Verse 59 of 68
Harināma Kīrtanam · Verse 59
ലക്ഷം പ്രകാരമൊടു സൃഷ്ടിപ്പതിന്നുമതു
രക്ഷിപ്പതിന്നുമതു ശിക്ഷിപ്പതിന്നുമിഹ
വിക്ഷേപമാവരണമീ രണ്ടു ശക്തികള-
തിങ്കേന്നുദിച്ചു ഹരി നാരായണായ നമഃlakṣaṁ prakāramoṭu sṛṣṭippatinnumatu rakṣippatinnumatu śikṣippatinnumiha vikṣēpamāvaraṇamī raṇṭu śaktikaḷa- tiṅkēnnudiccu hari nārāyaṇāya namaḥ
“To create in countless ways, to sustain, and to teach again, these two powers, the projecting and the veiling, arise from this place. Hari, salutation to Hari Nārāyaṇa.”
The fifty-ninth verse names the two cosmic powers of māyā in the Sanskrit Advaitin tradition. To create in countless ways, to sustain, and to teach again, these two powers, the projecting and the veiling, arise from this place. The Sanskrit canon's vikṣepa-śakti (the projecting power, which produces the world's appearances) and āvaraṇa-śakti (the veiling power, which hides the underlying One) are the two faces of māyā. The verse names both as arising from a single source: the same Lord whose grace is the verse-51 sahasrāra-rain.
If you have come to this verse with a sense that there are many forces at work in the world, the verse names two: one that throws up appearances, one that hides the source. Both, the verse says, are the same Lord's powers. The Lord behind the powers is the bow's destination.
The Living Words
Vividha-bhāvē sṛṣṭi-sthiti-upasthiti-sandīśanam-uḍa-iva śakti-dvayam-itu vikṣepa-āvaraṇam āyatu iha-ninnu Hari Nārāyaṇāya namaḥ. The two powers of vikṣepa (projection) and āvaraṇa (veiling), in many ways producing creation, sustenance, and re-teaching, arise from this place (the Lord). Sṛṣṭi-sthiti is creation and sustenance; upasthiti is the renewing/re-teaching; vikṣepa is projection; āvaraṇa is veiling.
Scripture References
Know māyā as prakṛti, and the wielder of māyā as Maheśvara.
मायां तु प्रकृतिं विद्यान्मायिनं तु महेश्वरम् ।
māyāṁ tu prakṛtiṁ vidyān māyinaṁ tu maheśvaram |
Know māyā as prakṛti, and the wielder of māyā as Maheśvara.
Re-cited from verse 6. The Sanskrit ground for verse 59's *vikṣepa-āvaraṇa-śakti-dvaya*. Both powers arise from the *māyī*, the Lord. The seeker who bows to the Lord, not to either power, has gone past the doubling that verse 41 named.
The Heart of It
The Vedānta-tradition calls these two the māyā-śakti-dvaya, the two powers of māyā. The āvaraṇa-śakti covers the seeker's recognition of the underlying One; the vikṣepa-śakti throws up the variety of forms the seeker mistakes for the only reality. The two work together: the veiling hides the One, the projection produces the many, and the seeker, caught between them, sees the world without seeing its source.
The verse's bhakti move is the closing line. Both arise from this place. The two powers are not independent forces opposing the seeker; they are the same Lord's hands. The Sanskrit canon's māyā-śakti tradition (especially in the Vidyāraṇya Pañcadaśī of verse 6) reads this carefully: the seeker who recognizes that the veiling and the projecting are the Lord's own play has, in that recognition, already begun to see past both.
If you have come to this verse confused by the variety of the world and the simultaneous hiddenness of the One, the verse names both as the Lord's act and asks the seeker to bow to the actor rather than the action.
The two powers are not independent forces opposing the seeker; they are the same Lord's hands.
The Saints Who Walked This Road
Two saints whose teaching named the verse-59 vikṣepa-āvaraṇa-śakti-dvaya.
Vidyāraṇya (already in verse 6), in his Pañcadaśī, walks the seeker through the two māyā-śaktis and shows that both are the Lord's own play. The text is the Vedānta-tradition's most accessible Sanskrit on the topic. Body image: the saint at Śṛṅgeri, the Pañcadaśī's fifteen chapters arriving over years, each chapter showing that the projecting and the veiling are the same hand at different angles.
Swāmī Vivekānanda (already in verses 10, 28), at the Parliament of Religions in 1893 and in his subsequent lectures across America, articulated the same Sanskrit recognition in modern English. The Lord is at once the producer of forms and the hider of the One; the seeker's job is not to fight the projection or the veiling, but to recognize the same Lord behind both. Body image: the saint at the Chicago platform, the recognition delivered in English to an audience that did not know the Sanskrit.
The Refrain
ഹരി നാരായണായ നമഃ
Salutation to Hari Nārāyaṇa.