Harināma Kīrtanam · Verse 43

The forty-third verse continues verse 42's eka-akṣara recognition with a musical analogy. Like the rhythms in songs, like the use of nāda gathered at one śruti, in this single syllable everything is held together. Subtle body of the sky, salutation. The Sanskrit-Malayalam musical tradition uses śruti (the foundational drone-tone, often Sa) as the reference around which all other notes find their place. The verse uses the analogy: in a single drone-tone, all rāgas and all rhythms find their footing; in the single eka-akṣara (Om), all the universe finds its footing.

The verse calls the Lord ākāśa-sūkṣma-tanu, the subtle body of the sky. The Lord is not a body in space; the Lord is the subtle medium of which space itself is the gross expression.

The Living Words

Ṭhāyaṅṅaḷ gītam iva nāda-prayōgam-uḍa-nēka-śrutī-kal-orumikkunnapōle. Like rhythms in songs, like the nāda-use of music gathered into a single śruti. Ṭhāya is rhythm-pattern, tāla; nāda-prayōga is the application of musical sound; eka-śruti is one drone-tone.

Eka-akṣarattil itu aḍaṅṅunnu sarvavum itu ākāśa-sūkṣma-tanu Hari Nārāyaṇāya namaḥ. In this single syllable, all of this dissolves; this is the subtle body of the sky. Aḍaṅṅunnu is (it) dissolves into, comes to rest in; sarvavum is all of it; ākāśa-sūkṣma-tanu is the subtle body of space-ether.

Scripture References

The Heart of It

The Carnatic-Malayalam musical tradition's eka-śruti-tāḷam is the foundation of every rāga. The drone of the tampūra sounds Sa and Pa continuously; every melodic note the singer produces finds its place against this drone. Without the drone, the rāga has no footing; with the drone, even the smallest gamaka (ornament) stays in tune.

The verse uses this technical truth as a metaphysical analogy. Om is the eka-śruti of the universe. Every form, every voice, every event finds its footing against this single sustained syllable. Without the Om, the universe has no footing; with the Om, even the smallest event stays in its true place.

The verse closes by naming the Lord as ākāśa-sūkṣma-tanu, the subtle body of the sky. The Sanskrit ākāśa is the fifth element, the most subtle, the medium in which sound travels. The Lord is the still subtler body within the sky. The seeker is being asked to recognize that the Om is not heard in the air; the Om is the air, in its subtle body.

The Saints Who Walked This Road

Two saints whose practice was the verse-43 eka-śruti tuning.

Tyāgarāja (already in verse 5), Carnatic composer of nineteenth-century Tiruvaiyāru, named the eka-śruti foundation of his own kṛti-tradition in the famous Endaro Mahānubhāvulu: many great souls have, by the power of Nāda-Brahman, reached the supreme. Nāda-Brahman is the Sanskrit name for the verse-43 eka-akṣara that holds all rāgas. The body image is the saint at his small house by the Kāveri, the tampūra sounding Sa and Pa through the night, every kṛti arriving against this drone.

Matsyendranāth (already in verse 9), the Nātha-yogī tradition's founder, taught the nāda-anusandhāna (the contemplation of inner sound) as the highest upāya in his Kaulajñāna-nirṇaya. The yogi who has stilled the outer ear hears the inner jhaṅkāra, and the jhaṅkāra is the eka-śruti the verse names. The body image is the silent yogī in his cave, the inner ear opening, the praṇava sounding without instrument.