15.08.3 DHRUVA-STUTI P.3
Shloka 10
tvaM nitya-mukta-pariSuddha-vibuddha AtmA
kUtastha Adi-purusho bhagavAn-stryadhISaH/
yad-buddhy-avasthitim-akhaNDitayA svadRshTyA
drashTA sthitA-vadhimakho vyatirikta Asse //
You are ever-liberated, perfectly pure, the Omniscient Self, the Immutable, the most Ancient Person, the One with all divine attributes, the Lord of the three worlds and guNas. You, though being the uninterrupted Witness, by your Cosmic Vision, of the state of intelligence and also the Lord of all sacrifices, are ever aloof from the JIva, the individual soul.
Now we come to the svarUpa-lakshaNa of the Lord. According to the Upanishads satyam jnAnaM anantaM is the definition of the Transcendental Absolute. satyam ( Truth) is the same as sat (Absolute Existence). jnAnaM (Knowledge) and cit (Consciousness) are the same. anantaM Infinite) and Ananda (Bliss) are the same. These three facets are presented in EACH of the lines (lines 1, 2 and 4) of this 10th verse of Dhruva-stuti. Since the GAyatrI itself is a presentation of these three facets of the Absolute in its three lines, this 10th verse is taken to represent the GAyatrI. For the same reason, it is said that those who do not have the privilege of being inducted into the GAyatrI can take this verse and recite it and use it for meditation purposes; and they will have the same benefit as they would if they had done the GAyatrI. This is the mantra power of this verse. This interpretation beautifully dovetails with the description by commentators of Dhruva-stuti as representing the 12 Adityas, namely the twelve manifestations of the Sun-God. These twelve are, in order, mitra, ravi, sUrya, bhAnu, khaga, pUsha, hiraNya-garbha, marIci, Aditya, SavitA, arka, and bhAskara. The relevant one here is SavitA. It is the tenth facet. Each verse of Dhruva-stuti represents one of these. The manifestation savitA is represented by the tenth verse, namely the present one. SavitA is the manifestation that is deified in the GAyatrI as representative of the absolute. Thus this tenth verse is representative of SavitA, therefore of GAyatrI. Each epithet introduced here by Dhruva deserves elaborate comments. We shall attempt to give only a few.
kUTastha : The Immutable or The Immovable; that which remains like the unchanging iron-piece (anvil) on which the blacksmith does all his hammering. In Vedanta literature kUTastha is used to denote the akshara purusha, the imperishable Self, who is the changeless non-participating witness of the doings of the outer self. The outer Self, which is called the kshara purusha, 'the perishable Self', is involved in the actions of Nature, reflects the varied workings of the guNas of the individual's prakRti. This outer Self identifies himself with the play of personality and assumes the doer-ship of all actions. He is under the constant spell of mAyA; whereas the akshara purusha, the kuTastha, is the inactive non-doer and is only the witnessing Self. It is the Lord that appears as both the purushas. (See also 5.6.2 & 5.6.3).
drashTA : The seer. Actually this word has to go along with the entire third quarter, meaning: He who watches, uninterruptedly, by His own Cosmic Vision, the state of intelligence. But He never undergoes any vikAra (transformation) because of what He sees. cf. Br.U. (4-3-23): ‘Indeed there cannot be any impact of the seen or the seeing on the Seer, because the latter is immutable’.
He is actually the kUTastha or the akshara purusha witnessing everything. It is because of this existence of a continuous witness, that the outer Self when it goes to sleep along with its BMI, has however a memory of the sleeping act ('I slept soundly and happily' ) when it wakes up after sleep. This is a daily phenomenon that happens without our noticing it carefully. In yajur-veda, taittirIya-AraNyaka, 10 - 1- 67 there is a mantra:
‘aham-eva-aham-mAM-juhomi svAhA’,
meaning, ‘I make myself (the finite self) an oblation into the fire of the infinite Brahman which I am always’. This mantra, truly enunciates the refunding of the individual self into its source, the Supreme Self, or the realisation of the identity between the JIva and the ISvara when the adjuncts created by ignorance are removed (by the oblation of the lower self into the Fire of the Higher Self). The outer Self goes and 'merges' as it were with the Inner Self during sleep and that is what makes it conscious of the sleep after the event. It is this daily event that is the proof of the theory that the kshara purusha and the akshara purusha are essentially the same.
tryadhISaH : The simple meaning is 'Lord of the Three'. Here the 'three' could be any one of several possibilities. In fact every such possibility is so apt for the Lord that all of them apply and that is what makes the epithet one of the richest epithets for the description of the Lord. He is Lord of the three worlds. He is Lord of the three guNas, meaning, He transcends them. So He is guNAtIta. He is Lord of the Trinity - meaning, He is the absolute of whom each of the Trinity is only a manifestration. He is the Lord of the past, the present and the future - bhUta-bhavya-bhavat-prabhuH. He is Lord of the three states of Consciousness - waking, dreaming and sleeping; in other words, He is the fourth state of Consciousness, that transcends the three and is the substratum for all three. In the same manner He is represented by the silence that follows the three syllables 'a' 'u' and 'm' in the chanting of 'aum'. He is the One who is sung by the three vedas. He is the One who is attained by the three yogic paths - karma, bhakti and jnAna. He is the One who is 'born' in all the three yugas. He is the One who has three eyes. He is the One who made three strides to span the three worlds.
vyatirikta Asse: The Inner Self which is the akshara purusha also known as kUTastha is totally unaffected by any of the concepts that are generally known to create differences between individual and individual, namely, jAti (species, like bird or reptile animal or human, man or woman), kriyA (nature of work or profession), guNa (quality, like white or black, lean or stout, short or tall, etc.) and sambandha (relationship, like rich or poor, possessor of property or not). So He stands aloof from everything that individualises the outer self! He is the substratum or the base. Everything else is a superposition. The adhishTAna (base) has always the extra status (adhika-sthAna), both in terms of time and in terms of existence. For a pot made of clay, clay is the base; the pot lives for lesser time than the clay of which it is made. The Seen is superimposed on the Seer, drashTA. No doubt the latter stands aloof.