Inner Organ and Heart - Part 6 of 10

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The ChitsabhA (the assembly in the temple there) is the ‘point’. This is the meaning of the well-known facts: “It is a subtle gate; there is nothing but space there. It is a secret.

Among the kshetras corresponding to the five elements, Chidambaram is the AkAsha (Space)”. Chit-sabhA is also called ‘dabra- sabhA’.

The direct Tamil equivalent of this is ‘ciRRambalam’ (meaning ‘small ambalam’). The popular opinion that ‘ciRRambalam’ and ‘cidambaram’ are mutations of the same word is wrong.

‘cit ambaraM’ means JnAna-AkAshaM (Knowledge-space).

The Sanskrit word ‘ambaraM’ has two meanings – one is ‘Space’, the other is, something unrelated to the present context, ‘cloth’. But ‘ambaraM’ never means ‘sabhA’ (assembly).

But there is a Tamil word ‘ambalam’ – possibly derived from the Sanskrit word ‘ambaraM’; and that has two meanings: ‘space’ as well as ‘assembly’.

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