verses of the ‘Ghanta sataka’, giving the cream of the teaching of the three main schools of Hindu Philosophy. His ‘Uma Sahasram’ is different from other compositions in that it is pasyanti vak, i.e., revealed by the Divine Mother to one who is adept in the Kundalini Yoga and in her own words. At about 8 p.m. on the evening before the dedication day, after supper, Sri Maharshi asked Sri Kavyakanta whether the dedication would have to be postponed to some other Friday as 300 verses were still to be composed to complete the thousand. But Sri Kavyakanta assured Bhagavan that he would complete the poem immediately. The scene that followed can hardly be believed by one who did not actually witness it. Sri Maharshi sat silent and in deep meditation like the silent Lord Dakshinamurthy. The eager disciples watched in tense admiration the sweet flow of divine music in Sanskrit verse as it came from the lips of the great and magnetic personality of Sri Kavyakanta. He stood there delivering the verses in an unbroken stream while disciples eagerly gathered the words and wrote them down. Oh, for the ecstasy of it all! Life is indeed blessed if only to experience those divine moments. The ‘Sahasram’ was finished in several metres - Madalekha, Pramanika, Upajati, Aryagiti, etc. For a while the disciples present enjoyed the deep ecstasy of the silence pervading the atmosphere, as Sri Kavyakanta concluded with the normal type of colophone. Then Sri Bhagavan opened His eyes and asked, “Nayana, has all I said been taken down?’’ From Sri Ganapati Muni came the ready reply and grateful response: “Bhagavan, all that Bhagavan inspired in me has been taken down!’’ It is thus clear that Sri Bhagavan inspired the final 300 verses of the ‘Uma Sahasram’ through the lips of Sri Kavyakanta, without speaking a word, as usually understood, or rather in the silence characteristic of the Silent Sage of Arunachala. It is noteworthy that whereas Sri Kavyakanta revised the first 700 verses of this monumental work some six times; he did not revise any of the last 300. This being Sri Bhagavan’s own utterance, there was no need to ‘polish them’. These 300 verses are to be considered as Sri Bhagavan’s unique contribution to Sanskrit poetry. Part Three
The Guru’s Teaching (34) The Ribhu Gita An anecdote about the translation by Bhikshu Sastri is worth relating. Deeply struck by pure Advaita of the teachings in this Gita, the translator held so steadfastly to that glorious doctrine that he denied the truth or reality of all phenomena, including the Gods themselves; he said their existence is as true only as that of the barren woman’s son, the hare’s horn and the flowers seen in the sky. Teased too much by his atheism, the manifest Gods put the translator to the test, and he lost his eyesight; only when he wrote verses in praise of Lord Nataraja was his sight restored to him. To have this punishment for daring to defy the Form-aspect (saguna) of the Formless (nirguna) Divine excused, he had to write a verse in praise of Sri Nataraja at the end of each of the 44 chapters of the Ribhu-Gita.
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