G.
SRIRAMA MURTY, M.A.
A.
M. A. L. College Anakapalle,
Were
it possible for a Vedic Rishi like Vasistha, Viswaamitra or Madhuchchandas to
come down to us in flesh and blood and live amidst us in the machine age, how
would he look like? Would he be like a Rip Van Winkle in the modern world?
Would he be like a fish out of water and cut a sorry figure in all probability?
Such questions seem idle now since Kaavyakantha Vaasistha Ganapati Muni, known
as Naayana, occurred and proved beyond a shadow of doubt the Aurobindonian
thesis that the Rishi is not a thing of the past. Generations to come would
certainly wonder whether such a man as Naayana had ever walked the earth in
twentieth century. Truly did his biographer sing.1
“Atlmaanusha
Gambhira Vismayaavaha Vistaraa Vaanivilasa bhuyista Muner
Ganapateh Katha.”
(The
great life story of Ganapati Muni is deeply steeped in superhuman significance;
is wonderful; is full of graceful play of the Goddess of Speech and Learning.)
Ayyalasomayaajula
Surra Ganapati Sastry popularly known as Vaasistha Ganapati Muni alias Naayana,
was born in 1878 at his maternal uncle’s house in Logeesa Agrahaaram in the
present Srikakulam District of Andhra Pradesh. He came of a learned family well-known
for its traditional learning and worship of the Divine as Mother (Sri Vidya).
His mother Suramma believed him to be a gift of the Sun God, Surya, while his
father, Narasimha Sastry held that his son was an incarnation of the Elephant
God, Ganapati, whom he had seen in a vision at Kaasi, coming out of the idol in
the temple of Dunthi Vinaayaka to sit on his lap for a moment and then
disappear. Naayana himself believed to the end of his life that he was an
Avatar of Ganapati, Bhagavan Ramana
Maharshi, his master, being an Avatar of his brother Skanda. Ganapati believed
that he descended to the earth in order to fulfil a particular divine mission.
The mission was to free India from foreign yoke and rebuild it on the prestine
principles of the ancient Veda which upholds equality of sexes and social
justice. He dedicated his life for the upliftment of the unprivileged and
under-privileged like the Harijans, serving them both by precept and practise.
To him, Mahatma Gandhi was an Avatar or Maitreya. Engaged, like him, in the
divine mission of national liberation and regeneration.
He
spent his early years mostly at his father’s in Kalavarayi Agraharam, a small
village near Bobbili in the present Srikakulam District Andhra Pradesh. He
derived much of his traditional learning from his father and his paternal
uncle, Prakasa Sastry. He was schooled at the paathasoalaas in Bobbili
and Salur. His schooling was but formal. His amazing encyclopaedic range
of knowledge and reconcile erudition for which he was most famous came to him
partly by revelation through his Tapasya and partly by his own desultory
studies.
As
a child, he was always active and agile, though his physical health was
woefully poor. It seems he made a mark not only as a sportsman but also as a marksman.
He was a prodigy who mastered all important classics of Sanskrit before
he was fourteen. What is more interesting is that he even discovered and
perfected his own method of calculation in astrology at the tender age of ten.
The method has now been published under the title Ganaka Kanthaabharanam.
Though he began to write regular verses at the age of ten, he did not take care
to preserve any or his early compositions. He was in the habit of destroying
his verses because, very often. He compared them with those of Kaalidaasa,
Bhavabhuti, Bhaaravi and Maagha and found them wanting. On account of this
peculiar habit of striving for almost impossible perfection and consequent
destruction of poems when they fell short of the ideal, the juvenile works of Ganapati
Muni are lost to us. A few occasional verses and two little Khandakaayaas
Paandava Dhaartaraastra Sambhavam and Sukanyaa Dasra Samvaadam, examples
of his early extempore poetry, are all that we have today coming from his early
boyhood days. They are enough to give us a glimpse of the mighty poet and seer
blest that he became in course of time.
Though
he became a guru of his gurus at tender age, though his reputation for
predicting the future accurately was very high, though his intellectual precocity
was universally recognized to be extraordinary, Ganapati was very much ill at
ease because the promise of his avatarhood was not fulfilled. There was
no manifestation of the Divine in him as yet. He thought deeply of it and
decided that he should meditate and practise penance as ancient Vedic Rishis
had done for realizing God in their own selves. His rather had already
initiated him into the mysteries of Mantrasaastra and he had daily been
chanting Mantras like Panchaakshari, Medhadakshinaa murty, Naaraayanaastaakahari,
Sauraastakshari, Bala, Maatangi, Bhuvaneswari, Shodasi in all sincerity and
devotion as enjoined by the Saastras. He was seriously thinking of leaving
his home in search of suitable places for worship and meditation when his
father proposed that he should marry. Ganapati hesitated for a while, thinking
that marriage would be an insuperable obstacle in the path of his spiritual
progress and self-realization. Ultimately, he concluded that it was possible to
achieve a harmony between the temporal and spiritual values and interests, and
that celibacy and renunciation were not at all necessary for self-realization
in the Hindu scheme of life. Soon he got married. The philosophy of reconciling
the apparently contrary facts and values of life and learning remained at the
very core of Ganapati Muni’s life and thought. He alone held the key to the
mysterious inner harmony which lent a splendour to his life and puzzled his
critics making them blind to his real achievement which is Life Divine on this
‘too, too, solid earth.’
During
the course of his peregrinations Ganapati visited pilgrim centres like Naasik,
Banaaras, Kaanpur, Bhuvaneshwar, Mahendragiri and practised severest
austerities described in our Puraanas and Saastras. His Tapas, indeed, was glorious.
He had certain mystic experiences at these places and sometimes held communion
with gods and goddesses. Notable among such experiences is his communion with
the Mother at Bhuvaneshwar, when the Divine Mother administered him a cup of
milk-rice-sugar preparation called paayasam.
While
he was at Mandasaa in 1901, he came to learn that the famous university of
Sanskrit at Navadweep in Bengal had invited scholars and poets of India to
prove their mettle in the court to be held under the formidable presidentship
of Ambica Dutta. Ganapati Sastry was barely twenty-two and yet he had the
audacity to take the gauntlet. In the great battle of poetry and poetics, of
skills of commentary and elucidation, of bright banter and bitter satire that
followed, Ganapati Sastry came out in flying colours. Nineteen scholars of
universal renown, including Ambica Dutta, a betenoire of Ganapati Sastry.
signed the certificate of merit and blessed him with the title Kaavyakantha,
meaning ‘One whose speech is poetry,’ which since then had replaced his
original surname Ayyalasomayaajula. The world knows him only as Kaavyakantha
today. With the resounding victory at Navadweep, the whole literary world
of Sanskrit lay at his feet. Kaavyakantha became a name to conjure with.
Ganapati
Sastry basked in the glory of his poetry for a couple of years. His incredible
performances of Astaavadhaana and his uncanny skill in the game of chess
became legendary. Surely, his achievements were of no mean order. And yet he
was restless. Somewhere in the dark recesses of his heart, he had a lurking
feeling that he had not yet attained the highest state of bliss and godhood.
In
1907, Ganapati Sastry was at Arunachalam, discoursing on the Upanishads and the
ten Mahaavidyaas when, all on a sudden, it occurred to him that the Braahmana
Swamy in the cave of Skanda, who had been practising severe austerities for
many years past, giving up speech altogether, might be of help to him. In a
flush he realized that he was in need of a guru–a Master–and the Braahmana
Swamy might be his guru. The historic meeting of the two mighty minds is a
red-letter event in the history of mankind itself. Ganapayi Muni discovered
Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi who besides being his spiritual brother and mentor,
proved himself, later on beacon to the entire world. Here is a description of
the discovery by an authentic disciple of the Bhagavan. 2
In
the heat of the afternoon sun he climbed the hill to Virupaksha cave. The Swami
was sitting alone on the veranda or the cave. Sastri fell on his face before
him and clasped his feet with outstretched hands. In a voice quivering with
emotion he said: “All that has to be read, I have read; even Vedaanta Sastra I
have fully understood; I have performed Japa (invocation) to my heart’s content:
yet have I not up to this time understood what Tapas is. Therefore I have
sought refuge at your feet. Pray enlighten me as to the nature of Tapas.”
The
Swami turned his silent gaze on him for some fifteen minutes and then replied:
“If one watches whence the notion ‘I’ arists, the mind is absorbed into that;
that is Tapas. When a Mantra is repeated, if one watches the source from
which the Mantra sound is produced, the mind is absorbed in that; that is
Tapas.”
It was not so much the words spoken
that filled him with joy as the grace radiating from the Swami. With the exuberant
vitality that he put into everything, he wrote to friends of the Upadesa he had received and began composing
praises of the Swami in Sanskrit verse. He learnt from Palaniswami that the
Swami’s name had been Venkata Raman and declared that henceforth he must he
known as Bhagavan Sri Ramana and as the Maharshi.
Ganapati Muni continued to practise
his austerities under the guidance of Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi. The years he
spent in and around Arunachalam were best in his life. He was at the height of
his spiritual powers. It was at Arunachalam that he composed his magnum
opus, Umaasahashram (A thousand verses in praise of Uma), Harasahashram (A
thousand verses in praise of Shiva,) Indraani Saptasati (Seven hundred
verses in praise of Indraani), countless Stotras and Sutras. At Padaiveedu he
had the Veda revealed to him through his disciple Daivaraata. At about the same
time, he experienced the presence of the Divine Mother Renuka and Her
celebrated son Parasuraama. With the exception of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa he is
the only example of a Jeevanmukta (Liberated Soul) by virtue of the
Kapala Bhedanasiddhi in the living history of India. Frank H. Humphreys, a
theosophist, who surrendered himself to Naayana, in an article published in London
Psychic Gazette, describes the Siddha Purusha that Ganapati Muni was.
It is impossible to describe what it
is like to be in the presence of a Master. I did not know he was a Master, but
to sit in his presence, though he hardly said a word, and does not know
English, was to feel oneself thrilling through and through–to feel new impressions
touching one mentally. It was an extra-ordinary experience.
I learned later that he was the first
Sanskrit scholar in India, and that is saying something out here where Sanskrit
Is the language of the scriptures and every student of wisdom learns it.
He knows the sciences inside out, and many languages. You remember how the
Apostles suddenly “Spoke with tongues.” Well, there are people here, who have
known this man all his life, and they know that until one day, he did not speak
a word of Tamil, a very difficult language. Fifteen days afterwards, he was able
to give a long lecture in pure Tamil and to read it and write as well as any of
the professors.
I asked him how he achieved this feat
and he replied, “By meditation.”
He enjoyed the absolute confidence
of the Bhagavan. Though he could not see eye to eye with him on socio-economic
problems of the day, he realized the truth of his master’s viewpoint and surrendered
himself wholly to the will of his Master. It was in
the service of his Master that he wrote the famous Ramana Gita, the quintessence of
Vedaanta, which equals, if not surpasses, even the celebrated
Bhagavad Gita and Brahma
Sutraas in lucid exposition
and cogency of thought.
Though he lived entirely in God, paradoxically enough, he could never get
rid of his intense desire for national liberation. This
desire led him to enter the Indian National Congress if only to quit it shortly for good. In the brief period of his
political career, he was the president of Tamil Nadu Pradesh Congress. He
played a prominent part in Belgaum Congress which met under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi. Probably it was during this period that he wrote a constitution for Free
India under the title Saamrajya
Nibandhanam. With Mahatma Gandhi’s assuming political leadership,
he withdrew from politics much in the same way as Sri Aurobindo had done
before. He, in fine, got over the illusion that he was destined to win freedom
for India, though he directed all his Tapasya
for national good only to the end of his life.
After he left the Ashram at Arunachalam,
he settled for a time at Ananda Ashram at Sirsi. Now he devoted an his time for the study and interpretation of
the Vedas. During his stay at
Sirsi and Gokarnam on the west coast
of India, he wrote an original commentary on the Rig Veda which, unfortunately,
is not available now in its entirety. His critique on the Mahabhaarata is an amazing piece of scholarship.
His spiritual quests and conquests could not stifle the creative writer in him.
With his novel Poorna, he
broke new ground in Sanskrit literature. His lucid prose style alone is enough to capture the hearts of the
readers, let alone plot and characterization.
It is unfortunate that he left
it unfinished. Another work called Poorna Kaadambari, too, is said to have been composed at Sirsi. At the request of the pontiff of a matt, Naayana composed,
on the Spot, a hundred verses, called Tattwaghantaa-Satakam, giving
brief resume of the Advaita Vedaanta.
Compelled by the
pressure of domestic affairs, Ganapati Muni came back to Kalavarayi from where
he proceeded to Calcutta and Kharagpur at the invitation
of a few of his devotees. His stay at
Calcutta and later at Kharagpur was far from being comfortable. His health,
which had always been delicate, deteriorated rapidly in the uncongenial atmosphere
at Kharagpur. Finally, he succumbed to death on 17th July 1936. Even Bhagavaan
Ramana Maharshi was shocked to receive the telegram announcing his death. The
Bhagavaan burst into tears and said: “Where can we find the like of him? 3
A man of God, he was a god among
men. If his ambition was thwarted on political front, his success was not any
the less on that account. His enduring poetry and invaluable spiritual
conquests eloquently testify to the success of his mission. He hoped for a
small success and won a great one. Instead of being a liberator of India, he
emerged, in the end, a liberator of
Man. His success was in striking contrast with that of Mahatma
Gandhi who, aspiring to be a liberator of Man, ended as a mere liberator of
India. The seer-poet is, indeed, a gift from heaven. Let us cherish his memory.
References
1
Vaasiatha Vaibhavam: T. V. Kapali Sastry Sirsi, 1944.
2 Ramana
Maharshi and the path of Self-knowledge, Rider & Co., London, P. 97.
3
“Kaavyakantha Ganapati Muni: A Great Devotee of Bhagavaan” by Viswanathan; The
Mountain Path, April 1965.