Random Meditations Through Her 1,000 Names - VI
She is as bright as dawn reflecting a thousand rays of the sun. But far more significantly, she is the dawn of self realisation, a dawn of truth in the self.
Read part five here.
The sixth name speaks of her as Udyadbhanusahasrabha - the one who is as bright as the thousand rising suns or she who is as the luminescence of the dawn with thousand rays. This is because the term sahasra can be taken together either with the sun or with the rays of the sun. Traditional commentary makes a very significant point here that it is her vimarsa form that has been described in this name. Ananthakrishna Sastry, in his translation of the commentary of Bhaskararaya, quotes the Svacchandatantra as saying that as the self, she is prakasa and when she is the red of the dawn it is her vimarsa form. Sastry translates vimarsa as ‘secondary form’. However, vimarsa is not just that.
The real significance of the name becomes clear through the works on Kashmiri Saivism where prakasa-vimarsa is the fundamental and complete reality. Kshemaraja, the disciple of Abinavagupta, calls vimarsa 'the non-relational, immediate awareness of ‘I' and hence ‘the self-surveying of self’. So, he describes vimarsa as 'Parasakti, Paravak, Svatantrya, Aisvarya, Kartriva, Sphutatta, Sara, Hrdaya, Spanda.’ In his lecture on the comparative study of Vedanta and Advaita Saivagama of Kashmir, Dr Jaideva Singh, an authority on the subject, explains:
The all-inclusive Universal consciousness is also called Anuttara, the Highest Reality, the Absolute Cit or the Absolute-Self, the changeless principle of all changes. Siva and Sakti are not different. It is the same Absolute which from one point of view is Siva, from another Sakti. From the point of view of Prakasa, Siva is Visvottirna or transcendent to the universe. From the point of view of Vimarsa or Sakti, he is Visvamaya or immanent in the nature.Dr Jaideva Singh, <i>Banka-Bihari –Hemangini-Pal memorial lectures</i>, 1984
In verse 57 of Vijnanabhairava, the ideal of realisation that is emphasised is 'Siva-vypati' which is a fusion with Shiva who is both prakasa and vimarsa. Jaidev Singh explains that 'in this realization, the universe is not negated but seen sub specie eternitatis, under the form of the Eternal, as an expression of the vimarsa aspect of Siva.' (Vijnanabhairava or Divine Consciousness, 1979)
What is Shiva for the Saiva literature is the goddess in the Shakthic literature. So vimarsa is very important and the essential aspect of the realisation of the consciousness without which it is not complete. It may be also considered as the form that can be seen. The goddess has three forms: the sthula, sukshma and para. Of these, the sthula is the physical form, the sukshma – subtle and para is the supreme form. With red colour of the dawn the vimarsa and the sthula form of the goddess is described here.
The identification of the goddess with the dawn is very ancient in India. It comes from the Vedic times. It is prevalent throughout India across space and time.
In the 18th century, almost 250 years ago, Subramaniyan, son of Amrithalinga Iyer lived in Thirukadavur. It was the time of Sarfoji of Thanjavur. Subramaniyan was ever immersed in the meditation of Abirami – the goddess of Thirukadavur temple. Their paths crossed. That incident shall be described when we meditate upon another name. But, right now, let us say that the king felt slighted by the complete ignoring of this poor Brahmin whom different people contested as either a mystic or a mad person. A trial by fire followed and what we know is that the angered and skeptical king came to allocate rice fields from five villages to support this devotee of the goddess. His very popular work is ‘Abirami Anthathi’ – a form of poetry where every verse starts with the letter in which the previous word ends. He himself came to be called ‘Abirami Bhattar’ and incorporated the names from Sahasranama into the poetic hymn.
In the next two 250 years, this song would define Shaktha worship in Tamil Nadu, both for the general public and serious seekers. The very first verse of the Anthathi starts describing her as the ‘dawning red sun/ray’. And then the 99th verse again speaks of her as the ‘dawning sun’ associating her with the Himalayas.
The view of the rising sun is even today one of the major spiritual and tourist attractions of Kanyakumari – the southernmost end of Indian mainland and a Shakthi Peetha. That Abirami Anthathi starts with her as dawn and then provides the penultimate verse with the description of the goddess as dawn in the Himalayan context shows the entire land as the land of the goddess.
The dawn as the goddess comes to us from the Vedas themselves. Rig Veda sings of Ushas the goddess of dawn thus:
Shining Lady of Light, Dawn comes stirring to life all creatures. Now it is time to kindle the Fire. The light of Dawn scatters the shadows. Her face turned toward this far-flung world, she rises, enwrapped in bright garments. Shining with gold, with rays of light bedecked, she sends forth the world on its course. Our Lady of Light, the Eye of the Gods, as she rides her white, beautiful steed. Dawn shines apparent, bestowing on all men her store of marvelous treasure. Come with your bounty; drive away foes (kukarmas). Grant us secure and lush pastures. Disperse those who are hateful. O bountiful One, give to your singer reward.(RV: 7.77.1-4)
Almost 4,000 years, if not more after the Vedic seers, the witnessing of dawn over the Himalayan mountains made the famous Russian painter and mystic Nicolas Roerich spontaneously associate it with Ushus, the Vedic goddess of dawn. He burst into the following words:
Where can one have such joy as when the sun is upon the Himalayas, when the blue is more intense than sapphires, when from the far distance, the glaciers glitter as incomparable gems! All religions, all teachings, are synthesized in the Himalayas. The virgin of dawn, the Ushas of the ancient Vedas, is possessed of the same lofty virtues as the joyful Lakshmi. There can also be distinguished the all-vanquishing power of Vishnu. Formerly He was Narayana, the cosmic being in the depths of creation. Finally, He is seen as the god of the sun; at His smile, out of the darkness, arises the great goddess of happiness. And may we not also notice the link between Lakshmi and Maya, mother of Buddha? All great symbols, all heroes, seem to be brought close to the Himalayas as if to the highest altar, where the human spirit comes closest to divinity.
Inspired, he would produce many spectacular paintings of the Himalayan dawn.
Is there then a relation between the Vedic dawn goddess and the prakasa-vimarsa form of the goddess as the traditional commentators mention, and the Kashmiri Saivaagamas elaborate? Did the Vedic poets sing in ecstasy only the physical dawn? Sri Aurobindo, in his Secret of the Vedas, explains the real nature of Vedic dawn. This is amazingly similar to the traditional commentary regarding the name Udyadbhanusahasrabha that describes the vimarsa form of goddess, particularly when vimarsa is viewed as the process through which the illumination of the self becomes realised - in other words an inner dawn. Sri Aurobindo says:
(T)he illumining dawn of the higher or undivided Consciousness is always the dawn of the Truth; if Usha is that illumining dawn, then we are bound to find her advent frequently associated in the verses of the Rig Veda with the idea of the Truth, the Ritam. And such association we do repeatedly find. For, first of all, Usha is described as “following effectively the path of the Truth”. ... Dawn adheres to the path of the Truth and because she has this knowledge or perception she does not limit the infinity, the br.hat, of which she is the illumination. That this is the true sense of the verse is proved beyond dispute, expressly, unmistakably, by a Rik of the fifth Mandala (V.80.1) which describes Usha “of a luminous movement, vast with the Truth, supreme in (or possessed of) the Truth, bringing with her Swar.” We have the idea of the Vast, the idea of the Truth, the idea of the solar light of the world of Swar; and certainly all these notions are thus intimately and insistently associated with no mere physical Dawn! ... Finally we have the same idea described, but with the use of another word for Truth, satya ... “Dawn true in her being with the gods who are true, vast with the Gods who are vast.” (VII.75.7) ... Dawn is constantly represented as awakening to vision, perception, right movement. “The goddess,” says Gotama Rahugana,“fronts and looks upon all the worlds, the eye of vision shines with an utter wideness; awakening all life for movement she discovers speech for all that thinks,” (I.92.9). We have here a Dawn that releases life and mind into their fullest widenes ...
Thus, the dawn goddess, the goddess who starts, precedes, and completes the process of self-realisation emerges with the splendour of a thousand rays of the rising sun or thousand rising suns. She is red because that is the colour of compassion. (Saundarya Lahiri 93).