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SEPTEMBER, 1915] THE ADVENTURES OF THE GOD OF MADURA
[Mount Meru is the central conical mountain of Hindu mythology. In the Hindu system it has replaced the central cosmic tree of earlier mythic conception. It is fairly developed in other systems also. Ideas once in vogue are never allowed to die out in the East. Thus we find that the notion of the cosmic tree exists in the Puranas side by side with that of the cosmic mountain. This tree has passed in the Puranas into the akshaya-vafa, later, localised at Gaya in Hindustan. It answers to the Ygg-drasil of Norse legend. The Sun, the Moon and the stars revolve round this central mountain. They have their roosting places in its caverns. The Sun and the Moon emerge for their daily rounds from opposite sides of Mera. The ṣendu thrown by the Pandya at the top of Meru is the burning globe of the Sun, as stated already. The white umbrella with which the mountain-god showed himself to the king is a cognisance of the Sun-god. It is the epitome of the Sun-lit firmament, the umbrella-shaped overhanging canopy. The four heads of the mountain are the four heads of the Sun...... the four Equinoctial and Solstitial positions. The eight arms of the mountain-god are the eight cardinal points. The central mountain, as localised in Zoroastrian appropriation, answers to Mount Elburz, which has supplied much of the detail of the description of Meru in Purâpic orography.]
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VI.
Ugra-Pandya left a son Vira-Pandya who succeeded his father on the throne.
The Brahmans of old learnt the Vedas by rote from oral tradition, without caring to inform themselves of the meaning of what they repeated, much as they do at the present day. In the forest of Naimisharanya dwelt two Rishis, Kanva and Garga, who felt a great desire to learn the meaning of the Vedas. They found no one in that part of the continent competent to enlighten them. They happened to come across a wandering Brahman hermit, a great devotee of Biva, who gave them to understand that the true meaning of Vedic lore could be expounded only by Dakshinamurti, a god who had his seat at Madura, to the south of the big temple. He added that this god could not be propitiated except by a long course of prayer, penance and austerities. The Rishis accordingly went through this course and all three of them set out for Madura.
They reached the place in due time. The god condescended to appear to them in the guise of a Brahman Seer, at his seat under a tree known in the vernacular as kallalamaram.
The Seer said to the pilgrims that, if they wished to hear him expound the Vedas, they must go with him to the great temple, for he would do no lecturing except under the presidency of the god there. Thither, accordingly, they all repaired, and the Seer proceeded with his exposition. The sum and substance of the Vedas was, as expounded by him, no more than the manifestation of Siva in diverse forms of knowledge of a more or less esoteric character.
When the exposition was finished, the god Dakshinamârti disappeared having become one with the presiding god there,
This event occurred in the reign of Vira-Pandya.
[The substance of the exposition as outlined in the Purana betrays the ignorance on the part of the Saiva-siddhântins of the contents of the Vedas, which really exhibit nothing to the purpose. The Saiva-siddhantins appear to have held, in common with the bulk of the masses, erroneous notions of the matter which is to be found in the Vedas. The exposition of Vedic lore as ascribed to the god Dakshinamurti contains in outline all the creed and dogma of the Saiva-siddhanta. The attempt to represent the creed of the siddhanta as the sum and substance of Vedic teaching was to claim for it the same divine sanction of revelation as also the same sanctity, Dakshinamurti is a form of Siva. He is the Dictaean Jupiter and the kallalamaram is the sacred Cretan ficus.]
