22.
BHAGAVAN AS A CLASSICAL
SANSKRIT POET

DEVOTEES of Sri Bhagavan are aware only of his
famous `Upadesa Saram' and a few isolated verses as
His contributions to the `Language of the Gods'. So it is
necessary to place on record His contribution to the famous
`Uma Sahasram' -- thousand verses on Uma, the Divine
Mother sung by His great disciple, the learned
Sri Kavyakanta Ganapati Muni. This story shows the
Maharshi as the joint author of this composition.

      Sri Bhagavan was then living in the Pachaiamman
Temple, the abode of Maragathambal, on the north eastern
slopes of Sri Arunachalam. In those days the Maharshi
would sit and sleep in a hammock slung between two
stone pillars and be rocked as a darling child by His loving
pupils.

      Sri Kavyakanta had composed 700 stanzas on Uma
in some thirty different meters, and had announced to
his devotees in various parts of the country that this poem
would be dedicated on a certain Friday in the Shrine of
Sri Uma in the great Temple of Sri Arunachaleswara. Over
a hundred persons gathered at the Pachaiamman Temple
so as to be present on the occasion. Now these Sanskrit
verses were not a mere intellectual display by
Sri Kavyakanta, great as he was in Sanskrit composition.

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      Proof of his great intellectual capacity may be had from
the very fact that in the presence of the heads of the Udipi
Maths he composed extempore in a single hour the hundred
verses of the `Ghantaa sataka,' giving the cream of the
teaching of the three main schools of Hindu Philosophy.

      His `Uma Sahasram' is different from other
compositions in that it is pasyanti vak, i.e. revealed by the
Divine Mother in Her own words to one who is adept in
the Kundalini Yoga.

      At about 8 p.m. on the evening before the dedication
day, after supper, Sri Maharshi asked Sri Kavyakanta
whether the dedication would have to be postponed to
some other Friday, as 300 verses were still to be composed
to complete the thousand. But Sri Kavyakanta assured
Bhagavan that he would complete the poem immediately.

      The scene that followed can hardly be believed by
one who did not actually witness it. Sri Maharshi sat
silent and in deep meditation like the silent Lord
Dakshinamurthy. The eager disciples watched in tense
admiration the sweet flow of divine music in Sanskrit
verse as it came from the lips of the great and magnetic
personality of Sri Kavyakanta. He stood there delivering
the verses in an unbroken stream while disciples eagerly
gathered the words and wrote them down. Oh, for the
ecstasy of it all! Life is indeed blessed if only to experience
those divine moments.

      The `Sahasram' was finished in several meters
Madalekha, Pramanika, Upajati Aryagiti, etc. For a while
the disciples present enjoyed the deep ecstasy of the silence
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pervading the atmosphere, as Sri Kavyakanta concluded
with the normal type of colophone. Then Sri Bhagavan
opened His eyes and asked, "Nayana, has all that I said
been taken down?" From Sri Ganapati Muni came the
ready and grateful response, "Bhagavan, all that Bhagavan
inspired in me has been taken down!"

It is thus clear that Sri Bhagavan inspired the final
300 verses of the `Uma Sahasram' through the lips of
Sri Kavyakanta, without speaking a word, as usually
understood, or rather in the silence characteristic of the
Silent Sage of Arunachala. It is noteworthy that whereas
Sri Kavyakanta revised the first 700 verses of this
monumental work some six times, he did not revise any
of the last 300. This being Sri Bhagavan's own utterance,
there was no need to "polish them." These 300 verses are
to be considered as Sri Bhagavan's unique contribution to
Sanskrit poetry.

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