a philosopher. He was perfected from his birth, and his spiritual

movement was of a high order.

In America, where he had been living some years, he was held in great honour, and his words were

counted the words of a perfected man; he ate no meat. At the age of fifty-seven or fifty-eight he

had the sight of Śrī Munīndra, the Bābā of Haiḍākhān, in his bedchamber at Moscow, the capital of

Russia. At that same time Śrī Munīndradev granted his sight to the gentleman's wife also; she was

at that time in Leningrad. When the two of them met the next day, the experience of each was one

and the same.

Their inward movements began to strain toward the sight of the yogi. This is the one mark of a

purified heart: that it fastens on the Lord's holy feet. Śrī Bhagavān is pāvanaṁ pāvanānām, the

purifier of the pure; and so a pure heart can take no rest until it has obtained the supremely

pure Lord. The stilling of hunger will come only by eating; and by this same rule the Swedish

gentleman named above came also to India. He spent some time at the Śrī Aurobindo Āśram in

Pondicherry as well, but in this sojourn he did not find complete satisfaction. By a prompting he

did not know, he came to Almoṛā, and lived about two years in a lonely place called Kasārdevī.

There he had the sight, several times over, of Śrī Sadgurudevjī Mahārāj — the same whose sight he

had had at Moscow — and having found the Sadguru of his birth after birth, he was blessed beyond

telling. He made a beautiful and artful figure in plaster. In memory of this happening, that sweet

and compelling figure is kept safe to this day in a house of standing at Almoṛā. On the

twenty-sixth of April, 1946, that European gentleman left Almoṛā.

Such happenings have taken place until now, and are taking place, by the mercy of Śrī Mahārājjī,

past all counting. Not everyone has knowledge of it. As the Lord is endless, so too are his acts

endless and unearthly. ‖ 31 ‖

O great Lord! That in a single moment, by the grace of Śrī Sadgurudev, a man obtains the nectar

(the sight of the Self, or liberation) — this true saying, current in the world, you have made

good by delivering even devotees living in far countries. ‖ 32 ‖

That most fortunate Chrisander, at your holy feet alone, destroyed the material character of his

own being and became heir to the undecaying state of Brahman. That is: once the light of the

direct sight of the Lord and of the experience of the Self has awakened in a man's heart, then

though he may go on with the journey of life in the world for some days more in this body of the

five elements, still he moves about in the state of one liberated while living, empty of any

pride in the body; and he becomes fully heir to the supreme state on that very day when the

boon-giving hand of the Sadgurudev adorns his head.

Truly, O Lord of yoga, your compassion is made of the very truth of nectar; by it, in a moment,

the taste of deathlessness is felt in this life. Be gracious and turn that compassion to the

delivering of us worldly creatures, who are the playthings of the world's splendours — of wealth,

of authority, of coins of gold and silver — so that we ignorant ones may be wholly delivered. Who

but you is of such supreme power that he could become our protector? To whom else could we go, and

tell our pitiable state, and find peace? ‖ 33 ‖

O friend of the afflicted! Blessed in this world of men is that Śrī Nils Olof Chrisander, who came

from Russia all the way to your refuge, and who by his faith and devotion became a vessel of your

compassion. By the grace of that most fortunate man's skill in the craft of image-making, even

ill-fortuned people such as we bring our eyes to their fulfilment by the sight of your most

beautiful image; and drinking with the cups of our eyes the sweetness of your divine form, we make

our birth fruitful. How else should we have been able to look upon that beauty which is adorned

with your supremely divine body? Since that great man made your most beautiful image, we too drink

the nectar of the sight with the cups of our eyes, until we are satisfied, and shall go on

drinking it. For this that traveller is worthy of our thanks in full measure. ‖ 34 ‖

O you of great power! It is you above all who are worthy of thanks; for in order to make plain

the boundless and unearthly power of the road of yoga, in the first photograph your form was one

that showed a man of ripe years, wearing the ear-flapped cap, the kurtā and the dhotī.

The very next moment, when the second photograph was taken in that same condition, a most

wonderful thing happened: a picture came out full of the character of youth and of the highest

beauty. In the photograph the body appeared bare, with the sacred thread showing plainly upon it;

adorned with the splendour of the highest beauty, graced with the moon's fair crest-jewel,

garlanded, showing forth your own nature as Chandraśekhar himself. By causing such a picture to

be made, out of a feeling of grace toward your devotees, you showed forth the very furthest reach

of your perfection in yoga, out of longing for the good of the world — so that in the hearts of

creatures caught in this terrible Kali age no feeling of unbelief toward faith should be able to

rise, and so that the generations to come might put their trust in the science of yoga and work

out their own good.

At one time Śrī Paṇḍit Jvālāprasannajī Jośī, Major Basu, and Mahāmahopādhyāya Śrī Ādityarām

Bhaṭṭāchārya, M.A., came from Prayāg into Śrī Mahārāj's service for his sight, and with them at

that time was a Pārsī photographer named Rustam. At that time, at Ādityarām Bhaṭṭāchārya's urging

and on Major Basu's most earnest prayer, Śrī Mahārāj was gracious to them and gave leave for a

picture to be taken, for the good of the world. Those worthy men had two copies taken together by

the well-known Pārsī photographer Śrī Rustam, so that if the first copy were spoilt they could

make the most beautiful picture from the second. When the pictures were developed, both pictures

were adorned with a different age, a different posture and a different beauty.

Blessed is the unearthly and unheard-of wonder of the Lord of yoga and of yogis! By this it is

proved how many forms the king of yogis can change through in a single moment. Many such wonders

have thousands of men seen in Śrī Sadgurudev. At one and the same time, in many places, with many

men, at a distance of thousands of kos, his sight and his speech and wonders past counting have

been seen with men's own eyes.

Blessed is your power and your capability! And why should it not be so, O God? — for you are the

divine descent of Lord Śaṅkar himself. ‖ 35 ‖ 36 ‖

O Lord of gods! It is by your power and your grace alone that your most secret acts have been made

open. Such an attempt as this has been made on a prompting received for the peace and the gladness

of your peerless devotees' hearts. Therefore, O God of gods, be gracious to forgive this

boldness. ‖ 37 ‖

O you who dwell within! Your supreme devotees know, by your grace, even the most hidden secret

that lies in your heart. As you, enthroned night and day in their hearts, know every matter of

their hearts, so by your compassion do they also know your hidden secrets and your līlās.

‖ 38 ‖

O Sadāśiva! Śrī Siddha Siddheśvar! By the mere taking of your name, even once, the sufferings of

all the three worlds are stilled in a moment.

O all-pervading Lord of all! What great trouble of mind is there in poor creatures such as I,

that you should be sunk in samādhi and delay its stilling? Therefore, O God, delay no longer; be

gracious with the utmost speed, take away our poverty and our sorrows and our doubts, and grant

us happiness and substance, and that highest peace which is born of the knowledge of the Self.

‖ 39 ‖

↑ విషయసూచిక

11

The Bouquet of the Examination of the Play in the Grove of Delight

Fifth stabaka

This is the fifth cluster of blossoms, named the Bouquet of the Examination of the Play in the

Grove of Delight. In it is described how Śrī Siddha Siddheśvar Sadgurudev, taking on the dress of

an ascetic, watches the līlās of Śrī Rām — the darling of Ayodhyā's lord, the Supreme Person who

keeps the bounds of right — and is at every instant overwhelmed with bliss in Avadh.

O keeper of the fair vow, who keeps the most beautiful vow of yoga, samādhi and austerity! Śrī

Siddha Siddheśvar! Even at this time you take on the fair dress of a holy man and wander through

the world in the hidden garb of an ascetic, tasting the sweetness of the Lord's divine form, his

abode, his play and his name. Sometimes you take your joy of the most sweet acts of Śrī Rām at

Ayodhyā, at Chitrakūṭ and elsewhere; sometimes you reach Ānandavan, which is Kāśī, and are drowned

in the bliss of the truth of Śiva; and sometimes you come to Vṛndāvan and, tasting the joy of the

rāsa-play of the truth of Śrī Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Person of the divine play, you make your eyes

fruitful with the sight of the most dearly beloved. ‖ 1 ‖

O root of bliss! Sometimes you wander in the Grove of Delight — that is, in Avadh — tasting the

sweetness of the līlās of the Lord Śrī Rām, the Supreme Person who keeps the bounds. Then for a

time you come to Ānandavan, the Grove of Bliss — that is, to Kāśī — and, walking there, take your

joy of the juice of your own truth as Śiva. Then you reach Vṛndāvan, and watching the rāsa plays

in Braj, the land where your most dearly beloved, the Supreme Person of the divine play, took his

pleasure, you are drowned in bliss. And so, absorbed in the tasting of the Lord's abodes, his

plays and his forms, you count liberation as trifling as a straw, and lie night and day sunk in

the tasting of the qualified form of the Supreme Brahman, moving about in a state of self-

forgetting rapture. ‖ 2 ‖

O all-present Lord! Where in that Nandana grove of the gods could there be found the joy of those

groves marked by the Lord's own feet, which the Supreme Person of Right and the Supreme Person of

Play made the chief abodes of their play? Nandana is only the pleasure-ground of the ordinary

gods, while these three great groves have been the playing-field of the God of gods, the lord of

the three worlds. And where on that Mount Mandara, the dwelling-place of the gods and of their

king, could the Lord's divine rāsa-plays, made wholly of bliss, be come by? For this reason you

water your mind, utterly enchanted with the tasting of the Lord's play, by beholding the Lord's

splendours face to face in the Grove of Delight, the Grove of Bliss, and Vṛndāvan.

That is: in these divine abodes the Lord's divine plays, made of the highest bliss, still go on

at every instant without ceasing; but those divine plays cannot be looked upon with the eyes of

flesh. Great men on whom the Lord's full grace rests still taste them at all times with divine

eyes. Drawn by those same nectar-filled plays of the Lord, Śrī Siddha Siddheśvar, the descent of

Śrī Śaṅkar, takes on the hidden dress of an ascetic and wanders watching them as he pleases.

‖ 3 ‖

O ender of desire! Out of the longing to bring to their fruit the divine plays of the Lord's most

beautiful form, of his most holy name, and of the abode which is the dwelling-place of his very

body, you — though sky-clad — put on the loincloth and such garments as cover you, and taking the

fair dress of a holy man, a delight to the eyes, you behold in the Grove of Delight the beauty of

Śrī Rām, the darling of Avadh's lord, the Supreme Person of Right; and so, bringing yourself to

your fruit, you are drowned in bliss.

In the world these four things — the Lord's form, name, play and abode — are held to be the chief

of all. It is in the tasting of these four that the supreme devotees taste bliss at its furthest

reach. ‖ 4 ‖

O destroyer of the pride of the god of love! That unearthly and divine form of Śrī Rām, the

Supreme Person of Right, the prince of Avadh's lord — you drink it night and day in the lotus of

your heart with those drinking-cups which are your senses, stopped fast in meditation and turned

inward; and so you are drowned in bliss, and drinking and drinking you are never sated. ‖ 5 ‖

O Śiva, worker of the world's good! Out of the longing to meditate on that most beautiful nectar

of a face, the "purifier of the pure," at the end of every Tretā age you come sky-clad, with the

skull as your begging-bowl arranged in your hand, into the courtyard of Śrī Daśarath, the lord of

Ayodhyā and master of Sāketapur, in the form of a beggar; and drinking with your eyes the sweetness

of the child-figure of your own supremely worshipful chosen deity, you make light of the happiness

of liberation. That is: set beside the sight of the Lord's form, liberation has no value at all.

— Śrīmad Yogāchārya Śrīman Mahāmunīndra Sadguru Śrī Haiḍākhān-vāle Bābā, adorned with every

excellence.

The authors of the scriptures have pointed it out in many places: *viluṭhati charaṇāgre mokṣa

sāmrājya siddhiḥ* — "the attainment of the empire of liberation rolls at their feet," that is,

the Lakṣmī of the empire of liberation is for ever spurned at the feet of the Lord's supreme

devotees. By such words it is known to the whole world that the Lord's supreme devotees never so

much as wish for liberation. They are the drunken bees of the sight of the Lord's holy feet, of

the remembrance of his plays, and of the juice of his name. Their inward longing is only this:

Those peerless devotees of yours wish, even at the hour of death, for your sight and for the

direct beholding of your plays. Though it were a hell deeper than hell, there itself they taste

happiness. And so, since Lord Śaṅkar is the very first among the king-devotees, why should he not

make light of liberation beside the sight of the Lord? For such connoisseurs of the Lord's grace

have only this one aim:

What that supremely beautiful form is, the verses that follow describe. ‖ 6 ‖

This is the form of "the child-figure of Rām, whom Śaṅkar meditates upon" — the form in whose

worship Lord Śaṅkar lies absorbed, and in whose beauty Śrī Kāka Bhuśuṇḍijī, the chief teacher of

the science of devotion, lies rapt day and night.

Śyāma: that is, of a dark hue possessed of the highest beauty, and with a smoothness in it; and

on his face a nose most fair, like a parrot's beak; and cheeks that are the treasury of the

highest loveliness; and eyes wide as the petals of the blue lotus, white and dark and touched with

red, curving and full of sweetness; and ears adorned with beautiful jewelled earrings, in which

form the beauty of the earrings is fully covered over by the side-locks of his hair; and — being

in the form of a child — set off by that enchanting naked figure; and at the waist adorned with a

most lovely gem-set girdle of gold; and on the holy feet wearing charming anklets, ablaze with the

lustre of jewels. ‖ 7 ‖

Busy at his play in the courtyard of Avadh's lord, with the steps of those restless lotus feet

falling this way and that; his mind taken up with toys, in that lightness which comes easily with

a child's nature; with Śrī Lakhanlāl and the darling Śrī Śatrughna following at his heel like his

own shadow; and glad at heart, joined in a child's play with Śrī Bharatlāl, the very figure of

love for Śrī Rām. ‖ 8 ‖

O Maheśvara! In the courtyard of Mahārāj Daśarath you are brought to your fruit by the sight of

your most beloved Lord and worshipful deity — here embracing his brothers Lakṣmaṇa and Śatrughna

to his heart with love; there you are struck with wonder at the sight of the Lord routing them

and frightening them with a show of feigned anger, in that play which comes easily to childhood;

and in another place you are thrilled and struck still, seeing him joined with his brothers in

the play of dancing. And so, beholding the very truth of Vedānta, that Supreme Brahman whom even

the meditation of yogis cannot reach, absorbed in a child's frolics, you make your eyes fruitful

in Avadh with the sight of him. ‖ 9 ‖

Seated in one place with the most fortunate king of kings, Śrī Daśarathjī the lord of Avadh, in

the Mahārāj's own welcoming dish, taking the joy of the royal meal; and in that lotus face

smeared with curd and rice, showing again and again in full the fair buds of his teeth in a slight

smile — so you take the joy of the most sweet sight of your worshipful one.

By nature a child's face is of itself utterly lovely; and when, crowing with gladness, he shows

his fair little teeth to his mother and father, then in the heavenly hearts of the mother and

father the very reflection of heaven is mirrored. And when the lord of the three worlds himself

takes on the form of a child and smiles to gladden his parents and the devotees who have come for

his sight — then, if the splendour of the whole created universe were laid down as an offering

before that smile, it would still be utterly trifling.

Blessed, O Lord, is your Māyā! For it was by this that you brought about — according to the

word svīyayā māyayā 'jo 'pi svayam eva vimohitaḥ, "by his own Māyā even the unborn one was

himself bewildered" — that Śrī Brahmājī was enchanted by the very Māyā he had fashioned. This is

the greatest instance of all of your tenderness to your devotees: that for the satisfying of a

devotee's mind you become in one place a son and in another a father; in one place a friend, and

in another you become even an enemy, and so bring them to their fruit. But your peerless

king-devotee Sadāśiva is satisfied by tasting you in whatever form you come into the world. The

name of this is the oneness of the heart of the devotee with the heart of the Lord.

Blessed are you; and blessed too your Māyā, and all your supreme devotees are worthy of thanks.

Nor is this much of the play enough — see yet another form of your world-enchanting play. ‖ 10 ‖

O you whose eyes are the chakor-bird to the moon that is Rāmachandra's face! While eating

together at one meal with his revered father Śrī Daśarath, he saw Kāka Bhuśuṇḍi, who had taken the

form of a crow and waited in longing for the leavings of his own blessed food; and knowing at once

the longing of that devotee's mind, he gave him a mouthful from a golden bowl. Then, to keep up the

worldly propriety of a child, when the crow that was Kāka Bhuśuṇḍi came near to take the little

grain of blessed food, he became overcome with fear like an ordinary child and clung to the neck of

his loving father.

At that beauty of the child Rām, O Śrī Śiva, descent of the perfected! you are overwhelmed with

bliss — that blessed is the Māyā of that lord of Māyā, at the mere play of whose eyebrow the three

worlds tremble, and who is the very Death of death: that Supreme Brahman is today playing in

Daśarath's courtyard and being frightened in this way by a crow. Blessed, O Lord, is your Māyā

that enchants the three worlds! ‖ 11 ‖

O ender of Tripura! With your heart thus watered by the tasting of the juice of devotion, you see

in the Grove of Delight that child-beauty of your most beloved, the son of Avadh's lord, which

puts ten million gods of love to shame and which dwells in your own heart; and in the gladness of

that sight you are made supremely glad, and thrill, and rejoice. For your worshipful chosen deity

is none other than Śrī Rām in the form of a child, as you yourself described from your own lips in

the Śrī Rāmcharitmānas:

‖ 12 ‖

O bearer of the Pināka! At Mahārāj Janak's sacrifice of the bow, seeing the Lord's tender

loveliness against the hardness of your own Śaiva bow, your face grows afraid: *this bow of mine

is utterly hard, and the emperor of my heart is most tender; may it never happen that a wrench

should go through that soft wrist.*

Blessed, O loving heart! And why should it not be so? It is needful in this world that a lover's

heart should be always full of misgiving and of good wishes toward the one he loves; and you are

present here as a watcher, in the very dress of a human ascetic. So it is needful that feelings

proper to a human heart should rise in that heart. And why not? Truly it has been said: *yaha

prema ko pantha karālau hai rī, taravāra kī dhāra paidhāvano hai* — "this road of love is a fearful

one; it is a walking upon the sword's edge."

Truly this road is a strange one. And so your face is for a moment as though seized with fear;

and therefore, with the fierce sparks of fire that came out of your third eye, you made an end in

a single moment of the strength and the hardness of that bow. And then, as Śrī Rām — a very moon —

rose from his seat to break that bow, you drank the nectar of his beauty with the cups of your

eyes, and bowing to him in your own mind you were made glad. Blessed are you, O Śrī Śaṅkar; and

blessed too is that unearthly devotion and love of yours toward your worshipful one.

The meaning is this: in the Lord's abodes of play all the Lord's plays go on without ceasing, but

they cannot be seen with the eyes by men wrapped in Māyā and ignorance. So, when Sadāśiva in the

hidden dress of an ascetic beholds in the Grove of Delight the play of the sacrifice of the bow,

what is the state of his heart? That is what both the verse above and the verse below describe.

‖ 13 ‖

Now, how do you look upon the self-choosing made by the lotus hands of Śrī Janak's daughter, after

Śrī Rām's victory at the sacrifice of the bow?

O giver of fearlessness! That bridal garland seemed so terrible to the hearts of the kings who had

come longing to marry Śrī Jānakī that it was as though it were a serpent of Death; while to the

eyes of Vaideha, King Janak, it seemed by its mere sight to be a joy, wearing the shape of the

highest blessing. That most fortunate garland, whose very form was blessing, Śrī Janak's daughter

had woven and made with her own lotus hands; and with those lotus hands — the root of all

blessing, and marked, through the overflow of pure feeling, with stillness, with sweat and with

the standing of the hair — she laid it upon the breast of her most beloved Śrī Rām.

At that moment, beholding the loveliness of the Divine Pair, Śrī Rām and Vaidehī the daughter of

Janak, you were being made supremely glad in your own mind. And then the loving glance of Śrī Rām,

the emperor of your heart, fell at that moment upon you, who are his whole heart — and at that,

overwhelmed with love, you forgot all sense and understanding and were drowned in an ocean of

bliss. O Śrī Sāmba Sadāśiva, what other creature is there in the world like you, who could become

worthy of such thanks? You alone are blessed beyond measure. Where on Kailāś could this bliss be

had? It is to obtain this that you make the journey to the Grove of Delight again and again, and

are made glad. ‖ 14 ‖

O ender of Tripura! Sometimes, receiving the sight of Śrī Rāmachandrajī as he goes to the forest

to keep the vow of his revered father and to guard the bounds of right, your face fills with tears

and you are made frantic.

In that scene, Śrī Rāghavendra Sarkār, to keep the vow of his revered father, is seated in the

chariot with Śrī Janak's daughter and Śrī Lakhanlāl, and — to keep the ascetic's vow — has put on

garments of bark and is setting out for the forest. And the people, young and old, men and women,

utterly stricken, are gazing at his beauty with eyes full of tears and praying:

That is: O Lord, we old men of Avadh are laying our heads, white as swans, upon the ground and

praying to you; accept our prayer and come back; by our bowing full-length upon the earth again

and again our heads are grown dusty; be gracious to our pitiable state and return to the palace.

Seeing the men and women give such proof of their love — though you are free of all attachment and

neither joy nor grief ever touches you, still, at the sight of the people of Avadh's heartfelt

love for their Lord, a flood of loving tears wells up in your eyes; and with eyes full of the

tears of bliss you take the joy of the sight of your Lord. ‖ 15 ‖

O Īśāna! At one time, beholding that love-stricken scene of the play with Guha, king of the

Niṣādas — a scene with a power altogether without equal to raise love and frenzy in the hearts of

devotees — you too lose your senses.

Seeing the army of Śrī Bharatlāl, going into the forest to entreat the Lord Śrī Rāghavendra

Sarkār, and seeing how full of strength it was, an upheaval broke out in the heart of that loving

devotee, the king of the Niṣādas. Drunk with fear and with love, and though he was king of the

Niṣādas himself, he went from house to house among his kinsmen and strove with the utmost care to

gather them together, praying to them all in words full of humility and of warlike feeling:

āja kāja baṛa mora — "Brothers, in all my life today is the most weighty business I have ever had

with you. May it never happen that you show the least slackness in this work of the utmost weight,

and that by even a few of the warriors of this terrible army reaching him who is my whole life, the

treasure of my life should have to face danger. If that were to come about, then the very birth of

me, his servant, would be wasted."

Beholding the love-stricken state of the heart of such a one as Śrī Guharāj — who with a frantic

mind was wholly given to the gathering of his household, his relations and his people — you too

are overcome with love and with bliss. ‖ 16 ‖

O royal swan on the Mānasa lake of Rāghava! Because you are the very first teacher of the juice of

devotion, you know well the road of those who travel the path of love. That the state of their

hearts is more tender even than the śirīṣa flower — this too you know well. And it is for this

reason that you, as it were, took on the form of an omen — a sneeze — becoming the omen yourself,

and took away the pain of his mind that very instant.

That is: you know well the secret of those heavenly materials out of which God fashioned the

lover's heart; and so a misgiving was bound to come to you, that this true devotee of the Lord is

frantic in the guilelessness of his feeling — may he not go mad, or may his heart not suffer some

heart-cutting agony from a sharp blow. For this reason you took on the form of an omen and at once

sent courage flowing through his frantic heart.

Blessed is your tenderness to your devotees! You do not taste only the divine plays of Śrī

Bhagavān in the Grove of Delight, in Avadh; rather you nourish your heart with the plays of his

peerless devotees also. ‖ 17 ‖

O Manyu! Seeing the dust raised by the feet of the elephants and horses and marching soldiers of

Śrī Bharatlāl's army, as the story goes on, Śrī Lakṣmaṇalāl's figure has filled with the fury of

battle; he has made himself ready to fight, and has set to gathering and arraying quiver and bow.

And though his colour is fair, through the excess of his rush of anger not only has redness run

into his eyes, but his whole face has become filled with red. Every limb of his is glorious with

firm and beautiful marks. Such is Śrī Lakṣmaṇalāl, who was to slay Rāvaṇa's son Meghanāda; and

seeing the beloved, the Supreme Person of Right, quieting that rush of anger with words full of

steadiness and discernment, you long to make your eyes and your very being fruitful by beholding

him on the mountain of Chitrakūṭ. ‖ 18 ‖ 19 ‖

O God! Thereafter, in the forest of the mountain Chitrakūṭ, he comes from the city of Ayodhyā and

bows; his mind is utterly shaken with the grief born of mother Kaikeyī's deed, and in his heart a

stream of abject feeling flows on without a break. ‖ 20 ‖

O most compassionate one! Bharatlāl is given in thought, word and deed to the good of his elder

brother; he is an emperor among supreme devotees; and having offered himself up with his whole

being he has come wholly into the refuge of Śrī Rām, the dweller in the forest. Besides this, he

is set on declaring in stricken feeling the inmost condition of his heart, and every limb of him

is wet with the unceasing flood of his tears; he is set on declaring his pitiable state to his

most beloved with many an oath. Beholding the beauty of the Lord as he takes pity on such a

brother — Bharat, stricken and come for refuge — and gives him the sandals that work his welfare,

you are made glad indeed. But more than that — ‖ 21 – 22 ‖

Seeing the love-stricken state of Bharatlāl, king among devotees — who set upon his head the

sandals of the feet won by the compassion of Śrī Rājarājeśvar, and was filled with stillness and

sweat and the standing of his hair — your eyes too fill with the tears of love; and overwhelmed

with bliss you become wholly absorbed in the praise of the unearthliness of a devotee's heart.

‖ 23 ‖

O best of sages! Seeing Śrī Rām lay his boon-giving hand, which grants fearlessness, upon the head

of Śrī Bharatlāl — the brother-devotee, the very figure of love for Rām — and reason with him and

send him back to the city of Sāketa, you are again filled full with gladness. ‖ 24 ‖

O you who wear the moon at your crest! At some time the longing wakes in your heart for the sight

of Śrī Rām as a traveller of the Daṇḍaka forest. At that time, in front goes Śrī Rām, the Supreme

Person of Right; behind him the daughter of Videha; and behind them both, keeping their footprints

to his right and following in every step, Śrī Sumitrā's son. Pondering in the lotus of your heart

the lovely radiance of those three travellers, you are made glad. ‖ 25 ‖

O you who wear the moon as your crest-jewel! Bearing in your heart that fair beauty of Śrī Rām and

Sītā and Lakṣmaṇa, the supreme treasure of your heart, you sometimes become so drowned in love

that — as children, given up to play, roll about in the dust — just so, by rolling in the dust of

that Daṇḍaka forest marked by the lotus feet of your most beloved, your body becomes grey with

dust, and you wear the ash-mark of your limbs doubled over again.

That is: in the furthest reach of the helplessness of love, when you count the ground of the

Daṇḍaka forest most holy because it is marked by the beloved's feet, and roll about in it, then

the ash-paste worn upon your body appears wholly deepened by the greyness of the dust.

Blessed is your love and your affection! It is by this that you have kept your most beloved Rām so

wholly subject to you that he does not go anywhere else even for a moment, leaving your heart, but

remembering you alone, sits enthroned without ceasing in the temple of your mind. ‖ 26 ‖

O bee at the lotus of Raghunandan's heart! When Śrī Rāmachandra sees in the forest this

love-drowned state of yours, so delightful to the eyes, then he is exceedingly glad within

himself and falls into a state full of laughter's savour. At that time mother Śrī Sītā — absorbed

in her meditation, pondering without ceasing on the heartfelt gestures of her beloved — asks her

beloved the cause of his laughter: "O Lord, as we journey along the road in this lonely forest,

what has suddenly made you laugh?" And answering her, the Supreme Person of Right, to put away

his wife's doubt, makes it out that the sight of some creeper or beast or bird is the cause of his

laughter, and by making some such excuse tries to drive the doubt away.

Blessed, O Lord, is your love! Just as you keep the treasure of your heart hidden with your whole

being from every eye, and keep it safe, wishing to take the joy of the sight of it yourself alone,

so Śrī Rām too, drowned in love, does not wish to make Śaṅkar, the treasure of his own heart,

known to any.

When the two of them will not let their mutual love be shown, then who is so fortunate that he

could take a share in your hidden bliss and himself get the taste of that joy? For according to

the saying śivasya hṛdayaṁ viṣṇuḥ viṣṇoś cha hṛdayaṁ śivaḥ — "Viṣṇu is the heart of Śiva, and

Śiva the heart of Viṣṇu" — in this bliss born of love you draw a curtain even against your dearest

Jānakī and your most beloved Lakhaṇlāl, and taste this supreme bliss and are satisfied by yourself

alone.

O Lord, be satisfied and go on being satisfied — some day or other the hearts of your devotees too

will surely be flooded with this juice of bliss; for your devotees also sit gazing fixedly, to get

the taste of this bliss born of your beholding one another. How long shall the heart's desire go

unfulfilled?

‖ 27 ‖

O you who wear the serpent as your crown! As you, in the hidden dress of an ascetic, are intent on

the tasting of bliss, just so the all-capable Śrī Rām keeps the truth of Śiva — the most hidden

treasure of his heart — hidden even from Lakṣmaṇa, the stay of his life and his very breath moving

outside him, and so takes the joy of the sight of it. ‖ 28 ‖

O great ocean of the nectar of Rām's name! And why should it not be so? — for you are the very

substance of love for Śrī Rām at its furthest reach. As the travellers Śrī Rām and Sītā and

Lakṣmaṇa journey through the Daṇḍaka forest, the Supreme Person of Right sees you given to the

clearing of their thorn-strewn road — here and there gathering up the thorns of the path, in the

guise of one who clears the way — and is made blessed.

That is: the road of love is a strange one. A lover cannot bear the least suffering of the one he

loves; this is true. When you consider in your heart that *my Lord Rāghavendra Sarkār is journeying

without any covering on his feet, and it must never happen that some thorn should pierce the holy

foot of my worshipful deity* — moved by this feeling, you become absorbed in gathering up the

thorns of the path. And why should you not? You are for ever ready, in thought and word and deed,

to arrange the welfare of your worshipful one; so when your tenderness toward the Lord wells up,

how could you sit still? You are absorbed in his service at once.

O best of sages, Śrī Śaṅkar, descent of the perfected — blessed are you! And those people too are

worthy of thanks in whose heart your love-filled figure sits enthroned.

Whose heart but yours could the care of your own most worshipful deity torment? The sweet juice of

that pain can be known, a little, only by those lovers who have the nectar of love in their hearts,

and some smart of it, and some portion of truth. So the clearing of the thorn-strewn road by you is

right and fitting; for Mīrā, mad with love, spoke truly too:

‖ 29 – 30 ‖

Thereafter you sometimes come to the forest country of Pañchavaṭī to take the joy of the beauty of

the lord of your life, seated there.

O Bholānāth! Lying at his ease upon a slab of rock in the midst of the pavilion of a close plantain

grove, and shifting again and again the pillow of his arms, his lotus feet being pressed by Śrī

Videha's daughter, the companion of his dwelling at Pañchavaṭī — beholding at Pañchavaṭī, with

unblinking eyes, the beauty of your supreme Lord in such a scene, you do not come to your fill at

all, but are drowned and lost in the meditation of that very form. ‖ 31 ‖

A little while after the sight of the scene described above, you are gladdened by the sight of

another scene of the Lord.

O Śiva, bearer of the very form of Śiva! Thereafter, in the fair leaf-hut built of leaves, the

young prince of Kośala — who is the one object of meditation reached only by the thought of the

lords of yogis absorbed in Brahman — is seated with his beloved, Śrī Videha's daughter; and outside

the hut Lakhanlāl, the watchful sentry, armed with weapon and missile, does the work of a doorkeeper

and stands girded for the guarding of his most beloved pair. Meditating on the sweetness of this

scene and receiving the sight of it, you — though satisfied already by the splendours of yoga —

satisfy your inmost being to the full. ‖ 32 ‖

O Lord of yogis! Though you are wholly satisfied by the splendours of yoga, still your thirst for

the sight of the Lord is not stilled. And rightly so: even in the world it is after being filled

that thirst begins to torment creatures. So, with doubting glances again and again, with lowered

eyes, you look and look at the treasure of your life and are made glad. For snehaḥ pāpa śaṅkī —

great affection is full of fearful misgivings. The meaning is also this: *may some evil eye not

fall upon my most beloved — and so you look with a doubting gaze. Or else: may my arriving at an

untimely moment never become a hindrance to my worshipful one's freedom* — and with such thoughts

you gaze with doubting eyes, as a miser, robbed of courage and nerve, looks again and again with

longing at his own capital caught in another man's hands, and looking and looking is never

satisfied. ‖ 33 ‖

O you who covet the sight! Just so you too, though you behold again and again that most sweet

figure enthroned in the lotus of your heart, do not come to your fill; and through the rush of pure

feeling a swoon born of love and of bliss comes over you again and again, in the form of meditation

and samādhi; and you are drowned in bliss in the form of that most beloved one who is *sākṣān

manmatha manmathaḥ*, "the very churner of the mind of the god of love." ‖ 34 ‖

Thus, gladdening your chosen deity in the Grove of Delight with the sight of your love-drowned

raptures, and tasting again and again in Avadh and in the forests belonging to Avadh the sweetness

of his play, his abode, his form and his name, you wander there always and without ceasing. ‖ 35 ‖

O Nīlakaṇṭh! Somewhere you worship in your own mind the Supreme Person of Right, whose mind is

worn and tormented by the pain of parting from Sītājī; and you yourself seem grieved with his

grief. In truth you are beyond all pairs of opposites, and to you sorrow and happiness are all one;

and yet, to be grieved with the grief of your master while he is engaged in his play in the world

is only fitting, for the keeping of the devotee's proper bounds. ‖ 36 ‖

O Rudra! In the forest country of the mountain Ṛṣyamūka, beholding the most tender figure of your

worshipful one as he is bent on the search for his beloved, and longing in your heart to help him,

you take the very form of Hanumān and, being made glad, take away the pain of separation from your

most beloved Śrī Rām.

Śrī Añjanī's son is a descent of Sadāśiva himself. For Rāvaṇa, by offering up his ten heads, had

made ten of the Rudras favourable to him; but the eleventh Rudra was not made favourable — and it

was he who came down in the form of Śrī Hanumān, the son of the wind, and reduced Rāvaṇa's city of

Laṅkā to ashes in the utterly fierce fire of his wrath. So, O Śaṅkar, appearing in the very form of

Hanumān, you long in your heart for his victory over the enemy. ‖ 37 ‖

O Śiva, worker of blessing! The Lord Śrī Rāghavendra Sarkār, the Supreme Person of Right, in order

to keep the bounds proper to the world, establishes on the shore that figure of yours which is

enthroned in his heart, as Śrī Setubandh Rāmeśvar; and taking with him the army of monkey warriors

he becomes intent on your worship. Then you leave off the sage's dress of one rich in austerity,

and appearing at once and visibly in the image, you adorn him with the blessing of victory over the

enemy. ‖ 38 ‖

O Mahākāl! After the sight of these plays, you are again wholly flooded with the savour of the

heroic. It is as though Zeal and Steadiness had themselves taken bodies and come down visibly upon

the earth; they are glorious with arrow and bow and quiver, and fair are their shoulders. Beholding

those two lions of Raghu's line, Śrī Rām and Lakṣmaṇa, on the field of battle at Laṅkā, you too

become drunk with the heroic and the furious savours, for the destroying of the demon host. ‖ 39 ‖

O you whose eye is in your brow! There on the field of battle, the host of demons — greatly

arrogant, blind with pride, fighting steadfastly on that stage which is war, arrayed with great and

powerful weapons and missiles, and overcome by contemptible lust — have been utterly scorched by

the fire of Śrī Rāmachandra's arrows. Them you long to burn to ashes with the most fearful flame of

your third eye.

The meaning is this: when Śrī Rām, for the keeping of the bounds of right, plays with those unjust

night-rangers, drunk with the madness of battle, and kills them at his leisure — then, yours being

a devotee's heart, you consider at that moment: *my chosen deity is having to labour very hard at

the destroying of these wicked ones; why then should I not destroy them in a single instant with

the fiercest flame of my brow-eye, just as at the time of the dissolution I burn the whole universe

to ashes in a moment?*

Blessed, O Lord, is your love for your worshipful deity! Blessed is your supreme devotion, and

blessed that splendour of yours which is past the reach of mind and speech! ‖ 40 ‖

O Śaṅkar, giver of fearlessness! Thereafter, when you long for the sight of Śrī Rām, lord of Avadh,

then in the chamber of the royal palace of fair Ayodhyā, on the bank of the river Sarayū: he whose

every limb is finely adorned, whose every part is embraced by that creeper which is Sītā, and whose

divine form is the lovely drinking-cup of the meditation of the kings of yogis; whose every limb

blazes because he is seated on a throne of the fairest gold; whose divine form is ablaze with the

blazing radiance of his body; whose every limb shines with the lustre of the divine gems set in his

ornaments; and the sight of whom — that moon which is Rām — is gladdening the eyes of the beholders

as the moon gladdens the chakora. ‖ 41 – 42 ‖

Whose blazing form is dark; on whose face a nose fair as a parrot's beak is set; whose cheeks and

eyes are the treasury of the highest beauty; and who has taken the vow of keeping the world glad.

That is: the moment he was seated on the royal throne, this was Śrī Rām's fair vow —

That is: "In giving up affection, mercy and happiness, and Jānakī too, who is the root of all these,

for the contenting of the world, I feel no pain."

And so, to satisfy the world with his whole being, he gave up even his wife, swan-like in her

pregnancy — who was the full vessel of his affection, who being with child was worthy of mercy,

and who was his one means of happiness — and set thereby a matchless example of the vow of the

world's contenting. And only those who have received the initiation of the many great sacrifices,

the aśvamedha and vājapeya and vājasaneya and the rest, can win the good fortune of his

sight. ‖ 43 ‖

Who is for ever ready to give the gift of fearlessness to cattle, to brahmins and to children; who

is for ever girded for the protection and keeping of the poor, the afflicted and those who come for

refuge; whose every limb is covered with fair armour; and whose whole body is covered with a

garment of yellow silk. ‖ 44 ‖

Whose divine nature is wholly empty of any pride in the body; who keeps the vow and the observances

for the guarding of the bounds of right; whose sight makes the heart-lotus of the lords of sages

open into flower; who blazes with a matchless splendour; and who is glorious with a face fair as

the young moon. ‖ 45 ‖

Such is the fair Śrī Rām — the very lord of Lakṣmī, in whose hand the fair bow is set for the

guarding of the afflicted; whose lotus feet are marked with the noose and the goad. *(It is a fact

of the science of bodily marks that the feet of a king of great majesty bear the marks of noose and

goad and the rest.)* Behind whose throne Śrī Lakṣmaṇalāl stands bearing the parasol, while Śrī

Bharatlāl and Śatrughnalāl wave the fly-whisks on either side. So does Śrī Rāghavendra Sarkār,

possessed of every capability, shine in the palace of Avadh. ‖ 46 ‖

Whose lotus feet, set upon the footstool, are being served slowly and slowly and with love by the

supreme devotee, the son of Māruti; who has come to Avadh for the sake of his play in the world,

and is devoted night and day to the good of the world. Beholding face to face in the Grove of

Delight that Brahman in the form of Śrī Rām, seated upon his throne, you are filled with delight

and made glad. ‖ 47 ‖

O Śambhu, royal swan on the Mānasa lake of Avadh's lord! Dwelling always in the Grove of Delight,

you taste that nectar which is the name of Śrī Rām, joined with the Lord's play and the Lord's

abode.

And may the darling of Avadh's lord — the royal swan of the Mānasa lake of Śrī Tulsīdās's mind,

who is made glad by seeing his own form as Rām enthroned in the lotus of your heart — may he, by

your grace, dwell always in the temple of my mind.

Or else: may that royal swan of Tulsī's Mānasa, glad at heart to see your divine form enthroned

in his own heart as though he beheld it in a mirror, be gracious to dwell in my heart always.

‖ 48 ‖

To Śrī Rām, together with Śrī Lakhaṇlāl and Śrī Vaidehī, who dwells without ceasing in the

heart-lotus of the emperor of the perfected, the Lord of yoga and of yogis, the descent of Śrī

Sadāśiva, the crown of saints, who is enthroned at Haiḍākhān — to him I bow again and again.

That is: because the knowledge of the Lord comes down through the succession of gurus and is made

good in it, therefore Śrī Rām, who is enthroned in the heart of the most reverend Śrī Sadgurudev,

is the one supremely worshipful; for since the knowledge of his nature is received only through the

line of the gurus, no relation with him can be formed apart from them. Therefore it is worship

offered through the line of the gurus that accomplishes both welfare in this world and happiness in

the next. And Śrī Śaṅkar is himself the very first teacher of the branch of devotion to Rām;

without his grace it is impossible to obtain true knowledge of the form of Rām, as the

Rāmcharitmānas plainly points out:

That is: without the grace of Śrī Śaṅkar, devotion to Rām is not merely hard to come by — it is

altogether impossible. ‖ 49 ‖

↑ విషయసూచిక

12

The Bouquet of the Examination of the Play in the Grove of Bliss

Sixth stabaka

Here begins the Bouquet of the Examination of the Play in the Grove of Bliss. In it is shown how

Śrī Sadāśiva, in the dress of a yogi — having been satisfied in Avadh by the gladness of beholding

Śrī Rām, the Supreme Person of Right, and longing now to behold the nature of the Self and to play

within the Self — comes to Ānandavan, which is Kāśī, and there, drowned in bliss, is absorbed in

his wandering.

O Sat-Chit-Ānand Brahman, Sadāśiva! Though you are the visible form of Brahman-as-bliss, you

remain dissolved in your own bliss alone. And though your form is eternal consciousness and made

of bliss, still you are praised by Sat-Chit-Ānand itself — that is, you are the praiser, and the

hymn of praise is also your own form, and the one praised is yourself. Blessed is this most

wonderful Māyā of yours! ‖ 1 ‖

O you who take your delight in the Self! Sadāśiva, who plays within the Self alone: you are always

in the Grove of Bliss — that is, Kāśī — praised by Śiva who is the very form of bliss; and

remembering within the Self your own nature as Śiva, made of the highest bliss, you behold it at

Kāśī. ‖ 2 ‖

O you who wear the moon at your crest! In the city of Kāśī, on the fair bank of the cool-flowing

Śrī Gaṅgājī, blazing with the fair moon set upon your brow, bearing a form as still as a lamp

standing in a windless place — most beautiful, and with limbs adorned with ash — you are glorious

in that most lovely form. ‖ 3 ‖

O Śaṅkar, wishing-tree of your devotees! What manner of form of yours gives joy to the eyes at

Kāśī is described in the lines below. You have bound up your fair and mighty matted locks with

Vāsuki, king of serpents, and by them your divine form appears most beautiful; and you have put on

a crown and fair ear-ornaments of serpents also. Your divine brow is glorious with the threefold

tripuṇḍa mark, and from both eyes the beauty of the divine sandal-paste is reaching its furthest

limit. ‖ 4 ‖

Your whole body is glorious with the tiger's hide and the black antelope's skin; and with limbs

possessed of a natural beauty your form appears to the company of beholders a thing of the highest

joy. Your divine throat, wreathed with a fair garland of men's skulls, is come to the highest

beauty; and the bowl made of a human skull increases the splendour of your lotus hand. ‖ 5 ‖

O ender of the Ender! Your shoulder blazes with that famous Śaiva bow named Pināka, and your hand,

ablaze with the trident, appears most beautiful. On your left side is seated Śivā — Śrī Pārvatījī,

the Śakti who works blessing; that is, you are joined in the form of Śiva-and-Śivā, by which your

beauty is come to its highest loveliness. Such are you, Maheśvara, the giver of their heart's

desire to your devotees. ‖ 6 ‖

O giver of what is longed for! To those worldly creatures who stand on your road of devotion you

give both those supreme gains, enjoyment and liberation, together; for you are supremely free, and

so the surpassing power to grant even two opposite things at once is present in you. O Viśvanāth!

In the temple of Kāśī Viśvanāth great and learned brahmins are given to your worship by the

observances the Tantra lays down, and you are fully served by thousands of hosts of devotees intent

on your worship. ‖ 7 ‖

O wish-granting jewel of your devotees! Those desires which are within the compass of your

devotees' minds you grant that very instant, without the least delay; but those desires which are

beyond the compass even of their speech and mind — that is, of which the devotee could not dream —

even those most hard-won desires you grant in a single moment, being satisfied by the mere bathing

of a stream of water, and so content them.

You are Śiva Śaṅkar, Bholā Bhaṇḍārī, the simple-hearted treasurer. In what mortal could there be

strength enough to recount your virtues? ‖ 8 ‖

O master of the world's splendour, sole lord of all worldly sovereignty! You are given without

ceasing to dwelling at Kāśī, for you are the one ruler of the city of Kāśī. In that battle which

you fought in the guise of a Kirāta to test Arjuna, your head is made most glorious by the wound

of the brahmāstra he loosed at you; and your fame is sung daily by the whole world. Such are you,

the one ruler of your most beloved city of Kāśī, and the peerless master of the splendour of the

entire universe. ‖ 9 ‖

O dweller in the burning-ground, Śaṅkar! Though you are the one ruler of the whole universe,

moving and unmoving, still, like one who has no master, you play the whole night through beside

the pyres of the dead at the Maṇikarṇikā ghāṭ at Kāśī, where the dead are given to the fire —

past all pain, and to make yourself the lord of the hearts of the creatures who die in your beloved

city; saying: *"When you came into my city, having taken refuge with your whole being, then I was

your master while you lived; and now, in your state of death, I am seated beside your pyre. While

I remain, you have no need of the least anxiety. Be without fear!"*

That is, the Śruti saying kāśyāṁ maraṇān muktiḥ — "from dying at Kāśī comes liberation" — is

made good in just this way: that thousands of creatures dwell at Kāśī in their last days, and are

happy there while they live, taking the sight of Śrī Viśvanāth and bathing in the Śrī Gaṅgā. And

after death Śrī Śaṅkar sits enthroned beside their pyre, saying: śmaśānāntāḥ bāndhavāḥ sarve —

that is, "O creatures of the world! Your most beloved kinsmen, your sons and your brothers, were

companions only so far as bringing you to the burning-ground; but I am the protector of my

devotees always, and so I sit beside your pyre also, guarding you like a sentry."

Blessed, O Lord, is your tenderness to your devotees! It is for this that your name is famous as

the dweller in burning-grounds, because you play there. And it is impossible that this life should

find any other lord than you, who stands by the creature in every condition. Blessed is your

keeping of those who come for refuge, and your tenderness to your devotees. ‖ 10 ‖

O ender of desire! Sometimes, through the intoxication of a great quantity of bhāṅg, your eyes

appear most beautiful, filled with red. At that time you mount your fair Nandikeśvar, and taking

the spirits and the lords of spirits with you, you wander every lane of the city of Kāśī; and in

that passing you bring the creatures who lie at the point of death to their fruit, by speaking the

śiva-tāraka mantra into their ear. ‖ 11 ‖

O you whose face is the moon! Sadāśiva, glorious with a face fair as the full moon — in your city

of Kāśī not one man has died to this day who went after death to the door of Yamarāj. O Śiva, you

have shut Yama's door altogether; that is, since you grant liberation to all creatures, nobody so

much as sees the road to Yama's city. Blessed is your greatness! Now who else in this universe is

so powerful that we should go to him for refuge? ‖ 12 ‖

O Mahādev! Wandering in the Grove of Bliss, at Kāśī, you behold everywhere the glimpse of your own

form — in the monasteries, in the Śiva-shrines built upon the high roofs, and in the temples; and

receiving satisfaction in all your limbs from the juice of the joy of the worship offered by

devotees, and accepting their worship with your own visible limbs, you are made supremely glad,

and going from one place to another you taste the bliss of it. ‖ 13 ‖

O Lord! In that most holy city of Kāśī you become so drowned in bliss on receiving the worship

made by devotees that you begin to sing your own most holy names — crying aloud *Bam bam Mahādev!

Śiva Śaṅkar! Bholenāth!* and such names; and longing yourself to behold the marks of your own

forms, and yourself watching your own plays, you remain absorbed in your wandering, lost in your

own form in your own abode, the Grove of Bliss. ‖ 14 ‖

O boundless one! That state of bliss of yours — when in every pebble of Kāśī you see everywhere

your own very nature, then there is no bound left to your gladness; for your form pervades the

whole creation, and so your being is present in every atom. And when you see that everywhere, and

wherever in Kāśī you go, behold your own visible figure standing before you, you are drowned in

wonder.

O Lord, it is not the case that your Māyā only enchants the minds of the wise; sometimes,

according to such words as māyayā svīyayā 'jo 'pi svayam eva vimohitaḥ, you are yourself

enchanted by the Māyā you made. ‖ 15 ‖

O lord of spirits! You are the cause from which all the fair wonders of the world arise, and you

are glorious in a dress and bearing that raise the world's wonder — what wonder, then, can there

be for you? Is it a small wonder that, though you wear the ash-paste upon your own limbs, you

give away in a single moment, laughing, the highest sovereignty of the three worlds to your

devotees as though it were a straw? And is it a small marvel that, though you smear yourself with

ash, you are the one master of every sovereignty? ‖ 16 ‖

O three-eyed one! Though you yourself dwell in the country of the burning-ground, you give the

wealth and the attainments of the three worlds to the devotees who bow before you; and though your

dress is terrible, since you wear a fearful garland of men's skulls, you are the one and only cause

from which all blessings arise.

Whatever blessings and gladness there are in the world, all of them come to creatures only by your

supreme grace, as Śrī Gosvāmī Tulsīdāsjī set down in describing and praising Lord Śaṅkar:

That is: "Nowhere is there a giver like Śaṅkar. He is merciful to the poor; giving alone pleases

his mind, and those who ask always delight him. ‖ 1 ‖ Having burned Kāma, the foremost among

warriors, he then let him remain in the world without any body at all — how can I tell of such a

Lord's being pleased and granting his grace? ‖ 2 ‖ That highest state which the company of sages,

after practising yoga in ten million ways, is abashed to ask of the Lord Hari — that very highest

state is won even by worms and moths in Kāśī, the city of Tripurāri Śivajī; and this is plain from

the Vedas. ‖ 3 ‖ And those who leave so utterly generous a Lord, the husband of Pārvatī, and go

begging elsewhere — the bellies of such foolish beggars are never properly filled." ‖ 17 ‖

O lord of ashes, ender of Tripura! Though you bear upon your head the necklaces of the kings of

serpents, still you give your devotees heaps of fair kaustubha gems for their ornaments. The

meaning is that you yourself wear the ornaments of snakes, but you have your devotees wear

precious kaustubha jewels.

Tell me yourself: if you dwell in every pebble, what is there in that to wonder at? Be gracious

and show me the atom in which your being is not present! That is: you are enthroned in every atom

whatsoever; and a pebble is a very large thing, made of many atoms — what wonder is it, then, that

you should be present in it? ‖ 18 ‖

O God! Your being is present everywhere in all that moves and does not move; you pervade equally

all things, seen and unseen, existent and non-existent; the whole world is lit by your sovereignty

— and yet, without your grace, you do not come within sight.

You grant your sight only to those most fortunate great ones on whom your full grace rests.

According to this chaupāī of Śrī Gosvāmī Tulsīdāsjī, he alone on whom the Lord's full grace

rests can become a vessel of that highest gladness which comes of the knowledge of the Lord's

nature. So it is a truth that proves itself: without the Lord's grace, the sight of the Lord is not

merely most hard to win — it is altogether impossible. ‖ 19 ‖

O Lord! Therefore this is my wholly humble prayer to you: be gracious and grant that same divine

sight to the devotee who follows after you. O God, without winning your divine sight with these

eyes of flesh, this life bears no fruit; be gracious, then, and grant this life the sweetness and

the fruitfulness of that highest bliss which is born of the sight of you. ‖ 20 ‖

O you who scatter the pride of the god of love! As at Kāśī you taste with your own gaze your own

form, so delightful to the eyes, and come to the highest gladness — even so let your devotees also

drink with their outermost eyes your gentle form, in your own abode of play. Rain down such a rain

of the nectar of compassion that our inmost souls may be wholly satisfied with the ambrosia of

your sight. ‖ 21 ‖

O three-eyed one! My eyes are being scorched by that forest-fire which is the world, from looking

upon worldly beauty. O Śiva, these eyes will beyond doubt come to the highest satisfaction by

beholding your holy body, joined with the sweetness of a form that is the very substance of beauty.

A dweller in the desert sees a mirage and moves toward it in the hope of water; but the further he

goes, the more his hope is turned to despair. In such a state, if that weary traveller should

somewhere catch sight of a most beautiful and broad lake, he satisfies himself in full, and has no

need to wander anywhere else.

Just so the eyes of us worldly creatures wander in search of the juice of beauty — now in a woman,

now in a son, now in the delusion of nature's loveliness. In such a state, if we should somewhere

catch sight of your form, the very substance of the highest beauty, like a matchless lake of

nectar, then the thirst of these eyes for beauty would be stilled; for once your most lovely

radiance has entered the eyes, all worldly beauties begin to seem pale and without substance.

Be gracious, therefore, and have the compassion to satisfy these thirsting eyes with the nectar of

your sight. ‖ 22 ‖

O mighty-armed one! Śaṅkar, glorious with a great boon-giving hand — grant my eyes their fill with

the sight of your most beautiful form, for they have been thirsting and aching for that sight

through many births. You are filled full with the highest bliss, and you are the satisfier of the

three worlds. Therefore, just as you satisfy your devotees by granting them unspendable worldly

splendour, so also give the gift of your most beautiful sight and quiet the souls of weary

creatures. Otherwise the satisfaction born of the gift of worldly splendours will remain but half

complete, and that epithet of yours, "satisfier of the three worlds," will not be wholly made good.

‖ 23 ‖

O Sadāśiva! Your simple-heartedness is renowned in the whole world; who is not filled with wonder

on hearing of it? O Bholānāth, you granted a boon to Bhasmāsura, and then, out of your own

simplicity, had to run in a panic through world after world for your own safety. Blessed are you,

Bholā Bhaṇḍārī! In you the quality is found as the name says; and it is for this that among the

three gods your very name is Āśutoṣa, "the swiftly pleased." ‖ 24 ‖

O Śambhu, adorned with the moon, your brow glorious with matted locks! O Maheśvara, whose left

side is made lovely by Śrī Pārvatī! Be enthroned in my heart always. For you are yourself the very

form of light; and beyond that, by the dwelling in my heart of you who are adorned with the moon

upon your brow, the highest coolness will arise, and the darkness of ignorance will be destroyed by

those quieting rays. And since your left side is made glorious by Umā, the higher knowledge will

come to dwell in this heart. And most of all, by the enthroning in the heart of that wishing-tree

which is your blazing form, this temple of the mind will become a thing of greater worth than

Kailāś and than Śrī Vaikuṇṭha itself. Be gracious, therefore, and dwell in it without ceasing, and

so bring it to its fruit. ‖ 25 ‖

O husband of Girijā! To behold at Kāśī that form of yours which satisfies the eyes, your own

chosen deity Śrī Rām, the Supreme Person of Right, and Śrī Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Person of Play, take

on human shape and come down upon this earth; and drinking in one another the very form of

themselves that is for ever enthroned in your heart, they are overwhelmed with bliss. ‖ 26 ‖

O you who fill others with wonder! Those two, Śrī Rām and Śrī Kṛṣṇa, are wholly satisfied in your

abode of Kāśī with the happiness born of beholding one another; and gladdened by the sight of you

they bow each to the other; and seeing their own figure enthroned in the lotus of your heart, they

are filled with utter astonishment. ‖ 27 ‖

O lord of Kāśī! To make the sun of knowledge blaze on every side in the hearts of those men whose

truth of Self has been carried off by worldly Māyā, and by its divine light to destroy the darkness

of delusion in their hearts, you are glorious in your own capital, the city of Kāśī.

O God, my own inner being also has been carried off by the Māyā of matter. You alone are my

refuge; in the world I have no other support anywhere than the fearless shelter of your holy feet.

Therefore, O God, have the compassion to drive away the darkness of my heart too with that most

blazing divine light of yours. ‖ 28 ‖

O you whose body is adorned with the tiger's hide! When you come as a guest into the fair temple

of Śrī Annapūrṇā, Śrī Annapūrṇā is made supremely glad at drinking in the sweetness of the form of

you, her beautiful and beloved lord; and yet, misgiving a danger from your simple-heartedness, she

trembles within herself.

That is: when, in the course of your wandering through Kāśī, you come to the temple of Śrī

Annapūrṇā, she is made supremely glad by the sight of her beloved come to her; but she is also

fully acquainted with your simple nature. And so a misgiving comes to her: *may my simple-hearted

lord, being pleased with some devotee, not one day give even me away — according to the word "there

is nothing in all my store that I could not give to my devotee"!* And for this, because you are so

swiftly pleased, she remains full of misgiving in her heart. It is for this same reason that the

whole world praises you with the words āśutoṣa tuma avaḍhara dānī — "swiftly pleased are you, and

a giver beyond all measure" — and in a single moment is set free from care for the four aims of

life. ‖ 29 ‖

O Bhava! Your simple-heartedness is fully famous in the world; who hears of it and does not wonder?

You are pleased that very instant by a single pot of water. It is for this that the creatures of

the world address you by the name Āśutoṣa. Being pleased, you stand always ready to give those

creatures even your whole substance — and it is for this that Śrī Annapūrṇā too remains trembling

whenever you are looking on. ‖ 30 ‖

O Lord! In this world you have been gracious to the utterly poor and made them, in a single moment,

as rich in splendour as Kuber. And it is for this that Poverty, distraught with fear on your

account, finds no place anywhere at all to stand. That is: whatever man Poverty makes its refuge,

on that very man you are gracious and make him possessed of splendour and wealth and grain; and by

this you have left Poverty without any shelter. ‖ 31 ‖

O crown of givers! Wherever that Poverty goes, there and there it sees you, made glad by the

bathing of a single stream of water, and begins to tremble for fear; and seeing nowhere any shelter

in which to rest, it takes refuge in you alone. And you, being the lover of those who come for

shelter, and for ever girded for the protection of the creatures who come to your refuge — when

Poverty in its own shape, despairing of every other place, comes to the refuge of your holy feet,

then you count it your devotee and with the highest gladness take it upon your own limbs.

Blessed, O Lord, is your tenderness to your devotees! You consider in your heart: *wherever in the

creation this goes, there it will make the world wretched;* and so, keeping it with yourself, you

wander in the guise of one utterly poor, wearing the form described in *mahokṣaḥ khaṭvāṅgaṁ

paraśur ajinaṁ bhasma phaṇinaḥ, kapālaṁ chetīyat tava varada! tantropakaraṇabhū* — "the great bull,

the club, the axe, the hide, the ash, the serpents and the skull: such, O giver of boons, is the

whole furniture of your household."

Blessed is your devotion to the rescue of your devotees! For the good of your devotees, and to

keep it always under your control, you dissolve it into your own being and wander as

Daridranārāyaṇa, the Lord who is poverty itself. ‖ 32 – 33 ‖

For this reason, out of the longing to meditate on that supremely gladdened form of yours,

devotees give up all the appetites that dwell in the heart, and making their understanding still

at your holy lotus feet alone, they offer up their mind into that ocean which is your nature. By

this their mind becomes a vessel of the highest contentment and peace — that is, once the mind has

been offered up into your nature, the highest quieting and satisfying of every desire is obtained

of itself. ‖ 34 ‖

O Śaṅkar, giver of the longed-for fruit like the wishing-tree, granter of the highest peace! By

winning your shelter, all the creatures of the world have made their own hearts — scorched with the

three kinds of burning, that of the spirit, that of the gods and that of the elements — into a

storehouse of complete peace. ‖ 35 ‖

O you whose form is the highest peace! The lords of sages, of a quieted nature; the lords of

yogis, wholly free of appetite; and men given to works, who long for worldly splendour — all

alike, having won you and no other, are contented with the gain of the Self, and coming to the

highest nourishment, remember and meditate in their minds on your nature alone. ‖ 36 ‖

O lord of Kāśī! This fair Kāśī is your own enchanting city, and you alone — three-eyed, adorned

with the character of youth — are the one master of this fair city of Kāśī. In this city of yours

you grant living creatures, while they live, wealth and grain and splendour and all the riches of

the three worlds; and when they die you bring them to their fruit by granting them the happiness

of sāyujya, the liberation of union with yourself.

That is: in your city your people obtain the highest happiness even while they live, and when in

the course of time they die they obtain that state of liberation, made of the highest bliss, which

is hard for even the sovereignty of yoga to win. And why should they not obtain it, O God? When you

yourself, their lord, are enthroned in the fullness of power above their heads, then what thing

could be hard for them to win? ‖ 37 ‖

O maker of blessing! O lord of ashes, worker of welfare, sole master of the highest sovereignty!

Blessed are you! And blessed too are the men and women who come to the refuge of one so supremely

generous and so worthy of thanks, so mighty in power. For me, fallen into this most hard-crossed

and utterly deep ocean of the world, you alone are the one support; there is no other protector at

all. O Lord, I live by your shelter alone.

That is: "O Lord, I have no one else's support. O treasury of compassion, in thought, word and deed

this is my true vow: that my one and only support is your sandals." ‖ 38 ‖

O you who are as the pārijāta to your devotees! Śrī Siddha Siddheśvar Sadāśiva, the wishing-tree

for the fulfilling of your devotees' desires! Yogis who know the truth have set out your

truth-filled nature as blazing like the young sun and wholly aglow like heated copper. In that most

light-filled form of yours the divine eyes are ablaze; and in it is the power to quiet the pairs of

opposites — pleasure and pain, liking and loathing, cold and heat, right and wrong; and it is the

giver of the highest peace, and joined with the power that works the world's good.

O tall as the śāla tree, bearer of the moon! Even in that divine and light-filled form, the mark

of the scar is covered over by the canopy of your matted locks; and that form is the giver of the

desires of the heart to the devotees who meditate on it. Blessed in this world are those eyes which

are made fruitful by winning the sight of you. ‖ 39 ‖

O you whose nature is bliss! Śrī Siddha Siddheśvar Śiva, descent of Śrī Śaṅkar, who dwell for ever

and visibly in Ānandavan, in Kāśī, and who wander in Siddhāśram and in the caves of Śrī Kailāś —

you alone sustain this world and this earth. Blessed are you, and blessed your Māyā! ‖ 40 ‖

↑ విషయసూచిక

13

The Bouquet of the Examination of the Play in Vṛndāvan

Seventh stabaka

This is the Bouquet of the Examination of the Play in Śrī Vṛndāvan. In it is shown how Śrī

Sadāśiva, satisfied with the bliss of the Self in the Grove of Bliss, comes from his abode at Kāśī

to Śrī Vṛndāvan and, in the dress of an ascetic, drinks the nectar of the acts of Śrī Kṛṣṇa — the

root of bliss, the Supreme Person of Play, the descent in the fullness of his parts — and is

drowned in bliss. For after the wandering in the Grove of Delight and the Grove of Bliss, it is the

wandering in Vṛndāvan that by its unearthliness and divinity most gladdens the heart of Śrī Sāmba

Sadāśiva. And so, obtaining in these three groves the highest bliss of the Lord's play, his abode,

his form and his name, he remains drowned in bliss night and day.

O keeper of the fair vow — Sadāśiva, who keeps the fair vow of the juice of devotion to the Lord!

Dwelling in Braj, and beholding the enchanting figure of Śrī Śyāmasundar Vṛndāvanachandra, the

beloved of Śrī Rādhā, you drink the nectar of his beauty with the cups of your eyes; and to satisfy

your heart you come again to the abode of Vṛndāvan. ‖ 1 ‖

O friend of Śrī Kṛṣṇa! Out of the longing to taste the unearthly sweetness of the rāsa plays

carried on without ceasing in his own visible body in his abode of Vṛndāvan, you accept the

invitation sent by Śrī Vṛndāvanachandra and come with the host of gods; and with your presence you

make glorious the rāsa-festival of your most beloved Śrī Kṛṣṇa. ‖ 2 ‖

O all-pervading one! At this time, taking on the fair dress of a holy man who grants his devotees

their heart's desire, and wandering in the hidden garb of a yogi in the most holy dust of Braj —

your devotees behold your form thus with their own eyes and are made glad. ‖ 3 ‖

O most beautiful one! In the courtyard of Śrī Nanda Bābā, Śrī Kṛṣṇa has come down with his sixteen

parts, in the form of an enchanting infant glorious with a face fair as the young moon, drinking

at the breast of mother Śrī Yaśodā and gladdening the cowherds. To behold him, you take on the

shape of a human beggar and, on the pretext of asking alms of mother Śrī Yaśodā, behold Śrī Kṛṣṇa,

the treasure of her life and the ornament of the three worlds, and are filled with the highest

bliss. Blessed, O Lord, is your supreme devotion! ‖ 4 ‖

O connoisseur of the wandering in Braj! Here that ground of Braj is adorned with the most holy

marks of Śrī Rādhārānī's lotus feet, and close beside it, there, its form is ablaze with the honey

of the lotus feet of Śrī Kṛṣṇachandra, the root of bliss. Wandering in it, and moving drowned in

bliss through the lanes of Braj — though your form is hidden as you wander absorbed in Śrī

Vṛndāvan, the supreme devotees behold even that, and are made glad.

All this is the fruit of your grace alone: that even a form which wanders looking, to worldly

eyes, like a dumb and senseless thing, the supreme devotees recognize in every condition and taste

the bliss of it, according to the words *tumharihi kṛpā tumhahi raghunandana, jānata bhakta bhakta

ura chandana* — "by your grace alone, O Raghunandan, the devotee knows you, the sandal of the

devotee's heart." ‖ 5 – 6 ‖

O highest bliss! Bathing daily in the fair, wave-tossed and holy water of Śrī Yamunājī, and drowned

night and day in the most sweet tales of Śrī Kṛṣṇachandra, the descent of play, and watching in the

groves of Braj the rāsa-festival of Śrī Kṛṣṇa — though you take your delight in the Self alone,

you wander in the form of one drowned in the highest bliss. ‖ 7 ‖

O beholder of the three times! In the lovely lanes of the forest of Vṛndāvan, wherever you appear,

there and there you receive the highest gladness from watching the Lord's eternal, bliss-filled

rāsa plays. And bearing a form nourished to the utmost by drinking the most sweet divine nectar

of those bliss-filled rāsa plays, your every limb thrills through the overflow of bliss. In such a

state, filled with the helplessness of love, you taste the Lord's plays, which are made of pure

consciousness. ‖ 8 ‖

O friend of the poor! Your most beloved devotees recognize even that most hidden dress of yours, by

your mercy alone; for being gracious to the inward devotees, you keep no play of yours hidden from

them.

In the world an obedient son and a most beloved disciple are counted as one's own self. The Śrutis

too plainly declare ātmā vai jāyate putraḥ — "the son is the very form of the self." In the same

way the supreme disciple, being one's own self, is entitled to the hidden secret. So too, in

setting forth the scriptures of mantra and tantra, you yourself gave the command *deyaṁ śiṣyāya

śāntāya viṣṇu bhakti ratāya cha* — that is, "even the most secret truth of the mantra should be

given to a quieted disciple who is given to devotion to Viṣṇu." It is for this reason that you are

gracious to grant your devotees the divine sight also, and so give them the vision of yourself and

of your most beloved. ‖ 9 ‖

O sky-clad one! Sometimes in the groves of kadamba and of mangoes your virtues are sung by bees

drunk with the tasting of honey; and hearing them you too become drunk with bliss, and losing

yourself beneath those trees with their dense shade, the movements of your mind come to the highest

satisfaction from hearing the most sweet sound of the flute blown by the Lord, the Supreme Person of

Play. And by the rising of all the marks of pure feeling, your state becomes one made of

consciousness and bliss. ‖ 10 ‖

O Maheśvara! Sometimes in the lanes of Vṛndāvan, beholding that dark loveliness — absorbed within

himself in the festival of Holī, his limbs stained again and again from playing Holī with the

throngs of Braj's most high-spirited cowherds, given to laughter and frolic of every kind, and

with the most fortunate cowherd women — you are made glad. That is: gladdened by the beauty of Śrī

Nanda's son as he plays Holī in the lanes of Vṛndāvan with the cowherd women and the cowherds and

with Śrī Priyājī, you count even the bliss of Brahman a trifling thing beside this bliss. ‖ 11 ‖

O supreme Lord! Sometimes, tasting the beauty of Śrī Vṛndāvanachandra — seated in a pavilion made

of many creepers and adorned with a net of many trees, karīra and kadamba and the rest, his mind

satisfied with the divine and bliss-filled sport of the rāsa — you come to the highest gladness.

‖ 12 ‖

O you who play in the mountain caves of Kailāś! Somewhere you look upon the Lord's mystery-filled

divine plays in this way: that by his yoga-Māyā he leaves the company of the cowherd boys and the

cowherd women and, taking only Śrī Rādhārānī with him, comes out of longing for a solitary

wandering into a fair bower — longing like a bee to drink the nectar of the lip of Śrīmatī

Rādhājī, that most fortunate one wholly given to Śrī Kṛṣṇa's lotus feet, his creeper-like arms

quivering through the overflow of bliss. Beholding the divine sport of him who is "the very

churner of the mind of the god of love," absorbed in that most secret and mysterious play, you

yourself are drowned and go bathing in an ocean of the highest bliss. ‖ 13 ‖

And in another bower, beholding the beauty of Śrī Yogeśvar as he presses slowly and slowly with

his own lotus hands the tender leaf-like feet of his most beautiful beloved — the lotus feet of

Śrī Rādhājī, lying asleep, which the sages, like bees, for ever serve with devotion — you are

again overwhelmed in the highest delight.

Śrī Bhagavān, taking the support of yoga-Māyā, carries on different plays in different places at

one and the same time. And Śrī Yogeśvar Siddha Siddheśvar, being himself the very form of Śaṅkar,

is also the master of yoga-Māyā; and so, taking many forms by his own yoga-Māyā, he tastes the

juice of the play in different places all at once.

Blessed indeed! And it is for this that, according to the word *nūnaṁ bhagavato māyā jñāninām api

mohinī*, your Māyā bewilders even men of knowledge. But in a play where the lord of Māyā is himself

the lord of the rāsa, and the master of Māyā, Śrī Sāmba Sadāśiva, is the watcher — how should

worldly creatures be able to taste the sweetness of that divine rāsa? These plays are far beyond

even their meditation.

Blessed, O Lord, are your divine plays! In them, though he is the lord of the whole universe and

of all creation, he is pressing the feet of his beloved, Śrī Rājarājeśvarī. This is love at its

furthest reach, of which it has been said, counting it your very own form:

What end can worldly creatures find to these acts that are beyond the world? Only these words are

the support of worldly creatures:

And it is for this, O Śiva, that taking on your own attentive form you cast off the hidden dress

and, in your real dress, appear at once as a beggar asking only for the sight — as the next verse

sets down. ‖ 14 ‖

O three-eyed one! Leaving your form of one detached, bearing the moon upon your brow, adorning

your body with the tiger's hide and with ash, wearing the necklace of the king of serpents, and

sky-clad with the skull-bowl in your hand, you are brought to your fruit by begging for the

unceasing sight of that beauty described above — the beloved of your life, the garland of Śrī

Rādhā's heart.

O Lord! Let me too behold without ceasing this most sweet beauty of your Divine Pair. This one

alms alone, be gracious and grant me. ‖ 15 ‖

O Śiva Śaṅkar, adorned with the crescent moon! Sometimes, in the temple of Śrī Bāṅke Bihārījī

Mahārāj — bhava netra ramye, most beautiful to the eyes of Śrī Sadāśiva — you gaze and gaze with

your own sidelong glance at Śrī Bāṅke Bihārījī Mahārāj, who is true to his name in the very sight

of him: adorned with a bent figure, with a bent neck, a bent lip, and wide eyes set slantwise like

the crescent moon. And so you are made blessed. ‖ 16 ‖

At that time, when you receive there the gladness of his sight, and his bent glance full of love

meets your own glance full of the sweetness of bliss — then, as you are gazed at again and again

from the corners of eyes full of a slight smile, in both of you there rises from that mutual

beholding the whole overflow of the marks of pure feeling: stillness, sweat, the standing of the

hair, trembling and the rest. And by this he is drowned in the highest bliss at the sight of you,

and you, receiving the sight of him, are utterly drowned in your own nature and brought to your

fruit. ‖ 17 ‖

O you whose very figure is purity! Though you are risen out of purity, wholly steadfast in the

highest truth, the very form of truth itself, resting on the visible form of purity, given to

purity at every instant, and yourself the form of pure being — still you are drowned in the highest

bliss of Śrī Nanda's son, who is an ocean of the highest bliss. Victory to you, Sadāśiva, whose

holy body is the very form of Sat-Chit-Ānand! ‖ 18 ‖

O Śarva! Sometimes you come to the abode of Śrī Govardhan, and beholding Śrī Girirāj — the Lord's

own embodied form, praised and well served by hosts of devotees given to his worship, and filled

with the gladness of the great festival — you make the circuit of him with your own holy feet, and

at every step you are filled with the highest bliss and delight. ‖ 19 ‖

May Śrī Siddha Siddheśvar in the form of Śaṅkar — the dweller in Śrī Siddhāśram, who grants all the

attainments to good men — being well satisfied in Vṛndāvan with all four of those supreme

principles, the Lord's play, his abode, his form and his name, protect us worldly creatures. ‖ 20 ‖

↑ విషయసూచిక

14

The Bouquet of the Examination of the Secret Play in the Grove of Siddhāśram

Eighth stabaka

Here begins the bouquet of blossoms named the Examination of the Secret Play in the Grove of

Siddhāśram. In it is described the wandering in the grove of Siddhāśram of Śrī Siddha Siddheśvar

Sāmba Sadāśiva, satisfied with the blissful wandering in the three groves; and some portion of his

mystery-filled divine plays is set down here for the comforting of the devotee's heart.

O Śambhu! Bearing in your heart the felt happiness of the Self won in the Groves of Delight and of

Bliss and in Vṛndāvan, and drowned once more in the samādhi of yoga out of the longing to meditate

on the nature of the Self, you come again to Siddhāśram, the seat of the perfected, where your most

happy and holy āśram is. ‖ 1 ‖

O lord of sages! Taking on a quieted form and dwelling at Siddhāśram, you win full victory over

the senses and are drowned in the samādhi of yoga; and there, out of the longing for the welfare

of your loving supreme devotees, you remain given to their getting and their keeping. ‖ 2 ‖

In the forest country of this most holy Siddhāśram you dwell, arranging by your own yoga-Māyā the

getting and keeping of your devotees. The hosts of devotees take Sadāśiva himself for a holy man,

and serve him and bow to him. ‖ 3 ‖

According to the promise of the Śrīmad Bhagavad Gītā, *ye yathā māṁ prapadyante, tāṁs tathaiva

bhajāmy aham* — "in whatever way men come to my refuge, in that same way do I serve them" — Śrī

Sadgurudevjī Mahārāj, making this feeling good, remains for ever given to the feeding and

sustaining of the devotees who have taken shelter at his feet. He knows at once the feelings of

his devotees' hearts; for what delay can there be for one who pervades every vessel, in knowing

what is in a devotee's heart? ‖ 4 ‖

O ocean of compassion, purifier of the fallen, sustainer of the world! Wandering in the caves of

Mount Kailāś, you are glorious with the necklace of rudrākṣa. You gave your generous care to the

feeding and keeping of the devotee Śrī Gumānī, who had been scolded by his wife; you cut his field

of grain, and gathered it with the tender leaves of your own hands; and to satisfy your devotee's

household you filled the storeroom of his house with an unspendable store of twenty-two maṇ of

grain, carrying the bundles yourself upon your head, load after load!

Blessed, O Lord, is your tenderness to your devotees! It was you who thatched the roof for the

devotee Dhannā, and you who set out the meal for Narsī. These habits of yours are very old. How far

can the tale of your greatness be told? ‖ 5 ‖

O Lord! To rain the nectar of grace upon your desireless devotee Śrī Gumānī Siṃh, and to fulfil

the fierce longing for devotion and for refuge in the Lord which he had framed in his mind, one

day you seated yourself in the shade of a fair pīpal tree and gave him your refuge with your

whole being. ‖ 6 ‖

O Lord! Śrī Yogirāj, supremely free, able both to punish and to favour! That Ṭhākur named Śrī

Gumānī, of a most pure inward being, was going to the water-driven mill set at the edge of the

village, to have his wheat ground. On the road itself he received the sight of you, full of mercy

and giver of the highest bliss; and in a single moment, through that purity of soul born of the

company of the good which he had earned in a former birth, the mirror of his heart became utterly

clean. And so in a single moment he was able to receive the clear reflection of Śrī Gurudev,

blazing like the sun; and he offered himself up with his whole being at your holy feet. ‖ 7 ‖

Beneath that very aśvattha tree, casting off all thirst and the bonds and tangles of household

life, that steadfast man began to take his rest in the most happy shade of your holy feet — a

shade utterly cool with its fair shadow, and quieting every trouble and every sickness. ‖ 8 ‖

O God! How far shall I recount your virtues? You went to his field and cut all the grain, and tied

up twenty-two maṇ of grain in bundles and carried it to his house. Blessed is that good name of

yours for remembering and protecting your devotees!

For it is your true promise: teṣāṁ nityābhiyuktānāṁ yoga kṣemaṁ vahāmy aham — "for those

ever-devoted ones who, casting off every appetite, remain always given to my worship alone, I

myself carry the getting and the keeping." ‖ 9 ‖

O Śaṅkar, maker of blessing! Blessed is your power to protect your devotees. Your habit of

protecting is fully famous in the world. That twenty-two maṇ of grain, brought to Gumānī's house

by your unspendable lotus hands, his household has been eating to this very day.

Thousands of such wonders the dwellers near Śrī Siddhāśram have seen with their own eyes, and they

are drowned in bliss when they recount them upon their oath. Blessed, O Bholā Bhaṇḍārī, is your

unearthly and divine power of giving refuge to your devotees and of keeping the households of

those who come to you! It is for this that Gosvāmī Śrī Tulsīdāsjī brought himself to his fruit by

writing these words about you:

‖ 10 ‖

O Lord! In the house of the most fortunate devotee Śrī Gumānī some letters written by your lotus

hands are present even now. Those fair letters, though glorious with characters like the script

the Creator writes upon the brow, have to this day not been read, for all the efforts men have

made.

*A picture of the letters written by the lotus hand of Śrī Sadgurudev is given here, for the sight

of all.* ‖ 11 ‖

O treasury of compassion! The fair copper tongs that were the ornament of your hand are present to

this day in that fortunate devotee's house, as a sweet remembrance. The men of this age, whose

bodily strength has been destroyed by the Kali age, can neither easily lift them nor hold them;

for between the strength of man five thousand years ago and that of this age there is a very great

difference. ‖ 12 ‖

Those copper tongs, having received the touch of your boon-giving hands, take away the pain of

living creatures by the mere sight of them. Being adorned with the most fortunate touch of you,

they are the one support of the mind of your supreme devotee and beloved disciple. ‖ 13 ‖

Blessed are the household and the house of that supreme devotee of yours, Gumānī, where you came

yourself and were gracious; and from time to time you received his food as your great blessed

offering. All this grace is the fruit of the good deeds of that supreme devotee of yours, both in

his former birth and in this. ‖ 14 ‖

O you who are rich in austerity! Than that fair fruit which you granted to his household by your

nectar-filled sight, no sweeter fruit is possible in the world. That form of yours which is unseen

by the greatest yogis even through the eye of yoga became the object of his own bodily eyes — and

that is no small piece of good fortune. ‖ 15 ‖

O most merciful one! To bring this king among devotees, Gumānī, to his fruit, you performed many

plays filled with a splendour beyond the world. Of those divine plays, one is described here, to

send courage and steadiness flowing through the hearts of devotees.

One day a brahmin named Śrī Bholādatt was busy cooking Śrī Mahārājjī's food. Because there was some

delay in the cooking, the sun had come to its strength; it had become about eleven o'clock. At that

time, when the cooking was finished, you gave the command from your own lips: "I shall bathe in the

Śāradā Gaṅgā and come at once."

At that Śrī Gumānī too prayed with folded hands: "Mahārāj! You are possessed of every capability

and will come back after bathing in the Gaṅgā; but I am utterly poor. When the grace of Śrī Gaṅgā

Māī falls on me too, then I shall bathe."

What delay could there be for the emperor of the world's heart in understanding what was in his

lover's heart? You gave the command at once: "Gumānī? Come, let me have you bathe in the Śrī Gaṅgā

too."

Setting the revered command upon his head, and counting it the supreme grace of his Lord, Gumānī

also followed behind Śrī Mahārāj. When the two of them had come outside the āśram, at a distance of

some thirty or forty paces, then Śrī Gurudev, of supreme capability, began to rise up unsupported

into the path of the sky by the highest sovereignty of his yoga; and Gumānī too, receiving the

command, took the support of his holy feet and began to move along the path of the sky. ‖ 16 – 17 ‖

And very swiftly, in half a moment, he reached the bank of the Śāradā, forty miles away, together

with Śrī Siddha Siddheśvar Gurudev. O keeper of the great vow! To raise contentment in the hearts

of your devotees, you showed him a single grain of that mighty wealth of yoga which is yours.

Blessed is your greatness, and your tenderness to your devotees! ‖ 18 ‖

Having bathed his fill in the heavenly river Gaṅgā, that supreme devotee also came back with you,

in a single moment, to the grove of austerity at Haldvānī. ‖ 19 ‖

Hearing that astonishing account from the mouth of Śrī Gumānī, that vessel of supreme grace, the

other devotees — Bholādatt and the rest, who were present at the āśram at that time — became

greatly distraught and struck with wonder.

Thousands of people are fully acquainted even now with the unearthliness of this wonder of Śrī

Mahārāj's yoga. This is only a very ordinary glimpse that has been given. Your splendour is joined

with the sovereignty of Sadāśiva himself, and so you are able kartum akartum anyathā kartum — to

do, to leave undone, and to do otherwise. ‖ 20 ‖

That same Ṭhākur named Śrī Gumānī is the highest and best among the fortunate — who, by serving you

night and day, by your company and by taking refuge with you, destroyed the whole net of his pain,

and by your grace obtained in this life the state of one who has done what was to be done. ‖ 21 ‖

O Śrī Siddha Siddheśvar! In the forest country of austerity at Haldvānī, in your own abode of

Siddhāśram, the seat of the perfected, which lies in the foothills of Mount Kailāś, you have

performed many plays that purify the world; and all of them are wholly beyond the reach of speech

and mind. ‖ 22 ‖

O friend of the afflicted! A learned man of the country of Baṅga — Bengal — was labouring by the

practices of yoga for the direct seeing of the Self, but had not been able to see success; and for

the contenting of his soul he went from one place to another, presenting himself in the service of

great men and praying in the spirit of a seeker. To him, in a single moment, by the sight of you,

that attainment which is born of the splendour of yoga came by your mere glance.

The full account of this happening is as follows. A Bengali scholar came into this country in the

rainy season. This gentleman had practised the exercises of yoga for many years; in the labour of

these practices his age had grown great, though his body was very robust and he did not appear

old. All the yoga practices his guru had taught him he had completed. After his guru had left the

body, he found no perfected great one to carry those practices further; and so, searching, he came

into this province. Coming here and asking, he learned that the Mahārāj of Padampurī, the reverend

Śrī Somvārī Bābā, had left the body, and that the Mahārāj of Śrī Haiḍākhān — the reverend Śrī

Gurudev — was at his āśram of Chheḍū, near the Bhaṭkoṭ valley.

Because the road was very distant and hard, he took a man who knew the way and set out on foot for

Chheḍū to have Śrī Mahārājjī's sight. On the road he had to face grievous hardship because of the

rain; and after four days of painful and difficult travelling he reached the āśram. At that time

Śrī Mahārājjī was seated with the visitors inside the thatched shelter. The moment this seeker

took his sight from ten paces away, his condition became wonderful. He stood still, struck

motionless. From his eyes an unceasing stream of tears flowed on; his throat was choked; he was

overwhelmed with feeling.

This state lasted about two hours; and in the meantime Śrī Mahārājjī went off toward the forest.

When the scholar came back to himself, he told them that in search of yogis and great souls he had

travelled the whole of India, and had taken counsel about his own condition with countless yogis;

but nobody had been able to move him forward from the place where his cart had stuck. "Yet by the

mere sight of Śrī Mahārājjī everything was made easy for me. Without my asking, he entered within

me and gave me the glimpse and the experience of all the further practices of yoga."

Remembering thus the grace of that boundless Siddha Siddheśvar, he was overwhelmed with feeling and

went on making full prostrations in the dust of his holy feet. ‖ 23 ‖

O Lord Śiva, Mandara of the jewels of yoga! In the forest of Badarikāśram you were honoured by Lord

Viṣṇu himself; you alone have become entitled to receive the great blessed offering of

well-cooked rice from the lotus hands of Śrī Lakṣmījī.

The secret of this passage is as follows. Once Śrī Siddha Siddheśvar Sadgurudev came to the forest

of Badarikāśram for the sight of the Lord Nara-Nārāyaṇa. He was wholly drowned in that sight. When

the blessed food of Śrījī was distributed there, he did not take the great offering from the hands

of the temple priests. Then the Rāwal, the authority of that place, came himself bearing the great

offering; but the Mahārāj did not accept it. And having received the gladness of the sight, Śrīmad

Mahārāj went on into the forest — and then Śrī Badarīvan-vihārī himself came, with Śrī Padmālayā

Padmā, adorned with the chhamchham ringing of anklets.

Śrī Siddha Siddheśvar was seated drowned in meditation in that holy wood; and when, drawn by the

chham, chham of the sounding anklets, he looked before him, he was made glad by receiving the

nectar-filled sight of the lord of Vaikuṇṭha, the connoisseur of wandering in the Badarī wood. The

Divine Pair gave the blessed offering with their own lotus hands to their most beloved Śrī Siddha

Siddheśvar. Śrī Mahārāj received that nectar-filled great offering, endowed with the Lord's own

splendour, and brought his own being to its fruit. ‖ 24 ‖

O great of mind! To what other great one in this world has such splendour come? By the churning of

the science of yoga and the practices of yoga, and because all the appetites of the heart have been

fulfilled, all the attainments stand before you at every instant. ‖ 25 ‖

O tiger among sages! O lord of sages, most fortunate in the eating of the rice received from the

lotus hands of Śrī Lakṣmīdevī, sovereign of the three gods! Today I am blessed. Thus have we come

to the refuge of you, the vessel of the Lord's grace and worthy of the highest thanks. Be gracious

to us too, and bring us to our fruit. ‖ 26 ‖

O best among the austere, Śrī Siddha Siddheśvar! Blessed are you. In forbearance you are the equal

of Lord Viṣṇu — *(when the great sage Bhṛgu struck him with his foot for no cause at all, not the

least anger came to Lord Viṣṇu)*. Your causeless mercy toward all living beings astonishes the

world. ‖ 27 ‖

O Śambhu! You are true in all three times, and you are unceasingly given to the form of Being

itself; and all the plays performed by you are true in all three times. O you who burned up the god

of love, scatterer of Kāma's pride! Out of the longing to bring the sport of your play to its

fruit, you came down upon the earth in the form of Śrī Siddha Siddheśvar. ‖ 28 ‖

O great soul! Out of the longing to wake once more, by your most lovely deeds, that faith which had

perished from the hearts of worldly creatures — though you are detached from every appetite, you

give yourself to the longing for the world's good and perform your most enchanting plays. ‖ 29 ‖

Once at Ṛuṇī-Dvārson many visitors were sitting with Śrī Mahārājjī. They were the days of summer,

and the water was some distance away. Then Śrī Mahārājjī pointed out a hidden cave near that place

and said, "Inside this there is very cold and sweet water." This was not known even to the oldest

and most aged dwellers of that place; because the mouth of the cave was exceedingly narrow, nobody

knew that there was water within. Though they tried, no man was able to enter it. Then, before the

eyes of them all, Śrī Mahārājjī took a water-pot in his hand, entered that cave, and brought cold

water from within. ‖ 30 ‖

O Bhava! With your utterly astonishing plays you fill the world with wonder. And what great matter

is it to astonish the world? — rather you astonish the very god who presides over Wonder itself. O

God, was that cave's mouth finer even than the body of Surasā, mother of serpents, that entering it

should have been hard for you? ‖ 31 ‖

O Śiva! It was you who, in the Tretā age, took the form of Śrī Hanumān and entered the mouth of

Surasā. What hard matter was it for you to enter this cave, that you did it before the eyes of men?

Your power is above all the truths of yoga, and beyond the reach of speech and mind. ‖ 32 ‖

On being asked about this cave, you told them that it had formerly been your seat of perfection;

that in this cave you had sat in samādhi on a single seat for three hundred years, and had passed

them as though they were half a moment. ‖ 33 ‖

O Sadāśiva, wearing the dress of a man! How far shall I describe the matchless plays you have

performed? Even now worldly men gladden their own minds by telling of the highest sweetness of your

plays. ‖ 34 ‖

O Mṛtyuñjaya! You are Śaṅkar himself, the eternal storehouse of the highest blessing, who by your

supremely divine power are given to the sustaining and nourishing of this world, and to its

withdrawal. ‖ 35 ‖

O you who wear the moon at your crest! In the most holy forests of Uttarākhaṇḍ you accomplished

great sacrifices, in which you yourself took the form of the priest who offers, and yourself the

material to be offered, and yourself the very fire of the sacrifice. ‖ 36 ‖

O God! Whenever you performed a sacrifice according to the rite in the forest country of

Uttarākhaṇḍ, then, at the chanting of the mantras, the gods who preside over those mantras came and

were made glad by beholding your form, so full of blessing and of the highest good.

O most glorious one! Many a time the oblation of water given from your lotus hand took the form of

ghee, and from it the flames of the fire rose several cubits high; and drinking that water-turned-

ghee, charged with mantra, the gods came to the highest satisfaction and were made free of fear.

‖ 37 ‖

O three-eyed one! You are Śiva himself — the accomplisher of many great sacrifices according to the

rite, the worker of the highest blessing, adorned with beauty and with sovereignty. ‖ 38 ‖

O God! In this world yours alone was the power to show forth the true form of the austerity of the

five fires. No other than you has been able to show forth the true form of this austerity. ‖ 39 ‖

Other ascetics who have practised the austerity of the five fires until now have kept only this

method: they heated four fires of dhūnī on the four sides of their body, and counting the sun for

the fifth fire, they performed the austerity keeping their eyes fixed unblinking upon the sun.

That was the form of the austerity of the five fires.

But O Sadāśiva, your form as you gave yourself to the austerity of the five fires was utterly

wonderful; thousands of men and women drank it with their own eyes and received bliss. The

description of that blessed form is this — ‖ 40 ‖

Glorious with hair ablaze with a beauty like gold; brilliant as the fire-god himself; wrapped on

every side by the fierce flames of the fire with its seven tongues; utterly blazing, the very form

of light, most beautiful, seated upon the pyre of fire, and filling the eyes of the onlookers with

complete wonder — that most divine form of yours was bowed to by thousands of beholders in the

country of the northern road. ‖ 41 ‖

O figure of the highest blessing! Blessed are those men who beheld that fairest form of yours,

light-filled, most divine and a delight to the eyes, which astonishes the eyes of the world. That

divine form of yours was the one cause of the creating of the three worlds. For the world it is the

maker of blessing — that is, the worker of good — and the very form of Śaṅkar. ‖ 42 ‖

O God of gods! In what way are we to take you — for a human king of yogis, for Viṣṇu himself, or

for Brahmā? You are Śrī Sāmba Sadāśiva himself, the Lord of yoga and of yogis, who out of mercy

toward creatures caught in the terrible Kali age comes to adorn and bring to its fruit this world

of earth, in order to show forth the power of his yoga-Māyā. ‖ 43 ‖

O Maheśvara! Many a time even Śrī Brahmājī falls into doubt about recognizing that most blessed

divine form of yours. It is therefore only natural that doubt should sometimes arise in the human

mind, which he fashioned. But O Lord, now that the knowledge of your real and unearthly nature has

come, there is not the least doubt at this time about your being Śaṅkar in visible shape. It is a

firm certainty: you, whose heart is made moist by wandering daily in the caves of Kailāś, are

beyond doubt Śaṅkar himself, Sadāśiva, given to his own form as Śiva. ‖ 44 ‖

The nectar-flowing divine word of Śrī Sadgurudevjī Mahārāj is this: "Bābā, manasā phalegī" — "Bābā,

it will bear fruit according to the mind." Speaking that divine sentence, O Maheśvara, be

enthroned and take your delight gladly in the temple of my mind, together with Umā, your

most fortunate consort. And if in a dull-witted man like me there has been some impudence in

describing your most secret acts — you are an ocean of mercy and forgiveness; be gracious and

forgive them. ‖ 45 ‖

O God! You are Śiva himself, and your life has gone into Śiva. You are the very soul-essence of Śrī

Sadāśiva, and you are enthroned in the most beautiful form of Śrī Śiva himself. ‖ 46 ‖

O Sadāśiva! Your taking a descent is only fitting; for when your most beloved, the all-pervading

Lord Viṣṇu himself, took a descent and came to bring the earth to its fruit, then your coming too

was only fitting. ‖ 47 ‖

O ender of desire! When Śrī Rām and Śrī Kṛṣṇa came down in the fair form of men, then, to obtain

the bliss born of beholding the sweetness of their most divine forms, O Śaṅkar, you too came in the

form of Śrī Siddha Siddheśvar. ‖ 48 ‖

O Śaṅkar! In the dress of a man you take on the form of the very lord of yogis, and with your full

parts you bring to its fruit, by the touch of your holy feet, this earth rich in wealth and grain.

‖ 49 ‖

O quieted Sadāśiva, dweller in Siddhāśram! You alone are the truth of Śiva in this world; and to

you, Sadāśiva, ever joined with the good resolve for the welfare and blessing of the world,

salutation again and again. ‖ 50 ‖

O ocean of mercy! Because you are the foremost among the merciful, grant to me also the alms of

mercy; so that your devotees, the supreme vessels of your grace, having won the grace of one so

supremely gracious as you, may cross the ocean of the world with ease. ‖ 51 ‖

May that lord of life, Śiva Śaṅkar, the helmsman of the whole universe — who has kept the anointing

of the ash of the pyre upon his fair body; upon whose brow the digit of the moon sits in the

highest loveliness; upon whose head is set the crown of the most lovely serpent's hood; in whose

hand the skull-bowl is glorious; whose every limb is adorned with the tiger's hide and the black

antelope's skin; whose enchanting hands are arrayed with the most divine weapons, noose and trident

and sword and shield and Pināka — may that Śrī Śaṅkar of the fearful body, ever given to the rescue

of the afflicted, protect the world always by his grace. ‖ 52 ‖

O Śrī Gurudev in the form of Śrī Sadāśiva! Be enthroned daily in my heart and adorn it. Without

your sight and your dwelling, the highest peace can never dwell in this heart. Therefore set your

form enthroned in it and make it a storehouse of the highest peace and bliss. ‖ 53 ‖

O greatly glorious Śrī Siddhādhīśa Sadgurudev! I bow to you again and again. To you, wearing the

form of Śaṅkar, whose nature is Śiva, my salutation again and again. To you, Śrī Sadgurudev,

enthroned in the lotus of my heart in the form of Śrī Mahendra, salutation again and again. ‖ 54 ‖

That most secret and most enchanting heap of jewels — the mystery-filled acts of Śrī Śaṅkar, kept

safe in the lotus of Śrī Viṣṇu's heart — has by the gracious glance of that same divine power been

made most easy of winning for the dwellers of this earth, in the form of this hymn.

That is: by the using of this unspendable treasure, poverty will be destroyed root and branch, and

the very name of sorrow cannot remain; and since my worshipful Lord is called Mṛtyuñjaya, the fear

of untimely death will also depart. Plunder this store! Plunder it!! Plunder it!!! — or else

you will have to go on wandering here and there through birth after birth. ‖ 55 ‖

These acts of Śrī Siddha Siddheśvar, Śrī Sadgurudev, are utterly wonderful. For creatures sunk and

sorrowing in the ocean of the world, this is a most beautiful boat, kept safe and hidden, that

cleaves the sea of becoming. Seat yourselves in it and range the ocean of the world without fear,

and be overwhelmed with bliss in this life. ‖ 56 ‖

This heavenly Gaṅgā, which is the form of Śrī Siddha Siddheśvar, has come forth from the lotus feet

of Śrī Sadāśiva. The doubts natural to human nature are the crocodiles in it, and men of doubting

minds and no faith become their prey. Faith and devotion are the fair banks of this Gaṅgā, and the

flow of its most beautiful water, which is feeling, runs on without ceasing like nectar.

As Śrī Bhāgīrathī is first borne by Lord Śrī Śaṅkar and thereafter borne by the Himālaya, so this

most holy Jāhnavī has been borne upon his own head by Śrī Mahendradev, the unmoving mountain marked

with the holy feet. ‖ 57 ‖

There is one further distinction in this most holy Gaṅgā: that by the mere sight of her a man

becomes utterly pure; and by reading and hearing her according to the rite, both things —

enjoyment and liberation — come at once into the hand. ‖ 58 ‖

By the mere uttering of the name of Śrī Sadāśiva, joined with every splendour, the whole heap of

sins is destroyed. What then can be said of his sight, his touch, of bowing at his feet and of

serving him! ‖ 59 ‖

O three-eyed one! O ender of desire! O sole master of all sovereignty — you are the one protector

of the whole creation. O God, god of gods, whose brow is glorious with the auspicious wave-water of

Śrī Gaṅgājī! Be gracious, and made fully glad by the wave of bhāṅg, be enthroned in this temple

of the mind and set it ablaze. ‖ 60 ‖

The man who, having bathed daily at dawn, meditates upon the picture of the enchanting figure of

Śrī Sadgurudev — whose holy body is most beautiful and fit for meditation — and sings this hymn,

obtains in a single moment all the desires of his heart. ‖ 61 ‖

By the daily reading of this divine hymn according to the rite, and by having it read; by hearing

it, or by having it heard — in a few days only, all the attainments come of themselves. ‖ 62 ‖

Elephants, horses, servants, wealth, grain and all substance; sons, grandsons and

great-grandsons; ornaments and splendours; fame, a wife faithful to her husband, victory at every

step — all this sovereignty is obtained in a single moment by the reading and the pondering of this

hymn. ‖ 63 ‖

The desires well considered by men are indeed fulfilled; but the wonder is that even those desires

and splendours which a man cannot so much as think of in his heart come to him at once. In a short

time a man becomes a vessel of the supreme grace of Śrī Sāmba Sadāśiva, by which he becomes wholly

able to obtain everything he longs for, and attainments beyond the reach even of his understanding

and mind. ‖ 64 ‖

By the supreme grace of Śrī Gurudev — blessed in his very name, greatly glorious, joined with all

wealth and attainment, Sadāśiva in visible form — the goddess Śrī Sarasvatī dwells upon the tongue

of a worldly creature such as I. And the seal of the letters of that same greatly powerful and

splendid one's name is enthroned in every verse. Therefore these verses, being stamped with his

seal, are possessed of every power, like a royal command. ‖ 65 ‖

O Śrī Siddha Siddheśvar Sadāśiva, emperor abiding at Haiḍākhān! The brahmin poet of your court,

Viṣṇudatt Miśra — who in this birth am a dweller of the city of Alwar in Rājasthān — O God, out of

the longing to please you, and by your own revered command, has made this hymn of praise.

O lord of the whole creation! Whether this praise be sour or sweet, my God, hear it and be pleased;

for this servant too is yours, and this praise is yours, and you yourself are the hearer. A thing

in which one's own belonging enters appears most beautiful even if it be bad. Be wholly pleased,

then, by the hearing of this hymn: this is my one prayer. ‖ 66 – 67 ‖

O Lord! The greatness, the distinction and the fair juice of your song of praise, you alone know

fully.

O boundless one! I am only like your writing-machine. As a man who types can write with his

typewriter whatever he pleases, just so whatever was your own wish, that alone you had written

through this human instrument.

Where in me is there strength enough to recognize your utterly wonderful and matchless form?

Whatever little I have been able to know is all your grace alone; on that alone is my trust and my

refuge. Otherwise I am wholly helpless, weak and without understanding. ‖ 68 ‖

O ocean of compassion! Where am I — dull of understanding, utterly trifling, a heap of sins — and

where the singing of your unearthly, matchless and undying virtues? What strength have I to

describe your virtues and your acts in full? Has any mathematician to this day been able to make a

true count of the atoms of the earth? When the counting of the atoms of the material earth is

altogether impossible, then the counting of your unearthly and measureless divine virtues by a

creature subject to death is utterly impossible. ‖ 69 ‖

How far shall we tell the good fortune of the men and women dwelling in the country of Kumāū̃, who

tasted in full with the cups of their eyes the sweetness of the form of Śrī Ṭhākur, Siddha

Siddheśvar himself, and so made their birth fruitful! ‖ 70 ‖

This Viṣṇudatt, servant at the feet of Śrī Lakṣmaṇjī Mahārāj, has offered up at your holy feet his

body, his mind, his wealth, his whole substance. Now be gracious and make him a bee that tastes the

juice of your holy lotus feet, so that love for your lotus feet may go on taking a daily newness

and increasing. ‖ 71 ‖

O Śaṅkar, wishing-tree of blessing! This mind of mine is exceedingly arrogant; bring it under your

sway with the consciousness-giving beat of your ḍamarū, which carries a man across the ocean of

sound-Brahman. O giver of fearlessness! Let your sweet-sounding, ringing note fill the storeroom in

the houses of us worldly creatures with wealth and grain.

O God! Full of the intoxication of the wave of bhāṅg, you are pleased in a single moment and take

away the load of sorrow from pitiable and afflicted creatures like me. O Nīlakaṇṭh! Made glad by

the unceasing embrace of the most holy and cool waves of Śrī Gaṅgājī, be gracious to feed and

sustain me. ‖ 72 ‖

O matchless treasury of virtues, Śrī Yogeśvar! You are the most beautiful swan, made glad by

wandering night and day in that lake which is knowledge. To describe your unearthly, divine and

matchless songs of virtue is most hard for a man.

I am a poor and abject brahmin. Whence should heaps of jewels and stores of precious gems come to

me? I am busy night and day only in the keeping of my household; costly gems and the rest are

wholly beyond my reach.

Yes — that unspendable store of gems and jewels which is the word, which you gave me by raining

down your matchless grace, is my highest and most unearthly and divine wealth. And this fair

garland-creeper, lovingly strung from the mass of gems and jewels that is the word, sprung from

that store, and which I have made and woven according to my own liking — because it was

accomplished by the power you gave, it is yours alone. This garland of yours I offer for the

adorning of your own heart: tvadīyaṁ vastu govinda! tubhyam eva samarpaye — "your own thing, O

Govinda, I offer to you alone." O God of gods, this thing of yours is offered with reverence into

your own most holy service. Wear it, and be gracious to make me glad. ‖ 73 ‖

Having won a clear sight from serving the holy lotus feet of Śrī Mahendra Svāmījī Mahārāj, and to

please Śrī Siddha Siddheśvar Sadgurudev and so content and bless my own soul, the completion of

this most beautiful hymn was made on the Śivarātri of Vikram Saṁvat 2013 [February 1957]. The grace

of Śrī Sadgurudev was received on Māgh Śukla Aṣṭamī; and beginning from that blessed day, the root

hymn was fully composed by Phālgun Kṛṣṇa Trayodaśī. ‖ 74 ‖

By the rule aṅkānāṁ vāmato gatiḥ — "the figures run from the right" — this gives Saṁvat 2014. On

Chaitra Śukla Navamī, a Tuesday — that is, on the most holy festival of Śrī Rām Navamī — this

commentary named Śrī Ūrmilā was completed by the grace of Śrī Lakhaṇlāl. May it go on gladdening

the Lord Chandraśekhar, god of gods, Mahādev, Śrī Sadāśiva Bholā Bhaṇḍārī, as long as moon and sun

and earth remain in the world. ‖ 75 – 76 ‖

*Publisher: M. K. Vora, Vora & Co. Publishers Private Limited, 3 Round Building, Kalbadevi Road,

Bombay 2. Printer: Maṇilāl T. Shah, Lipikā Press, Kurlā Road, Andheri.*

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