Verse 38 of 68
Harināma Kīrtanam · Verse 38
ഛന്നത്വമാർന്ന കനൽപോലേ നിറഞ്ഞുലകിൽ
ചിന്നുന്ന നിൻ മഹിമയാർക്കും തിരിക്കരുത്
അന്നന്നു കണ്ടതിനെ വാഴ്ത്തുന്നു മാമുനിക-
ളെന്നത്രെ തോന്നി ഹരി നാരായണായ നമഃchannatvamārnna kanalpōlē niṟaññulakil cinnunna nin mahimayārkkuṁ tirikkarut annannu kaṇṭatine vāḻttunnu māmunika- ḷennatre tōnni hari nārāyaṇāya namaḥ
“Your glory is like a hidden ember spreading through the world; no one can turn it aside. The great sages praise whatever they see day by day, that alone arises in the heart. Salutation to Hari Nārāyaṇa.”
The thirty-eighth verse marks a turn from teasing back to praise. Your glory is like a hidden ember spreading through the world; no one can turn it aside. The great sages praise whatever they see day by day, that alone arises in the heart. The verse names the Lord's mahimā (greatness) as a fire under the surface of the world, present everywhere but visible only when the eye knows to look. The seeker, in the verse, recognizes that the great sages do not invent praise; they only describe what they see.
If you have come to this verse aware that the Lord's presence is everywhere but you have been failing to see it, the verse is for you. The verse does not blame the seeker for the failure. The verse names that the mahimā is present and asks the heart to begin describing what is, in fact, already there.
The Living Words
Channatvam ārnna kanal pōle niṟaññu ulakil cinnunna nin mahimaya ārkkum tirikkarutu. Like an ember covered, your glory has filled the world and spread; no one can turn it aside. Channatvam is being-covered, hiddenness; kanal is ember; cinnu is spread, scattered; mahima is greatness, glory.
Annannu kaṇṭatine vāḻttunnu māmuni-kaḷ ennatre tōnni Hari Nārāyaṇāya namaḥ. The great sages praise whatever they see day by day; that alone arises in the heart. Annannu is day by day; vāḻttunnu is praise; māmuni is great sage.
Scripture References
Whatever is glorious, blissful, or powerful, know that to have come from a fragment of my splendor.
यद्यद्विभूतिमत्सत्त्वं श्रीमदूर्जितमेव वा । तत्तदेवावगच्छ त्वं मम तेजोंशसम्भवम् ।।
yad yad vibhūtimat sattvaṁ śrīmad ūrjitam eva vā | tat tad evāvagaccha tvaṁ mama tejo'ṁśa-sambhavam ||
Whatever exists endowed with glory, splendor, or power, know that to have arisen from a fragment of my splendor.
Krishna's Sanskrit form of the verse-38 covered-ember image. Every glory in the world is a small portion of the Lord's splendor. The sages who praise daily are simply naming, in each small place, what the Lord has placed there.
The Heart of It
The image of the channa-kanal, the covered ember, is one of the work's quietest. Glory is not a fireworks display. Glory is the small fire under the surface of every visible thing, present continuously, easy to miss, impossible (once seen) to turn away from. The sages do not invent the description; they walk among the embers and report what they see.
The Bhagavad Gītā, in its tenth chapter (Vibhūti-Yoga), is the cosmic version of this same recognition. Krishna names dozens of things in the world (the wind, Garuḍa, the lion, Skanda the warrior-god, the letter A, time itself) and says I am that. The sages of verse 38 are doing the same thing in smaller registers: each day they see a thing and praise the that-which-is-the-Lord in it. The praise is not the sage's invention; the praise is the sage's accurate report.
If you have come to this verse with practice fatigue, with the suspicion that you should be having more visions or more bhakti, the verse offers a smaller measure. Today, look at one thing. Praise what is, today, visible to you of the Lord in that thing. Annannu kaṇṭatine vāḻttunnu: praise what is seen, day by day. The practice is the smallest possible: notice one ember today, name it, bow.
Notice one ember today, name it, bow.
The Saints Who Walked This Road
Two sages whose work was the verse-38 daily-praising.
Yājñavalkya, the ṛṣi of the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad, walked the court of King Janaka of Mithilā teaching the Self by means of small, daily images: the spider and its web, the salt dissolving in water, the husband and the wife, the bird returning to its nest at sunset. The Bṛhadāraṇyaka does not begin with cosmology; it begins with the aśva-medha, then proceeds to the body's six fires, the senses, the sleeping man, the lamp in the heart. The Sanskrit verses are themselves the daily descriptions the verse-38 sages produce. The body image is the sage at the king's court, the king asking each morning, what new thing today, Yājñavalkya?, and the sage answering with the next available ember.
Sūta Gosvāmī, the narrator of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, sat at the Naimiṣāraṇya forest gathering after the Mahābhārata war, telling the stories of Krishna's līlā and the avatāras to the assembled sages, day after day, for the aśvamedha-yajña duration. The Bhāgavata's prasaṅga (running discourse) is, in narrative form, exactly what the verse-38 daily praise looks like: the sage speaks, the sages listen, the names of the Lord arise. The body image is the small clearing at Naimiṣāraṇya, the kuśa grass underfoot, the sun moving across the day, the Sanskrit verses falling into the listeners' ears.
The Refrain
ഹരി നാരായണായ നമഃ
Salutation to Hari Nārāyaṇa.