॥ महामृत्युञ्जयमन्त्रम् ॥
ॐ त्र्यम्बकं यजामहे
सुगन्धिं पुष्टिवर्धनम् ।
उर्वारुकमिव बन्धनात्
मृत्योर्मुक्षीय मामृतात् ॥
This is a lofty prayer taught by sadhus and mahatmas as a powerful chant to ward off disease and death. It is one of the most famous prayers to Lord Shiva, known as the Great Destroyer also.
Meaning (my translation) :
Om! We worship the Three-eyed Lord
Who grants us the fragrance of life, Enhances our nourishment by nature,
Oh Lord! Release us from the bondage of death which is akin to a cucumber falling off naturally from its creeper;
but not from our immortality as we are made in Your image!
I have recently developed a new interpretation of the Three-eyed Lord and this prayer.
Shiva has three eyes. Usually they are called sun, moon and agni.
वन्दे सूर्य-शशाङ्क-वह्नि-नयनम् वन्दे शिवं शङ्करम्
It is often seen that the two eyes of God (Vishnu, Shiva...) are called the sun and the moon. This is our way of connecting these celestial objects as reminders of God.
Shiva's third eye is called agni because when He opens it in anger, He burns down everything. That is what happened to Manmatha when he was chartered by the gods to go help Parvati in her propitiating Shiva when she was seeking His hand. Manmatha with the help of Vasanta (spring) tried to smite Shiva with his arrows of love. Shiva wasn't pleased when disturbed in His meditation and opened His third eye which instantly burned Manmatha down.
But here is my new interpretation. All creation - man and nature included- is a projection of God's creative intelligence. We call creation the Leela or sport of Ishwara which may be loosely translated as God.
This paradigm of creation is human-centric because all our perception is anyway human-centric, including our conception of God.
Man experiences three realities in this creation:
One is energy. There is no creation without energy. The most powerful symbol of energy is the sun.
Energy is key to all material activity as well as material transformation. In fact matter is another manifestation of energy at various levels. There is a very great amount of energy stored in every atom. Even man can function only by using his physical energy in this world. (पुष्टिवर्धनम्)
Creation is also life. Life is nourished by nature. Nature is the magical interplay of the five elements to create this biological and physiological world and its sustenance. Famously this is compared to the moon. Natural to life is attraction, nourishment, co-habitation and procreation. This is a key aspect or Ishwara's Leela. (सुगन्धिम्)
The third and most important in the human-centric creation is what we call awareness, intelligence, and the experience of will. This is what differentiates man as the pinnacle of the life order and what makes him an image of God (अमृतम्). This awareness of one's soul or the immortal component of our existence is what makes a man seeker. The realised masters tell us everyone is making this same journey to discover one's immortality, whichever path we take. Sooner or later each one gets there. This is the inherent motive-force in man. This I call Agni or fire. Remember man differentiated himself from all other forms of life by making fire. He uses fire to sustain himself. He offers fire worship to invoke God.
अग्निमीळे पुरोहितम्
So when I think of the Three-eyed God (त्र्यम्बकम्) I know he gives me energy (पुष्टिवर्धनम्) , he gives me life (सुगन्धिम्), and he gives me the fire of intelligence (अमृतम्) to seek my path back to God.
Glory to the Three-eyed God!
Glory to Ishwar-ji!
Postscript: This concept is clearly discussed in the Bhagavadgita. Krishna explains it in detail in the 15th Chapter which is called Purushottama Yoga. It discusses creation, Ishwara and the path back to Ishwara.
