महामनुस्तवः

PREFACE

The Mahamanustava is a remarkable poem among the writings of Sri T. V. Kapali Sastriar. Composed during his sixtieth year, it celebrates the glory of the Sri Vidya in which he had been initiated by his father when he was yet a boy. It records his whole-souled relation with the Deity and his continued gratitude to Her. For he always looked upon this original Mother of his adoration as responsible for all the subsequent rapid transitions in his spiritual Quest. His meeting with his first Guru, Kavyakantha Vasishtha Ganapati Muni, in the very presence of the Deity he was wor-shipping at the Tripurasundari Temple in Tiruvottiyur, his coming under the direct grace of Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi at Arunachala, and later his exclusive dedica-tion to the ideal and yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother at Pondicherry, were realised by him as orderly steps guided by the benevolent Hand of the great Mother who first took him to Her bosom.

This poem is not a mere laudation of the Vidya, the Mother Creatrix. It dwells upon the significance of the Manifestation that is Sri Lalita-Tripurasundari, shows unambiguously the Path that leads to the Truth embodied by Her and the way to tread it. These features are indeed likely to be missed in the feast of poetic sound and sense with which the work abounds. Only an initiate admitted into the mysteries of the profound Vidya (discipline) can spot and delineate them in clear outline. And this sacred obligation has been ably discharged by Sri S. Shankaranarayanan who has had a fortunate and unique relation with Sastriar.

Sri Shankaranarayanan had been initiated into the worship of the Divine Mother by his grandfather even before he was ten and received powerful reinforcement to his inner aspiration from many quarters, but-he confesses—the living touch, the contact that vivified all practice and knowledge bequeathed to him, came from Sastriar. A new eye opened in him and with it a new world into which he takes the reader so effortlessly, so naturally. His intellectual clarity, luminous reason and the transparent sincerity of his soul vie with each other in the brilliant Introduction he writes to his translation of the Sanskrit verses. He has dived deep in the profounds of the poet-seer that is Sastriar and presented in a nut-shell the fundamentals of the ancient mystic discipline of Sri Vidya as renewed and relived in the life of the author. True knowledge unites. The Vidya that is cherished in this work establishes the oneness of Man, Nature and the Divine, both in essence and in expression, as shown by Sri Shankaranarayanan in his expository writing.

Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry.
M. P. PANDIT