Random Meditations Through Her 1,000 Names - VI 

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:

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:

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:

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:

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).