Of all the saints, Prabhudeva stands out as the outstanding mystic of that epoch. His contemporary saints looked up to him with respect and reverence for spiritual guidance, enlightenment, philosophical explanations and mystical matters. Just as Socrates is the central figure of Plato's dialogues, so Prabhu is a pivotal force, nay the Shining Sun of Righteousness, around who rotate the rest of the planets (Sharanas) of the Shunya-Sampadane. This is why it is, in fact, correct to say that the Shunya-Sampadanedeserves to be called Prabhu's Dialogues.
Sri Siddharameshwar of Solapur
Prabhu, arriving at Sonnalige, finds Siddharamayya busy with philantropic work. With a view to redirecting his efforts into better channels, Prabhu proposes to meet him. Ridiculing Siddharamayya's anxiety to build temples, canals and tanks, he declares that he should rather have built a spiritual tank in his heart and filled it with the essence of beatific joy, unless he was a mason rather than a true yogi. When Siddharamayya, resenting the insult, opens his third eye, Prabhu is seen to be immune to all such fire. However, at the same time being moved to compassion, he relates to Siddharamayya the greatness of Sharanas:
Just because you have Hara's grace,
Is it wise to rub with His devotees?
For every wonder-monger, lo!
Are greater wonder-makers here!
If you but open your forehead eye,
Another opens it on his foot...
Peerless are Guheshvara's devotees!
At the same time, Prabhu opens the eye in the sole of his foot and an extraordinary light is seen spreading all around. Prabhu says:
Guheshvara, if the light of Thy knowledge
Be kindled, the target shall be
The heart of Siddharamayya, Shiva's yogi.
This touches Siddharamayya's heart and he, realising his temerity, repents. He nearly believes that Prabhu is no other than Kapilasiddha Mallikarjuna himself:
I did not know it was you, O Lord!
Not knowing it was you, I agonised in flesh
And lo! I'm perishing, O Lord!
Yet he is not ready to make his surrender:
He'd wake up in my mind the sense
Of unseeing insipience
In failing to know Him when he came.
Now, having found Him, I will place
Him in my heart: Kapilasiddha Mallikarjuna.
His disciples recognise the true character of Prabhu and wonder how their master could placate him:
O God, he stands without shadow,
He walks without footprints,
He is disembodied though in body.
In what manner will you, then,
Soothe his anger and make him
Come?
But Siddharamayya knows his answer:
I will become what He's become;
I will stand the height He stands;
I will renounce what He renounced;
I will be ever upon His trail;
I will place my life into His hands,
Until I am made one with Him -
Kapilasiddha Mallikarjuna.
He is ready to go even further to make his peace with Prabhu:
With my brow's coolness will I spray
The feet of Him who has set
The sole's anger in the heart.
With my brow's nectar will I clear
The heart of Him who is called
Kapilasiddha Mallikarjuna.
As he attains calm through surrender, an ineffable joy fills his heart, his very words become a prayer. He feels a great change come over him:
When once my head has touched Thy feet,
O Lord, why do you look in me
For good and ill, virtue and vice?
His gratitude breaks out into a hymn of extravagant praise:
He who is known as Hari knows not Thy feet;
He who is known as Brahma knows not Thy crown;
Neither the ascetic nor the dedicated soul,
Nay, not the sages know Thy mystery.
The gods, not one, can measure up Thy hair,
Nor myriad suns can gaze upon Thy light:
Then, O Kapilasiddha Mallikarjuna,
How can I comprehend Thee, O my Lord?
He acknowledges his enormous debt to Prabhu's intervention:
Thou art the cause that I remember;
Thou art the cause that I forget;
Thou art my evil and my good.
Hearken, O Lord, unto my prayer!
Lort, it's not I remember Thee:
If I remember Thee, it's but through Thee!
O Kapilasiddha Mallikarjuna,
Have mercy on me!
His self-surrender and submission to his new Master is so complete that he exclaims:
Look you, Kapilasiddha Mallikarjuna!
Unclasp my hands and fling me away,
I will not leave Thy feet!
Chop me limb-meal and scatter me about,
I will not leave Thy feet!
Let my body perish, I will bear Thee
Aloft upon my soul!
Prabhu is now convinced that Siddharamayya has reached the first stage of his transformation and he is resolved to guide him through the remaining stages. He warns him that the Absolute cannot be attained by mere praise. He must be approached by special means:
You cannot grasp Him, as you can
Those who have donned the flesh.
He does not move this way and that,
As breathing mortals do.
You cannot size Him up with eyes,
Nor measure Him with ears.
When Siddharamayya pleads that his former way was followed in simple faith:
Thou art not fond of the Vedas, good Sir,
Thou art not fond of the Scriptures, too,
Thou dost not love the music of hymns;
Deliverance and union mean little to Thee:
None can attain Thee in this wise.
Thinking Tou wert fond of devotion, Lord
I resorted to Thee: protect me now,
Kapilasiddha Mallikarjuna!
Prabhu sees in this a chance to remove Siddharamayya's erroneous notions about Bhakti. So he says:
He is truly devout
Who, unaware of self,
Has flung all else away:
To such Shiva responds!
Lip-homage without works
Is not the way to the goal;
That's not the way at all
Of making Shiva respond.
Will our Guheshvaralinga respond
To one who spits fire
In a state of forgetfulness,
And the moment knowledge comes,
Says, Here I lie at Thy feet?
Now at last Siddharamayya's submission is complete:
Lo, my anger is but Thy look:
Myself, I am nothing worth!
What price my knowledge, Lord, before
The splendour of Thy Light?
My true devotion is but Thy face;
My false devotion is also Thy face:
Without Thee there's no freedom for me,
O Kapilasiddha Mallikarjunatha!
And yet Prabhu does not seem to be satisfied, for he remarks:
By fostering passion, how can you serve
The Passionless?
If, having known the majesty
Of your holy guest,
You do not give him all your faith
Undimmed by doubt,
Lo, our Guheshvaralinga
Wavers and goes!
and makes as if to leave the place.
Siddharamayya pleads and protests his affection:
Though you may wriggle out from my hands,
Could you wriggle out from my heart?
and requests Prabhu to come to his solitary abode and bless him. Prabhu finds in this invitation an opportunity to deprecate Siddharamayya's
attachment to his abode:
Why should a Sharana fear to be
Alone and separate,
If, knowing that the guest has come
And what his greatness is,
He can unite with him?
When in you dwells the Absolute beyond
Space, what space is there for Guheshvaralinga
To come within?
Prabhu taunts him with his recent show of strength:
But if, at sight of him, he spits forth fire
Where is the bond of servant and the Lord?
This moves Siddharamayya to intense grief and penitence and to further protestation of his love and faith:
O Lord,
I have endured the burden of pride
And thoughtlessly, alas, am lost!
Lord, what fool was I to lose,
And then repenting, seek again!
O Kapilasiddha Mallinatha,
Thou art my reason and resort:
Do Thou with me as Thou wilt!
and prostrates himself at Prabhu's feet in ultimate surrender.
Prabhu's heart is now touched, and he raises Siddharamayya up as he says:
I held my tongue, not meaning to speak,
Seeing your mind was still in the world;
Now that you sob in fear and trembling
And are prostrated at my feet,
The water from your eyes is as
Water to wash my feet!
Siddharamayya is hereupon overwhelmed with joy and expresses his gratitude.
Now that Siddharamayya's heart is illumined with true devotion, Prabhu expresses his admiration for Siddharamayya as an accomplished Shivayogi:
The Shivayogi who has attained the Truth
And, in communion, dwells within Thee!
In your body there's no sense;
In your breath there's no desire;
In your will no error dwells;
Through your nine channels moves no air.
Having seen your consciousness
Lost in the Brahmarandhra,
O Siddharamayya, Shivayogi,
Guheshvara's own devotee,
My wheel of birth has come to a stand!
and speaks of his identification with Parashiva in the thousand-petalled lotus.
There follows a discussion on body and bodilessness. Siddharamayya claims that Prabhu alone possesses the art of undoing the stitch of body and breath, and so must leave his entire burden in Prabhu's hands:
If you erase my inmost sins
And render me like unto you,
I live, there being nowhere else
Where I can go!
Prabhu is pleased at this and agrees to visit Siddharamayya's solitary retreat:
Come now, Siddharamayya, let me see
This great abode of happiness and peace.
Siddharamayya is faced with a problem which relates to the art of forgetting even the consciousness of the Absolute. So Prabhu proceeds to explain the nature of the absolute trance. Siddharamayya proposes to abide in it as water absorbed by a red-hot iron. Prabhu, however, advises him to be rather like a crystal of kamphor consumed by fire.
There is one more question vexing Siddharamayya. How is it that Prabhu, who can bestow the spaceless trance upon others, himself wears Linga on his person? Prabhu explains:
Having focussed on the Form enthroned
Both mind and will, both thought and sight, -
Lest Linga-consciousness, possessing mind,
Should fall a prey to untranquil thought,-
The devotee has won the unwinking gaze
And lost all consciousness of In and Out.
which means that through the symbol must the symbol be destroyed. Here Prabhu could have installed the Ishtalinga on Siddharamayya's person, but prefers that he should have it from Sangana Basavanna. So Siddharamayya is ready to proceed to Kalyana.
Note:
Some attempts have been made in recent times to publish the original Shunyasampadane in Kannada; but for the benefit of non-Kannada readers, a
comprehensive edition with an English translation of each vachana and an introduction in English was felt to be necessary. This suggestion was,
in fact, made by Shri Kumarswamiji of Navakalyanamath of Dharwar. He also offered to help translate these vachanas into English and to write a
general introduction to the work. At that time, he was Honorary Professor of Veerashaiva Philosophy at the University; but owing to pressure of
other commitments he had to give up the teaching work in the University and also that of editing Shunyasampadane as he originally desired to do.
So an independent committee consisting of Dr. S.C. Nandimath, Prof. Armando Menezes and Dr. R. C. Hiremath was formed. This committee has now
completed the first volume of the work, consisting of the first three chapters of the Shunyasampadane. The remaining chapters will be published
in about five further volumes in the course of the next year or so.
Karnatak University
Dharwar, July 15, 1965
This article 'Shunya Sampadane - Sampadane of Allama Prabhu' is taken from SHUNYASAMPADANE, Volume I, 1965, KARNATAK UNIVERSITY, DHARWAD.
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