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SriRangaSri List Archive: Message 00023 Sep 2002

 
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--- Rajagopalan Iyengar <mayuramtsr@xxxx> wrote:

> Secondly stones, lump of mud, pot etc are achethanams
> or jada. But in the Vishnuputanam, in the story of
> moksham of Dadhipandan, we find the pot was given
> moksham. If so, can achethanam also get moksham? Or
> is it to be taken as poetic fallacy? 
> With regards,Adiyen, 
> Rajagopalan.

Dear Sir,

"achEtanam" and "jada" both refer to matter without what is called
(in Vedantic terminology) as 'chith' -- meaning "intelligence",
"discriminative faculty" or what may be called the "flame of
consciousness".

By the way, the famous story of DadhipAndan's earthen pot getting
'mOksham' is a good one indeed but it would be a mistake to take it
very literally.

After listening to DadhipAndan's story one shouldn't be asking "How
can a claypot, a jada, attain 'mOksham'.

Instead, we should ask "If God in > His compassion is willing to hear
even the muted plea of a lifeless claypot longing for 'mOksha' and to
reward it accordingly, why doesn't this proud and steely heart
beating within my human breast, with its vast powers of eloquence,
still not cry out to Him in prayer and seize the same opportunity"?
If 'mOksha' is within the reach of insentient 'jada', surely it is
also within reach of an intelligent being like Man?

While explaining the point above, and more especially to underscore
the fact of "the proud and steely heart beating within the human
breast", Mukkur Lakshminarasimhachari Swamy used to remind us of the
poignant 'pAsuram' from Tondar-adi-podi's "tirumAlai":

"virumbi ninru-aettha maatane, vidhi illane, madhi onru illai;
irumbu-pOl valiya nenjam irai irai urugam vannam
karumbu amar sOlai suzhntha aranga mA koyil konda
karumbinai kandu konda, en kaNNiNai kaLLikumArE" !
("tirumAlai" -Verse 17)

(Translation):

"Many years have passed, my head not once did bend in prayer,
My mind refused to turn Godward; these hands never served Him...
This heart of mine was but hard, cold, unbending silent steel --

But then my eyes feasted upon the temple of Arangam
Amidst those sweet cane-groves swarming with bees --
My eyes rejoiced! My spirit leapt
And my heart melted... bit by bit"!

Mukkur Swamy used to explain the delightful phrase "irumbu-pOl valiya
nenjam irai irai urugam vannam" very movingly, saying that
even DadhipAndan's claypot obviously had so much more "heart" within
itself than the "steely-hard silent hearts" of human-beings.

Regards,
dAsan,

Sudarshan

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