Hundreds of years ago, when Adi Shankaracharya – the Triveer (the epitome – the culmination and perfect combination of Gyana, Bhakti and Karma), while traveling across India for the purpose of uplifting the vedic values, arrived at the village of Pandharpur, where Bhakta Pundalik was granted the vision of the lord Krishna, he – Shankaracharya, at the very sight of the lord went into trans and later, out of sheer spontaneity described the lord as he saw them into nine verses, now known as “ Pandurangashtakam.”

While describing various parts of Lord Krishna, both philosophically and otherwise, he lost his composure upon seeing the face and the smile thereon. He found the smile so moving, so touching, so contemplative, so pleasing and so fulfilling that he uttered no other word than charu-haas ( charu-haasya).

As late Rev . Pandurang Athavle Shastriji, affectionately known as “Dada” states in his exposition of Pandurangashtakam ( Sadvichar Darshan, Nirmal Niketan, Bombay Ed. 2002, pp. 40-44) and in Shree Suktam, ( Sadvichar Darshan. Nirmal Niketan, Bombay, Ed. 1997, pp. 101-102), there is no equivalent word in any other language without distorting the meaning of it, than in Sanskrit. Such words can only be understood through experience or at best, by way of examples. Here, charu means beautiful, extremely good or excellent and Haas/Haasya means smile – smeet, which can be of many different kinds, e.g. (1) a beautiful woman has love, attraction or attachment in her smile at her lover, (2) a disciple has humility and reverence in his smile when he listens to his praise and admiration by his teacher, (3) a sage or a seer has a sense of celestial joy and inner peace when he smiles while gazing at places like Ganges or Himalaya, (4) a child’s smile at his mother or to anyone shows absence of emotions or total innocence, (5) a stranger’s smile has indifference, (6) a mother’s smile at her child has confidence and so on. Charuhaas or charuhaasya, therefore means a perfect combination or a union of all these and such smiles.

It is our humble prayer that anyone who visits this complex, regardless of the faith he belongs to, the problems and difficulties in life that vex him, the illnesses that afflict him, leaves this temple with peace and tranquility at heart and charuhaas on his face, similar to that seen by Adi Shankaracharya and Pundalik on Lord Krishna in the form of Panduranga.

Tat-Twam-Asi.

Oh God

Lead me kindly from Falsehood to Reality

Lead me kindly from Darkness to Light

Lead me kindly from Death to Immortality

At Thy Feet

The fellow travelers at the Charuhaas Foundation.