“தீபு ஜலே” என்ற ஹிந்தி பாடலைத் தழுவி எழுதியது:
This song is based on the Hindi bhajan ‘Deepu jala’.
தீபமேற்று
உள்ளம் என்னும் கோயிலிலே
அன்புஎன்னும் தீபமேற்றி
புகழ்ந்து கூறு அவனை நினைந்துபாடு
கருணாமூர்த்தி அவன் கருணாமூர்த்தி…
காலையும் மாலையும் கனிவுடன் கூறுவாய்
முக்தேசனின் நாமம், முக்தேசனின் நாமம்
புகழ்கூறு மனமே, அவன் பெயர்கூறு மனமே!
தீபமே ஏற்றியே, நாமமே போற்றியே
வழிபடுவோம் உலகில் வாழும்போது
வாழ்வதே அவனருளால்,
நாம் வாழ்வதே அவன் அருளால்
உலகின் ஜோதியாம், உண்மை வழியுமாம்
உயர்த்திடுவோம் அவனை வாழ்த்திடுவோம்
வழிகாட்டுவான் வாழ்வதற்கே அவன்
வழிகாட்டுவான் வாழ்வதற்கே….
03-04-1999. ரோதக் (ஹரியானா)
English Translation
In the temple of the heart
Lighting the lamp of love
Praising Him; sing remembering Him
Compassionate one; Compassionate
Morning and evening take the Name sweetly
The Name Muktesa….
Oh my heart tell his fame, Oh my heart take his Name
By lighting the deepam (lamp) and hailing His name
Let us worship Him when we live on this earth
We live because of His grace
We live because of His grace
He is the jyothi to the world and true way
Let us uplift Him and praise Him
He will show the way for us to live
He will show the way for us to live
03-04-1999. Rothak, Haryana
Comments
When I wrote this bhajan in Tamil I remembered Tirumular’s beautiful song:
Heart is the big sanctum; this body of flesh is the temple
Mouth is the entrance of the temple to the Lord
For the wise one, atman is the Sivalingam
The deceitful senses are the bright lights.!
(a free translation by me.)
In India fire and water have an important role to pay in every kind of ritual. By lighting the lamp, offering things in fire is a main part of many rituals. Next is the Name of God. The name is not mere a word to identify a person in India. It portrays her character. This is true when it comes to the name of any deity. In fact the Name of the deity is more important than the deity Himself. As I have shared about this in Understanding Hinduism I don’t want to repeat it here. When I read Perception of Veda by Coomarasamy, I come across some interesting exegesis by him, which I would like to share in the notes.2
Though in Muktiveda also the Name depicts the character of a person, particularly about the Lord yet we don’t believe any automatic effect that it would have on us. It will be an interesting study on this subject of ‘name’ in Muktiveda and how it is used, misused and misunderstood by many.
One example will suffice here. The often misinterpreted verse in Acts 4:12 is that the Lord’s name is above the all other deities’ name, so His name is the only one given for one to be saved. Though it is true that as per our conviction that mukti is possible only through our Lord, yet the context of this verse is not a comparative theology of interfaith, but about the healing of that sick person. To the question ‘by whose name that crippled man was healed’ (4:7) giving response Peter said this (4:9ff).
In healing ministry and exorcism the way the Name of the Lord is used as magic spell is not good. Even one bhakta said that in exorcism the devils don’t recognize the name ‘Muktinath’ but only Jesus Christ (in North India, Yesu masi), as if a devil is bound by any language. As Muktiveda is worshipped like an idol by many (Christians) the Name of Muktinath is treated like a mantra having any innate power in it. I know here I am triggering some controversy, but when truth is at stake, we cannot avoid any controversy.
31-07-2014
1திருமந்திரம், மூலமும் தெளிவுரையும், அ. மாணிக்கம், சென்னை, வர்தமான் பதிப்பகம், 2003, ஆறாம்பதிப்பு,
உள்ளம் பெரும்கோயில் ஊனுடம்பு ஆலயம்
வள்ளல் பிரானார்க்கு வாய்கோ புரவாசல்
தெள்ளத் தெளிந்தார்க்குச் சீவன் சிவலிங்கம்
கள்ளப் புலனைந்தும் காளா மணிவிளக்கே–திருமந்திரம், 1823, ப. 1063
2..The importance of name is not limited only with Gods or naming children after the name of Gods, but as ‘name’ is the ‘world of’ life, what Ananda K. Coomaraswamy says about it is worth reading:
…Cratylus@ maintains that ‘he who knows the names knows also the things expressed by them’, and this is as much as to imply that ‘He who first gave names to things did so with sure knowledge of the nature of the things’; he maintains in so many words that this first giver of names (Skr. Naamadhaah) must have been ‘a power more than human’ and that the names thus given in the beginning are necessarily their ‘true names’….(p.318)
It is likewise the Indian doctrine (BD I.27ff;, Nirukta, I.1 and 12, etc.) that ‘Names are all derived from actions’; insofar as they denote a course of action, names are verbs, and insofar as someone or something is taken to be the doer of the action, they are nouns. It must not be overlooked that Skr. Naama is not merely ‘name’, but ‘form’, ‘idea’, and ‘eternal reason’. Sound and meaning (sabdaartha) are inseparably associated, so that we find this expression employed as an image of a perfect union, such as that of Siva-sakti, essence and nature, act and potentiality in divinis. Names are the cause of existence; one may say that in any composite essence (sattva, naamaruupa), the ‘name’ (naama) is the form of the ‘phenomenon’ (ruupa) in the same sense that one says that ‘the soul is the form of the body’. In the state of nonbeing (asat) or darkness (tamas), the names of individual principles are unuttered or ‘hidden’ (naamaani guhyaa, apiicyaa, etc.; RV, passim)&; to be named is to proceed from death to life. The Eternal Avatar himself, proceeding as a child (kumaara) from the unfriendly father, demands a name, because it is ‘by name that one strikes away evil’ (paapamaanam apahanti, SB, VI.1.3.9); all beings on their way dread most of all to be robbed of their names by the powers of Death, who lies in wait to thieve (krivir naamaani pravane musayati, RV, V.44.4). ‘It is by his deathless name (amartyena naamanaa) that Indra overliveth human generations’ (Rv, VI.18.7). So long as an individual principle remains in act, it has a name; the world of ‘names’ is the world of ‘life’. “ ‘When a man dies, what does not go out of him is ‘name’, that is ‘without end’, and since what is ‘without end’ is the Several Angels, thereby he wins the ‘world without end’” (BU, III.2.12). Ananda K. Coomaraswamy ‘Nirukta=Hermeneia’ in Perception of The Vedas, edited by Vidya Nivas Misra, Indira Gandhi National Centre for the arts, New Delhi, Manohar, 2000, pp.317-323
&. ‘When names were not, nor any sign of existence endowed with name’ (Rumi, Divan, Ode XVII. Selected Poems from the Divani Shamsi Tabriz, ed. R.A. Nicholson, Cambridge, 1898).—notes no. 9, p. 319
BD—The Brhad Devata of Saunaka, ed. A.A. Macdonell, Cambridge, Mass, 1994 (HOS VI) [I think it should be 1894—db}
BU—(Brahadaranyaka Upanisad) In The Thirteen Principal Upanishads, ed. R.E. Hume, 2nd ed., London, 1931
Nirukta= The Nighantu and Nirukta of Yaska, ed. L. Sarup, Oxford, 1921{I think it should be Yaksa and not Yaska. In the Index on p. 449 also it is ‘yaksa’ and not ‘yaska’—db}
- The Hymns of the Rgveda, ed. R.T.H. Griffith, 2 vols;, 4th ed., Benares, 1963.
SB—Satapatha Brahmana, ed. J. Eggeling, 5 vols., Osford, 1882-1900 (SBE XII, XXVI, XLI, XLIII, XLIV).
@About Cratylus this is what I found in this book: ‘…Plato employ the hermeneutic method in the Cratylus—‘—p. 318