Subramhanya bhujangam – 30

We are now in the last few shlokas of Subramhanya bhujangam. This shloka can be thought of as the last shloka in the sense of prayer or prarthanA as the next shlokas are more like the concluding ones. In this shloka, Adi Shankara requests Subramhanya to forgive the mistakes that he(we) commit(s).

“When their child makes a mistake, wouldn’t the father and mother tolerate it? The commander of the Army of Devas! I am but a child but you are the father of this entire world. Please forgive all my sins, Great Lord!”

जनित्री पिता च स्व पुत्र अपराधम् (janitrI pitA ca sva putra aparAdham)

Mother – father – and/also – one’s own – son/child – mistake/fault

सहेते न किम् देवसेन अधिनाथ​​ (sahEtE na kim dEvasEna adhinAtha)

Tolerate/endure – not – what – Army of Devas – Supreme Lord

अहम् च अति बालः भवान् लोक तातः (aham ca ati bAlah bhavAn lOka tAtah)

I (am) – but/and – very – child – you (are) – world – father

क्षमस्व अपराधम् समस्तम् महेश​ (kShamasva aparAdham samastam mahEsha)

Please forgive – mistake – all – MahEsha

Shankara has addressed Murugan in a few ways that highlight his compassion and mercy, as dayAshIla (compassionate one) and krpAbdhE (ocean of compassion) previously. But in this shloka, it is not about just mercy or compassion or kindness. Rather it’s about love, the unconditional love a parent has for his or her child. When a child makes some mistake unknowingly, because he or she doesn’t know what they are doing or what would come off it, the parents don’t forsake the child. Instead, they try to teach them why that should not have been done and why something similar shouldn’t be done in the future too. This, they do because of the love they have for their child and they want the child to develop as a responsible person. It is not mercy that a parent forgives the child but it is a pure act of love.

Similarly, Murugan being in the state of a Father of all this world, the whole world is His children. With such a parental love, He should also forgive the mistakes that we do due to lack of proper knowledge and take us under His wings. As if to insist on His greatness, Adi Shankara addresses Murugan in a lofty manner in this shloka – dEvasEnAdhinAtha (the supreme lord of the army of Devas) and mahEsha (Great Lord) and in contrast he uses ati bAla to refer to himself (and obviously all people), ati is used to indicate more, too, extreme. We are all ati bAlAh – extremely childlike that most of the times we don’t even have an idea of what we do. Such mistakes, we pray to Him that He forgives.

Here, it is also mentioned that kShamasva aparAdham samastam – Please forgive all the sins/mistakes. So, are we requesting Him to forgive whatever sins we commit, irrespective of the degree and nature? In the above passages, we were discussing in the sense that whatever mistakes one does without proper knowledge of the nature and implications, Murugan should forgive such mistakes like a parent would forgive a child. But the last line of the verse request Murugan to forgive the sins in totality. Does this mean even if we commit something wrong knowing very well about it, will Murugan forgive? Or is it that Murugan will not tolerate such mistakes? Aren’t these contradicting to each other?

I think this is where we need to connect this line with the previous line and see the shloka in its big picture. The idea is about us all being a child and Murugan being the Parent, Father essentially. A child has no sense of vengeance or no thoughts about harming others. When it throws a tantrum or say, snatches a toy from another child or hits some other child, there is no hidden motives in it. It does something because it wants something. But the child has not developed to a point that it thinks “if I do this, it hurts the other child or maybe I should be patient and talk nicely and get that toy from the other child”. It doesn’t have an idea of what is right and wrong. So, essentially, we cannot state that act as a sin. Rather, it is the nature of a child*. We must just think, if as adults, are we committing the mistakes similarly? A sensible adult wouldn’t be. I mean most of the adults know what is right and what is wrong. Although, right and wrong not being absolutes but only a relative value, still, we know what is right and what is wrong in a given situation and it is in our responsibility to act so.

While a parent tolerates the mistakes done by the child most of the times, it is also true that sometimes, especially, if the child doesn’t seem to change the attitude even after realizing the mistake, the parents let the child to learn a lesson or two. Any sensible parent knows not to be over-protective of the child, lest the child becomes a spoilt brat. This again is an act of love. The child might be disappointed with the parent for some time, for not tolerating it, but it sure has got a valuable lesson – to be responsible for one’s own action. Similarly, even though the God could forgive anything and everything, He also lets us learn a lesson once in a while, solely to make us better and refined people. And this reiterates the karma principle that essentially governs the earth – what goes around comes around. One cannot simply commit crimes with the hope that God will forgive everything. Indeed, one who understands this either doesn’t think about committing heinous crimes, or if done knowingly wouldn’t whine about the effect and accepts it without questioning the love of God. This shloka tells us about the parental love that Murugan has towards all of us and also subtly about being a responsible child that makes his/her parents proud.

In this shloka, Murugan is addressed as the father of the world. It is such a contrast when compared to the shlokas 16 and 18, where Murugan is being described as a child, whose head was kissed and smelt by His Father, Lord Siva and whose body was embraced affectionately by Siva as the little Murugan leapt out of His mom’s lap.

* An additional information – a beautiful snippet from Mahabharata that I thought would be related to this context. Punishing someone for the mistake done as a child even got Yama a curse. There is an episode from the life of Sage Mandavya, where he was tortured for a crime that he had not committed. Later when sage Mandavya met Yama and asked him why he was punished so badly for something that he didn’t commit, Yama said it was because as a child, Mandavya tortured insects and such tiny beings by piercing them and hence a similar treatment was given to him as result of his karma. Sage Mandavya questioned the judgment saying that it is unfair to treat something done as a child unknowingly as a sin and for this he cursed Yama to be born in the mortal world. As every other curse, it was a blessing in disguise, as Yama was born as the great and wisest Vidura.