You who have form and who are formless, you who are both being and non being, who are the fragrance and the blossom, who are the jewel and its lusture, who are the seed of life and life itself, who are mode and act of existence, who are supreme guru,come bestow your grace,o Guha. Translated by Kamil V Zvelebil
Formed,Formless; Being,Non being; Flower,Fragrance; Jewel,Radiance; Embryo,Life; Goal and Way; Come,Guha,Guru; Grant your Grace. Translated by Fred W Clothey
The one who appears as Formed,as formless;as a Being,as a Non-Being; as Fragrance,as a Flower;as a Jewel, as its Radiance; as an Embryo,as a Life; as a way and as destiny;As a Guru come here; Grant your Grace to me Guha. My own translation (very close to the structure of the Original Tamil poem,slightly modified Clothey's Translation to match the structure of the original Tamil poem)
Unless and until you know Tamil and you can read this poem in Tamil, you can never completely enjoy this poem. The English translations can just give you the pleasure of Philosophy but the musical quality of the Tamil original can never be reproduce by the translation. Kamil Zvelebil in a comment to this poem says" I suggest this stanza is no "word-jugglery" but perfection itself - as far as philosophic poetry goes - both in thought content and form: whole philosophy is expressed in three lines of poetry which sounds like music.This is Arunakiri's real greatness. He has reached extreme limits in his masterly use of phonasthetic qualities of Tamil, and such stanzas are therefore untranslatable." Clothey on this poem "Nearly perfect symmetry of alliteration and meter combine with contrasting and complimentary verbal images to evoke full scope of human emotion and thought in praise of God Murukan.
If you closely observe the poem you will see that it is carefully patterned with negative and positive pairs and pairs of action and result.
No wonder Arunagiri is considered Magician of Words.
There are many translations for this specific one stanza of Anubuthi. Anubuthi is a brilliant work and my personal favourite. Each hymn, is very thoughtful, intense and deep.
Here is what I believe in, it is long, I hope to keep it a bit crisp and interesting with Why and How included:
Uruvai Aruvai ulathai ilathai, The form that you have taken from being a formless (ONE) entity, you are being that of existant and that is nonexistant.
Maruvai malarai, The material of flower and its life of fragrance, the beauty of jewel and its potrayal by light. A flower without fragrance is not to be on value, hence the lord gives the flower and its fragrance, Skanda does the purpose and the sense of purpose.
maniyai oliyai Same with the jewel, when a gem is in a dark room, it is not going to be of value, that light that makes the stone to a jewel is what skanda offers, our Guha has the Self embodied into it, He is the light of Guru, which brings the Self out of its Guha as Guru Guha. (read - subramanya bujangam - Guha is explained below).
Karuvai Uyirai The Body and the Self, you are the Self and its Shell and the five layers connecting between them. Karu is body as in Siva and Uyir is Self as in Shakti as per one one thought.
Gathiyai vithiyai The solace who is my destiny to remove my bondage of life and death.
Guruvai varuvai arulvai Guhane. You are my master, The Lord here as prescribed is to be taken in words from above prior to bottling him up as a master who does upadesam. The Guru is everything, any one you learn from becomes a Guru - for that instant, the God's representative, hence is greater than God himself for the presentation layer is everythin. Hence you learn from the day you are born, mother is a Guru, Father is, your educator is, God is... so Guru is you, My Lord. Let me know the bliss, Guhane - that word Guhane is extremely apt in here. It shows the relation from the words as above, where Guru Arunagiri points one to the Self inside the Guha, our Self that sits beyond Body - Breath - Mind - Memory - Intellect - Ego - The SELF. The first 6 parts constitute the dark cave or Guhai and the one who is eternal and lives inside that waiting for the call is the form of all prevading light called as Guhan.