Sumathi Sataka - Its relevance to modern living (7)

“Ichchunade vidya, ranamuna
jochhunade magatanambu, sukaviswarulun
mechhunade nerpu, vaduku
vachhunade keedu vasudhanu Sumathi”

In this world
"Knowledge is to be imparted
going into war fearlessly is valour
Expertise is recognized by the top experts
A bad thing to happen hunts the person (to whom it happen)"

On the face of it this looks a simple and straight forward poem. It is a well known thing that Knowledge needs to be imparted to others. Such imparted knowledge increases the quest for knowledge further and adds further to the mankind's knowledge. If one has knowledge but did not impart / teach it to others then such knowledge ends with that person and will not be of much help to anyone.
Valour of a person can be gauged by the fearlessness with which the person gets into a war. The war may be an actual war or any situation which is like a war. In other words it is like an situation threatening existence (existential crises). At such times one needs show fearlessness and other such traits as far as possible. There is an old idiom “a cat will fight back if cornered”. If one is not showing such traits then the existence itself will be endangered.
Similarly an expert is one who is acknowledged by other experts in the field. A writer or poet cannot be taken as great / expert unless the person is acknowledged by the top people in the field. The inner meaning of this line is that one should acquire expertise to such an extent that he / she is acknowledged by other top people in that field and peers. A half learner is no learner.

If a bad thing is destined for some one it will catch the person wherever the person hides. There is a story in Indian mythology about king Parikshit. He kills some snakes while on a hunting trip on some day and their king Vasuki vows to kill king Parikshit before a specified time. Otherwise Vasuki will kill himself. Parikshit came to know about this vow and built a citadel on a single pillar. All movement to the citadel is restricted through a way in the pillar and the entrance was heavily guarded. The soldiers were inspecting every item and every person going into the citadel. King Vasuki sent several snakes to try and creep into the citadel to kill Parikshit but all the attempts were identified and the snakes were killed. Finally Vasuki takes the form of a small worm and gets into a fruit (a berry). A person was instructed to take this fruit along with several other fruits in a basket and gift it to King Parikshit. The guards thoroughly checked the person and the fruits but could not identify the small hole through which Vasuki entered the berry in the form of a worm. The basket is gifted to King Parikhit. When he opened the basket, the worm came out and took the form of snake to bite and kill King Parikshit thus King Vasuki fulfilling his vow. The ultimate moral of the story is nothing can stop a bad thing from happening if it is destined to happen.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Anna Hazare’s Janlokpal Bill – Are we looking at Orwellian type of society?

India is in frenzy for the last 10 days with the anti-corruption rhetoric of Mr Anna Hazare. This is similar to the one witnessed sometime back over the issue of bringing back the black money from Swiss banks. The black money issue was first coined by Bharatiya Janata Party and later taken up by Mr Anna Hazare and Mr Ramdev Baba apart from sundry others. What we are witnessing now is not dissimilar to the earlier issue. Anti-corruption rhetoric is not new either in India or abroad. It was Mr Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India who declared that a corrupt person should be hanged from the nearest lamp post around 100 years ago. We are yet to see a single hanging. It was taken up by the successive prime ministers but nothing has happened. In fact, all the governments starting from the first government post-independence have seen some scandal or other. The lamentable fact is nothing has happened in any of these cases be it the Jeeps scandal (of the first government) of th...
Read more

Sumathi Satakam - Lessons for Modern Management

“Erakumi Kasugayala Durakumi bandhujanula doshamu summi Parakumi ranamuna Meerakumi guruvunagna medina Sumathi”   The English translation is something like this Do not collect unripe fruits Do not point out errors of relatives Do not run away from battle Do not go above the order given by your teacher   This is a simple poem taught to the young students in Andhra giving them four important principles in life.   The first line asks the students not to collect unripe fruits when collecting the fruits for immediate consumption. Many types of unripe fruits taste different from the ripe one. For example a ripe mango tastes totally different from a raw mango. By collecting the unripe fruits one will be wasting the resources as they may not be useful and may be thrown away.   The second line talks about not pointing out the errors of relatives as this will alienate them. By alienating the relatives we may not be able to expec...
Read more

Let Us Celebrate Justice for Celebrities - II

Image
Within days from the suspension of sentence of Mr Salman Khan, we witnessing one more controversial thing - Acquittal of J Jayalalitha, former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. This happened on appeal in a case where she was sentenced after 18 years of hearings in various courts (some of them were regular in Tamil Nadu itself and some special courts either constituted by Tamil Nadu Government or Supreme Court). The case is about assets disproportionate to the income of Jayalalitha and her associates (Sashikala, her son and some companies) by an amount of around Rs 66 Crores. In current days of where people talk about hundreds of Crores of rupees as loose change, the amount stated looks like a pittance. But remember around 18-20 years back this is a substantial amount. Even the much celebrated Bofors case involves a total amount of Rs 130 - 160 Crores only. A display of personal adoration which characterizes Tamil politics. In this picture people are pouring milk on the wall painting...
Read more