Harināma Kīrtanam · Verse 17

The seventeenth verse holds the simplest possible instruction in the work. The illusion that has come, to make it go: there is no better counsel in this world for the soul than reciting Hari, Krishna, Govinda, Rāma, or any divine name. Not one name is superior or inferior to another. The verse is the work's plainest nāma-mahimā, glorification of the Name, given without ornament. Krishna Priya names four saints in her gloss as witnesses to this teaching: Poonthanam, Sadāśiva Brahmendra, Tulasīdās, and Caitanya Mahāprabhu. The verse asks no other practice. It says only: when illusion arises, recite the Name. Any name. The Name is what dissolves the illusion the world has just produced.

If you have come to this verse with a complicated practice that has not worked, with a long search through books and methods, the verse is gentler than the search. The work has given verse after verse of philosophy. This verse strips it back. Recite the Name. The illusion will go.

The Living Words

Eevanna mōham agalepōvatinu. For the illusion that has presently come to go away. Eevanna is that which has come; mōham is illusion, delusion; agale-pōvuka is to go far, to leave. The verse opens by acknowledging that the illusion is here, in this very moment.

Punar eevannam ulla oru upadeśam illa ulakil. Again, there is no other instruction like this in the world. Punar is again; upadeśam is the close-teaching (the same word verse 10 used). The verse claims, with confidence, that no other instruction matches this one.

Jīvannu, Kṛṣṇa Hari Govinda Rāma tiru-nāmaṅgaḷ onn ozhige. For the soul, the divine names Kṛṣṇa, Hari, Govinda, Rāma, not one less than another. Jīvannu is for the soul; tiru is holy, divine; nāmaṅgaḷ is names; onn ozhige is not one inferior to another. The verse explicitly names four divine names and explicitly says no name is greater or smaller.

Scripture References

The Heart of It

Why, after sixteen verses of philosophy, does Ezhuthachan stop and say the only counsel is to recite the Name?

Because the philosophy is for the moment when the seeker is steady. The Name is for the moment when the illusion has come. Eevanna mōham: the illusion that has just now arrived. The seeker who is in the middle of the illusion cannot follow a long argument. The seeker can only call a name.

The Bṛhan-Nāradīya Purāṇa gave this teaching its most-quoted Sanskrit form, the verse the bhakti tradition has memorized for nine centuries. Harer nāma harer nāma harer nāmaiva kevalam; kalau nāsty eva nāsty eva nāsty eva gatir anyathā. Hari's name, Hari's name, Hari's name alone; in the Kali age, there is no other way, no other way, no other way. The threefold repetition is not for emphasis only; it is the form the teaching takes when the teacher is making sure no other practice slips in. The Name is the path. The Name is the path. The Name is the path.

The Bhagavad Gītā, in its ninth chapter, says it more gently. Api cet su-durācāro bhajate mām ananya-bhāk; sādhur eva sa mantavyaḥ samyag vyavasito hi saḥ. Even if the worst evildoer worships me with undivided devotion, he is to be considered righteous, for he has rightly resolved. Krishna does not require purity before the Name; the Name itself does the purifying. Verse 17 is the Malayalam form of this Sanskrit promise.

The verse's most theologically remarkable claim is the line onn ozhige: not one name is less than another. Krishna, Hari, Govinda, Rāma are named in the same line, all equal, none greater. This is unusual. Sectarian schools often privilege one name (Kṛṣṇa for the Gauḍīyas, Rāma for the Rāmānandīs, Nārāyaṇa for the Śrīvaiṣṇavas, Śiva for the Śaivas). Ezhuthachan, in this single line, sets aside the sectarian claim. No one name is superior or inferior: Krishna Priya repeats the verse's own words in plain English. The seeker does not have to pick the right name. The seeker has to pick a name and call it.

Krishna Priya names four saints whose lives were the verse-17 instruction in human form. Poonthanam, Sri Sadāśiva Brahmendra, Tulasīdās, Caitanya Mahāprabhu, etc., are great men who have written about the importance of reciting Lord's name. Verse 1 of this work named Poonthanam beside Ezhuthachan; verse 2 named Caitanya beside Tulasīdās; verse 6 named Sadāśiva Brahmendra. The verse-17 teaching is the thread that runs through all of them. They are not in different traditions; they are in one tradition, and the tradition's name is the Name.

If you have come to this verse in the middle of an illusion, the verse is the door out. You do not have to argue your way out. You do not have to pick the right name. Onn ozhige: not one name is less than another. The Name closest to your tongue, said now, is the one that will work.

The Saints Who Walked This Road

Two further saints in the verse-17 nāma-only lineage that the Krishna Priya gloss has already named.

Sant Gorā Kumbhār, thirteenth-century Maharashtra, was a Varkari potter who, in the trance of the bhajan, lost track of the world. The legend records the most painful instance: while reciting Vitthala Vitthala and treading clay in his courtyard, his small son crawled under his feet, and the saint, deep in nāma-japa, did not see. The child died. When the wife understood and demanded that the saint never touch her again, Gorā vowed to keep his hands away from her even in sleep. Months later, Vitthala himself, the legend says, came to the courtyard, woke the child from death, and restored the household. The legend is myth-form. The body image is the potter at the wheel, the Vitthala on his lips, the small clay hut filled with the only sound that could go anywhere.

Sant Cokhāmeḷā, fourteenth-century Maharashtra, was a Mahar (an untouchable caste in the orthodox order) Varkari saint who was barred from the Pandharpur temple by caste-priests. He stood outside the door and recited Vitthala's name. When the temple wall under repair fell on him and a group of fellow workers and they all died, the tradition records that the bones were so saturated with the Name that the bones themselves continued to sing Vitthala from the rubble. Eknāth, two centuries later, retrieved the bones and gave them honored burial at the temple's outer wall. The body image is the saint who could not enter the temple but whose bones got there in the end, by the strength of the Name and not the strength of his caste.