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SriRangaSri List Archive: Message 00066 Feb 2003

 
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My dear friends in Kuwait,

In a few days from now, we will probably witness the first War of the
new millennium, the first of the 21st century. One country will
employ "weapons of mass destruction" in order to disarm another of
its own stockpiles of the same, possession of which the latter denies
again and again. On the sands of the desolate Kuwaiti desert, on the
lonely road to Baghdad, a War will be fought to bring everlasting
Peace upon earth. So, at least, it is believed...

In these days of ours filled as they are constantly with fearful
stories and scenarios of the imminent War, let us for a moment give
our anxious minds some rest and recreation. Although it is only
altogether natural for our minds to keep returning to dwell upon the
prospects of a war -- a war that will be fought virtually upon our
doorsteps -- still I think we should make a conscious effort to
divert our minds away from the grim portents surrounding us.

Therefore, let us take up a rather unusual "nAmA" from the
Vishnu-Sahasranamam today for discussion. It is a "nAma" that may
sound actually very warlike to us. In fact, this particular 'nAma' is
a very potent mantra designed to drive away even the darkest
war-phobia lurking in our hearts.

*************************************** 

One of the rarest but most beautiful names of God we find in the 'Sri
Vishnu-Sahasranamam' is the 'nAmA' "raNa-priyah:". The word "raNa" in
Sanskrit means "war", "battle", "engagement", "confrontation"... In
Indian history, as we all know, the great Rajput Warrior-Kings of
Rajasthan, liked to prefix their names with this very word "rANA"
("Rana" Pratap Singh, for example) just to distinguish themselves as
extraordinary men of arms. 

Our great Lord, EmperumAn, is more than a mere 'Rana'. He is a
"raNa-priyah:" -- a great Warrior who not only just goes to War but
One who looks forward to it with a great deal of relish. He loves to
lead in battle. He likes to stand first, and ahead of the rank and
file of all the greatest armies in the world...

Our Lord Vishnu is so proud of being a Warrior that he is known to be
extremely pleased when someone lavishes praise on Him for his
warrior-qualities. Like a nostalgic old, retired, battle-scarred
ex-army General, the Lord too beams with pleasure whenever someone
recognizes Him for his martial eminence. And He feels very flattered
when somebody sings paeans to the daring military exploits for which
He became famous on many an avataric battle-field. Which is why in
the 'Vishnu-sahasranamam', in the same breath in which Vishnu is
hailed as "stavapriyah:" i.e. as the Lord who is praise-worthy and
who values praise greatly too -- in the very same breath God is also
said to be a "raNa-priyah:" i.e. He who loves to battle:

"stavyah stavapriyah stOtram stUtah stOtA raNapriyah:..."

(Sahasranamam stanza#73)

It is precisely for the reason that that God is at once both
"raNa-priyan" and "stava-priyan" that the great SriVaishnava
'achAryA', Swami Venkatanathan (Vedanta Desika) composed a short but
bewitchingly beautiful 'stOtrA' in praise of the qualities of the
Lord as Supreme Warrior -- the Lord as He stands today in beauteous
'archA' form as "Vijayaraghava-perUmAl" in the famous temple at
Tirupputtkuzhi, a village near Kanchipuram, India. In this 'stOtra'
or hymn of praise known to us as "paramArtha-stUthi", the Lord is
hailed as "raNa-pungavah:" -- the Valorous and Victorious One in War!

It is hence small wonder then that the God of the "Sahasranamam", He
that is said to be a "raNa-priyah:", is very fond of always going
about armed to the teeth (somewhat like the intrepid movie-character,
"Rambo", known to all of us)! Our Lord carries on his person arms and
weapons ("aayudha") of every conceivable (and inconceivable) variety
and calibre! Which is why the 108-versed 'Sahasranamam' too, after
giving out all of the 1000 names of Vishnu, finally concludes the
litany with the crowning catch-all, omnibus "nAma":

"sarva-praharaNa-ayudhah:"


***************************************

Sometimes our Lord bears His weapons openly for all the worlds to
see; at other times, when He knows it would be inappropriate to bear
arms, He carries them fully concealed. Little is known to Man as to
where the Lord conceals His great Weapons. None can hope to carry out
a U.N. weapons inspection on our Lord; nor can one hundred George
Bushes Jr. seek to disarm Him. 

Sometimes these weapons seem to appear in the form of the great and
inscrutable forces of the Cosmos -- Gravity, Time and endless Space,
for example. At other times, they seem concealed inside the
unconquerable forces of Nature -- the far oceans and storms, for
example, or the forest-fires, the volcanoes, the earthquakes and the
virulent epidemics of this world... everyone one of them more
destructive than any weapon known to Man. No one knows for sure
really where the Lord conceals His 'AyUdhas'. Nevertheless this
Warrior, this "raNa-priyan", is known to make sure that at all times
His armoury is close at hand, ever ready and never beyond an instant
away from drawing, deploying and striking. 

The arsenals at the command of our Lord are, we might say, both
'conventional' as well as 'non-conventional'. While everyone has a
fair estimate of the potency of the former as they manifest
themselves openly as the great forces of Nature, it is the latter
type of weaponry that very often completely defies and overwhelms
Man's imagination. For example, once upon a time, the Lord forsook
all of the wonted inventory in His armoury and, instead, took
everyone in the world by awe and surprise by using His fingernails --
a hideous, rampaging weapon-system that dealt out death, terror and
sheer mayhem. 

**********************************

So adept is our Lord with the use of conventional arms that the Lord
and His weapons have become virtually eponymous. In fact, often it
appears as though it is the Weapons He bears upon His person which
give the Lord his unmistakable personality we know him to possess,
and the unique identity of His that all our scriptures commemorate.
Without those weapons we would know Him not. Without them God could
pass by us on the street, perhaps, and we would give him no more
attention than we would any stranger. 

The Lord's Weapons are His business cards. It is they that announce
His existence as the Absolute Sovereign of all things and all beings 
in this world...

***************************************

NammAzhwAr, the greatest of mystic-saints that ever set foot upon
this earth, once witnessed through his inner eye ("yOga-drushti") the
splendour of the Lord bearing all glorious Weapons. The saint
described that rare vision of his in unforgettable words of Tamil
poetry found in the immortal "tiruvoimOzhi":

aazhi ezha-changUm villUm ezhu disai
vaazhi ezha-thandUm vALUm ezha-andam
mOzhyai ezha mudi paadam ezha appan
oozhI ezha ulagam kondavaarE ! (tiruvoimozhi- 7.4.1)


"First the discus
rose to view.

then the conch
the long bow,
the mace,
and the sword;

with blessings
from the eight quarters,

he broke through
the egg-shell of heaven,
making the waters bubble;

giant head and giant feet
growing away from each other,

time itself rose to view:

how the lord 
paced and measured

all three worlds!" 

(translation by A.K.Ramanujam: "Hymns for the Drowning")


*************************************

Unlike weapons of the world fashioned by Man, meant solely and
utterly for destructive (and sometimes self-destructive) purposes,
the great Weapons of our Lord Vishnu are used by Him primarily for
Good and Creative ends. The weapons are as NammAzhwAr enlists them
above -- the discus ("aazhi"), conch ("changu"), long bow ("villu"),
the mace ("thandam") and the sword ("vAL"). 

In the Vishnu-Sahasranamam, we find the Lord has been named after
each of the weapons exactly as the five enumerated by NammAzhwAr. In
the penultimate and 107th stanza, the Sahasranamam hails our Lord as:


"sankhabhrit nandaki chakri sArngadhanvA gadhAdharah:
rathAngapAnih akshObhyah sarva-praharaNa-ayUdhah" II

Our Lord is "sankhabhrit" -- the blower of cosmic sound that echoes
eternally through space. To the evil-hearted, this is the primeval
sound of the death-knell, a sound that is more terrible than the
trumpeting wail of pipes on battle-fields, the clash of swords and
steel as it cuts through bloody flesh or the roar of battle-crazed
elephants.

Our Lord is also "chakri", the one who wields the discus, the deadly
wheel that can set everything in this world to naught in the
inexorable course of Time.

Next, the Lord is called "nandaki", the wielder of the great sword
called "nandaki". Just as the legendary King Arthur was known to
carry a sword called the 'Excalibur', which was said to give magical
powers of invincibility on earth, the "Nandaki" of our Lord gives Him
absolute sovereignty over all existence, both here and everywhere,
now and forever. 

Next, our Lord is a "sArngadhanvah", the wielder of the great longbow
that NammAzhwAr calls "villu". This is the mighty bow of Rama who
felled the fourteen thousand armies of Khara and the many more hordes
that belonged to Ravana. It is also the mighty bow that inspired
Swami Venkatanathan to hail the Lord as "raNa-pungavah" in the
"paramArtha-stuti".

Finally, the Lord is also the wielder of the mighty battle mace or
club called KaumOdaki -- hence He is hailed as "gadhAdharah". Through
this formidable weapon, Vishnu, our Lord, gently reminds us of His
power as a Law-giver and Law-enforcer; and that He rules us all from
within. The Law of Karma, for instance, is one such God-enforced Law
that none can escape. It is the club with which He tames all
creation. 

The sight of the Lord bearing all these wonderful weapons upon His
person is a sight full of majesty and grandeur. These weapons do not
make us cringe in fear. They do not chill our bones. Instead the
sight of these weapons is a feast for the eyes and upliftment for the
soul. It is the spectacle of the Lord bearing these weapons that made
Swami Venkatanathan cry out in the 'paramArtha-stuti':

bhuvanAssraya-bhUshanAsstra-vargam
manasi tvannmayatAm mamAtu-nOtu I
vapUrAhava-pungava tvadheeyam
mahIksheenAm-animEsha-darshanIyam II (Stanza 5)

"My valorous One! My Warrior!
The arms you bear 
Are the eternal "tattvas"
Of all Life --
How beauteous they make you look!
Did you know, my Lord, your consorts even
Can't bear to shift their gaze upon Thee,
Not for a moment, not for eternity..." 

*************************************

When the Lord really wills it, all these great Weapons of His serve
Him as irrepressible Weapons of Mass Destruction. They are of such
awesome, unimaginable power and fury they quite easily make the most
diabolic of Man's weapon-systems ever designed seem toy-like in
comparison. 

It is far too easy for us to see how Man's might measures up against
the vast and untamed forces of Nature. What indeed is the puny
strength of Man compared to that of a typhoon on the high-seas? What
man-made weapon can stand up to an earthquake that tips the scale of
a Richter seismograph at 10 or 12? What is plight of Man in the face
of a raging fire that goes devouring tract after tract of forest-land
in a matter of mere days? How puny indeed is the power of Man's
weapons of mass destruction compared to the power of such awesome
agents of God?

Howsoever formidable the Weapons of God may seem in their destructive
potential, they are still not "weapons of mass destruction" in the
vile and horrible sense in which Man fashions his own. The Weapons of
God are not meant to destroy but to resurrect and redeem. They are
not meant for the annihilation of Man but for his emancipation. 

God's weapons of mass destruction are so named not because they are
capable of wreaking physical destruction or havoc. The mass that
God's weapons destroy are not physical mass. The real targets of
God's weapons are within our hearts: the masses of sin, 'pApa', lust,
greed, selfishness and hatred that we all accumulate and keep
concealed all the time. It is those masses of destructive potential 
hidden away within our minds that God seeks to disarm and destroy. 

*******************************

Let us now savour what the religious writer Sri.Eknath Easwaran in
his book "Thousand Names of Vishnu" has to say too about these
"weapons of mass destruction" that God possesses:

(quote)
"sarva-praharana-ayudha": The name is quite a mouthful, but well
worth the effort when understood. When we love the Lord with all our
heart, he gives us every weapon -- "sarva-praharana-ayudha" -- we
need to fight the war within.

Our enemies in this war, the Bhagavath Gita tells us, are ultimately
three: anger, fear and selfish desire. And the most basic of the
three is selfish desire which stands for all compulsive craving. This
is essentially an expression of self-will, the compulsive drive to
get what we want (be it as individuals, as a society or as a nation
as a whole) whatever it may cost others. Nothing stands between us
and the Lord, the mystics say, except selfish desires and self-will.

The battle-field is each individual heart. In every one of us two
forces are at work. One flows towards love, selflessness, happiness
and spiritual fulfillment. The other pulls us back toward our
evolutionary past: toward anger, violence, lust, greed and
selfishness.

The force of goodness can never be eradicated, the scriptures tell
us; it is the underlying reality of life. So this battle is
unavoidable as long as there is selfishness in the mind of man. We
may not be aware of it, but the conflict cannot help going on below
the conscious level. Nothing can free us from its stress and turmoil
except to face our selfishness squarely and put it to an end?"

(Whether as individuals, societies or nations we must realize) Life
is not given to us for grabbing what we can; it is meant for giving
what we can. When we appreciate that this precious human birth has
been given to us for making a lasting contribution to the rest of
life, we get continuing motivation? Nothing then can provide a better
shield (against every weapon that may be used against us in life)?

All life is part of us. This deepest of convictions can turn the most
ordinary human being (or society or nation) into a powerful force or
weapon for the unity that is God's world and the unity that God
Himself stands for?"

(unquote)


Regards,

dAsan,
Sudarshan








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