Sri Rukminisha Vijaya, Canto 1

Tradition has it that a work should be begun with Mangala for the happy completion of the work without any impediment, for the prosperity of the readers etc. It is three fold : 1. The invocation of the deity for blessing the author or the readers (Asihi), 2. Paying homage to the deity (namaskritya) & 3. A mere reference to the object treated in the work (Vasthu nirdesha). Sri Vadiraja has observed the first type of Mangala with a prayer to Sri Krishna to protect him using the auspicious letter 'Sri' at the beginning. Then he offers his prayers to his upAsyamurthi Hayagriva; to Rukmini, who is the goddess of speech & mind & wose consort is the hero of the peom; Sri Madhva, the guru; the better half BhArathi & her Lord Prana. (Verses 1 to 8)

With mock humility, he calls upon the scholors to patronize his work, telling them that he is not a pundit & his work may have a few blemishes (Verses 9, 10)

Then he sets the background for the incarnation of Sri Krishna. Here he carefully follows the 10th Skandha of Sri BhAgavatha & improves upon it adding suitable whys & wherefores in his own inimitable way & establishing the philosophical truths of our system in season & out of season. The BhAgavatha says that the goddess of earth, who groaning under the weight of the asuras, approached Vishnu through Brahma in the guise of a cow. Sri Vadiraja asks for the why of her choice as a cow & adds that because Vishnu is the friend of the cows & brAhmans, it would have an immediate & favourable effect in her mission. He also justifies her approach by adding "As the chaste wife of Vishnu, she could not brook the asuras, who as a class, are the haters of her husband" & draws a general proposition from this particular instance (ArtAntaranyAsa) as 'In this world, what can be a bigger burden to chaste women then the haters of their husbands?' Such embellishments of each & every word or idea in the BhAgavatham abound in this work.

The hosts of asuras, like Kalanemi (Kamsa), Viprachitti (JarAsandha) who were all arch haters of Vishnu were born on earth & the Earth was groaning under their weight. Though she was a by word for patience, she lost it & surrendered herself to Brahma, He as well as the other gods were quite helpless & along with her, all repaired to the abode of Vishnu in the ocean of milk. They all prayed to Him chanting the Purusha Suktha, as if to hint that He was able to kill thousands of asuras, with His thousands of heads,thousands of eyes & thousands of legs etc...

Vishnu was pleased to issue orders to them, through BrahmA, to whom also He was invisible, but comforting them all & consoling the Earth. Being visible to Lakshmi, He ordered her to transport Sesha in Devaki's womb to that of Rohini & she did it implicitly. Here, Lakshmi saw Him while Brahma did not see Him but heard Him & the other gods neither saw Him nor heard Him. This establishes beyond doubt the gradations in the hierarchy of gods. Shesha is Vishnu's bed & in appreciation of his yeoman service as Lakshmana in the RAmavathara, he was sent in advance as His elder brother.Sri Vadiraja observes that just as the kings send their bedding in advance to the railway station during their journey, the Emperor of the Universe also did not lag behind in doing so. Vishnu then entered Devaki's womb & there too, He was all bliss. Brahma & other gods came there & prayed to Him to rid them all of the miseries therein, which were evident to Him since He was on the spot. Then He was born at midnight, on the eighth day (Astami) of the dark fortnight, with four arms wielding the conch, mace & other weapons, wearing the golden yellow robes, & bedecked with various ornaments. Here, Sri Vadiraja says that the night time & the 8 th day are highly significant of His killing the night prowlers in all the eight directions. Similarly, he gives the whys & wherefores for the various natural phenomena at the time of His birth, like raining of flowers, beating of drums, singing of the Gandharvas dancing of the apasaras, etc... (verses 34 to 44). In verses 46 to 54, the ably argues & establishes the fact that Vishnu was neither born like our babes nor were Devaki & Vasudeva his parents.

Vasudeva & Devaki praised Him & He reminded them of His previous births.Then He hid His divine form & became a human babe. He then went to Gokula not for fear of Kamsa but to meet His consort, who at his bidding, had born as the daughter of Nanda. When Vasudeva took up the babe, all the locked up doors opened for his exit. There was drizzling on the way & Sesha followed him, warding it off with his hoods. He had to cross the river Yamuna, which was in spate & striking terror with its eddies. However, she gave a foot path to him holding up the waters on either side just as her husband, the ocean God, did to Sri RAma. She seemed to tell Vasudeva that

his ocean of samsara too would imitate her & give him a path way. May that milk ocean of Lord Krishna who is adorned with the bright jewels of attributes (such a bliss, knowledge & others) & who gives moksha to His devotees protect me! That Lord is churned or inquired into by the gods on one side like the siddhantis & by the demons, on the other, like the purvapaksis with the help of the Brahmasutras which are like the churning-rope in the form of the serpent VAsuki. The heart of the sutras is nourished by the works of Sri Madhwa, eminent wind god & the serpent is nourished by air. The sutras are centred round the great upanishads which are like the churning rod in the form of the mandara mountain around which serpent VAsuki was tied like the churning rope.

The story of the churning of the milk ocean is beautifully described in the eighth skandha of the BhAghavatha. The GurubhAva Prakasika sums up the idea of the verse thus:

yaTha KShIrasamudra: madharam mamThAnam vAsukim cha sUthram kruthvA

sEvAsurairmathitha: svasyavarunathvEna svakIyadEvAnAm pIyUsham

prayachChathi thaThA krishnOpi

brahmAsUthranirnItharThavEdhAmthairaDhikAribhi:

pUrvapakshasiddhAnthaishchArchArvapUrvakam vichAritho mOkshO dhadhAthIthi

samudhAyArTha:

I worship that horse faced god who seems to be proclaiming as follows with His groups of hands. Meditating upon this my foot according to the method laid down in the genuine Sastras & wearing the marks of conch (discus & others), repeat my hymn. Then I shall give you the wealth of Sastras along with prosperity & also teach you their valid truths. It will then be proper to have moksha of the form of reaching my feet.

For the completion of the path of my lovely peotry, I resort to be horse faced light which is under the control of the whip of praise uttered by the group of Sages having devotion.

I salute that mother Rukmini, the beloved consort of Lord Krishna, who has hanging forelocks & lotus- like feet that shine with the tinkling anklets. Her face is lit up with a gentle smile. Her eyes are lotus like & her lustrous waist is rather thin (or timid) due to the heaviness of the breasts. Her bangles tinkle in her arms. She is devoutly worshipped by all the gods with Brahma at their head. She is dressed in beautiful (auspicious) clothes & decorated with gold ornaments.

May the face of goddess Saraswathi be for my good! Her face has two ears shinning with two earings. It is shining with a merciful look. It has the lustre of the full moon. Its gentle smile is mixed with the lustre of the lower lip which is like a coral. It has slightly curved ringlets of hair all around. It has a mark on the forehead. The nose shines with the lustre of a nose ring of pearl & the pair of cheeks is similar to the turtle. (N.B. The poet prays to Goddess Saraswathi by means of AsiralamkAra)

Even the mukhyaprana deva who is jivOttamma is able to know a small fragment of the vast form of the Lord of Lakshmi & sport with it just as the wind alone is able to diffuse the fragrance of the lotusflowers, I, a lesser person than he, am going to take a small porttion of that greatness manifested by the wind god's Sastras & make the face of my speech fragment with it.

VAdiraja, a disciple of the eminent Seer Sri VAgishathirtha (a master of speech), whose sins are blown off by the wind emanating from the nostrils of the horse faced god like the heap of chaff or straws narrates the most charming stories of Sri Hari.

(N.B. Here the use of the verb shamsathi instead of shamsAmi is significant. Thereby the poet suggests that Sri Hari alone is the chief doer & everything is dependant on Him)

May this poem of the sport of Lord Hari (Mukundha), the giver of moksha, which is earned by me, though not a learned Scholor, be a necklace round the neck of poets. Do the people cast away the garland of jasmine flowers simply because it is strung by an unskilled forist?

O, learned ones! Patronise the wealth of poetry having slight defects caused by carelessness. Is goddess Lakshmi (born of the milky ocean) to be ignored by the wise due to the defect of her inconstancy?

This goddess Earth being under the control of the sons of Diti (the demons) who have countless crores of mountains of sins & having all her limbs groaning under their unbearable weight approached Lord Brahma for refuge.

Despite her proverbial endurance the goddess Earth was grief stricken being broken down by the weight of the haters of her Lord Vishnu. That is meet because in this world what else will be the burden to the chaste women except the haters of their husbands?

That grief stricken goddess, while surrendering herself to Lord Vishnu (Mukundha), assumed indeed the form of a cow, hearing that He is the chief kinsman of cows & brahmins. Hearing also that He is the remover of the burden (of grief) of the afficted, she put on an air of affliction.

The chief gods such as Brahma, Siva (son of Brahma) & others went out of their cities showing their dependance to the people on earth, praising Lord Vishnu for (the fulfilment of) the mission of the goddess Earth & meditating upon Him in their hearts.

That group of gods whose luminous forms are describable by the Vedas went along the sky despelling the mass of darkness to the shore of the milk-ocean which is fit to be reached with great effort by the best of yogis.

Then on the shore of the milky ocean, BrahmA who was born of a lotus commenced the worship of Lord Vishnu with folded hands, maintaining concentration by closing his eyes tightly, sitting on a firm seat (PadmAsna) & controlling well the group of sense organs.

>From that time indeed when BrahmA seated himself on PadmAsana & repeated mentally the hymn of Purusha Suktha which cannot be understood by others inferior to him he came to be known as PadmAsana in the world.

Siva (son of BrahmA) cast off all things (like the garments, etc...) other than Lord Vishnu. He became free from love & praised Lord Hari, the foe of Mura, with words & so he came to be known respectively as Digvasna (the Naked one), Anangajit (the conqueror of cupid) & Girisa (master of words).