A Garland of Love and Devotion

(Composed by Narayana Guru at Aruvippuram, c. 1887–97, in Malayalam, Sragdhara metre)

In this radiant composition, Narayana Guru invites us into a sacred garden where beauty and truth bloom side by side. Every verse pulses with living devotion, yet at the same time, quietly lifts the seeker beyond the surface of worship — toward a profound union with the infinite.

At first glance, the poem dazzles the mind with its colorful images: the moonlit face, the jingling anklets, the gleam of sacred ornaments, the playful movements of the divine child Muruka riding his golden peacock. These glowing pictures are not mere decoration; they carry the fragrance of a deeper truth. Guru’s artistry draws the soul from the visible wonders of the world into a silent, inner awakening.

The verses are woven with the tenderness of a lover calling his beloved, yet behind the sweetness, a fierce yearning burns — to cross all distance, to dissolve all separation. The ultimate longing here is not merely to see the divine with physical eyes, but to become one with the living flame of Consciousness itself.

The flow of words, crafted in the graceful Sragdhara metre, dances like ripples on a sacred river. Their musicality is not only pleasing to the ear but carries the rhythm of inner surrender. Reading the poem aloud, one senses how each syllable rises and falls like a breath of devotion, drawing the heart ever inward.

Through rich and carefully layered descriptions, Guru subtly reveals the true nature of the journey. The images of beauty — the radiant forehead, the flower-like limbs, the lotus feet — are offered not as ends in themselves, but as gateways. Behind the splendor, he points to a sacred merging, where all forms vanish into the formless, all names melt into nameless bliss.

Hidden within the poetry’s flowing softness is a luminous structure. The poem begins with the outer visions of divine beauty but gradually turns the gaze inward. It teaches the seeker how the stains of desire must be uprooted, how compassion must be planted like seeds, and how the crop of devotion must be ripened within the heart. Each stanza unfolds like a step along a carefully ascending path — moving from admiration to yearning, from yearning to purification, from purification to the supreme embrace.

There is also a quiet depth to the language itself. Guru’s Malayalam here is simple and lucid, yet never casual; each word carries a certain weight and resonance, chosen as if from the deep silences between thoughts. The poem speaks to both the simple devotee and the thoughtful philosopher, offering joy to the heart and clarity to the mind.

Above all, this work is a celebration — not only of the Divine’s beauty but of the human soul’s capacity to recognize it, seek it, and finally realize itself as nothing other than That. In its gentle cadence, in its glowing images, in its hidden fire of wisdom, the poem becomes a mirror: reflecting not just a deity outside, but the eternal Light within.

Narayana Guru’s hymn is thus not a mere offering of words. It is a silent transmission — of beauty, of longing, of awakening — gently calling every reader into the deep, sacred spaces of their own being.