lalitaa sahasranAma: uttara piiThikaa - Some verses to consider (81 - 84)

[Ravisankar S. Mayavaram]

verse 82

yathaiva gopyaa shriividyaa tathaa gopyamidam mune |
pashutulyeshhu na bruuyaajjaneshhu stotramuttamam ||

O Sage, just as shriividya is kept as secret, this stotram should also
be kept secret. This sacred hymn should not be revealed to people whose
nature is beastly.

1) This idea of secrecy is repeated few times both in sahasranAma and
trishati. There may be many reasons. Consider a design of a weapon, you
would not want it to go in the hands of evil persons, who may misuse
it.  An entity which could be used for benign purposes like nuclear
fission for generating electricity can be used by others without
discrimination to destroy countries. PuraNa tell us many incidents
where men with predominant animal and demonish tendencies, meditating
on mantra-s to obtain power and destroy the good people. This may be
one of the reason.

2) This injunction is widely and almost totally ignored. Sri Jayendra
Saraswati swamigal in his audio rendering mentions that anybody can
listen to it and only for chanting they should learn it from a guru
(also initiation is required). But if you look at puurva and uttara of
sahasranaama, this is not correct. Commenting on verse 11 of the
puurva, the commentantor touches upon different aspects of secrecy.
This is also mentioned in trishati puurva as well.

3) My question is, if you can ignore one injunction saying artha vaada,
why not ignore all? Also what is artha-vaada for somebody may be a
pretty legitimate rule for another (consider puurva miimaamska-s claim
that upanishads are artha vaada).

4) Also there is not much difference between listening or learning or
reciting. If you listen to MS Sheela's wonderful audio rendering 10
times, 11th time, when she says bhavaanii, your mind will fill in
bhaavana gamyaa,  bhaavaraNya kuThaarikaa, .... It is so musical, you
will quickly memorize many portions of the text. Which will let you
contemplate on it when you are attending boring meetings. At one point,
I memorized most of sahasranaama by listening to MS Sheela again and
again.


[to be contd]






=====
ambaaL daasan

Ravi

sharaNAgata raxakI nivEyani sadA ninnu nammiti mInAxI

http://www.ambaa.org/  http://www.advaita-vedanta.org

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