Welcome to Eternal Path Musings, a newsletter for the modern and curious Hindu, featuring highlights around religious texts, practice, history, politics, people, and ways to better our engagement and personal progress.
To read previous issues, here’s week one and week two.
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Community Highlight: Peranakan Chitty
The Peranakan Chitty are a tiny Malaysian ethnicity of 15th and 16th century Tamil origin. They came to what is now Malaysia during the reign of the Sultanate of Malacca, settling in Melaka.
They quickly lost touch with Tamil Nadu and within generations lost the Tamil language, intermixing with the local Malays and Peranakan Chinese. In fact, while regarded as Indians in Malaysia, they have almost exclusively used Malay for the last six centuries rather than Tamil.
However, the community remains largely Saivite Hindus. The main Chitty village, Gajah Berang, hosts multiple Hindu temples and Chitty names are generally similar to Tamil Hindu names.
The Chitty host a website to educate outsiders on their unique history here. Additionally, there is a full ethnography book on the group, available here.
Text Highlight: Shikshashtakam
Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was a great Bengali Vaishnava Hindu saint of the 15th and 16th century CE, credited with founding the Hindu sect of Gaudiya Vaishnavism (“Gauda” is an ancient name for Bengal). The organization ISKCON is the most famous sampradaya devoted to Gaudiya Vaishnavism.
Chaitanya was a prolific preacher, devotee, and spiritual guru, leaving behind a new philosophy of Vedanta (Achintya Bheda Abheda), many disciples (the most famous of whom are known as the six goswamis), and of course the groundwork for Gaudiya Vaishnavism.
Very little of what Chaitanya Mahaprabhu wrote, however, remains. The six goswamis compiled a biography of him called the Chaitanya Charitamrita (largely in Bengali) of which eight Sanskrit verses directly attributed to Chaitanya Mahaprabhu are included. These are known as the Shikshashtakam.
The verses of the Shikshashtakam are available here. The eight verses are essentially a summary of the process of Bhakti in the Gaudiya Vaishnavite tradition. The first verse is below:
चेतो-दर्पण-मार्जनं भव-महा-दावाग्नि-निर्वापणं
श्रेयः-कैरव-चन्द्रिका-वितरणं विद्या-वधू-जीवनम्
आनन्दाम्बुधि-वर्धनं प्रति-पदं पूर्णामृतास्वादनं
सर्वात्म-स्नपनं परं विजयते श्री-कृष्ण-सण्कीर्तनम्
cheto-darpana-marjanam bhava-maha--davagni-nirvapanam
shreyah-kairava-chandrika-vitaranam vidya-vadhu-jivanam
anandambudhi-vardhanam prati-padam purnamritaswadanam
sarvatma-snapanam param vijayate sri-krishna-sankirtanamGlory to the Sri Krishna Sankirtana, which cleanses the heart of all the dust accumulated for years and extinguishes the fire of conditional life, of repeated birth and death. This sankirtana movement is the prime benediction for humanity at large because it spreads the rays of the benediction moon. It is the life of all transcendental knowledge. It increases the ocean of transcendental bliss, and it enables us to fully taste the nectar for which we are always anxious.
Musician Highlight: Dhilip Varman
Dhilip Varman is a singer and composer from Malaysia, having composed for a number of local films, and having sang in Kollywood for the composer D. Imman. His Bhajans are quite popular among the Malaysian Hindu community, and are a great mix of modern sound with timeless bhakti, mostly in the Tamil language.
Aesthetic: Brahmi-Derived Scripts
Below is a chart with a Sanskrit-line that translates to “May Shiva bless those who delight in the language of the Gods” showing how many scripts of South and Southeast Asia are related.
