Translation & explanation of Verse-9
Well aware you are of all this,
O the Abode of Glorious Qualities!
Why then should this humble one
Relate all this again to you?
Do banish, party, all miseries.
No one will there be to help me
If you keep away from me.
O the Saviour who comes mounted on a bull!
(“Ellam arinju Bhagavaan iveninneduthu
Chollenamo durithamokke akattane nee
Illarumingu adiyanangozhiyunnuvengil
Ellam kalanju eruthileri varunna shambho”):
Ellam arinju Bhagavaan = Lord is fully aware of everything happening, in particular the near present and the future.
Iveninneduthu chollenamo durithamokke akattane nee = Hence what is the need to make special request to the Supreme Lord in order to get rid of all my sufferings and difficulties?
Illarumingu adiyanangozhiyunnuvengil = As a spiritually ignorant person, I have no one else other than the Lord, who can depend on. If the Lord leaves me, there is no one to save and enlighten me. Ellam kalanju eruthileri varunna shambho = By renunciation, Lord Siva the Saviour comes on a bull.
In the last lines of this verse, Sree Narayana Guru links up the whole composition with the prehistoric Siva tradition and affiliates the entire theme to the doctrines of the perennial philosophy. The duality as between the Supreme Providence and the adoring Self here is the cause of all the agony referred to the above. Mutual recognition of the bipolar interdependence between the Supreme and the ontological Self is strikingly restated here by way of conclusion; the two aspects being brought together into close reciprocity for purposes of contemplative understanding of the one in terms of the other.
This final reference to the Siva-bull who is the white Nandi, adds that characteristic depth to the composition, reaching back to prehistory and to that virile principle of positive life in the symbology and mythology of Siva. The Markandeya Puraana describes the way in which Siva mounted on a white bull (the Nandi) appears on the scene at the very last moment of the death of a young man who was destined to die at the age of sixteen. Such is one of the images which this verse reverses in the time-honored context of contemplative Word-wisdom. |