Karunanidhi, why he was the way he was – a karmic analysis!

I know someday I will write this article, and the day had come now. The way a legend got ended on 7^th August 2018 was the last hint I wanted to wait for, to understand one of the finest ways Karma works on human life. The legend I refer to here is Kalaignar Karunanidhi. His end gives a perfect justification for the way he lived his life and for whatever he was known for, both positive and negative which I am not elaborating here. I would rather delve on why he came to hold on to those positives and negatives from the karmic hints found in his horoscope.  

His horoscope is absolutely fantastic, something we don’t come across in one’s life time. Not even Gandhi who got us Independence and is honoured as the Father of our nation could come anywhere near Karunanidhi as far as his horoscope is concerned. Of all the known horoscopes, some features of none other than Bhagwan Sri Rama are comparable with Karunanidhi’s horoscope! This would sound horrific (hope not blasphemous) given the fact that Karunanidhi stood against Rama and was an embodiment of everything that was not of Rama, but he did have some planetary positions as in Rama’s horoscope.

Both Rama and Karunanidhi were born in Kataka lagna. Both had Mars as the Yoga karaka that was exalted in the 7^th house (Capricorn). Both had the 7^th lord Saturn (also the 8^th lord) posited in the 4^th house (Kendra) and in exaltation. Rama had 7 planets in exaltation or in own house whereas Karunanidhi had only three planets in exaltation. But a minimum of three planets in exaltation is sufficient to confer Rajayoga! Karunanidhi lived like a powerful monarch. Beyond this everything of Karunanidhi is totally different from Rama.

The same combinations related to the 7^th house (spouse) made Rama an Eka Patni person. In contrast Karunanidhi had three wives. For Rama the lord of the house where the 7^th lord (Saturn) was posited was Venus that got exalted in the 9^th house. This gives rise to Kaakala yoga that ensures fidelity and complete loyalty to the spouse. For Karunanidhi the same planet Venus has gone into the 12^th house (malefic) which also happens to be a common sign indicating more than one wife and also scandalous relationship.

It is in the sub-sub period of Venus in the main period of the same planet Venus, Karunanidhi left this world. It is from this planet we are able to go back in time to even his previous birth to know why Karunanidhi was – after all a Karunanidhi!

In the horoscope of Karunanidhi displayed above Mars, Saturn and Moon are exalted. Lagna lord Moon is exalted and is in the star of Mars, the Yoga karaka. The 2^nd lord Sun posited in the star of exalted Moon joins it. This combination just falls short of an important yoga called Sreekanta Yoga, related to Shiva!

If the lagna lord, the Sun and the Moon are exalted or in their own houses in trines or angles with each other, the person will be a staunch devotee of Shiva, always seen with Rudraksha mala doing japa. He would renounce material life and become an ascetic. At the end of this birth he would reach Shiva loka and won’t be reborn. 

Such a person (according to Brahmarishi Vaakya) would have had a past karma of having served Shiva bhaktas well and worshipped ONLY Shiva with all devotion.

Similar combination was read by this writer in a Naadi verse that when the Moon and the Sun happen to be yoga karakas (4th and 5^th lords for Aries Lagna or 9^th and 10^th lords for Scorpio lagna) and join at a tine in a friendly house from Mars conjoined with Ketu, the person will be by nature a Gnani and a Shiva Bhakta. He would enjoy all round prosperity and honours from the ruler. He would be engaged in Dharmic actions.

Karunanidhi had the above combinations almost close to the rule. The Sun and the moon are strong and beneficially placed in a trine to exalted Mars. The location in the 11^th house is little less than perfect. The 11^th is 2^nd to the 10^th house of Karma and as such it must signify the outcome of past karma. But his life as Karunanidhi didn’t show any semblance of to the above yogas. Why?

Looking for causes, this combination of Sun and Moon is aspected by Jupiter (retrograde), the lord of 6^th and 9^th house. The 9^th house signifies the religious nature of a person. If the lord of this house happens to be Jupiter and afflicted, it denotes an offence to the Guru (teacher) in the past birth. The sun-Moon combination showing him as a great devotee of Shiva in the last birth had been afflicted by the wrath of a Guru.

Tracing the nature of wrath, one can see a perfect connection between Jupiter, Mercury and Venus in his horoscope. Jupiter is in the star of Mercury, the 12^th lord which is located in the 10^th house (jeevanasthan). The main significance of Mercury is books and the expertise to write. Mercury is in the star of Venus which is located in the house of Mercury (12^th house). Venus is the Baadhaka for his horoscope and is posited in the star of Jupiter!

The Baadhaka nature of Venus is outwardly manifested in his life as polygamy. It also resulted in injury to his left eye (12^th house signifies left eye) that happened in 1953 due to an accident. That was in Jupiter dasa- Mercury Bhukti. It was from then onwards he started wearing dark glasses. The timing and the injury shows harm done to the eye of a cow or a calf in the previous birth.

Looking at hints on past karma, the stronger of the two, the sun and the moon is to be taken. The Sun is stronger in his horoscope in Shadbala and also with reference to its dispositor, the exalted Moon. It is located in the house of Mercury in the Drekkana chart, once again showing some connection to Mercury significance.

On further probing we find Mercury joining the 8^th lord Saturn in the 10^th Navamsa in opposition to Baadhaka Venus and conjoined with the Nodes! This coupling happening in Navamsa completes the picture with Jupiter also going into debility in the 12^th Navamsa. Some offence done to the Teacher with reference a sacred and highly valued book by a high level devotee of Shiva, almost at the verge of attaining Liberation in his next birth had invited a retributive karma of losing sight of the value of teacher, of Dharma and sacred books and devotion to God in his next birth.

In all probability, he would have defiled or wantonly misused or destroyed a precious book of Knowledge of Dharma of his teacher. He must have been a Brahmin then, for, only if a Brahmin engaged in the highest task of preserving the book and knowledge of Dharma had transgressed from that task, the punishment would have been the highest –in consonance with Manu dharma! In that situation, he would have been expelled from whatever high position he was holding and even ostracized from his own Brahmin community as a punishment.

{One must recall the DNA studies that show Brahmins and others having the same genetic origins. A Brahmin fallen from the discipline expected of him was a degraded one and had to engage in activities other than Vedic work. There is a Sangam verse saying that the Brahmins who had given up Vedic homas would engage themselves in shell cutting work (Agananuru 24). As a corollary we can associate the Indus site at Gola Dhoro engaged in shell cutting and gem works with the descendants of Aswatthama known for sporting a precious and rare gem on his head. When driven to forest at the end of the Mahabharata war, the Brahmin community of Aswatthama could have taken up shell and gem cutting as the next option to Vedic life.}

Coming to the past life analysis of Karunanidhi, the fall from the grace of his teacher and the banishment from his own Brahmin community could manifest into the next birth as hatred against Gurus, Mutts, sacred texts and importantly the Brahmin community itself. And Manu had become the most hated word for him.

Kāla Purusha had made use of this Prarabdha karma of him to perpetuate Kali in the current times. Just by one man, Kala Purusha had altered the minds and lives of scores of people for nearly half a century. Karunanidhi had become the tool in the hands of Kāla Purusha!

The level of retribution was such that the great Shiva Bhakta had to lose whatever spiritual gains he made in that birth, but the Punya arising out of it had conferred only material benefits to him. The Mercury connect of reading and writing ability was there throughout  with him working as a tool in his hand to do whatever he was destined to do. One may recall in this context the Thirukkural on how the education one has had in a birth comes to stick to him for 7 births (Kuraḷ: 398)

Starting from the beginning of his life, we can see a correlation at every stage to the kind of Pararabdha karma we explained above. He was born in a famous Kshetra of Shiva (Thirukkuvalai) and his electoral debut was from another famous Shivite location (Kulithalai) but they could not have any impact on him due to the wrath of the Teacher.

A Shiva Bhakt would move away from lures woman and associated attractions, but Karunanidhi was attracted to them and earned a living from his writing skills in those areas.

Parasakthi was the first film that earned him a name and fame as a lyricist, but what did he write in that film? It was abject denigration of Hindu culture, criticism of Hindu beliefs and idol worship. He even went to the extent of portraying a temple priest (Brahmin) attempting to rape a woman within the temple – something outrageous and difficult to even imagine at that time (1952). But he did get away with all that in the name of freedom of speech accorded by none other than famous Brahmin of those times, Rajaji!!

Even to conceive such ideas and convert them into lyrics, one must have had Prarabdha karma of the kind written above.

His obsession with Brahmins and their sacred thread was abnormal to the core. Only if he had been hurt by the banishment from the community in the past life for the offense he did, he could not be expected to have behaved like this.

He even once said, (read here)

“What to do, this chief minister does not wear the sacred thread.

And he was not born in the caste represented by God’s face.

He was born in the caste identified with his feet.”

The provocation for this outburst was an editorial in Ananda Vikatan that was critical of the phone tapping episode by his government. See his reaction, when a misdemeanour is questioned, his response seems to be like his atman was lamenting over a complaint about him that cost him his stature and caste in a past birth.

His atman seemed to be yearning for a place among Brahmins or else why he chose to buy a house from a Brahmin that was close to a temple in a Brahmin agrahara in Gopalapuram?

If not for an anger against the Brahmins for expelling him from their community in the past birth why should he keep abusing them at every possible opportunity to the extent that he declared that Brahmins must shiver at the thought of them (his party). Similar is his outburst that a Hindu means Thief! No person in saner senses will speak like this.

It was absolutely difficult for him not to abuse Hinduism at every possible instance. Even on the occasion of the Moon Impact Probe (IMP) of Chandrayaan I landing on the Moon, Karunanidhi could not avoid abusing the Hindu beliefs while praising the probe in a poem. As a sample case of his ‘literary prowess’, that poem is reproduced below. One can see the mistakes in language, allusion to some lewd expression and abuse of Hinduism – the three common features one can find in most of his works.

‘நிலா பெண்ணே’.

வான் முகத்தில் நகக்குறி போல்

இருக்கின்ற நிலாப் பெண்ணின்

தேன் கிண்ண இதழ்களிலே முத்தமிட்டு-

இந்திய நாட்டுத்

தேசியக்கொடிதனையும் கையில்

கொடுத்து விட்டுத் திரும்பி வரும்

திறமைமிகு விஞ்ஞானத்தின் கரம் குலுக்கி

வாழ்த்துகின்றோம்.

புராணத்தில் வரும் சந்திரனோ;

குருவின் மனைவி தாரைக்கு;

புதியதோர் காதலன் என்று புராணமே

கூறி வணங்கும்!

பாம்புகள் இரண்டு ராகுவும் கேதுவும்

சந்திரனை விழுங்குமாம்;

பஞ்சாங்கம் அதனை “கிரகணம்” என

விளம்புமாம்!

அனைத்தும் பொய், புளுகு, கற்பனையெனத்

தூக்கி அடித்து;

அமெரிக்க, ரஷ்ய, அய்ரோப்பிய

கூட்டமைப்பு நாடுகளின்

அணிவகுப்பில் இணைந்து அருஞ்சாதனை

புரிந்து விஞ்ஞானம்;

அசோக சக்கரக்கொடியை அம்புலியில்

நாட்டியது;

அறிவியக்க வரலாற்றில் ஓர் அற்புதமாம்;

அதுவும் நம் நாட்டில் என்பதிலோர் பெருமிதமாம்!

The title has sandhi-mistake. It must be Nilā-p- PennE, not ‘Nilā Penne’ (meaning, ‘Moon, the girl’). He starts the poem by saying that probe was like planting a kiss on the honey lips of the moon. He goes on to say that the probe had shattered the Puranic version of Moon as the new lover of Brihaspati’s wife, Tara and the Panchanga version of eclipse as Rahu and Ketu swallowing the Moon, as lies and imagination.

One can imagine the level of tolerance the people of Tamilnadu must have had to be treated with this kind of literature by him.

The Mercury effect is in his horoscope is a degraded one. He retained the ability to write but to write in abhorrent ways. None of his works will stand scrutiny by impartial educated ones. None of his write-ups also would stand the test of time.

The cause for his banishment could have been genuine but since the root cause was a great offence to Hindu Dharma, the retributive karma was such that he was impelled by it to make and speak things that he would shudder to do in normal mind. The entire life of Karunanidhi was as though it was under the grip of the retributive karma, done without any freewill or application of his own mind. This reminds me of the Gita vachan, that man does karma absolutely not through his control but under the control of the 3-some Prakruti Gunas. (Bhagavad Gita: 3-5)

He eulogised Thiruvalluvar but never stood by what Thiruvalluvar wrote. His obsession with Thiruvalluvar was as though he treated him as his Teacher – in a bid to appease the teacher of his past birth but lo, what did he do for his memory?

Karunanidhi constructed Valluvar Kottam in the deepest part of the “Long Tank” that covered most of Chennai, by closing that water body. An environmental aggression!

He erected a statue for Thiruvalluvar at Kanyakumari in a style that was not as per tradition. A statue of Thiruvalluvar was already found out in Mylapore showing him in seated posture with Gyan mudra as a teacher. (Below)

Thiruvalluvar was seen wearing the sacred thread in that statue.  But Karunanidhi in the grip of Fate could not accept such features. He erected a stature sans sacred thread and Hindu symbols on the forehead.  

The gesture is Buddhi mudra that is done to understand the Thought emanating from one’s inner self. Thinking of the past birth, it appears Karunanidhi unconsciously chose this mudra in his inner urge to know what he is up to.

Karunanidhi’s obsession with Thiruvalluvar is phenomenal. He identified a year as the birth year of Thiruvalluvar and even introduced a calendar in Thiruvalluvar’s name which Thriuvalluvar himself would not have approved. He even changed the New Year to Thai close to Thiruvalluvar’s birth date he proposed. All that he did was anti-intellectual and unscientific. But thinking from karmic angle, it appears that he had the inner urge to make amends with his teacher of the past birth through Thiruvalluvar, but it turned out that everything of it was objectionable. Strangely he had many takers for his innovations and hate- mongering speeches, may be because there are many with daunting Prarabdha, peopling this Yuga of Kali.

The wrath of the Teacher was such that Karunanidhi held on to those as his teachers who could never be accepted by a person in the right sense of mind. He even installed a statue for one such teacher of this birth in front of Srirangam temple. Interestingly his wrath was directed against Vishnu deities and not Shiva! An intense devotion to Shiva in the past birth involuntarily made him keep away from offending Shiva?

The height of hatred for Hindu deities can be seen in his infamous posturing against none other than Sri Rama! He sounded like a Hiranya Kasipu when he questioned in which engineering college Rama studied. The fact is that he could get away with all the nonsense he spoke. That shows the powerful background karma of enormous proportions behind him. Only a great soul with a strong awakening in the past could wield a dominating negative influence like this in the event of an offense dampening that awakening. The offense had just turned off his sense of right.

Watching his life right from my childhood, the first hint of him coming out of the mess of Prarabdha was noticed by me in his reaction to the speech on Tamil Chandas of Alvars by Sri Velukkudi Krishnan Swamy on a stage shared by them. The expression betrayed by Karunanidhi on that occasion on the stage was that it was as though he was hearing the beautiful verses of Tamil by Alvars for the first time. The verses did seem to have entered his ears which until then were seemed to be filled with lead!

The next improvement was in penning the history of Ramanuja which happened to be the last work in his life as Karunanidhi. It appeared that the power of Mercury whose lord was Vishnu as per astrology gradually gravitated him towards Vishnu. Ramanuja as the tallest Guru for centuries seemed to have signalled a kind of home-coming for the tormented atman of Karunanidhi.

Did the intensity of the offense of the past birth come down?

I was tempted to think so when his health deteriorated on the day of Guru Purnima! There was an eclipse on that night and all eligible Tamil Brahmins were to wake up to do tarpan at 3 am when the eclipse was to wean out.

When this writer also woke up to render assistance in the tarpan, news was flashed on TV and Twitter that Karunanidhi passed away. It was electrifying to read that news as in few minutes all the eligible Tambrahms were going to offer tarpan on the most auspicious time of eclipse of Guru Purnima in which the last mantra is going to enable them offer water to all the atman that have left this world who don’t happen to be their own ancestors.

That means soon after leaving the body, Karunanidhi is going to take the first waters from the tarpan of that Guru Purnima eclipse from the Brahmins whom he pounded very badly while alive. I thought, does this signal the end of the wrath of his Guru? Has he now come out of the Prarabdha, that his Guru had been kind enough to allow him take the first water from the Brahmins on that day auspicious to Teachers?

But no, soon the news changed that he is alive. When I went through the time in his horoscope, I realised his end had come. The period was Venus – Jupiter- Venus- Mars- Ketu.

Ketu, the occupant of the 8^th house in natal chart was also the sub cuspal lord of 6^th, 8^th and 12^th houses. It joined lagna lord moon and maraka Mars in the 7^th from natal lagna on that day. Rahu, the maraka as occupant of 2^nd house in natal chart was in lagna with sun and Mercury. Venus, the Baadhaka and also the 22^nd Drekkana lord was in the maraka house of the natal chart. That moment when Guru Purnima was eclipsed to the maximum was the apt moment for the phenomenal figure like Karunanidhi who offended his Guru in the past to have left the mortal coils.  

But his Prarabdha didn’t seem to end. He was put on life support that merely could have held his breath and the atman was just clinging precariously to the body. The moment they take out the life support, his atman could have got the release. This can be proved astrologically.

It is possible to find out the duration of the unconscious state or the state of transit from the body before death. This is deduced from the remaining degrees in the lagna at the birth chart. The remaining period of the lagna in the sign must be doubled if the lagna lord aspects the lagna and trebled if a benefic aspects the lagna. In Karunanidhi’s horoscope the lagna is aspected by Jupiter!!

The remaining degrees at birth were less than 4. Converted into time (1 degree = 4 minutes, for 4 degrees it is 16 minutes), the remaining 16 minutes in the sign trebled by Jupiter’s aspect gives 48 minutes of transit time for the Atman. It is within this time his system must have been connected to life support machines. So he was breathing while his Atman was wandering into higher realms with Awareness sinking in. The long duration of clinically aided life that we saw for more than 10 days looks improbable from this astrological point of view.

Ten days passed and it seemed the ‘political business’ he started was needed to be strengthened by his descendants. That is the legacy he left behind. All these 10 days his Atman must have been in touch with those at the ethereal level and experienced  several times the re-run of his life and why he behaved the way he did in relation to the Prarabdha  karma.

By the time the heirs decided to take out the life support, his atman could have gained its composure. His party men are thinking that they had succeeded in getting him buried next to his mentor. But his mentor is high above the worldly plane. For normal beings, the atman is said to be hanging around the worldly plane of previous existence. But an extraordinary atman that Karunanidhi is, he must have left for other realms with thoughts on what a damage he had done to the world and how he is going to rectify them all.

It was on an Ekadasi day his atman left completely the mortal connection – the day that one plays the game of Parama padam, popularly known as ladder and snake. There are ladders and snakes at many places in the grid of 100 squares. It is like the video game of ancient times. When one has more punya one reaches the ladder and climbs past several squares. But when one does a pāpa karma, one reaches the mouth of the snake and gets pulled down.

By his exalted devotion to Shiva and discipline, Karunanidhi was almost in the top layer of the grid with only a few squares to cross. But alas, the offense done to Guru threw him into the mouth of a long snake that pushed him down to the lower level. The higher that one is, even a smallest crime will give the gravest retribution. This is enshrined in Manu Neeti. To hate Manu for this is foolish which only those in lowest intellect would do. Being pushed down from his highest pedestal, Karunanidhi’s Atman must have been coming to terms with the reality on that Ekadasi day.

To start the new chapter in his next birth, he has laid the foundation in Ramanuja. He will have to start afresh, but hopefully in a Dharmic way. His association with Ramanuja gives me that hope. Noticeably he fell silent after scripting the Ramanuja serial. It looked as though this newly acquired teacher of his had shut his mouth so that no new karma is made. With the Prarabdha of the past having got worked out, Karunanidhi is going to start a very new life of Dharma, as a worshiper of Hinduism to the extent of protecting it from poaching religions which he allowed as Karunanidhi.

He might even be instrumental in constructing Ram Setu in that future birth. He might even completely put a stop to the absurd Dravidian talk. Powerful one that he is, he will rectify all the wrongs and mis-guidance he had done for over half a century.

In the final analysis, Kāla Purusha as usual emerged a victor in quickening Kali through Karunanidhi. Karunanidhi hailed as a victor in earthly life miserably lost to Kala Purusha and has to start from the beginning. But Karma is never fatalistic; it is a means by which one overcomes it. Karunanidhi’s odd kind of life shows that.

Also read: 

Travails of Jayalalithaa in life and in death - a Karmic angle