Written by London Swaminathan


swami_48@yahoo.com


Date: 9 December 2018


GMT Time uploaded in London – 17-27

Post No. 5757

Pictures shown here are taken from various sources including google, Wikipedia, Facebook friends and newspapers. This is a non- commercial blog.

Let us look at two more verses from Bhartruharis.Niti sataka 38 and 39.

Famous Tamil poetess Avvaiyar said that the misers’ hoarded wealth will be taken away by the wicked people.

WHAT MISERS HAVE HOARDED THE WICKED WILL TAKE- Kondrai Venthan by Avvaiyar

Another Tamil poet who lived several hundred years after Bhartruhari said that the wealth of a miser is like the coconut in the feet of a dog. This is a Tamil proverb. The dog would neither use it nor it would allow anyone to use it. Both the poets have echoed what Bharturhari said below:-

दानं भोगो नाशस्तिस्रो
गतयो भवन्ति वित्तस्य ।
यो न ददाति न भुङ्क्ते
तस्य तृतीया गतिर्भवति ॥ 1.38 ॥

38. Giving, consuming, and loss, are the three ways

by which wealth is diminished. The man who neither

gives nor spends has yet the third way open to him.

39. A jewel is cut by the polishing stone ; a conqueror

in war is killed by weapons ; the elephant is weakened

by passion; the islands in a river become dry in the

autumn ; the moon wanes ; young women become languid

through pleasure, yet is their beauty nothing lessened :

so noble men who have diminished their wealth by giving.

मणिः शाणोल्लीढः समरविजयी हेतिदलितो

मदक्षीणो नागः शरदि सरितः श्यानपुलिनाः ।
कलाशेषश्चन्द्रः सुरतमृदिता बालवनिता
तन्निम्ना शोभन्ते गलितविभवाश्चार्थिषु नराः ॥ 1.39 ॥

The second sloka is also interesting which is already in Tamil and Sanskrit literature.

Though Bhartruhari gave lot of examples about an elephant, jewel, river, moon, what he wanted to convey is that it is worth to become poor or bankrupt by donating one’s wealth. We see such people in Tamil literature in Purananuru,an anthology of 400 verses composed approximately 2000 years ago.

Kalidasa in his Raghuvamsa Kavya gives three examples of Raghu (chapter 5-15),Athithi (17-7) and Dilipan (1-18). When a saint approached King Raghu for donations, Raghu came with mud pots. Then the saint says you have become poor by donating all your wealth. The other two verses compare the kings to the clouds that pour down rain without asking. Kalidasa says the king collects taxes only to give back to the people 1000 times more like the clouds which sucks seawater to give it back to earth as rain.

Comparing rainy clouds to a philanthropist is repeated often in Tamil literature. Mudamosi (Purananuru verse 127), a poet of Tamil Sangam, praises chieftain Ay Andiran to the rainy clouds in giving. He also added that only his wife retained her Mangala Sutra which cannot be taken out and donated. This is a typical simile in Hindu literature. In the same book Purananuru, Kapilan, praised Pari, another chieftain, as rainy clouds. He ironically asks why the whole world praises only Pari (chieftain) when Mari (rain) is more generous. The fact of the matter is Pari is more praised than Mari (Tamil word for rain).

Bhartruhari’s message is echoed by various poets in various ways. But Kalidasa and Sangam Tamil poets lived well before Bhartruhari. Hindu thinking about charity has been same until today.

–subham–