BHAJA GOVINDAM

My Comment:

1.     Bhaja govindam; bhaja govindam                                

     Govindam bhaja moodhamate;                                     

     Samprapte sannihite kale;                                           

     Nahi, nahi rakshati; Dukrinj karane.

2.    

            Moodha jahihi dhanagama trishnam;                                    

     Kuru satbudhim manasi vitrushnam;               

     Ladlabhase nija karmopatham                                 

     Vitham thena; Vinodaya chitham.

3.   

            Naree sthanabhara nabhee desam;                            

     Drushtva ma ga mohavesm;                                           

     Ethad mamsa vasadi vikaram;                                       

     Manasi vichinthaya varam, varam.

4.  

          Nalinee dalagata jalamati tharalam;                          

    Thadvad jeevithamatisaya chapalam;                                  

    Vidhi vyadhya bhimana grastham;                                     

     Lokam sokahatham cha samastham.

5. 

         Yavadvithoparjana saktah:                                         

    Thavad nija parivaro rakta:                                            

    Pashchad jeevati jarjara dehe;                                          

    Vartham kopi Na prischati gehe.

6.

        Yavad pavano nivasati dehe;                                      

   Thavad prishchati kusalam gehe;                                          

   Gatavati vayou dehapaya;                                               

    bharya bibhyati thasmin Kaye.

7. Balsthavad kreedasakta:                                      

   Tharunasthavad tharunee saktah:                                 

   Vridhasthavad chintasaktah:                                             

   Pare brahmani kopi na sakta:

8.

       Ka the kanta kaste putra:                                  

   Samsaroyamative vichitra:           

   Kasya thvam va kuta aayatha:                                       

  Thathvam chintaya thadiham bratha:

9.    

       Satsangatve nissangatvam;                                           

   Nissangatve nirmohatvam;                                          

   Nirmohatve nishchintatvam;                                

    Nishchintatve jeevan mukti:

10.              

      Vayasi gate ka: kamavikara:                                            

   Shushke neere ka: kasara:                                     

   Ksheene vithe ka: parivara:                                               

   Jnathe tatve ka: samsara:

11.                      

      Ma kuru dhana jana youvana garvam;                                 

  Harati nimeshad kalassarvam; 

   Mayamayamidamakhilam hitva;                                                                Brahmapadam tvam pravisha viditva.

12.                   

           Dinayaminouw sayam prata:                                                                                Shishira vasanthouw punarayata:                                                                         Kala kreedati gachatyayu:                                                                                thadapi munjatyaasha vâyu:

There are too many legends on Adi Shankara and here is one of them. During his travels and preaching’s he came to Kasi or Varanasi on the banks of river Ganga. This ancient city is too famous for learning and scholars. All subjects are debated here. Shankara saw the scholars engrossed in the professional subjects. He met on of them a grammarian. He was upset and these poetic verses came out of involuntary outpourings. They are in twelve in number. The annotators and commentators found in these verses profound wisdom and the essence of the teachings of the vedantic philosophy.

1)    The acharya addresses the scholar “Hi. You idiotic mind.” I feel that it is unbecoming of a guru to address a scholar in this word, a word derogatory and abusive. What is that being conveyed? “The grammatical knowledge will not protect you when the time of death approaches nearer.” Does it mean that there is a way to avoid approaching death? There will be no answer.

2)    The next verse is not continuity from earlier one. It says: “Ye fool, reject the greed to acquire wealth (money) cultivate your mind with good thoughts away from greed. Whatever you get for your work (labor) make merry within that amount (wealth).” This seems to be a most idealistic position possible. However, it has too many problems to address. One of them is the measure of the value of one’s labor. There are two carpenters say A and B. A is talented and makes one chair a day. One chair is worth one day’s labor. He makes three chairs in three days. B could make only one chair in three days. What is his labor worth? Could it be compared with the value of labor of A? I was thinking and thinking and was unable to reconcile the two. Thus it proves that reality is completely different than an ideal.

3)    The next message has nothing connecting the earlier. It says that “don’t be seized with high infatuation, when you see the high milky busts of a female and her naval region that goes down to the vagina. They are the evolved form of meat and fat. So think again and again.” This looks as one despicable tending to abusive of the female body form. Not just the form but female as such. With their natural voluptuous curves, they entice men from being pious and devoted to God Govinda. It means that men are to be liberated from female sexuality so that they turn towards Brahman and escape from birth death cycle. But what is to happen to female since they are half the human kind? No answer. If and when the man rejects the female half from his life then at least the humans of the world will get extinguished like some earlier beings such as dinesores from the face of earth. It will be the greatest boon to nature; already polluted by the innumerable humans.

It reminds the characterization of the female as all powerful according to another composition “Soundarya Lahari” by the same author. The first verse in this praises the female deity as all powerful in whose absence the male Shiva is absolutely immobile. The man cannot praise her or prostrate before her unless he has accumulated lot of good deeds (devotion) in life.

Her power is illustrated in 13^th verse in this composition. It is absolutely derogative to all females.  It reads like this: “When your (goddess’s) side glances falls upon an old decrepit and idiot of a man; hundreds of young ladies run after him, with tresses unknotted, their bust coverings blown away, their jingling metal belts broken and all clothes slipping (stark naked).” What a degrading description? Is this a devotional poem? Yes; no commentator in my view did criticise this anywhere. Power of all powerful goddess indeed!! While her glances fell on an old man she did not see the running naked lasses. A tragic position!! There is no need to speculate on anything here. They are so clear. Females as a whole is pictured here as being lusty and sluts in turn.

4)    The next is not connected with earlier. It says that “like water lolling in a lotus leaf; the life is very much versatile. Understand; that the world is infected with severe deceases and gripped with egoism and therefore the whole world is in dead grief.” There is no need to comment on this except that the world is supposed to have created by the all powerful god itself.

5)    Some follow up here on. “As long as one is engaged in earning wealth; he is cared by his own family but when he is old and wrinkled, no one at home ask about him.”

6)    The next follows: “As long as breathing remains in body; people around ask about his wellbeing (this is in complete contravention of the earlier). When the last breath leaves the body dead; his wife (who was always with him sleeping with him all nights in past) fears this body.”  We all see such situations and accept this fact.                                                       

7)    “One is engrossed in play while a child (a natural act); on attaining the age of youth one is interested in young damsels and when one gets old, immersed in worries (for not completing tasks or not attaining desired results and so on). The first two are very much natural and the third is partially so). The last one laments the living for not getting interested in the ultimate Brahman. A sad future to the world!! The teacher wants us not to follow the natural course but contemplate on extra or supra natural Brahman of whose existence we have no proof. That is it.

8)    Next is a kind of philosophical question. Hi, brother, think of the truth that this worldly is so much surprising that questions remain; who is your wife; who is your son; of whose are you and where from you came. If it concerns present the questions could be answered as truthfully as possible. Going deeper into the matter we come across questions that could not be answered by us. The reference is to the Riigvedic Suktam “Nasadiya Suktam” (Rv. X. 129. 6 & 7). The seer is speculating about emergence of something from nothing and not satisfied. He says that:                   

“But, after all, who knows, and who can say                                                            whence it all came, and how creation happened?                                               The gods themselves are later than creation,                                                            so who knows truly whence it has arisen?” //6//

(Here Gods mentioned are Rigvedic like Indra, Agni, Varuna, Vayu, Maruts and others.)

“Whence all creation had its origin,                                                                     whether he fashioned it or whether he didnot,                                                            he, who surveys it all from highest heaven,                                                            he knows - or maybe even he does not know.” //7//

So the ultimate is; nobody knows or could know.

9)    Here is another riddle; spiritual or otherwise. “When one is associated with groups of pious; then slowly gets disconnected and when thus disconnected; one loses the need of desires; on losing desires one gets inactive and there after attains salvation in life.” Do all these mean that one should get to state of inactivity before death? Or death comes after salvation or before? What is the sign of such a stage?

10)                       Again next. “ What is sexual emotion when one is past his youth; what is a pond from which water dried up; what to do with family when one is short of wealth and what is worldly when truth is known?”

Let us look at these a little closer. What is age when youth is passed? Is there any uniformity; say 40, 50, 60 and so on? Though aged men feel young as long as their mental faculty is functioning. It is true the sexual abilities remain for long in some as long as 90 and more. So the first statement is partially true. The second is true. Third is also not fully true depending on given circumstances. The last could not be perceived except with those contemplate on it.        

The entire above are too exaggerated statements to impress the disciples. Nobody in history took them seriously enough to follow them. There is no need to elaborate.

11)                       “Do not feel too proud about your wealth, people around and young age. Time will snatch them all within seconds and so leave all these as Maya i.e. unreal and then enter the abode of the Brahman.” These bring more questions than those stated. Who says that all is unreal and wherefrom he got this revelation? Yes; it is all from this world whose picture he has formed in his mind. Are they not unreal coming from an unreal world or mind? So the unreal come out of another unreal!! That is real. Could it be that the one pointing the unreality of is real or Maya? Would one conclude that some are real while others are unreal? Many more questions are waiting but let this be short.

12)                          After so many homilies follow his path to Brahman the teacher is frustrated and blames everything on desires. “While the life is ebbing; time plays its changes repeatedly; from days to nights; evenings to mornings; winters to springs and even then one does not get rid of his storming desires.” It looks like that there no use in exhorting people to go on chanting the name of Govinda. Still chanting goes on mostly in groups. No one thinks about the meanings and their relevance to time. Here one remembers the late Kanchi Periyaval Sri Chandrasekharendra Saraswathy; maintains that chanting is all that is important and not its meanings. According the melody queen of the south M.S.Subbalaxmi rendered many these chanting including Bhaja Govindam to music and was singing them and also made records of them. They are available here and now.    

The entire tenor of this composition is anti female degrading them using venom and hatred unprecedented. The all powerful female depicted in the first verse of Soundarya Lahari is hypocritical and unsound.  

One needs to contrast this hate female composition with another namely Gita Govindam. Both are regarded as highly devotional to God Govinda. The later is being sung in many Vaishnava temples including the Jagannath Puri and Guruvayur in Kerala. At the outset Jayadeva tells us that his composition is the descriptions of sexual play indulged by the God Vasudeva Krishna. The author has combined the two i.e. Bhakti (devotion) and Bhukti (imbibing pleasure and happiness in worldly i.e ultimately sex).

Couple of references could prove this. “One young mature cowherd lady went on singing melodiously; after embracing Hari in lust with the weight of her heavy hard busts.”  Hari “embraces one, kissing one, making love to one, looking at the smiling beautiful face of another and follows still another.” (4^th Ashtapadi-2 & 7)  In her hurry to start the sexual play Radha did something surprising; she mounted Krishna from top (viparita ratam), at the end her midriff stood still. The delicate hands loosened their grip, her two heavy busts heaved and eyes closed. How is that the women get the manly trait? (Verse 82) These and many more explicit descriptions are presented everywhere in this composition. All these show that both devotion and seeking sexual satisfaction go hand in hand. In Gita Govindam is earthier in its contents than just devotional. It celebrates the sexual union of mortals; though one of them Devine.

Indian or ancient Hindu tradition makes out that one should pursue the four worldly goals namely Dharma (righteous path or living); Artha meaning seeking wealth (righteous); Kama pleasure and happiness through sexual relations and Moksha meaning salvation. All the four goals are not antithetic but harmonious to each other and get adjusted in course of time. So seeking pleasures, wealth and lovely sex are not ungodly and or unethical in our tradition. The ras leela of Krishna and Gopies in Vrindavan is the ultimate tradition. However, today tradition is so pulverized and twisted by people that we have forgotten the true tradition. Even today the fanatical group of so called godmen and very many scholarly persons consciously reject them and gloss over with modern scientific terms like energy etc.  Gita Govindam shows the way. Let me rest with this.  

K.N.Krishnan