Harināma Kīrtanam · Verse 20

The twentieth verse is the most explicitly socially radical line in the entire work. Ezhuthachan names, by category, the people whom orthodoxy would prohibit from reciting the Name: the menstruating woman, the beggar, the cremation-ground worker, the worst criminal, the Brahmin who has performed the great fire-sacrifices. The verse names them in one breath and then says: for none of these, at any time, is the recitation of the Hari Name prohibited. Krishna Priya's gloss is plainer still. No one has the power to say this person is not allowed to recite the Lord's name or at this particular time. Everyone can recite the Lord's name any time.

The Kerala 16th-century social context behind this verse is sharp. Ezhuthachan himself, by tradition, was denied the sacred thread by the orthodox Brahmins of his community. He wrote this verse, in this language, with this list, to set aside the orthodoxy that had once tried to bar him from the Vedas. The verse is the bhakti tradition's clearest claim that the Name is the inheritance of every human being.

If you have come to this verse from a community, body, or status that orthodox religion has, in any age, used to bar you, the verse is your verse. The Lord does not check your category before he hears your tongue.

The Living Words

Ṛtuvāya peṇṇinnum. For the woman who has had her ṛtu (her menstrual period). The Sanskrit-Malayalam ṛtu is the word for the natural rhythm of the body; the orthodox Smṛti tradition treated the menstruating woman as ritually impure and barred her from temples, fires, and japa.

Iṛappavannum. For the beggar. The orthodox brahminical tradition treated the bhikṣuk outside its own four āśramas as barred from many ritual acts.

Dāhakannum. For the dāhaka, the cremator, the worker of the cremation ground. The corpse-handling castes were classified by orthodox Smṛti as the most aśauca, the most ritually impure, of social positions.

Patitannum. For the patita, the fallen, the worst criminal. Even the murderer-thief is named.

Agni-yajñam ceyta bhū-suranum. For the Brahmin who has performed the fire-sacrifice. The verse names not only the marginalized but also the orthodox Vedic Brahmin himself, gathering everyone in one list.

Hari-nāma-kīrtanam itu āruṁ ārkkum udanaruta-attinalla. For any of these, at any time, the Hari-name-singing is not prohibited, not denied. The Malayalam grammar is double-negative: not-prohibited, not-not-allowed. The verse closes the door on every orthodox prohibition.

Scripture References

The Heart of It

The verse names five categories. Three would be considered, by orthodox Smṛti, as temporarily impure or barred (the menstruating woman, the cremator, the criminal). One is socially uncategorized (the beggar). One is the orthodox center itself (the fire-sacrificing Brahmin). The verse names them in the same line and gives them the same access. The radical claim is not just that the marginalized can recite the Name; it is that the Brahmin, the cremator, the menstruating woman, the beggar, and the criminal stand in the same place before the Name.

The Krishna Priya gloss is firm and direct. Some people think menstruation is an impure time in a woman's life, but it is not true. Menstruation is the sign of fertility of a woman. Woman can recite Lord's name any time. Beggar can recite Lord's name any time. Cremator can recite Lord's name any time. Worst criminal can recite Lord's name any time. The ritualistic Brahmin can recite Lord's name any time. No one has the power to say this person is not allowed to recite Lord's name or at this particular time. Six sentences, six categories of person, the same verb in each: can recite.

The Bhāgavata Purāṇa, in its second book, gave the canonical Sanskrit form of this universalism. Aho bata śva-paco'to garīyān yaj-jihvāgre vartate nāma tubhyam. Ah, even the śva-paca (the dog-eater, the most-marginal category in orthodox Sanskrit) is greater than the Brahmin if the name on his tongue-tip is Yours. The Bhāgavata's verse turns the Smṛti hierarchy upside down. The orthodox Brahmin is not the highest rung; the highest rung is whoever has the Name on the tongue, regardless of caste. The verse-20 list is the Malayalam rendering of this Bhāgavata reversal.

If you have come to this verse from a body or community that any age's orthodoxy has refused, the verse refuses the refusal. The verse does not ask the seeker to argue with the gatekeepers, to win the right to enter the temple, to wait for the Smṛti to change. The verse names the practice that does not require the gatekeeper's permission. The Name on the tongue is the seeker's own; no priest, no scholar, no caste-court can take it away.

The verse is also a quiet protection of the orthodox Brahmin. He, too, is named in the list. He is not above the Name; he is equally inside it, alongside the cremator and the criminal. The Brahmin who has performed the fire-sacrifice cannot, by virtue of that performance, claim a higher access to the Name. He has the same access. He has no other.

If you are a Brahmin reading this verse, the verse asks you to lay down the height the orthodoxy has given you. If you are a non-Brahmin reading this verse, the verse asks you to step into the place the orthodoxy has refused you. Both motions are toward the same line: the naavu (tongue) of verse 19, the naavu that is the only thing the Name requires.

The Saints Who Walked This Road

Three saints whose entry into the Name passed through the categories the verse refuses.

Śabarī, in the Rāmāyaṇa's Araṇya Kāṇḍa, was a tribal Bhīla woman of the forest, kept by orthodox custom outside any of the four social orders. The legend records her waiting for Rāma in her āśrama for years, sweeping the path every day, plucking the ber fruits and tasting each one to make sure only the sweet ones reached him. When Rāma came, she offered the half-eaten fruits she had tested. By orthodox Smṛti, the offering was triply impure: tribal, female, half-bitten. Rāma ate the fruits one by one without comment. The body image is the old tribal woman in the forest hut, the half-eaten fruits in her hand, the prince of Ayodhyā receiving them as if they were temple-offerings.

Bhakta Dhannā, fifteenth-century Rajasthan, was a Jāṭ farmer-disciple of Rāmānanda. The legend records that he asked his guru what he should worship. The guru, perhaps testingly, gave him a stone. Dhannā took it home, set it up, offered it food, and waited. When the stone did not eat, Dhannā wept. The stone, the legend says, finally became the Lord and ate, because the simplicity of the offering refused to fit any orthodox ritual. Dhannā composed Hindi padas on devotion as the access without category; one is in the Sikh Ādi Granth. The body image is the farmer at his small home shrine, the stone refusing to eat for a week, the simplicity that finally won.

Karmabaī, fifteenth-sixteenth-century Rajasthan-Odisha, was an old woman of no learning who, late in life, prepared khichaḍī (a simple rice-and-lentil porridge) for the deity at home with no ritual training. The legend records that the deity Jagannātha at Puri ate her offerings every morning. After her death, the priests at Puri (the legend says) found Jagannātha refusing the orthodox temple-cooked food until Karmabaī's khichaḍī-style was reintroduced into the temple's bhog tradition. Khichaḍī-bhog at Puri to this day is offered first, before any other course. The legend is myth-form. The bhog is real. The body image is the old woman at the kitchen fire, the simple meal in the brass pot, the deity who came and ate without checking the category.