A surprise for Pushpadanta

[Guest guest]

*A surprise for Pushpadanta*

 

This story is about a worshipper of Shiva named Pushpadanta. Pushpadanta was

a great scholar and poet, and a disciple of the philosopher Sankara. He

wanted to write a deep philosophical poem celebrating Shiva, the object of

his devotion. So he labored hard and spent years in perfecting this poem.

But you know, even when people do great things, they often get big egos as a

result: they are overly proud of their work. So it was with Pushpadanta.

When the poem was finished he presented it to the Lord in the temple, with

great flourish.

 

Shiva just glanced at it. "Go, look into the mouth of Nandi," he said. "Ask

him to open his mouth wide." The poet was taken aback! Why do that? But he

went up to the bull and asked him to open his mouth. There, to his great

surprise, he found every verse of his poem, on the teeth of Nandi, engraved

in tiny letters. "You are not the author of anything," Shiva explained. "All

this was written long ago; you are merely the instrument of its coming out."

 

 

Regards

Prasanna Kumar