What is Beauty Chapter-17 Saundarayalahari By Sri Shankara Bhagavatoadacharya's

What is Beauty

Beauty is the moksha that is the bliss of becoming one with the brahman ? we look at a lotus or the full moon and we are happy but will such happiness result in the great bliss called moksha?.


We see that peots who have aesthetic experience of a pellucid nature discern god in beauty and even know the bliss of being aware of the brahman from there descriptions of nature itself we can infer that through the contemplation of nature itself they experience unalloyed beatitude


What is peotry ? deos it mean nature and man depicted in a beautiful manner, taking into accounct all the characteristics of nature and all the natural qualites of man great writers of alankara sastra have shown that such an experience of beauty can lead us to liberation


Sree ravindranath tagoreji has expressed the view that to experience beauty is to come face to face with god when we say sat-chit-ananda it means that jnana and ananda are indissolubly united with sat or truth or self or soul . similarly the good and the beautiful are also inseparabaly connected with the truth   

The brahmo samaj speaks of satyam-sivam-sundaramwhich is simalar to sat-chit- ananda sivam means good sunduram means beauty this underlying idea is that beauty is part of the concept of parabrahman it also means that appreciating beauty fully and in the right manner is to experience brahmananda 

What is that appears beautiful to us ? that which gives us joy,happiness,we call beautiful.if we feel the urge to look at an object again and agian it means it is beautiful

Here i must add an important qualifying clause the joy that we experience must not be such as to distrub our mind or make us emotionally unbalanced when we see an object it must fill our minds with delight that is pure and serene only that is called beautiful

There is one more point to be considered the object that looks enchanting must not cause us fear ,sorrow,or anger


Imagine there is a river that tumbles down from a spot as high as four coconut trees placed one upom another we can appreciate their beauty only from a safe place if we go the edge of the valley to have a better veiw of it we will be afraid of slipping and falling downif we go close to the water fall there is arisk of our being swept away by it in either case we will be in no mood to appericate its beauty

Or take an example of of tiger or a cheetah if we see them roaming freely in the open instead of being shut up in a cage we will gripped by fear only a wise sage who has perfected hinself , a siddha , can happily approach a snake and sing to it only a great peot can find delight in writing a peom inspired by beauty of a tiger not we

We may appreciate the good looks of a human being to some extent if they do not arouse in us fear or sorrow or they do not haveill feelings toward us but if there good looks are combined with love how much more do we like them .

W E KEEP ON LOOKING AGAIN AND AGAIN AT PEOPLE WHO ARE the picture of love whether they are handsome or not this leads us to the conclusion that it is love that is transformed into beauty.Astvakra had eight bodily distortions but he was much sought after by the learned then there are so many great people ,realised souls ,accomplished men who are unattractive to look or who may appear even fearsome or moronic but people flock to them again and agian indeed they do not take their eyes from them why do theu do so?it is campassion of great men, their inner grace, their power to bless that draw people to them they must be said to be beautiful according to the definationbeauty is that which we gaze at turning back to see it again and again .there is a saying .the beauty within one is visible outside on once face

If  we have the urge to look at an object again and again it is because of the delight we derive from doing so foremost in the matter of making us happy is love.and there is no joy equal to that derived from love. so love that bestows joy by itself becomes beauty. we desire to keep on gazing again and again at the man who is beautiful because of his loving nature.


jai guru dev 
excerpts from the text exposition by pujyashree sree maha periyava