The Twilight Language of Siddhas and Sanskrit Figures of Speech in Viśākha Ṣaṣṭi

Abstract

The paper is an attempt to analyse the Viśākhaṣaṣṭi – the collection of sixty stanzas praising Lord Murukan of Paḻani temple composed by Nārāyaṇa Guru – the mystic, philosopher and social reformer from Kerala. Several stanzas of this mysterious hymn (22, 37, 39, 52, 55) have been selected as representative of Guru’s style of writing characteristic of compositions devoted to Subrahmaṇyan. Nārāyaṇan introduces to his works the twilight language of Siddhas supported with a variety of figures of speech borrowed from Sanskrit kāvya literature. An elaborate and highly sophisticated mixture of these two literary and philosophical traditions became the means by which Guru releases the liberating power of each independent literary construction.