The Philosophy and Personality of Tikkana

The Philosophy Personality of Tikkana

By N. V. R. KRISHNAMURTHY. M.A.
(Research Scholar, University of Madras)

Tikkana is the, apostle of the Hari-Haranatha cult and philosophy in the Telugu country. The opening and closing verses of every canto in the Mahabharata, his masterpiece in Telugu literature, enunciate the philosophy of the Hari-Haranatha cult. Tikkana was born at a time when ceremonial religion had taken the place of a real search after the Absolute Truth, and religious fervour had petrified into fanatical dogmatism. The contending religions of the time postulated either Siva or Vishnu, or some other Deity, as the theological head of a divine hierarchy. Tikkana’s philosophy is in part a reaction against the tendency to an exclusively anthropomorphic devotion which results from an individual cult of divine personality, and in part a protest against the excessive emotionalism and sentimental extravagance of the sectarian Bhakti cults of his days. Tikkana not only strikes the golden mean and postulates the devotion to Hari-Haranatha but also evolves a synthesis between the contending philosophies of religious worship.

The theology of the Hari-Hara cult combines the divine personalities of Vishnu and Siva and speaks of them as one indivisible entity. In the opening verse of his Mahabharata, Tikkana says: “My obeisance to the ‘Paratatva’ (Absolute Reality) of Hari-Hara who is Lord Siva in the form of Lord Vishnu.” The use of the abstract, ‘Para-tatva’ here is significant. The metaphysics of the Hari-Hara cult describe Him to be the creator, the supporter, the annihilator of the entire creation, and the bliss and beatitude that illumines the darkness of” life. He can be worshipped only through a mind that is completely devoid of ego: He is beyond the compass of human comprehension. But, in elaborating the theory of devotion, Tikkana freely borrows all the symbols of ancient Hindu theology. Hari-Hara is represented as having ‘Vanamala’ (garland) as well as the ‘Bhujangas’ (snakes), the ‘Kaustubha’ (jewel) and the crescent-moon alike. The uninitiated cannot, of course, apprehend these symbols. But in such a symbolism is common to all mystics. It is the special vocation of the mystical consciousness, not only to go on search of the Ultimate Reality, but also to communicate the secrets of divine experience to other men. Therefore the mystic communion with the ‘incomprehensible and the infinite, must, of necessity, borrow the known symbolism for its artistic self-expression It is an effort to translate the higher language of the soul into the homely vernacular of the senses.

In the introduction to his Mahabharata, Tikkana narrates his mystic vision of Hari- Haranatha. On the eve of undertaking the great work, Tikkana tells us he was in a contemplative mood, meditating over the problem of the dedication. Lord Hari-Hara Himself comes to Tikkana along with the spirit of Kommana, the father of Tlkkana. Kommana introduces Lord Hari-Hara and tells him that He himself has come to seek the dedication of Tikkana’s work. In that moment of self-donation, the voice of duty come to him from beyond; he obeys the fugitive intimation of the Beyond as a divine call and becomes conscious of his contact with the Ultimate Reality. He resolves to dedicate his magnum opus to Lord Hari-Hara as a “means of emancipation from the cycle of birth and rebirth.” The introduction to his Mahabharata is an assimilation of divine experience,–a flash of transcendent symbolic intuition. As a matter of fact, Lord Hari-Hara was already pleased with the prayer addressed to Him in a Sanskrit sloka, as Kommana tells Tikkana. This shows that Tikkana was a devotee of Lord Hari-Hara even before he undertook the translation of the Mahabharata, which he later dedicated to Him. But in the introduction to Nirvachanottara Ramayana, he tells us that he was the worshipper of the lotus feet of Lord Siva. Evidently, this spiritual evolution belongs to the period between the Nirvachanottara Ramayana, and the Mahabharata where he narrates his spiritual vision.

To those who develop psycho-sensorial automatism in these parallels between sense and spirit may present themselves to consciousness in the theopathetic state. Psychologists tell us that genuine visionary experiences are not ‘abnormal’ in the pathological sense. They are indeed entirely normal to the subject who experiences them. The alarm at the very thought of such experiences arises from our confounding the normal with the average. No genuine spiritual height can ever be reached on the path of the average. But the psychologist goes a bit farther and tries to explain that mystical experiences are, after all, only the objectivisation of ideas already in the mind. He takes the admission of Tikkana as meditating over the problem of dedication just before his dream, as a point in his favour; so also the sloka in praise of Hari-Hara. So the vision represents thoughts and memories presented in concrete and pictorial form, rather than his soul’s effort to grasp a message from beyond itself. Mystical experience did not add anything new and ‘from beyond’ to the poet. Mystics, like other human beings, receive their knowledge from ordinary rational channels. When it seemed to Tikkana that an entirely new truth had been revealed through the vision, one of two things must have happened. Either a forgotten truth was so vividly and forcibly recalled to the memory as to impress the sense of a new discovery upon the mind; or, thoughts which had long been shaping through hours of brooding meditation, but which failed to come to actual birth, were made explicit and articulate to his mind, which could not rcognise them in that finished form. But this is a point over which the psychologist has no jurisdiction. In the words of Ribot, the religious feeling is a fact. Psychology simply analyses and follows its transformations but it is incompetent in the matter of its objective value”.

In the philosophy of Hari-Hara, Tikkana brings out the ‘Advaita Tatya’. This Advaitism should not be confused with the monism of the Vedantist or the mayavada of Sankara. The Advaitism here mainly addresses itself to the enunciation of identity (or the non-difference) of Hari and Hara, and, consequently, it postulates that the religious Absolute of all religions is essentially one and the same.

The philosophy of the Mahabharata, in the opinion of Tikkana, also seeks to establish the Advaita Dharma, an Advaita of course different from the monism of the Vedantist. The Mahabharata philosophy is a reconciliation of the apparent contradictions between the Vedas and the Puranas. Tikkana says:

“When there is an apparent contradiction between the Vedas and the Puranas, the controversy must be referred to the Mahabharata, which is a synthesis of the four Purusharthas.”

For instance, there are commandments in the Vedas and Upanishads like Satyam Vada (speak the truth), Dharmam Chara (Act up to Dharma).” The question arises whether these are universal Truths which must be obeyed implicitly, or whether they are relative truths with a reference to place, person and time. Such controversies are naturally raised in the Puranas. The Mahabharata’s solution is that

“Truth which is conducive to the happiness and well-being of creation is Truth.;
“Truth which is detrimental to the happiness and well-being living tantamounts to ‘Untruth’ ”;
“ ‘Untruth’ spoken to save a life is equal to ‘Truth’ ”;
“So is an ‘Untruth’ for the sake of marriage.”

The idealistic commandments in the Vedas and thus Upanishads are harmonized with the practical philosophy of the everyday world in its relation to life. The Mahabharata solves the eternal riddles by bringing out the harmony between the apparent contradictions of ethical teaching and practical conduct. Tikkana calls this ‘Dharma Advaita’. He claims that Krishna Dvaipayana composed the Mahabharata in Sanskrit to vindicate this truth. We can appreciate Tikkana’s claim when we remember that the same Krishna Dvaipayana was the first person, according to Indian tradition, who codified the four Vedas and the Vedic literature by evolving the shall they are assuming to this day. That is why the Mahabharata is called the ‘Fifth Veda’. The undertaking of the rendering of the Mahabharata by Tikkana nearly two hundred years after Nannaya first began the translation in to Telugu is no mere accident. The philosophy of the Mahabharata synchronised with his own philosophy. It is not because there were no poets in Telugu in the long span of two hundred years, who could finish the Mahabharata that it lay unfinished. Many poets like Panditharadhya, Nannechoda, Palkuriki Somanaradhya flourished during this period. But all of them were Saivites and belonged to an entirely different religious persuasion, and a different school of thought in literature. The Saiva religion and philosophy revolutionized all the provinces of human thought and action during the eleventh and twelfth centuries of the Christian era in the Andhra country. Saiva literature was the first romantic movement in Telugu literature. The Saiva poets started a popular literary movement, as distinct from the classical movement of the Nannaya age.

Here too Tikkana not only struck the golden mean between the two schools of literary thought but also headed a new literary renaissance. Dasakumara Charitra was dedicated to him. Marana, the author of Markandeya purana, was his own disciple. In the introduction to Nirvachanottara Ramayana, he says of himself:

“I am a high born personage and an artist well-versed in the art of poetic composition in both the literatures.”^*

We know that he was at this time the minister to King Manuma Siddhi, to whom he dedicated his Ramayana. The introduction to Dasakumara Charitra throws real light over the personality of Tikkana, as it is a contemporary account by a poet, which knows him intimately. The Minister-poet enunciates the principles of universal literature, and does not hesitate to criticise the lapses and the anachronisms in the works of other poets. But the personality of Tikkana has undergone a sublime change in the Mahabharata. The ‘Somayaji’ perhaps was no more the imperious minister: He says: “I shall translate the Mahabharata according to my lights, with the fervent hope of emancipation from the cycle of births and rebirths.” We have already seen how the Mahabharata is a self-surrender at the lotus feet of Lord Hari-Hara.

Literature has always a social reference. The works of Tikkana and other poets of his times exhort the Andhra race to be well-versed in the arts of both war and peace. Dasakumara Charitra is the story of the adventures of ten princes. Markandeya Purana is full of speculative discourses on the nature of the soul and life after death. Charu-charya is a poetic exhortation to make life healthy and beautiful. The Nitisara Muktavali is a code of moral conduct expressed in Vigorous aphorisms. Vijnaneswariya is treatise on Hindu Law By Ketana, perhaps compiled at the encouragement of his minister-friend Tikkana. We find the impress of Tikkana’s personality and genius in all the literary productions of his time, as we find all these provinces of human thought covered by the cyclopsedic range of the Mahabharata. Thus art, philosophy and religion, ethics, sociology and science, were developed in harmonious co-operation with one another. Tikkana, as the author of the Mahabharata, represents the spirit of his times. Tikkana and his contemporaries laid the cultural foundations of the future empire of Vijayanagara. “Tikkana is the forerunner of Vidyaranya by a century.”

^* Sanskrit and Telugu.