Harināma Kīrtanam · Verse 42

The forty-second verse holds the Hari-Hara image, the combined form of Viṣṇu and Śiva. On half the body the moon-spotted deer and bow (Śiva's marks); on the other half the conch and discus (Viṣṇu's marks). For the one who thinks of you as a single syllable, the way of delusion is gone. The verse is the bhakti-tradition's quiet refusal of the Vaiṣṇava-Śaiva sectarian distinction. The Lord on either half of the same body is the same Lord; the eka-akṣara (the single syllable, Om) is the verbal form of the same Lord; the seeker who thinks of Om as the Lord has gone past the doubling that verse 41 named.

If you have grown up inside one sectarian tradition (Vaiṣṇava or Śaiva) and felt suspicious of the other, the verse asks you to look at the same body and to recognize that the conch and the deer are on the same shoulder.

The Living Words

Ṭaṅkam kuraṅgavum eḍuttiṭṭu pāti-uḍal śaṅkham rathāṅgavum eḍuttiṭṭu pāti-uḍal. The deer and the bow on half the body, the conch and the discus on the other half of the body. Ṭaṅka is deer-spot, the moon's deer; kuraṅga is deer; pāti-uḍal is half-body; śaṅkha is conch; rathāṅga is discus.

Eka-akṣaraṁ tava hi rūpaṁ ninappavanu pōkunnu mōha-vaḻi Hari Nārāyaṇāya namaḥ. For the one who thinks of you as the single syllable, the way of moha (delusion) goes. Eka-akṣara is single syllable (Om); ninappu is thought, contemplation; pōkunnu is (the way) goes (away); mōha-vaḻi is the way of delusion.

Scripture References

The Heart of It

The Sanskrit-Malayalam tradition has, for over a millennium, kept the Harihara and Ardhanārīśvara images as visual answers to sectarian disputes. The Harihara: half-Viṣṇu, half-Śiva, in one body, with the conch and discus on Viṣṇu's side and the deer (or trident) on Śiva's. The Ezhuthachan-Kerala context held this fusion as a daily fact: the same temples often hosted both deities, and the bhakti-poetry of his lineage (Adi Śaṅkara, Poonthanam, the Nāyaṉārs and Āḻvārs) refused the choice.

The verse closes with the eka-akṣara, the single syllable. Om is, in the Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad's first verse, idam sarvam, all this. Om is, in the Bhagavad Gītā 10.33, the letter A among letters. Om is, in the Atharva Veda, the syllable that holds Viṣṇu, Śiva, and Brahmā together. The seeker who thinks of the Lord as the single syllable is past the half-and-half question. The eka-akṣara is one. The Lord whose form is the eka-akṣara cannot be split into Vaiṣṇava and Śaiva.

If you have come to this verse from a sectarian background, the verse is the gentle door out. The verse does not ask you to leave the tradition you were raised in. The verse asks you to recognize that the Lord on one shoulder is the same as the Lord on the other.

The Saints Who Walked This Road

Two saints who walked past the Vaiṣṇava-Śaiva sectarian divide.

Sant Narahari Sonār (already in verse 22), the goldsmith of Pandharpur, was a Śaiva by upbringing who refused for years to make ornaments for Vitthal because Vitthal was a Vaiṣṇava form. The legend records that Vitthal himself appeared in disguise to ask for a measurement and that, when Narahari took the measure, it was the same as Śiva's. The recognition collapsed the sectarian divide for him on the spot. He composed abhangas afterward refusing the choice. Body image: the goldsmith at his bench, the small liṅga-image and the small Vitthal-image side by side on the workshop floor, the saint working on either as if it were the other.

Namm-Āḻvār (already in verse 39), in his Tiruvāymoḻi, names Viṣṇu and Śiva as facets of the same Reality, even while singing primarily in the Vaiṣṇava key. The Tamil bhakti-tradition holds him alongside the Śaiva Tirumūlar (verse 4) as walkers of the same path in two languages. The body image is the saint under the tāmraparṇi tree, the verses naming the eka-rūpa that the orthodox-sectarian world insists on splitting.