Verse 25 of 68
Harināma Kīrtanam · Verse 25
ഏകാന്ത യോഗികളിലാകാംക്ഷകൊണ്ടുപര-
മേകാന്തമെന്നവഴി പോകുന്നിതെന്മനവും
കാകൻ പറന്നു പുനരന്നങ്ങൾ പോയവഴി-
പോകുന്നപോലെ ഹരി നാരായണായ നമഃēkānta yōgikaḷilākāṁkṣakoṇṭupara- mēkāntamennavaḻi pōkunnitenmanavuṁ kākan paṟannu punarannaṅṅaḷ pōyavaḻi- pōkunnapōle hari nārāyaṇāya namaḥ
“Out of longing for the solitary yogis, my mind too sets out on the supreme solitary path, the way a crow flies after where the swans have already gone. Salutation to Hari Nārāyaṇa.”
The twenty-fifth verse holds one of the work's most beautiful self-images. Seeing the great yogis on the path of solitude, the seeker's mind goes after them, full of curiosity, but my going is like the crow flying after the swans. The legend the verse alludes to is well-known in the Sanskrit-Malayalam tradition: a fat crow once tried to follow a flock of swans across the sea, and, with its small wings and unaccustomed body, fell into the water and drowned. The seeker, with disarming honesty, names himself the crow.
If you have come to this verse comparing yourself to the great practitioners and finding yourself short, the verse hands you the cleanest possible language for that comparison: the crow following the swans. The verse does not pretend the gap is small. It also does not, anywhere, ask the seeker to give up the flying.
The Living Words
Ekānta yogikaḷil ākāṅkṣa konḍu para- mekānta vaḻi pōkunnitu en manavum. My mind, full of curiosity at these one-pointed yogis, also goes the path of solitude. Ekānta-yogi is the one-pointed yogi; ākāṅkṣa is desire, curiosity; vaḻi pōkunnu is goes the way.
Kākan parannu punar anangaḷ pōya vaḻi pōkunnapōle. Like the crow that, having flown, follows again the path the swans have taken. Kāka is crow; anaṅṅa is swan, hamsa. The image is exact and well-known.
Hari Nārāyaṇāya namaḥ. Salutation to Hari Nārāyaṇa.
Scripture References
Only those who take refuge in me cross over this māyā.
दैवी ह्येषा गुणमयी मम माया दुरत्यया । मामेव ये प्रपद्यन्ते मायामेतां तरन्ति ते ।।
daivī hy eṣā guṇamayī mama māyā duratyayā | mām eva ye prapadyante māyām etāṁ taranti te ||
This divine māyā of mine, made of the guṇas, is hard to overcome; those who take refuge in me alone cross beyond this māyā.
Already cited in verse 2. The crow's *prapatti* is the same as the swan's *prapatti*; the Lord's grace does not check the wing-span before lifting the bird across.
The Heart of It
The verse-25 image is precise and self-deprecating. The seeker has watched the great yogis (the ekānta-yogis, the one-pointed practitioners), and has felt the desire (ākāṅkṣa) to follow them. But the seeker is honest about the body and mind he is bringing to the path. Verse 23's ekānta-bhakti has not yet arrived. Verse 9's six-chakra Tantric ladder is unclimbed. The seeker is following the swans on his own crow-wings.
The Krishna Priya gloss explains the legend simply. Once upon a time a fat crow flew on the sky above the sea following the path of swans. With fat body and small wings and being not used to fly above sea for long, after flying for some time, the crow fell into the sea and died. The lesson the legend usually carries is: do not pretend to be what you are not. But the verse-25 use of the legend is different. The verse does not say the crow was wrong to fly. The verse says I am the crow. The poet is acknowledging the gap and continuing anyway.
The Bhāgavata Purāṇa, in the Uddhava Gītā (Book 11), gives Krishna's reply to the same kind of self-doubt. Mām eva ye prapadyante (Gītā 7.14, already in verse 2): only those who take refuge in me cross the māyā. The taking-of-refuge does not require the seeker to be a swan first. The crow's prapatti is the same as the swan's prapatti. The Lord's grace does not check the wing-span before lifting the bird.
If you have come to this verse with a long pattern of comparing yourself to the more advanced, with the suspicion that you are wasting your time pretending to walk a path your body cannot walk, the verse is for you. The verse hands you the language: the crow following the swans. But notice what the verse does not do. It does not stop flying. The poet, even after this self-naming, continues to compose the Harināma Kīrtanam and to sign every verse with Hari Nārāyaṇāya namaḥ. The crow flies anyway. The crow's flight is not the swan's; the crow's flight is the crow's. The Name does not require the wing-span of the swan; the Name only requires the calling.
Krishna Priya's last line is the verse's quiet hope: help me in self-enquiry and have equal mind toward everything. The crow does not become a swan; the crow becomes a praying crow, and the praying changes the flight without changing the wings.
The crow flies anyway. The crow's flight is not the swan's; the crow's flight is the crow's. The Name does not require the wing-span of the swan; the Name only requires the calling.
The Saints Who Walked This Road
Three saints who flew the crow's flight, not the swan's, and arrived anyway.
Sant Tukārām (used in earlier verses), who described himself in his abhangas as deena (poor, lowly), as bhrāntā (mad, scattered), as māla (a garland-of-flaws), refused all the standard yogic credentials, and was nevertheless the central voice of the Vārkari tradition. The crow image suits his self-naming.
Mira Bai (also used), the queen who walked away from the Mewar court with no formal sannyāsa initiation, no qualified guru-line at first, no Brahmin pedigree to support her. The legend records that the orthodox saints she met (some of them the swans of her century) tested her and tried to refuse her. She wept her way through their refusals and kept singing. The fat crow flew anyway.
Sant Janābāī (verse 4), the household maidservant who composed abhangas at the millstone with the Lord's hand on her hand. She had no monastic credentials, no Sanskrit, no leisure. Her abhangas are remembered today alongside the great saints of Maharashtra. The crow's flight, for her, was the millstone-grinding itself. She arrived without crossing any sea.
The Refrain
ഹരി നാരായണായ നമഃ
Salutation to Hari Nārāyaṇa.