Harināma Kīrtanam · Verse 32

The thirty-second verse holds one of the work's most surprising rhetorical moves: the seeker, with disarming honesty, complains to the Lord. Alas! A Pāṇḍya king worshipped you; why did you have him cursed by Agastya? Why did you have a crocodile bite his foot? It is past my understanding. The verse alludes to the Gajendra-mokṣa legend of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa: a former Pāṇḍya king named Indradyumna, devoted to Viṣṇu, was cursed by Sage Agastya for a perceived slight, became an elephant in his next birth, and was caught by a crocodile in a lake. He prayed; Viṣṇu came on his Garuḍa and rescued him.

The verse is not asking for an explanation. It is naming, with the bhakti tradition's traditional intimacy, the ways the Lord's līlā sometimes seems contradictory or harsh from inside a single life. Mōrkkāvatalla, it is past remembering, past comprehending. The seeker, like Arjuna in the Gītā, is allowed to bring this question to the Lord directly.

The Living Words

Kaṣṭaṁ! Bhavāneyoru-Pāṇḍyan bhajiccaḷavu agastyena nī bata śapippiccatu entu iha. Alas! When a Pāṇḍya king worshipped you, why, alas, did you have Agastya curse him? Kaṣṭaṁ is the Sanskrit-Malayalam alas, what a difficulty; bhajiccu is worshipped; agastyena śapippicca is had cursed by Agastya (the verse uses a causative: you had him cursed); bata is the lament-particle.

Nakreṇa kālkkatha kaṭippiccatu entu atu mōrkkāvatalla Hari Nārāyaṇāya namaḥ. Why did you have his foot bitten by the crocodile (nakra)? It is past comprehension. Nakra is crocodile; kāl is foot; kaṭippiccu is had bitten; mōrkkāvatalla is cannot be remembered/understood.

Scripture References

The Heart of It

The verse stages a scene the bhakti tradition has, for a thousand years, found difficult to reconcile and still loved to retell. The Pāṇḍya king Indradyumna, in the Bhāgavata's eighth book, was a great devotee of Viṣṇu, lost in deep meditation, and when Sage Agastya arrived seeking hospitality, the king did not break his meditation to receive the sage. Agastya, offended, cursed him to be born as an elephant. The elephant, in his next birth, lived in a forest, was caught by a crocodile in a lake, struggled for a thousand years, and finally cried out a Sanskrit hymn to Viṣṇu (the Gajendra-stotra). Viṣṇu came on Garuḍa, killed the crocodile with the sudarśana-cakra, and lifted the elephant into liberation.

The verse names the part of the story that is hardest to swallow. Why did the Lord allow the curse? Why did the Lord allow the crocodile? The seeker is not asking for a doctrinal explanation; the seeker is acknowledging that the līlā, from inside a single life, can look contradictory, harsh, or unjust. The seeker says, with the verse's quiet candor, I do not understand, and I am bowing anyway.

The Bhagavad Gītā, in its eighteenth chapter, names this kind of bhakti directly. Sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja; ahaṁ tvāṁ sarva-pāpebhyo mokṣayiṣyāmi mā śucaḥ. Abandoning all dharmas, take refuge in me alone; I will free you from all sins, do not grieve. Krishna does not promise that everything will be easy or comprehensible. He promises that the surrender is enough. Verse 32's mōrkkāvatalla (it is past remembering) is the seeker's quiet way of saying: I do not need to understand the curse and the crocodile. I am bowing anyway.

If you have come to this verse with a long history of asking why did this happen to me, who served you?, the verse legitimizes the question. The seeker, in the bhakti tradition, is allowed to ask. The Lord, who took a thousand years to send the Garuḍa, did not refuse the question; the Lord answered the Gajendra-stotra by appearing. The verse does not promise the same speed for the seeker; the verse promises the same arrival. Hari Nārāyaṇāya namaḥ. The bow is what asks; the answer is what comes.

The Saints Who Walked This Road

Two figures of the verse-32 lineage of bhakti-with-questions.

The Gajendra of the Bhāgavata's eighth book is the verse's central figure. The body image is the elephant struggling in the lake, the legs of the crocodile around his foot, the hymn arising in Sanskrit from a body that should not have been able to compose Sanskrit, the four-armed Lord arriving on Garuḍa at the moment the elephant raised the lotus from the water with his trunk. Sarva-bhūta-sthitaṁ sarvaṁ, I bow to the All in all: the elephant's stotra is in Bhāgavata 8.3, and is one of the most-recited Sanskrit prayers in the Vaiṣṇava world.

Nārada, the cosmic singer who is named in earlier verses (10, 23, 30), is the other lineage-figure for verse 32. The Bhāgavata's narrative frame has Nārada listening to and asking questions of the cosmic events, and his Bhakti Sūtra gives the Sanskrit canonical form of the verse-32 stance: na tasya jñānaṁ samyak tat-paratvāc ca tat-prema, his is no perfect understanding; only the love-toward-the-Lord is perfect. The seeker does not have to explain the curse; the seeker has to keep loving.