Allama Prabhu's Five Enigmatic Poems Poem by R.Vijayaraghavan Ramakumar

Vachanas of Allama Prabhu

Look! The knower elders of this earth
Have all gone mad and they wander
Filled shameless amusement
Into a pot of fog

The fear forgone, shameless
They cook, eat, and trade the impure
Unable to find sanjeevini
Suffer the worldly life and die
Guheswara, they know nothing of you
***
2
I saw people perform oblations
And fire sacrifices
But none who stopped
Raising columns of smoke

I saw people walk long distances
But none who ate up their legs

I saw people who died
In the battlefield
Shouting battle cry aloud
And reduced to torsos that walked
Guheswara, I saw none who danced
Holding the severed heads
In their hands
***
3
In the temple of lacquer
I saw a burning Linga
And none to worship
Where did the Maya
That shrouded and engulfed
The canons of the path to redemption go?
I saw the fire contained in the wood burn it
The Linga named Guheswara
Stood there relieved
***
4
Who has laid the brightest light
In the darkness infinite?
There is light
And there is darkness!
Amazing!
Neither fears the other

The elephant and the lion-
I saw them graze together
Amazed I was, Guheswara!
***
5
Like the wind traversing through the sky
The stature of the yogi, who is true
The speech swallows the essence
How to hold back and obviate the spit

The master created the village
The order burned it, ate the dust
And swallowed the name
The village swallowed the Master

Uttering the name Guheswara,
Guheswara, it became a naught
***
Translated by R. Vijayaraghavan