Importance of listening/Sravanam as a form of Bhakti

Sravanam, or listening to the name of God being uttered, is one of the nine types of bhakti. Listening is an art, and it has to be cultivated. Lord Krishna as Guruvayurappan has demonstrated the value of listening, said Damal Ramakrishnan in a discourse.

When Narayana Bhattathiri goes to Guruvayur to compose verses describing the Lord’s 10 avataras, he calls upon Lord Guruvayurappan to listen as he composes his verses. Guruvayurappan agrees. Bhattathiri says he will compose about 10 or 11 verses every day, and he will finish his work in 100 days. He is going to narrate the incidents in each avatara and ask Guruvayurappan if indeed these things happened. And Guruvayurappan must acknowledge that Bhattathiri is right by nodding His head. Guruvayurappan wonders if Bhattathiri is seeking to claim that even God nodded His head in appreciation of his (Bhattathiri’s) verses. But Bhattathiri says he is only seeking to spread Guruvayurappan’s fame, not his own.

He reminds Guruvayurappan that as Lord Rama He heard Lava and Kusa narrate the Ramayana. As He did so, He nodded His head in approval.

The Ramayana has 24,000 verses. So He nodded His head 24,000 times. The work Bhattathiri is proposing to write is going to have only thousand-odd verses. Can the Lord not nod a little over a 1,000 times, Bhattathiri asks.

Moreover, while He heard His story as Rama, He didn’t listen to the Srimad Bhagavatam that describes the Krishna avatara. And if He now does not listen to Bhattathiri’s work, will not the people say that the Krishna avatara is not as great as the Rama avatara, for the Lord listened to the Ramayana but did not listen to His exploits as Krishna? Guruvayurappan then agrees to nod His head for each of Bhattathiri’s verses.

Of the many ways of worshipping God, one of the best is sravanam. The Lord Himself, as Guruvayurappan, demonstrated the significance of listening as a form of bhakti.

If the Lord Himself listened to Narayaneeyam and acknowledged each verse, the significance of bhaktas listening to the Narayaneeyam being recited or explained can be seen easily.

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The importance of Guruvayur Kshetra and the idol of Lord Guruvayurappan

One of the oldest idols in worship is that of Lord Guruvayurappan. Prasni and Sutapas were a childless couple, who prayed to Lord Narayana for progeny. The Lord appeared before them and Prasni said that she wanted the Lord Himself to be born as her child. The Lord promised that since she had repeated her request three times, He would be Prasni’s child for three births of hers.

Prasni then prayed that she must have an idol of the Lord to worship. The Lord gave her the idol that is now being worshipped in the Guruvayur temple. In all the three births that Prasni took, she worshipped the idol given to her by the Lord.As promised, the Lord was born as Prasni’s son, and took the name Prasnigarbha. In her next birth, she was known as Aditi and was the wife of Kasyapa. As Aditi, she was privileged to be the mother of Vamana. In her next birth, Prasni was born as Devaki. She married Vasudeva, and the Lord was born to her as Krishna. The idol that was worshipped by Prasni in her three births, was worshipped by Krishna Himself, said Damal Ramakrishnan in a discourse.

At the end of the Krishna avatara, when the Lord brought on the deluge, He kept the whole world inside Himself, and reclined on a leaf. He entrusted the idol to Uddhava, and wanted it to be saved until the start of Kaliyuga. Uddhava passed on the idol to Guru and Vayu. They kept it safe, and then when Kaliyuga began, they wondered where to install it. Siva and Parvathi in the kshetra called Mammiyur, told them to install in it a place nearby. So Guru and Vayu installed the idol there.

Thus the Krishna idol came to be known as Guruvayurappan. Varuna built the tank in the temple.

When devotees enter the temple, they must worship Him by reciting the nama ‘Narayana.’ Then they must recite ‘Guruvayurappan.’ And then finally they must worship by saying the name ‘Krishna.’ Guruvayur also has the distinction of Narayana Bhattathiri having composed his Narayaneeyam there.

The greatness of this work lies in the fact that Guruvayurappan Himself heard Bhattathiri’s verses. The essence of Narayaneeyam is the presence of Narayana during its composition.

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