Verse 55 of 68
Harināma Kīrtanam · Verse 55
ഭക്ഷിപ്പതിന്നു ഗുഹപോലേ പിളർന്നുമുഖ-
മയ്യോ! കൃതാന്തനിഹ പിമ്പേ നടന്നു മമ
എത്തുന്നു ദർദുരമുരത്തോടു പിമ്പെയൊരു
സർപ്പം കണക്കെ ഹരി നാരായണായ നമഃbhakṣippatinnu guhapōlē piḷarnnumukha- mayyō! kṛtāntaniha pimpē naṭannu mama ettunnu darduramurattōṭu pimpeyoru sarppaṁ kaṇakke hari nārāyaṇāya namaḥ
“To devour me, his face split open like a cave, alas, the Lord of death walks behind me. He approaches like a snake coming behind a fleeing frog. Salutation to Hari Nārāyaṇa.”
The fifty-fifth verse holds the most direct fear in the work. To devour me, his face split open like a cave, alas, the Lord of death walks behind me. He approaches like a snake coming behind a fleeing frog. The verse names Kāla, the Lord of death, with the cave-mouth image and the snake-and-frog image. The seeker is not pretending the fear is small; the verse stages it with both metaphors at once.
If you have come to this verse afraid of dying, of being remembered, of leaving things unfinished, the verse names the fear and refuses to deny it. The verse's gift is the bow at the end: the same Hari Nārāyaṇa is asked to be the protection from the cave-mouth.
The Living Words
Tinmān-ennute mukha-vivara-pōle uḍa-nellārum-uden bata, Kāla-an-aḍi pinpe naḍakkunnu. To devour me, his face like an open cave, alas, Kāla (the Lord of death) walks behind me. Tinmān is to eat; mukha-vivara is cave-mouth.
Sarppam pāmpu palāyana-bēkamāy varuva-pōle Hari Nārāyaṇāya namaḥ. Like the snake coming behind the fleeing frog, the verse closes with the bow.
Scripture References
I am Time, the world-destroyer, fully ripened.
कालोऽस्मि लोकक्षयकृत्प्रवृद्धः लोकान्समाहर्तुमिह प्रवृत्तः ।
kālo 'smi loka-kṣaya-kṛt pravṛddhaḥ lokān samāhartum iha pravṛttaḥ |
I am Time, the world-destroyer, fully ripened, here engaged in withdrawing the worlds.
Krishna's Sanskrit naming of himself as *Kāla* during the *Viśvarūpa-darśana*. The verse-55 *Kāla-an-aḍi pinpe naḍakkunnu* (Death walks behind me) is the personal Malayalam form of this cosmic Sanskrit identification. The same Lord is the cave-mouth and the bow's destination.
The Heart of It
The verse uses two of the Sanskrit-Malayalam tradition's standard images for Kāla (Death/Time): the cave-mouth (death as the dark opening into which the body is finally taken), and the snake-following-the-frog (death as the predator the seeker can never quite outrun). The bhakti-tradition has, for centuries, used both images precisely because they are honest. Death does not announce itself with dignity; death walks behind, with the cave-mouth open, the way a predator walks behind prey.
The Bhagavad Gītā 11.32 gave the Sanskrit-canonical form: kālo'smi loka-kṣaya-kṛt pravṛddhaḥ, I am Time, the world-destroyer, fully ripened. Krishna names himself, in the Viśvarūpa-darśana, as Time itself. The verse-55 Kāla is the same figure. The bhakti-tradition's twist is that the Lord is Time and is also the protection from Time: the same Lord who as Kāla devours is, as Hari, the refuge.
The verse asks the Lord to be the protection. Hari Nārāyaṇāya namaḥ. The bow at the end is, in this verse more than any other, the seeker's only act in the face of the cave-mouth.
If you have come to this verse afraid, the verse companions the fear. The verse does not say you will not die. The verse says the same Lord who is Time is also the bow's destination. The seeker bows toward what is, by definition, the only protection death does not consume.
The same Lord who is Time is also the bow's destination.
The Saints Who Walked This Road
Two saints who held the verse-55 fear-of-Kāla and bowed anyway.
Naciketas, in the Kaṭha Upaniṣad, the small boy who was sent by his angry father to Yama (the Lord of Death). He arrived at Yama's house, waited three nights without food, and when Yama finally came home and offered three boons in compensation, Naciketas asked, in the third boon, the question of the Self. Yama tried to deflect with the offer of every worldly happiness; the boy refused; Yama taught him the central teaching of the Upaniṣad. The body image is the small boy on the threshold of Yama's house, the cave-mouth of death not frightening him because he had a more pressing question.
Vibhīṣaṇa (already in verses 12, 30) made the bow when Kāla, in the form of war, was walking behind him. He left Laṅkā the day the war was about to begin, took refuge with Rāma, and was protected. The body image is the rākṣasa-prince at the southern shore of the ocean-of-becoming, the cave-mouth of the war already opening, the bow turning him from prey into king.
The Refrain
ഹരി നാരായണായ നമഃ
Salutation to Hari Nārāyaṇa.