Verse 51 of 68
Harināma Kīrtanam · Verse 51
നന്നായ് ഗതിക്കൊരു സഹസ്രാരധാരയില
തന്നീറ്റിൽ നിൻകരുണ വന്മാരി പെയ്തുപുനഃ
മുന്നം മുളച്ചമുള ഭക്തിക്കുവാഴ്ത്തുവതു-
മിന്നേ കൃപാനിലയ നാരായണായ നമഃnannāy gatikkoru sahasrāradhārayila tannīṟṟil ninkaruṇa vanmāri peytupunaḥ munnaṁ muḷaccamuḷa bhaktikkuvāḻttuvatu- minnē kṛpānilaya nārāyaṇāya namaḥ
“For the right way, in the thousand-petalled centre, your grace fell as a great rain. The shoot of devotion that sprouted earlier, let me praise it now, abode of compassion. Salutation to Hari Nārāyaṇa.”
The fifty-first verse celebrates a moment of arrival. For the right way, in the thousand-petalled centre, your grace fell as a great rain. The shoot of devotion that sprouted earlier, let me praise it now, abode of compassion. The verse names the sahasrāra, the thousand-petalled crown chakra of verse 9, as the place the Lord's grace has fallen. The seeker's earlier bhakti (the daily bow of verse 7, the Name of verse 17, the seat of verse 44) has now sprouted into something visible enough to praise.
If you have come to this verse with an early shoot of devotion you have been afraid to acknowledge, the verse names the moment to acknowledge it. The shoot is real. The grace that watered it is real.
The Living Words
Nannāy gatikkoru sahasrārā-dhārayil tannīṟṟil ninkaruṇa van-māri pey-tu punaḥ. For the right way, in the thousand-petalled centre, in that place, your grace fell as a great rain. Sahasrārā-dhāra is the thousand-petalled lotus; van-māri is great rain; kaṛuṇa is grace.
Munnam muḷaccu-amuḷa bhaktikku vāḻttu-vatum innē kṛpānilaya Hari Nārāyaṇāya namaḥ. The earlier-sprouted shoot of devotion, let me praise it today; abode of compassion. Munnam is earlier; muḷaccu is sprouted; vāḻttu-vatum is to be praised; kṛpānilaya is abode of compassion.
Scripture References
By his shining alone, all this shines.
तमेव भान्तमनुभाति सर्वं तस्य भासा सर्वमिदं विभाति ।
tam eva bhāntam anubhāti sarvaṁ, tasya bhāsā sarvam idaṁ vibhāti |
By his shining alone all this shines; by his light, all this is lit.
Re-cited from verse 4 and verse 12. The Kaṭha names the Lord as the source of every shining. Verse 51 names the moment the seeker's *bhakti*-shoot comes into the same shining: *kṛpānilaya*, the abode-of-compassion, has rained on the *sahasrāra*.
The Heart of It
Verse 9 named the six chakras leading up to the sahasrāra. Verse 51 names the moment grace falls in the sahasrāra. The bhakti-tradition does not always describe the kuṇḍalinī-rising in tantric terms; the verse uses the imagery without committing to a technical practice. Grace fell as a great rain is the affective version: the seeker felt the grace, the seeker can call it now by name, the seeker is grateful.
The verse's tenderness is in the recognition of the earlier-sprouted shoot. The seeker had earlier devotion that he himself had not yet named. The grace's falling makes that earlier shoot visible. The verse asks the seeker to praise the shoot now: not as his own achievement, but as what the rain made apparent.
The shoot is real. The grace that watered it is real.
The Saints Who Walked This Road
Two saints whose lives were the verse-51 grace-rain on the bhakti-shoot.
Dhruva (already in verses 12, 23) sat under a tree at five years old in the forest of Madhuvana, did the dvādaśākṣarī japa Nārada had given him, and the Lord appeared. The body image is the small boy under the tree, the japa repeating, the rain of grace falling at the canopy of one human life. Dhruva's earlier shoot (the wounded child who had walked out of the palace) was watered into the polestar by the same rain.
Sant Eknāth's elder devotee, Janārdana Svāmī of Devagiri, watered Eknāth's earlier shoot. The legend records that Eknāth came to Janārdana as a boy, served as his adjutant in the Sultanate-era fort where Janārdana worked, and was watered, slowly, over years of hidden practice. Body image: the boy at the fort gates carrying messages, the saint at the inner room teaching, the rain falling on the earlier shoot the boy did not yet know was there.
The Refrain
ഹരി നാരായണായ നമഃ
Salutation to Hari Nārāyaṇa.