The army general becomes a servant of the lord

The army general becomes a servant of the lord

 

Paranjyoti, while on one hand secured distinct skills in warfare, displayed those valorous acts, with the good devotion to lord Siva within himself. He joined narasimha varma's army and became the leader of the elephant troops and marched all the way to vatapi with victory. He submitted all the gold, jewels, elephants, and horses captured from there to the king, while keeping the ganapathi for himself.

 

The king asked him with exclamation, "How could you win over the great elephant army of the chalukya kings."

 

At that paranjyoti did not say anything and kept humbly silent.

 

Though he was the head of the troops he did not disclose his personal interests to the king. He did his job diligiently but did not project himself as the doer at any time. When the king now asked the reason for his valor and victory he kept quite and did not speak.

 

However the ministers who were around paranjyoti knew the reason. Ministers had the talent to investigate and spy into matters that even the king was not aware but kept these secrets to themselves.

 

"Minister" (in Sanskrit mantri") means "the one who keeps within his heart and protects". "Man" is keep within the heart (mind) without letting out; tra is to proect. The sound that we keep always within our hearts (and do not say it aloud), and which when we keep repeating it always (secretly), protects us is called Mantra. It is also the same meaning for the mantra that we chant. The matters that we keep to heart, including those that are not for protecting us is also called mantram. In this way, minister is the person who keeps royal and administrative secrets. What they call "research" in these days, which are often done by half-baked knowledged persons, and even those who have vested interest to make a point, have wrongly deduced that Brahmins plotted against the people by putting rules that "the king should engage Brahmins as ministers for his administration." Therefore, even if there was such power of mantra or not, they even exaggerated that king did not rule by his physical courage, but more so by the power of the mantra of the Brahmins—alleging the domination of Brahmins. They even wrote that the king was afraid of the team of ministers that they may do him harm by their power of mantras and so saluted affirmatively to all their opinions. These are all totally false. The mantra of the king's administrator is only confidential counsel to the king. Even if we check the dictionaries of dharma sastra, and artha sastra, and even the normal dictionaries we can know that the meaning of mantram here is confidential counsel. And the mantri is such a counselor.

 

Ministers are normally well versed in subjects and in inquiry. They would not necessarily be experts in the mantras though they would follow the sastras very well. The preceptor of the king is the expert in the mantras. The king dilipan had praised his preceptor vashishtor who was a great scholar, "oh! Preceptor you are one protects from the dangers that I face from the demi gods and people. I merely win over the enemies that I can see with my weapons. Whereas, you control with your power of mantras all my adversaries because of your grace for me, even when these adversaries are not yet visible to the eyes. I merely fight and win over these adversaries who have already been silenced by you, and get a title of victory", so writes the great poet kalidasa. The description of a king's preceptor is mistakenly presented as that for the ministers and wrongly presented as research.

The minister was responsible for confidential counsel. The word secretary – "secret-ary" is also with this philosophy only. bUt the difference the secretary and minister is that, the secretary merely keeps the confidential information of his boss from others; but the minister keeps the confidential matters of the kingdom even away from the king—as needed – for example not telling these to the king inorder not to worry him unnecessarily. Because of his loyalty for the king the minister will keep several matters within himself, and keep them hidden totally from the king, "that is man-tram" and take necessarily action to manage them, and when necessary he will disclose them. He will avoid telling the king the trivial matters of the town, but he will keep a tab on all these matters, and when needed he will tell the king the important ones – this is the quality of an able minister.

 

In response to the question by the pallava king, the ministers who were with paranjyoti answered the king, "paranjyoti is a great devotee of the lord Siva. Without disclosing to others he does several service activities to the devotees of the lord. How can any enemy army stand infront of such a noble man?"

 

Instead of praising his skills the dhanur Veda, or his physical strengths or intellectual shrewdness, the ministers attributed his devotion to the lord Siva as the reason for his victory in the war, and other accomplishments- this is note worthy. It does not mean that the devotion is only useful for the life after death. It can be useful while living on this earth as well. Until the worldly activity is completed by some one, devotion will help him.

 

Once the ministers told this, the king was totally shocked. He cried, "What a grave mistake have I done. I have commanded a great devotee of the lord to lead my army." He pleaded for forgiveness, and fell at the feet of paranjyoti.

 

From this we can know the noble qualities of the kings of those days.

 

I am not telling these "stories", merely repeating the story narrated in periya puranam.

 

When the king prostrated, paranjyoti interrupted the king and in turn he prostrated to the king and said, "you should not do like this. My families have for several generations migrated from our original Brahmin duties to take up work and specialize in elephant army service. as per our family practice I had voluntarily joined your army. I am happy to continue to do this family service to you."

 

Detachment (sanyasa) with a half heart and total devotion to the lord are not allowed by our sastras. After maturing properly only should one take the path of the detachment (sanyasa)—like how a food is cooked well before it is ready for eating—the mind should be ready first. That is why our tradition has kept the householder step before the sanyasa step. Because the Buddhist monastries welcomed that any body can become monk, after some years the monastry became a laughing matter. mahendra varma written making fun of them in his "matta vilasa prahasana".

 

We must first analyze and find out in what state we are, before embarking on the decision to take up the path of sanyasa or total devotion to the lord. If we try to jump to a height that we cannot climb and fall down, we will only break our limbs, and will never be able to climb again!

 

Paranjyothi had acquired a very mature state at that time already. More than the warfare, he was totally thinking of the lord, and believed that he was doing the duty to the lord, as the lord himself told in the bhagavat gita "man anusmara: yudya cha:" but in order not to leave the king feel guilty, he told him subtly, "I will continue to serve as the army general, leading the elephant troops".

 

Though he told so, the king decided that paranjyoti should not any more be serving him in this way, and told him decisively "No, no. You should from now only keep chanting the name of lord Siva and serve his devotees", and gave him much gold, wealth, and assets for his family, and also for his service activities to the devotees of the lord Siva.

 

This is a new type of story. Paranjyoti is an elephant troop leader. Like in other stories, while he brought the wealth acquired from the enemy and offered them to the king, the king in turn had given paranjyoti a lot of wealth!

 

Taking all those with him, paranjyoti came to his home town thiruchengattankudi. At that time a great turn took place in his life. The man who had his devotion to the lord Siva within his heart, but was valorous outside, waging wars, hitting and killing people, had become very soft person outside as well. He installed the vatapi ganapati in his home town's Siva temple, ganapathiswaram. Together with his wife, he prayed to the lord Siva, and served all the devotees of the lord Siva with food. Humbly calling himself as very small (siru) among all those devotees, he called himself, siru thondar. His original name paranjyoti went away and he became to be known only as siruthondar. The fact that name that paranjyoti had when he was a popular army general for the great pallava king went away and he took the name that he related his service to the lord shows how our people in those days gave more importance and respect to the service to the lord than the worldly activities.

 

His story comes as siruthonda nayanar puranam in periya puranam. Sundara moorthy used "sengattankutimeya siruthondar adiyen" in his thirutonda thokai. It is not that significant that sundara moorthy mentioned siruthondar in his work, because it covers all the 63 nayanmars. What is important is that gnanasambandar sang in his praise. I told you that gnanasambandar visited thiruchen-gattankudi when siruthondar lived there, who welcomed the great poet to his house and kept his feet on his chest. Gnanasambandar has praised siruthondar in his thevaram songs. In one stanza, he has acknowledged siruthondar specially for his vibhuti,
that he is putting powder over his body. In his "todudaiya seviyan" he calls the lord as "podi poosi" to mean that the lord has engrossed his heart fully, like a thief who has spread a powder to attract a person. In this stanza on siruthondar, he says that the lord is living this town of thiruchengattankudi primarily to bless his devotee siruthondar. In another stanza with ten lines, he praises siruthondar with something good in him in each line, and says that the lord is living in such a nice town of thiruchengattankudi. In one line he also includes the son siralan, and calls him 'siralan siruthondan."