[Advaita-l] Devotion of a Hunter - Padma Purana, etc.

[KAMESWARARAO MULA]

Dear Sir,               The story is very popular in telugu as there is also a temple on the Hillock  nearer to Sir KalaHastisteswara Temple, KalaHasti near to Tirupati. People reaches the small temple by foot to climb some 1000-1500 steps on the Hillock. The story goes like this more similar to described by you.Story of Bhakta Kannappa: According toPuranas, there were 63 well-known devotees of Lord Shiva. There is a storyabout "Thinna(Thinnadu)". Thinna is one of the63 devotees of Lord Shiva. This Thinna is nothing but Arjuna of Pandavas.Another birth or incarnation of Arjuna is Thinna. Once upon atime, Arjuna was performing a great penance for Lord Shiva. Shiva was pleasedwith Arjuna's devotion and his penance and wanted to test him. Shiva sent awild boar(a wild pig) to disturb penance of Arjuna. Arjuna lost patience and got angrywith that boar and shot an arrow at the wild boar, at the same Lord Shivain the form of hunter also shot the same boar with an arrow. Then there was aclash between both Shiva and Arjuna and finally, Shiva impressed with Arjuna'sefforts and showed him his real form. Lord Shiva allowed Arjuna to ask twoboons.
Two boons: 1. First oneis Pashupata Astra, Shiva told Arjuna that this Pashupata Astra can beallowed to use once, after that it would return to Lord Shiva.

2. The second one is Moksha, Arjuna asked Shivafor Moksha in this birth itself but Shiva refused and said Moksha would not begranted in this birth because you asked weapon to kill your relatives(Kauravas)in this birth, so you have to take one more birth and to get Moksha to reachLord Shiva.

       According to thesecond boon, Arjuna got second birth, that is none other than Thinna toNathaNatha and Tendai couple. Once Thinna was hunting in the forest near SriKalahasti, he founded wild boar and hunted it. Thinna roasted that wild boar.He thought he has to wash his legs before going to eat that pork(roasted meatof boar). He went on to search for water but on his way, he found one Shivlingwhich was decorated with flowers. He thought no one has fed Shiva for a longtime. So he wanted to feed Shiva with his roasted pork. Again he thought likethis "will Shiva eat without bath??". So he went to the pond and brought water withhis mouth because he has pork in his hands. Using his slippers he removed allthe decorated flowers from Shivling. He then poured water from his mouth onShivling and brought flowers and leaves and decorated Shivling with them. Afterthat, he offered pork to Shiva and that was eaten by Shiva. Thinna used to doin the same way every day.

"Now one doubt will come why Shiva ate the pork offered byThinna". For this, there wasone story. Once upon a time, there were demons called Sundara Sriras. Theyperformed great penance to Shiva and asked for Moksha. Shiva told them thatthey will reborn as animals in this forest and when any hunter would hunt themand offered that meat to Shiva, then he would eat that meat nothing but bodiesof those demons. Then they will get Moksha. That's why Shiva ate that roastedpork offered by Thinna.

 Coming to the originalstory, At the time of Thinna living, there was one brahmin living calledShivagochara. Shivagochara came to know that Shiva was offered meat and he wasworshipped with water taken with mouth and removal of flowers with slippers. Hethought this worship was worst and felt sad, so decided to take suicide withoutbearing that sadness. He started beating his head on Shivling then a voice camefrom Shivling and said stop doing that and hide and wait here. So he hid at theback of Shivling.


      After some time as usually,Thinna came with roasted pork and water in his mouth and fowler on his head andstarted worshipping. After he finished the decoration, he offered pork to Shivabut Shiva did not eat pork. Thinna felt sad and thought why Shiva was refusinghis Naivedhya today. Then he saw at Shivling, he observed that blood is comingfrom one eye of Shivling. Quickly Thinna plucked his one eye and placed at theeye of Shivling where blood was coming. After that blood was coming fromanother eye, so Thinna was going to pluck his second eye but stopped andthought if "I could pluck another eye also then I would become completelyblind and I am not able to see where to place the second eye". So Thinnaplaced his leg on the second eye of Shivling where blood was coming to know theexact placement to put the eye and started to pluck his second eye.Suddenly Shiva appeared in front of him for his great devotion and restored twoeyes back to him and removed his half-blindness.
Shivagochara who was seeing allthis from the back side of Shivling was astonished and not able to believe thegreat devotion of Thinna. Then Shivanamed Thinna as Kannappa. Kannappa means the person who offered his eye(Kannu) to anotherperson. In Telugu, the meaning of the eye is Kannu,Kannappa offered his Kannu so he is regarded as great Bhakta Kannappa. Sofinally, Arjuna is nothing but the great "Bhakta Kannappa".



 Sri Guru Padaravindarpana MastuKameswara 

    On Sunday, 21 July 2019 11:16:48 am IST, V Subrahmanian via Advaita-l <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:  
 
 Devotion of a Hunter - Padma Purana, etc.

The story of 'Kannappa Nayanar' in the Tamil Saivite literature is very
famous. Even Shankaracharya has alluded to this story in his
Sivanandalahari:

//  https://www.sringeri.net/2011/01/31/upadesha-lahari/bhakti-part-1.htm

 मार्गवर्तितपादुका पशुपतेरङ्गस्य कूर्चायते
गण्डूषाम्बुनिषेचनं पुररिपोर्दिव्याभिषेकायते ।
किञ्चिद्भक्षितमांसशेषकबलं नव्योपहारायते
भक्ति: किं न करोत्यहो वनचरो भक्तावतंसायते ॥

Kannappa Nayanar once beheld a Sivalinga in the forest. He could see that
the Sivalinga had not been worshipped for long by anyone. He decided to do
the worship himself. But he did not have any materials for worship. Seeing
that the Sivalinga was fully covered by dust, Kannappa wanted to clean it.
Lacking anything else to wipe it, he used his sandals for removing the dust
from the Linga. There was a river which flowed nearby. Kannappa had no
vessel to fetch water from the river for the sacred ablution. His mouth
became the vessel to carry the water. He spat the water on the Linga and
the Abhishekam was over. He thought for a moment as to what he should offer
to the Lord as Naivedya. He decided to offer the meat of the animal which
he had hunted just a little earlier. Ishwara happily accepted all these
acts of His sincere devotee. Why? Because, Kannappa was extremely devoted.
Though the story is not over, at this juncture, I wish to warn some people
who might think that they can also do Puja in an unorthodox way as did
Kannappa. They may also do so, provided they are capable of performing the
most astonishing act that Kannappa subsequently indulged in. In that case,
Ishwara may accept the worship of such people notwithstanding their
heterodoxy.

After the worship was over, Kannappa noticed that tears of blood were
flowing copiously from one eye of the Lord’s image. Kannappa was shocked.
Thinking that there was something wrong with one of His eyes, Kannappa
forcefully plucked his own eye and fixed it on the defective eye of the
Lord. Then he noticed that Bhagavan’s other eye started bleeding. Kannappa
immediately cut out his second eye and placed it on the second defective
eye of Ishwara. Ishwara became immensely pleased with His devotee and
appeared before him. Kannappa was instantaneously blessed with Moksha. This
was the result of Kannappa’s sincere devotion. //

A story similar to the above is found in the Padma Purana Uttara Khanda
Chapter 151. The version is somewhat different here when compared to the
above. The story is found in the Skanda and Brahma Puranas.

In this link https://cloudup.com/cRNocsHtsaB on p.2864 one can read the
story in English.

Concept courtesy:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=427121287884841&set=a.113321375931502&type=3&theater


I have not yet checked the version of the story in the Skanda and Brahma
purana-s.


Om Tat Sat
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