Hridayantarangam II

Continuing...................

'tad etat try-aksaram; hr da yam iti' - The word for heart in Sanskrit is ‘Hrdaya’, a word with three letters, ‘hr’, ‘da’ and ‘ya’

'hr ity ekam aksaram': The first letter is ‘hr’. The grammatical meaning of the root (‘dhatu’) ‘hr’ is ‘to draw’ or ‘to pull’. Drawing, to attract, to pull towards oneself, to compel everything to gravitate towards oneself, to bring everything under one’s control, to overpower and subjugate everything, to command over all things - all these and more can be implied by root meaning of the letter 'hr'. Those who know will appreciate the reference to ‘strange attractor’.

Given this, the functionality of the heart, as far as relationships go, is set by

‘abhiharanty asmai svas canye ca, ya evam veda’ – It is proclaimed that everything or everyone gets pulled to that object ‘Heart’ or person with heart. Thus everyone gravitates towards that person that has learnt to master the heart. So love is but the invisible gravitational string that draws and pulls others to one’s heart.

‘da ity ekam aksaram' - The second letter is ‘da’. The root ‘da’ connotes the meaning, ‘to give’ in Sanskrit. The words ‘dana’ (gift) or ‘Narada’ (giver of knowledge), originate from this root. Now the letter could presage the giving by the object or being the recipient of what is given to the object. So the etymological significance of the letter lends itself to the act of transfer or exchange, a representation for reciprocation. In other words it is a perfect syllable to connote the ability of heart to either give or accept love.

This dual role of our core that builds on the ability to pull or draw is defined by

‘Dadatyasmai svas canye ca ya evam veda’: It is proclaimed that ‘Everyone shall give to you’. Thus the heart is the center of an irresistible force that receives everything towards itself analogous to an ocean that receives all rivers into itself.

‘Yam iti ekam aksaram’ - The third letter is ‘ya’. The root ‘ya’ implies ‘to go’. The heart epitomizes the journey of our life. We go where our heart leads us to. We follow the dictates of our heart, our soul our conscience.

In fact the culmination of our journey is set by

‘ iti svargam lokam ya evam veda’: You go not anywhere but to the highest Heaven . This is the ultimate destination. Of course what Heaven constitutes is to be subjectively interpreted.

If we cannot or do not want to go deep into philosophical, metaphysical, spiritual and mystical interpretations of the roles of our Heart, let us understand that even a mere linguistic meaning, a grammatical connotation, a literal significance of the word Hrdaya, leads us to the conclusion that we are its slaves. We humans hope and despair, suffer and enjoy, love and hate as we draw and pull, give and receive and go with the ebb and flow as defined by our Hridaya.