Sri Appayya Dikshita

We discern a triple stream flowing to make a confluence “Triveni” of Hindu religious life and thought from time immemorial. The first is represented by great Grihasthas–householders–from the Sapta Rishis downwards. Sita Devi in the Sundara Kanda of the Ramayana refers to connubial perfection of the Sage Vashishta and his Patni Arundhati. Fulfilling his various duties to the family and the community, the householder forms the bone of our civilization. He supports the Brahmachari and Sanyasi alike. In the Upanishads we find Sage Yagnavalkya preaching and practising Tyaga–living in the world without being worldly. He and his illustrious disciple, King Janka demonstrated that there was no permanence or lasting happiness in mere worldly possessions and achievements.

The second stream is represented by philosophers and saints gradually retiring from the householder’s Ashram and finally becoming Sanyasins. To this category belonged many Rishis and emperors, so well described by immortal Kalidasa in his Raghuvamsa.

In the third stream we find sages who renounced the world even as Brahmacharis. From Suka Brahman downward to the great Sankaracharya, Sadasiva Brahmendra and Sri Ramana Maharshi of recent times, we have illustrious example of such saints and sages. Today in our midst are living the respected Jagad Gurus Sankaracharyas of Sri Sringeri Sarada and Kanchi Kamakoti Peethams.

Sri Appayya Dikshita belongs to the first category. In his case also we find renunciation of worldly possessions. He used the gold and other items of property given to him by his patrons for religious and educational objects. He had around him more than 500 scholars and disciples. He maintained them and distributed his wealth to the needy and the poor while providing also for his children and family. The author has done well to compare and contrast the lives of Adi Sankara and Sri Appayya Dikshita.

Sri Appayya Dikshita was born in the second decade of the sixteenth century in Adayapalam, a hamlet in present day North Arcot District, near Chetpat. His father Brahmasri Rangaraja Dikshitar, was a great scholar well-known in South India. Sri Appayya was named Vinayaka Subrahmanyam. It is common to find the grand-sons named after the grand-father, particularly in the northern districts of Tamil Nadu. Dr Pattabhi Sitaramayya in his book “Feathers and Stones” refers to the succession of the names of Ramaswami and Pattabhiraman for many generations in our family. It is also common in these areas to confer pet names on children much to the confusion of biographers and historians. This was mainly due to the respect the community showed to the distinguished ancestor whose name the grand-child bore. This was how Vinayaka Subrahmanyam was called Appayya and his brother Achan. Names like these as also Appukutti, Ayya Dikshitar occurred often in the Vamsavali–genealogical tree of the Dikshitar family.

We find in some treatises doubts expressed with regard to the exact date of birth of Sri Appayya Dikshita. Excepting the reference to his authorship in Dikshita’s poetical and philosophical works, one does not get much biographical data about him. This is a common feature in India’s ancient and long history. The fundamental Hindu belief is that all manifestations on earth are impermanent and the universal spirit which was in all things, moving and unmoving, alone mattered. This approach is well brought out in the Bhagavad Gita, where the Lord says that “all is Brahmam–the offering in Yajna, the offerer, the fire and the ghee are all Brahmam which alone is reached bythose evolved souls whose thoughts are fixed in Brahmam– 

It is not surprising that until recently there have been very few Western style biographies of our great leaders, saints and sages. One never reads the name of the sculptor or the artist concerned in any of the ancient temples of India.

The century to which Sri Appayya Dikshita belonged was a peak one for human achievements. Shakespeare, his contemporary, was writing his plays in England and there was renaissance in Europe. In South India there was comparative peace. The raids of Malik Kafur and other marauders were things of the past. The Vijayanagar kingdom and principalities of Vellore, Karvetinagar and Chittoor were responsible for an efflorescence of Hindu thought and culture. The fanaticism of Saivite and Vaishnavite creeds which made even the great Ramanuja flee to Mysore no doubt continued, but with less violence than before. It had evolved into debates and dissertations and religious leaders sought to convert the rulers to their way of thinking and belief. The rulers were great patrons of art and sculpture and sought the company of savants and philosophers and bestowed wealth and honours on them.

Sri Appayya and his brother Achan were brilliant even as boys, Sri Appayya’s learning was prodigious. He was not only learned in the Vedas but became a master of Vedanta and the Sastras at an young age. If one has to classify him in the galaxy of philosophers and writers of Bharatavarsha, he may perhaps be called a great Advaitin. His treatises like “Sivarka mani dipika” in this field are masterpieces. He was, however, truly catholic in his outlook and studies. It is remarkable that his writings on Vishishtadvaita and Dvaita philosophies are great works which have been prescribed as classical texts by the followers of those creeds. He, however, proclaims more than once that Eswara, Mahavishnu and Devi are all one. While facing the deities at Chidambaram, he sings “on the one side is Paramatma as Lakshmi and her husband and on the other as Uma and Eswara.”

However, like Sri Madhusudana Saraswati who saw the Brahmam in Sri Krishna the boy, with the flute, he owns up to an inborn bias in favour of the blue-throated Eswara with his crescent moon on his head and Uma by his side, in spite of his being aware that all the manifestations of Paramatma are one. In his “Nyaya Rakshamani” which is a commentary mainly on the Brahma Sutras, we find him striking a path of his own. The Appayya Dikshitar Granthavali has brought out this rare work with the blessings of His Holiness Sri Sankaracharya Swami of Kanchi Kamakoti Pitham. Even a mere catalogue of 104 of his works is bewildering for the immensity of the canvas employed by him for expressing his thoughts and his philosophy.

Sri Appayya Dikshita anticipated the present psychic mental and sub-conscious experiments, 400 years ago. He drank the juice of a powerful herbal drug–datura–and asked his disciple to write down whatever came from him when he was in the deep state of intoxication and out of his normal mind. What they have written down is astounding reading. It is a lucid Stotra “Atmarpana Stuti” praise of Eswara, his Ishta Devata.

He was a Siddha and a great Yogi. One of his yogic experiments was as unique as it was thrilling. In the later years of his life, he was subject to attacks of colic pain. He was convinced that it was due to his Prarabdha–his past Karma. Whenever he wanted to meditate deeply or while worshipping the Almighty, he made a bundle of his towel and put it in front of him. By his yogic power he transferred the malady to the towel and sat in meditation. His disciples watched the towel jumping about the place. To them he explained later on that he transferred his ailment which was in the form of an evil spirit to the cloth and that took it soon after his meditation was over.

It is the belief of great sages and saints of India that Nityakarma and worship done with faith confers on the adherent enough of peace, comfort and prosperity, for his spiritual pursuits and worldly duties. Actually in astrological treatise it has been repeated that predictions good or bad, should not be made mechanically where such persons are concerned. They may have to face slight misfortunes but they sail on the sea of life on an even keel. Sri Appayya exemplified this belief. He lived a life full of achievements and honours. The rulers of Vellore and nearby places honoured him with reverence and devotion. When be entered the Chidambaram temple in his 72nd year at an odd hour, the Dikshitars there hurried to get camphor and other things ready for the Darsan. They little knew that he had come there to shed his mortal coil. His famous Sloka on that occasion is an epitome of his life and work. He says that in “Chidambaram he was praying to reach the Lord’s feet; he had lived a full life, his children were good scholars and were dutiful. He had lived a happy family life and could ask for nothing more.”

My father, Dr. C. P. Ramaswami Aiyar, who always spoke with reverence and some little pride as a descendant of Sri Dikshita, has described him as a “Polymath” in the early chapters of “History of My Times.” The author has quoted him in extenso.

Sri Appayya Dikshita was born in the Sama Sakha and belonged to Bharadwaja Gotra. He refers to the great Rishi who played the host to Sri Rama in his travel to and from Ayodhya. Sri Dikshita, however, expressed a tinge of regret for not being born as a Yajurvedi. He liked the chanting of “Rudram and Chamakam” very much. He actually prayed that in his next birth he must be born a Yajurvedi and in Andhra Pradesh. He was deeply impressed with the devotion and learning that existed in Andhra Pradesh during his time.

In spite of fierce debates on the respective superiority of Saivism and Vaishnavism, we find mutual regard exhibited by the protagonists of those schools. The caste barriers had not become very rigid. One of Sri Dikshita’s ancestors married a Vaishnavite lady. Sri Appayya Dikshita himself had, It is believed, as his second wife, the daughter of Sri Tatachariar, the great Vaishnavite leader. Her parents found it difficult to get her marriage fixed in time, and she was about to commit suicide. In an amusing incident referred to by him, we learn that on his an approaching Kanchipuram laden with many honours and riding in a palanquin with armed escorts and elephants supplied by the ruler of Vellore, an old Aiyengar lady came out of the house to see what the Tamasha was about. She sees Appayya Dikshita sitting in the palanquin at the head of the procession and exclaims that it is after all “Achalu’s husband.” Sri Appayya Dikshita in one of his compositions exclaims, “in this hamlet of Kanchipuram, it is only my wife Achalu who was famous and not I.”

In a famous Sloka he sings “a few wild flowers, bilwa leaves and drops of water offered to Eswara is all that is needed to live happily and to save one’s soul. Not even doing this, many are condemning themselves to misery and want, and are also committing Atmadroha.” Having praised the Lord, particularly Sri Margabandhu of Virinchipuram, in many works, he, like Sri Sankara, says that “he was committing sins by conferring a form to the Formless, by praising One who is beyond all thought and speech and by showing lighted camphor to One who was the cause of light and fire.”

-From the Foreword to the book “Sri Appayya Dikshita”
byDr N. Ramesan

According to Sri Anantanandaruda Saraswati Swamigal (Kanchi Kamakoti Mutt) and Sri Adayapalam Ramakrishna Dikshitar, there is no reliable authority to show that Sri Appayya Dikshita married the Vaishnavite lady referred to.

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“Dr C. P. and I are descendants of the great saint and savant, Sri Appayya Dikshitar, who was born with a special mission: to demonstrate that self-realisation is possible in and through the life of a house-bolder...The electric lights in Madras and in many parts of the south are shining examples of the characteristic foresight of Dr C. P. He has intuitive insight. His is a mastermind which sees far into the future, which dives deep into history, modern trends of life, philosophy, politics and art, bringing out pearls of truth and wisdom. He is ever decades ahead of the times.

“This light of the East has illumined the path of many American seekers after Truth. When Dr. C. P. lectured on “Indian philosophy” at the American Institute of Asiatic Studies, Stanford, and other centres in the New World, he was listened to with avid interest. He has proved himself to be a bridge between the East and the West. He is a world citizen, a world asset, a world leader, and the pride of the whole world.”
–SWAMI SIVANANDA