Hanna Urbańska

In the present paper an attempt will be made toward interpreting selected stanzas from the work of Nārāyaṇa Guru (1854–1928), a mystic and social reformer from Kerala. In his Malayalam work the Kuṇḍalinī Pāṭṭŭ (The Song of the Kundalini Snake), Guru depicted an ancient yogic concept of Kuṇḍalinī, a coiled power residing in the state of sleep within the subtle energy centre (mūlādhāra) situated at the base of the central body channel (suṣumnā). The very same concept appears in many other works by Nārāyaṇa Guru, including Śiva Śatakam (One Hundred Stanzas on Śiva). An analysis of these stanzas in the light of the Siddha tradition (Tirumandiram by Tirumūlar) reveals that not only has the Kuṇḍalinī concept been borrowed from the Dravidian literature, Nārāyaṇan introduces the Tamil Siddhas’style of description of mystic experiences to his philosophical works, using metaphorical-twilight language which excludes the possibility of univocal interpretation.

This paper attempts to interpret selected stanzas from the work of Nārāyaṇa Guru (1854–1928), a South Indian philosopher and social reformer from Kerala. The ancient yogic concept of kuṇḍalinī śakti presented by Guru in his short poem the Kuṇḍalinī Pāṭṭ (The Song of the Kundalini Snake) also appears in Svānubhava Gīti – Lyric of Ecstatic Self-Experience (among others in stanza 41 and 42) – the Malayalam hymn which represents the nirguṇa-poetry describing the mystical experience. An analysis of each motif included in the stanzas mentioned above in the light of Tamil Śaiva tradition (among others Tirumantiram by Tirumūlar) shows that not only the kuṇḍalinī concept could have been adopted from Tamil tradition; Nārāyaṇa Guru seems to apply the very same style of presentation of yogic experiences to his works by means of the twilight language. A comparative analysis of Svānubhava Gīti and Tirumantiram allows us to better understand the concept of the Śiva-Śakti relations presented by Guru.