But, today, translating that tradition, we might say, something like this. I, this genetic complex, born of many millions of years of copulations, and living on a speck of dust, called bhu, the earth, rotating in a mandala form, around a star called the Sun—the Sun Principle, Savitr, hymned in the celebrated Gayatri verse—Gayatri called the mother of the Vedas, and chanted to this day as the very essence of Indian thinking—

Tat Savitur varenyam bhargo devasya dhimahi . . .

(That magic splendour of the Solar-truth,

he of Light, we contemplate

and may he quicken our intellect.)

and living then in this ever-circling universe, with other planets, ever in bigger and wider mandalas, up to what today one calls, the Black Hole (a name, which like any myth, means more than it says) and maybe there are other universes beyond, so we have been recently told, universes whose vibrations reach us this millionth of a second, but then that vibration was sent before this earth ever came to be, this earth by a strange cosmological accident arising, rotating, and since at that moment my Vedic ancestor did not exist, I should ask myself, who am I then? Who indeed? That’s the stuff of poetry. Aham is kavya. ‘I am’ is poetry. Aham is jnana, ‘I am’ is wisdom. Aham is parama mantra, I, the supreme incantation. The poet is the sage. I am, like my legendary ancestor Angirasa was, a kavi.

atmaivedam agra asit . . . so’ nuvikshya nanyad atmano pashyat.

so’ham asmiti agre vyaharat: tato’ham nama bhavat.

In the beginning there was only the self. Looking around he saw nothing else than the self. He first said ‘I am’.

Therefore arose the name I.

(Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 1.4.1)

So there is only one poet: The ‘I’ of the I. The atman beyond jiva. He is no one. He is. Is is. And so it. Call It, Brahman, if you like.

‘The Brahman,’ says the Vakyapadiya, ‘the Brahman who is without beginning or end, whose very essence is the Word (sabda), who is the cause of the manifested phonemes, who appears as the objects, from whom the creation of the world (seems to) proceed. Brahman is called Phoneme (akshara) because It is the cause of the phoneme.’ Thus begins Vakyapadiya, the celebrated text on: The Phrase and the Word. And Bhartrihari, its great author, continues,

Idam adyam padasthanam sidhi sopanaparvanam

Iyam sa mokshamanamam ajihma rajapaddhatih.

This is the first step in the ladder leading to salvation: this is the first royal road for all those who desire liberation.