The Hindu : Kerala News : Taking Guru beyond Malayalam

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Sep 07, 2006

Kerala

Kerala

Taking Guru beyond Malayalam

C. Gouridasan Nair

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Sage and social reformer Sree Narayana Guru needs no introduction to Malayalis. His teachings, pithy aphorisms crafted and communicated creatively for the commoner and the thinker alike, are literally there in every Malayali mind. His advice `One Caste, One Religion, One God for Mankind', his call to `Freedom Through Knowledge' and his admonition against sale and consumption of alcohol are home truths for every Malayali. But, to the non-Malayalam speaking milieu, the Guru is but another social reformer from the South.

Visionary sage

The social reformer in him has rightly overshadowed the visionary sage deep within and his many works, evidencing his depth of vision, his felicity of language and his amazing ability to reach out to every stratum, are yet to become truly accessible to non-Malayalis in a volume that is accessible to the common man. Nataraja Guru, perhaps the most important heir to his intellectual legacy, had translated most of his 61 works and brought them out as a single volume with text and commentary unravelling the meanings encapsulated in the original.

But Nataraja Guru's translation is mostly accessible only to the academically oriented.

The National Book Trust (NBT), functioning under the Union Ministry of Human Resources, has now come forward to fill the gap with what is stated to be the first volume that brings together all the original writings of Sree Narayana Guru in English translation.

The NBT initiative is different in that it includes all but the translations and prose works done by the Guru out of the 61 works restored so far and that they are for everybody who has an ear for the words of wisdom from one of the greatest minds India has produced.

Philosophical tradition

The Guru had himself stated that he belonged to the philosophical tradition of Sankara. But, as Muni Narayana Prasad, head of the Narayana Gurukulam, Varkala, and translator of the Guru's works for the NBT volume says, Sree Narayana Guru `utilised his philosophical vision of non-duality as a formidable weapon against caste prejudices and religious feuds', the major social maladies of his time. He dreamt of a world in which human beings would live with no caste-based or religion-based prejudice. For Sree Narayana Guru, philosophy and spiritual inquiries were not divorced from life in the raw and his writings testify this with their crystalline clarity.

Revolutionary deeds

The Guru intervened in the society of his times with deeds that were revolutionary and words of wisdom communicated to all who came to him seeking solutions to their problems. His philosophical and spiritual writings were mostly about the Ultimate Reality and paths to self-realisation.

The Guru could expound his philosophy through poems written in Malayalam, Tamil and Sanskrit, with equal erudition and felicity.

For instance, here is how Sree Narayana Guru reveals the ecstatic experience of a realised soul in `Chijjadachinthanam' (Reflections on Mind and Matter - 1881): `Ten million suns rising all at once/Eclipsing earth, water, fire and all else-/Such is thy ascendant presence;/Effulgent it ever should be... ' There is much more to be read, savoured and interiorised in Muni Narayana Prasad's richest tribute to his spiritual master with `Narayana Guru: Collected Works'.

National Book Trust had brought out the Malayalam equivalent of this volume last year. The former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy had formally released the volume at the NBT-organised National Book Fair in Thiruvananthapuram in November.

Union Minister Vayalar Ravi would release the present volume at the Sree Narayana Guru Jayanti Festival at Sivagiri on Thursday. National Book Trust is getting ready to release similar volumes in Hindi, Tamil and Kannada very soon, says Rubin D'Cruz, assistant editor, NBT.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Kerala