गुरु गोबिंद दोऊ खड़े, का के लागूं पाय।
बलिहारी गुरु आपणे, गोबिंद दियो मिलाय॥
बलिहारी गुरु आपणे, गोबिंद दियो मिलाय॥
In one of his
popular couplets (dohe) Kabir wonders, “Both my guru and my god stand before
me and I wonder who I should salute first”, and clarifies saying, “I
salute my guru first as he was the one who showed me my god.”'
And it is not just
Kabir who puts his guru before his god. It is the gods themselves who put their
gurus above their own selves. Thus we find that, in their human avatars, Rama
and Krishna bow down to the advice and good counsel of their gurus. In fact the
entire text of Yoga Vasishta, is in
the form of a discourse between Rama and his guru Vasishta who instructs Rama
on the principles of Advaitha or
non-duality of the universe. Again, without the able mentorship of Sandipani,
would Krishna have evolved into the Gitacharya, as we know him, is a question
worth asking. Not to forget the Indic religion of Sikhism that is founded
entirely on the teachings of Guru Nanak.
Thus, in the Indian tradition,
we find that a guru is held higher up even above the almighty, as he is the one
who leads his/her students towards the path of enlightenment. (In Sanskrit, the
syllable ‘gu’ means darkness and the syllable ‘ru’ means to drive away).
God,
Guru & Shishya and their magical relationship
There is a very endearing story
that illustrates this magical relation that exists between god, a guru and his disciple.
In the temple town of
Thirumazhisai near the ancient Pallava city of Kanchi, lived an Alwar saint. The Alwar was an ardent devotee of Vishnu, who was the presiding deity
at the local temple. Vishnu’s idol in the temple is in a reclining posture and
the lord is seen lying on the coils of Shesh
nag immersed in his Yoga nidra.
The Alwar had a disciple named Kanikannan, who was his most favourite. Kanikannan
was as illustrious as his guru, and one day, he happened to see an old
hunchback lady deeply engrossed in cleaning the temple. Impressed with the
lady’s single-minded devotion, Kanikannan touched her back and lo! by magic,
her bent back straightened out and she turned into a beautiful young lady that
she had once been. Although deeply grateful for her physical transformation,
she, however, decided to continue her life in the services of her lord, Vishnu,
at the temple.
Hearing about the miracle
performed by Kanikannan, the ageing king of Kanchi approached the disciple and requested
that his youth too be restored so that he could indulge in worldly pleasures once again. Not surprisingly, Kanikannan refused to help saying that youth had no
use for somebody who only wanted to indulge in the base pleasures of life.
Angered by his response, the king ordered that Kanikannan be banished from his
kingdom. Kanikannan was more than happy to comply with the order.
But what’s a guru without his pupil?
So, when the Alwar got to know about
his shishya’s fate, he decided to follow suit and leave the kingdom as he
didn’t want to be away from his favourite disciple. But, he also had deep love
for the lord of the temple, whom he had tirelessly served for long. Not wanting
to leave his lord behind, he commanded Vishnu to gather his serpentine mat (Shesha nag) that he was lying on and leave
the city along with him.
And, what’s god without his
devotee? So, Vishnu implicitly obeyed the Alwar’s
orders. Gathering Adisheshan’s coils,
he set out along with the Alwar to leave
Kanchi. Soon, the three of them – god, guru and shishya left the city and reached its outskirts where they decided
to halt for the night.
Meanwhile, the city of Kanchi
descended into darkness and misfortune, as Lord Vishnu, when he vacated the
temple, had taken his consort, Shree
(Goddess Lakshmi who lived in his bosom), along with him. As a result, all the
city’s riches and wealth took flight and the kingdom soon became derelict of prosperity.
Terrified by the turn of
events, the Pallava king at once rushed to Lord Vishnu, who was camping on the
city’s outskirts, to seek forgiveness and begged him to return to Kanchi. But
the good lord replied that he had no choice in the matter and it was really up
to his devotee, the Alwar to take a
decision. Disappointed by the lord’s response, the king then approached the Alwar
and requested him to return to the city along with the lord. But the Alwar threw up his hands saying that he
had no say in the matter and if his disciple Kanikannan was willing to return
to the city, he too would gladly do so. So, the king was left with no choice
but to approach Kanikannan and seek forgiveness for his own thoughtless act.
Approached by the king
himself, Kanikannan relented, and decided to forgive him and return to Kanchi. The
guru, of course, did not want to be left behind without his disciple. So he too
decided to return. Having decided thus, he commanded his dear god to once again
fold up his serpentine bed and return to Kanchi along with him.
The trio thus returned to the
city of Kanchi, and so did Shree (prosperity) along with them!
If the Alwar was a guru truly devoted to his disciple, Cheethalai Chattanar, a Tamil poet, took his commitment to his pupils to a different level.
The
guru who punished himself for his pupils’ mistakes
Cheethalai Chattanar was the
poet who is believed to have composed ‘Manimekalai’, counted among the five
great Tamil epics and also considered the sequel to Silappathikaaram, the epic
story of Kannagi.
Legend has it that for every
mistake his pupils made, Chattanar would punish himself by striking his head
with the stylus that was used for writing on palm leaves. So his head was seen perennially
bruised with pus and blood covering it. It is said that he derived his name from
the punishment that he gave himself, ‘Chee’ meaning pus and ‘thalai’ meaning
head in Tamil.
With time, Chattanar’s students,
for fear of punishing their guru, began to learn their lessons diligently and perfectly!
Both Alwar and Chattanar were indeed
extremely dedicated gurus who held their disciples higher than themselves.
In Indian
mythology we find gurus appearing in different avatars, and not always in the form of old,
stereotypical Brahmin males. Here are some stories about some atypical gurus
who taught a valuable lesson or two in the most unconventional ways.
Some unconventional gurus
The
deity Dakshinamurthy, popular in the south, is considered an incarnation of
Shiva and is held as the Supreme Guru, the God of Ultimate Knowledge. The
iconography of Dakshinamurthy depicts Shiva, sitting in an ascetic posture
under a banyan tree, in a gesture of imparting knowledge to his disciples who
are significantly older than him. And this guru does not instruct; he remains
quiet, yet his disciples attain complete realization of the eternal truth. The sight is indeed strange, as Adi Shankaracharya
in his Dakshinamurthy Stotra points out, ‘it is indeed
peculiar to see the old disciples (sages) and their young guru (Dakshinamurthy)
sitting under the banyan tree; the guru sits in silence, but all the doubts in
the minds of his disciples are cleared.”
Indeed, the reversal of roles as depicted by a young guru
teaching his old disciples and the magical transmission of knowledge between
them is beautifully captured in Shankara’s hymns.
The idea that the age of the
guru need have no relation with his competence to teach is further reinforced
in the sthalapurana of two temples in Tamil Nadu - Kumarakkottam and Swami Malai. In Swami Malai,
the deity Murugan is depicted as a precocious child who punishes Lord Brahma
for his ignorance of the knowledge of the Brahman and takes over the job of
creation upon himself. Murugan subsequently goes on to impart knowledge of the
primordial mantra ‘Aum’ to his own father, Lord Shiva. The deity in the temple
is thus referred to as ‘Swami Nathan’ (Sanskrit) or ‘Thagappan Swami’ (Tamil) both
meaning ‘his father’s lord’.
The iconography with respect
to both these stories is very interesting. In the Swami Malai story, Murugan is
seen sitting on the lap of his father, who bows down reverently to listen to
his son’s discourse on the significance and meaning of ‘Brahman’. In the story
of Kumarakottam, Brahma Shastha or the teacher of Brahma - as Murugan is
referred to (Shastha means teacher) - is depicted as giving a knock on Brahma’s
head as a punishment for both his ignorance and vanity.
The Upanishads and the Maha Puranas
too talk about four kumaras (young boys), the mind-born sons of Brahma who live
on as children, but are considered the epitome of wisdom – the gyanis, the
yogis or the siddhas. In the Chandogya Upanishad, Santakumara instructs sage
Narada and in the Mahabharata, he is referred to as a sage who dispels all
doubts. In Buddhist mythology, we have Aushada Kumara, who is considered a Boddhisatva,
coming across as the equivalent of the Sanatkumara.
What
a householder, a butcher and a Chandala had to teach
And it was not that the guru
could only be a Brahmin or a man or that he could come only from the upper echelons
of the society. A guru was someone who opened one's eyes to the truth,
irrespective of his social standing.
There is the story of a virtuous
butcher who instructed a Brahmin, as told in the Vana Parva of the Mahabharata.
According to the story, one day, deep inside a forest, a Brahmin monk sat in deep
meditation. Unfortunately for him, his deep deliberations were disturbed by a crane perched
on the tree above him that defiled his head with its droppings. In a fit of anger,
he burnt the bird with his mere look, using his yogic powers.
Shortly after this, he came to
a household begging for alms to feed himself.
But the lady of the household was busy attending to her sick husband and
asked him to wait till she was free to give him alms. Heckled by being made to
wait, the monk threatened the lady of the house to use his yogic powers against
her. But the unperturbed lady shot back saying she was not a crane who could be
burnt down by him and that he must learn to keep his composure. Hearing her
response, the monk was shocked. How had the lady come to know of the happenings
inside the forest? The lady replied saying that she did no austerities like the
monk, but had acquired the power to read his mind by simply doing her duty to
her husband. Her unflinching and unwavering commitment to her duty vested her
with miraculous powers.
Her response humbled the monk
who realized he had a lot more to learn in the world. The lady then directed
him to an enlightened butcher, Dharma
Vyadha, in Mithila who could instruct the monk on the pursuit of dharma.
Surprised and initially unconvinced over what a lowly butcher could teach him, the
monk nevertheless approached the butcher and asked him how he could have
achieved enlightenment by doing such ‘filthy, ugly work’. To which, the butcher
responded saying, “no duty was ugly or impure, but the manner in which the work
was done decided its worth.” The detailed discourse between the butcher and the
monk is referred to as the Vyadha Gita
and has valuable insights on swadharma
(one’s duty), detached performance (nishkamya
karma) and on virtuous conduct.
The message that a guru is anybody
who has something to teach us is conveyed once again in the story of Adi Shankaracharya,
who once had to cross paths with a Chandala
in the holy city of Varanasi. As the Chandala
was an untouchable, Shankara and his disciples gestured to him to move to the
side to give way to them as they did not want his tainted presence to sully
their sacred selves.
Refusing to move immediately, the Chandala asked him, “Do you want my body or my soul to give way to
you? If the atman is the same in all, unaffected by the body, how do
differences such as Brahmana and the Chandala
arise in the non-dual existence?”
Shankara was stunned by the Chandala’s response and realized that
this was no ordinary man. Shankara accepted him as his Guru even though he was
of a low caste. Legend has it that the Chandala
was none other than Lord Shiva who had taken the form of an outcaste to drive
home a point. Shankara has composed the conversation between him and the Chandala in the form of five verses
called, Maneesha Panchakam, which
brings out the essence of Advaitha or non-duality of the universe.
Just as a householder woman, a
butcher and a Chandala assumed the
role of a guru in the above stories, there is the story where King Janaka, living
the life of a householder, still had a thing or two to teach Sage Shukha, the
son of Veda Vyasa.
The story goes that Veda
Vyasa sent his son, Shuka, for tutelage to King Janaka who was considered a brahmagyani or one who had attained
self-realisation. But, Shuka, who was an ascetic, was not convinced that the
King, mired in his hedonistic pursuits, could impart any valuable insights on brahmagyan to him. When presented before
the king, the sage asked Janaka how the king, who lived amidst all the worldly pleasures
could ever consider himself a jivan
muktha or a renunciate. To this,
Janaka responded by giving Shuka a bowl filled to the brim with milk and asked
him to carry it around the palace without spilling a drop. As instructed,
Shukha set out circumambulating the palace. His trip around the palace was filled
with various sights of sheer debauchery and self-indulgence that was
characteristic of life in the palace. But, none of these sights distracted Shukha,
as his mind was focused on carefully carrying the bowl of milk without spilling
it.
After having completed his task successfully, he returned to Janaka, who, after
acknowledging Shuka’s accomplished mission, asked him what he had seen on his
trip around the palace. Shukha replied saying that he had not paid any
attention to any of the sights as his mind was focused on the task given to
him. Hearing this, Janaka responded saying that this was exactly how he lived
his own life too. Despite living a life of royalty, he kept his mind focused on
carrying out his duties justly and dispassionately, without allowing himself to
be swayed by the revelry around him.
Hearing Janaka’s reply, Shuka
bowed down to him and accepted him as his guru and went on to acquire brahmagyan from him. The discourse that Janaka
gave Shuka is found in the Maha Upanishad.
Of course, the list of
unconventional gurus is long and there are stories of Hemalekha (in Tripura Rahasya) and Chudala (In Yoga Vasishta) who took their pleasure-seeking
husbands on the path of brahmagyan
and how Yama, the lord of death instructed Nachiketas on the nature of the
soul and the brahman (in Kathopanishad). And then, there are stories
about the eccentric Zen masters who chose very unconventional means to teach
life lessons to their pupils.
But, will keep them for later.
Now, to end with a story on one of the greatest teachers India has ever had…the
Buddha.
The Buddha’s
silence
Once, a disciple of the Buddha
approached him with the question, “Is there a self?” But, the Buddha did not answer.
Eliciting no response from his teacher, the disciple quizzed on, “Does that
mean, there is no self?” To this question too, the Buddha remained silent. Frustrated
by the absence of any response from his teacher, the disciple walked away. After
he had left, Ananda, another of Buddha’s pupils asked him why the Buddha had remained
silent and not answered the questions. Buddha responded saying, “if I had
responded with a ‘yes’ to the question if there was a self, I would have been
siding with the eternalists and if I had answered with a ‘no’ I would have been
siding with the nihilists. And if I had answered with a ‘yes’ my answer would
have been inconsistent with the knowledge that there is no self and if I had
answered ‘no’ I would have confused the disciple who believes that there is a
self. And that is why I chose to remain silent, and the disciple is better off
with no answers from me.”
And so it is that a guru need
not always teach through instructions, sometimes, the silence of the guru can be
itself be a great teaching!
On
what kind of disciples befitted these great gurus… in my next blog!
