Abstract
“Modeling God in One Hindu Context” exemplifies a South Asian theology of the ultimate reality, by introducing song IV.10 from the Tiruvaymoli (the “Holy Word of Mouth”), a key Vaisnava Hindu scripture composed by the ninth century poet, Satakopan. In addition to translating and interpreting the song, this essay also reads it in accord with medieval commentaries. God is recognized as supreme and perfect, yet actively engaged in ordering the world for the sake of all beings. This God is transcendent and yet also dwells by in temples close to home. By studying this song, commentary, and theological conclusions regarding God, world, living being, grace and free will, we are afforded a rich theological resource for comparison and contrast with Biblical and Christian understandings. Differences are evident, but the similarities are remarkable, enabling and challenging us to think theologically across religious boundaries.
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Notes
- 1.
Attention has also been given to their counterparts in argument, e.g., the logicians who defended the existence and perfections of God on rational grounds, the Mimamsa liturgical theorists who were skeptical of the proofs of a God’s existence and of the need for any idea of a supreme deity, and the Nondualist Vedanta theologians and Buddhist theoreticians who thought it unwise to posit the existence of a supreme Person even if (as in the former case) there is an a supreme absolute reality.
- 2.
Alvar: “[thoroughly] immersed [in God];” hereafter “saint,” and in the plural, “Tamil saints.”
- 3.
There are available overviews of the Tamil saints’ and Vedanta conceptions of God. On the Tamil saints, see for example Kaylor (1981), Chari (1997), particularly chapter 3, “The Doctrine of God;” Carman (1994), chapters 4 and 5. On Ramanuja’s theology, see Kumarappa (1934) and Carman (1974). See also chapters 2 and 3 of Clooney (2001).
- 4.
All translations are mine, though I am already indebted to Archana Venkatesan, with whom I am beginning to collaborate in a long-term project to complete a new translation of Tiruvaymoli.
- 5.
In a religious framework where rebirth is taken to be the norm, Brahma and Siva are understood as among the more important of transmigrating beings, but they are not qualitatively different from the humans and animals currently at lower levels in the cycle of rebirth. Such lesser deities are perhaps what might elsewhere be called “demi-gods,” or recognized as the loftier among the angels and demons that have occupied Christian cosmography. Yet in their inferiority, Brahma and Siva and similar deities fit the capacities and desires of humans at lesser stages of spiritual development. For in their various births, people worship deities in keeping with their understanding of spiritual reality, their expectations regarding what might be gained in transactions with deities. It is only people at more advanced levels of spiritual development who can appropriately and adequately worship Narayana.
- 6.
Tiru Kurukur is still known today by its connection to Satakopan, as Alvartirunagari, the “alvar’s holy town.” No other full song is dedicated to Tiru Kurukur, but all 100 songs mention it in their 11th verses. But so too, in other songs, it is made clear that the lord dwells in other holy sites too.
- 7.
My comments are informed by the insights of traditional commentaries.
- 8.
The insistence that this lord is “all your deities” is odd, given that the Jains and Buddhists are not normally thought of worshipping deities. Perhaps the author does not know clearly, or simply ignores, teachings key to Buddhist and Jain thought. Or, the idea is that all arguments are reduced to arguments about God and the gods; yet no matter how expansive and universal God is, reason alone cannot indicate successfully that there is a God, or what God’s identity might be.
- 9.
This is necessary, the commentators suggest, since beings must work out their good and bad karma in this world, even as they forego their old worship and turn to the lord. The “world” may then suggest the “world of karma and its effects,” which cannot be dissolved or ignored as if unimportant. If this is the meaning of the second line (“if you all gained release, there would be no more world”), then it might best be interpreted in English as, “only after you all gain release, will there be no more world.” Yet there is thus a tension in the verse: in the two lines it is stated that the world and its gods—put forth externally by the lord—exist so that this economy of gradual salvation can move forward, while the last lines urge the listener to step beyond divinities and their worship, going directly to the lord right now. Recognition and conversion of life and loyalty go together.
- 10.
Garuda is the eagle Narayana rides down to earth; Satakopan’s mention of him may indicate the speed with which the lord responds to those needing help.
- 11.
The commentators recount the story of the interaction with Siva of another alvar, Tirumalisai Piran, who by this account is so deeply devout that he has eyes even in his foot, eyes blazing forth with fire more powerful than Siva’s third eye. See Govindacharya 1982, pp 97–100.
- 12.
Such reflection is signaled here probably by the six systems of Hindu philosophical and theological reflection, or by a grouping of six heterodox systems, including Buddhism and Jainism.
- 13.
The commentators do not explain the dance itself, but comment only it is so lovely a dance that those who hear about it experience the same pleasure as those who danced it; both the dancers and those who remember the dance dwell as it were in the same moment of time. See also Hardy 1983, p. 180 and n. 206.
- 14.
That is, it is dried out, empty of essence and savor.
- 15.
Since ordinary experience does not specify who this God is, for the sake of reliable instruction, the sources of right knowledge must be identified. Pillan adds: “When a desire to know such things is thus born, and when it comes to teaching these things, at that time perception and the other senses cannot be authoritative means of knowledge for something beyond the senses. So the instructive scriptures alone are authoritative regarding this topic. Heterodox traditions are not authoritative regarding what needs to be known, since they are subject to deception and other faults, and are at best merely the product of human intelligence. By contrast the Veda, which is the proper locus for the fourteen meditative acts of knowledge, is authoritative.” According to Purusottama Naidu in his modern Tamil rendering (1973, p. 382, n. 4), the fourteen sciences (vidyas) are the four Vedas, the six subsidiary sciences (recitation, grammar, ritual rubrics, etymology, astrology, meter), and four supporting disciplines (logic, ritual analysis, the epic narratives, and texts instructive regarding dharma).
- 16.
That is, the gati-samanya (“sameness of referent”) rule, by which scripture passages are to be construed in a way that highlights their coherence; Vedanta Sutras I.1.11.
- 17.
The presence of the Goddess Sri makes accessibility sure and permanent.
- 18.
The three strands or gunas: what is true and light (sattva), what is passionate (rajas), and what is dark and inertial (tamas).
- 19.
I note here one more contribution from the commentarial tradition. Several generations later and in poetic form both elegant and theologically incisive, in his Vedanta Desika, Dramidopanisad Tatparyaratnavali and Dramidopanisad Saram with the Sararatnaprabhavali and Sararthasaram of Uttamur Virarachavachariar. Madras: Ubaya Vedanta Granthamala, 1983 summarized the meaning of the song in a Sanskrit verse of his own, distilling each verse’s key point: “because he endures even at the end of the age (1); because he is the creator of the entire host of deities (2); because he brings about the protection and so forth of all people (3); because he supports Siva and Brahma (4); because he is the self of all deities (5); because he distributes fruits in accord with their various deeds (6); because he bears the eagle Garuda on his standard (7); because he protected the sage Markandeya (8); because he is beyond the grasp of words (9); because he is without flaw (10)—for all these reasons, this conqueror of enemies calls him lord, lofty over all the immortals.” Desika thus sees a concerted argument operative in the song, each verse adding to the emerging conclusion: “for all these reasons, this conqueror of enemies [Satakopan] calls him lord, lofty over all the immortals.” Yet Desika’s choice of the key element of each verse is in keeping with what we read in the song. What is left unstated, of course, is the dramatic scenario, the alvar’s urgent appeal to worldly people to change their thinking on their priorities in worship.
- 20.
One point that does not arise in Tirvuymoli IV.10 is the following: while this God is male, he is eternally accompanied by the goddess Sri Laksmi.
- 21.
On “Narayana” as both a sectarian name and universalizable name of God, see Clooney (2008), pp. 44–51.
- 22.
New Revised Standard Version.
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Clooney, F.X. (2013). Modeling God in One Hindu Context: The Supreme God in a Medieval South Indian Hymn. In: Diller, J., Kasher, A. (eds) Models of God and Alternative Ultimate Realities. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5219-1_38
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