While serving his guru as head of the Narayana Gurukula Institute of Aesthetic Values in rural Bangalore for forty years, Vinaya was fortunate to learn Kannada from minstrels who introduced him to the vacana, kirtanas and tatva forms of mystical poetry. Vinaya has published books in Malayalam, Kannada and English. He now continues the wisdom-sharing tradition of the gurukula without institutional affiliation, treating the whole world as his gurukula (family of the guru). Vinaya Chaitanya can be contacted through email-id: vinaya@unitiveunderstanding.org

Review by Kumar Rajappan, PhD

Narayana Guru was a teacher of wisdom, and it is through that wisdom the Guru transformed, for good, the population of Kerala into a modern society that recognizes the true spirit and value of man without regard for caste, religion, or personal belief. Swami Vivekananda would call the Guru’s approach as practical Vedanta. People in different parts of the world will be celebrating the Gurus birthday soon, followed by his death anniversary also. As time passes, people become complacent with status quo and tend to slide into superstitions and discord with fellow humans and society. Ugly heads of caste prejudices and religious hatred rise to make society cower under shame or fear. While this is becoming more and more true in Kerala which has been by and large fortunate to experience the fruits of spiritual and social renaissance the Guru initiated, much of India has not had the same opportunity to enjoy such a revolution and its long-standing effects. It is not that others state or provinces haven’t had their share of spiritual luminaries and Gurus, rather it is the unique methodology Narayana Guru used that made the key difference. He was out in the world, among people, while remaining fully anchored in the Self within and without (the Guru calls it ‘…the Word that fills both inside and outside, to the brim…’). A key part of that methodology was the hymns, prayers, and philosophical poems of Upanishadic clarity and quality he wrote for posterity. Every time the Guru installed a temple, he wrote a hymn praising the presiding deity often blending Vedantic concepts in such way that the deity of common worship and ecstatic supplication itself is elevated to the status of Absolute (Brahman). One such example is the ‘Nine-gemmed bouquet for the Mother’ which was composed on the occasion of installation of a temple for Goddess Śārada, who is also called Sarasvati, the goddess of wisdom. Many such hymns, often praising the deities of Siva traditions, even though the Guru’s first poems is on the ‘Vision of Sri Kŗșņa,’ are quite well known to people of Kerala. Apart from hymns, the Guru has composed five major Vedantic texts that illuminate the depth and breadth of his philosophical vision. On the one hand these resonate with the Upanishads in their vision of Oneness while from a closer scrutiny by a learned man these encompasses the core philosophical concepts of the western tradition as well. For example, Darsanamala (A Garland of Visions) composed in Sanskrit enables one to visualize an overall epistemology (awareness), axiology (purpose) and methodology (practice) that can remove or mitigate many a life’s dilemmas. It is within the context of self-awareness of the individual and the collective and continuing program of social upliftment, without religious patronizing, political manipulations, and pedantic doctrinal hairsplitting, that the Guru philosophy offers, a new English translation of the Guru’s works, ‘A Cry in the Wilderness: The Works of Narayana Guru’ by Vinaya Chaitanya becomes relevant and timely.

Vinaya Chaitanya has been immersed in the Guru Philosophy for the last 50 years. It has been his refuge and meditation all through out his adult life. He got attracted to Nataraja Guru, a pre-eminent scholar disciple of Narayana Guru, and accepted him as his preceptor. After the passing of Nataraja Guru, Vinaya associated with Guru Nitya Chaitanya Yati, another great mystic, poet, and philosopher in the lineage of Narayana Guru, and continued his study and meditation of the Guru wisdom from all angles, including aesthetics, poetics, Western and Eastern philosophies, psychology, and Christian mysticism. And he is not a novice in translating works of spiritual or metaphysical import either. He has translated ‘Songs for Siva: Vacanas of Akka Mahadevi’ a twelfth century saint of Karnataka, into English, and Narayana Guru’s works into Kannada. It is this continuous training, self-discipline, in depth knowledge of English and Malayalam, and experiencing the wonder of the numinous that enabled him venture into translating the Guru’s works. And what a great job he has done!

The title itself is catching and can be mistaken. This biblical idiom refers, in this context, to the dangers of dividing and demeaning social mindset of casteism still prevailing in many parts of India in its raw form and stunting its rise to the apex power such that it can be the true beacon of hope for mankind, which once it was. Narayana Guru recognized and addressed the issues of casteism using simple tools of Vedantic principles and dispelled it from the minds of millions of Keralites. He provided the theoretical arguments for it through his works in Malayalam, Sanskrit and Tamil. This happened about a century ago and yet much of India is unaware of this Jnanin of action and his works. This translation is meant to overcome the limitation of language. Let us take an example of Vinaya’s lucid translation of the first verse of ‘Nine-gemmed bouquet for the Mother.’ This work is highly spiritual, devotional, Vedantic, and unusual in the poetic meter used (not many poets have written in mattebham meter in Malayalam). Philosophical poems often suffer from dearth of poetic sweetness. But this work of the Guru in its original is highly poetic. Vinaya Chaitanya has done a marvelous job in translating this without either losing the spiritual meaning or the poetics. Of course, the meter cannot be accommodated in the translation. Here is an example of the first verse:

From the one great mind, a thousand tri-petals come;

Self-awareness forgotten then, quickly, fondness for food and such arises;

My mind-source, as one, falls into the sea of sorrow and struggles;

To merge it in the realm of sound that gives birth to the onward path,

To mix and melt in that navel of consciousness, wherein appears spreading light;

That these triplets cease, and be cooled, when will it be, O Mother?

Here the devotee is asking the Goddess Mother the reason for us to suffer in the ocean of samsara (cause and effect), even though the Mother itself is the womb of all that is manifested here. He is also seeking a way out so that he can merge back into the source itself. The ‘tri-petal’ and ‘triplet’ refer to the same consciousness differentiated into knower, known and knowledge or enjoyer, enjoyed and enjoyment or any other similar combinations pertaining to actions like seeing, doing, experiencing etc., as three distinct sets without understanding the Oneness (Mother) as the source.

Another example from a much simpler poem of upliftment from ‘Ascertainment of Caste (Jāti Ņirnayam)’ goes as follows:

Man is of one caste, one religion and one God,

Of one same womb, one same form, with no difference at all. (Verse 2)

That first line is one of the most quoted lines in Malayalam. One Hundred Verses of Self Instruction (Atmopadesa satakam) is considered the magnum opus of the Guru, in which the philosophy as it applies to individual and universal Self attains its sublime heights. It is here the Vedanta of Narayana Guru resonates with that of Sankaracharya yet accommodates both the qualified non-dual Vedanta (Vișishtadwaita) of Ramanujacharya and the dualistic Vedanta (Tathwavada) of Madwacharya. Vinaya translates verse 22, where the Guru explains why an action that is good to one should be good to the other also.

The other’s dear value, that is mine too, and

What is dear to me is the same to the other as well;

This is the way of wisdom; therefore, action that brings

Benefit to one should cause the good of the other. (Verse 22)

This reviewer is a man of science, yet I have been contemplating on the works of the Guru for the last 40 years, and I cannot tell how happy I am to see such a crystal-clear translation of the Guru’s works. Poetics and philosophy blend in this work just as it is in the original. It is appropriate that the translator chose to put ‘Embryo’s Gratitude’ as the first poem but putting ‘Thoughts on God (2)’ in the beginning and its prelude, ‘Thoughts on God (1)’ elsewhere does not make much sense to a novice reader, even though these can be justified by the structural secrets implied in the Guru’s works as taught by his most learned (A doctorate with Triple Honors from Sorbonne, Paris) disciple, Nataraja Guru. Another shortcoming I notice is the inconsistency in the use of lower/uppercases when referring to Self, Your, Word etc. when these refer to the Absolute. A careful reader should be able to recognize these and understand the references implied. I congratulate the translator for his tenacity and perseverance (tapas) in bringing the Guru’s work to the English-speaking world, both in India and abroad. I further appreciate the goodwill of Harper Collins to recognize the value of this translation and bring it out in such a beautiful form.

Vasanth is a continuing student of the Guru Wisdom. He resides in San Diego, California with his wife and two children. Dr. Kumar Rajappan can be contacted through email-id: kumarwayanad@gmail.com