Monday, April 2, 2012

Soundarya Lahari - Part 63

(Continued...)
In order to accommodate those who cannot take the strenuous jnAna-path   of advaita, our Acharya has adopted in this work of bhakti, the concepts of spandanaM and those  of pashu, pati and pAshaM  from
the shaiva shAstras. In shloka #99  he says: He who worships ambaal, throws off the attachment (pAshaM) to the animal self (pashu) and enjoys the nectar of the bliss of param-Ananda. 

Obviously when composing the SoundaryalaharI. he must have had in mind several objectives, such as:  This hymn to Ambal should  raise Her  to the skies so that in the devotees it should generate  bhakti towards Her exclusively (ananya-bhakti); it should reach the pinnacle of poetical excellences and respect all poetic traditions; it should also be concordant with the religious traditions of Shri-vidyA-tantra; even though it may not stress the advaita point of view exclusively, since anyway ShRI-vidyA and advaita are not discordant, it should be able to touch upon advaita though tangentially. Instead of saying that the Acharya had these objectives we might say that ambaal had already predetermined his objectives for him.  

(Continued...)

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