silentwalk: Nirvaana_Shatakam_1

Sunday, June 19, 2005

Nirvaana_Shatakam_1

I am starting initially with the 'Nirvaana_Shatakam' of Adi Shankaracharya

"Nirvaana"= The mental state of absolute peace, tranquility, freedom and joy
"Shatakam"= A bunch of 6 verses, usually of 4 lines each.
It is also called "Atma Shatakam"....Atma=Self

Here is a short but interesting story about it.

A young boy was wandering in search of his Guru (The spiritual teacher) in the Vindhya mountain region(which is in India). He wanted to cross the river Narmada, which was suddenly in a spate of floods. The boy thought for a moment and started praying. With his special yogic powers, he collected the entire flood waters in his small Kamadal (a small copper vessel). A senior sage was watching the whole scene. He was greatly astonished to see the courage and wisdom of this boy. He was prompted to ask the boy "who are you". The answer to that question from this boy was "Nirvaana-Shatakam". The boy was none other than Adi Shankara. The sage was none other than Govinda Bhagavadpaada, whom exactly the boy was searching for. Shankara was only 8 years old at that time.

"Nirvaana-Shatakam" is precisely a crash course of "Advaita Vedanta"

posted by Shantisudha @ 4:05 am

5 Comments:

At 2:12 am, June 21, 2005, Anonymous Anonymous said...

BTW, Is it a shtakam or a shatkam? And where is the crash course? Hope to see your post on it. In short, It speaks of raising yourself to the all-joyful level.

 
At 2:35 am, June 21, 2005, Blogger Shantisudha said...

It is Shatakam. Shatak = 6
Actually to distigwish between the real pronounciation according to me the English language is inadequate. or it will be good if anybody can throw a light on it.

Actually crash course is there if you read the "Nirvana Shatakam" and understand it. It will not be in my post. I will never dare to do that as I am well aware that I am not capable of it. If anybody wishes I can just type the verses in my post.

 
At 8:03 am, June 21, 2005, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well, as you rightly said, the english spellings are funny. Shata means 100. An adaptation should have been shatkam. There are ways to distinguish phonetic sounds using english alphabet, for example ta (T) and tha (t).

I think somebody capable of claiming that the six verses of nirvana is a crash course would probably be the best person to point out her opinions and experience why it is so.

There is nothing that a human being is not capable of.

 
At 4:51 pm, June 21, 2005, Blogger Shantisudha said...

In fact I should not say a crash course of Adwita Vedanta (AV) because it is not as easy to do a crash course for AV so I must correct myself. It is a crash course of introduction to AV for all of us and can be something more who have attained some depth in .....

 
At 5:15 am, June 24, 2005, Blogger Shantisudha said...

Dear K,
The difference for the meaning 6 or 100 doesn't lie in the alphabet 'ta' or 't'. The alphabet which is making the difference is the 'Sha' which is written in two ways for different words in Devanagari and have different prononciation in Sanskrit.

 

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