dakSiNAmUrti story

[Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian]

N. Ganesan wrote:

> Since I am on travel, can you please check for me from
> the article:
> 1) whether Dakshinamurthy form is mentioned in J. Bruce
> Long's paper?
> 2) Lord 'Siva teaching under a banyan tree - does it occur
> anywhere?
> 3) 'Siva teaching grammar.
>
> Appreciations to you for this help.

[interesting verses from cilapattikAram snipped]

Answers:

1. Yes, the form is mentioned. This is basically ennumeration of the
forms from Gopinatha Rao's book. I had given this reference earlier
also.

2. Yes to question 2 also. All forms of Dakshinamurti are mentioned as
seated under a banyan tree.

3. Yes to question 3. He recounts the legend of Panini getting the
sUtra-s from shiva. He also mentions mahAbhArata 13.17,83f which
supposedly addresses him as the originator of veda-s etc, which are
higher than grammar.

Two things I forgot to mention in my previous post:

1. sUta sa.nhitA. This text has references to DakshinAmUrti. V. Raghavan
thinks this text was written in the 800-900 CE. Dasgupta places it
earlier, around 500 CE (I think).

2. References in Kashmir Saivism: The most famous devotional songs of
utpaladeva (ca 900-950) do not mention DakshiNAmUrti. He calls shiva as
guru once, but does not use this specific name. See "Shaiva Devotional
Songs of Kashmir", C. Rhodes Bailly, SUNY Press, 1987. However,
MadhurAja Yogin, a pupil of abhinavagupta compares the latter with
DakshiNAmUrti in his dhyAnashlokaH. There isn't any description of
DakshiNAmUrti though. He just calls abhinavagupta an incarnation of
dakshiNAmUrti. See "The Triadic Heart of Siva", P. E. Muller-Ortega,
page 46, SUNY Press, 1989.

BTW, by around 800-900AD this form of Siva was accepted by various
schools, shaiva, advaita, and also vIra-shaiva, with each giving their
own interpretations of Dakshinamurti's silence, the objects in his hand,
etc :-). You might have noticed a stanza on Dakshinamurti by Paranjoti
Munivar in all Siva temples. At least, I have seen it in every Siva
temple I visited. I forget the verse now, but it has a verse which goes
something like

collAmar colli, iruntatai irunta paDi kATTi ....

collAmar colli, ofcourse referring to the "silence" of Dakshinamurti.

Rama