Sunday, October 2, 2011

What is the meaning of the sloka samudra vasane devi?

Shlokam श्लोकं శ్లోకం:

समुद्रवसने देवि पर्वतस्तनमण्डले ।
विष्णुपत्नि नमस्तुभ्यं पादस्पर्शं क्षमस्वमे ॥

samudravasane devi parvatastanamaṇḍale ।
viṣṇupatni namastubhyaṃ pādasparśaṃ kṣamasvame ॥

సముద్రవసనే దేవి పర్వతస్తనమణ్డలే ।
విష్ణుపత్ని నమస్తుభ్యం పాదస్పర్శం క్షమస్వమే ॥

O! Mother Earth, who has the ocean as clothes and mountains as your bosm, who is the wife of Lord Vishnu, I bow to you. Please forgive me for touching you with my feet. 

This is the meaning which we all know. We will look at it in the impersonified way.

samudra = ocean; vasane = staying; devi = goddess (actual meaning here is the feminine part of the cosmos, i.e., the manifested form of the unmanifested); parvata = mountain; stana = bosom; mandale = space; vishnu = all pervading; patni = wife; (vishnupatni = wife of vishnu - this is how we understand as a person - the meaning turns out as the other half of the vishnu, in the impersonal the meaning would be - the manifested form of the unmanifested); namaha = bow; tubhyam = to you; paada = step; sparsham = touch (paada sparsham means the touch of thought, i.e., going from NOTHING state to Thought state. Because the moment the thought starts, then the duality comes in, the unmanifested becomes manifested); kshamasvame = forgive me (this is one meaning where we understand as a form. The other meaning of this is: kshamasva = king's face; which means the face of the king, that is the manifested form of the unmanifested, considering the king as the unmanifested and the king's face as the manifested.)

Now the whole meaning of the sloka comes out as:
I bow to the manifested One so that every step that I take remind me of the unmanifested One behind this expression of the manifestation and let me be aware of the substratum of this manifestation in every work that I carry out in this manifested world.

5 comments:

  1. Thank you for this interpretation. So much more than I even begin to realize.

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  2. Thank you a lot for the interpretation of the sloka with a very detailed eexplanation.

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  3. it is not "parvatstana" .... correct is "parvatsthana" as in mountain place. Correct the Sanskrit akshar, please

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