By Kollengode S Venkataraman, (written in 1998)
Interviewer: How can your musical experience, so deeply rooted in religion, transcend the barriers of creed and touch people of every faith?
Pandit Jasraj, the well-known classical singer: Music is a contagious disease that knows no barriers of caste, color, or creed. Recently, I was in Pakistan. After the recital, people with raised arms said: “apne bhajan gaaya aur Allah ka darshan karvaya.” (You sang bhajans and showed us a glimpse of Allah.) – The Times of India, April 21, 1998
In the part of India that is today’s Andhra Pradesh, Annamacharya, a poet-cum-philosopher in the bhakti tradition, lived in 15″ century in Talappakkam, a village near Tirupati. He composed songs in Telugu and Sanskrit, believed to be in the thousands, almost all of them addressed to, or on, Venkateshwara of Tirupati.
Lyrical beauty, pulsating meter and rhythm, and lilting alliteration are the characteristics of Annamacharya’s songs that listeners easily discern. Not so easy to grasp without some familiarity with classical Telugu and Sanskrit is the poet’s expansive idea of the Divine.
In the Bhakti approach to the Divine, as we see in the compositions of Annamacharya — and several others before and after him — one’s social identity (read “caste”), knowledge, power, pride, and wealth are irrelevant. Some even assert that one’s social identity and clinging to these traits are not only irrelevant, but also unnecessary fetters that one should unload as one moves along in one’s spiritual journey.
Annamacharya’s song enta matramuna evvaru talachina made popular by several musicians also reveals the Universalist in the poet. Here are the excerpts from the translation of the song courtesy of Saraswathi Chelluri of Monroeville):
Whoever thinks of You in whatever way, that is what You are to them.
Vaishnavites worship you as Vishnu.
For the Vedantins, you are the Parabrahman, the Ultimate Reality.
Saivites think of you as Shiva. Kapalikas worship you as Kalabhairava.
For Shakti worshippers You are the Goddess of Power and Energy Herself.
Devotees worship You in a multitude of forms.
When small-minded people define You in narrow terms, that is how You appear to them.
For those who see You in expansive terms, You are the Omniscient One.
Like a lotus that always adjusts itself to the level of water in the pond, You appear to people appropriate to their mental state.
Your compassion is instantaneous, like water springing forth when one digs on the banks of Bhageerati (a descriptive name for the Ganga).
If You are Venkateswara Himself, then You are the One that will take care of us. I will only bow to You; that is the Absolute Truth…
The central idea for this song is the compact assertion in the Vedas, ekam sat viprah bahudah vadanti — Truth is one; the wise speak of It by various names — as we see in countless the compendium of Bhakti literature.
In recent times, the famous Ramdhun that was dear to Mahatma Gandhi contains the memorable line isvara allah tere naam, which literally means “Isvara and Allah [or for that matter, Yahveh] are but Your names.
Even though the bhakti poets were intensely devoted to their personal deities, (examples: Tulasidas and Tyagaraja to Rama, Poet Arunagiri to Kartikeya, and Virasaiva poets to Shiva many of them, like Annamacharya, are also universalists and expansive in their understanding of the Divine.
Why this apparent contradiction? It is probably because they, more than anyone else, recognized that all of man’s attempts to define the Infinite are nothing but confining the Infinite.
Jnaneshwar, Maharashtra’s 15″ century poet-cum-philosopher expresses this idea nicely in Jnaneshwari (original in Marathi). He says:
“People attribute a name to Me, who am nameless; action to Me, who am beyond actions; they attribute color to Me, who am colorless; hands and feet to Me who is beyond them; … … family to the familyless; form to the formless; they create Me, who is self-born; they decorate Me with clothes and ornaments, who am beyond clothing and ornaments…… I, who am the universally immanent Atman, they say, kill one in anger and support one in love…… (Jnaneshwar by R.D.Ranade, Publishers: State University of New York Press, 1994.)
While the bhakti poets were ecstatic about their experience upon glimpsing the Infinite as we see in their works, they also recognized that logic, however incisive, and lyrics, however brilliant, are hopelessly inadequate in conveying to others their ecstasy. Tirumular, the Tamil Saiva sage (5th or 7th century), wonders in Tirumandiram about this dilemma using a vivid imagery: “How can a mother convey to her prepuberty young daughter the intimacy she, the mother, had with her husband ?” (Tirumandiram by G. Varadarajan, Palaniappa Brothers, Madras, canto 2944, in Volume 3, 1985)
Thus, it appears, the Bhakti poets’ writings are only inducements goading us to seek and experience the Divine with our own efforts, on our own way, on our own terms. END