South Indian Philosophic Poems

South Indian Philosophic Poems

A Comparative Study

Thirumoolar Vs. Wordsworth on Immortal Soul

and

Annamayya Vs. Shakespeare on Life as Drama

March 15, 2020

Ravindranath Pandian

Introduction

In this article I wish to compare two South Indian philosophic poems with two English philosophic poems. The pairs of poems selected for comparison are as follows.

Two poems are compared on the subject of “Immortality of Soul”:

Poem 1 “Thirmanthiram Song 115” in Tamil by Thirumoolar

Poem 2 “Immortality Ode” by William Wordsworth (April 7, 1770 – April 23, 1850)

Two other poems are compared on the subject of “Life as a Drama”:

Poem 1 “Nanati Brathuku Natakamu” in Telugu by Annamayya (May 22, 1408 - April 4, 1503)

Poem 2 “All the World is a Stage” by William Shakespeare (April 1564 - April 23, 1616)

Thirumoolar was a yogi and poet who lived, according to many scholars, several centuries before Christ and according to a few others in the sixth century CE. He composed 3000 philosophic songs in Tamil called Thirmandhiram, from which song No. 115, which analyzes the relationship between God, The Soul and the World, has been chosen for this study.

While Thirumoolar wrote only verse, Annamayya wrote lyrics and composed music. Both their poems are crisp, lucid and use rhyming words. Although both used powerful poetry to convey their messages Annamayya conveyed his additional message through music, like other South Indian composers. The meaning partly was in the tune or raga. The poem “Nanati” was composed in the raga Revathy, known for its capability to represent compassion and piety. This song has become popular in India, sung in Carnatic music concerts. The meaning of the song is discussed in philosophical discourses.

Annamayya’s notations are not available now. Only the lyrics, inscribed in copper plates, were discovered in the 19th century. About 1000 of the discovered songs were set to fitting musical tunes by Dr. Sripada Pinakini (1913-2013) his four disciples. It was one of these disciples, an acclaimed vocalist Nedunuri Krishnamurthy (1927-2014) who set tune to “Nanati” and won Sangitha Kalanidhi Award for it; for all practical purposes he was the music composer of Annamayya’s “Nanati” lyrics. Nedunuri and MS Subbulakshmi (1916-2004) sang this song in their concerts, popularized it and established the Annamayya tradition.

Thirumoolar and Wordsworth: The Immortal Soul

Thirumanthiram song No. 115 has four lines, like all Thirumantiram songs.

Thirumanthiram 115 is transliterated below:-

Pathy pasu pasam ena pahar moonril

Pathy inaipol pasu pasam anathi

Pathy inai sentranuga pasu pasam

Pathy anugil pasu pasam nillave

The broad meaning of the song is as follows:

“The soul is immortal. It is born again, and again till it snaps all its bonds with the world as it reaches God.

The soul is born again because of its kanmam (same as karma as used in Buddhism), the sum total of the effects of good and bad deeds done in previous and present births. Good deeds liberate the soul and bad deeds bind the soul.

Another reason for rebirth is the attachment of soul with material things or maya. Maya is a term most are familiar with. The Oxford dictionary says maya is a Sanskrit word which means to create. All the things that are created, that appear, exist and disappear are maya. Maya is inanimate, a raw material from which worldly things are created; to favor this interpretation the word maya in Sanskrit means to create. More commonly maya is associated with illusion which means a false perception that makes one see things which do not really exist and also a blind perception that fails to see reality.

There is one more undesirable thing (malam) is ignorance and its consequences: darkness, evil nature and ego.

The above three undesirable things, together, are called ‘Pasam’.”

Thirumoolar makes some special observations. When God comes near the soul all its bonds break automatically. Some scholars insist that without God’s kind intervention it is impossible to break the bonds.

Pathy or God, has a unique meaning in Thirumoolar; it is the supreme power to which all beings integrate. Descending into a lower state, God can appear in many forms according to the need. Thirumoolar calls this supreme state as Sivam. The term Pathy refers to Sivam and can be applied to all religions. It may be recalled that Annamayya calls this by another term, “Para Brahmmam.”

Thirumoolar says God is one (onre kulam oruvane thevan). Annamayya says Para-Brahmmam (God) is one in his famous song “Brahmmam Okate.” Both the saints are for unity and against castes as they speak out in these two songs.

Thirumoolar’s view of God as a philosophical state is best seen in his definition “Anbe sivam” which means God is love (Thirumathiram 270)

The term Pasu applies to all living beings that includes men, animals, insects and plants and all the rest that have life. All living beings aim at salvation. All living beings deserve love.

Thirumoolar also calls Pathy Pasu Pasam, the three things, as anathi, which means without beginning or end. This is a subject for heated discussions on the philosophy of Thirumoolar. This reminds us of the coexistence of Satan and God in Christianity.

Wordsworth’s Immortality Ode (1804) is a longer poem with ten stanzas. In stanza 5 he goes beyond nostalgia, love for childhood and nature – the well-known attributes of a member of the romanticist movement and enters the area of philosophy. He traces the existence of soul before birth and says it comes from God and the infant child remembers the glory of Heaven. As the child grows the connection is lost; the magic dies.

Stanza 5, Lines 59 – 67

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:         

The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,        60

Hath had elsewhere its setting,

And cometh from afar: 

Not in entire forgetfulness,       

And not in utter nakedness,    

But trailing clouds of glory do we come  65

From God, who is our home:    

Heaven lies about us in our infancy!   

Wordsworth reflects a Platonic idea of existence of soul before life and after death, and the reality of rebirth. Alongside Plato (428-348 BC), Socrates (470-399 BC) too believed that the soul is immortal.

In stanza 8 he calls the child a philosopher; as the child grows it gets lost in darkness. The child is no longer free but is bound. This reminds us of Thirumoolar’s pasam.

Stanza 8, Lines 109 - 133

Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie      

Thy soul's immensity;                                                 110

Thou best philosopher, who yet dost keep       

Thy heritage, thou eye among the blind,          

That, deaf and silent, read'st the eternal deep,

Haunted for ever by the eternal mind,—          

Mighty prophet! Seer blest!                                         115

Wordsworth’s model includes life before and after death. Though he does not explicitly acknowledge rebirth he agrees that the world is a bondage. Elsewhere he laments “The world is too much with us”. He hates materialism, which is maya in Thirumoolar. Wordsworthian journey of life starts with the infant who comes from his home the God; the new born remembers heavenly glory, has transcendental vision and is a philosopher and a blessed seer. The child functions in a different, higher level. As the child grows his memory of heaven fades, he loses his power. As the child matures the prison of earthly life closes in. And soon he forgets the glorious past, and the soul nostalgically yearns the eternal bliss. The soul in the man hopes to see external bliss again by breaking the bond through death.

If we see Wordsworth’s poem in the light of Thirumoolar, life is a journey that prepares for eternity. In Wordsworth’s vision the soul in a newborn baby, Pasu, longs to be with God and feels uncomfortable with Earthly world. The soul detests Earth till the child grows and is acclimatized to this world. Wordsworth’s man longs for the reunion of soul with God. Wordsworth’s child, the new born, connected with God, Pathy, and saw a world “Apparalled in celestial light (Stanza 1 Line 4)”. When the soul connects with material world, Pasam, the man feels “It is not now as it hath been of yore;— / Turn wheresoe'er I may, / By night or day. / The things which I have seen I now can see no more.” ( Stanza 1, Lines 6 – 9 )

No other poet has asserted that a man in his lifetime, though at the beginning, can realize pre-existence naturally. No one has reported what Wordsworth has recalled. South Indian philosophers would recommend years of meditation and prayers to attain the Wordsworthian new born baby’s philosophic level.

Annamayya and Shakespeare: The Drama of Life

Annamayya’s song originally has three stanzas but only two stanzas and the pallavi are sung in concerts. A transliteration of the song is given in this article.

Pallavi

naanaati bratuku natakamu

kanaka kannadi kaivalyamu

The broad meaning of the above pallavi (opening lines):  “Life with its four stages, as we see, is a drama”.

The word nanati has two meanings, ‘everyday’ and ‘four days’. Every day we play a drama is the first meaning. We play drama through the four stages of life is the second meaning. 

(In stage dances of the song ‘nanati’ the dancers play out the four stages of human life to illustrate the first line: childhood, boyhood, youth and old age). 

“What is experienced and seen as life is not true. It is an imitation (as in Wordsworth), a drama, a pretention. Truth exists beyond the physically seen materialistic world; knowing that far away truth is salvation.”

It is recurring theme in Annamayya in several of his songs that wisdom leads one to salvation while ignorance leads one to bondage. He considered bondage as the opposite of salvation.

Stanza 1

puttutayu nijamu povutayu nijamu

natta nadi mee pani natakamu

yetta neduta galadi prapanchamu

katta kadapatidi kaivalyamu

The broad meaning of stanza 1 is: “Birth is a palpably obvious truth; so is death. Both are the definitive extremities of life. Between these two, in the middle, our job is to play a drama, fictitious and contrived. We speak out a script and play our predefined move but pretend to be original and in control. The vast universe stretches before us as a concrete entity which we can see with physical eye. But we do not see with our spiritual eye and see beyond space and time, beyond the cosmos, where lies truth, salvation or fulfilment, barely visible to us.”

Stanza 2:

tegadhu paapamu teeradhu punyamu

nagi nagi kaalamu natakamu

yeguvale shree venkateshvaru delithe

gaganamu meedidi kaivalyamu

In the first two lines of stanza 2 he says: “Our sins do not diminish while our virtues do not multiply. We struggle to free ourselves from the negative consequences of our sins but we are trapped and not able to free ourselves from the grip of our sins. We have a big list of the good things we should do but what we accomplish is only a part of the list. The list of accomplished good things is never complete; it never grows. There is always something good yet to be done. Though our priority should be addressing these two problems, we are engaged in a drama, seeking fun and laughter assuming a playful mood. Positioned between the good and the bad we play a laughable drama. We waste our time in enacting entertaining dramas.”

Annamayya takes a strong philosophic stand and says ‘we do not live a life but stage a play’. This drama is far removed from reality but, sadly, we are not aware of the fact it is a drama. We are not what we seem to be in the stage. Hence we attach ourselves to the story and suffer. If we realize it as a drama we will be detached and keep a space between us and the activities and see the big, hidden truth.

The last two lines of stanza 2 suggest that the hidden truth remains near God, up above the cosmos. Mention of God’s name as Venkateshwaru poses a difficulty to philosophers who try to extract the philosophy of Annamayya and seek universal application. In sharp contrast, in the earlier lines God is neither mentioned, much less named, and the content is universal.

It may be recalled that in song 115 Thirumoolar does not name God; he just says “Pathy” which means Lord. However elsewhere Thirumoolar mentions the name Sivam. But Thirumoolar’s Sivam is a state of supreme energy without any physical form. For all practical purposes Thirumoolar’s Tamil word “Sivam” can be translated as God. That said, Thirumoolar lends himself for universal reference.

Giving names of God restricts the application of ideas to a particular religion and removes the universal appeal of an otherwise universal philosophy. Most composers in South India sang the glory of one God or the other with specific names.

A case in point is the way four composers sang their Gods. Baktha Ramadas sang the praise of God Rama who has a temple in Badrachalam. Annamayya sang the praise of  Venkateshwaru who has a temple in Thirupathy. Thiaygaraja sang the praise of Thyagaraja. Diskshitar sand Rama in Sreerangam. All these Gods belong to the same Vaishnavite religion but the composers drew lines around themselves and had fiercely local perspectives.

When we compare philosophies of these composers we are constrained to look at the bigger message given by them that can transcend the narrow boundaries of religion. We are constrained to filter out narrow thoughts and take only the philosophical parts of their messages. In this sense Annamayya has a great philosophic content in his poems that stands out. Likewise there is great philosophic content in Thirumoolar.

However there is a significant difference between Annamayya’s composition and Thirumoolar’s poetry. That is really the difference between a poem and a musical composition.

Poetry kindles imagination. Annamayya’s poetry is so great that the reader will see meanings of life hitherto unseen. The experience of reading his poem is like gaining a hill top view of a city. The lyrical quality of Annamayya’s poem is, beyond doubt, supreme and awe inspiring. The poetic beauty of Annamayya’s lines is the best in South India. But listening to the musical form of the poem allows one to soar even higher; poetry is a platform from which the music of the song takes off to the skies.  In a musical composition half the value comes from the tunes and the musical structure.

Great composers ascribe their work, with great humility, to intuition and divine blessing. Great composers agree that “in good poetry there is a hidden tune. The composer just brings it out.” When two philosophic poems have content with equal merit, the one which is set to music will go places. Music easily enjoys more audience. More people listen to Annamayya in the South India. Thirumoolar is less known to the general public.

Now let us look at Shakespeare’s poem. Shakespeare calls life as a stage in a satirical sense in his play “As You Like It”:

“All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;

They have their exits and entrances,”

These lines resonate stanza 1 of Annamayya’s ‘nanati’. Entrance and exit refer to birth and death, both controlled by someone else. The term ‘merely actors’ suggests a helpless submission to destiny. The stage is a metaphor. The first line is quoted by ever so many authors, speakers and politicians and has become a philosophic idiom of the entire world. As players we have predefined roles and the events in our life are predictable episodes of a predefined plot. That life is a stage has remained a metaphor in the western thought for a long time. In fact it has been said by many before Shakespeare. For example, Juvenal, the first century Roman poet, had said, “All of Greece is a stage, and every Greek is an actor” in his satirical poem.

Shakespeare recognizes seven phases or roles: infant, unwilling schoolboy, lover, soldier, judge, old age, and the dying man. However, Indian philosophy recognizes four; “Nanati” also refers to four phases. Shakespeare was perhaps influenced by a theological compulsion to form a group of seven, such as seven deadly sins mentioned by Christianity. His seven stages have become archaic leaving us with a core message: “life has predictable phases that a player cannot escape.”

Shakespeare’s play is a comedy and the soliloquy painted a comic picture of life. Annamayya’s view that life is a drama is more serious and earnest; in his poem Annamayya reiterates this message in all his stanzas. The idea is repeated in different flavors and meanings. Annamayya does not speak of actors but sees the larger picture of drama. Also, it may be noted, Annamayya’s lines are short and crisp with a catchy rhyme and leaves much to the imagination of the reader.

Wordsworth too touches this concept. In stanza 7 of his Immortality Ode one can find this. He names the child as “The little actor” who learns to speak “dialogues of business, love, or strife”. Like Annamayya, he calls the “stage” as “humorous”. Further, the child learns to “endlessly imitate” till old age. Wordsworth calls life as a stage and an imitation.

Shakespeare is first a playwright and then a poet who wrote sonnets. His treatment of the subject was tuned to appeal to the audience of his times and his description of the seven stages of life, picturesque as they are, was set in the context of a play. Wordsworth on the other hand went into details. In fact after writing the first four stanzas he took two years to write the remaining seven.

Annamayya probably included hypocrisy and pretension in the meaning of drama. But Shakespeare lets fate prevail upon free will. His stage involves just preplanned actions and predefined scripts. Like the director of the play controls the actors God controls us, the actors. Every action is preordained. Every act comes to pass according to prophesy or destiny. Characters enter the scene and exit it as willed by the controller and likewise, people enter our lives and leave us as dictated by God. Shakespeare recognizes the control physiology has on the life cycle phases of man as illustrated strongly by the seven stages. Each stage is also enveloped by the local custom, again not as per the will of the actor but according to the dictates of culture. Controlled by God and culture, the seven stages come to pass.

Concluding Remarks

It is heartening to see how great philosophers have common thinking though separated by continents and centuries of time.

References

1.        Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

2.        All the world’s a stage BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (from the play As You Like It, spoken by Jaques)