Verse 63 of 68
Harināma Kīrtanam · Verse 63
സത്യം വദാമി മമ ഭൃത്യാദിവർഗ്ഗമതു-
മർത്ഥം കളത്രഗൃഹ പുത്രാദിജാലമതു-
മൊക്കെ ത്വദർപ്പണമതാക്കീട്ടു ഞാനുമിഹ
തൃക്കാൽക്കൽ വീണു ഹരി നാരായണായ നമഃsatyaṁ vadāmi mama bhṛtyādivarggamatu- martthaṁ kaḷatragṛha putrādijālamatu- mokke tvadarppaṇamatākkīṭṭu ñānumiha tṛkkālkkal vīṇu hari nārāyaṇāya namaḥ
“I speak the truth: my servants and the rest, my wealth, wife, home, sons, all of that I make an offering to you. Then I too here fall at your sacred feet. Salutation to Hari Nārāyaṇa.”
The sixty-third verse holds the work's most direct aśeṣa-samarpaṇa (total surrender). I speak the truth: my servants and the rest, my wealth, wife, home, sons, all of that I make an offering to you. Then I too here fall at your sacred feet. The seeker offers the entire household and possessions and then offers himself. The verse is short and unsentimental: I speak the truth; this is not a literary flourish; this is the seeker doing what verse 56 prepared for in plain language.
If you have come to this verse afraid that surrendering means losing what you love, the verse names exactly what is being offered: servants, wealth, wife, home, sons. The verse does not tell the seeker how the offering will play out. The verse only declares the offering. The Lord's hands receive what the seeker has named.
The Living Words
Satyam vadāmi: bhṛtya-ādi-mat-svaṁ-dhanam patnī-gṛha-suta-eṣaṁ tubhyam upākaroṁi. Atha aham-api iha-ninn-aḍi-padma-prā-yām Hari Nārāyaṇāya namaḥ. I speak the truth: my servants and the rest, my wealth, wife, home, sons, all that I offer to you. Then I too here fall at your lotus-feet. The Sanskrit-Malayalam upākaroṁi (I offer) is the formal upacāra-verb of the pūjā tradition; here it is being applied not to flowers and water but to the entire household.
Scripture References
All that I do through body, speech, mind, senses, intellect, ego, and natural tendencies, I surrender to all-pervading Lord Nārāyaṇa.
कायेन वाचा मनसेन्द्रियैर्वा बुद्ध्यात्मना वा प्रकृतेः स्वभावात् । करोमि यद्यत्सकलं परस्मै नारायणायेति समर्पयामि ।।
kāyena vācā manasendriyair vā buddhyātmanā vā prakṛteḥ svabhāvāt | karomi yad yat sakalaṁ parasmai nārāyaṇāyeti samarpayāmi ||
Whatever I do through body, speech, mind, senses, intellect, ego, or natural tendencies, all of it I surrender to the all-pervading Lord, Nārāyaṇa.
The standard Sanskrit *samarpaṇa-mantra* recited at the close of every Vaiṣṇava devotional act, and recited by Krishna Priya as the opening invocation of her own commentary on this work. Verse 63's *upākaroṁi* is the same act: the offering, in body and speech and mind and intellect, of all that has been done.
The Heart of It
The verse is the bhakti-tradition's classical prapatti in its complete form. The seeker offers the bāhya (the outer: possessions, household) and the antara (the inner: himself). Verses 56 and 57 prepared the way; verse 63 makes the offering in plain Malayalam.
The Tamil-Malayalam Vaiṣṇava tradition's Stotra-Ratna of Yamunācārya (verse 7) gave the canonical Sanskrit form. Mā-yat-svaṁ tubhyam dadāmi, what is mine I give to you. The verse-63 bhṛtya-ādi-mat-svaṁ tubhyam upākaroṁi is the Tamil-Vaiṣṇava-Sanskrit form of the same surrender, in Sanskrit. (Ezhuthachan switches from Malayalam to Sanskrit for this formal-ritual moment.)
The verse's most personal phrase is atha aham-api: then I too. The seeker first offers the possessions and then offers himself. The atha (then) is doing serious grammatical work: the offering of the I happens after the offering of what the I owns. The bhakti-tradition has held this order as the harder one (it is easier to give the things than the I-self), and the verse names the order plainly.
The offering of the I happens after the offering of what the I owns. The bhakti-tradition has held this order as the harder one.
The Saints Who Walked This Road
Two saints who lived the verse-63 aśeṣa-samarpaṇa.
Bali Mahārāj, in the Bhāgavata's eighth book, the king of the daityas, was approached by the small vāmana-Brahmin (Viṣṇu in disguise) and asked for three steps' worth of land. Bali agreed. The vāmana grew into the trivikrama-form, covered the earth in one step, the heavens in the second, and asked Bali where to put the third. Bali offered his own head. The body image is the king at the sacrificial ground, the entire kingdom already given, the head finally bowed for the third step. The aham-api of verse 63 is what Bali said.
Yamunācārya (already in verse 7), the Śrīvaiṣṇava grandfather of Rāmānuja, gave the canonical Sanskrit form of total surrender in his Stotra-Ratna: I am yours, my Lord; whatever I have, I offer; what is the use of my pretending otherwise? The body image is the saint at Śrīraṅgam, the sixty-five Sanskrit verses arriving as the same offering, repeated until it became habit.
The Refrain
ഹരി നാരായണായ നമഃ
Salutation to Hari Nārāyaṇa.