POEMS BY NARAYANA GURU
TRANSLATED BY NATARAJA GURU
FROM "THE WORD OF THE GURU"
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TRANSLATOR'S FOREWORD
Our main object in this volume has been to introduce both the life and teachings of the Guru Narayana in a general way. Now that we have covered the personal ways and attitudes of the Guru and elaborated the background and the general mythological, ethnic, religious, social, historical and philosophical setting in which his teachings and the method used, have to be viewed, we proceed here to select a few typical samples from his writings, mainly from his early compositions, where much of the imagery is that of the 'stone-language' that we have dealt with in Chapter XV.
We need hardly say why he used such imagery, or why these early writings were clothed in a language of their own, since we have already shown the inevitability of such a language as part of the socio-religious necessary world in which the Guru lived. Such mythology and iconography with all their own idioms, as it were, have been alive in the daily life and mentality of the common people of South India from the earliest times, and for everyday use constituted the readiest means available to the Guru for the communication of his own high thoughts.
Essentially, such thoughts were the same as those of his later, more positive and less iconological works and, needless to say, the mystical, philosophical, contemplative or dialectical doctrines contained in all his compositions have remained the same throughout; but there will be many readers outside India, not to speak of those in India who have lost touch with the old mystical-cultural language, who may be puzzled by the two modes of literary expression found in the Guru's writings: the
mainly figurative Indian-contextual earlier poetry, and the more openly universally-fronted later productions; and
therefore
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it may be puzzling on the surface to see how both modes of writing are really identical in wisdom-values. This is the
background problem which we have tried to clear up.
Shorn of the difference of linguistic or stylistic mode, both kinds deal with the same subject, breathing the same spirit; always indicating by this or that mode some central human value or good as viewed in the light of pure contemplation. No means of communication or tradition is rejected if it can serve the purpose of indicating such values of help to all. Some of these approaches have academic form and finish; some are in classical Sanskrit - while others view reality from the point of view of the Indian peasant, using popular everyday Tamil and Malayalam. In his earlier verses he spoke as one South Indian peasant to another, using the familiar idiom of a common environment. In his later writings he opened out and became universal, just as he did with his personality. He then took a more positive or definitely universal stand, treating his subject in a correctly academic or contemplative manner which was not only valid for India but global, applicable in any context anywhere.
The compositions we have selected here are just samples of some of these various styles, and, mainly because of space, but also because the more serious works are reserved for future treatment, we have kept to the Guru's miscellaneous and shorter writings. The longer works, The Atmopadesha Satakam (Centiloquy to Self) and the Darshana Mala (Garland of Visions), each consisting of one hundred verses, since they require extensive comment on account of their profoundly rich philosophical content, require volumes to themselves. In them the Guru's mature and finalized wisdom is contained in a fully developed form. His supreme crowning achievement is the Darshana Mala, in which the Guru rises far above what superficially might be esteemed as even his 'own special note', a statement which lifts philosophy above the philosophical, above the systems; pure and noble, treating of all systematized thought and philosophies in the light of wisdom itself. But these must wait for future treatment. The last sample selection given in this volume is a foretaste of this kind of wisdom-writing.
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We have graded the present selections in a certain order. The first poem, the 'Critique of Caste', has a bearing on an actual problem acutely felt in India, to which the Guru Narayana finds a simple solution, without swerving from his own position as a contemplative philosopher. Then in later selections we have the theme centred round essentially real and human values such as 'Prenatal Gratitude' and 'Kindness to Life'.
We pass on to samples in which doctrines of contemplative mysticism, covering the psychological or cosmological fields, are
introduced. Many of the Guru's poems are constructed around the Shiva myth, which has a language all its own, surviving in
revalued terms from the earliest times, prehistorically at least as ancient as Mohenjo-Daro. The distinctive Indian approaches of Samkhya and Yoga philosophy with their specialized features and vocabularies are also covered in our selections. Finally we arrive at the concluding sample, representative of the most sublime form of contemplative writing extant in India or in the world. This conforms to the strict discipline of Brahma Vidya or the Science of the Absolute, as finalized in the long history of the Guru-Word. Thus through 'politics' in the Aristotelian sense, ascending a ladder of human values contemplatively reviewed and determined, we reach the end of the ladder where there is suspended the glorious crown of Word-Wisdom.
In conclusion a word might be added to point out that in the following translations I have adhered closely to the original Malayalam or Sanskrit text, perhaps in fact too closely and literally for the comfort of the reader, and thus marring their
readability as 'poetry' in the living English language, or even verging into what may seem like doggerel. While conscious of this, it must be explained that this is due to a desire to adhere loyally to the original without adding any flourishes of my own, as these might detract from the value of the Guru's own words. However, in some rare instances I have taken what seemed to be an inescapable liberty with the original and employed a slightly different turn of expression. But here too, in order that the reader may not mix up what is mine with what belongs to the Guru's own words in the original, I have taken care to
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explain all deflections of this kind from the original in the word notes. On the whole, therefore, the reader can rest assured and can verify for himself, where necessary, the authenticity of the original words of the Guru.
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A CRITIQUE OF CASTE
(JATI MIMAMSA)
(The first verse is translated from Sanskrit, the four other
verses from Malayalam).
I
Man's humanity marks out the human kind
Even as bovinity proclaims a cow.
Brahminhood and such are not thus-wise;
None do see this truth, alas!
II
One of kind, one of faith, and one in God is man;
Of one womb, of one form; difference herein none.
III
Within a species, is it not, that offspring truly breed?
The community of man thus viewed, to a single caste belongs.
IV
Of the human species is even a Brahmin born, as is the Pariah too,
Where is difference then in caste as between man and man?
V
In bygone days of a Pariah woman the great sage Parasara was born,
As even he of Vedic-aphorism fame of a virgin of the fisher-folk.
A CRITIQUE OF CASTE
INTRODUCTORY
This short composition has been selected as an instance where the Guru Narayana, who was essentially a contemplative mystical philosopher dedicated to wisdom (jnana), treats critically a subject which at first sight seems to belong merely to the social world, to the domain of obligation or necessity.
Normally, according to the strict methodology of the Vedanta, the Dharma Shastras or Smritis (scriptural commandments or codes) are expected to deal with such questions involving social duties. A closer examination of the contents of these verses, however, will reveal the fact that the Guru here does not treat any aspect of contemplative wisdom other than what reason should confront normally. Although he deals with a question bearing upon or implying social justice or equality, his critique is not conceived or composed as a code.
The final distinction between wisdom and action (jnana and karma) should be sought in the obligatory and necessary character of action and the permissive, contingent or commendatory nature of wisdom. When a critique strictly stops short of a programme of necessary action, it is still contemplative, and should be considered as belonging to the subject-context of wisdom. A clarified intelligence awake to reality cannot avoid any aspect of reality.
After the Buddhist period the strictly neutral position of wisdom relative to social matters was violated and the necessary aspects of social obligations were stressed by way of a reaction against the 'heterodoxy' implied in Buddhism. Here, in reviewing the whole matter critically, the Guru Narayana brings characteristics of reality, hitherto uncritically treated, within the full scrutiny of contemplative criticism.
Sankara treated the subject of caste as part of the vyavavaharika (the world of relative, everyday life), a necessary and given aspect of social obligation taken for granted as something natural. For various historical reasons the critical revaluation of the subject of caste in the light of the full implications of
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contemplative, non-dual Self-knowledge was avoided in India. In our own times, as we know, this neglect has led to extreme
forms of social inequality and discrimination, known today as caste, exclusive and segregatory, leading to the extremism of
untouchablity. It is Brahmin versus Pariah dialectics.
But in the Guru Way and Word, contemplation and common sense come together again without distinction and distortion. Under one discipline, existence and reality meet. Everything is brought under the scrutiny of reason in these verses, but at the same time pure reason never degenerates into any kind of injunction or mandate. Here, essentially, the plea is that man should realise his true humanity and unitive solidarity, and realise also that terms like 'Brahmin' and 'Pariah' are ideas superimposed on the reality that is human nature which is essentially one, and fundamentally of one single sameness.
In the West the idea of equality became accepted publicly and forcefully after the French Revolution. The Age of Reason, with its dialectics between Voltaire and Rousseau, brought this fundamental idea into popularity for the regulation of human relations. Man respected himself and attained a status with a new value never so clearly recognized before. While it is true that, since the time of its pre-Platonic formulation in Greece, democracy had been there, it had hitherto always been qualified by theoretical considerations which complicated the issue, or limited it to a special social group.
This idea of equality is perhaps the greatest single contribution brought by Western culture to the East, where the stress on the individual and the subjective had yielded its full fruition of benefit and had turned toxic to life. As we have seen, during the days of Buddhist decadence free spiritual life had been smothered by an overpowering weight of grammar-like abstractions; hence the breath of overt reason, a common-sense outlook and the revival of a living mystical contemplation were all necessary for the strengthening and emancipation of the life of the common man.
By his status in contemplative Word-wisdom the Guru Narayana had the right to revalue and restate the position. He
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fulfilled this role with that characteristically wistful touch of mysticism which is revealed at the end of the first verse of the poem : 'None do see this truth, alas!' They do not see the truth because the truth can only be known by the contemplative, by the one who knows it and sees it in terms of a Self-realized certitude, from the still centre where such truth resides. That certitude is unlike other kinds of knowledge which can be obtained in the market for the asking, like purchasing a set of volumes of an encyclopaedia. As we have explained elsewhere such contemplative knowledge requires the Guru-Sishya bi-polar or mutual relationship, with the necessary corollary of a wholehearted intellectual sympathy by which the intuitive understanding becomes firmly established.
COMMENTARY
I
Brahminhood and such are not thus-wise;
Man's humanity marks out the human kind
Even as bovinity proclaims a cow.
None do see this truth, alas!
This verse in aphoristic Sanskrit, while the remaining four verses are in Malayalam, conveys its own meaning, which can only be appreciated in the light of the Word-dialectics and the interplay between the two main Word-formulations as we have described them. Sanskrit is the language in which the idea of caste in the hereditary social sense came about; hence there is a kind of poetic justice in crowning this set of verses with a summary in the classical language. Malayalam itself has a large proportion of Sanskrit in its composition, grafted on to an early Tamil framework, but Malayalam belongs structurally to the non-Vedic Dravidian context. So here in this poem there is an implied ambivalence in putting the inquiry in the two languages which belong, as it were, to the group representing the Brahmin and the group representing the Pariah, respectively, out of whose interactions the false notion of caste has arisen.
Here the opening line provides the key to the main
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approach and method of dealing with the subject. First it is essential to know the truth about caste, and then whatever
sociological system there is to be can have a sure foundation. Caste distinctions have no basis in actuality. Subjected to the most drastic of scientific tests, homo sapiens falls within the human species. Racial distinctions do not amount to distinctions in the species in any strict terms. Like languages and customs, these may give an appearance of variety to the species, but they are only superficial factors of no importance intrinsically to biology.
The writer remembers once having put the following question directly to the Guru : 'If people can develop a healthy rivalry in the name of groups, imaginary or real, within the human species, would it not be good to give recognition to such groups since it would promote human welfare?' To this the Guru had a simple answer. He replied there was actually no difference between man and man. Hence whatever sociological theory or system is erected must rest on sound premises of truth or fact.
In this 'Critique of Caste' all that the Guru denies is that castes such as Brahmin and Pariah have reality. While historical, sociological, economic, or even dialectical circumstances may have caused the complex configurations of caste, this does not mean that it has a raison d'être of its own. Any number of sociological experiments for the improvement of man are possible, but this is another matter, like the dream of Utopia or some closed religious doctrine, each experiment requiring examination on its own merits. Whatever the system or theory practised or proposed, the simple fact remains that mankind is one.
Contemplation cannot be erected on a non-factual basis. The higher human values which contemplation incidentally brings to light as its obvious mark cannot ignore truth or fact without being absurd; for truth or fact is indeed the pedestal upon which wisdom of the highest kind rests. Therefore the denial of the non-factual or the non-existent or the superimposed (Sanskrit adhyasa) is the correlative and anterior aspect of contemplation, necessary before the reasonings and conclusions
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of contemplative wisdom can be made. Differences are not seen by the contemplative in any case, and all the more so when
actuality or even empirical science denies the difference. Caste therefore, from both points of view, becomes absurd.
The argument based on bovinity etc., it will be noticed, never loses its contact with actuality in the usual, factual, rational or scientific sense. Contemplation is not divorced from common sense. On the contrary, contemplative wisdom seeks erection on the strictest foundation of a realistic, existential common basis. The discipline of contemplation complements the discipline of science. In the name of the transcendental there is no foisting of any ideological doctrine on the reader, but rather the testing of the ontological, here and now put forward as a corrective to all myth-making tendencies that might arise from either the contemplative or the day-to-day practical approach. Thus exaggeration and distortion in thinking is eliminated. Hysteria is the pathological term for such distortion; and when the factual method is not strictly adhered to, there arise the pseudo-sciences which, based on non-factual premises, cause human conduct in society to go astray and awry, resulting in terrible confusion, injustice and suffering in the human world.
The history of the European Middle Ages is sufficient proof of this; while in Indian history the domain of social privileges has been a sacrosanct no-man's-land. Thus in both cases the clever ones got away with many theories whose irrationality was never, or rarely or weakly challenged - all of which worked to the advantage of the power-seekers, to the detriment of the trusting and inarticulate masses who were finally segregated to the uttermost fringes of social life without even primary human, let alone civic, rights.
If pure contemplation has nothing to do with reformist programmes, at least those who stand for it must refrain from the
semblance of support for wrong causes, so that at least there should be no possibility of any confusion regarding true human values. When such values are not clearly stated, or unclarified, there is a state of confusion, a kind of smoke-screen, wherein injustice and all manner of human wrongs begin to
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thrive. Contemplation in its 'pure' disciplines must therefore conform to actuality, and if unrighteousness is to disappear
it is equally important that the disciplines of the actual world of scientific facts must also be kept pure and in keeping with the universal front presented by contemplation. Only then can the dialectical relation between the two polarities result in a normal recognition of human values, without any extraneous considerations or diversions creeping into the process.
The Brahmin needs equating with the Pariah so that a central human reality may emerge to view as a simple truth which is both actual and real, both existing and subsisting. Brahminism is based on a racial distinction which arose from the Vedic penetration into Dravidian or pre-Vedic India. It implies such rules as the ban on marriage of Brahmin with non-Brahmin, and a refusal to dine with non-Brahmins. Two sets of considerations, some actual and some theoretical, have been confused and mixed up, resulting in the strange irrational absurdity which distinguishes caste prejudices in India from similar class-snobberies common elsewhere in the world. These absurdities are held up by the Guru for re-examination and revaluation, in accordance with the standards emerging from a science of contemplation. When intermarriage or inter-dining between castes in India are prohibited and the false theory therefore made into a dogma of practice, it is on this ground that the Guru steps in to say this is a mistake which must be abolished from the reasoning mind.
'None do see this truth, alas': In knowing that, even in a contemplative sense, Brahmin-hood, Paria-hood and all the
intermediary classified postulates are neither actual nor rational, there is a need for the Word-wisdom to bring back the true value of life at each level of social complexity. But those who have this Word-wisdom are rare, and it becomes, as the Bhagavad Gita points out, of the nature of a secret which the genuine Advaita Vedantin alone possesses. (1) The Bhagavad Gita also says that contemplatively the notion of Brahmin-hood does not
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exist even theoretically, any more than does the distinction between an elephant, cow, dog or one who eats dog-flesh.(2)
Thus, both existentially and subsistentially, the distinctions of caste become meaningless. This question is reminiscent of the relation of genus and species which puzzled theologians throughout the Middle Ages. A paradox is involved here as in the case of the interdependence of the concepts of the One and the Many in Platonic dialectics (e.g., Parmenides), and hence this apparently sweeping generalization becomes justified. Genuine Brahmin-hood, to have any meaning at all, must be a subtle personal value revealed to non-dual dialectics; something which has nothing to do with social status, biological heredity or holiness in the ordinary religious sense at all. Where there is the absence of recognition or understanding of this sole possible meaning of Brahmin-hood, the consequences are so full of ill-portent for man that the Guru deplores the situation by an apt interjection 'ha!' which we have rendered 'Alas!'
WORD NOTES:
Jati is rendered here as 'caste.' Although it is the nearest usual equivalent, 'caste' is inadequate. The English word is derived from the Portuguese 'casta', meaning 'unmixed race; breed, race, strain', and came from the Latin 'castus', 'pure, clean, unpolluted'. Jati has its own complexion on the Indian soil, where ideas of tradition, custom, culture, colour, ethnical groups and ideas of the sacred all
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fuse together and blend to form this phenomenon of 'caste', and throw up the two extreme types called the Brahmin and the Untouchable. Class enters only feebly into the general concept, and although economic repercussions are inevitable, they are not directly related to the main notion of jati. The dialectical revaluations that have been made throughout history between the Vedic and non-Vedic concepts, as two sets of values or refinements, may be considered to be at the bottom of the whole question of caste. The sonorous title which is sometimes given to caste, namely varna-ashrama-dharma (colour-status-duty) fails to make any definite meaning. It is a confusing compound term consisting of divergent theoretical elements; Varna meaning just colour; Ashrama normal or stable type of livelihood; and Dharma incorporating all notions of right living, whether spiritual or social. All these ideas put together produce an opiating black liquid called caste-prejudice, without any sense being left of the original meanings of the separate factors making up the compound term. The result is not only irrational but detrimental to well-being from every point of view. Innumerable people, in particular the religious-minded peasantry and illiterate women generally, tend to treat the difference implied in jati almost like a difference in species; for the word, etymologically meaning 'kind', means that to speak of this or that jati as of one man or another man, is to separate mankind into different kinds; and hence in this short composition the Guru's aim is to make this position clear.
Manushyatvam: 'humanity', means the assemblage of all specific qualities that distinguish man from other beings, including those higher values which are essentially human.
Gotvam: 'bovinity' or 'cow-nature'. In Vedanta this is a favourite example for illustrating the specific qualities of an animal.
Brahmanadi: meaning here 'the state of Brahminhood'. This appellation and others of a similar kind, it is pointed out, are not determined or fixed like the specific qualities of a species or kind of living being. They are honorific titles, like the English words 'Lord' and 'commoner': sometimes based on a certain social status, sometimes on a pattern of belief or
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behaviour which, at a certain period in history, may once have been valid and distinct. The Brahmin exists because he is not a Pariah; thus only doctrinal and not actual difference is involved here.
The word 'pariah' is left to stand by itself, but it should not be at all supposed that it has any derogatory significance in the present context. It is merely the existential counterpart of the existence of the Brahmin. The English word pariah is derived from the Tamil 'paraiyar', the plural of paraiyan, or 'drummer', the beater of the 'parai' or large drum. Thus we are transferred linguistically to the prehistoric age beyond Mohenjo-Daro times by this simple derivation. Drumming is pre-Vedic, even proto-Dravidian - the drums that have been thumping 'for ever', as the Guru graphically described it once, as we have noted elsewhere. The Vedic victors had no drummers of their own, and so employed the indigenous drummers, the Pariahs, who specialized in this art which was novel to the invaders, for their festivals, marriages, funerals and other ceremonies, particularly in their penetration into the depths of South India. Thus originally, as 'drummer', the word only meant those who were clearly outside the Vedic fold. Much later it became synonymous with its present meaning of social ostracism.
Tatvam: 'truth', implies that Brahmin-hood appertains to the subsistential aspect of reality and not to the existential.
Brahmin-hood belongs to another order of reality altogether. When this distinction is not recognized the entirely false notion of caste arises; a mystical fact with a psychological implication is