A 'sUkti' and Hinduism

 In Sanskrit 'sUkti' means 'a good saying'. su - good; ukti - saying. A sUkti says like this :

"we can desire to paint

the image, colours and the form of the Sun;

But how to paint the rays

not reflected and not seen in a background?"

This is an abstract idea. I have tried to translate. The original is :

"kAmam likatu samstAnam

kaschit roopam cha bhasvata: |

abhiddhi vihitAlambam

AlOkam vilikEt katam ||"

(sUktimAlA, anthologized by Vaidhyasri S V Radhakrishna Sastri)

We can paint the light seen in a background. We can paint the reflected objects. But a pure ray..? Just think about it? How to image it first of all? But all our world of images, colours, objects, form everything visualized just depends on that simple pure ray. Is it not? So even optically speaking, our knowledge happens only in relational contexts. The knowing principle, though prior to all happenings of knowledge and inherent in all relational contexts is itself evading any relational fixing. So comparable to the pure ray. Is it not slightly intriguing, that which has gone prior and basic to perception comes to be understood by inference?

When such is the case for even a strictly scientific topic like optics and epistemology, what to say about the Ultimate Transcendent which is the Supreme Principle? When the objects are relatively existent, that Principle is absolutely and independently existent. When the lights which we know are relationally functional, that Supreme Light is preeminent and unrelatable. Hence it is Paravastu and Paramjyotis. That is why perhaps even Nammalwar exerts so much to express the Transcendent Light:

’அரவணைமேல் இருள்விரி நீலக் கருநாயிறு சுடர்கால்வது போல் இருள்விரி சோதி பெருமான்’

'on the snake-bed, abounding dark

bluish black Sun, as if aflame all around

extending darkish Light, Peruman'

Hinduism should be found in this richness of detailed depths and abounding mystery of endless expanse. So are we given to understand when a direct disciple of Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Abhedananda explains like this :

"The religion of Vedanta does not teach the worship of many gods, but of one God, who is called by many names and who is free to appear in any form in accordance with the desires of the worshippers. The God of the Hindus has no particular name nor any particular form. Thousands of names are given to that Supreme Being who is nameless and formless. He is not extra-cosmic but intra-cosmic, and immanent as well as transcendent. He appears as with form to a dualist and without form to a non-dualist. He is one, yet His aspects are many. He is personal, impersonal, and beyond both. He appears as personal to a dualistic or monotheistic worshipper, and as impersonal to a qualified non-dualistic believer or one who believes in the immanency and transcendency of God; while to a pure non-dualist, the same God is the one Infinite Ocean of absolute existence, intelligence, bliss, and love.”

(Religion of the Hindus, 1901)

Srirangam Mohanarangan

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