Under the Jamun Tree
Pausing and reflecting on a Dikshitar classic
This morning, for a wonderful hour, I listened to multiple renditions of Dikshitar’s Jambupathe. Set in the raga Yamuna Kalyani, it is one of my favorite songs, one that never fails to put me into a state of lightness. Not knowing Sanskrit, the text never much concerned me prior to today; I have been content to soak myself in the charms of the musical composition. But some of the words caught my attention during this morning’s session, so I pulled up a translation of the lyrics. And this opened up a whole new window into a song I thought I knew reasonably well.
Jambupathe is part of Muthuswami Diskhitar’s Panchabootha Lingam series, a collection of 5 timeless songs on the Pachabootha sthalas of Lord Shiva. Each of the five Pachabootha temples represents Shiva in one of the five elemental forms (earth, fire, water, air, ether). Jambupathe is dedicated to Shiva in his Water manifestation in Thiruvanaikaval. The song is a beautiful paen to the Lord as Jambukeshwara, who is represented in Thiruvanaikaval as the linga under a jambu (or ‘jamun’) tree. There are many others who can better explain the literary, musical, and theological intricacies of the composition (for instance, read this). But what struck me were some of the ways in which Dikshitar describes the Lord, some of the metaphorical choices he deploys. Bear in mind that Dikshitar was not just a genius composer and a literary master; he was also an Advaita Vedantin.
First, here is a translation of the song (I referred to the translation I found here):
Oh Lord of the rose-apple (‘jambu’) tree grove,
protect me!
Bestow upon me the awakening nectar
of true, infinite bliss.
The one worshiped by
Lord Brahma, the one seated on the Lotus,
and all the other Gods.
The one whose praises were sung by the celestial musician,
the one who removes the afflictions of the devotee’s heart.
The one who is
the embodiment of the Sea and the rivers Ganga, Yamuna, and Kaveri.
The one who is the beloved of Akhilandeshwari,
the one with the conch-like neck.
The resplendent one worshiped by Goddess Parvati,
the one born of a mountain,
the Lord
of this Universe, this great maya of the five elements (‘panchabootha-maya’).
The source of all happiness,
the one who shows compassion on all His creatures.
The one represented in the self-originated linga (‘swayambho’).
The nectarous river of mercy, the dearest kin
of devotees who completely surrender before Him.
The one who is the
Unfathomable, indescribable, ungraspable Omkara,
the primal sound from which the World originated.
…
The one who is forever in the state of complete absorption in
Absolute Being and infinite bliss (‘nirvikalpa samadhi’).
…
The one who is Pure Consciousness,
without any distinguishable attributes.
…
O Jambupathe, protect me!
In Advaita Vedanta, absolute reality is Brahman/Atman, the ultimate witness-consciousness, the infinite, ineffable, property-less substratum of all existence. From this absolute perspective, even the God of religion, Isvara, is not ultimately real. For us finite beings, who find ourselves inside this wondrous projection of maya, Isvara (it can be the God of any religion) is the ultimate that our minds and hearts can conceive. But with the realization of our true nature, with the realization that our real self is nothing but Brahman itself, we transcend this World, and, with it, we transcend Isvara.
How does one, then, reconcile devotion - bhakti - with Advaita? Is it even possible to reconcile the two? Yes, say the Advaitin scholars. I have recently been watching many talks by Swami Sarvapriyananda of the Vedanta Society of New York (the Society was established by Swami Vivekananda). Swami Sarvapriyananda is a joy to listen to, his extremely lucid lectures sprinkled as much with humor and anecdotes as they are with philosophical and scriptural expositions. Just yesterday night I watched a video where he addresses this very question, this apparent incompatibility between devotion/bhakti and Advaita. Find 20 minutes to watch the answer in full here, but the gist is that while it is not necessary, it is indeed acceptable - and even very beneficial - to have bhakti while being an Advaitin. How so?
We might be non-dualists, but we exist - with this body, with this mind - in a dualistic world. Sure, the world is only an appearance - or a projection - of Brahman, but we are all present very much within this appearance and not outside it. Iswara is a manifestation - an appearance - of the Absolute within our world. In Swami Sarvapriyananda’s words, “The God with qualities is the same as the Absolute without qualities. In reality ‘It’ is without qualities, but that reality without qualities appears to us in our world of experience - in our dualistic dealing - as the God with qualities [i.e. the God of religion].”
Thus bhakti can become an expression of non-dual - i.e. Advaitic - illumination. The Swami concluded by quoting another non-dualistic scholar:
“Before enlightenment, duality puts you in delusion. But after enlightenment, a duality imagined for the sake of love - bhakti - is more beautiful than the real non-duality.”
With that, back to Jambupathe. The Advaitin Muthuswami Dikshitar does the wonderful balancing act between crying out to the quality-less metaphysical Absolute and his (quality-filled) Lord Shiva-Jambukeshwara. Jambupathe extols Shiva’s many virtues - the one who grants devotees grace, the one that we must unconditionally surrender to, the all-compassionate one, the source of all the world’s happiness, the resplendent one, and so on. So far this is what you would expect in all devotional songs across religions - praising the many great qualities of the Lord, seeking the Lord’s love and grace. But Diskhitar goes further. He describes Shiva as the one with the moon and river Ganga on his head (in other words, a very concrete description of the form of the absolute), but he simultaneously describes Shiva as the one who is formless pure-consciousness, and one who is ‘without any distinguishing attributes’; in other words, Shiva is the property-less - i.e. nirguna - Brahman. You are the one with the ‘conch-like neck’ he sings, the one worshiped by Parvati, and in the same breath he sings, ‘you are anirvachaniya, you are unfathomable, ungraspable, indescribable.’
It might seem like he is contradicting himself - if the Lord is indescribable, how is he describing Shiva in so many very particular ways? But like Swami Sarvapriyananda said, there is really no contradiction. Dikshitar knows that his own real nature is nothing else but the Absolute itself, in which case he and Shiva are one and the same reality. ‘Shivoham!’ (‘I am Shiva!’) exclaimed Adi Shankaracharya. But Diskhitar also knows that, as this person called Muthuswami Dikshitar, with this body-mind, in this empirical world (in this ‘great maya of the five elements’ as he put it), he will pray to the Absolute in Its many manifestations, in this particular case as the Lord Jambukeshwara of Thirvanaikaval.
His dualistic devotion and his non-dualistic convictions can co-exist. Indeed, in Jambupathe Dikshitar imagines Shiva himself as someone who is forever reflecting on His real nature, realizing that He too is nothing else but Brahman, nothing else but pure consciousness and infinite bliss.
Isn’t all art, such as the composition Jambupathe itself, a reflection of this constant back-and-forth nirguna-saguna dance? The words construct a concrete world, while the music lifts us beyond into abstractness.
Here is a rendition of Jambupathe by D.K. Jayaraman:
And here is another rendition by M.L. Vasanthakumari:
On that note, wishing you a very Happy New Year.
Beautiful raga, Dikshitar was the master in bringing Hindustani raga into Carnatic music