246 ఇందరి జూచి చూచి యెఱఁగవద్దా
(iMdari jUchi chUchi ye~ragavaddA)
Equanimity
is a closed space.
You're either in its stillness
or wandering in restlessness.
తెలుగులో చదవడానికి ఇక్కడ నొక్కండి.
Introduction
The depth of the Annamacharya lineage
poets—whether Annamacharya himself or later poets like Chinna
Tirumalacharyulu—is extraordinary.
They have this rare ability to:
Start with the familiar and worldly—social life, desires, relationships—so the listener connects immediately.
Insert piercing questions that strip away complacency (Why follow the already bound? Why toil for what perishes?)
Gently turn the mind inward—towards the only true refuge, the Divine.
Layer meanings—on the surface it feels like common sense advice, but underneath it’s deep spiritual insight.
What amazes most is their fearless
clarity.
They don’t flatter society or traditions.
They directly expose bondage—yet
in a poetic, relatable way
with examples from day-to-day life.
Analysis of the Kirtana’s aesthetic experience:
This keertana can primarily be regarded as a work of suggestive poetry (dhvani kāvyam), for none of its ideas are stated directly — they are all implied. The theme of the composition clearly leans toward the divine and philosophical.
If we take the prevailing sthāyī bhāva
(dominant mood) to be vairāgya (detachment), then the central rasa
evoked is shānta rasa — the aesthetic essence of peace.
Though the element of hāsya (humor) does not explicitly provoke laughter, it serves as a subtle aṅgi rasa, gently tempering the gravity of the work and offering a quiet sense of consolation.
As literary meaning often requires some effort to grasp, this keertana may be likened to a banana blossom — a bit difficult to open, but worth the effort (kadalī pākam).
|
అధ్యాత్మ సంకీర్తన |
Philosophical
Poem |
|
రేకు:
10-2 సంపుటము: 10-56 |
Copper Plate: 10-2 Volume: 10-56 |
|
ఇందరి జూచి చూచి యెఱఁగవద్దా బందెపసులకు మెడ పన్నించ నేలా ॥పల్లవి॥ యినుమునఁ జేసిరా యెవ్వరిదేహమైనా పొనిఁగి పోతేఁబోవు పోకుంటే మాను పనివడి యిందుకుఁగా బాటువడ నేమిటికి మొనసి దొసపంటికి యినుప కట్టేలా ॥ఇంద॥ మంచి రాతఁ జేసిరా మనుజునిమే నేమి నించి చెడితేఁ జెడు నిల్చితే నిల్చు పొంచి పొంచి యిందుకుఁగా పొడిఁబడ నేఁటికి పంచ నీరుబుగ్గు రాతిబరణిఁ బెట్ట నేలా ॥ఇంద॥ చేఁగమానఁ జేసిరా చెల్లఁబో నరుల నెల్లా యీఁగి కుంగితేఁగుంగు హెచ్చితే హెచ్చు నాఁగువార శ్రీవెంకటనాథుఁడు మన్నించఁగాను దాఁగి జీలుగుబెండుకు
తరమువెట్ట నేలా ॥ఇంద॥ |
iMdari jUchi chUchi
ye~ragavaddA baMdepasulaku meDa
panniMcha nElA ॥pallavi॥ yinumuna jEsirA
yevvaridEhamainA ponigi pOtEbOvu
pOkuMTE mAnu panivaDi yiMdukugA
bATuvaDa nEmiTiki monasi dosapaMTiki
yinupa kaTTElA ॥iMda॥ maMchi rAta jEsirA
manujunimE nEmi niMchi cheDitE jeDu
nilchitE nilchu poMchi poMchi
yiMdukugA poDibaDa nETiki paMcha nIrubuggu
rAtibaraNi beTTa nElA ॥iMda॥ chEgamAna jEsirA
chellabO narula nellA yIgi kuMgitEguMgu
hechchitE hechchu nAguvAra
SrIveMkaTanAthuDu manniMchagAnu dAgi jIlugubeMDuku
taramuveTTa nElA ॥iMda॥ |
Details and Explanation:
Chorus
(Pallavi):
|
Telugu Phrase |
Meaning |
|
ఇందరి జూచి చూచి యెఱఁగవద్దా |
Why don’t you learn (by) seeing the people of the world! |
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బందెపసులకు |
yoked like cattle in a pen |
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మెడ పన్నించ నేలా |
(పన్నించు
= to tie, to get bonded) Why submit your neck?
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Literal Meaning:
Didn’t you realise, even after seeing so
many?
Why bend your neck
before those already yoked like cattle
Commentary:
Here the poet is dismissing that any
living human can provide relief from the grief struck to humanity:
Chinna Tirumalacharyulu
did not wield his pen for fleeting dreams.
He forged verses untouched by time —
unshaken by crumbling fortresses or fallen hills —
poetry that endures, unconquered and eternal.
Just two lines—
yet they unveil the chains that bind us.
When life is lived in blindness,
how long can we pretend to see?
A word to awaken people,
a lamp for the inward gaze.
Do we shut our eyes to what’s before us—
and follow the yoked like blindfolded cattle?
O man!
Haven’t you seen your companions depart before you?
Do you know where they’ve gone? With a flick—
a million dreams vanish into thin air.
Even knowing this—what can you do?
Can you cling to the thatch and hang on?
They were just like us—
some even claimed to “know more” than you or me—
What is there to hold on to—
except your neck?
In this existence,
can there ever be freedom?
First Stanza:
|
Telugu Phrase |
Meaning |
|
యినుమునఁ జేసిరా యెవ్వరిదేహమైనా |
Is this body made of iron? (implying that no one can remain permanent
on this earth) |
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పొనిఁగి పోతేఁబోవు పోకుంటే మాను |
Let this ‘go” or let it ‘stay’ (implying that the ‘life is not in our
control) |
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పనివడి యిందుకుఁగా బాటువడ నేమిటికి |
Why is the necessity to make an effort to keep it ‘alive’ |
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మొనసి దొసపంటికి యినుప కట్టేలా |
(మొనసి = valour, courage)
What use of the iron wire around a rotten tooth?
|
Literal Meaning:
O people —
Is this body made of iron?
Can anyone live forever?
If it perishes, let it go;
if it stays, let it be —
why this relentless striving?
And for this uncertain, impermanent body,
why toil lifelong like a bonded labourer?
Even if you bind a rotten tooth with iron wire —
will it not still fall?
And can a fault-ridden mind
truly be restrained?
Commentary:
Explanation on
పొనిఁగి పోతేఁబోవు పోకుంటే మాను
This is a declaration of
equanimity —
“If life continues, let it. If it ends, let it.”
Not a clever balance
between gains and losses,
nor a stance built on what you already know.
It is the courage to
walk straight into the heart of death —
not through intellect, but through surrender.
It lies beyond hunger,
beyond ideals.
It blossoms in silence — only through self-offering.
No examination can
measure it.
No syllabus can teach it.
It reveals itself
as fullness within emptiness.
Wholehearted acceptance
of that inner void —
that is trust.
And that trust,
like an unwinking flame,
glows inwardly, without end.
Second
Stanza:
|
పదబంధం (Phrase) |
అర్థం (Telugu) |
|
మంచి రాతఁ జేసిరా మనుజునిమే నేమి |
Do you think men are made of good stone? (don’t expect we
ordinary people stay forever) |
|
నించి చెడితేఁ జెడు నిల్చితే నిల్చు |
Due to causes unknown, this body may rotten OR may stay |
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పొంచి పొంచి యిందుకుఁగా పొడిఁబడ నేఁటికి |
Why do you keep constant watch to keep it up right? |
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పంచ నీరుబుగ్గు రాతిబరణిఁ బెట్ట నేలా |
(పంచ = surroundings)
For a stream flowing around you, why do you want to store
it in a stone vessel?
|
Literal Meaning:
Were these humans carved from flawless stone?
Were they built to last forever?
For one reason they may fall,
for another they may endure —
but what control do we truly have?
Then why,
placing trust in this fleeting body,
should we toil endlessly for its sake?
O people!
Right before your eyes, all around your home,
an endless spring of water flows —
(can’t you see it?)
Yet why this obsession
to store that living water
in a lifeless stone vessel?
Commentary:
Around the soft leather house, a bubbling spring
flows —
that very flow is the presence of the Divine.
The embodied self cannot sit in stillness,
yet that water cannot be stored in a stone bowl.
“If this leather house fades, let it fade. If it
stays, let it stay.”
Who can truly say how or why?
Whether the body remains or dissolves,
It is the relationship with the Divine that abides.
This is the mystery of birth and death.
To one anchored in equanimity,
there are no distinctions —
no East, no West,
no day, no night —
for truth is one, to such a seer.
Somewhere — in a distant beyond,
we place our gods, our heavens.
But O man,
you are but a heap of imaginations —
a mix of swirling emotions,
a patchwork of mismatched thoughts,
a confusion born of feelings entangled.
Step beyond these invented visions,
this imagined state.
And there —
you may find yourself
standing on a platform,
outside the stream,
a mere spectator.
But even this —
the idea of the observer —
must be crossed.
Let go of these illusions.
Every notion we forge
becomes a vessel,
trying to hold flowing water
within this crumbling house.
But you —
the moment you realize
you are not the house,
you are not the vessel —
the thread to the body loosens.
And what remains
is the stream —
ever-flowing,
never broken.
— With this one line,
Chinna Tirumalacharya boldly questions humanity’s desire
to preserve the divine experience —
to “keep it for tomorrow.”
The divine, which flows through life itself,
cannot be captured or contained
in some permanent, stone-bound vessel.
Such an attempt is not only futile — it is delusion.
Neither the body, nor the mind,
nor the constructed ego
can serve as true instruments
for experiencing divinity.
They are all like stone vessels
meant to trap the flowing stream —
stagnant by design, misguided in intention.
In that surreal field,
trees appear lush, full of green life —
but they have no roots in the earth.
They stand on a stone platform,
artificially placed, sustained by illusion.
Tirumalacharya’s “stone vessel”
and Magritte’s “stone platform”
are one and the same.
They symbolize the false foundations
upon which we build our ideas,
our philosophies,
and our sense of self — the “I”.
Like the figure in Magritte’s world,
we stand on the very stage we imagined into being,
watching the river of life flow by —
forgetting all the while
that we ourselves
are part of that current.
The body is not a container.
It is not an obstacle to that flow.
And divinity —
is not something that can be preserved
in the physical mind,
or held back from movement.
Third Stanza:
|
Telugu Phrase |
Meaning |
|
చేఁగమానఁ జేసిరా చెల్లఁబో నరుల నెల్లా |
( చెల్లఁబో =alas)
Alas! Is any man made of strong and enduring wood?
|
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యీఁగి కుంగితేఁగుంగు హెచ్చితే హెచ్చు |
This bequeathed body; if it sinks, let it; if it
flourishes, let it be. |
|
నాఁగువార శ్రీవెంకటనాథుఁడు మన్నించఁగాను |
The Lord Venkateswara knows dues and debts and is ever
willing to forgive |
|
దాఁగి జీలుగుబెండుకు తరమువెట్ట నేలా |
What use is to put stones to block way to protect bitter
pith. |
Literal Meaning:
Oh people, what words are these?
Were humans truly made of solid, unyielding wood?
This body — a gift given in charity —
if it withers, let it; if it grows, let it.
What power do we truly hold over it?
And Lord Venkatesha,
the keeper of every due and debt,
is ever willing to forgive.
Then what’s the point of piling stones
to hide the wild, bitter pith festering within?
Commentary:
చేఁగమాను "Cheṅgamānu"
—
This symbolizes stability.
The human body is not made of sturdy wood to be permanent.
The desire to preserve it with firmness is mere folly.
‘ఈఁగి’
‘Īgi’ —
This body is not truly ours.
It is a gift of the Divine — a temporary medium for experience.
Expecting more from it is delusion.
నాఁగువార శ్రీవెంకటనాథుఁడు "Nāṅguvāra
Śrī Veṅkaṭanāthuḍu" —
This refers to the wholeness of the Divine.
He is the consciousness that fully understands
our flaws, errors, virtues, and sins —
and forgives them all by His very nature.
"జీలుగుబెండు Jīlugubeṇḍu"
—
This represents the impurities hidden within man:
perverse thoughts, distortions, selfishness, and falsehoods.
These are not accidental —
they arise from ingrained patterns and cultivated tendencies.
"తరమువెట్ట నేలా
Taramuvetta nēlā"
—
No matter how much protection is given externally,
the impurity within inevitably surfaces.
Thus — any attempt to suppress it from the outside is unnecessary.
EPILOGUE
The
Pallavi and Charanams are seamlessly woven together,
making
the entire composition bloom like
a
fully blossomed flower.
This can be regarded as one of Chinna Tirumalacharyulu’s
most
exquisite spiritual keertanas.
SYNOPSIS of the POEM
Don’t Be Misled
— A Voice from China Tirumalacharyulu
Be not misled by
worldly ways,
Where fleeting forms claim timeless days.
This body — no carved and solid wood,
But passing bark, misunderstood.
A gift divine,
not ours to bind,
Not meant to hoard, control, or grind.
Though waters of grace around us stream,
tend to store them in stones — a foolish dream.
The Lord who
tallies right and wrong
Forgives with ease, both weak and strong.
So why this mask, this painted shell,
When inner truths arise and swell?
That bitter seed
— the “jīlugubenḍu” — will rise,
No veil can hide what underlies.
Equanimity here is not mere scale,
But letting go — in storm or gale.
A poet's voice,
both sharp and kind,
Urging us: leave false ground behind.
X-X-The
END-X-X
