Tomorrow is Shankara Jayanti, and it is hard to imagine that such a one as Adi Shankara ever walked on this earth. We owe much of the foundation of Indian identity to him, and so it’s a joy to revisit his message.
Adi Shankara believed that the individual soul, or jivatma, was not separate from but part of the Supersoul, the Paramatma. The journey of human life was therefore the struggle of the jivatma to be reunited with Paramatma. Nobody could fight against malignant fate except by working off bad karma. But he also said that only Mahalakshmi has the power to rewrite a person’s destiny through her compassion.
This belief is evident in the famous story of how Shankara, as a very young bhikshu, invoked Mahalakshmi on behalf of a wretchedly poor woman. He praised Maahalakshmi in 21 beautiful verses, describing her as the goddess in whom he saw all the goddesses, calling her, among other lovely epithets, “sarasija nilaye, saroja hastey”, meaning ‘seated on a lotus, with a lotus in her hand’. This vision links with our earliest known book, the Rig Veda. Mahalakshmi is described as the same in the Sri Suktam part of the Rig Veda Samhita, a collection of mantras and shlokas.
Shankara sang, “Let her garland of glances that protect Lord Vishnu fall on me as well…Gracious goddess, giver of love, giver of joy, giver of wealth, giver of the right to rule kingdoms, be merciful as the cool breeze. Shower a rain of wealth on this parched land.”
The legend goes that a shower of golden gooseberries fell into the poor woman’s hut, and Shankara’s verses became known as the ‘Kanakadhara Sthavam’, or ‘Litany of the Shower of Gold’.
During the post-Shankara period, Indian religion and culture received a rude shock from foreign invasions. In the 14th century, a learned sanyasi, Swami Madhava Vidyaranya (1296-1386), decided to protect South India from the foreign invaders operating out of Delhi. He mentored the two brothers, Harihara I and Bukka Raya I, in building a city and establishing a new kingdom. Thus, the Vijayanagar Empire was founded by 1336 and served as a bulwark against marauders from the north for over 300 years. This allowed the South to experience a historical, cultural and socio-economic revival unlike any other region of India at the time.
Vidyaranya Swami was a staunch Advaitin or follower of Adi Shankara’s Advaita philosophy. With this background, he would most certainly have prayed to Mahalakshmi, along with Harihara I and Bukka Raya I, from the ‘Kanakadhara Sthavam’. Especially the verse ‘Gracious goddess, giver of the right to rule kingdoms’, evokes her compassion and grace for his just and worthy cause. Having fulfilled his duty to the state, he retired from active politics to become the Shankaracharya of Sringeri, the first institution founded by Adi Shankara. It is our good fortune that he did so because we inherited his fabulous commentaries on the ‘real’ and ‘unreal’ in his masterwork, Panchadashi.
Like a true Advaitin, Vidyaranya Swami upholds the doctrine of the individual soul and Supersoul. He sees each one of us as containing a part of God because he avers, as Shankara did, that it is our genuine soul connection: whatever outward body we happen to be encased in, the soul within us is a part of the Supersoul. Other schools of thought may find this shocking—how can there be no difference between the Almighty and mere mortals? But the purpose of this philosophy springs from deep compassion: to save humanity from suffering by highlighting our capacity to be worthy children of God, literally a part of God.
Another famous story about Adi Shankara is that, on his way to the Ganga for a bath, his path was blocked by an ‘outcaste’ Chandal, accompanied by four dogs. “Dooram gachcha!” (Go away!) shooed the uber-ascetic’s followers. “What shall I move?” asked the Chandal, sweetly; “My body, that is made of the same five elements as yours, or the Immortal Soul that abides in me, as in you?” Hindus love to believe that this was Lord Shiva, with the four Vedas, come to bear witness to his lila, or divine sport, to humble Shankara and teach him the truth. Shankara, being gifted with yogic insight, saw through the disguise, fell at Lord Shiva’s feet and composed the ‘Manisha Panchakam’ in response.
Shankara reminded us that our philosophy upholds that oneness with God is best expressed as oneness with the children of God. The Isha Upanishad asks, ‘Yastu sarvaani bhootani aatmaani evaanupashyati sarvabhooteshuchaatmaanam tatho navijugupsate?’ meaning, ‘If one sees all beings in oneself and oneself in all beings, how can one feel revulsion for the other?’ Another clue to Shankara’s loving outlook is that he felt deeply even for Bharata’s disgrace and appreciated Kaikeyi’s change of heart. We find this in his work, Sri Rama Bhujangam. In it, he alludes twice to Bharata as ‘Kaikeyi-nandan’ or ‘Kaikeyi’s joy’, which shows his restorative intention.
What is Shankara’s lasting message for us? In Bhaja Govindam, he says, ‘Geyam Gita nama sahasram dheyam sripati rupamajasram/neyam sajjana sange chittam deyam deena jananya cha vittam’, which translates into, ‘Recite the Bhagavad Gita, chant the ‘Vishnu Sahasranamam’, meditate on Him in your heart and mind/Seek delight in the company of the good, share your wealth with the poor.’
And there you have it, the tripod to support the human experience: faith, love and charity. A message for the ages indeed.
Renuka Narayanan | FAITHLINE | Senior journalist
(Views are personal)
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