Owing a closure to the soul:

Nov 26 is the 60th birth anniversary of Veluppillai Prabhakaran.

In these five years passing since May 2009, yet to be duly and wholly recognized – that his soul has left the body, spiritually speaking.

Prabhakaran is a man of spirituality as well or has shown spiritual leanings, it is said. This being established based on his inclinations with Bhagavad Gita among other things.

Poet Laureate Kannadasan’s lyrics – “Maranaththai Enni Kalangkidum Vijaya..”, is set around Lord Krishna instructing a reluctant Arjuna to engage in his duty as a warrior and commencing the discourse of Bhagavad Gita. The song is rendered by Sirgazhi S Govindarajan to the music composition of M. S. Viswanathan and T. K. Ramamoorthy . This song is a favorite of Prabhakaran.

There also comes the recurring question whether Bhagavad Gita is justifying violence?

Mahatma Gandhi and the Trappist monk Thomas Merton, renowned for their stands of peace and had also read Gita did not think so. Gita is “not a justification of war nor does it propound a war making mystique,” writes Barbara Miller in “The Bhagavad-Gita”, (Random House Publishing, June 2004).

Mahakavi Subramaniya Bharathi – his works include a Tamil translation of Bhagavad-Gita and the multifaceted journalist, poet and freedom fighter – also so the esteemed spiritualist. His referral to Bhagavad-Gita too may have stemmed due to those times he was living amidst the Indian freedom struggle.

So there is reason to see Prabhakaran’s leaning to Bhagavad Gita coming from his streak of spirituality and not of its setting in a battlefield. In that’s sense his soul is owed a closure and a reconciliation of spiritual leanings.

song (in Tamil) soundtrack

The following is a translation of Poet Laureate Kannadasan’s lyrics:

Arjuna, who’s distressed about death
Essence of death I shall recite
Human soul will not die
It will be reborn

Kill the body
It too a bravery
Even if you don’t
It will go up in flames someday

You became conscious of me
Lives all I (foster) also you come to realize
Krishna’s got heart of stone
This why the longbow you renounce?

Monarch and the mass I (foster)
Tree, plant and vine are I (foster)
Said so is Krishna
Saying so is Krishna
Stand audaciously
So Dharma will prevail

If the world sees therein merit
Krishna only bears this merit
Let the praise of proponents
And curse of cynics
All too go to Krishna
Krishna directed
Krishna delivered
Krishna destroyed
Let the longbow rise
Fire up your mastered archery
Field herein in its crimson, let live

Song in Tamil begins at 6:50