Harināma Kīrtanam · Verse 66

The sixty-sixth verse names a final boundary. From the perishing letter the Imperishable arose. People say there are seven scripts and these are the letters. The meaning of your supreme akṣara cannot be known. Make it knowable. The verse, near the close of the alphabet-key, returns to the Sanskrit-Malayalam akṣara (imperishable) of verse 15. The seven scripts (Devanāgarī, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Bengali, etc., or per some readings, the seven Indic-script families) are the visible letters; the para-akṣara, the supreme imperishable, is unwritable. The verse asks the Lord, who is the para-akṣara, to make himself knowable.

If you have come to this verse with the sense that the supreme cannot be reached by ordinary means, the verse confirms it and asks the Lord to do what the seeker cannot.

The Living Words

Kṣaram saṁgrahaṁ akṣaratvē udayam abhavat aks-aram-saptam-itu, akṣaraḥ paramā-tava artham na vidur, vidyā kuryāt prakāśayet Hari Nārāyaṇāya namaḥ. From the perishing letter, akṣara (imperishable) arose; the seven scripts are these letters; the meaning of your supreme akṣara is not known; make it knowable. Kṣara is perishing; akṣara is imperishable, the syllable; parama is supreme; prakāśayet is let it be made manifest.

Scripture References

The Heart of It

The verse uses a Sanskrit pun. Akṣara means both letter (a written character) and imperishable (because the syllable, in the Sanskrit-Vedic tradition, was considered indestructible). Verse 15 already named this. Verse 66 takes the recognition further: the seven Indic scripts have visible akṣaras, but the parama-akṣara, the supreme imperishable, is not in any of them. The Lord, as Om and as the One, is the parama-akṣara.

The Bhagavad Gītā 15.16-18 names the kṣara, akṣara, and uttama-puruṣa (perishing, imperishable, supreme person). The kṣara is all created beings; the akṣara is the unmanifest principle behind them; the uttama-puruṣa is the Lord, who is beyond both. Verse 66 names the same hierarchy and asks the parama-akṣara (the Lord beyond the imperishable) to make himself knowable.

The verse's plea is vidyā kuryāt prakāśayet, make it manifest as knowing. The seeker cannot, by his own vidyā (knowing), reach the supreme. The supreme has to make itself known. The Sanskrit-Vedānta tradition's brahma-vidyā is, in this strict reading, not produced by the student; it is granted by the Lord to the student.

The Saints Who Walked This Road

Two saints whose practice was the verse-66 waiting-for-the-Lord-to-make-himself-known.

Uddhava, in the Bhāgavata's eleventh book, was Krishna's cousin and friend. After all the līlās of Krishna's life, after Krishna had taught Arjuna the Gītā, Uddhava asked Krishna for the same teaching for himself. Krishna gave him the Uddhava Gītā, twelve chapters of the eleventh book. Uddhava had not earned it by vidyā; Uddhava had earned it by waiting at Krishna's side until Krishna chose to make himself known in this teaching. Body image: the cousin at Krishna's chariot, the Bhāgavata-eleventh book arriving as the long answer to the friend's question.

Rāmānuja (already in verse 58) had to wait for the Lord to disclose the Tiru-mantra (the secret three-fold mantra of the Śrīvaiṣṇavas) to him. His ācārya, Goṣṭhi-pūrṇa, refused for years to give him the mantra; Rāmānuja walked the temple steps, served the ācārya, waited. When the mantra was finally given on the condition that Rāmānuja keep it secret, Rāmānuja immediately walked to the temple-tower at Tirukōṭṭiyūr and shouted the mantra to all the assembled people. The legend records the ācārya's simultaneous anger and joy: you have broken the rule, but you have understood the mantra; the supreme has made itself known through your breaking. Body image: the disciple on the temple-tower, the secret given to all, the ācārya below recognizing that the disciple had passed the test by failing it.