Triveni Journal

1927 | 11,233,916 words

Triveni is a journal dedicated to ancient Indian culture, history, philosophy, art, spirituality, music and all sorts of literature. Triveni was founded at Madras in 1927 and since that time various authors have donated their creativity in the form of articles, covering many aspects of public life....

Some Verses of Sarvajna

Translated from Kannada by V. K. Gokak

I

Who made the peacock's feathers thousand-eyed?
Who made the sky as wondrous as it is?
Who made the leaves, the flowers, wondrous-dyed?
Bow down, vain man! for all these works are His!

II

Who made the rose and filled it with perfume?
Who deposited water nectar-sweet
In the soft heart of palm? Bow down! Bow down!
He made all things and made the Kokil sing.

III

Look to your Lord who lives and moves ov'r all;
Nev'r in His net of faint illusions fall;
Women are fleeting shadows, wealth a dream,
Truth doth with constant light through ages beam.

IV

God bid the melon rest upon the ground;
The banyan fruit grows on the giant tree;
For every thing a fit place has He found
That man may rest in peace and happy be.

V

He who doth contemplate with steady mind
Upon his Lord is no worse at his home
Than in a temple; but he who doth find
His way to temples with a wandering mind
Is better in his home than in a dome.

VI

Can there be fire from the peaceful moon?
Can ever ocean dry and feed no cloud?
A world-famed warrior turns a coward soon–
Than a devotee lose his faith in God.

VII

Be calm and wise nor let the body free
To kill itself; for ever dwell on good;
Bar with high barriers that disastrous flood
Of dark temptations, –live but to be free!

VIII

He has no shape; but He is as the sky
Majestic, invisible, infinite,
Lives hidden from the mortal eyes that try
To see His face, blind with His flood of light.

IX

Great God who lives in mouldering shapes of clay,
In images bare to the eye of day,
In pictures growing indistinct and wan: –
How can he not live in the heart of man?
Translated from KANNADA by V. K. GOKAK.