13. Sattanatha Bhatta! meditate

Verse 13

சாத்திரங்கள் ஓதுகின்ற சட்டநாத பட்டரே!

வேர்த்துஇரைப்பு வந்தபோது வேதம்வந்து உதவுமோ?

மாத்திரைப்போ தும்உளே யறிந்துதொக்க வல்லீரேல்

சாத்திரப்பை நோய்கள்ஏது? சத்திமுத்தி சித்தியே!

Translation:

Sattanātha Bhatta who recites the scriptures!

Will the Vedas come to help when sweating and wheezing occurs (at the time of death)?

If you are capable of realizing and contemplating inside even for a moment

Where are the diseases of scriptural baggage? Only power, liberation, attainment!

Commentary:

            Civavākkiyar ridicules performing rituals mindlessly. Here he reprimands the practice of mindlessly reciting scriptures.  He says that when wheezing and sweating occurs, portending death, mere scriptural knowledge will not help.  One needs pills, māttirai.  Probably, he makes a pun on this word by saying that if at least for a māttirai, a moment, one realizes and contemplates on the Divine, the diseases caused by the baggage of empty scriptural knowledge will not trouble one.  One will be bestowed with true power, liberations and siddhi.  Cittam, the limited knowledge, will become citti or supreme consciousness.

Civavākkiyar has humorously addressed the listener as Satta nātha Bhatta.  This term means a traditionalist who is ruled by the rule book or sattam or one who thinks he is the lord of the rules, nātha of sattam or one who swears by the scriptures.

Civavākkiyar, being a Siddha, is a free thinker and a revolutionary who refuses to allow himself to be carried along by any religion, scripture or ritual.  

             “A Siddha is one who has burnt the śāstras” (Agathiyar Jnanam-2 verse 5, Bhadragiriyar verse 155).  This is to be interpretted not in the literal sense but in the sense that for a jnāni or a realized soul, “the Vedas are not Vedas” (Agathiyar Jnanam-1 verse 7, Bhadragiriyar verse 147). 

            A Siddha is one who has attained a stage of realization where he is not bound by the injunctions of the śāstras, one who has gone beyond the Vedas.  The Vedas and the śāstras (not only religious texts but also texts on science, politics, medicines etc.) are only guiding posts showing the direction where one has to go.  The Siddhas say that there is no point in hanging on to the guide-post. A traveler, if he wants to reach the destination, should go beyond the guide posts and travel in the direction shown by them. In this context, one is reminded of Tirumular’s question: when one has realized “That” which is beyond worship, what is the use of spiritual education and śāstras (mandiram 3052). One must refer also to the verses of Civavākkiyar 136, 178 and 454, which convey a similar message and also the Christian gospel “The letter killeth, the spirit giveth life”. 

            The Siddhas wanted to convey the spiritual experiences directly to the people without the medium of the śāstras and rituals.  There is always a wide gulf between words and the experiences they describe. To seek enlightenment in words and ideas is like expecting the right of a menu card to reach and satisfy the inner processes of a hungry man.  A śāstra is like a finger pointing to the moon; it would be a calamity if one took the finger for the moon.  The rationalists rejoice at the expression of the Siddhas that one should burn the śāstras.  It is not the intention of the Siddhas to burn the śāstras or destroy the temples.  The only thing that the Siddhas want is that one should be free from the unrealized description of truth.  To them a description can never in itself transmit the experience. The word “rose” by itself will not smell sweet!

The Tamil Siddhas are not atheists; their temper is devout; they are “pious rebels” inside the field of religion.  In the spiritual journey the motto is: Have less scriptural baggage and make spiritual travel a pleasure!